Dressing

DRESSING ROOM: Today our living room was converted into a sewing room so that we could tackle a project Annabelle's been hankering to get done: sewing a dress for her.

She picked out the fabric this past weekend, and we cut the pieces out last night. Today, we tackled the "easy" sew pattern. Actually, it was easy, once I decided not to let the instructions get in our way. ...

Of course, even before we could start sewing, Annabelle had to learn how to get the machine ready. Naturally, that included learning how to thread the bobbin.

We also had to have a lesson about how you really shouldn't have your hands all that close to the needle when you have the pedal to the metal. ... 

It wouldn't be a sewing project without a couple of mistakes. Here, Annabelle learns the joys of ripping out a seam.

We overcame the pattern's sometimes bad-and-or-weird instructions, and managed to git 'er done today. She was VERY proud of the final result and wore it out to dinner tonight.

TEAMWORK: Today, the kids quizzed each other for their upcoming end of trimester test covering pulleys, levers, and simple machines.

It was time (mostly) constructively and productively spent. :)

NOW I'VE HEARD EVERYTHING: In between watching the University of Washington Huskies softball team win this morning in extra innings (WOOF!) and seeing Felix Hernandez return to form and the Mariners offense hit a total of five dingers, we listened to the semi-finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee today.

My hats are off to those competitors. That's a gut wrenching competition - tougher than any sport involving a ball, I'd venture to say.

Imagine our surprise and delight today when a My Little Pony reference popped up during one of the spelling bee's official explanations. ...

A contestant was asked to spell the word parvanimity (the state or quality of having a little or ignoble mind). The contestant asked to hear it used in a sentence. Paraphrasing, the moderator said something like "John accused his brother of parvanimity, at which his brother accused him of being a Brony, which was true, as his brother took his Fluttershy everywhere."  I about fell out of my chair. The contestant laughed, and proceeded to spell parvanimity correctly.