Happy Halloween 2009!!

Happy Halloween!!



Let's go back, back, waaaay back to 2007. Here are the costumes I made that year.

Me, Pirate:


Pete, lion:


I documented the progress of making the lion in its own Flickr album.

We were in Myrtle Beach for Halloween in 2007. Hence the ocean!

This is one of my favorite pictures. Plus, you can see the tail:


I didn't dress up this year for candy distribution (last year I wore the pirate outfit, previous years I was an m&m or Winnie the Pooh (both store bought)), but I did wear my orange shirt from Japan:


I don't know how many trick or treaters I had this year, but I think it might be 40 or 50. There was one group of 10 alone, so it was pretty significant for me. At first I was giving kids 2 or 3 candies each or even 4 if they were kids I knew or ultra-cute, but then I started to run out of candy and then it was just 1 per kid. It was the most trick or treaters I ever had. Then I started to get tired around 7pm, and then it started to rain, so no more! 8 pieces of candy are left over.

It was an incredibly warm Halloween. I went for a walk this afternoon. 70, very windy (it was like it was "snowing" with leaves), humid, cloudy. I didn't bring my camera, but I will tmw. Someone carved a clever pumpkin and I hope it's still there tmw!!

And how did you spend your Halloween??

Happy Birthday to me!

McRib update: My ribs hurt the most while getting out of bed--that is still quite painful. But once I'm up, after about a half hour, things seem to get better and I can breathe without pain. I thought it might be better tonight, so I laid down for a little while--but when I got back up, owwwww....still hurts. a lot. for half an hour. Need to find an easier way to get out of bed.

Enough about that, it's my birthday, woo!

Pete was sweet and made me a cupcake card. Love the style.

Here's the inside:

Love how the exclamation point ends in a cupcake!!

My friend Debbie sent me a package. I haven't opened it yet. Love this outer wrap:


Meg sent me this great flower card:


Plus I had nice greetings from folks at work. One coworker gave me carnations, another gave me almonds and kitchen towels, and a third gave me a neat wooden card and chocolate!!

At my workplace, the person who is having a birthday brings the celebratory items for the office to eat, instead of the other way around. I made two refrigerator cakes last night. Making them was a total comedy of errors (usually it's quite simple), but eating them was fun. They are messy looking cakes (I forgot to take pix) that taste delicious. One of my coworkers said, "what happened to the cake?" when she saw it. I had two people, at separate times, tell me they like the cake but they also like my cookies. Not to fear, I'll bake them for the Thanksgiving buffet at work. One of those coworkers specified that she wanted to make sure I bake them with walnuts. Fear not, I always bake them with walnuts.

Oh! and before work I stumbled on the Simplicity pattern (2618) I was looking for!! I looked at the SPR gallery > saw a jacket > looked at jacket in sewer's flickr album > picture before jacket in flickr album was of their fall wardrobe plan > one of the line drawings in wardrobe plan was the shirt!! > Pattern number was on the drawing > I went to the simplicity site and looked at the pattern. > Went back to SPR and found the original review (linked above) > I found the pattern on ebay for a total of $6 (ok, so it's not the $1 sale at Joann's, but when have I ever spent $1 at Joann's. Exactly). > Already got the confirmation from seller that it was shipped. Can't wait to make it!!!

And my parents are going to buy me a dressform; I just need to select one.

After work I went to the consignment shop. I tried things on but didn't buy anything. I also broke a hanger accidentally. I told the salesclerk and she said it happens all the time.

Project Runway is on tonight but I don't know if I'll make it til 10pm. They do rerun it at 9pm (and 10pm) on Fridays.

Here's a parting shot for tonight. It's a closeup of the final farmer's market flowers for the 2009 season. Farmer's Market, I'll see you next year!!

Simplicity 2558 done???

I sewed on three sets of snaps and three fake buttons tonight after blogging earlier. I dropped the fourth button on the floor and it rolled under my dresser. I heard it hit the wall. It'll be under there for a little while. When I can get it, I might sew it on with a fourth set of snaps.

I'm also not crazy about the hem. Will have to think about what to do with that. But I'm going to wear it to work tomorrow.

I'm in bed now and it wasn't so bad! Maybe I really am getting better???

Pulled pork

So when you google for "pulled rib", a lot of recipes for pulled pork ribs come up near the end of the first page of search results. Not that I'm a big rib eater, but I'm not eating ribs for a long, long time.

