New Years resolutions 2013

A new year, new resolutions. :) But first let's review last years resolutions.

1~ Read the Bible every day.
2~ Brush my teeth every day (I know, that sounds weird ).


I think that I've done pretty well on brushing my teeth every day. Not so much on reading the Bible.
I also  put a list up of different dresses that I wanted/needed to sew in 2012. Here is the list of "wants":


Susan's red battle dress from "Prince Caspian".
Eowyn's green dress (aka the stable dress).
Susan's purple traveling dress from "Prince Caspian".
Eowyn's shield maiden dress.

I did not do Susan's red dress, or her Purple one. Nor did I do Eowyn's Shieldmaiden dress. But I did do Eowyn's Green dress (aka stable dress). It is the dress that she is wearing when you first see her, running up the steps to Meduseld. It turned out exactly like I wanted it to. I was and still am, excited about it. It fits me perfectly. :) I plan to do it again at some other time. It is in the March 3 and August 9 posts. Now for the list of  "need to" dresses.

Linnea' ball gown.
Sara's ball gown.
Grace's ball gown AND camp dress.
My camp dress/ ball gown.


Yes I got Linnea's ball gown done, as well as Grace's camp dress and ball gown. No I did not get Sara's ball gown completed. She wore it to the ball but it was pinned on. ;) We still need to put fasteners on it and the trim. I did not get my ball gown or my camp dress done. This is my fault because I was given the most beautiful forest green cotton taffeta that any seamstress would be thrilled to work with. It was given to me by a very thoughtful and loving sister with the plan being that I would have a ball gown to wear at the ball. But I decided to use it for a medieval costume to wear when we went and watched The Hobbit. :) I guess I'm hopelessly lost when it comes to medieval or fantasy style dresses. :) And I am planning on making a day/camp dress for my self in the next two to three months. The problem is that there are so many different styles to choose from.  I also put a goals/jobs list on that post as well:


1~Clean out the storage shed behind the house.
2~ And there was some thing else that goes under this category, I just can't remember it.


Yes I got the shed cleaned out. Yeah!!!! You can read about it in my February 28 post. And the other thing that I couldn't remember was learning to play the piano. No I do not know how to play the piano. Because our piano is broken. :(

So now that I have you updated on last years resolutions let me tell you what this years resolutions are.

1~ Read the Bible daily.
2~Be a better daughter and a better sister.

Goals/ jobs for the year

1~Finish fencing in the property.
2~Blog twice weekly. Hopefully more then that.
3~Learn how to play a musical instrument.I don't know what instrument,but I'll figure that out later.

So there you have it. My new years resolutions. If you read my blog or are my Facebook friend please, PLEASE ask me every now and then how I'm doing in regards to my resolutions. The more you ask, the harder you will push me to keep them. Thank you! :)

Where Did It Go To?

Where did 2012 go to? Wow! It went by fast, didn't it? And what happened during this past year here at the farm? Thankfully it was full of quite changes. No wild fires, no evacuations. Quite but none-the-less big changes. We've had a movie filmed here. Katie went to New York again. She also went to Colorado for the National Dairy Goat show. And she went to Idaho for the National Dairy Goat convention ( have you figured out yet that she loves doing dairy goats?) We have made new friends. And done things that we hadn't done before. Like going to the Renaissance Festival. This year I've also done more sewing then in any other previous year. In the space of two and a half months I have sewn three Civil War ball gowns, a Renaissance costume, a Civil War day dress, a cape, and a medieval dress for my self. In the last ten days I've sewn two night gowns, and a cloak for Judah. I love to sew!!! :) My sewing room has gone through several "transitions". I've had the sewing room for a year now. In that time it has been messy, clean, messy, clean. But almost always there is a project being worked on. It sure is nice having a dedicated space for my sewing. So yes. It has been a year full of blessings.

Guess what I got?

A serger! Woohoo! Now I have to figure out how to use it. :) I can't wait! I had to completely re-arrange my sewing shed/room so that I had a place to put it. I also have a new work table. Ok so I took the ping pong table and set it up in my sewing room. Just don't tell my brothers where the thing disappeared to. ;) Now I have a great big space to cut my patterns and fabric on. No more bringing my projects into the house to cut out on the floor in the dinning room. Yeah! I was also able to put a real book shelf in as well. Because that little tiny metal display shelf thingy just wasn't enough room for my books. I will put pics of my serger on tomorrow so that y'all can  ohh and ahh over it. Oh yeah, and I'll put pics on of my new and improved sewing room as well.

*GASP*

Woohoo! I did it. I actually did it. I just sewed a ball gown. A civil war ball gown made out of taffeta. I remember telling myself that I would NEVER sew a ball gown. Much too complicated. And I would never sew with any thing that was slippery. No silk, no taffeta, no satin. Nothing like that. I was quite sure that I would mess it up. And then Sara gave Grace, Linnea, and myself some taffeta for ball gowns. Great! Now I had to use that slippery stuff. I came up with every possible excuse as to why I couldn't do it. "The fabric was too slippery." "So what? Figure out how to work with it. And hurry up."
 "The material was too cheap looking. It might shred and then it would have been a waste of time." "Well you'll never know what it will do if you don't use it. Hurry up and start sewing." As you can see, my sisters were not going to take  "no" for a answer. So I began with Grace's gown. She had bought a simple pattern from Period Impressions. So we washed the fabric and began to iron it. That was were I hit my first "speed bump". This taffeta was 100% polyester. I took the iron and placed it on the fabric and....... it melted. My room stank of melting plastic for two days. Okay, lesson learned. Do not use your grandmothers 15 year old iron that is no longer adjustable. So I bought a new iron that had settings that worked and started over. Got it ironed and I told Grace to start cutting the material while I got the machine ready. Problem was that I had never done this kind of thing before (as I've already said) and I didn't know that you couldn't just cut it out like you would with regular old cotton. First you have to layer the material with tissue paper so the material doesn't slip and come out in funky shapes. So we re-cut the fabric and got ready to sew it. It was a lot easier than I thought that it would be. The hardest part was figuring out how to fit 180" onto a waistband that's made for some one with a 26 1/2" waist. We ended up doing a triple box pleat all the way around. Half way through sewing the bodice together Grace held it up and said "You know what? I think this will actually work and that it will look quite nice." Thank you for the encouragement Grace. All the way through sewing this dress Grace was right behind me, encouraging me. So now, almost 9 months after I first started on this project, it is finally done.
                                                                       
                                                        

The front of the gown.

Back of the gown.

Close up of the front.

Close up of the back. We are eventually going to add lacing to the back. Half of the girls like it as it is now, with hook and eye closures. Grace really likes the look of the lacing.

Gown from the side.

The antique lace that we dyed to match the binding, which we also made.

                
One ball gown done,three more to go. And all before November  17. I better get movin'. :)                                                   

