All Duct Up

We're past the halfway mark of the month and the official toll yesterday was $86! I was pretty stoked that Rachel Meeks of Small Notebook mentioned me on her blog. She was the one who inspired the whole No Spend Month in the first place!

Now, I think, is where I need to start getting a little more creative with the food we have in our pantry.

Throw those canned pears on a spinach salad...figure out something to do with that can of organic pumpkin...(maybe pancakes? hmm....) and I should probably try to figure out how to preserve all those greens in our fridge before they go bad!

that's a lotta veggies!

On a totally different note, I've had this fabric for a month or so I've been wanting to make into a dress. If you know me at all, you know I like making quilts and like the idea of making my own clothes...but I haven't been too successful at it.

Part of it for me, is I have a hard time with gathering and ruffles. Quilts have such nice, straight lines...I can get that. But when it comes to fitting something on me it usually comes out looking like happy hands at home.

One dress I tried to have Matt pin the back while I was wearing it...let's just say it didn't turn out so good...

Then I heard about making a duct tape dress form from Threads Magazine online, and decided that would be a cheap way to fix the problem of fitting things well.

Granted theirs looks a lot cleaner than mine, but mine does the trick!

Matt wrapped strips and strips of duct tape around me while Roy lay with his head on my foot looking up all worried. I'll take that as a hint not to mummify him when he's gone.

It was rather an odd feeling walking around like a robot...not being able to reach up to help Matt cut the strips of tape...it was a teensy bit fun too...:-)

for Matt's eyes only

Then Matt cut up the back of the form, we peeled it off and taped it back together and I stuffed it with a couple of pillows.

Voila!

A dress form.

Using what we already had in the house.

Sure it might be a little deformed, but the measurements are still about the same!

Pinning things was so much easier this way!

It did take me about 4 rounds of pinning, sewing and cutting to get the whole thing to look decent, but its finally complete and I have to say I'm pretty pleased with it!

The front:

that's one big dog, you say? yes, we know

The back:

"Don't act like you're not impressed"...name that movie!

And I couldn't resist this one of me and my boy.

Now I'm off to change into sweats, run that crazy dog, fix up some greens and put my feet up!