Three sentence movie reviews: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

It turns out that watching this movie is much easier if one is knitting and counting stitches. The incredibly banality is not quite so annoying when trying to ensure you've cast on 99 stitches exactly.  Plus, this time I know who Taylor Kitsch is, so I got to evaluate his portrayal of Gambit.

Cost: free from library.
Where watched:  at home with Matt who is watching all the X-Men movies in order.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2009/x_men_origins_wolverine.html

Yet another walk to work, this one focused on apartments and houses.

Not only does this have a stone lion out front (cue Sara and a Borah cheer) it also has a shiny address plate.

On the minus side, it's hard to read the address.  On the plus side, super cool!

I spy a tall bike.

The house next door has a fancy name plate too.

Here's what I refer to as the Brigadoon house.  It was for sale and I wanted desperately to buy it, as it meets all of my requirements (small house, large lot, maker space out back).  Alas, I did not have a few spare hundred thousand dollars.  Then, for months I couldn't find it again, despite swearing it was on this street.  At one point, I thought it had been torn down.  Was this a house that only appeared every 100 years?  (Which would make it difficult to sell, I guess.)  I finally figured out that when I cross Lombard, I'm faced with turning right or left to pick up a connecting street, as they don't match up exactly.  This house can be found by going right, I went left all those months, when I should have been turning right.  I'm happy to say that the new owner also seems to love the house and it may survive for me to someday purchase it.

Rare Spanish-style. In my opinion, they are covering up the best feature by letting that hedge/bush grow in front of the windows on the right.  

Interesting metal object on side of house that I don't know what it is for.

Hey look!  The "watching a block" apartments are done.  Here they are, taking up a full city block, where once there were houses.  Here are the houses.  Here is a link to all the watching a block posts. The building is called the Prescott and apartments range from a 381 square foot studio to at 1069 sq foot two bedroom.  Apartments.com reports they are leasing from $1195 to $2005.  Count this girl happy she owns a house with an unchanging mortgage payment. $1195 for a studio?  That's more than half my monthly take-home pay.

This dude is boarded up.  Will he survive to have another tenant in him, or be replaced by a tall house (or tall apartment complex)?  Also,check out the pushy bushes invading the driveway space.

Nice tiny crack between buildings.  

Mossy roof.

I've had my eye on this white house for a long time.  It has open lots on both sides.  I have mentally purchased said house and both lots and have a lovely garden platted.  It's very nice, the things I've done in my brain.

When's that Channing-Tatum-with-the-wolf-ears movie coming out?

I was thinking it was this weekend, but the Internet made me laugh arguing with itself.  The top search result plainly states July 18, 2014, but the picture next to that information says February 2015.

Phooey.  That was one of my five approved movies to see in the theater this summer. In happier news, this means I can sub in Boyhood  which I stupidly forgot to put on the list and which I'm dying to see.  Boyhood is going to be a better movie anyway.

Postcard from Belarus

This lovely painting of Minsk City Hall is from Catherine, who loves metal music and went to a folk festival yesterday. 

Colette Patterns Moneta: 90% finished!

So fast!  So satisfying!

My main thing I learned with the Mabel and the Moneta is how awesome Wonder Tape is.  Here I have marked where the tape should go.

And here I have affixed the tape. Next I pulled off the top layer, pressed the edge to the tape et voila!  Sleeve hem is held securley in place (no pins!) while I sew the hem.

I'm wasn't really sure what was going on here.  My guess is that I could have used a bit more ease at the waist (these patterns have negative ease, because of the stretch of the knit fabric).  It also might be a case of my serger not being properly adjusted for tension.  I solved this problem by reinforcing the seam with my regular sewing machine.

Look at this dress!  It still needs a hem, but it came out really well.

Side view. There are pockets!

Closeup of my neckline hemming.  That's done with a twin needle.  The Wonder Tape, aside from holding the hem in place, also stabilizes it, so it doesn't stretch.

I made notes of things to remember for the pattern.  I've decided to make this year's uniform dresses with this same pattern, so I'll go over these notes in the construction of those dresses.

Waiting for a hem.

One thing the dress needs is a tag, or other such thing to indicate which side is the back.  I've sewn in a little flower I pulled off my bra during my teenage years.

Colette Patterns Moneta: Cutting and bodice.

Here's my layout.  I tried to make intelligent decisions about where colors of stripes would fall.  This time I traced around the pattern with a marking pen, then removed the pattern and cut out the materiel. My scissors are so dull!

And here is the bodice. 

They weren't kidding about it coming together quickly.

Colette Patterns Moneta. Testing the waist.

After the Mabel disaster, I began my Moneta project by tracing a few inches of waist from the front and back bodice in both L and XL sizes.  

As usual, I fall right between L an XL on the size chart (why is there a gap?) except for my waist which skewed all the way to the top edge of XL.  After tracing my mini-test pattern, I then cut strips of material from my main material, after first checking that it was an area of "extra" material.  Then it was a matter of sewing them together and trying them on to see which one fit.  Knowing that the XL was a much better fit than L gave me the confidence to continue on with the project.