Pretty Snazzy Looking Homemade Dress Form

Directions from Threads magazine
Click link above for complete instructions

Sure, you've probably seen a version of a homemade dress form before.  But did it look this great? 

Southern Living Xmas Book is not new!

I have a small collection of Southern Living Cookbooks and Christmas books.  Last night I took out two of the Xmas books, 1999 and 2005 issues.  After looking at them both I realized that I was seeing the same recipes! Then today I purchased 2 of the 2010 Xmas books at Dillard's Department Store.  Guess what?  The same recipes are in the 2010 books too!  I am returning these two books, after all I have the recipes, only the cover was new.  And of course I did not look to see how many recipes are the same but it is fair to say that many are the same in 1999, 2005, and 2010.  These are my last purchases of Southern Living books of any kind.  It really is too bad this used to be a good company.

WARNING!! Fashion TMI

So this has been on my mind since last week when I saw the back cover of a ladies magazine.  The back cover was an advertisement for Fruit of the Loom panties "Don't be embarrassed by panty lines".  When did panty lines become an embarrassment?  Of course, I mean this in the normal course of things--normal clothes with normal underwear with a normal fit with normal people.

See the problem here?  My normal is not your normal maybe.  Actually I am happy to see that people are wearing their panties.  It's the no panties, thong songs, too tight pants, and butt cups that I find disturbing.  And in full disclosure:  I worked at a university and one of my programs was Dress for Success.  Also, I did classroom workshops on Professional Dress, Resume Writing, Interviewing, etc. 

In these workshops I did not address underwear but did talk about "butt cups" meaning your skirt fits too tight and cups under your butt.  I also spoke about "Boobage" not cleavage but "Boobage" meaning you wore something low cut to a job interview, showed your taa taas and behold you are a BOOB!.  Don't show your "boobage" during the day and especially at a job interview.

Back to panty lines.  Panty lines from thong songs means--if I can tell you are wearing thongs, I can see your pants climbing up your butt, your butt dimples, and other TMI. (And I mean if I see your thongs--maybe you have good clothes on and I don't see your secret thrill.) I once worked with a woman (not in higher ed) who wore thongs with her too tight pants, and I could have counted the cellulite dimples on her butt.  She also wore low cut blouses that showed the hair on her chest and did not shave her moustache either. This did not make her a bad person just a person with bad fashion sense and poor grooming habits.

That is the back view from wearing the wrong underwear.  From the front we have the dreaded "camel toe".  Yes, I know, it sounds ugly and makes me cringe.  But please, I don't want to see it let alone have to write about and warn people to beware of this terrible creature.

Then there was the higher education conference I attended.  One of the speakers had on a too thin shirt with a too thin bra and her high beams were on.  I'm sorry were you saying something?  I hated to do it but for the critique on the conference workshop I suggested a change of clothing for the next day without the distracting high beams.  She got the message and wore more appropriate clothing the next day.  Really, I hated, HATED, to do this but not doing anything seemed even worse.

My mother always made sure that I had the appropriate underwear for my outer clothing and sometimes just matching underwear for special occasions.  I had a strapless bra in my early teens for a top that had lace straps.  My mother made that top and the matching jacket too.  For my junior prom I had a beautiful yellow chiffon halter dress and matching long half slip and panties. 

So now that I have convinced you that I am either wearing bloomers or granny panties I will share that they are French High cuts.  They are also hard as heck to find these days.  When I was younger it was bikini panties but those days are over.  I think panties should cover, should contain, and control those things that need controlling, containing, and covering.  Panty lines showing?  This should not be a problem unless the outer clothes are: Too thin, too tight, too short, too. . . .well you get the idea.

So a posting with no photos?  Really?  These are things you don't want to see.

Okkkaay, so maybe NEXT week I can blog

Another trip this week to the doctor for different meds--BLAHH!  I am sick of being sick!

The fews things I did accomplish this week are:

Meeting with the non-profit lady and showing her my work on the database.

Doing my first batch of letters for the non-profit group.

Baking a pound cake.

Baking buttermilk bread.

Bathing Dog #1 early in the week.  Did not feel well enough to manage doing the two on the same day like normal.

Bathing Dog #2 this morning.

And lots of laundry for today so I guess I am off.

Project I hope to get started today--crocheting an afghan for a Christma gift (perhaps, maybe I'll keep it)

Have a great weekend and I hope to have something blog worthy soon.

Maybe next week I can blog

I have been sick and not on the computer except for a couple of days these past two weeks.  It's the usual stuff for this time of year, sore throat, clogged head, etc.  But finally I think I might be getting over this with the help of about 4 bottles of medicine including antobiotics.

The one thing I have accomplished these past two weeks is a lot of reading.  I did take time to post them on Good Reads although I have discovered no talent for writing book reviews.  This is an art that must be learned and there are some sites to help learn this.  Maybe I'll invest a few minutes on that one day.

The only other interesting thing in this house is the high drama dog fights.  In the past two weeks we have had 3 fights!  First fight, Dog #1 had a hole in the butt bite, this is almost healed, fight two, Dog #1 got an ear bitten.  Head bites are always the bloodiest and with her shaking her head our house looked like a crime scene.  Now I need to purchase a new lamp shade since I had to throw one out due to blood speckles all over it--yuck!  Fight three was last night, Dog #1 got a small bite on her side plus a few head bites and Dog #2 got bitten on the area where her front leg meets her chest.  She is sore and walking very slowly today.

