Invisible Zipper

                                 

I have never put in an invisible zipper before. It is a little daunting. You have to iron down the coils first and then sew right on the edge of the coils. I think it looks great now that it's done.

                                 

I am using a Burda pattern. I had never heard of this company before, but I liked the pattern. The directions are complete crap. They don't refer to the pieces by number and sometimes don't use the same name on the pattern as in the directions. The dress is fully lined, but there are no directions on how to sew the lining. I'm relying on all my previous experience to put this dress together! You can see how I've sewn the lining to the zipper. I hope I don't have to rip all this out in a few more steps. Somehow I'll make it work. 

Progress

                             

A week in and I've got the front put together. I'm sewing the lining at the same time, so it's like making two dresses.

New project

                            

My latest project is to make my mother-of-the-bride dress. I'm not crazy about the pattern on this fabric, but I really like the blue color. I still need to get a zipper and interfacing, but so far I've only spent about $30. That's considerably cheaper than a ready made dress. Plus, sewing is relaxing for me. I'm going to take my time with it and hopefully finish in a couple of weeks. 

Mail

                                  

You can tell a lot about what demographic you fit in just by looking at the mail. Eric gets bills and offers to purchase/change insurance. Madeleine gets the LLBean catalog, thanks to her recent duck boot purchase. Mercedes gets tons of offers for credit cards. And I get the Viking Cruises catalog. (Occasionally Caleb will get mail from USRowing.)

If you are lucky, you will be getting something in the mail from me in the near future (Merry Christmas!).

I never have anything of substance to write about so I might just start posting random thoughts to fill this blog. Looking back, it was one of my resolutions to post more this year. Failing that a bit.

Writing Class

You know writing is one of my favorite times of the day. Here are a couple of nuggets, giving a little insight into my students' family relationships. This first one is by a little brother of one of my former students, who also features prominently in the story.

I went to get some ice cream. It fell. "Not cool, dude."

My brother laughed. I punched him. That is what you get for doing that.

He got mad. He punched me back. I did not care. "I don't like you." "Don't care."

And then he added another page, because Mrs. Fox said we really should end on a happier note.

I like you. I like you too. "Love."

This is from another student's story about going to a parade with his dad. Subsequent pages detail how bad he had to go to the bathroom, that he was jumping up and down. Great literature here.

Student: Come on, I want to go home. Dad: Be quiet, I can not hear.

We are now writing All-About books and one of the boys has written an awesome book about bats. I'm glad I don't have to teach more technical writing. My goal is to get capital letters at the beginning of sentences, punctuation at the end, spelling, and handwriting. You can see I have a lot of ground to cover.

A Temporary Cook

                         

It is wonderful having the self-proclaimed "most highly favored" child home on fall break. She had a huge pot of chili waiting when I got home after a typically hectic day. Yum!

This is Pretty Accurate