Saturday, October 20, 2012

Pumpkin time!

It's that time of year again, our annual trek out to Jubilee Farms for pumpkins and trebuchets!

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This year we managed to snag a ride on the horse-drawn hay wagon out to the field:

On a Hayride by *dbvictoria on deviantART

 The munchkin found her perfect pumpkin, long and skinny:
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 This year she wants a ghost pumpkin, we were told. I have more sinister plans, and I needed as round a pumpkin as I could find.

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 We warmed our bellies on tamales and some of the tastiest roasted on the planet.

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 It was rather chilly, although fortunately not raining, so we stayed for just one pumpkin launch and a pony ride.

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 They were down a pony this weekend, as one was feeling a little too frisky apparently.

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 We've been coming to this patch every October for the past 7 years now, and hope to keep doing so when the munchkin is grown and has kids of her own. Always so much fun! The rest of the pictures from the day can be found here.


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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Untwisting my knickers

I was dressing for a skit I was doing last Sunday, an announcement for a charity auction I am co-chairing. It's a Roaring 20s theme, and I was supposed to be a newsboy selling papers. "Extra! Extra! Our auction is only 5 weeks away!" etc, etc.

I have a pair of cheater knickers I made some time ago, which I couldn't find. And even if I had found them, there's a good chance they wouldn't fit anymore, as the little calories that live in your closet and shrink your clothing have been hard at work on my wardrobe this year. I ended up pulling the legs of my pants up inside, doubled up, and tying them off just below the knees with ribbons, which worked fine for that day, but that won't do for events.

This evening, I picked up a pair of slacks at the thrift store. They're a pair of Dockers that were altered for a woman who was ~5' tall, apparently. Knickers, ho!

First, I cut them off at just below my knees:

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Then, I cut the hemmed portion off the remainder of the legs, cut out one of the seams and sized them to my legs just above the calves, with a seam allowance of 1/4" on either end:

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Sewed down the edges of these pieces, then pinned them to the pants legs. There's now a bit of a gather:

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Sewed the cuffs on and topstitched down the seam, and for fasteners I picked out a couple of antiqued silver buttons and made two loops with elastic cord:

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And here you have it:

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This took me about 30 minutes altogether, including the time it took to start my daughter's bedtime shower. Easy peasy!


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