Holy Cow! Could it be any hotter?

The kids are back in school, and the weather is ridiculous.  I feel for my kids and their friends having to go to school in this heat!  It's been 105 this last week and while I'm sure people in Vegas, Phoenix, and Death Valley think that's nothing, on top of heat it's been humid.  Humidity just sucks the energy right out of you. I finally understand when you comment on the heat and someone always says, "well at least it's a dry heat."  Give me 100 degrees 0% humidity over 90% degrees with 35% humidity any day of the week!

Okay, enough about the weather, what have we been up to this summer?  Lots of stuff.  I never did get to my kitchen cabinets this summer, I got zero cooperation from my boys when I asked them to remove the cabinet doors for sanding.  I should have unplugged all forms of electronic entertainment and social media.  I drew out a plan of possible improvements to the back yard and trust me anything would be an improvement.  The hubby and I took a quick turn around trip to Vegas to see his D.O.D. (dear old dad). We went on a week long (sort of) vacation up the coast.  I finally got to the Garment district in LA and I sewed.

On they way home from our Vegas trip, we stopped at Peggy Sue's 50's diner.  We usually stop either in Baker at the Mad Greek or Barstow at the In n Out.  When the kids are with us, we  hardly ever get past the In n Out, for them it's the ultimate.

My cold frosty Diet Coke at Peggy Sue's! It was over 100 degrees in the high dessert on this day so this was totally worth it!

 Part of Peggy Sue's, the place is bigger than it looks from the freeway, not too far away is a Marine Corp Base, they apparently deliver.  (Peggy's delivers, not the Marines base) They also have a "Dinersaur" park that fronts the freeway. It reminds me of Tom's Farms near my house but quirkier. They also have a duck pond, with ducks that aren't shy about quacking at you if you get too close.

  Next up our vacation up the Coast, first stop was for lunch in Downtown LA, we stopped at Phillipes and had French Dip Sandwiches, THE BEST!!! I don't know anything about this woman but she has been there for years and makes the best sandwiches!

So we hit the road and traveled onward. Next stop, the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo.  This is the place with the themed rooms. The hubby was able to cross off visiting the men's room from his bucket list.  The men's room has a waterfall urinal.  My boy's didn't want to use it.  The ladies room was an extremely tacky shade of pink and gold.  Now I like the color pink, but this was even too much for me. Below is the dining room of one of their restaurants.

We stopped for the night in a little coastal town called Cayucos and stayed in an old fashioned motel/motor lodge. After checking in and freshening up we headed into town, so to speak, for dinner.  We parked right on the beach and then went for clam chowder at a place called Duckies. I highly recommend this town and restaurant!

 Cameron digging in and Jordan mocking me for taking pictures.

The next morning we headed out about 8:00 and hit the road again. Prior to leaving we stopped at the Post Office so John could send a post card off to Andrew while waiting in the car I spotted this gorgeous house across the street. I could happily retire here.

We stopped about 10:30 for something to eat in Big Sur at the Big Sur Bakery. While the boys thought the place was gorgeous they were not impressed with the food.  Very organic and as they put it, very much a hippy place.  Well you can't please everyone.

This is the ladies restroom, very picturesque with a fully functioning toilet inside.

 John walking one of the paths.  I stopped in the gift shop because I love little shops.  I was neither impressed with the prices or the wares.  It was the same stuff I have seen for years at the Renaissance Faire but at 3 times the price!  And believe me the prices at the Renaissance Faire are ridiculous!

Next stop Carmel, gorgeous town! I could retire here too.  Of course I would have to sell everything I own including my kids.  This is where I learned something about my son Cameron.  He likes traveling but he likes getting to where we're going.  He doesn't like stopping.  We told the kids we were going to spend a few days in San Francisco so that's what he was focused on. All the stops for him were annoying because they delayed him from where we were going. Who knew?  Jordan and Jonathan just sat back and enjoyed the trip.  We used to call Cam our 100 mile kid.  When he was little he was good in the car for 100 miles, 101 miles and he would start to scream.  Not great on trips where you have a hubby who is competing against some past record where he made it to Vegas in 3 hours 37 minutes.

The Carmel Mission this was about an hour or so side tour.

My boys looking at the bell tower

We stopped for a late lunch/early dinner in Santa Cruz at the Santa Cruz Diner.  We're big fans of Diners Drive inns and Dives with Guy Fieri, I also have the Flavortown app on my phone and this was on it so we decided to try it.  Not great, I was underwhelmed by the food.  Santa Cruz is a cute town I wouldn't have minded spending a day or 2 there. Sorry no pictures of the diner.

