And furthermore ...

Non-homeschool things we've been doing:

1. Lost one of the phone handsets. Again. It showed up several days later in the laundry room, an apparent victim of multi-tasking. Last time we lost the handset it was weeks until we discovered it rolled up in a sleeping bag.

In related news, I finally found the mini-muffin tins I couldn't find back in June (and already purchased a replacement for).

2. The kids went to see the Winnie the Pooh movie at the theater, which they said was quite charming. Annabeth dressed as Piglet for the occasion, using bits from a very old Halloween costume I'd made from Butterick 5172 when Thalia was 2 or 3 years old. Only the vest and hat fit; she wore a pink shirt and pink skirt under them. The other kids who went didn't see this as a cosplay opportunity -- go figure.

3. Went to Target and Walmart to see if they had floor cushions and beanbag chairs in stock, which typically happens during the back-to-school sales, after which they disappear. We found both. The color of the year seems to be black, as we found both items in that color. This means we tend to lose track of the cat:


Ack! The flash woke me up! Prepare to die!

4. Went to Bye Bye Birdie at the Muny, which was the final performance of the season. We thought it was really fun. Rick's aunt went on Wednesday and thought it was awful -- nearly left at intermission. On one hand, this is the woman who DID leave during Little Mermaid, declaring she really disliked Ursula (the best character of a great show!). On the other hand, I think maybe the shows vary quite a bit with the weather. She really loved Seven Brides for Seven Brothers the Wednesday before, while we thought it was rushed and disjoint on Saturday. The Saturday we went was hot, and the show lasted less that 2 hours; when she saw it on Wednesday the weather was cooler and the show lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes. Interesting, yes?

Anyway, the entire Muny-season-ticket experience has been fun this summer. We loved taking various friends and relatives. We loved discussing the shows with other friends and relatives. I don't know if we'll do it again -- sort of depends on what shows they offer.

5. Enoyed the cooler weather, which meant we could do things like sit on the playset and read



and also leave the windows open for hours at a time



6. Spent quite a bit of time reading. I checked 2 books out of the library -- Scratch Beginnings and How to Become a Straight-A Student. I couldn't decide which to read first, so I decided to alternate chapters. Wow, what a bizarre experience -- the authors are guys about the same age, and frankly their writing sounds a bit alike. Yet one is telling about how to work hard and succeed in college while the other is telling how to work hard and get out of a homeless shelter. The undertone of each book, though, is that it really sucks to drift through life without goals since that tends to lead to a downward spiral. But it's been a weird juxtaposition that's really affecting how I view each book.

Homeschool Update

This week Thalia and I have been working our way through The Odyssey, having recovered enough from the trauma of The Iliad to attempt another epic.

We're listening to Sir Ian McKellen read the Fagles translation while Thalia follows along in a paperback version of Fagles and I follow along on the iPad with a translation by Murray that's main attraction is that it's free online. Murray is fond of phrases such as "I ween". We're also watching the Teaching Company lectures by Elizabeth Vandiver on the subject.

While the main images I retained from The Iliad were 1. Achilles whining, 2. intestines unfurling on the ground, 3. black blood gushing forth, and 4. other random sharp objects being thrust through other random people's heads, the main images from The Odyssey have been 1. baths, which are typically followed up by an olive oil moisturizer and something fluffy to wear, 2. Dawn's rosy fingers, and 3. people stretching forth their hands to eat the good things before them (at a feast). It sort of comes across as chic lit after all the gore of The Iliad. If I were to write a paper on the subject, I think I'd make it about the baths.

We're also zooming through her half-credit requirement in Personal Finance using Dave Ramsey's Foundations in Personal Finance High School Edition. I'd never seen Dave Ramsey before. He's reasonably engaging, most of the things he talks about have been the same things we've talked about around the kitchen table for years (topics like "why we're too cheap to take up cigarette smoking"). We've now reached the point in the course where Dave wants the student to follow 4 Mutual Funds and 2 stocks; Rick thinks that the financial markets have changed enough since the course was written that it would be better to follow 2 Exchange Traded Funds and 4 stocks.

Local public and private schools will be starting in the next week, and a co op we belong to starts in about a week. We've been amassing other curricula, including Lial's Intermediate Algebra, Kinetic Physics, Notgrass World History for Thalia, Shepherd Life Science and Writeshop for Annabeth. I'm not too thrilled about those latter 2, but they're co op classes and she seems to be pleased to be taking them.

