Sewing Again

I got some sewing in again today. I can tell school is winding down. Today I made a skirt for Lorissa. It was going to have a zipper, but I changed my mind and made it with an elastic waist band. I really love this fabric so it was fun to work on. The sewing machine gave me some problems so I cleaned out a bunch of fuzz and re-threaded it and it worked better.

Some sewing tips from an infrequent seamstress: use good thread, make sure you thread machine correctly, iron as you go, take your time, take breaks, and pin things carefully.

Sewing Costume Accessories

Keith needs a costume for work on Thursday. He is going as Professor Henry Jones from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. After a search at several thrift stores, family, and friends we scored a tweed coat from Ed. I decided to sew a bowtie and hat. For the bow tie I got a pattern off the Internet and made a batwing style bow tie. I got a 99 cent McCalls pattern for a woman's hat, that worked perfectly. I am glad I got a pattern, it had some good sewing tips that made the sewing much easier.

California Oranges

It is such a pleasure to wake up and smell the orange blossoms. It is amazing that the five small citrus trees in our yard can counteract the usual dairy smell that we have around here. The blossoms are also beautiful.

Sewing Skirts

I have had some fun sewing for Lorissa and Renee. I made each of them a skirt using a homemade pattern. I like the style but it does require some changes as you go. We only bought one yard of fabric per skirt and that was a bit skimpy to easily cut them out, but it worked. I also need the girls handy so I can get it to fit right. Fabric prices are somewhat reasonable if it is on sale or if you have a coupon for JoAnns. It is hard to find good dresses and skirts in the stores. Got any good pattern sugestions for summer dresses that are easy to sew?

First Swim of the Season

Keith loves to swim so much that he had to try the pool out on March 12. The air temerature was around 70 degrees and the water was a refreshing 60 degrees.

Homeschooling

Here is Nathan busy reading literature for school. This loveseat is his spot for doing his school work. Isn't that a comfortable way to get your schoolwork done?Lorissa and Nathan are taking chemistry this year, so that involves doing some experiments. Sometimes we sort of have to make do with our lab equipment. We needed two test tube this week so champagne glasses were the best thing we could think of. The left glass has water and salt, the right glass has vegetable oil and salt. This was to see what happens when you put an ionic compound in a polar covalent and a purely covalent substance.

World Ag Expo 2009

We attended the World Ag Expo, commonly known as the Farm Show, in Tulare for three days. A large amount of that time was volunteering for the Love, INC. concession stand assembling burgers, making and selling popcorn and cotton candy, or taking customer orders. We did some walking around and saw most of the new products and technology. It is interesting to see the amount of science that goes into agriculture.
Keith drove a Toyota Sequoia around their test drive course. He was impressed with the SUV's handling but disappointed with the gas mileage (14mpg /city, 19 mpg/ highway) and price ($55,000 fully loaded).
The view from the top of the hill.

We all got a T-shirt from Massey-Ferguson that says " Nobody loves the earth more than a farmer."

We gathered a herd of squishy cows for Janine to give to the city kids at college who were wondering how many "squeezy things" a cow has.

Here is more of the loot we gathered. We should have enough pens and pencils for another year!