Vacation!

Whoo hoo! I am on vacation for nine days. I took the week off because my sister, Sara, will be arriving from Knoxville, TN to visit for a few days. In between visits to our mom in assisted living, we plan to have a mini quilt camp, an idea we got from Jennifer Chiaverini's books. We're also going to go to the quilt show at Lake Farmpark in Kirtland. I plan to make a few more Hula Huts (many thanks, Lisa Boyer for the darling pattern and lovely Hawaiian prints). It is so fun deciding what fabric to use where in that pattern! Other projects might be a quilted purse in the Vera Bradley style. I've made some to give away, but I'm ready to make one for myself now.

How do other people respond when a friend or coworker brings you a bag of pants to be hemmed, or a jacket needing a new zipper, etc.? I don't like to be mean, but I don't want to spend my time off on THAT kind of sewing. Last weekend when we were snowed in I hemmed five pairs of lined woolen pants. I pressed them all carefully, then had to make the little hangy things that connects the lining to the pants - 10 of them! I also had to replace a zipper in a pair of ski pants for someone else, and repair a zipper on a bag for yet another person. Come on! I felt so triumphant when I was able to return them all - until someone else brought a big bag of things to be altered.

My son suggests I charge such a ridiculously high amount that they will stop asking, which is beginning to sound like a good idea. Why do people assume that since you know how to sew you are automatically available to do their mending?

I do draw the line at prom dresses. I have hemmed and altered all the prom dresses I am ever going to, including removing and reattaching beads and sequins that were in the way. That's enough of that!