Happy Martin Luther King Day !

Current Mood : Wondering if there's any more potatoes left...

Song You Forgot : Jacob's Ladder, Huey Lewis & The News

Not gonna lie to ya, I spent most of today asleep. I'd just begun to sew a bit this  morning - more later - when it hit me. Another tummy twister. Slagged through what I was doing, ate some buttered rice with ice water, and went back to bed. Woke a couple hours later and felt better, but it didn't last. Had another scoop of buttered rice, mostly choking it down because if I don't eat when I take certain prescriptions, a 'poor me' tummy ache is gonna be the *least* of my problems, and crashed again.

That was pretty much my day - eat a little, take meds, go back to sleep, wake up to take care of m'self, eat a bit, go back to sleep, several times. I was hoping to hit the library today, but I forgot that it was closed for MLK day. It's not like I was awake much anyway.

But as evening vectored in on final approach, I was awake and feeling back to normal, so I ate some of the potatoes DFIL made for dinner, and didn't pay for it, so I also enjoyed most of the very juicy pork chop. That helped.

Today was another of those 'tired of shuffling this out of the way, let's get it done' days. Earlier, I'd gone rooting through my miniature sewing box - the one I keep in the bedroom for hand-sewing and on the go sewing - and cursed the 'song' skirt and so-80s Barbie jumpsuit I keep in there. You might remember the black 'short in front, long in back = song' effort from last year. Clawdeen modeled it with that strapless Barbie rose print dress I modified. I wasn't happy with how the back closure looked or worked, so it was in the sewing box, and the jumpsuit was slightly damaged. Hmmm...

My back closures have been looking better since I started following NG Creations' pattern directions, so I wondered - I made this skirt half a year before buying those patterns, would her directions work as well on something not of her design ? Had to take out the back seam, but I had good light for it, and a few minutes later, I was bearing it off to KJ, still loaded with that black spool of thread. And the answer is - yes ! I had to tough out sewing the back seam again, since I was getting sicker, but I am now happy with my 'song' skirt. It's no longer in the box.

And when I felt better, I was ready to try it on a doll...but who ? Sad to admit it, but Clawdeen's still wearing the rose-print dress, yet I didn't want to put it on her again. Instead, I reached for Dead Tired DracuLaura, who was wearing the 'Sweet 1600' dress that came with Clawd. You'll be surprised at how good it looks together...tomorrow.

Once I had that done, I wanted to get those markdown Frankie Stein Fearleader outfits I bought me for Christmas 'de-stitchified'. For whatever reason, Mattel loves to make Monster High clothes very character-specific, and what should be a simple cheerleader dress unfortunately got a decal of large blue stitches running across the chest and over the belly. It's unfortunate, because I think they would have sold more if the stitches were gone - some folks I know online probably would have bought one for each MH doll, if not for the stitch decal. But it may have worked out anyway, because a lot of fans bought the three-doll Fearleader TRU exclusive set, mostly to get the no-stitch uniforms and recycle/resell/customize the dolls. 

And while there's several methods out there for ditching the stitches, most of them still leave the residue beneath behind. I darn near ruined the first Fearleader outfit I bought, because I rubbed and scritched the residue so hard, I snagged the nylon and transferred some of the bodice's black to the waist ribbon, because I wasn't paying attention. Still had no idea how to do it better, but I was gonna try one suggestion - rubbing alcohol.

We had a whole bottle of it, too. In storage, in the shed. I kept meaning to go get it, but always forgot. Well, not today. After going for a walk in the park with Dearest Son and Beloved Hubby - and playing at the castle-themed playground with other kids and parents enjoying a springlike January ( ?) - there was just enough evening light for me to get it. Out from under the four boxes that had tipped over and landed on top of it. However, it wasn't light enough for me to avoid a patch of backyard doggie surprise. (sigh) At least I didn't track it through the house.

Couldn't find the cotton balls, so I used fabric scraps, and shielded the MH decal and waist ribbon with masking tape. So the tape wouldn't pull up the decal by itself, I folded a bit of tape over itself, enough to cover the decal, then used more tape to hold it there. Same for the ribbon. Some gentle rubbing and a little scritching with the alcohol-soaked fabric scraps soon had most of the decal and residue off. Gonna let 'em sit overnight, and touch up tomorrow, then add them to the rest of the clothes Wednesday evening.

Glad I gave one of my three to Dearest Son for his Toralei doll at Christmas. I was pretty bored by the time the second one was done ! Tossed out some packages, got some props and new stuff put away, and got the library books together. In case there's time tomorrow !