Last night was painful. Rolling over was painful. Getting out of bed this morning was painful. Pain pain pain. But somehow, by the middle of the day, I realized I was breathing without pain. Eating isn't too difficult. Transitioning from sitting to standing and vice versa, not so bad. Driving is a bit tiring by the end of my commute. I'm afraid of lying down, though. My goal for tonight is that when I lie down, that will be it for the night. No getting in and out of bed. No trying to roll over a lot. The heat is cranked up so I don't get a chill and tense up.

The pain is feeling like it's travelling the same sort of path like my lumbar pain back in January--only it's an accelerated path. Maybe Len and Karen are right and I'll be mostly out of the woods tmw.

Karen told me last night to call her today, so I called this morning and we chatted. At that point I was still in heaps of pain, but she still seemed adamant that I was going to feel better. She said that by seeing Len and her both yesterday, that now a lot of energy was flowing to that spot and it could be overactive. Don't I have such a nice acupuncturist???

My boss said I could go home if I wanted, but since I could still think, I wanted to be at work doing things, instead of home thinking about my pain. I have a little presentation I'm giving tmw morning. I leave a little early to see Len.

Definitely going to bed early tonight!!! Feeling sleepy. It's only 7:12pm. Jeesh.

Pulled rib

Now I have something new to obsessively google about.

My mid back pain was pretty bad this morning. Getting out of bed was painful, changing the heating settings in my car hurt, just plain breathing hurt. Getting food and water up to my mouth hurt until I figured out that I had to prop my elbows up on the desk!!

Fortunately Len was able to see me this morning at 10:30. He thinks I pulled my rib--from sewing on Saturday! Jeesh. After several painful moves and presses, he was optimistic for my recovery. He thinks I will feel a lot better in 48 hours. He says it's a totally separate injury compared to my lumbar pain. It's not my back, it's my rib! It's a different injury and that is great!! I said, but this pain feels a lot like my lumbar pain felt back in January, especially the "getting worse with time" aspect of it. He said this is acute, not chronic, at least not yet. At one point he told me I will get better and somehow that sent me over the edge and I cried. Len, his wife, and the next patient could hear it, but I couldn't stop myself.

Karen worked me in her schedule for some acupuncture tonight at 5. She had me get into a position, on my side, involving a lot of pillows, which was actually really comfortable once I was in the position. I didn't feel any pain at all in that position, not even lumbar pain. Really wild. But the pillow is stuffed with buckwheat, so my left ear really hurt and my left shoulder was hurting after lying for about 30 minutes on my left side, just from the pressure. Karen said it should be easier for me tonight to be in that position in my own bed since the pillow and bed are softer than the table and buckwheat pillow at the acu office. She also put some needles in my back for the first time ever, and she only put needles in my right foot. She felt all around my back and said she can see the damaged area. I asked, "What does it look like?" and she said when she presses on it, that area turns red and the other areas don't. Anyway, after it was over, I was freezing, and started shivering, and my back tensed up and the rib area started hurting. Gah!! The pain! But once I was in the car I blasted the heat.

Len recommended ice and ibuprofen. At work I took my knee ice pack, covered it with a kitchen towel I keep at work for my ice packs, and then thought about how I was going to hold this ice pack to my back in the right spot. So I shoved it under my bra strap and it did the trick!!!

Pete's handmade birthday card arrived today--I'll post it on my birthday. It's really awesome!

More back pain, update on Simplicity 2558, continued

Don't get freaked out! The spider is fake!!


The sunset over the Stop and Shop tonight:


Here's a tree with yellow and green leaves in my backyard:



So my neck still hurt this morning, but I gave myself a neck rub and it felt a bit better. But now my mid right back is hurting, quite a lot, which hasn't happened before (previously it hurt but not this much). It seems to be getting more painful as the night is wearing on, sigh. My right knee started hurting again after more than a week of no pain at all. Am I ever going to have a day without pain again? Whenever I start having thoughts like that, something pops up in the media--tonight on 60 Minutes it was a story about people with epilepsy. Last week it was a story in Esquire about a guy who can't eat food, and a story in the Star Ledger about a teenager who keeps having concussions. It could always be worse. Of course I want to be pain free, but it could always be worse.

Here's my jacket update. I fixed the sleeve width and length, and fixed the back collar with some tacking. I did the hem, though I don't love it, but I don't want to make it any shorter. I sewed on one set of snaps which is cool, but I probably should have sewn the button on first. Hmmm...will have to play with it a bit more.


