The Dog in the Mouse's House

While on vacation, we stopped at Wal-mart to pick up a few things and of course, even though I am 2000 plus miles from home, I had to check out the fabric department. To my excitement, left sitting all alone on the clearance rack, the only piece of Christmas fabric left, was about 3 yards of this years Snoopy Christmas fabric. At my local Wal-mart, this Snoopy fabric was completely sold before Thanksgiving. I quickly carried the bolt to the cutting table and ask for every inch. The bolt was marked $1.98/yd, but when the associate scanned the tag it rang up at $0.99/yd. I was even more excited. Still on a high from such a find, I talked my husband into stopping at the next Wal-mart we ran into and bought another 3 yd for $0.99/yd. My only reasoning for this is that when in central Florida, the mouse is king. Don't get me wrong, I like Mickey Mouse as well as many of the Disney characters and movies and even Disneyland and Disneyworld. But my heart belongs to the dog, Snoopy. My husband thinks I am nuts. Of all the souvenirs from Florida that I could choose to pack in the limited space in my suitcase, I chose Snoopy fabric.

The Vacation Shirt

While staring in my closet, deciding what to pack for vacation, I decided that I wanted a new shirt. After finishing the shirt, I could not decided what to embroidery on the front. I debated about not putting anything on it, but since we were on our way to Florida, I decided to adorn the shirt with a manatee. The shirt turned out pretty good, except I had a fight with the interfacing again. I think I will throw away the remainder of that piece of interfacing and buy new. Of course, something had to give me grief because I was hurrying to complete the shirt before we left. The vacation was a blast, and the new shirt was fun to wear.

Send It To Aunt Nita

Pictured are two new shirts for the nephews that come with a little story. My sister had taken her grandkids, the nephews, shopping. (The two little nephews are actually my great nephews, but that makes me feel old, so we will just refer to them as the nephews.) On the shopping trip, they stopped by Joann's where they found this piece of transformer material. The nephews were excited about the transformers, so my sister bought what was left of the bolt. When she asked the nephews what they wanted made from the fabric, the oldest said, "Send it to Aunt Nita. I would like a shirt." This story just thrills my heart. I am so happy that the nephews like the things I sew for them. Upon receiving the fabric, though, I found out that there was not enough fabric for two shirts. So, I dug through my stash and found the Batman print for the younger nephew. (This was ok with the nephews. The younger nephew is by far a larger Batman fan than transformer fan.) I used the same pattern as before, and learn one obvious thing. Except for the previous entry in this blog about the last shirts, I made no other documentation on the pattern about lengths or sizing. So, during construction, I am scratching my head, trying to remember all the modification made to the last shirts. So, lesson learned. By taking a few seconds to write down some notes on a pattern, a lot of precious time can be saved later.