Even though Julius doesn’t really talk much, he is so much easier to communicate with now. He seems to understand what we say a lot of the time and frequently will help me accomplish tasks like, bringing his bottle to the dishwasher to be washed, cleaning up the toilet paper he has ripped into bits or picking up the pile of items he has thrown all over the floor. He is a destructive but repentant force.
I’ve started playing hide and seek with him and he usually loves it. Well mostly I hide and he “seeks”. He’s actually quite good at it! I think it originally started as chase, but then I started hiding around corners and he would tentatively hunt for me. The most impressive instance was the time when he found me in the closet with no hints. He must have heard the door close! Usually I have to cough a few times to lead him my direction…
Well the new year is bringing lots of new craft and food project ideas to the Colton household. You may remember that I used to do Hawaiian shirt day every Friday at work in the summers which morphed into “Fancy Friday” though I was the only one that really observed Fancy Friday. Eventually my co-workers agreed to do “Flannel Friday” with me in the fall and we got a pretty big group going wearing flannel and looking like hipsters. A new co-worker joined our group and now we’ve migrated from Flannel Friday to Fun Friday. A small group of us pick the attire for our team (around 100 people) to wear to work every week.
I think most people initially thought we were crazy, but around the holidays we held an ugly sweater Friday and people really got into it. My manager, who is extremely fashionable, got a lot of grief because she wore a very trendy sweater on ugly sweater day while the rest of us looked like hot garbage. To make up for her blunder, she was shamed into leaving work and driving to Walmart to buy the ugliest sweater she could find. She came back with the most hideous invention I saw that day – complete with cats and LEDs. Off record I think she won the contest. Officially though, she opted out of the contest because she had to attend a meeting with my 4th level manager. I’m proud to say she wore the sweater.
Julius LOVED my sweater. My sweater, also from Walmart, featured half of a stuffed unicorn (the front half) glued to a polyester sweater. He kept hugging the unicorn and flipping the sweater over to find (without avail) the unicorn’s other half. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t make the sweater, but after seeing it I didn’t think it was top-able. (Though I apparently hadn’t seen the cat sweater.) This month is a bit tamer in terms of fashion, but I ordered some fabric specifically for the Fun Friday at the end of the month. You’ll have to wait to see the fabric, but I’ve created what I think is a neat underskirt to add a little extra flair to any full skirt or little black dress you own. The neat part is that the tulle portion is interchangeable!
Interchangeable Tulle Petticoat
What you’ll need:
- 2.5 yards of medium weight linen or other breathable fabric
- 3 yards of tulle
- 16 to 18 sets of snaps
- 1 yard of 1.5″ wide elastic (mine was recycled from a pair of Will’s boxers…)
- Simplicity Pattern 1459 K5* or pattern here if you are size 4/6
*I used this Simplicity pattern as my basis – I’m a size US 4/6 so if you need another size you’ll have to follow my instructions to modify the pattern.
**Pictures and pattern will be posted 1/16/19! Please stop back!
- Measure the distance from your waist to your knee and subtract 5″. Take piece 8 from the Simplicity pattern (or pattern above)and shorten pattern to the length you calculated.
- Cut out 4 pieces of linen from pattern.
- Pin pieces together at sides and stitch 1/4″ from the unfinished edge. Trim seam to 1/8″. Repeat for all 4 seams.
- Press each seam so the unfinished edge is on the inside. Stitch 1/4″ from fold. This is called a French seam and prevents the unfinished edge from unraveling. Press seam to one side. Repeat step 4 for other 3 seams.
- Measure your waist and cut your elastic 1/2″ shorter than your waist length.
- Pin the ends of the elastic together and serge along edge. Optional: open seam out and coverstitch over serged edge to make it lie flat.
- Mark along the edge of the edge of the elastic at 8 equidistant points by pressing flat then folding in half and in half again and marking at all the folds.
- At the waistband portion of the skirt (the narrower pattern pieces) mark the middle of each panel and each fold, forming 8 marks total.
- Pin the elastic to the waistband portion of the skirt, right sides together, matching marks. With the elastic unstretched, the linen material will have a large amount of excess. Simply roughly pleat that to match the width of the unstretched portion of elastic.
- Serge the elastic and linen together, working from one set of markings to another at a time. Stretch each section before you serge it, letting the excess linen material that you pleated stretch to form a narrower pleat. Repeat for the whole skirt.
- Turn right sides out. Press.
- Try on the skirt, it should be about 5″ above your knees, if not, cut the hem down until it is 5″ above your knee.
- Hem the bottom of the skirt with a 1/2″ rolled hem.
- Insert snaps along the bottom of the skirt at 6″ intervals, alternating male and female snap connectors. (Should be about 16 snaps).
- Cut 16’x3 yd strip of tulle.
- Cut a 1.5″x3 yd strip of linen.
- Fold tulle in half.Pin a strip of linen to the tulle, with the raw side of the linen lined up with the fold.
- Serge the edge.
- Form a rolled hem around the serged edge. Pin & stitch.
- Insert snaps along the hem you just created at 6″ intervals, alternating male and female.
- Repeat steps 15 to 20 for all colors of tulle desired!
To wear, snap tulle to skirt and put dress or skirt over!
