Packing for NYC Weekend

For driving up: this floral shirt and these Express purple jeans, all thrifted. With flip flops!

 For Sunday - I made the skirt (possibly the best fabric ever! and thrifted shirt. With Mass sandals!

For drive home: My Core Curriculum t-shirt, thrifted sweater, and thrifted sweatpants cum obligatory yet useless ankle zipper -with flip-flops.

(Eek - I didn't realize this was so blurry.)

Shorts!

On Thursday, I finished up the black linen shorts, using this tutorial from Cotton and Curls. I had to add and subtract a little creatively...but I loved how they turned out! Here I am marking a line to cut off QUITE a bit from the hem..I love how the blue chalk looked on the black linen.

A peek at the elastic waistband- there is only elastic in the back.

Voila! The whole shebang before hemming.

A look at the front. Can you see the side panels I had to put in?

Hemmed!

And the finished product!

What I wore while I sewed. I love the color of this L.L. Bean shirt- it matches the front of our house. I altered the pants myself to make them skinnier, also using a tutorial from C&C.

My hair was wildly curly today - love humid, rainy days!

This is sort of a sneak peek at my next post...except for the sneaker, disregard it. The POINT is that I went through my fabric scraps and cooked up another project.... Be SO excited!

Lovely day...

Went to TMC graduation!!! It was a PERFECT day and a very special time not only for the graduates but for everyone who came. Gorgeous clean sunshine, friends from Kentucky, universal Catholic luncheon meat sandwiches, tons of young families, many, many of the New England Catholic milieu gathered into one joyous place...Mr. Jernberg, the obligatory SATB choir, the Mitchells with almost the entire clan...it is odd to watch everyone become so different and yet stay the same. The crowning moment(s) were certainly the speeches by President Fahey and Jonathan Reyes. President Fahey grew tearful in his address to the 18 seniors whom he clearly loved a great deal. He spoke of temperance, the "strength of life", of due rejoicing and due sacrifice. J. Reyes' address focussed around 3 words: gift, magnanimity, and encounter. Encounter was the most interesting - in being with someone to express to them joy at their existence. Not much more than that can be said, I think.

The lure of blogging and other goings-on

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/12278881/?claim=3tt43bzxwfd">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

I was thinking about just why it is so satisfying to blog...especially with no readers! I think it is just that if you see the lovely parts of your own life it is a way of collecting those parts and setting them out to look at again.  Some moments over the past few days:

I sewed a shirt these past two days, using this lovely silk remnant my mom found at a yard sale.

I am using this book, which was a birthday present from my brother.

I made top 7b.

True to the title, it was quite simple - only three pattern pieces: front, back and sleeve!

Front and back sans sleeves. I love the long shallow neckline. The body of the shirt is the perfect shape, wide without being shapeless.

A few details...

Modelling the sans sleeves version - I may make one that is sleeveless.

This morning I sewed on the sleeves... My sewing machine light is so cheery and warm.

Voila! The finished shirt! Looking appropriately simple and modern.

Modelling... this is before I pressed it...

In other well-being/summer project news, I ate so healthy today! Mango butter smoothie (thus have I christened my new recipe) for breakfast, chicken on a salad for lunch, and tilapia, eggs, or soup for dinner, with two squares of dark chocoalte and a vanilla pudding as a treat. Delish. 

I also moved my college books onto a shelf in my room and furthermore created a little section of books on the shelf which I want to read this summer.

The shelf in question.

The selection in question. 

Blurry, but from left to right: The Cat Who Went up the Creek by Lillian Jackson Braun, Complete Modern Hebrew, This Explains Everything, The Sword of Honour Trilogy by Evelyn Waugh, The Complet Poems and Plays of T.S. Eliot, On Fairy Stories by JRR Tolkien and the Silmarillion by the same, Villete by Charlotte Bronte, Watership Down, The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope, and Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes. Very exciting... I will be busy.

Speaking of busy, the cats were profoundly the opposite this afternoon but despite their indolence they were very cute. Therefore, I end this post with catnap pictures!!!

Boinky:

And Penny:

Vacation begins...

Began the clean eating challenge today! Breakfast was a mango smoothie and I came up with a new recipe: 1 c. mango, 1. cup yogurt, 1 tbsp almond butter, water, and 1/4 tsp vanilla.

I also began sewing a short using the pattern from my Simple Modern sewing book. The fabric is silk- a remnant from a yard sale...actually two remnants.

Before dinner I went for a run with my parents at a local park and did about 2 miles. I may do a half marathon this fall, and Friday I will run again. The back porch was looking lovely, and we decided to have a barbecue...

Brother holds frisbee whilst father transfers chicken....

The cherry tree with the late afternoon light coming through... The back yard is absolutely verdant.

The old cat, looking somehow shrunken...

And the flames! It's basically summer..