Monday, February 28, 2011

Brief interlude....

...to the pattern company rant.
We had a snow day last week in Portland. The schools were closed so we took Irving for a walk.





The light was that beautiful snowy glow light. It didn't come across well in the photos... but it was so pretty.

I am not fond of pattern companies... part 1

In fact, I think most pattern companies' offerings are ill fitting basics with little to no relevance with current fashion. Little girls styles are even worse!! There are many independent companies popping up that are starting to fill this void, but for me... I draft my own patterns.
Miss E is a baton twirler. Her coach requires basic black pieces for the practices. I cannot spend more than $10 on a booty short or capri when I know that $30 will buy me enough fabric for 4 booty shorts and 2 pairs of capris.

So here is the pattern...



and here is the result





It has been to many practices and one competition and works! I will post some of the variations next. I need to get my twirler to hold still so I can snap some pictures.

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Wanting to be somewhere warm....

This photo was taken in March of 2007. That was such a fun trip to Hawaii. I love this picture of Miss E. She was so adventurous.

Elsie

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Christmas is complete!

We finally boxed up and packed away the Christmas ornaments, tree, and all the other trimmings. We actually sorted through all the decorations, condensed packaging, and labeled boxes. We wound up with two extra large plastic bins. YAY! Which means that the assorted items used for the Christmasifacation of our house are now taking up less space in the basement in the off season.

Here are a few parting shots of Christmas... and then it's onto other things....





My silhouettes...




The large one of the two dancers has domed glass and was a Christmas gift this year.



And the elf finally got his new hat...



Mister E was very concerned that it should be sewn or taped to his head, so that it didn't fall off at night when he was making his trips back and forth to Santa filing his nightly reports. I assured the little man that the hat would not come off.