Janel Was Here

Pillow for DH's birthday

Example of the kind of NO stress project I like! All the blocks are the same, so it can't possibly go wrong.

the peasant dress pattern comes together

That's how the skirt prints out! Next step is testing.

And one of the dog. Because.

It is real amethyst! Just not gem-quality :-)
I paid $1 for it and it's on my desk now.

I saved the pattern pic in 2004, so it's safe to assume I cut out the dress shortly thereafter. In the dark void between 2004 and now, it lay mostly-finished in a drawer. The only parts not done were the neckline facing and the hem, and the only thing stopping me were a couple of mental blocks. I didn't think it looked very good, I didn't think I could do a facing that would come out right and I knew it needed something but not what.
Well I just dragged it out and finished it. The idea here is to make a neckline facing, not a *perfect* neckline facing. It looks okay, really. And WHAT it needed was some hearts from the cool Pfaff that I didn't have in 2004!!!

Picture cropped at neck because of habitual glum expression. I really got to smile more, like they've been telling me all along. Grumpy's looking worse every year.

Neither of those seams are supposed to be there. One's because I was running out of fabric. One's because I didn't line up the neck facing right. Oh, well. That's no reason to stay in the drawer for the REST of time.

That's a SIDE ZIPPER. Do you see any sign of a zipper? Hahaha, do I rock???

Free handwriting fonts for practicing cursive penmanship

I love the Penmanship Print for making kids tracing sheets! I just went looking for a nice cursive to help the kids learn that (as I'll never buy another School Zone publication again) and there's a really pretty one here, called Learning Curve.

http://desktoppub.about.com/od/freefonts/tp/Free_Handwriting_School_Fonts.htm

Best worksheet site ever

http://themathworksheetsite.com/

I'm over here all the time and print piles of these things for the little guys, like multiplication, telling time, measuring. What a great site for FREE! Some of the ones that want you to pay don't have basic, simple worksheets this useful.

Happy pills

Got my Flash assignments more or less done, see this week's project here,
http://janelwashere.weebly.com/flash-2.html

Yes, Flash is a lot of fun!
But it's hard to do what you're supposed to be doing if your brain's bursting with great ideas for something else.

I've been working on a peasant dress pattern, one that would be right to start with, not have to be adjusted in all kinds of way. Why do commercial patterns always seem to have immense necklines? Half the stuff I make, the neckline has to be raised three inches just so my bra doesn't show. Really why ALTER when you can just start from scratch and then share the pattern on the internet :-)

Got busy with AI. I absolutely totally love AI for making patterns, it's just the greatest thing since candy. I did a little scooting on the raglan pattern I already had (for the spiral dress, before I cut the sections apart) so it would work with neckline elastic, then measured the lower edge, drew two immense circles in AI, and cut a section with the top that measurement.

See that box "document info"? That shows the length of CURVED lines. Makes it super easy to make pieces of fabric fit to each other.

The ruffle's just a square. I wanted to do this this morning so I could go by later and get some $1/yd fabric for testing, but how many yards do I need? NO PROB with Illustrator, just draw a square 44" wide and start arranging copies of the pattern pieces, stretch the square long enough to enclose them all and divide by 36 :-)