kayray.org

September 2004

kayray’s buzznet moblog — crummy cellphone photos for your amusement!

Sept 30 — Survivor was on tonight. We missed the first two episodes before we remembered to tell the TiVo about it. Ugh what a horrible show, but for some reason we enjoy watching it. It’s all your fault, Chloe! :)

Sept 29 — Ripped apart my brown dress and discovered that I had enough fabric left over for a new bodice, yay! So I made a muslin, using the size 14 instead of the 10, but subtracting 5/8″ from the folded edge of the front and adding 2″ to the bottom all around. Enlarged the armholes in front, basted it all together, and I think it will fit much better. I took some darts at the back neckline to give me more room in the back but not let the neckline gape. Not enough brown fabric for new sleeves, but I think it might look nice with plain muslin sleeves. I’m so eager to get this dress DONE so I can wear it and start a new one, heheh.

Sept 27 — Happy 9th birthday sweet Henry!

I picked him up from SD in the morning, and then we had bagels for breakfast at Einstein Brothers. Then we came home and baked some cookies together :) In the afternoon we went to Sal’s house — Bob and Jean gave him wonderful books, and Sal gave him the promise of a trip to Legoland with her! He was delighted with everything. Then to karate, then home. After Dan got home we let him open his presents from us and he was so happy with everything. He especially loved the eyelighter that Dan chose for him. Very secret-agent! Kirsten and Marcos came over and hung out for a while, gave Henry his present (A book of Rush bass-tab with notation and lyrics, too) and ate cherry pie with us. The pie turned out great — I used the recipe on the label of the “Oregon Red Tart Pie Cherries”. Next time I will add another spoonful of cornstarch, as the filling was a bit runny. But the flavor was excellent! Very fruity, not artificial-cough-syrup-tasting like some cherry-based foods, not too sweet. I think Henry had a very good birthday:)

My new patterns from sensibility.com arrived today, too! I got the 1910 tea gown and the romantic era dress. I managed to find time to read through both instruction books before bed and I’m so excited! But first I must fix my brown regency dress. I’ve been corresponding with a lovely woman, Carol, whom I met on the S&S discussion board (We’re both nutty about Molly’s plaid apron from W&D) and bouncing ideas off her about my so-called “disaster dress” and she’s given me a few more ideas of how to fix it. I am hopeful!

Sept 26 — Sunday. I finished Henry’s new audiobook (I read “The Bad Beginning” into my laptop and made cds for him), wrapped his presents, and made a cherry pie today. And did laundry! But had no time at all for sewing.

Sept 25 — Had a nice drive to the Sprint store to get them to replace Dan’s Treo 600 (funky screen problem), then went to the fabric store to take advantage of the sale (bought 6 yards of muslin at $1.29/yd), and we each got a pizza — I got a small veggie pizza from That Pizza Place and Dan got a medium with extra cheese and mushrooms from Round Table. Neither of us likes the other’s favorite pizza, heh :) Then we went home and watched some of our Greencine movies — another Sherlock episode and “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, which was pretty good!

Sept 24 — Worked on Dan’s quilt a lot. I need 8 more pieced squares, and I got them ALL made today! Amazing. And I cut the plain squares, and the backing material. So tomorrow I can assemble the four 2′ x 2′ sqaures that I need and then start quilting them. Woohoo!

Sept 22 — Happy birthday pthree!

Sept 21 — Hey I just noticed a long article on greencine with the guy who made Sky Captain! Interview with Kerry Conran. Interesting!

Oooooooooooo I won I won I won! I entered a greencine trivia contest (finish-the-lyric of a weird old song which I, of course, knew, since I am the Queen of Weird Old Songs) and I won a copy of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1938, Tyrone Power, Jack Haley) on DVD!!! I don’t know how many people won (it was a random drawing of correct entries) but it’s still very exciting to win something. Thanks, greencine!