With one layer underneath:


With two layers underneath (a long sleeved shirt, and a lined jacket):


Back, collar fixed:


Here you can see the dropped sleeve, it's really tight in there.


Oh, my back hurts. Gah. Maybe Len will see me tmw.

Simplicity 2558, in progress

I slept really well last night, from 10pm-5am, then 5-8am, woo! And then I napped for an hour and a half in the early afternoon.

My throat is getting better, thanks!

Neck is still hurting a bit, but I wonder if that pain was caused by the dilation (tilting head back to get the drops, then awkward position for dr's exam).

I was feeling well enough to cut out and start Simplicity 2558 today.

Here's the general view (it's pinned shut for now):



Here's a close up of the front of the collar:


Here's the back:


The interior edges are "sealed" with bias tape:


So there are 4 things to do with it:
1. Hem it
2. Figure out what to do with the sleeves. They're really wide at the end of the sleeve, you can see that in picture 2 above. I think that might annoy me. Also the sleeves are a little bit too long.
3. Fix the collar in the back. I didn't interface the collar because I thought the fabric was already "meaty" enough. But I think the interfacing would have kept the collar flat. Now it's sort of "bubbling up". Might need to do either some tacking or topstitch the collar.
4. Figure out how to "close" the jacket. I bought some buttons but now I'm not sure about them. Hmm.. Could do buttons but it actually snaps closed. Hmm.

Overall, I am pleased with my progress. It's really coming along.

Am I getting a cold??

So late afternoon yesterday I went to the optometrists to have my eyes dilated with drops, blah blah blah, basically there is an "area of concern" with my right eye but if my glucose numbers are ok and my blood pressure is ok, then the optometrist thinks my eyes are ok too.

Today I saw Len. The good news is my right knee has not hurt for an entire week! The left knee has had minimal pain for an entire week. The bad news is my left lower back flared today, I woke up this morning with one funky feeling throat, the area around my neck is very sore, and I'm having nightly headaches for approx 10 days now. Len spent probably 25 minutes instead of his usual 15 doing all sorts of neck and shoulder things, plus some back things, but no knee things. He also gave me some new exercises to do. He thinks I'm still progressing even though I feel like my back is regressing because it's been flaring more frequently than usual. I just want to get better!!!!

So I'm preparing to take some Airborne and get to bed early. It's been dark and rainy today and is supposed to be dark and rainy tmw. If I feel up to it, I'll sew tmw. Otherwise I will stay in bed and rest for a long time!!

Yesterday was just gorgeous and warm. I miss it already!!

Cute, ugly, or clown? Vote now!

This fabric has been lurking around my stash for a while.



Is it cute, ugly, or clown? Vote now!

I, ahem, went back to Joann's tonight. Even though I said I wouldn't go back for a long, long time, the siren song of this fabric was too strong (and memories of my Columbus Day foray quickly fading). With 50% off coupon in hand, I bought it.


I'm thinking of making Simplicity 2558 with it this weekend, the sleeved version. I have this wild idea that it's going to be easy. Har har har har har. It reminds me of the white winter coat I had when I was 5. As I recall, my parents bought it in Shrewsbury at a children's clothing store. I don't remember why it was white, though. Mom is not a fan of light-colored outerwear. I do recall that the zipper was horrible! My kindergarten teacher thought I was being lazy by not zipping it up, but the reality was adults had difficulty zipping it too.

Thanks (and hello!), Vanessa, for your suggestion for tracking my pain using thecarrot.com. I registered tonight. One drawback is it doesn't distinguish between lower right and lower left back pain in their list of body part choices. So I'll choose some other body part and decide that is the right pain, and the generic back option will be left pain. There's a huge list of stuff that can be tracked with the carrot. I think I might do that and a spreadsheet and then after 2 weeks, decide which method is working better for me.

Guess where I'll be on Dec 15? The (free) Common Causes of Spinal Strain class. Yeah, I know how to party.

I've been working on two work puzzles concurrently. One of them is pretty much done. The other one is still a mystery. I really, really want to solve it, but I'm kind of stuck. What to do? I've gotten some help from my peers at other schools, but none of them are in the same situation I'm tackling. Hmmm..

