Little Ballerina

This is the latest 6 month old ballerina in my life.
What a cutie, eh?

I made the tutu with about 10 inch lengths of lavender tulle, folded them individually in two and looped it onto an elastic waist band over and over. Lots of tutorials on how to do this. Here is one. No sewing in this project, and it takes about an hour.

Easy peasy.

Tutu's 4 All (Pettiskirt)

I started making ruffled pettiskirts before L's b-day in November, and continued through November for all the little granddaughter's Christmas presents as well. I used information and written instructions from a blog called "Make It and Love It", and ordered the non-fray chiffon fabric from AFC-express.com
You can make hundreds of variations of the skirt, because the chiffon comes in 30 solid colors, several animal prints, and a few other prints too.  All the little girls love them. Heck, all the big girls wish they could wear one too.

I varied the instructions a little and here is what I think works best for me in the construction of these little pettiskirt/tutu's.

1. The "make it and love it skirt" is sewn from the bottom up. Mine is a TOP - DOWN version because that way I don't have to measure the ruffle amount exactly. I can just gather - sew the chiffon onto the subsequent top ruffles until the row is finished. This saves me oooooooodles of time and  maybe uses a little more or less chiffon in the making depending on how I have the gathers set up.


2. I use an awesome RUFFLER/PLEATER ATTACHMENT on my sewing machine that sews the seam and gathers the top fabric at the same time.  Did I say it is amazing, stupendous, and just plain cool? It is a little spendy as machine feet go (about $100.00),  but if you are making more than 3 or 4 of these pettiskirts it is worth it. Here is a picture of one of these feet. A pretty complicated piece of metal don't you think?

I'll show you in this video, just how the ruffler works.

Now really, .... is that not a cool tool?

So to insert your fabric layers into the ruffle/pleater, you first place your fabric to be gathered between the top metal slider and into the grove of the foot. You then place your fabric that is not to be gathered underneath the first fabric right sides together and under the foot completely. Lower the presser foot and begin sewing. Large basting type stitches make bigger pleats if you want that, and smaller stitches make the pleats smaller.  On the front of the r/p foot near the top where it is closest to the actual machine, is a slider that you can move to gather every 1 stitch, or every 6 stitches, or every 12.  These, of course would use less yardage and make fewer pleats out of the roll of chiffon.

I made a skirt to fit my 5 y/o granddaughter first, then made the subsequent skirts smaller for the 2 and 3 y/o's.

The non-fray chiffon fabric rolls come in several different widths, so size it accordingly for the length of skirt you want to end up with.  These skirts are 3 + layers long doubled, so for the the 5 y/o size you will need 8"x 40" of satin for the top waistband area of the skirt plus 5" rolls of chiffon for the two layers (x2) under the satin layer(s) plus 2" chiffon roll for the bottom "fluff" layer.

This fluff layer is made from the zebra chiffon. The other half of this particular skirt has blue fluff so the two layers lay on top or bottom of each other depending on which side of this reversible skirt is on top.

I started with my satin fabric which I'll call the 1st layer, then ruffle stitched the 5" chiffon around each edge of that layer making 2 second layers that were gathered from about 120" each onto the 40 inch satin.  I then stitched another 3rd layer onto each of the 2nd layers just gathering the 3rd from about 360" down to the 120" straight 2nd.

This skirt is made up of 6"(3") satin layer, 3" 2nd layer, 4" 3rd layer and 2" fluff.

At the end of each seam where the circle is complete, I just overlapped an inch or so to leave no gap.

Nearly finished, except the last blue layer of fluff.

Finally, the skirt is finished by sewing the 2" fluff layer to the 3rd tiers of the skirt. The fluff is gathered down the center and sewn with both right sides up. (You need about 50 yards of 2" chiffon - that is one reason you want to buy your chiffon pre-cut)

Such fun little skirts for young girls.

And apparently good little party skirts too.

Crazy Grandma, huh?

Penguin Party

Our only grandson turned one. His mom did a very cute penguin party for the big day, and I was trying to learn how to embroider with my new sewing machine using furry fabric, so I whipped up a penguin for him.

After cutting out the pattern I covered the fabric with a wash away embroidery stabilizer so that the fur or nap of the fabric didn't come up through the design and ruin it. I then used a cut away stabilizer in my machines' embroidery hoop and sprayed it with fabric glue to attach the fur (white minky). Apparently there are several fabric choices that cannot be hooped or else they will show "hoop burn" when eventually out of the hoop and it won't look as good.
It is amazing what these machines will do, and I just entered his name on top of a snowflake looking flower as easy as pie. I couldn't figure out how to use the new software program made for the machine, which would have enabled me to add snowflakes so I put it off till I have more time. The flower was quick and okay, I guess.

Hindsight shows me that just his name may have been a better choice, but my penguin did turn out pretty cute ehh?

Getting around GJ (The Grand Valley)

Last week saw me driving to San Francisco to enjoy the big city, and this week I found myself flying to my "happy place," so I can visit with and help out my 84 year old parents a bit.
My mother is recovering from a pretty extensive replacement surgery on her shoulder, and my father who is usually "Johnie on the spot" in the helper department has landed himself in the hospital with congestive heart failure (CHF) so we are focusing on him more than mom at this point.
My father is going to be just fine after they wring out all the extra water from his legs and tweak his heart medicine a bit so that it hopefully doesn't repeat itself in the near future. He had his knee replaced a couple of months ago, and the mitral valve in his heart repaired (effects of rheumatic fever as a child) in 1993. This somewhat compromised heart, along with immobility, age, and probably other factors has given him some CHF.

I'm going to show you the hospital and views of the valley.
This will be fairly boring so you may want to move on to something else. Just sayin'.
Here is an old shot from 1960 of the hospital, pretty much the way I remember it from my youth.

 Now, after several remodels, here is a picture of the new hospital.

 

Brad and Camille at Dr. Kelly's office building (our brother) where she works

Anyway, my little sis and her hubby, took me up to the hospital's new wing to look out at the big valley that I grew up in from 8 stories up and on a big hill.

 This is the new St. Mary's Hospital towards the north-west from the street.

Now, up on the 8th floor towards my parents home and the home I grew up in. Bookclift mountain chain is on the horizon. Intersection of 7th Street and Patterson Road, and old hospital wing in the foreground.

To the east are more hospital buildings and in the skyline is the Grand Mesa. (worlds largest flat topped mountain, with hundreds of lakes and a decent ski resort)

Mesa State College and the San Juan Mountains in the very very tiny weeny background.

My high school in the middle of the picture. G-J-H-S , Go Tigers!!

...and my Dad's computer is not cooperating with me so ....later.

It's later now and I was able to get home to Nor Cal and use my own computer. Ahhhhhh, nniiieecce!!!

Just one last picture to add of the western view towards the Colorado National Monument where the Colorado River runs toward Utah through all the cool red rock formations.  Squint and you can see some inspiring monoliths, creviced canyons, and coke oven formations that make up the beautiful park.

Getting Around San Fran

I have lived an hour away from one of the most interesting and beautiful cities of the world for more than 16 years now and I have just figured out the layout of this fabulous city.

Oh, I've been able to find my way to the major hot spots, and if I needed to go someplace new, I'd just mapquest it and I'd get there just fine, but now I understand better how it is all laid out.  Being there for a few days and not using my car was what helped me put it all together.
The Hubby had a conference with all the mucky mucks from the biotech world and since I have no kids at home anymore, I was able to tag along with him to the hotel room and just enjoy the city.
Katz and her girlies came for one hang out day. We walked around California Street, and into China Town. I showed her Britex Fabrics, which is a favorite store and she rather appreciated it, then we Anthropologie'ed onto the night.
I walked to the Ferry Building, MOMA, shopped at the main mall, Macy's makeup makeover, found The Ribbonerie which I have ordered things from through the mail and is truly "The Ultimate Ribbon Store," had some great meals with the Hubby, and all sorts of fun things.
Now, I can explore better and not feel like I'm going to get lost.
Good Times!

Obi

My walking buddy had to put her dog Obi Wan Kenobi down. He was just too sick and had stopped eating as his health declined. I've missed walking with him for the last 6 months or so, but after the previous 10 years of walking with the fun loving, fine feathered Golden Retriever, I'd gotten to know his sweet personality quite well.

"See ya later Ob's."

Remembering Bud

One of our best friends from church was buried last weekend. It has been a shock to our family that such a seemingly healthy man, that is in our age group, had a heart problem that took his life.
"Bud" was a young men's leader to all 3 of my boys, and taught Sunday School to one of my daughters. My children knew he cared about them and he shared the good and the bad through his example to each of them at various times in the 17 years that we knew him. He didn't have children, and so the kids at church were his.

Bud loved his wife, his extended family, swimming, basketball, the Oakland Raiders, reading, apparently writing, the BYU Cougars, fixing up his house, dogs, music (he had a great tenor voice), and the youth.
He leaves behind a wife who is a great lady, and we hope we can help support her as she learns to live without him.
We will definitely miss our loved friend.