Sept 20 — Picked up H this morning, then came home and did the Monday housework. He helped with the mopping. Then I finished my chemise and it turned out fabulous! Hmm, what else… Played some rummy and crazy eights with Henry and finished reading “Joan Makes History”. Oh another dvd from greencine arrived today! It’s called “The Way We Live Now” — a miniseries dramatisation of a Trollope novel (which I’ve never read). Reviews of it are good, and I decided to rent it when I noticed it on a “Great Costume Dramas” member list on greencine. Started watching tonight and it’s pretty good so far! I object to the musical score though — extremely heavyhanded. Big ripple of dramatic strings when Felix and Maria’s eyes meet, goofy wild-man-hunting music for a hunting scene, lame-ass cowboy music when a guy who’s from the West shows up… please. I have an imagination, I do not need to be LED. But the screenplay was done by Andrew Davies, who did P&P and W&D, so of course it’s good, and that overrides the bad music. :)

Sept 19 — I found a great pattern for a chemise online! Here: draft your own chemise. elizabethstuartclarkandcompany.com is a badly-designed, difficult to navigate site, so I gave you a direct link to the page with the free patterns. The chemise one is at the bottom. I started making one tonight, using the pretty blue-flowered flannel I bought on sale a while back. Not quite the right fabric for a chemise, but it’s what I had handy. I used a 14″ wide base instead of the suggested 16″ — I’m not very wide.

Sept 18 — Happy birthday dear Susan!

Last night we watched the first two Sherlock episodes on the latest DVD — The Resident Patient and The Red-Headed League. Both very good. However, the quality of the English subtitles on this DVD is appalling. The seem to have been typed up by someone who is only vaguely familiar with English. When I first began noticing odd mistakes I tried to make a mental list, but there were so many I soon gave up. There was a serious error on almost every screenful of text. A few that I remember are: “scrawled” instead of “squalid” (scrawled lodgings??), “broom” instead of “brougham” (Watson should ride in a broom??) and “Jay Beards Wilson” instead of “Jabez Wilson” though the entire episode. Yeah Jabez is a strange name but it _is_ painted on his shop window at the end of the show. A lot of the errors caused sentences to make no sense at all. It was very frustrating for me — they could have hired someone who was at least literate! Maybe they just dragged some kid in off the street corner. Really, there was NO ONE working at MPI Home Video (I expect they are responsible for the horrid subtitles, not the BBC) who could have done a better job? They didn’t feel like maybe having someone read through the text for obvious errors? Ok I’m done ranting I guess. Bad English just really gets my goat, especially when there’s no reason for it. And by the way, if I were deaf and relying on those subtitles for the story I would have been out of luck.

Sorry for the rant. Anyway, today was great! Dan had to go out and talk to a guy in the morning, so I stayed home, listened to Loveline, and worked on my brown dress. It’s finally coming along the way I want it. Took 6 inches from the skirt back and straightened the top curve, and now it hangs right. Enlarged the armholes and sewed in the sleeves and they are perfect non-gathered little cap-sleeves. Yay me!

After Dan got home we went to the movies to see “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” which was great! I enjoyed it very much. It had the kind of plot you don’t want to think about too hard, but it was light, fun, and entertaining — a good exciting adventure movie. I had skimmed a review before we went (in case the reviewer said it was the Worst. Movie. Ever. That reviewer said the second half of the movie was better than the first, but I thought the opposite was true. I found the first half to be much more interesting. My favorite parts were when the giant robots were stamping though the city and the airplane chase when Polly was riding along. Thrilling! The first scene, of the airship docking, was also wonderful.

In the evening we did a little birthday shopping for Henrybot, and then at night we watched the rest of Sherlock (The Final Problem) and the special features disk of “Wives and Daughters” (My package from amazon arrived today!!!). Lovely day.

Sept 17 — greencine is wonderful. I shipped our last two dvds back on Monday, and they received one of them on Wednesday, as expected, but not the other. Today they still haven’t received t, so I emailed them to explain the situation — a few minutes later, I got email back from customer service saying they made a note that the dvd is lost and they are shipping the next one in our queue today. How is that for REAL customer service!