Oh so much to say

Leaves and needles

I had acupuncture tonight. I told Karen how my acne has come back with a vengeance this past week. She ran down a list of possible causes, and one was "eating more chocolate than usual". I guess I have eaten a lot of chocolate lately, plus Sunday night I had Starbucks hot chocolate, then couldn't get to sleep!! She said Starbucks HC is made with dark choc, which has more caffeine than regular choc. I also told her about my night headaches, which she thinks are hormone related. So she put in needles for my hip/back, knees, kidneys and hormones. The needle that hurt the most was near my right ankle--and continued to hurt for the entire treatment! She said that one is related to kidney function, which she thinks is connected to my acne. She said the good thing about having acne is that you don't really wrinkle because of all the "activity". Interesting. Anyway, I could feel the fluttering even at the top of my head tonight, and some in my right knee. I haven't felt the fluttering in my back in a long time.

So. I don't want to jinx myself but my knees have been doing really really great since Friday, and that was even with it raining all weekend. I'm so proud of them! Except for Sunday my back is doing pretty well too. Originally my goal was to be rid of daily back pain by June 30, then by Labor Day, then my birthday. Well, I'm sneaking up on my birthday and I don't know if the pain will be completely gone by then. Maybe Thanksgiving???

I really want to start up my pain journal again (to find the trends for when my knees hurt or my back flares), but it's so boring. I was thinking, if there was a form I could fill out online each night, that might make it more interesting for me.
I googled but didn't find anything. Maybe that's my money making idea!! Or maybe I should just create my own Survey Monkey survey and take it myself each night? Hmmm. I really don't want to do an Excel spreadsheet, but maybe I have to.

After acu I went to Greene St Consignment shop and bought 2 jackets for work. and a pair of shoes. That store is amazing. It doesn't smell nor look like a consignment shop; instead, it looks like a boutique. I was looking at my receipt later, and it turns out that the 2 jackets were consigned by the same person. Obviously we have the same taste! And it made me wonder who that other person is and what else do they wear...

Have you seen Adrienne's sleeveless jacket? I was thinking about making it this past weekend! I definitely want to make it after seeing her version!!! I want to make mine in pink like hers, hmmm.

For my birthday I'm thinking of having PF Chang's for dinner, then going to see M. Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story. And having Thomas Sweet ice cream for dessert. Or something.

New Look 6815: now puckerless

Mary Nanna hypothesized what was wrong with my shirt facing, so I followed her instructions, but it was still puckered.
Then I thought about what could be the source of the puckering. It was the facing that was puckering, not the collar.
And I realized, when I sewed the front facing to the back facing, I used 3/8 inch seams (because usually the facings don't match up very well for me, so I typically use 3/8 and then stitch 5/8 if it looks like it will work out). So I ripped that out, sewed the facings seam at 5/8, and somehow, that quarter inch (1/8 +1/8) seems to have made all the difference. No more puckering! Hurrah!



Here's the full shirt:


Side view:


Back view:


And the very matchy-matchy buttons I got at Joann's on Monday during their buy-one-get-one free sale:


So I did that all tonight. I had three days in a row off, and I didn't do any sewing til tonight.

Friday was a big day of cleaning, and my back seemed to be ok even though I was much more physical than usual. When Christine arrived Friday night the first words out of her mouth were, "your house is so clean". AND she brought cupcakes from LaBon. YUM! (no pix, though).

Saturday....I thought about sewing but the house was so clean and I didn't want to mess it all up. I went shopping.

Sunday: I woke up and my right back was flaring...finally I took some Aleeve. I'm not sure if Friday set it off or if it was the shopping yesterday or what.

I went for a walk this afternoon and took a lot of pix.

Here's the stream I cross over:



Hydrangea, frozen in time:


Many leaves:


What are these???


I like how my feet are accidentally in the bottom of this picture:



How is it 10:30pm already??? Ugh!!
I'm wide awake now...

What happens when I can't stop typing (long post)

Thanks for your warm wishes about my class!

It all went very well. I experienced a few minor technical difficulties before the class began but found workarounds. The assistant director gave me a fantastic introduction ("she's our most creative staff member...don't expect anything this fun from the rest of us for the remainder of our series of talks...") I liked looking at everyone's faces while they were selecting answers on their remotes: puzzlement or smug satisfaction were the two ends of the spectrum.

The evaluations came back very positive--100% would "strongly agree" that they would recommend my session to a coworker. Most everyone said the part they liked the best about the class was using the iclickers, learning new tricks, seeing the examples or some combination thereof. And it was fun to see how the class answered as a whole. For the last question, 8 people answered a and 8 people answered b. It confirmed just how much confusion there was surrounding that particular topic. So if you teach or train, I highly recommend the iclicker system. Although I didn't use this feature, it does have a way to display at the end who had the most correct answers, which is touted as a motivator for students. But as you know, I gave everyone goodie bags.

