The annual fried chicken feast took place. The cookies are supposed to be flags and Liberty Bells.
There was also banana bread.
Both the banana bread and cookie recipes are from Peg Bracken’s I Hate to Cook Book. She has some nasty suggestions for cooking, but is pretty sound on baking as long as you replace “shortening” with something more wholesome.
It took me three hours to prepare all this.
My memory tells me that we used to do all these preparations as a family, and that they were fun in those days, but I could be misremembering. 
My requests for help yesterday led to teenage snippiness and quarreling, which was the downside of the day.
Fortunately, it was a brief part of the day.
I called my daughters, and found that #1 was having a meal in a casino and #2 was going to a ball game.
The boys and I spent the afternoon watching the Monk marathon, playing chess and/or video games, and setting off firecrackers.
My husband was working on the cars.
He keeps trying to get the rest of us to be interested in the cars, and we are not.
I am willing to help try to figure out what the auto repair manual is saying, but that is it.
When the girls lived at home, their boyfriends would often be willing to go peer into the bowels of the cars with him, but our own sons are like me — if the car goes, I do not otherwise care about it at all.
We are fortunate that Daddy keeps the cars going.
After dark, we played with sparklers. I love sparklers.
I made progress on my sock. However, while I was working on it I realized that I have been doing very mundane crafting. I have been making ordinary practical wool socks for the cool weather, and ordinary everyday clothing to wear to work.
Nothing wrong with that, but we need a bit of irrationality in our crafting, too, don’t we? A bit of suspense, even. Planning to make things and then making them as we had planned is good (and I hope that some of you will join me and Canadian National in our SWAPalong doing just that), but there should also be some foolish projects.
I have therefore decided to go ahead and do something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and make some lingerie.
I’m starting with a camisole, something that I have made before.
This is from the Kwik-Sew Book of Beautiful Lingerie, a book with patterns in it. It has camisoles, teddies, panties, and nightgowns in sizes XS to XL. You simply trace off the patterns onto tissue paper or interfacing (in this case, I just traced it directly onto the fabric). I was fortunate enough to get this book from a Frugal reader pal.
This is white crepe-back satin, cut ont he bias for stretch. I am making it tailored rather than frilly with a fancy ribbon mitered at the points of the front.
I did French seams, which is to say that I sewed the wrong sides together and then turned it and encased those seams with another line of stitching.
This is the back, with a self-fabric bias facing.The straps are silk cording, and I put them inside the seams.
I added a front facing, and will be doing a hand-rolled hem.
All this means that there will be no raw edges and no machine stitching.
I will be up at the store today, and then walking in the park with Partygirl, but I may finish the camisole this evening.
beautiful layout for such hard work. Some family you just can’t change they will want to do what they want and that is that…
Did #1 cut his hair?
The camisole is absolutely beautiful. I used to use the “French seam” technique to sew dresses for my daughters when they were tiny, sewing by hand because I didn’t have a sewing machine, and I swear by it. It will cover a multitude of glitches and simply make them invisible.
A bindry does all the stuff that happens after something has been printed. There are lots of machines to do some of the jobs, but some of them are so unusual or complicated that they’re done by hand.
For instance, Greg had already run everything through the collater and booklet machine. So the cover and 3 pages were assembled in order and saddle stitched ( folded in half and stapled [stitched] in the fold to make 5.5×8.5 booklets) and then trimmed. He had also folded the envelopes in half.
We had to take the envelopes and insert them between the pages between the staples so they wouldn’t fall out. Then each booklet/envelope combination got an adhesive tab applied to hold it shut. We applied address labels on each one.
That doesn’t sound like much, but there were nearly 4,000 of them.
They also needed postage applied, but Greg insisted on doing that himself.
He went to the post office Thursday evening and came back with a box the size of a thick trade paperback that contained over $3,500 worth of stamps. I think it hurt enough that he didn’t want anybody else ruining nearly a dollar postage on each one if they messed up.
But with the work I did last week and the work I expect today, I should be bringing home about $300 that I didn’t expect to make, so I’m very happy about that, even if my shoulders aren’t.
Of course we need to have fun with our crafting and sewing. I haven’t lately (other stinkin’ priorities), but after August 14 – LOOK OUT! I’ve been looking for a camisole pattern with a defined bra cup (not a shelf). Sometimes when it’s hot, I want a cami with a little support, but not a bra-like support. I have a few that I purchased, but I can’t find them anywhere anymore. I’ve gone to a few fabric stores to peruse patterns, but nothing. Any thoughts?
you feast looks delicious and the camisole quite pretty indeed. š