A Little of This, a Little of That

Big shout outs to those of you who emailed me or made comments and shared about the Thundershirts Thundershirt on Amazon for Sam.  It reminded me of watching the movie Temple Grandin (hope you see it if you haven't already) and her discovery that animals are less frightened when they feel constrained around the torso.  I'll give the shirt a shot since there's a money back guarantee.  Thanks for such useful advice.  I know there are a bunch of other animal lovers out there who don't want to see our pets suffer if they don't have to.

Simplicity 2603

Continuing my month of pictures, here are two Me Made May outfits for the day.  It was warm and humid this afternoon so I wore my Simplicity 2603 top for my exercise walk.  (That's my ipod I'm holding and hoping that the automatic timer will work on the camera posed on top of a box....yes, there's a tripod coming from Amazon next week.)  

Pamela's Patterns Magic Pencil Skirt

Here's dinner with friends at a local Indian and Nepalese restaurant.  Fun and delicious time together and I'm wearing one of my many Pamela's Patterns Magic Pencil skirts.  


In between a visit to the dog park and having FL condo board business to conduct long distance I did get in some actual sewing time also.  I finally cut out the lining for a tweed jacket I started at the January sewing retreat.  I attached the patch pockets using a technique from Louise Cutting in Threads 121, the wonderful Chanel jacket issue.  
Cut and interface the patch pocket.  Iron down the top hem and then baste (she suggest gluing with Steam a Seam 2) the patch pocket onto the jacket front.  There's no lining to the pocket, just that fusible interfacing.  

Can you see the pocket?

That's the pocket basted in place on the jacket front.  Without a lining or seam allowance it lays very flat on the surface of the jacket.

Cut 1" bias strips of the fashion fabric, in my case a silk, rayon and cotton tweed.  Curve the bias strip right along the seam allowance of the pocket.  Stitich in place with two lines of stitching 1/8 apart down the center of the bias strip.

left side unfluffed, right side fluffed

Use an old toothbrush to fluff up the edges of the fashion fabric bias strip.

Finished pocket in place, still flat but with the raw edge texture that I like so much.  

Both pockets sewn to the jacket front.

I also spent about an hour today finishing this very interesting book.  This is the sequel to Lisa See's previous novel, Shanghai Girls.  In this one the young daughter, Joy, is angry at her mother and aunt for a long time secret about her birth and runs away to become a supporter of the Chinese revolution.  It's full of drama and historical details about China in the early days of the communist revolution.  Highly readable and quite educational as well.  
Now I'm calling it a night and settling in with Season 3 of HBO's In Treatment series and a glass of wine.  I just started a Netflix DVD trial subscription and I can see how dangerous that queue list is.  I've already added some British and Canadian TV series to my lists.  I'm missing Mr. Lucky tonight but he's doing a good thing visiting with his family.  
Here's hoping you have good things in your life this weekend.