4 Adventures

Hello again,

I hope that everyone out there has had a good week.  I had a few more adventures from last week to mention.

Sewing Adventure: China Rose Twirlable

I have made the decision to take a break from the inner yoke and work on the hem instead.  The hem  requires hand-stitching, which I am doing as a catch-stitch.  It also requires many pins to keep it in place, that have a tendency of falling out quite easily.  For the reason of the numerous pins and the vastness of the skirt, I am keeping this project within my "Mending Bag."  It is the only bag that I have that is large enough to contain it where the pins won't poke through.  So I have been able to work on it while watching TV and during my breaks at work.  I am now about half-way through completing the hem. Yay!

Sewing Adventure: Mending Bag

With China Roses Twirlable residing in my Mending bag, I had to do something with all of my mending projects.  I went through and prepped these items.  They are now set and ready to be stitched up and finally return to my closet.

Shopping Adventure

July is my birthday month, in which I receive a lot of  "Its your birthday month & here is a coupon to come shop with us."  So I do.  The biggest shopping priority for my birthday is underwear at the Hanesbrand Store, and I take advantage of it. 

I go to Hanesbrand because Champion sports bras are the best for Buxom Bettie's like myself.  This way the sizing is also fairly consistent between all of the brands and styles within the Hanesbrand family.  In short there is not much guesswork if you desire a product that is online only.  When I go I take...

1. Colette Sewing Planner for recording measurements
2. Colette's measurement picture
3. Style tags of the previous years underwear styles that I prefer.

I am not sure out all of you out there, but I don't have anyone to take my measurements.  So why not have the bra fitter who has a measuring tape take your waist, hip and inseam measurements as well?  I got a good lady this year.  She was intrigued when I explained what I wanted and the why.  She was up for it but did warn that she had only taken bra measurements.  This is why I keep the Measurements Picture.  Referencing the picture she had no issues taking the other measurements.  I gave her my tags to find the favorite styles in my new size.  I have lost weight since last year!  Yay!  She brought the items back for me to try on, which all fit well.  One of the styles was no longer available, so there was some experimenting to figure out a suitable substitute for that item.  Before I left with my new purchases, I did have one more favor to ask the workers.  As much as I dislike photos of myself, I asked to have my picture taken so that I will be able to turn it into a croquis for my designs that haven't made it into my sewing planner yet.

***Side note: the point of the croquis is to ensure that the design will translate well to flatter your body before time, money and effort are wasted.

Before calling it a day, I did check out my other favorite shopping haunts.  I added both casual and some dressier pieces to my wardrobe.  It felt good being in a slightly smaller size than I have been in several years.

Family History Adventure

Both of my parents are interested in their family history.  It is actually one of my Dad's retirement projects.  One of the places that my Dad has been wanting to go and check out was the Kidron Community Historical Society for research.  Being a volunteer based group, the hours are limited and things never panned out to go until July 5th.

I went along with my parents up to Kidron.  I dozed quite a bit in the car due to my sleep schedule.  Upon arriving we were sent to the second floor where the heritage research was located.  The man in charge helped us as best we could.  The issue is that we only had details of a second hand story, and no middle names.  We were there for a long while.  In all of that time, we did not find any information on our specific branch.  So its back to the drawing board from there.  Next step is more than likely finding the port of entry and figure things out from there.

Before heading home though, we had to stop and visit the graves of our relatives in the area.

Well that is it for this week.  Until next time...