More My Space Pics

I sat down to do this last night and fell asleep before I found my first photo. That would have been okay if I hadn't woken up at midnight and flopped around until 2. So, here you go, just a little late. These pictures were taken from the loft area, looking down on the living area. Much smaller spaces than we used to have. And for you sewers, I made the lovely coffee table cover out of some home dec from Hancocks, the same as I used to cover the icky black plastic dining room chairs - not really visable in the "arial" photo, but you can see them in the table view. You can also see that I need to go wine shopping, I'm dangerously low, apparently! In fact, the more I look at that photo, the more worried I get, the one on the bottom is empty, I just liked the bottle - it was some sticky sweet goo from Romania, but the bottle was interesting. This simply won't do.

I started working on my Advanced Beginner Competition skill last night. I cut out the front of the pattern from an old shirt of W's that ripped - fabric is a pretty good match to the one I'll be using - remember this is also one of the garments for the JCC, so I have it picked out already. I did one side as per pattern directions and put pintucks in the other side. I like the look of the tucks, actually from the "wrong" side better than right side, but I need room to put more in: 1/4 inch per tuck, 3 tucks = 3/4 inch. The called for dart requires 2 1/4 inches, so I need 7 more? I just don't think I can make that work, I don't want to slash and add fabric. Sew.... next trial will be to make my 20 total across the entire front and see if I get a good proportion - you know, that seems like a lot, I need to recheck my math. If that fails, maybe I'll just do PT's in lieu of the waist darts. I needed some extra "take in" there anyway. I'll try to get some photos up of these attempts this weekend. I'm using the pintuck foot from my Singer 201 on my Pfaff, I may switch to the Singer for these stitches, the feed dogs are better spaced for the foot, I think. I'm wondering if I should make the tucks with a contrasting or coodinating rather than matching thread? Again, a couple of trials should answer this.
I need a dress for a company event, in Florida, in 2 weeks. I stopped at Ann Taylor at Union Station yesterday, only one possible and not even close to my size. I did find some other niceties on sale including some really beautiful white slacks. Now, Zoubida, if you're looking, I'm going to try really, really hard NOT to spill ketchup or mustard - or any other condiment - on them. I wonder how black dog hair will fair? Couple of other nice summery tops to take with us, we're going to spend a couple of extra days down there. Looking forward to this - I haven't been in Florida in 5 years or so? Maybe play some golf, find the beach, drink Margaritas, get sunburned. Ahhh. Now how did I get from a cocktail dress to margaritas on the beach? Hmmm. But I still need a dress and those skills are just above mine, I'm afraid. Though I do keep tracking back to a Laura Ashley pattern and my very stiff Anna Sui fabric. I may still give that a shot. It's sleeveless, not black, slim fitting.... We'll see.