September 5 - 11,2011

Sorry that this post is a little late. So here it is. September 5 - 11 marks the one year anniversary of the Tri-county wildfires.  What started out as a small puff of smoke on the horizon would soon be the cause of a week long evacuation for our family and many others in this area. I remember the anxious and worried looks on Mom and Dad's faces when the fireman told us that it was highly likely that we could be evacuated. For the next several hours some of us were watching the news channel to see what was going on while others were completing chores while still others were trying  to get some stuff together just in case we really did have to evacuate. There was a suppressed feeling of anxiety. I thought that every thing would calm down in a matter of hours. The firefighters would get it under control and it would just be a rerun of the Dire mills fire that had happened in June. A big scare, worrying, discussing what we would take with us and where we would put the goats. But I was pretty sure that nothing would really happen to greatly disrupt the regular flow of daily doings at the farm. I sure was wrong in this thought. In a couple of hours it was apparent that this fire WOULD disrupt the regular flow of things here at the dairy. Mom and Dad started giving out directions and  Dad,Grace, and Timothy started to get goats in the livestock trailer and in the back of the blue van. Getting the goats in the vehicles was a hard task. Not only did we have to get them in there but Mom had to decide which goats were got out first and which we would have to get later, if we could. Some people were shouting "Get my goat ____" while others were yelling "Get the show girls out first" and yet others were saying "Get Sonnet and Liendoe out first". Sonnet and Liendoe were not feeling well so they left the property first. After that it was a race against the clock to get as many goats in the trailer and off the property and back again before the firefighters came and told us to leave NOW. In the end we had to leave almost all of our bucks and "dry" does. We let them into the largest pen we had so that they would have more room to roam. In between the trips to and from Blue Heron Farm ( where our friends the Segars lived and had so graciously allowed us to bring our goats) we were trying to pack those things that were important to us and that could fit in the cargo trailer and white van. The pasteurizer and other things that were associated with making cheese and things like that were first to be packed. Then it was every thing that you could cram in there. Saddles, sewing machine, hope chests, family pictures, the quilt that our great-grandmother made, family treasures, you name it we packed it all in there as best we could. After that we used every possible space in the van that wasn't occupied by a child,cat,rabbit or dog. After that we spent our time doing every thing that we could think of to make those animals that we couldn't take with us as comfortable as possible. We also spent this time to make our house as "fire proof" as possible. Which wasn't much. We put the garden sprinklers on the roof at full speed and hoped that that would help. We knew that it was time to leave when the police and fire fighters started to drive up and down our street making a lot of noise and making sure that there weren't any more people in the area. We drove approximately a mile away and parked in the drive way of a church while Mom and Dad had a discussion as to what should be done. Dad had been able to get back to the house after we had left and was in favor of staying there to see how things were going on. Mom didn't think that that was a good idea. In the end, after going to Sonic and talking for a long time Dad decided to see if he could get back to the house with Grace and Sara, while Mom and every one else went some where else (we didn't know where at that point) and get some sleep. We ended up staying at a Red Cross shelter that had been set up in a local church. The next morning Dad called and said that since it didn't look like there was that much smoke that we should come home. So after eating breakfast we piled in the van and headed home. As we were driving out of the parking lot I thought to myself "Well that was scary, and in a odd kind of way, exciting." It was some thing that didn't happen often and you didn't want it to happen often but when it did it sure did set your heart racing. We hadn't been driving for more then ten minutes when we had to stop. There was a police car parked in the road and a line of cars piling up behind it. "Uh-oh. This doesn't look good". Slowly we got to the front of the line. "I'm sorry ma'am, but you can't go any further. This area is under mandatory evacuation" the policelady told Mom. "But my home's back there!" Mom said.
"I'm sorry ma'am but I can't let you go back there"
"What about Bunting rd? Is that area also evacuated?"
"I'm not sure ma'am"
So we turned around and Mom began the search for a back road that wasn't blocked off. We searched without success. Mom finally and reluctantly admitted defeat in the search and we headed to Blue Heron Farm to milk the goats. The next week was a week that I and every one in our family and in our area will never forget. Every day was marked by some event that made it different from the day before. Every day there was smoke in the general area of our house. We tried not to think too much about it. We were able to get an idea from the fire fighters as to where the fire was. At one point my sister Katie and some of the other girls went to the JP's office to get news. Katie:Where was the fire now? Them: Well where do y'all live? Katie: On such and such road. Them: Oh it's pretty bad there right now. Which house do y'all live in? Katie described it. Them: Oh that house. Yeah it's all right.
I can only imagine the look on Katie's face. We found out that one of the fire fighters lives on our road and had been keeping a eye on the animals that we had had to leave behind. He had told the county animal control about our animals and they had been watering them and feeding them. We were so relieved and grateful. On Saturday most of the family went to market. As Mom says "It was a little bit of normality in an abnormal week." The next day we went out to eat with a family friend and his wife. As we were sitting at Starbucks with them, sipping our "dessert", Mom came at a controlled run from the other side of the room. "We're going home! We can go home! The evacuation is lifted for our area! We can go home!" Boy were we excited! Over the next couple of days we worked on getting all our things back to the farm. But it was a while before the smell of smoke left the air. And it was a while before we could settle down and stop being anxious that the fire might flare up again. But we were home.
God is very merciful to us.

Eowyn's Green Dress part Two

So it is three days past my deadline for sewing the green Eowyn dress.While I haven't gotten the dress made in the finer fabric  that I wanted to make it in I did complete the "test dress". I used fabric that I had in my fabric bin and it isn't the prettiest thing out there but this was a test run, right? I am very pleased with the out come. It is the first "fantasy" dress that I've made for myself that I really like. I fully lined the dress even though the pattern did not call for it. The fashion fabric is a deep purple, the lining is a pale yellow. Think butter yellow. The yoke is also made with the yellow fabric. The front of the underskirt is a flowered print on a pink background and the back of it is a mish-mash of  different fabric ends that I had on hand. It looks like a patchwork quilt. But you don't se the back so it doesn't really matter. :) I will post my notes and pictures of it in a later post so you can see what it looks like. Now that I know how to make it I can't wait to sew it in the fashion fabric.

Dress Forms

Mom and Dad are getting me a dress form for my birthday. Yeah! Woohoo! I'm so excited! I can't wait! A new sewing toy to play with. :) I've really wanted one and now I'm getting it. I was wondering if any one who reads my blog has any suggestions on which one I should get or what to look for. Any suggestions would be appreciated. :)