Halted, Phew!

A pile of white.

We have to eat, too, so I made bread in the middle of everything. Here it is just formed into balls and ready to rise.

The white thread covers the seam allowances I cut off the day before and there are a few black threads that were the basting.

Skirt pinned to the bodice.

I almost forgot to finish the sleeve seams. They look a lot better like this than they did before.

A look through the sleeve.

Looks kind of lifeless here, I think.

A meeting of the seams. Too bad this will be covered with lace when it's all done.

And the bread all done. I was going to give you a screen shot from what I was watching while sewing but didn't get it saved. Too bad, I think it was good. It almost had to be since it was from The Fellowship of the Rings. The only problem is that today I don't have a good reason to have The Two Towers playing.

More Sewing

Mounds of satin. It's never-ending. 

This is what I was watching for the first two and a half hours. I really like the imagery here with the tail of the dragon moving through the gold: the usurper king and the displaced king come to reclaim his own. In the movies, this was a huge turning point for Thorin.

Almost out of thread. One of these days, I'm going to actually have to buy more. Not this day, though, I've got a few partially used spools of white thread.

This seemed to be never-ending--cutting the seam allowances of the skirt.

I like this shot, too. Awesome movie(s) in spite of the many, sometimes drastic, changes from the book.

Round and round we go.

It is hard to behold the perfectness of the joining of the sleeve to the bodice here but after many, many attempts, it was finally achieved.

Ending of one day; beginning of the next. Kind of hoping I don't make it through another Hobbit movie--oh, wait, there isn't another one to go through--plus the complete soundtrack of Les Mes again.

A Day of Cutting (even though it looks like pinning)

The first piece pinned on. There aren't any pictures of the fun I had making patterns for the gussets or changing the top of the skirt pattern pieces. Or changing the bottom of the skirts pattern pieces. I can assure you it was fun.

The last three pieces pinned on the first piece of fabric. I think I mentioned in January what fun Laura had finding fabric. She bought what she could and was able to order the rest. From this piece, I was able to cut all the bodice pieces and all but three pieces of the skirt. She ended up with about eight yards left over and she already has plans for them which I think is pretty cool.  

This is what I was 'watching' while I was pinning and cutting. I listened to the soundtrack for Les Miserables while making and changing and cutting out pattern pieces. I tried listening to music from Middle Earth while cutting but it just didn't cut it, so I started 'watching' instead. It worked out well. 

When I was all done, I noticed these icky spots. They look like someone was eating chips and go all the way through. I ended up cutting a new piece because I didn't want to deal with spots. Yuck!

It's easier to see the gusset pieces on the organza. 

And that is that. I didn't take any pictures of sewing, either. Maybe today. Maybe not. It's been an interesting journey so far.

Menstrual Cycle and Pregnancy chart

Yesterday I thought it was time to do the activity for the Fertility and Conception section of the Well Woman & Sexuality unit. It was a busy day to begin with with the usual school for the boys as well as sisters over for grilled cheese and tomato soup (and hot chocolate) for lunch and the Petzold's over for fettuccine (made with shell pasta) and pickled carrots with custard and strawberries for dinner. Not to mention all the fun usual stuff like feeding goats, doing laundry, etc., etc., etc.

Everyone was home from school and I had my paper on the table along with the hot chocolate I hadn't had at lunch because I like to enjoy mine as I'm reading or working on something. There was very little left in the cup but a very little is all it takes.

"Mom!" Amena exclaimed. "Cedric spilled. . . ." That's all I heard because Laura had just called but I certainly saw what she was talking about. Laura got her ear filled with my rantings. I believe Cedric was sufficiently contrite and

as you can see from this almost finished with the pen work, the chocolate milk cleaned off the paper pretty well. Good thing--I did NOT want to start over.

This is what it looked like when I was done with the pen but before I erased the pencil.

And this is the scanned version of the finished product. I'm pretty happy with it except for the line that I get whenever I scan or print something using the thing on the lid. I should have done it from the flat bed but it's so much easier from the top. Oh well, such is life. Also, I'm not crazy about the second Menses so don't look at it too closely. The first one is fine. If I were going to do some modification using the Wacom I would fix that but I didn't want to do any electronic modifications.

I do need to point out that the assignment was to create a chart of the Reproductive Cycle such as the one found on page 175 of Holistic Midwifery by Anne Frye. My chart is a freehand (and ruler) version. I would have made improvements but like Anne's so much I couldn't think of any to make.