It has become clear to me that you could get murdered in our neighborhood and no one would notice.  After all the noise last night from the dog fight no one seemed to notice at all. This is probably a good thing since the Honey ran out of the house in his underware to help me break up the fight. I lost my shoes and jacket during the fight,  Dog #1 lost her collar at some point too and Honey lost his temper :)  I don't know why but I am always calm during these things and follow up immediately with checking dogs for damage once they are separated.  Honey is still cussing and threatening to kill the dogs.

Oh well hopefully things will return to normal next week for all of us.

Cool! I am a beautiful blogger!

WOW!  This is a nice gift from Vanessa at Sew Filled to the Brim.  She is a new sewer and is just beating the pants off of me with her amazing skills.  Go and visit her blog and see the really cute stuff she is making.

So now I have to share 10 things about myself with you.  You are going to love this!

1)  I am a certified cradle robber (old term for the now nasty sounding "Cougar")  My husband was 24 when I met him and I was 30. 

2)  I hate texting, Twitter, Facebook, etc.  Texting just seems like a waste of time--got something to say--say it.  If I have to text it we all be gray headed and toothless before I finish.  Never seen Twitter, only made a Facebook log in because of a request to "Friend" a friend. 

3)  I hate "putting a dress on words".  Why is it if a guy speaks plainly it is ok but women must soft peddle it?  Watch the communication style in your work place and you'll see what I mean.  The guy will say "Do it" and it gets done, the woman has to explain why she wants it done and ask if someone would do.  Don't worry I have studied communications and can put the dress on words but it does not mean I like it.

4) I made some really sturdy lawn furniture several years ago.  Bought a table saw and some lumber, a book and voila!  The stuff lasted about 10 years and one chair may still be in use at the old house--I left it for the new owners. 

5)  My mother drives me nuts!  The older she gets the worse it is.  Everything is a conspiracy.  You might think this is due to her getting old but she has ALWAYS been like this.  I call her a "Southern Belle/Prima Donna" with psychotic tendencies.  But only SBPM to her face which she will usually admit to anyway.  High Drama Mama! 

6)  I am like no one in my family, don't look like them, don't have the same beliefs or values.  I, like many others I am sure, always thought there was a good chance there was a switch at the hospital.  Mother blew that for me when she said there was only one other baby born at the hospital that day and it was Spanish decent. Damn!

7)  I bake an awesome Carrot Cake!  My husband and my best friend both love it.  It is THE requested cake from those who have tried it.

8)  We do the tradition turkey at Thanksgiving but try to mix it up at Xmas.  We have been doing a roast beef with cream horseradish sauce, blue cheese Yorkshire puddings, carrots (from our own garden last year) and other goodies.  I think we will probably change it up this year though.

9)  I used to make fun of people that took there dogs everywhere, talked about their dogs like children, etc.  Now I am those people and I am sure someone is making fun of me out there too.  I don't take them everywhere with me, after all they weigh over 70 pounds each.  But I do love my doggies!

10)  I need to lose 15 pounds.  I love to eat/cook and hate to exercise.  Does anybody see a problem here?

Now I have to pass the beautiful blogger award on to five others:

Jana at http://98redballoons.blogspot.com/
She is still in high school but again this is someone just kicking my butt at sewing. 

Kim at http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/
Very talented and a dog lover too.  She has a great fall table decoration (that I am going to copy), also she has great talent in all things home decor.

Jennifer at http://travisandjennykerr.com/kerrfect/
She just revamped her blog and she is also one of the best read people I know.  And I thought I read alot until I checked out her Goodreads page.  I've got a lot of classic reads to do before I can compete with her for "best read".

HiddenEloise at http://hidenseek.typepad.com/come_out_come_out/
I bought pocket mirrors from her Etsy shop last year for Xmas presents.  She has the most beautiful artwork and it arrives at your home so beautifully packaged too.  Very talented lady!

Kathy at http://littlesewingalcove.blogspot.com/
Another dog lover/seamstress.  Another person who is very talented with her sewing skills too.

So you now have a few tidbits about me.  Maybe you found a bit of yourself in one of those comments too :)

Life interfers with sewing and blogging

I have had to let the blog sit and the sewing sit due to real life interfering with fun life.  I've cleaned house (although I need to start over on that, again), cut the grass, edged the front yard, cleaned the backyard terrace, put up new umbrella (bought on clearance end of summer bargain), cleaned the garage (Honey helped).

Also, I volunteered this past Saturday at a local dinner theatre.  Out of 4000 email requests for help only about 8 people showed up.  This was my first time but since this was a holiday weekend  that probably explains the short list of volunteers.  My job was to paint, and when finished with that, paint some more, and then paint some more.  I was so tired!  I called Honey and requested wine/fruit/cheese/crackers for dinner.  Sweetie ran to town and bought all sorts of yummies for me.

After a shower we watched "Suddenly Last Summer" with Elizabeth Taylor and enjoyed our nice chilled wine. 

Still no sewing to report.  Today's "To Do" list includes washing the two cute dobermans, cutting the back lawn, and I still have work to do on the database for the non-profit.  Good news though--it looks like the small grant we requested for the non-profit is going through. So it's off to work we go  . . .