Sister, your description of your cold has me CRINGING at my desk. That's pretty bad, nope, VERY bad. I hope you get better soon, real soon.

I have a few comforters and afghans that my mother has made over the years. I will always treasure those cause I know how much time and effort she put into picking yards, designing or researching patterns, etc. Last year, she gave each of her grandchildren a quilt (she has 9 grandkids). I'm afraid to get them cleaned because I am so afraid that they will get messed up. Do any of you put special insignia or anything on your work to show who made it and what year? My mom does that now but with the older items she's made, I can only guess at when she created them.

Tiki.

Tiki, I sign/date on paintings and sculptures (goddess figurines mostly) but I've never marked my knitted or crocheted things. I did see an ad a while back though for little personalized cloth labels you could buy to stitch onto your knitted things. I might have to pick some of those up for holiday presents this year.

Dawnlizbeth: I've actually never crocheted a square in my life. I learned so differently from most people. I guess the thing about crocheting in the round is that it is more intuitive. Not much counting stiches or anything. If your circle starts closing in too soon, then you add stiches, if you want it to close in you subtract stiches. Getting started is the hardest part. Lemme see if I can describe this: You start off by crocheting a short chain (4-5 stiches), then you attach a stich to the second link, then the third, then the fourth and by this time you'll already be started in a circle so you just keep going. Add a few stiches here and there to keep it flat until you get it a bit wider than you want it (an inch or two), then start taking away stiches. The hat will begin to take shape here. When the opening is the right size for the head it will go on you're finished!

ew that does sound like a nasty cold sister...and tiki i'm sorry to hear about this hard conversation with those girls...i don't even know if i have any words of wisdom...unfortuneately all you can do is show a lot of love and support...wish i had more for you

I went shopping for a skirt yesterday for the opening of Serenity. I wanted something long and A-Line, like a Victorian walking skirt. I ended up getting two because I happened upon on a 70% off sale at Eddie Bauer. One is black cotton velvet and the other is a dark gray wool. One was a size 6 and the other a size 10 and they fit nearly identically. I wish for the seventeenth million time that women's clothes would just go by inches like men's clothes. That way I wouldn't have to take 3 sizes into the dressing room every time. :P

But even men's clothes that are sold by inches vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. My husband can wear a 32 from Old Navy but has to get a 34 in Docker's. Size 34 dress pants from department store menswear departments are a little snug on him!

The men do have it easier in general, but vanity sizing is everywhere. I wear a 10 now and wore an 8 at 160 pounds, but when I was in college 13 years ago I was 125 pounds and wore a size 8. Hmmmm.... I know that a reformation of sizes would mean that I'd end up wearing a 14 or 16 (what I wear in most vintage clothes), but I don't care! I just wish that all clothes sizes were standardized. My biggest beef is when I consult a mail order catalog's size chart, measure myself, order the clothing per the size chart, and it still doesn't fit!!!

Well, I did it! Today I started my new way of eating! IT is the SUnslim diet. Certainly not hungry for sure. I eat 5 meals a day, good food, take my vitamins, and drink plenty of water which makes me go pee all the time. Once I am used to that I will do fine. I am very excited about it. Hope I can stay motivated. Another friend and I started it together and we are accountable to each other, so I think I will be able to really stick with it. Not weighing myself for 6 to eight weeks when I am done with Phase 1. That will be hard to do or rather not do, but they say not to so you will be truely surprised. My scale at home is broken anyway so I would have to go elsewhere anyway to get weighed so that helps. I will keep you informed of how I am doing, feeling etc.
Virginia

Sister M,

I know, Mail order is the worst! I also hate it on ebay when people don't list the measurements and just say "fits like a medium" whose medium??

I guess it's nice to know that the boys don't escape the annoyance either

It is like the comedian that complained about pushy sales clerks and as she was holding up a dress - the clerks says "that will look much better on" and the comedian says "on what? fire?" LOL

Oh for uniform sizing cringe.

Crafty ladies everywhere - if I actually ever finished something I started I would have a crocheted quilt and a patchwork quilt for my bed. I find I am better at projects for other people like when I reapholstered the seats in DH's boat so he could sell it - they turned out awesome and I had to eyeball the shape since the old seats were too messed up to get a good pattern off of.

I am currently planning a teenager (3 14 yo girls) slumber party in my cabin. They get to spend the night up there with no adults and all the candy and junkfood and CD's they can pack up the hill. I need a really good ghost story about the woods to read to them before I leave for the night - and I think I will walk them down to the creek in the dark (semi dark - full moon coming) and tell them the story in the dark under the trees. ooh cant wait. Any ideas for a good spine tingler I can find on the internet? Age appropriate of coarse - no rapists or ax murderers just a good haunting?

Party is this friday.



Later

Oooh okay.. I suck! I haven't posted in awhile and I'm sorry folks! I've been venting a lot on the binge forum because I had a rough couple of weeks.

