Eighth day of Christmas

The eighth day of Christmas was Sydney’s last day of school before winter break.  It ended with a basketball game.  The freshman team won and the junior varsity team won and the varsity team lost in the last 40 seconds because they tried to run a fancy play to run down the clock and score at the last second to break a tie and it backfired and they gave the ball to the other team and lost it in the last 2 seconds by one basket and a free-throw from a foul they made during the skirmish.

Whoo-doggies, was my butt sore after sitting in the bleachers for 5 hours.  During the freshman game, the referees were signing in and leaning over the writing part of the desk I was sitting at, selling tickets.  The extra pressure was enough to collapse the front legs of the desk and the lock box crashed to the floor and everyone looked and I was trying to lean back in this desk to keep the writing surface from collapsing onto my knees.  Thank goodness the $3 in quarters somone paid with did not go skittering across the basketball court.

It is always something with me at girl’s basketball. 

Oh, and at one point, I looked up and the ball was headed right for my face and a girl that weighed twice as much as I do was barrelling down on me after it.  Fortunately, I got me and my stuff out of the way, just in the knick of time, before she crashed into the wall at my right side.  No one was injured, but my heart sure did race for a second.  It was like finding myself parked on the tracks while train was coming.

I got Bonnie’s clue and decided to spend half my sewing time this morning working on it and half, trying to learn to hem a women’s skirt.  Seems that should be so easy.  But, the fact that the part I’m folding under is more fabric than what I’m attaching it to is giving me fits.  I will get it, but this is why it’s so important for me to practice now.  One day, she’s going to want me to make her something special and I don’t want to be figuring out hems when that time comes.

During my Easy Street time, I went through my bin of 2” squares and I found…

three.

And, I’d already exhausted my 2” strips.  So this morning, I’m cutting 2” strips from yardage and then sub cutting them into squares. 

I am going to deviate from Bonnie’s instructions just a bit, tho.  I’m not going to mark the diagonal lines on all those purple squares.  I’m trying a technique I saw someone else doing, but I don’t remember who or where, so if it was you, then please speak up and offer feedback. 

Here’s proof that this way does work.  One down, a boatload to go.

I took a sticky note and drew a line on it and lined that up with my sewing machine needle.  (the seam guide is just to make it lay flat because the sticky part is actually on my sewing machine cabinet)

I’ll lay my purple square on my turq square and line one corner up with the needle and line the other corner up with the drawn line. 

As I feed the fabric through, I’ll keep that near corner right on the drawn line, all the way across the diagonal of the purple square.  It worked perfect and all I had to do was trim off the extra fabric, leaving a quarter inch seam allowance.

 

Easy-peasy-rockin’-weasy.

Unfortunately, I did not get very many purple squares cut and I used both of my 3.5” turq squares that I found in my bin in this test, so all those will have to be cut, too.

In the meantime, I’ll be figuring out hems.  Men’s clothes make so much more sense.

Be well.  Have a great Friday.  After today, I am on Christmas break, too.

Lane