As we traveled up the coast, I realized I didn't bring any jeans with me for San Francisco where the weather was in the balmy high 60's.  So we stopped at Walmart north of Monterrey.  John had forgotten to pack a belt and Jonathan a jacket.  John and I found what we needed but we couldn't find one sweatshirt in all of Walmart!  We did see some interesting people in there. I wish I had gotten some pictures.

Here is Cameron in the car after Walmart, Jordan pointed out that he had color coordinated his clothing to his snack: That's my boy! As you can see he is just done with this road trip. I also promised him I wouldn't post this pic on Facebook, I made no promises about the blog.

We arrived at our lodgings for the next few nights and decided to hit San Francisco early the next morning.  We stayed in Millbrae about 20 minutes south of the city.  The first place we took the boys was the Golden Gate Bridge. This is from the car driving across the north bound side

Alcatraz from the North side of the Golden Gate

 My boys on the bridge.  Jordan and Cameron decided to walk all the way back across the bridge, we drove back and picked them up on the other side.

 Cameron at Ghiradelli Square.  Did we have lunch here? Nope, we had lunch at In n Out on the Embarcadero so Jordan could cross that off his bucket list.

 It said photo spot so I took a photo

 A woman's biggest complaint, restroom lines.  For every one restroom built for men 4 should be built for women!

This was the next morning, before we boarded the Duck Tour, we stopped in at the Musee Machanique or however it's spelled.  You may recognize this machine from the movie "The Princess Diaries"

 Jonathan on the Duck Tour.  They tour you around the city then drive right into the bay in the same vehicle.  It's a lot of fun and they let you steer the vehicle when you're in the Bay.  

 After lunch we took a trolley bus to Union Square so I could visit Britex Fabrics. 4 stories of amazing fabrics.  I was with my boys so I'm happy for the 20 minutes I got in the store.  I could have just spent an entire day in there. Then an uphill climb to Chinatown.  This is the first vacation I've been on where I lost weight even though I ate everything in front of me. 

 We walked from Union Square through Chinatown (lots of fun souvenirs) back to the Embarcadero. From Union Square into most of Chinatown it was all uphill when we exited Chinatown and got to Little Italy it was mostly downhill.  By the time we got back to the car I could hardly move, I told John I would no longer gripe about the tiny little hills in our neighborhood.  Since we got back I have been trying to walk most days.  So we ended up back at the Embarcadero and I saw this!  Coit Tower, the Pyramid and fog rolling in!  Loved it!

 Jordan wanted to buy rainbow shoes for school this year and we found these.  He decided not to get them since he is not a big fan of Converse.

 Jonathan found this hat.

 After we got home my some Andrew emailed me this picture of him and a lady he has been teaching.  I love how happy he looks.

Our trip home was accomplished much more quickly than the trip up. We came down the 5 fwy through the Central Valley. We stopped outside of Gilroy at the Casa de Fruta for fruit and snacks.  I found sugar free chocolate covered macadamia nuts the size of large cherries. It was excellent.  We had a few beach trips this summer and most of the sewing I did was alterations.  I have two other projects to do for friends that I need to start then hopefully my time can be spent cleaning out and organizing my house and garage.  I always have these ambitious plans at the beginning of the summer that never happen because like my kids I like to play in the summer.  I was invited to Los Angles by my friend Natalie last week and I scored some sweet deals on fabric.  I found a few pieces that will add to my fall wardrobe and some other stuff I can use to make clothes to sell. So many ideas I don't know where to start. 

Well it's now 10:05 in the morning and I am still in my robe, I need to get going, eat something then get laundry sorted. I will try to post again soon.

Take care,

Terri

What's been keeping me out of trouble!

This is a baby doll apron that I designed, it's reversible. The other side is pink and brown. It ended up being a gift for a young woman I know that got married on July 2nd.

This photo is of Johnnie Mae at the Viva Las Vegas Fashion Show. I have to say I really admire the girl, even back in my bathing beauty days I could never have appeared on a stage in my underwear although this was was more covered up than most people you see in everyday life. And believe me some of those people should really cover up!

This is Slinky Sparkles, she is a model and British burlesque performer. Those are very large fans in her hands. She was also modeling for the Viva Las Vegas Fashion Show. I wasn't able to get very good pictures due to the fact that I was using my phone to take the pictures and photography wasn't really allowed. I never have been one for rules. I fell in love with this corset and it was a great deal at the vendor show. By the time I had decided to buy one they had sold out. I do have some good photos of it so I can probably reproduce it but like sandwiches, corsets are just better when someone else makes it for you. The name of the designer during this particular section of the fashion show is, "What Katie Did" love this name for a company and as you can probably tell, they create vintage lingerie.

Here is a recent photo of the family at one of our favorite local Mexican restaurants. They do fajitas to die for and the diet coke is served in large glasses that they keep refilling. They also do the best salsa in town! If it's one thing I do well aside from sewing, it's salsa, I have worked for years perfecting and refining 2 recipes until I finally got the result I wanted and my salsa is good but I like theirs better. I spoke to the owner a couple of years ago and got him to give up his salsa recipe and can make it at home when I can't afford to go out. Now if only he would tell me what the sauce is he puts on the fajitas!

This is a fabric I found at Joanns, I loved the color in it and knew I had to make something out of it. Below is the result.

I created this dress fully intending to put it on Etsy and sell it. I posted it on facebook first and ended up selling it in about an hour. It started kind of as a joke directed at the store Anthropolgie. Some of their stuff is cute but some of their stuff I have to wonder if the designer or buyer is color blind. Some of the combinations they put together have no business being put together! And the prices! As far as I can tell they never have sales and most of the dresses there sell for $168.00! I don't know about you but that seems a bit steep for a dress where the colors don't match. So my solution was to come up with vintage looking dresses with sleeves and skirts that go to the knee and sell them to woman that were tired of trying to find cute/fun dresses and finding only band aids instead. I jokingly call my line Anthro-Apology. I have decided to name the dresses after the customer that buys a particular design first so this one is called the "Edie."

Fabric for dress number 2, the color on this is more purple but it photographed blue. This dress sold before I could finish it.

Here is the finished product, this is the "Anna" named for the mother of the bride in Mondays post. Although the dress is technically Brianna's, her mother paid for it therefore it gets named after her. Them's the breaks

Not good pictures, I had 2 pieces of fabric, 1 yard each and I came up with these little dresses. They are a size 3 toddler but I think will fit a smaller size child, maybe 18 months. I found a vintage pattern at a thrift store for 29 cents and tried it out. These dresses are adorable I wish I had someone that could model them for me.

This is my hubby's birthday present. None of the fabric stores have Green Lantern fabric but Target does carry the sheets. It was tricky trying to place the pattern since you want the design to be continuous, since I couldn't do that I settled for a large Green Lantern logo on the back and a smaller one on the pocket in the front. The entire shirt is top-stitched with glow in the dark thread that my friend Natalie gave me.

My adorable son Cameron just after having his braces removed. The first thing he wanted to eat? An apple. I think they did an excellent job on his smile and we couldn't be happier. This of course just makes him more appealing to all the girls out there so maybe I shouldn't be too happy the braces are gone.

This turned out to be a dress for me so I guess i will call it the "Terri" maybe not. I forgot to take a picture of the final product. Will try to do that soon. I loved this fabric, I found it in the garment district and paid a whopping $3.00 for the entire piece, it was slightly over 3 yards, more than enough for a dress. I lined the sleeves in a lime green satin just for fun.

This dress is the "Annette" she bought it for her daughter Tori. This one was also sold before I could finish it. I just love the neckline on this dress. It is very vintage with a round yoke and the tabs at the waist. I thought about also doing the yoke in a contrast but this appealed to me more just having the touch of orange, cute but not overpowering. I'm thinking of making another one with a sailor theme, solid red with white trim and solid white with navy trim.

This is the beginning of another reversible apron. I found the fabric when I was searching my stash to see if I had anything else I could make a dress out of. I can't believe how popular aprons are. I may end up giving this to my mother in law or not, it's a bit on the bright side and wouldn't match her kitchen. We'll see when I finish it.

This is Helle, we used to get together and sew a lot more than we do now. She fell in love with the Annette dress and wanted to make her own so I loaned her the pattern and talked her through making it while I cut out a ton of projects. I hate cutting stuff out, I wish I had someone who would just do that for me, I would pay them in salsa. Any takers?

As you probably know, sheet sets come with a top and a bottom and a pillow case. This is the top sheet from the set and my hubby has the shirt made of the bottom. He also got the pillow case out of the deal. This one is for sale, I gave John first dibs but he liked his darker one and said he was fine if I wanted to sell it. This is a mens extra large and also has glow in the dark top stitching and it has green buttons.

I was told by friends at church that they were going to buy me a larger dress form since all I was making was size 8! So meet Belva, she is the dress form not the dress. She expands from a large 12 to an 18 so I can make more sizes on her. She's not mine she actually belongs to Helle, she is kind enough to let me keep her at my house. On the right, is the one I purchased at PGM in LA for school, she is a size 8 and doesn't expand. I named her Ava after Ava Gardner, I hope to soon wear that size again, if only I didn't like food so much, I mean I love food! I have a smaller one that expands from a 4 to a 10 named Betty Lou but she is old and will need to retire soon. The dress on Belva is a 16-18 and looks cuter in person and yes is for sale.

My 3 younger kids up at Mile High Cherries last week, we went with some friends to pick cherries. Great fun, and I learned a valuable lesson, it's not enough to put on sunscreen one must also wear insect repellent. My boys and my hubby who didn't bother with either were fine, I on the other hand was swarmed every time I stood still because the bugs liked the smell of my sunscreen. I have bug bites up and down my legs. We ended up at Los Rios Ranchos in Oak Glen and after a picnic lunch we picked up an apple pie, some cider and a bag of apples. A good day.

Ignore my husband's blurry hand in this photo. I was trying to get a picture of the center piece, it was made of heavy paper! It was very unique. They had larger ones on the ground that must have been 3 feet across. This was at the reception of the young woman that I gave the apron to at the top of this post. There was a photo booth and good food, it was great fun, my husband who originally didn't want to go thoroughly enjoyed himself. Part of it was he decided to wear shorts. So he was comfy and well fed. I also liked the "rice" that was thrown at the bride and groom, instead of rice it was heart shaped cake/donut sprinkles, ingenious.

Well that catches you up on most of the stuff that I've been up to. I haven't sewed in a few days now. It's been too hot to do anything. Summer has well and truly arrived, no complaints I love the hot weather. Yesterday was a lot of fun, we had dinner at a friend's house with a few friends from church and then watched a firework show from their front yard. I enjoyed that so much more than the thought of going to Disneyland or the beach like I used to do when I was a kid. The thought of the traffic afterwards just doesn't appeal. Coming up, I'm hoping to get my kitchen cabinet doors down and sanded so they can be painted. My entire downstairs needs to be painted but that's another story. I would like to gut my backyard too and make it more welcoming, with fruit trees and flowers. So many plans and never enough energy to do them all! I hope you all had a safe and happy Fourth of July!
Terri

I've been sewing, how about you?

Here is a fun project I had the opportunity to work on last month. Meet Brianna, I've known her since she was 9. It blows my mind that she is old enough to get married but what can I say? Time flies. Brianna purchased this gown for her wedding and there was a little problem with it, it was strapless. Now to people who are not members of my church this isn't really a problem but to a Mormon bride this is a challenge. The 80's and early 90's were good to Mormon brides, finding a dress with sleeves that was modest was not a problem. Then sometime in the mid-90's everything changed. If you watch TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress" you know that Kleinfelds of New York sells mostly strapless dresses. Some of them are sheer corseted little numbers that run upwards of $20,000.00! From a design standpoint I find them wonderful, as a Latter Day Saint woman I find them good for business. But I digress, Brianna as a Latter Day Saint bride needs a gown that is modest. That's where I come in. I had to add sleeves to this dress and shorten it. Not an easy fix, I hung this dress in my work space and would work on other projects then turn and look at it, waiting for it to talk to me on how to add sleeves. Finally it spoke, hemming the dress turned out to be easier than I thought but the sleeves still posed a problem.




I've added a photo of the inside of the dress just in case you wanted to see what the inside of a designer gown looks like.

After a trip to downtown LA with a few friends, Brianna's mom and I found fabric to match the dress and I went to work. The gown had some asymmetrical pleating that was a bit organic so matching it was a little tricky plus the entire dress was cut on the bias. Most of the work I did was done by hand. I believe I stuck myself a total of 6 times. And yes I did get blood on the inside of the dress that I had to get out. Fun stuff. In the end, I was happy with the way it turned out and I believe the bride and her mom was too.

You decide, here is a picture of the lovely bride her reception. The next picture is her wedding cake, I don't know who made it but I love it! The detail on it is amazing!!! Well that's all for today, it's the Fourth of July and I have a party to get to.
Terri