At any rate, I'm agape at all the crafty ladies we have in here! You all are amazing! I've never been one for cross-stitch or knitting/crochet, etc. but I do love to paint, draw, write poetry, that type of thing. Right now I'm trying to work out a general plot for a book I'm going to write. It's been floating around in my brain for years - bits and pieces coming out and forcing me to write them down on varying scraps of paper, but this time I think I'll actually sit down and piece it together. Easier said than done, but I won't know until I try right? I think that's half the reason I haven't done it earlier - because I was afraid to fail. To put all that work into something only to have a publisher tell you to go to **** is very frightening. But, carpe diem right?

You know, it's so funny that you're all talking about the size thing because I've moaned at my mother for years about that! When I was in England she'd always ask me what size I was but I never knew what to tell her! It's like, well, I'm a size 14 in this brand of pants and a size 20 in that brand... I can wear a size 12 skirt or a size 18, depending on the material, cut, brand, etc. It's just crazy isn't it? My mom did tell me, though, that the better the clothing, the smaller size you would take and that seems to hold true. While I have never been a fashion victim and labels mean about as much to me as a wet dishrag, there is something to be said for tailoring. The generic 'box suit' as I call them, that you pick up in a franchise store will not fit you as well as an Ann Taylor suit. Now of course you're talking about a $200 difference - money that I certainly don't have, but it does hold true.

One thing I like to do (because I'm a vintage clothing a-holic) is to check Ebay. Most people who list clothing on there give the measurements of the item so you have SOME idea if it will hang, gape, pull, etc. I find that very helpful - even when buying shoes. **** I can wear anything from a 6 to an 8! How crazy! My mom's other theory is that because a lot of manufacturers use foreign labor (basically sweat shops) and most of the people are of a smaller build than most Americans (i.e Taiwan, China, Japan, etc.) that their cuts are much more restrictive and less true to form.

Anyway, you're not alone! I get frustrated over the same thing! I just better be able to fit into at least a size 6 or smaller in SOMETHING when I reach goal or there'll be **** to pay!

Take care all!

Alisha

Hourglass -

A 6?!?

Good lord woman - are you 5 ft tall? I couldnt get my skeleton into anything smaller than a 10 and the best I am hoping for is a 14. But I am 5' 10" tall and very broad in the shoulder - Joan Crawfords got nothing on me - it is like I was born from her and Mae West together.

Gads, a 6? I think I wore a 9 when I was 12 - I have the *** of a beer drinker and I dont even like beer - but every woman on both sides of my family have the butt - All that German and Irish - I would kill to be waif like for a day or a week - not forever though - I like being able to lift heavy things and work on the farm and the way I tend to trip over gopher holes - my ankles would snap right off if I was waifish. I have had friends that were 8's and 6's but they are all under 5' 5" and very small frames and my sister in law is a 1 but she is a stick - even after 2 kids she is a stick - and I like my roundness.

Oh well - I will try not to hate you for it -

Best of luck to you.

Ajandpj you crack me up! I needed that so thanks! Don't feel badly, I stand 5'3" on a good day so I don't think a 6 is out of my expectations. My mom is 5'5" and wears a 4 at 115lbs (grr!) so I figure at 5'3" 110lbs I should be able to do a 6. When I was younger I weighed 135lbs and my measurements were 36" 24" 36" but I was a kid then and kid's clothes don't fit the same as adults. Back then I was still wearing a 12! Good grief I'd take off a layer of skin to be that now but I figure dieting is less painful (well, only marginally but still...).

Anyway, back to work. You all take care and thanks for the support on the accident.

All the very best.

Alisha

If I could wear an 8 at 5'6" and 155, then I think Hourglass can wear a 6 at her height and goal weight. I mean, I was still 15 pounds above my goal weight when I wore an 8 so it's possible that even I could have eventually crammed my *** into a 6!

And that, my friends, is vanity sizing to the eXXXtreme. I have about as much business in a pair of size 6 jeans as I do teaching a class on nuclear physics.

Hi girls,

Gawd, it's been forwver since I posted. I feel like a bad friend!

Hi Tiki - I'm interested in knowing how it went with the 3 girls. I had to cut a girl from the Color Guard when I coached it and I got a call that night from a very irate father. I was only 17 so I was super upset that this grown man was yelling at me.

Sister M - The vanity sizing made me laugh so hard. Yes, yes, we are suckers for that.

I've decided to learn how to sew. I'm sooo tired of not having things fit in the right areas. I have a hourglass shape with MEGA boobs and the shirts that are cute are not made for my super-sized bosom. So, when I buy them in the "right" size, I'm swimming everywhere else. AGH! Of course, between school and work, how am I goign to learn this?

Cute Boyfriend is having gallbladder surgery at the end of the month. Is it bad to be excited that he'll have to finally wake up and smell the brown rice and veggies?

Jessica, I really need to upgrade my sewing skills too. It would be nice to at least be able to alter clothes to fit better. Right now I can sew a basic a-line skirt, that's about it

Good luck to your boyfriend, I had to have my gall bladder out as an emergency surgery 8 years ago or so, not fun. At least he's in good enough shape to plan for his! It's not bad to be excited just try to maintain a sympathetic expression and don't cackle out loud.