MaryNanna hypothesized what went wrong with my jacket/shirt. I'm going to rip out that facing and try it again. We'll see how it goes. She is such a gifted writer and humorist!

Antoinette asked how I use google maps to calculate distances. Here goes my non-screenshot, very laid back tutorial:
a. log on to google with your acct information
b. go to maps.google.com
c. search for your starting point
d. click on the "my maps" link ( a new bar may appear on the left, but I ignore it)
e. in the map itself, you'll get some new icons, one of which looks like a squiggly line (gah, wish i had snag-it installed on my netbook). Click on the arrow on the squiggly line button
f. i select "draw a line" option. if you're jogging along roads, you can do the "draw a line around roads" option. since I go "off road" by crossing a foot bridge, i choose the former.
g. i then click on/near my starting point, then start clicking around my route. it displays the distance.
h. i trace out my whole route, and then click on the point that started my route. it then becomes a full "route". A box pops up on the map, where you can create a name and enter details about your route and save it to your maps. The total distance is also displayed.

Because of it, I discovered;
*most of my neighborhood walks are ~2 miles, but lately I've been doing 2.5 miles
*walking from my desk into town and back during work is a 1 mile trip
*the lightning that struck and destroyed a nearby condo building this past summer? that was only 1/3 of a mile away!!!!

I'm taking tomorrow off. It's raining a lot. I need to stay home and clean up my house because I have a friend staying over tomorrow night. It was a coincidence that I'm taking tmw off. I didn't intentionally take tmw off to clean!

My back has been feeling a lot better this past week--I still have pain but it feels a lot different and a lot "lighter". It's been 9 months so I am grateful for some relief--I now have minutes without back pain. One of my coworkers said I seem "normal" again--she used to pick things up off the floor for me, and she saw me struggle to tie my boots, to point at something on a monitor screen, plug in the computer, and all those kinds of things that I took for granted 9 months and 1 day ago. Now I have been getting headaches at night, though. Last night, it woke me up at 1am. It was one of those pounding, splitting headaches. I broke down and took Aleeve. I went 6 weeks and 2 days without taking Aleeve. Sigh. My knees have good days and bad days but the bad days aren't really so bad.

Are you still reading this? ;)

Parting gifts

Tomorrow I host the "game show" for my class . Here are my "parting gifts", in aggregate:


and here's a blurry close up of one parting gift, consisting of: pretzels, Kit Kat, peanut M&M's, Nestle Crunch, Haribo gummy bears, Reese's peanut butter cup, and a promotional pen.


Don't you wish you were attending my class???

I went for a long walk after work today. Pete showed me a neat feature on Google maps where it calculates distances which is great because I wander all over my neighborhood and the adjacent one, and cross a foot bridge in between the two. Today I walked 2.5 miles post-work, and about a mile during work.

I practiced my intro yet again on my walk. I almost have it down pat. We'll see how it goes tomorrow. When it comes to classes I haven't taught before, I'm a little nervous. When I'm nervous, I try to pretend I'm someone else. Years ago I would pretend I'm Paige Davis from Trading Spaces. Today I sometimes pretended I was Heidi Klum (hello!) or Ted Allen (on Food Detectives, though he usually sounds to me like he's shouting a lot when he narrates).

Sarah and Paul's Wedding

Sarah and Paul's Wedding
Originally uploaded by pwenzel

Gosh that picture is funny. Found it on offbeatbride.com.
Here's my favorite quote from Sarah's profile of her wedding:

My favorite moment was before the wedding at the park as everyone arrived. It wasn't like getting married in a church or something where I was hidden away. I was able to hang out and greet a lot of people.

Their wedding was Sept 2008. Their reception was in their back yard. I love that.

Tonight I went to JoAnn's after work. It was a bit of a zoo. I don't want to go back there for a long long time. But at least I got the buttons for my shirt/jacket. I still need to fix the puckering on that jacket, though. The traffic was bad on the way there and horrible on the way home. Traffic was completely stopped on the way home on Rt 1. Luckily I cut over to Rt 27. Phew.