We still need to get our English course together for Thalia, and can't purchase Visual Link Spanish until later in the month when they release the new Mac version. We also have a lot of ACT study guides floating around the table where we're dumping all of our shiny new curricula (plus a copy of My Life as a White Trash Zombie for comic relief, as all these text books and study guides looked a little too earnest and it was a 4-for-3 on Amazon.com with the ACT guides). And we're in negotiations about what acting, musical theater, dance, and voice lessons will be taking place beyond all of this school work -- the kids think "all available", but we'll see what's affordable and what can be justified by somehow fitting onto the transcript.

Gearing up for the next season of schooling -- I wonder what adventures are ahead of us.

The Dorothy Dress

Annabeth decided that she, too, would like to actually own her costume for Wizard of Oz. One of her arguments was that the purchased costumes tend to look sort of dippy -- they tend to be one-piece affairs with a faux-jumper front and a very simple back. Some of them even involved shiny, glittery fabric, shudder. And one of my thoughts was that we'd never find a ready-made costume that fit her well since she's more slender than the current average U.S. child.

Biggest argument against making a costume -- the gingham fabric. I was pretty sure that it would be difficult to find.

But, having made Thalia's witch costume, there was also the issue of Equitable Treatment of Offspring. So, in the end, I made the costume.

The children's version of the Wizard of Oz is Simplicity 4139. I opted to use size 8 and make it larger/taller where necessary.

Next, fabric. The director felt that 1/4 inch gingham would be okay since the venue was small (in a large theater you'd want something bigger). And, as predicted, this was impossible to find in St. Louis. The few 1/4 inch ginghams I could find tended to be baby pastels. (Also, various quilting stores apparently consider it an insult if you call them and ask if they carry gingham because they are SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT.) I found some online at Fabric.com and also at another place, the name of which I forget.

Next adventure -- ordering fabric online. The pattern calls for 3.25 yards of gingham for the size 8 costume; I decided to purchase 4 yards for a bit on insurance. Since we were on a constricted timeline (putting the show together in 3 weeks) I decided to see about expedited delivery. Here's how expedited delivery works at Fabric.com: first you call them to ask about how to do it, wait patiently for 15 minutes or so for your turn "in line" on the phone, then have the customer service rep accidentally (I assume) hang up on you when you reach the head of the queue. Then you try the online chat, and discover that you have to place your order, then call them to tell them that you might want expedited delivery, and then they'll call you back "in a day or 2" to let you know how much the special delivery will cost. NO HINT AT ALL HOW MUCH IT WILL COST, which, of course, makes it impossible to comparison shop (although the only other place that had the blue gingham ALSO involved calling the customer service rep, which was a non-toll free call, and the person was away from their desk "so please leave a message").

Also, the concept that they'd call "in a day or 2" pretty much means don't expect to hear from them for 2 days. Meaning that if you don't like their charges in comparison to some other shop's, you've already wasted 2 days on waiting for them to call.

So I placed my little 4 yard order, then called them AGAIN to tell them to flag this order to indicate my interest in expedited shipping, since there's no place to check off that box while you're ordering.

And when they did finally call (2 days later almost to the hour), it was to tell me that the shipping charge for my 4 yards of gingham (a lightweight fabric that runs about $3 - $4 per yard) would be $50 to get it there the next day, $40 to get it there Monday, or the regular ol' $5 to get it there on Tuesday via "normal" delivery. Wow. I assume at least $10 of that goes to pay for all the frickin' phone calls customers have to make to even ask if the delivery is available, and another $10 for the various other inefficiencies of their system. I took the Tuesday delivery.

So, in review, poor service, poor shipping procedures, overall NOT IMPRESSED WITH FABRIC.COM!

Okay, now, back to the dress itself.

Guess what! This pattern is for a one piece dress, rather than a separate blouse and jumper. Surprise! Hahaha -- that's why we made the dress -- in order to have 2 pieces instead of 1. I guess the joke's on us! Not to worry, though -- I figured I could wing it to make it a two piece outfit.

I chose to make the blouse from permanent press muslin with a ric rac for the border. I chose a royal blue ric rac for the trim because I couldn't find a blue that matched the gingham better (side note: I ended up using the nedium blue gingham even though the cover of our DVD shows Judy Garland in more of a royal blue gingham -- Annabeth liked the medium blue better, and the director didn't seem to care -- the medium blue is currently sort of a periwinkle, and the current medium blue ric rac has more of a yellow undertone). I extended the length of the "blouse" pieces, left out the darts (I figured they were only there to accommodate the blouse-sewn-to-jumper nature of the Simplicity design), and extended the back pieces beyond the center back so I could use buttons instead of a zipper. I ended up scooping out the neckline more than the pattern -- it was going to choke Annabeth if I didn't. That involved making a new, longer collar; I also sewed a snap on the back of the collar to fasten the overlap of the button band. It sewed up quickly and easily, although for some reason I put the button holes on horizontally rather than vertically, which looks fairly stupid.

