Frankie's so bubbly tonight !

Current Mood : Happy

Beloved Hubby’s done well on his exams – on one, he only had to get a score of 5 to maintain his 100+ average – and is studying for the last one now. I’m in a place where caffeine now makes me sleepy, I’ve had so much of it, and nearly nothing can keep me awake.

So we went out for a while, to Hastings. Dearest Son found a Lego book, and the adorable Darth Vader and Son. There’s an even more adorable Vader’s Little Princess, but I’d already settled on Ben Burtt’s Sounds of Star Wars, on massive markdown from $70. to $17. I even found one with the sound effects device working ! Sure, the sound player makes the book a bit gimmicky, but the book itself is an actual scholarly tome about how sound is harvested, used, mixed, recycled, and reused from decades past. Only problem is, the sound player makes the book a bit hard to read. Very heavy and awkward. But it even has a headphone jack and it uses standard AAA batteries, so I love how they went above and beyond with it.

Once home, everyone napped and I had some quiet time. Before we left for Hastings, I’d been leafing through the fabric scraps I had in the ‘Paris Book’ box I bought last month. I wondered how I’d use some of the smaller ones I only had one of, since they only looked large enough for some small applique works. Two and a half inches by three inches is pretty small ! Although…if I didn’t mind shorter sleeves, that dress pattern I made could be abbreviated to a t-shirt.

I confess, I haven’t had a good track record with flannel. When I made Elphie’s pajamas, it frayed and fell apart while I was sewing it ! But I had several super-cute print fragments among the scraps that I wanted to use soon, so I needed to learn a better way to use it. Fray-check helps – a lot ! Or the scrap was better quality flannel, one of the two. Still had some problems getting  a line of stitches started, it didn’t want to slide under the presser foot, just sit there. Got around that by going slow and easy, and pulling just a little bit to get it started, especially where there’s thread from earlier. The shirt came out so cute, I got out some stretchy fabric that’s silver on one side, black on the other, and made a pair of black pants to go with it. It’s been a while since Sig Frankie got new clothes, and those colors would look good on her, so there ya go.

Now I’m looking at that basketball print flannel scrap, and wondering which of the guys would like a tank top from it, it’s too small a scrap for sleeves !