I worked on my brown dress a lot today. I’m having trouble with the skirt. I started off by pleating it, but it hung oddly, for some reason. I tried pleating it in various different ways but I never could get it looking right. Very strange. Now I’ve got it gathered instead, and basted in, and it looks better I think. I still can’t decide if I want to leave it gathered and somewhat full, or if I want to alter it completely, take out all the fullness, and have an A-line skirt. Hmm. It would look more modern. But the gathered one is kind of nice too. Hmm.

Sept 14 — Tired all day until nighttime. Bah. Grandpa died this morning. “Half a bird is in my face, meow meow meow!” He taught us how to play Double Solitaire and sent lovely art supplies for Christmas and birthdays. Bye, Grandpa, we’ll miss you.

Henry woke up feeling healthy again so we did the grocery shopping, then after we got home he put on The Fellowship and I worked on a new Regency-style dress. It’s always SO HARD for me to decide on details like front buttons or back buttons, fan front or regular, etc. But I decided on a regularly gathered button front, and I spent approx 1000 years making a sleeve that would be non-puffy. I used a sleeve pattern from my 1963 dress but of course it wasn’t good as-is, and I had to make a mock-up and tinker with it for hours. But I think I finally got it right. I made the lining today, and cut out the fabric for the bodice. I’m using the luscious super-luxurious brown cotton that Dan’s mom gave me last year. Tomorrow maybe I’ll get the entire bodice constructed, with luck.

Sept 13 — Monday, so I drove down to SD to fetch Henry. He’s got his Henry Illness again — headache and then about 12 hours of puking. The puking was last night so he slept most of the day today and will probably feel great tomorrow. He woke up once in the afternoon and said, “Let’s play cards!” so we played three hands of Crazy Eights and then he fell asleep again. :) Sweet boy.

Sept 12 — We finished watching Wives and Daughters today! That was one fine production. I decided to use my Amazon gift certificate to purchase the DVDs for us so we can watch it again and again! Thanks, Susan :) We also watched our latest Dr Who dvd — “The Stones of Blood” but it wasn’t as good as the other two, I thought. Tomorrow they’ll all go back to Greencine. They should get them Wednesday morning and ship us two more that afternoon :) Yay Greencine!

Sept 11 — Nice young man came to buy the GSR this morning, and then Dan had to go into work for a few hours so I went along so I could see his server room and stuff :) Nifty! He took me to the library on the way home and I got a new and tempting stack of books. Also updated books.php and made a spiffy new graphic, heh.

Sept 10 — Friday. Lots of errands this morning in the fearsome heat. Let’s see, we took Henry’s recycling in and he made $3.08, and then we went to the bank, and then the water store where we bought 20 gallons of water. Then to True Value Hardware (next door to the water store, thank goodness) for wire for the brim of my new hat (photo soon). I love True Value Hardware! Every shopping expedition there is a real pleasure, but if I tried to buy the same thing at the dreaded Home Depot (which is practically next door to my house) it would be a miserable experience.

Anyway it was a busy morning. When we got home I added the wire to the brim of my hat while H practiced his bass, and then we watched Mister Rogers together. In the afternoon I gave Grandma a ride to her doctor, then fixed Dad’s dinner while H had his piano lesson. He loves his piano lessons, sweet boy. Then it was off to Karate. I was totally wiped out by the end of the day, man.

Sept 09 — Woke up way too early for no good reason, so tired and headachy all day, bah. But I sewed quite a lot and Henry and I lazed about together before the busy afternoon of Park Day, a piano student for me, and a bass lesson for him. He loved his first bass lesson! I despise this weather. It is hot and muggy and humid and nasty, ugh. Dan and I sleep with ice packs.

Spet 08 — We spent hours this morning constructing a Pikachu toy! It was lots of fun. I drew a good Pikachu shape on paper and traced it onto felt, and then Henry sewed around the line with only a little help. My Pfaff is easier for him to deal with than my old machine. It will sew very very slowly and also has that nice one-stitch-per-stamp-on-pedal feature. Then we trimmed Pikachu’s edges, turned him right-side-out, and stuffed him, then applied a felt face and ears, or horns, or whatever those things are. He still needs a tail but I ran out of steam. He turned out extremely cool and Henry says I have “superior skills of a seamstress”.