(By the way, you could theoretically skip this entire blouse-making adventure by going to a Catholic school uniform shop and buying a puff-sleeve blouse with blue trim, since we used to own one just like it.)

Then I started cutting out the precious, virtually irreplaceable (at this point, since deliver from Fabric.com is sooooo slooooow) gingham. First, cut out the skirt. I was familiar with the weirdness of cutting 3 identical pieces since I'd run into that while cutting out Thalia's witch costume. And I was pleased to note that the children's pattern has a separate pattern piece for each size of child, unlike the adult pattern.

BUT, while cutting out piece number 3 (having cut out pieces 1 and 2 and thus using yards of the fabric) I suddenly realized that the top and bottom of the pattern piece is CURVED. WTF? Why am I cutting a curve on the regimentally straight checks of gingham? I looked at the DVD cover again, and, indeed, the gingham checks do appear to disappear unevenly as though cut on a curve. But, hey, the adult size pattern cuts these pieces straight -- why does the kid size seek to drive us nuts with this? So, Ichopped off the curve and cut them off straight, slightly panicking that I'd ruined the damned thing. In the end, it was okay -- the length was still fine, the skirt hung okay, it was exponentially easier to hem and to apply the bias strip in a straight line since I could just follow the lines of the gingham.

I decided to line the bodice since it was not longer sewn directly to the blouse. I used some sort of slick lining from JoAnn Fabric. I'd considered using muslin, but decided the blouse might tend to stick to the bodice if I did that.




By the way, the bodice suffers from a common problem of Big 4 patterns -- it assumes that small girls have a bustline and curves that don't normally appear until years later. So a bit of adjustment is necessary to compensate (ironic since the original was designed to help de-emphasize Judy Garland's curves).

Then sew on the straps and trims, gather and attach the skirt, sew in the zipper, place it on the hanger, and realize that the reason you DON'T want to make this a separate jumper is because the bias-cut straps cannot support the weight of all of that gingham in the skirt without looking like a stretched-out mess. That's why it's supposed to have the jumper sewn directly onto the blouse -- to support the weight. Doh.

After pondering this, I decided to add a strap of grosgrain ribbon on each side, going all the way down the inside of the bodice to attach to the skirt both front and back. I machine sewed the ribbon all the way up the front and back of the bodice to help distribute the weight:


I'd made the straps (which actually have a "front" and "back" since they're supposed to be sewn directly onto the blouse) a bit long since I didn't know how long I'd want them. It was pretty easy to figure out with the grosgrain ribbon -- I just had Annabeth try it on, then pinned up the excess over her shoulders. It was just a matter of machine sewing the folds down, then. I left the sides of the folds open in case I wanted to have a velcro bar to keep the straps in place on the blouse, but that turned out to be unnecessary.



The bias-cut gingham straps on the outside of the bodice cover the grosgrain straps completely,


and the jumper really hangs pretty decently from the grosgrain straps.


I also added a tiny patch pocket to store dog treats for Toto.

Finished product back:

(Click on pictures to enlarge)

and front:


In the end it looked pretty good, but there were definitely times when I wondered what the heck I'd gotten myself into.

One Short Day in the Emerald City

Miss Gultch being mean:

(Remember, clicking on a picture enlarges it.)

Cutest Munchkin of the batch:


The gang:


The Wicked Witch spying on them as they walk through the woods:


Poppies. Toto had issues with the scene -- in rehearsal he would play dead for about 5 seconds, but during the performance it was all too exciting. Dorothy managed to keep a firm grip on her/him though (plenty of lifetime practice with cranky cats that don't want to be held).


Emerald City:


Afterwards lots of people wanted pictures taken with Dorothy or the Wicked Witch. As it got later, Dorothy started to drift to the dark side.


Possible Christmas card photo:


Whew -- hard to believe it's all over!

In the Home Stretch

Still needs some hand work and a small pocket for dog treats. But essentially done.



I'll post more about the construction later. Including an explanation of why it was really, really stupid to make this a separate blouse and jumper. Also, doesn't that blouse look like a Clarkson beginner blouse?

In the meantime, Dayspring School of the Arts has made an event on their Facebook page for Wizard of Oz, and if you click on it you can see a picture of Thalia dressed as the witch (although her hair hadn't yet been dyed black at that point). I can't figure out how to download the picture to my computer, unfortunately. But maybe we can get some good shots in the next couple of days.

