Today, I completed a shell from Simplicity #4748.  I made it from a weird piece of fabric I had that was printed with cursive writing with the grain instead of across the grain.  I laid the fabric pieces cross-wise and made sure that there was plenty of ease in the garment.  It was pretty quick to whip up and I just might have enough to make a skirt.  I'm working on that.  Here's a couple of pictures so you can see how it turned out.

The sleeves have slits at the top of them that you can't really see in the pictures.  I haven't decided whether I like that feature or not.

Tomorrow is the 4th, obviously.  Around here, it gets crazy because of the Corbett Fun Festival.  It starts at about 7:30 AM and runs until about midnight.  We live behind the school and the school is ground zero for all of the festivities.  It's a long day for us because our quiet existence gets turned on its head for 18 hours or so.  We've got a system to provide access to our place without destroying it so we're in pretty good shape.

Happy Independence Day!!!

I've done my fair share of knitting over the past year and have enjoyed it emmensely.  I still have an afghan (Barbara Walker's Learn To Knit afghan), a shawl (a Brooklyn Tweed pattern), a baby blanket (Mrs. Hoover's double-knit version), a mohair cowl, and other miscellany on my needles.

For the month of July; however, I'm sewing.  I've been sewing for as long as I can remember but I'm really out of practice when it comes to anything other than quilting.  I have a pattern problem.  I love them and I buy them thinking I can just whip up a skirt, dress, blouse, or jacket--just like I used to.  Then I start, and things don't fit and there's all kinds of new fabrics that weren't around in the 60's and 70's.  And my sewing machine can do different things.  And my serger and I always get into a fight, and the serger always wins.  Needless to say, the patterns keep piling up, but the clothes don't.

I was on the pattern review web-site this morning and I signed up for two contests:  The Pattern Stash Contest and the Mini Wardrobe Contest.  For the Pattern Stash Contest you have to sew only new-to-you patterns and it can be pretty much anything.  For the Mini Wardrobe Contest you have to sew five pieces and they have to create six outfits.  I have my work cut out for me, but I think these are worthy contests for myself to get me sewing again, use some of my patterns, reacquaint myself with sewing more than a quilt, and get rid of some of my stash.

Today I made a baby quilt out of Minke and put ribbon tabs on the edge for baby's amusement.  It's not my best work.  In fact, it may be some of my worst work, but it is done and it is warm and cute and functional.

Tomorrow, I plan to sew a dress out of border print that I've had for years.  I have to decide if/how I'm going to underline the dress, but it does need it.  It's just a cotton dress otherwise.  We'll see how it goes!