Missy Crissy: Today is Saturday and I Actually Got to Sew

This morning I finished making a batch of sweet pickles that I started last night, so I did not get to resume my sewing until this afternoon. I was really anxious to get started since I left one of the sleeves of the En Forreau dress ripped apart last night. The first thing that I did was re-cut another sleeve and re-attached the cuff. It looked great, and I was pleased with the results. The next step involved gathering the sleeve caps and then setting them into the armhole openings of the bodice. I thought this would be easy enough, because I had done it many, many times before, but to my dismay, I set the first sleeve in backwards. So it was rip, rip, rip time again; can I say this project was plagued with my careless errors? Finally, though, I managed to complete the sleeve insertions and it was time to do my first fitting on little Mattie. SIGH!!!

After all the struggling with the bodice of the dress, it really did turn out nice and seems to be a perfect fit. The wide opening in the back will be where the En Forreau (long sheath) will be inserted. But first I will have to attach the skirt of the dress to either side of the bodice before this insertion is made. The En Forreau will extend from the neckline to the hem of the dress and will feature a series of tiny pleats whose purpose is to produce a snug fit around the waist.

I had thought about sewing some more tonight, but Farmer Jim, my husband, asked me to help him count his herd of cows. For some reason he was coming up short on his count. I had my doubts that I would be able to do this because most of his cows are the same color--black--and most of them would not stand still for very long. It only took about three times of starting over with my counting, for me to give it up, for they would invariably escape my mental corral. Even my idea of taking pictures of them and later trying to count them on the computer screen proved just as hard a task.

Now it was fun to watch Jim count the cows; he is so experienced at doing this. It's amazing to me how he can tell them apart; but he can. He knows something physically unique about each one; he also can tell you the due date of each mama cow.