Sunday, August 21, 2011

Who's THAT Girl?

I was just looking through old blog posts and ran across this. I just thought I've been busy here lately!

Originally written and posted June 11, 2008.

Busy, busy, busy!

With Dad and all of the boys out of town, and Mom down with a sprained ankle, all of the animal, and all other responsibilities have fallen to me. I have been feeding and watering 50 laying chicks, 50 eating chickens, 20 turkeys, 2 bottle calves, 1 heifer calf, 5 pigs, 1 fawn, and 2 cows. Plus milking the 2 cows twice daily, and rotating the chickens every day, the pigs and cows to fresh pasture every other day. It has been taking me two hours to get all of that done, including washing all of my milking equipment. (Hand-milking stuff...I never used a machine.) Yesterday we had to go pick up 800 pounds of feed, and I had to unload all of that into the barn! (The mill we get our feed from has got to be packing those bags heavier than 50 pounds!!!) I’ve also been cutting and bagging grass to be used in the garden. Somehow in all of that, I have still found a little time to go to some little shops around town that we’ve not been able to go to yet.

(Just call me Laura Ingalls) =))

Since all of the boys are gone, Mom and I were supposed to go up to Elizabethtown to go to Michael’s craft store. Our town here doesn’t have any craft stores at all, and Mom has a gift card to Michael’s. But then Mom hurt her ankle, so she is laid up with crutches, and didn’t really feel like walking around a big store! We are going to try to get a day off when she is feeling better!

I was able to go to Walmart and get some fabric there, so I’ve been (in my spare time!) working on a new skirt. It will be a different design than what I usually make, and it’s really just a trial and error process. I’m sort of making up the pattern as I go, based on what I want it to look like. I am making my petticoat pattern for the “underskirt” part, but I’m making it with one more tier than usual, so it will be very long (38-39 inches) and very full (the bottom tier will be 416 inches around.) Almost all of my skirts are ankle length, and this one will be a little longer than that. Then, I bought some sheer fabric that has the slightest blue tinge (the underskirt is sky blue) and I will make a wrap around skirt with that, to go over the underskirt part. It will be slightly shorter than the underskirt, so you will be able to see the ruffle on the bottom of the underskirt. I’m a sucker for ruffles…I put them on everything! Anyway, I am almost done with the underskirt, but it is taking more fabric than I expected, so I’ll have to get some more. In the meantime…

I saw another skirt at a boutique Mom and I went in yesterday, and I’m going to try to make one like it. It was cut different than any skirt I’ve seen, but it didn’t look too difficult. It has 3 panels in the back, 2 in the front, and quarter circle shaped pieces, with a rounded top, set into the sides. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll post a picture when I finish it. I am just now in the process of drawing it out and figuring the measurements. Then I guess I’ll use newspaper to draw out a pattern piece for the panels. Being in a boutique, it had a boutique price tag, and was much shorter than I like…it would have been knee-length on me. I like to go in shops like that for ideas on what I could make, and I inspect the garments to see how they are made! I’m sure the folks in there look at me funny! I’m guessing that not a lot of people go in boutiques to look at how the clothes are made! Anyway, back to the skirt…I already have some brown material that my grandmother gave me, and I have about 6 yards of it, so there will be plenty to work with! It is a little thicker than what I normally use (I’m not sure what kind of fabric it is,) so the skirt should hang nicely and you should be able to see a lot of its fullness.

Between everything I am doing these days, it will be a miracle if I have enough time to finish either of the skirts any time soon! Stay tuned for pics!!!

P.S. The guys are coming back today, so I should have some help out there this evening! :) Lots of great people have offered to help me, but they all have their responsibilities to tend to as well…they shouldn’t have to worry about mine!

Good grief! That first paragraph...wow! I can say that, looking back, right? Yeah, like, "Gee, wasn't I awesome way back then?" :D

See ya!

3 comments:

  1. If you can help my tired brain with a little math, I’ll still think you are awesome. You once said to figure the waist on a circle skirt it is roughly your waist divide by six. So for a 30 inch waist it would be about five inches. How do you figure it when making a half-circle skirt? Would it be divided by three making it 10 inches for a 30 inch waist?

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  2. Hm...lemme think. It's been a while since I made one...

    It always helps me to draw it out, so if you have a big rectangle that is your fabric, you want to cut a half circle out of the top middle for a waist. So, I double the waist measurement (ouch) so it would be 60 inches. So, you can take the 60 inch circumference, divide it by 3.14 to find the diameter, which would be about 19 inches. So, 19 is the length across the top of the rectangle. I divide that by 2 to find the radius, and then measure down the 9.5 inches from the center of the diameter line and mark that. Then I measure in a couple different places so I can draw the arc for the waist.

    Ok, does that make any sense at all? The thing is, you have to make the waist circumference with only half a a circle. And I usually cut out half circles without folding the fabric. You could fold it once, you know, so that it's a square, and the same measurements work for it that way too.

    Call me if you have any trouble! I should do a tutorial on it sometime...

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  3. Thanks, it might be over into September before I get around to this. So even if I get stumped, you won’t be bothered right away. :-)

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