Bethjoy.com

In an earlier stage of my sewing I would sometimes construct garments I liked and then humbly beg, request, and implore my mother to let me wear them in public. With one exception that I can think of my mother has always said “No” and not allowed me to wear those specimens of poorly constructed garments and looking back on the subject I’m not surprised.

Having said this I can now get to the point. On Monday I purchased at great expense(which I could do since I’m working in the shop more now) I really, really, really neat computer program. It allows one to type in one’s measurements and create custom fitted gowns, blouses, pants, skirts, and other various articles of attire. I’d been playing around with this program but I hadn’t sewed anything more than one doll dress with it until this evening.

Yesterday I’d purchased while at Walmart a zipper and two yards of fabric with which I intended to make a dress to test my sewing pattern program. As this dress was a test using very hastily and sloppily gathered measurements I chose for the style of the dress a mermaid halter, which being interpreted means a halter top princess seamed dress that goes straight down from the waist until it hits the knees whereupon the skirt flares out. This particular style of dress is usually immodest and I thought completely inappropriate for me to wear. However… I made it. And when I make something for some reason it usually turns out to be morally alright. Which being interpreted means I made sure the neckline was high.

Usually I don’t use a zipper but as this dress was going to be fitted to my measurements with the minimum of ease I purchased a zipper which cost only fifty cents less than the fabric of the dress. Zipper prices are horrendously expensive. $1.50 is rather excessive for a zipper I think but I bought it anyway.

I also, for the fun of it, decided to do something else with this dress I usually didn’t and I made a facing for the blouse instead of just hemming it in my usual way. I did take some care with the construction of the dress and with the cutting thereof but not much more than usual.

Anyway, after making this dress I tired it on and found that, with a few slight alterations I quickly made, it did fit and looked fairly nice however, since it was a halter top, it left my back quite visible and that didn’t work so I went to the closet of out of season clothes and selected a black velvet jacket I’d bought at a thrift store for $3.00 and paired it with the outfit thus increasing the total outfit cost to $6.50.

I would like to point out at this time that usually when I put together an outfit or any two pieces of apparel my mother will generally say that it doesn’t go and it doesn’t match. However, this evening when Mom came back I modeled the outfit for her. I pointed out the zipper which I’d actually put in correctly and used, for the first time, a zipper foot on my sewing machine to do so.

So to get to the point of this post… Mom said I could actually wear that outfit!!! I am almost in a state of shock. This is the first time that I, without any application whatsoever, have been granted permission to wear one of my creations in public. Whether I will wear this dress or not remains to be seen. I love the color and fabric on it but I don’t really like the style and as it is quite fitted in the region of everything above knee level I’m not so sure how sitting down it will be and the black velvet jacket, which is lose, kind of spoils the fitted effect of the dress. But still, it looks quite nice and not at all bad for an evening and $6.50.

So now I’m feeling more inspired and encouraged to design actual clothes I can wear! Which means that I’ll probably go designing them after I finish this post and I am quite pleased and happy with the success of this evening.

First a picture of me and Daniel’s girlfriend. Elephants in the background.

Then a picture of flamingos.

And that’s that for the present moment.

And I also finished the second edit of Princess Alethia of Strylar which is now seventy two pages long and is doing will for a twenty-five day old story. I’m fairly finished with it though I may do a few changes.

Back to the subject of the Zoo. I got to see penguins! And I got to ride the Merry-Go-Round! I enjoy riding merry-go-rounds or carousels as they are sometimes called. I enjoyed a lot of the zoo though I did get kind of tired with all of the standing up but had fun.

This week is not flying by. For me at least. I am looking forward to Saturday. Saturday when the tyranny of the To Do list will end, until Monday, and I can have a nice break and relax, hopefully.

Unfortunately, though it may be rather fun, Mom has scheduled a trip to the zoo this Saturday so I won’t be able to relax through that part of it but hopefully it isn’t that big of a zoo and hopefully it has a gift shop and hopefully it will rain and we’ll stay home. Er, actually I don’t mind going to the zoo. At the moment I’m just tired of working and tired of my challenging to do list. THough I’m about to check something off which is nicee and then I think I’d like a nap. Only I can’t really take a nap right now as I still have quite a few things left on that to do list that I need to get done. So… this post is over.

And I only have a post left to write before I can completely check off my to do list! Isn’t that exciting?

I’m rather tired right now due to a lot more work in the shop than I am accustomed to and I feel like just playing so I’m going to play and let this be enough post for the present.

Been busy I have. Been Lazy I have. Back to posting now hopefully I am. Watched Star Wars Movies I have.

And to get back to normal speech, Friday Emma Grace came over and was very cute. I got to hold her for a long time and I learned the amazing bit of information that babies can sleep with their eyes open! And they seem to breath funny when the dream… I’m going to be learning a lot about babies in the near future I have an idea…

Last week I did something strange and unusual, I worked for over three hours in the shop two days in a row!!! Which is more work than I typically do. I’m trying to change that though. Thsi week I’m going to try to work at least three hours in the shop every day. We’ll see how long that lasts.

I do have a rather challenging to do list to keep up with this week and I’m going to to try hard to do everything on it. As “Write a post” is on it you should be seeing more Updates on Bethjoy.com. Though some might be short. Working in the shop wears me out and I have a lot of room cleaning to do as well. And a lot of writing.

Oh, I got to go Walmart on Saturday which was quite fun. I wandered the clearence aisle, as well as quite a bit of the rest of the store, and I found a game of Narnian Stratego on sale for five dollars due to the box being dinged up a bit. And I found a Darth Vader mask on sale for one dollar and a cool looking squirt gun for another dollar and two other small items of interest. I had a fun time playing the Narnia Stratego game, even though I lost both times to Andrew. Apparently he is going to be the Daniel of Stratego. If you don’t understand that search my website for “Daniel beat me again” and you will doubtless understand.

I think this is a long enough post for now. I have other things to be doing…

On Monday I was invited to come and bring some of my costumes, five dresses was the number agreed on. So I went and brought five dress and three dolls modeling gowns I’d made. I had a fun time and my dresses were admired. Which was quite nice:)

Here is a picture that mom took, it only shows four of the dresses though but it’s a nice picture. I curled my hair for the occasion.

And I went to the thrift store which is why a gown was made today. At the thrift store I purchased a large amount of fabric for a small amount of dollars:) And amongst the fabric I got was about four yards of a stunning silvery satin with black velvet designs on it. Stunning in the extreme it is. So I made a turn of the cetnruy evening gown out of it and here are a few pictures of the dress.

The interesting part about this dress was that I used two patterns, one was for a wizard of Oz dorthy outfit and the other was for a dress with spaghetti straps and a little past knee length skirt. Despite using two paterns I only used four pieces in total so most of the dress was my own design. I had fun making it and posing while Daniel took my picture. And now this post is over because I’m quite tired and I still have quite a bit of writing on my story left to do today.

This week I’m back on a To Do list. And on that to do list is “Write a Post” so I’m writing a post. Today I did many things on my to do list and now I’m about to check off “Write Post”. I still have a few things left to do so I’m going to go ahead and do them so be sure to look at the pictures of Emma Grace.

Emma Grace came over to our house today and soaked up a bit of sun. I suppose “cute” isn’t the correct word but “Cool” might be though she got a little bit warm with all of that sunlight…