Back away from the sewing machine

I should really know better--whenever there's a "really simple" pattern I want to make up, it's never "really simple". Today it was New Look 6735, a pattern I made before for the short sleeved shirt, which was also a disaster but I took the sleeves off and called it a "vest". I thought the entire pattern can't be that bad...after all, it's an SPR "best pattern of 2008". I attempted to make the cardigan early this afternoon. I got through the sleeves and the band but from then on it was a comedy of errors. I hadn't cut the cardigan as long as the pattern asked for, because I didn't have enough fabric. I thought it would be ok, but it's a little too short. And overall it's a bit dowdy looking. I tried to make it longer by adding a band on the bottom, but I messed that up and now I'm out of that fabric. And it still would have looked dowdy. Other folks reviewed it on SPR and theirs looked fine. It's times like these that I really question my capabilities as a seamstress and why I even sew. Why not just buy garments at the store and save the time and effort??

Finally I backed away from the sewing machine and went for a walk. It was a beautiful fall day, not cold yet, but not really warm. While I walked I practiced the introduction to the class I'm teaching on Wednesday. I have a series of classes that I continually tweak, but this class on Wednesday is brand new and is in the format of a game show. I have ppts with questions and a choice of answers (a b c d style). The participants each get an "iclicker" which is a remote where they can select their answer. I then display the aggregate responses (how many answered a, how many answered b, etc) and then chat about what the right answer is. It should be fun and will mark my first experience as game show host. Since I've never taught a class quite like that before so I felt I needed to practice the intro. I also walked up to CVS and bought candy as "parting gifts" for the class.

In the shower I thought more about the cardigan--originally I thought that the cardigan is a wadder, but now I might turn it into a bolero style jacket. or one that ties in the front. Hmmm... maybe this garment can be saved!! I guess that's what I've been trying to do more of this year--keep working on the "disaster" until it's something I'd actually wear. There are a few cases (um, Star Trek dress, anyone?) where I think it really is a dead horse.

And of course I will continue to sew--to make the things and tailor the clothes that I can't find in the stores. I just can't assume any project is "simple". And sometimes I need to step away from the machine.

New Look 6815, now in progress

These kinds of shots just happen.

I took a 3 hour nap this afternoon. So when I woke up I was ready to tackle New Look 6815, which I cut out last weekend.

I have wanted to make this shirt ever since I saw Gecko's review of it on SPR back in June 2008. Shannon made it as a dress and topstitched it and added all sorts of details to make it into a safari shirtdress and I thought it was really neat. I only had enough fabric for a shirt, not a dress.

Mine looks so different from hers mostly because I'm not doing any of the detailing that she's done. and I'm not putting on the pockets.

I'm really pleased with most of it and it looks like a jacket to me more than a shirt. It has princess seams and they turned out fine this time, just like the vest I finished recently. I've had such bad experiences with princess seams in the past--maybe this is helping my confidence with that.

It turned out the sleeves were too short! So I made a sleeve band to make them longer.

I need to buy buttons for the shirt. I have black buttons, I have shell buttons, but I didn't like the look of them. So I will buy some green buttons at Joann's.

What is going on with the pucker there near the collar? I can't get it to lie flat on my right side. The left side seems to be fine. I was thinking I could tack it somehow, but that didn't seem to work. I'm not really sure why it's puckering.







And how could I forget? I used Mary Nanna's set in sleeve tutorial and it came out pretty good for my first time ever setting in sleeves that way (though I set mine in flat while using her technique). I think the fact that my fabric had stretch helped.

Cupcakes, anyone? Happy Friday!

Had dinner with friends tonight, and I brought dessert.

Cupcakes from "The House of Cupcakes" anyone?



Though I think our best dessert will always be this one, an ice cream cake from Thomas Sweet:


My back is doing much better today, thanks! The flare subsided so my pain is back to a 1 or 2, and I'm another day closer to 6 weeks without Aleeve.

Also, I agree, the second cloud picture in yesterday's post is much better than the first.

Pix and Simplicity 2633

I took a walk around Princeton after work tonight.

I hate fall. But I like these leaves:


Oh, there's an idea brewing here:


Hello JoyCards:


I don't recall ever seeing this sculpture before:


I'm not sure which one I like better, this one:

or this one:


I finished Simplicity 2633 and wore it to work today. No one asked me if I made it! but no one said anything about it, either.






Here's a close up of the collar. I had to tack it down because it made me look like a clown otherwise. I used pink double fold bias tape to finish off the facing, but in this picture it looks white.

I love that button. It reminds me of buttons on my dad's jackets when I was little.
The collar was supposed to be piped with a zipper, but I piped it with regular piping and I love how that looks too.
I might write the SPR of it now.
My left back decided to flare up tonight and I don't know why. I have the heating pad on--it feels really nice.