Sunday, December 10, 2023

On Reindeer Bells

I'm a little late in starting in on my Christmas crafting this year. This past week I got to work on remedying this and to justify last year's on sale purchase of a pack of 72 bells, made reindeer. 

In case you are wondering, the one is yellow because I was out of brown pipe cleaners and was eager to see if my idea of using bells for the body would work. 

While I was intending for them to be ornaments, I may just be happy with letting them stand about on their own.♥ 

Thursday, November 23, 2023

On a Thanksgiving Pie Skirt

For various reasons I haven't been sewing clothing items for the past year, but when I saw this pie fabric early or mid-summer, being a pie baker I just couldn't resist and knew that even if I had to push myself I was going to make a circle skirt for Thanksgiving. 

In September I decided that if I could at least get the pieces cut out I would then be able to sew them together at a later date, which ended up being Veteran's Day weekend and this past week. 

Sewing a circle skirt together is fairly quick, although when I reached the hem I found I forgot how to use the narrow hem foot on the sewing machine. As usual the hem waffled, but as I always shorten the pattern when I'm tracing it, I never have a perfectly curved hem anyway, so this probably just adds to it doing that. While not typically considered ideal, I actually like the look.

I had wanted a baby ric-rac on this, but for some reason neither fabric store had off white and I ended up finding a nice olive green medium sized ric-rac for purchase by the yard, which I'm rather happy with as it was the color I wanted in the first place. 

Only a few things need to be adjusted on this. I need to go back and fix the 1/8 inch worth of white selvage that is showing in the one side seam (I spent about an hour unpicking the other side seam to remedy this problem and just could not handle unpicking a second seam, thought I'd be okay with it, but it bugs me) and I think I'm going to try using a fabric marker to color the bit of white showing at the zipper opening (I will NOT be redoing the zipper). Last night I also managed to sew the hooks slightly off from where they are supposed to be and as I didn't make my typical adjustment for my larger than me pattern, this skirt needs all the help it can get it terms of it being tighter in the waist, so they'll need to be re-sewn on.

That being said though, it's a very nice skirt for Thanksgiving and while it wasn't going to get it made this year, I already have the Wearing History "Harriet" Drop Shoulder Blouse pattern and some white on white print fabric lined up for a matching blouse.


  Happy Thanksgiving!

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

On a Small Scarecrow

I was planning to make some small scarecrows. I made a scarecrow. I'm done small scarecrow making now. 

His name is Hawthorne and, while it didn't quite turn out as I envisioned it (I didn't realize I used up my fake leaves), I feel he looks quite nice in his autumnal bucket. 

Thursday, August 31, 2023

On "The Road to Roswell": A Book Review

Book cover of Road to Roswell. It is blue and green with an UFO

Title: The Road to Roswell
Author: Connie Willis
Genre: Science Fiction

About the book...

Francie is headed to Roswell for Serena, her college roommate's, wedding, presumably to talk her out of marrying the bride groom who is alien obsessed, hence why they are holding the wedding in Roswell during a UFO festival. When Serena sends Francie to grab something from the car while trying to get things squared away for the wedding at the UFO museum, little does she suspect that the funny looking tumble weed in the front seat is an alien ready to kidnap her and with a point of his tentacle make her drive all over the state.  

What I think...
Connie Willis is one of the few living authors I actively keep track of and regularly read*. Not all her books and stories appeal to me, but I'm usually willing to give them a try. As far as sci-fi goes I'm not usually a spaceships and aliens person with a handful of exceptions and after the first thirty pages I almost gave up on this one. However, I'm glad I kept reading. 

This book does veer on the sillier side, which given the topic isn't particularly surprising. The characters, which keep getting added to the abduction group, were such a quirky mix including a paranoid alien hunter, a little old lady, and a western movie enthusiast that make a nice addition to the more grounded Francie and Wade, a hitchhiker that the alien picks up, and the alien, who they begin to call Indy (after Indiana Jones) just becomes more and more amusing as the story goes on.  

Willis loves putting movie references in her contemporary works and I loved how this book focused on a mix of alien and western movies, including having each chapter start with a quotation. I also appreciated that you didn't need to have seem all of the movies referenced to have the book make sense! 

I do have to mention the dedication, which, I was delighted (but not surprised) to see included Eleanor Cameron and John Wyndham who fall into my exception category and are two authors of space/alien books I adore.

To sum it all up...
A fun alien encounter with a rather abrupt ending that I hope meanings a second book might be coming!

*My other Connie Willis book review on Doomsday Book can be found here.