Sept 07 — Did 1000 errands this morning, including mailing a little something to Chloe and a stop by the fabric store where I spent the rest of my giftcard on supplies for my stays and felt for a Pikachu toy. Then groceries etc. Our first stop was Einstein Brothers, for a bagel for Henry, where I discovered that I’d left my wallet at home, grumble. I had $.75 in my purse so H ran in for his bagel before we backtracked so he was happy. It was hot and horrible today.

Sept 06 — Happy birthday beautiful Chloe!!! I hope your day was wonderful :)

Henry spent the day playing with Fargo, Skyia, and Max, the new neighbor kids. They’re former homeschoolers, about to start at a waldorf-type school, and they’re just as nice and fun as can be. They look you in the eye when they talk to you, and they are full of thoughts and ideas and words. We like them very much!

Sept 05 — It’s hot. Oh my, yes. I accomplished a lot today! Last night I found this page: http://www.koshka-the-cat.com/1830_pattern.html and scaled up the pattern in photoshop, so today I made a muslin toile. I made the gusset slits a bit shorter (4 inches) for a more regency push-up effect, and made the gussets themselves a bit larger by using a 1/2 inch seam allowance instead of 3/4 inch. After a try-on, I found that I needed a bit more room in the upper half, so I ripped out the seams and re-sewed them using only a 1/4 inch seam, grading it back in to the 1/2 inch seam starting 5 inches from the bottom. And added a 2-inch wide panel in the center front. Also had to add 3 inches to the strap length. The final toile fits suprisingly well and is very comfortable. I’ll get some heavy cloth for a real one soon, and that’ll be a great foundation for my regency dresses and my soon-to-come 1830 and 1910 dresses :)

Sept 04 — Here’s a photo of Chloe in her beautiful regency dress. This morning I updated my crafts page so you can read all about it there. We made it this summer while she was visiting. I _highly_ recommend the pattern we used — sensibility.com regency dress pattern.

Yesterday I worked in my Flash book a lot! I’m getting better at it, and make fewer goofy mistakes now that I’ve done some of the exercises three times :)

This afternoon we went to the fabric store and i got some fabulous bargains at the Labor day sale. I got 5 yards of lovely blue plaid cotton for a dress($1.50/yard), a yard of cheery green printed plaid with little red flowers in the spaces for a hat ($2/yard), and a couple of yards of cotton flannel, white with little blue flowers, for pajama pants ($1/yard). Bargains galore! I washed it all and ironed it dry, and then made my hat using the wild ginger pattern generator . It’s very cute — all I need is some wire for the brim. Photos soon.

Sept 03 — It’s Friday, and Dan has the day off! We drove Henry down to San Diego in the morning, and then on the way back we went to Fry’s and exchanged my intuos tablet for a graphire tablet (I decided the intuos was more tablet than I needed) and a really nice 4-quart crock-pot that I’ve been wanting. Hoping to be able to have a hot dinner waiting on nights when I get home late. We also went to the fabric store on the way back from fixing Dad’s dinner, and Dan bought me a $50 gift card there so I can pick out whatever fabrics I want, whenever the desire strikes me :) A lovely present!! Tonight we finished the first Wives and Daughters dvd. Lovely, from beginning to end. I do wonder if it is confusing for people who have not read the book (or have someone next to them on the sofa who has), as it is a complicated and deep story and the movie moves along reather fast. I am in love with all of Molly’s gowns and am longing to make some lovely little plaid dresses for myself! Luckily sensibility.com has a pattern based on the gowns from this era! I like the v-neck, button front styles a lot. I think with a short, plain sleeve and a mid-calf skirt it’d be modern enough for everyday wear.

Sept 02 — Happy birthday to Ken, my wonderful brother!

Sept 01 — Wednesday. Received the first dvd of “Wives and Daughters” from Greencine (we love you, Greencine!) and watched the first 1/2 hour before bed. It was perfect. The cast is perfect. The costuming is perfect. The adaptation is perfect — yes they’re leaving a lot of things out, but it’s a tremendously long book, and they’re skipping reasonable things. I can hardly wait to watch a little more tomorrow!