EDITED TO ADD:

Okay, we found a few downloadable ones on Facebook, including the WIcked Witch terrorizing the Scarecrow



and Annabeth pretending to be a Munchkin

Non-sewing part of the weekend

Although much time this weekend was spent sewing, we also managed to make it to the Muny to see Little Shop of Horrors. Thalia had gotten a huge head-eating flower to wear for the occasion.


(I swiped this picture off of Trish's facebook.)

And went to a family reunion to see a boatload of cousins we don't often see. This is one family, for example:


Sisters.


The kids kindly explained to Uncle Mark how to send pictures from his phone to facebook.


There was some action with super soakers and water balloons, but mostly people just wanted to talk.



The cat keeps walking across the keyboard typing goofy things, and I need to round up kids and get them to Musical Theater camp, so I'm thinking I should leave it at that.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Thalia auditioned for Wizard of Oz with hopes of being cast as the Wicked Witch. The director said she might need her for a singing role (since Thalia can actually sing, yet the Wicked Witch does not), but when the cast was announced she got the part!

Thalia sort of hoped she could have her own personal witch costume. The director noted that the witch costumes are crazily expensive, so if we wanted to be in charge of getting our own, she was fine with it. That way we could keep it when the show's over.

So I discussed what the costume should look like with the director. Simplicity 4136 is the official movie knockoff. But we both liked the idea of a skirt and top combo so she could wear the skirt at Miss Gultch and then simply slip on a different top as the Wicked Witch. She wanted a high neck, buttons down the front, and more of a pointed bottom to the bodice -- more like Elphaba in Wicked. Also, puff-top sleeves "like Anne wanted in Anne of Green Gables". The fabric would be some sort of dull black bottom weight.

So I picked up a copy of Simplicity 4136 at the handily-timed sale Hancock Fabrics had on Simplicity patterns ($1.99 each). And got to work.

First step -- cut out skirt and probably just add a waist band. Except, wow, there is ONE skirt pattern piece for all sizes (envelope has sizes 6-12 in it) and all views. And that piece as gobs of fabric around the waist. That's great for Glinda and probably okay for lightweight gingham-wearing Dorothy, but it's waaaaay too much fabric for a witch skirt in a bottom weight (possibly a cheapy costume satin would work, but that's not what we'd decided on). Thalia is using the largest size, size 12, which fits her 26.5 inch waist -- I can't imagine how that would work for a tiny little size 6 with a 23 inch waist -- they'd be swamped in fabric.

You cut out 3 iterations of the skirt piece, each of which is about 37 inches across the waist, as I recall .... I decided to whack it down to 3 times Thalia's waist size plus ease of 1 inch plus seam allowances by making the waist pattern 26.5 inches (the size of her waist) plus the extra I needed for seams plus ease. The bottom edge of the skirt is 48 inches across. Really, you could just draw a trapezoid on the fabric and not bother with the pattern. Here I'm working on it on folded fabric




with my little helper.


"I love this color!"

Now that the waist was 3 times Thalia's, I could use box pleats to draw the fabric in nice and neatly, since box pleats have a 3x ratio from beginning width to finished width. Also, I could fudge them around a little since I did massive amounts of rounding as I did the math for my finished width. I didn't press them into knife pleats -- just sewed them along the upper seam line sans any sort of pressing



added a 7" zipper to the back, then stuck on a simple rectangular waist band. Large trouser hook in the back to close the waistband, a hem, et voila



A skirt that be worn by either Miss Gultch



or a witch. (We're experimenting with hats trying to figure out what might work. The shirt is from the men's section of the Goodwill, purchased for a play a couple of years ago.)

For the bodice I used the Feis Dress pattern I was messing around with last year. I'd made the princess seam version into a drop waist with a V front, and made it it's own separate entity with a separating back zipper. (The director okayed using zippers in all the costumes.)

I deepened the armscye a bit to accommodate the Simplicity sleeve; Feis Dress has an extremely fitted armscye, and Simplicity's is HUGE. I stuck more towards the fitted, since I think it works better in this type of top. And used the Simplicity collar, which I had to make longer to fit around the Feis Dress neckline. And, finally, loosened the entire thing a bit since she isn't in an Irish Dance competition so it doesn't need to fit like a glove.

Front, pre-buttons:




Back:


The sleeves ended up way too short, probably partially because the Feis Dress shoulders aren't so baggy (dumpy) as the Simplicity shoulders, so I added a cuff.


Then, that special coating of black fur

"Why they want a dorky dog in this show when they could have a quality character like me, I don't know. But it saves me the work of showing up and having to deal with my adoring public."

Just add black boots, black gloves, and green skin:



Still to come: temporary black hair dye. I hope it rinses out better than the red "temporary" dye she used for Peppermint Patty, which is still in her hair all these months later.

And in the meantime, I'm moving on to white fabric: