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Top Secret: Project Chilly Willy August 23, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , add a comment

A while ago, a blogger asked for some help in finding Chilly Willy pajamas for his wife.

I left an ebay search up and found Chilly Willy fabric instead. So being the crazy nice person that I am, I offered to sew the pajamas for her! I have now completed half of the pattern and last night measured the other half. Exhaustion kicked in before I could finish and Jay sent me to bed. Tonight, I will finish the pattern and start to lay it out on the cloth.

I am actually quite excited by this. This project has buttons. And I modified the original pattern to match the jammies that this blogger sent me. I am worried that I will get the hems wrong or the waist too tight or too loose since I can’t actually try them on her (we are different sizes), but I know that pajamas are pretty forgiving.

My next trip is August 29. I hope to have the pants finished by then and the top most of the way done. Wish me luck!

Losing weight without speed May 17, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Kids, Go Team Go Team Go Team, Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , 4 comments

(The title is from a Jimmy Buffett song)

This morning, at the crack o’dawn, our door opened. Soleil popped in and said "Mommy! I am going to watch the sunrise" I mumbled something and sent her on her merry way.

Between 5 am and 7 am Soleil:

Jay rolled over and asked me at some point if I slipped her some speed last night. I replied that HE put her to bed, I was the one who had Luna.

Last night, the Buffalo Sabres regained face and beat the Ottawa Senators 3-2. At least we won’t be swept. Now, if we can win one more game and make it s 6 game series, there will be some pride restored to Buffalo.

The pajama project started in earnest last night when I created a pattern based on my jammies. I first forgot to take the waist to crotch measurement into consideration and the first pattern had the crotch at my knees. After some good natured ribbing and passes from Jay, I fixed that.
The fabric is cut and I can start sewing tonight!

Doomed… May 15, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise, Go Team Go Team Go Team, Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , 1 comment so far

The Sabres are down 0-3… One more loss and we are out. Sigh… I knew we were cursed when we won the President’s trophy (the award for the best regular season record). Very few teams win the President’s Trophy and Lord Stanley’s Cup….
Sigh…
I should be used to this. I am from Buffalo, after all. Buffalo, The city of losers. We never win. We get close, and we wait for the other shoe to drop. And then, we come back for more. Yes, that’s Buffalo for you.

I bought some cool fabric and I measured my own favorite jammies last night. Tonight I will edit the pattern I bought to match my jamies. Wish me luck! I also took some time on the weekend to make 2 capes. (yes, I have the words of Edna from the Incredibles going through my head "NO CAPES"). The girls decided to use their blankets as capes and nearly choked to death. So I make them each a wonder pet cape, complete with a W on the back. Lovely. By the way, if I EVER run into Josh Selig, the creator of the Wonder Pets and Oobi, I will lock him in a room with my children and ask them to sing the Wonder Pet theme song until his eyeballs melt out of his head. I hate that song and the girls sing it CONSTANTLY.

The jeans came and I looked like a stuffed sausage. They were the right size, but the thighs were squished and the waist was too low, so it gave a huge gap (you know, about the size of the Delaware Water Gap) in the back. I sent them back and tried again. Wish me more luck. Because I hate finding good jeans.

I am still recovering from Saturday. To help Crazy H and Kobyashi, Jay went to their place to rip drywall down from the bedroom that will be their girls’ room and I took 4 kids at my place all day. Jay has standing orders to shoot me if I ever offer to watch the four kids again. From 9 until 4, I had kids from almost 5 to almost 1 in the house….
Oy!

And then there were four…. May 8, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Go Team Go Team Go Team, Parenting 101, Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , 1 comment so far

Last night, the NHL conference semi-finals ended. There are four teams left: In the East, the Buffalo Sabres (YEAH!) and the Ottawa Senators (boo!). In the West, the Detroit Red Wings and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks (yes, they named the team after a Disney movie, no I am not joking)

Only two of these four will advance to the Stanley Cup finals. Only one team will win the Cup.
Go Sabres!

Sewing:

I hit a snag putting the zipper in Soleil’s dress this weekend. You see, I don’t actually have a zipper foot for my machine and I really need one to do these right. So… I ripped it out twice and I am still not thrilled, so I set it aside a bit… I will finish before Hawai’i. Very important to have an uber cool purple dress in Hawai’i

The Perfect Storm:

Yesterday morning was perfect. The girls played together and at one point I looked outside to see them hugging in sisterly bliss.  This lasted until 1pm at which point too much sisterly togetherness got to both of them. I ran into my room and locked the door for 5 minutes when Jay got home (actually when we got home from swimming)… Sigh…

I was planning to post on such a beautiful day with the kids acting like normal humans, but then the afternoon happened and all hell broke loose. Such is the life of a parent, n’est pas?

Sewing help? May 3, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , 5 comments

A friend has been looking for a pair of PJ’s for his wife in a special fabric. Instead of finding the PJ’s, I found a similar fabric on ebay and snatched 3 yards of it. Now I am planning to make a pair of PJ pants with it.

Here’s the catch. I am 5′3", 135lbs. His wife is definitely taller and a little heavier than I am.

How can I get him to get her measurements without tipping off what’s going on? This is a surprise for her.
If he could measure a pair of PJ’s that she likes and fits well, what measurements should he do?

Help????
Thanks

I am planning on doing the pattern twice, once for me so I learn the pattern and how to work with knits and then for her on the special fabric I bought.

Anyone with measurement tips on how to measure someone who I can’t actually measure?

When Life gets you down… May 1, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Fun with Crohn's Disease, Home wreckers, Go Team Go Team Go Team, Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , add a comment

You know what you do? You think of people who have worse lives than you. Such as the people who created the world’s largest coconut orchestra…

Actually, things have not been that bad. The weekend was rough, we had to set some limits on listening, but yesterday, we did a great walk in the evening.

Did you have that? We used to take long walks in the evening. Just Jay and I. Hand in hand we would stroll along and enjoy life. Then the two psycho aliens kids came along and we stopped. Yesterday, Soleil rode her bike (with training wheels) and Luna rode in our last stroller bundled with blankets while we took a walk. It was nice and relaxing except for the time where Soleil almost flipped into the path of an oncoming car. She is learning how to control her bike. How to steer straight and watch for dangers on the road. It was really nice to be out there again.

Slowly, slowly we find a new norm…


Jay’s been fighting a terrible cough. We aren’t sure if this is just a normal cold and the remicaid has suppressed his immune system to the point where a cold is killing him, or just a very bad cold. I am worried because he is waking at night to hack up a lung…

I started Soleil’s dress this weekend. She chose a purple fabric. A really purple fabric. I like it! But I forgot to buy a zipper, so I need to go do that. Thanks for all of the advice people gave on sewing. I am learning, slowly.

Tonight, we watch my team again. We lost in double overtime to the NY Rangers on Sunday… Let’s hope for a win tonight so we can head back to Buffalo with a 3-1 lead.


And finally, we are at long last getting the walls painted. The house we bought in 2003 had the world’s most awful wallpaper. We have removed most of it, but the stairwell and the kitchen/dining room have not been touched. Yesterday I got someone to arrange for an estimate, and I picked up three samples. We’ve decided what we want and where, so now it is an issue of getting it done! It will do us good to get some more color in the house. And to get rid of that nasty paper!

I think I have more posts of thoughtful merit, but not right now! I have some code to write!

Sew Cool! April 22, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , 7 comments

I finished Luna’s dress tonight. She actually wore it yesterday, but I had screwed up the hem. Today, I ripped it out, and resewed it.

Check out the photos!

(and the Sabres won their series and the Red Sox beat the Yankees last night to make for a great night out!)

Random thoughts of a random world April 18, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Religion, Go Team Go Team Go Team, Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , 4 comments

First, I want to say "THANKS!" to all of you who commented on Luna’s doggie blanket. As Omegamom predicted, she now sleeps with the ratty old blankey and her new doggie blankey. This is fine with me, because I just wanted her to have a blanket she loved that covered her whole body! As for the straight stitches, I purposely didn’t show you the one edge where there was an exciting play on the hockey game and I sewed too fast and the one seam went all over the place.
To make the blanket, I got 1.5 yards of fleece that Luna picked out. I trimmed the edges square. Then I folded a 1 inch edge on each side, top stitched that down. I folded it again 1 inch and top stitched it down with a 5/8inch allowance. Then I added another top stitch right along the edge of the fold to a) hold down the edges so Luna didn’t pick up the edging and b) to add that second row of stitches on the good side of the blanket. Easy and quick. She loves her blanker.

Game 4 is tonight in my series. Go Sabres.

I try to be a reasonable person, but sometimes I tend to lose it.  One issue that hits hard is religion. I have posted before about my feeling of being non-Jewish in a Jewish family. Lately, I’ve been hit on-line and IRL about converting to Christianity and about Atheism in general.

One of my core beliefs is the religion is extremely personal. It is not for me to tell others how to believe. I mean, it is a belief. Faith is only faith when one believes in it. Not cold hard proof, but a leap of faith. Why should others push me to believe a certain way? Why?

A recent study found doctors believe (note that word again!) the religion plays a role in healing. This is not surprising to me, nor is the fact that the more religious the doctor was, the more likely he/she would report that religion plays a large part of healing. The quote that struck me was:

The most telling part of this outcome,” said Dr. Farr A. Curlin, the lead author and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago,
“is that it shows that what doctors bring to the data, whether
religious or secular, seems to have as much to do with their
interpretations of the data as the data itself.”

Again a BELIEF, not evidence or fact or data.  I do think it is important that if you have a strong belief to stick with it. To work with it, to live your life that way.

The problem arises when people try to insist  religion is right for everybody. In this study, Americans tend to trust Atheists the least of all types of religious (or non-religious people). The key quotes here are

"It tells us about how Americans view religion," said Penny Edgell,
an associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher. "Many
Americans seem to believe some kind of religious faith is central to
being a good American and a good person."

AND

"I know atheists aren’t studied that much as a sociological group, but
I guess atheists are one of the last groups remaining that it’s still
socially acceptable to hate," Foley said.

AND

First-year pharmacy student Amanda Wawrzynia, however, found the study reasonable.

She said she would have ranked atheists at the bottom of the list of those sharing the same vision of American society.

"I would rather have my kids marry someone of a different religion than someone who has none," she said.

Hmm, so if you believe in G-d, then you are a good person? And if you don’t believe there is a G-d, then what? You’re an evil mass murderer? Of course that can’t be true. We are all well aware of people who believe in G-d who kill and are cruel to others. What we aren’t aware of are the 10%  of Americans who are Atheists. Atheists in general don’t go around with their lack of a deity exposed.  Odds are that you know an Atheist without realizing it.

There’s been a backlash lately against Atheists. A lot of it goes to a group of Atheists who are trying to convert others to their view point. In my opinion, this is no better than those who come to my door, ignoring or ignorant of the mezuzah on the door post and hand me literature on why THEIR version of the bible is best.

Listen, All I want is to allow people to live peacefully. With their religious choice, or lack thereof. Why does it matter so much to others what you believe? Why is it so important to push your religion down other’s brains?

Walk all over me! April 13, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , 7 comments

I finished Luna’s blanket!

Here’s a quick photo!0413072217

And it launches Nu-kler weapons! April 12, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs, Life...otherwise, Go Team Go Team Go Team, Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , 5 comments

Okay- Interesting thoughts and comments. You folks make me think. Thank you!

So about a month ago, Silvia, my cleaner, vacuumed my phone charger. I then tried to charge my phone that night and well, being of German blood (no offense Dirk) I forced the sucker into the phone. This caused irreparable damage to the charging part of the phone and now my phone would only hold 12 hours of charge regardless of the battery. I tried a few new batteries and a new charger. Sigh. I let the guy at work know that I need a new phone.

It came yesterday. Good Lord this thing could start a nuclear war! It is an LG VX8300. It has a camera (with a flash!), it’s an MP3 player, the camera takes video, I can watch video on this sucker. Good Gracious! I never imagined I would ever want such a thing. I just wanted a replacement speaker phone. But hey, now I am trying to figure out how to convert some of my music to WAV files and get it on a micro SD card (tiny little sucker).

On Tuesday, I went shopping with a friend. We stopped at a fabric store. I bought a cute pattern for the girls and some fabric! I hope to make them each a sundress before summer. You think this is too ambitious? I do! But I will go slow and see if I can do this. Sleeveless helps because I am terrified of sleeves!

Tonight, I will work on a new blanket for Luna. She is using this silly wrap that someone bought Soleil when she was a baby. The thing has holes everywhere. It drives me nuts that she loves it so much because it doesn’t cover her anymore. We bought a 1.5 yard piece of beautiful fleece. It is red with black dog prints. I trimmed it last night and I am going to baste the sides tonight (at least one side).
And I will do this while watching my Sabres! It’s Playoff time! Go Buffalo!