The Urban Princess Dress

So after sewing my first halter dress I went looking on the internet for more free dress patterns to try out. The Urban Princess Dress on Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom caught my eye because it looked fairly easy for a novice seamstress and it had a nice generous skirt that I thought my daughter would love. My daughter chose this Valentine's Day fabric from the quilting section of Joanne Fabrics (on sale!) and I bought some wide pink elastic. I went to a local retail store and found a fun purple tank top with sequins to bring out the purple in the hearts on the skirt. It turned out pretty well and it's one of my daughter's favorite dresses to wear. The hardest thing to sew on this dress is the elastic around the waist!

Adventures in Sewing

In the fall of 2013 I decided to conquer my fear of sewing machines. I know...it sounds weird. I had always been afraid of them. Couple that with not being very awesome at measuring or cutting things and it really didn't seem like something I'd be even remotely good at. The reason I ended up tackling this fear is because I wanted to run a Halloween race in costume. I got it into my head that I wanted to be the DC Superhero Raven...why? I'm still not sure but I liked the costume possibilities. So I set out to buy a cape...or have a friend make a cape just like hers. You see Raven's cape has a beaked overhang on the hood. Of course no one makes an adult Raven costume...I'm still not sure why and my friend who makes costumes was booked (of course I was doing this last minute). So I bought some fabric and hauled out my crappy hobby sewing machine and set to work following this Cape Tutorial with a little modification for the hood and wound up with this

It was pretty amazing to run in a long cape like that...I had a great race and really enjoyed the fruits of my labor.
So after that I was hooked. I decided to tackle a dress for my daughter's 4th birthday. I mean why not? I purchased a dress pattern Simplicity Sewing Pattern 2463 Child's Special Occasion, AA (3-4-5-6) and procrastinated until my Mom was in town the week before my daughter's birthday party...I don't really recommend this approach! She helped me navigate my first pattern and with a modification to keep our sanity...(I decided to skip the tulle overskirt) the dress turned out pretty nice and best of all my daughter was delighted.

So that all leads up to my latest sewing project...a halter dress for my daughter to wear this summer. She's a big fan of halter dresses and I had a bunch of fabric that was sitting around unused. So when I found this pattern and tutorial for the Ava Rose Halter Dress  I thought what the heck...let's give it a try. Of course this was me flying solo this time...my Mom is back home in Sunny Florida and I'm fighting off the Minnesota winter doldrums by sewing summer dresses :) This is the end result...I'm pretty pleased with it and my daughter adores it. I made the skirt longer than the tutorial calls for because my daughter loves long skirts. I also left off the ruffle because the fabric had a nice pattern along the bottom that I wanted to keep as is.

I think I've conquered my fear of sewing along with measuring and cutting fabric...I can't wait to start on my next project!

The Great Vegetable Challenge, my 2011 resolution

So in the last few years I've skipped making solid New Year's resolutions because I typically don't accomplish too many of them. This year I decided to keep it simple. I will eat more vegetables. Why? Oh the reasons are many...I don't eat enough fruits and vegetables, I'm attempting to lose weight, and I want to be a healthy role model for my almost 9 month old daughter. So how have I been doing? Pretty good I think, I've been taking carrot sticks and apples for snacks to work, I try to incorporate a serving of vegetables into my lunch and dinner. Overall I'm getting four servings of vegetables a day...yes I know we're supposed to have five but I still give myself credit for upping that from 1. So far I've noticed that my stomach feels better...I have GERD. I am not as hungry during the day while I'm at work so I'm avoiding bad snacking. So the challenge continues...oh yeah and I've lost four pounds this month...not a bad side effect from a simple resolution!

Date Night....a waste of a good date night....

