One of My Favorite Sites

I love to sew. My mother taught my when I was about 8 or 10, and I've been sewing ever since. It is one of the most valuable things she has taught me (and she's taught me a lot!).

My favorite sewing site is Sense and Sensibility, which is a pattern company. Jennie Chancey, the owner, sells historically inspired (and accurate) patterns for several different eras. I've used several of her patterns. The Regency dress, of course, is the one I've used the most, but I've also made items from her Edwardian apron, the Romantic era pattern, and the Regency Spencer. I love her directions - they make it seem like Jennie is right there, looking over your shoulder, and anticipating your questions before you ask them. Her patterns are the ones that Simplicity produced for their Regency patterns, too!

Now she's got a new deal - e-patterns! For a small fee, you can download some of her patterns and print out the pieces yourself! How cool is that?! Now you don't have to pay for shipping, and you don't have to wait for the pattern to come in the mail. Here's the link to her site and the e-patterns: http://www.sensibility.com/pattern/main/?page_id=50

I have recommended her Regency gown pattern many times to people who wanted to have dresses of that style, and now I think it is great that there is such an easy way to have her patterns in hand very quickly. It was funny a year or so ago to go see a local stage production of Pride and Prejudice and notice very quickly that the women were all wearing dresses made from Jennie's patterns!

One of the other great things about Jennie's site is that she has a fabulous forum. I check out the discussion boards almost every day, and have 'met' many nice women there. They are sew helpful with any sewing questions, whether they are historical in nature as well, and they are so very knowledgeable! It is like The Republic of Pemberley in that there are no arguments, no flaming, and it's all child friendly. In fact, there are some young women on that website that are more capable seamstresses than I'll ever be!

Go check it out! :-)

Veterans' Day

Thank you, to all of you who have served our country and helped protect our freedom. I appreciate you more than I can say.

Ever have those times when you have lots of things you want and need to get done but can't seem to summon the energy or the motivation to actually DO them? That's my problem today. I had a nice lie in this morning (I didn't really sleep that late, but I did stay in bed quite late), and I should have felt quite rested and ready for the day. But, nah. Why not hang around online for awhile? Why not catch up on all the blogs I read? Why not fool around on Facebook for a bit? That's been my day so far. Then, if I don't get much done today, I'll probably beat myself up about it tonight when I'm getting clothes ready for the rest of the week and making sure things are ready to go for the morning.

It's been nice having a long weekend, and the parent teacher conferences went well yesterday (both kids are doing well in school), and the bookfair is all set up and so forth. But I'm still struggling to get more of a routine established. I thought I was doing well to get some laundry done last night, but then DH told me this morning that the drier isn't working. I shall have to call a friend to see if I can throw a load of wet laundry into her dryer today....

OK, I'm really going to go to something now. Yep, I'm going. No, seriously, I am.

In a minute.

One of these days

One of these days I'm going to figure out how to post pictures on here, and then I'm going to bore you to death with projects I've done and so forth. I think I could probably do it without too much trouble. I have, after all, posted pictures on websites. I've even posted pictures on my own long-un-updated website.

Perhaps I'm just too lazy.

Or just too tired.

But one of these days I'm going to do it.

Moose Alley

Little Bug and I saw a moose last night!

We were on the way to Girl Scouts and were running a bit behind, but boy am I glad we were! We wouldn't have seen it otherwise. It was just starting to go into the woods on the left side of the road we were turning onto, and then it turned around and when back across the road and into the woods on the right side of the road. Very cool.

This is the first time I've seen a moose in the wild. I've seen one at the Maine Wild Animal Park, but not like this!

I feel like a real New Hampshire-ite now! lol!