So I saw this movie at a drive in theater tonight. Luckily it was one of three films showing tonight or I'd probably want a refund. Sorry guys...but Date Night was a one dimensional, formulaic, wanna be comedy that reminded me of why I still think they should cancel Saturday Night Live...I don't know where to begin when talking about the problems with this movie. The plot had some potential but the writing just fell flat. Tina Fey and Steve Carell....well they played themselves or their standard characters. I didn't buy them as a married couple and I felt like I was watching Tina Fey's character from 30 Rock opposite Steve Carell's character from the Office. There were several points in the movie that I felt like...wow that could have been hilarious...but it kept missing the mark. I was disappointed to say the least. Honestly, I think the highlight of this film for me was a scene where two cars are stuck together during a police chase. So...save your money and go see a really good film.

I'm tired of network television canceling my shows

Another one bites the dust...so ABC canceled Ugly Betty...I've been a loyal fan for years now and now they're canceling another show I've enjoyed quite a bit...the forgotten. I'm really glad the forgotten had enough notice to be able to wrap up their ongoing story line about Alex's missing daughter in last night's episode though...it really sucks when they cancel shows mid season and there's no time to wrap up any story lines and it keeps you hanging...wondering what happened to that favorite character of yours or where would the writers have taken this story line...that happened with Studio 60 a few years ago. I'm not sure where I'm going with this blog post, except that I'm putting networks on notice...I am a 36 year old woman and I do not watch reality television but I do watch the majority of my shows on network television...if you're going to continue canceling the shows I do watch you're going to lose my viewership, end of story. I tend to follow through on using my consumerism to make my point--for example...I received atrocious service at a Denny's restaurant in 1997 and haven't set foot in another Denny's since then. I know it seems like a drop in the bucket...I mean Denny's doesn't know who I am...but they're also losing out on my business...I won't meet friends there, I won't suggest going there, and I certainly won't recommend them to anyone else. I guess my point is, I choose how to spend my time and money by being a conscious consumer and I hope others will join me. I also have hope for the future...that reality television will be a bygone fad along with wearing your pants around your knees...seriously? I don't want to see your boxers, pull up your pants!

Odd job...

So in my previous post I wrote about being a test subject for new medications. That is one way I made some extra money in my younger days. I was also a participant in the University of Minnesota's odor lab. Yep, you read that right, I smelled stuff for some extra money. It sounds really strange and I'm not entirely sure what possessed me to even give it a shot, but I was attending the St. Paul campus and saw a flier for the odor lab promising a decent wage for four hours of my time. So I figured, what the heck I'll check it out. The first thing they had me do was go through a training. I had to smell different samples contained in petrie dishes and mark them on a scale of 1 to 10 as to how odorous they were. Then I moved onto the smelling machine or olfactometer. Basically a technician put an air sample bag onto a machine and I breathed in the air and rated how strong and how pleasing or displeasing this air sample was. I found out while doing this that I met the European Standard EN 13725 which means I can detect n-butanol in very small quantities (One EROM evaporated in 1 m3 of neutral air is the standard olfactory stimulus, equivalent to 1 European odour unit: 1 ouE/m3 for those science geeks out there). So what on Earth was I smelling? Well the unit I was working with was mostly interested in agricultural waste...yep you guessed it, I was smelling air samples taken at farms for pigs, cows, chickens, etc. Overall, it was quite a gig and really not such a bad deal. I also made a good friend out of the job, although so far I haven't added this position to my resume, nor have I found a good way to make use of my European standard smelling abilities beyond that job. I figure it's a good story for my grandchildren someday though.

My life as a guinea pig...

Nope, I wasn't a small, caged, animal that squeaks and grunts but back in my younger days I was a test subject for asthma and allergy medicines. I know...why would you do such a thing? Well, I needed some extra money (these studies can pay close to $200 for 4 hours of your time in some cases) and I have asthma and allergies and it's really in my best interest to have newer medications available. I don't regret participating in these studies at all. One of them required that I sit in a park for half a day, hanging out with other strangers and documenting my allergy symptoms...not really a big deal. Another one of them required that I use a nasal spray once a day and record any symptoms in a special journal, that one lasted a few weeks. I found out about these studies by signing up through a reputable testing firm located in downtown Minneapolis. So if you're wondering, what type of people participate in this type of thing, I am one of them.