New orchestra dress for the college girl

Our college daughter is certainly enjoying life on her own.
I knew she would.
It makes it so much easier than when I was a freshman in college (30 yrs ago) to have a cellphone and to be able to text whenever.  Her siblings love getting pics of her roommates and whatever other college life stuff she decides to send us.

She decided to continue with orchestra while in college and is involved with the University Orchestra at BYU-I. Although she tried out and didn't make it into the orchestra group above this one, I am so proud that she even tried out.  It was tough music and most of those kids in that orchestra are actual music majors.  She is not.  She was a bit upset about not getting in, but now that she has had a couple weeks under her belt she is happy with this orchestra group.  She is familiar in part with at least one of the pieces they will be presenting this semester and so that makes her happy.  Her best friend and roommate is also in the same orchestra group and so they are happy having at least one class together.

Now here enters the problem.
Her black orchestra dress is packed up here in MN.
We did that when she graduated last June and so it was one of the first things to go in the storage POD.
I have no clue which box it may be in.
I'm positive it is against the back wall of the POD somewhere.
We will not be digging it out.
She needs a black dress for their upcoming performance on February 11th.

I texted her (I'm new to texting and there are times I just love it) pics of a couple different pattern options for a new dress.  She picked one out and told me what adjustments she'd like and I found some fabric.

Then voila! I made a new dress.


It doesn't look like much just hanging there.


Her younger sister is modeling it for me.
She needs some pretty good heels in this picture so it won't be dragging the ground.
But since she is about 4 inches shorter than our oldest, it should be just about right.


Neckline detail


Sleeve hem and hem detail with double needle topstitching.
This sleeve hem looks a little crooked, but I assume it is because of the way I am holding it.

Another plus about this dress.  It had been folded up and ready to get sent when I realized I hadn't taken any pictures.  We pulled it out and my daughter put it on immediately--not a wrinkle in sight.

I love that kind of fabric.

Details:

• Simplicity 9103

• 4 yds of jersey knit at $4.50/yd.
• Lengthened dress to almost floor length--this equaled to about 13 additional inches.
• 3/4 sleeves instead of full length.
• Added ties to sides to adjust the waist fitting (similar to her HS orchestra dress)

More photos from our home listing

This house selling business has been quite the journey.
Last Thursday afternoon our listing went live and from Friday thru Monday of this week we had 15 showings, plus an open house with 15 people attending, 4 offers, and we sold on Monday night around 8 p.m. for higher than our listing price.
Even then we had another 4 showings scheduled for Tues. and Wed.

Absolutely CRAZY!!!!
I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

We had more showings and people seeing our house in those 4 days than we did the entire 5 months of it being listed last Summer/Fall.
We have had people ask us what has made the difference.
I mean, we sold our house in 4 days in January, in Minnesota.
For us I would have to say that the staging advice was key as was having the right realtor.
That has made all the difference in the world.
This second realtor was so much more motivated and aggressive and when you are dealing with your most expensive investment that is what you want.  Someone working FOR you!

Now onto finding the next house.
The one I had wanted and was available for MONTHS is gone.
Already cried over that and got it out of my system.
Our realtor assures us that he has never left a client homeless and that he will find us an even better home.
I am holding him to that.

Here are some final shots of the rest of the house and what we did to get it sold.



Boys' room.  The bed is a trundle so they both sleep here at least until we move and then we'll figure out different sleeping arrangements and accommodations.

Girls' room sans metal bunk beds.  Queen bed up on risers so we can shove all their stuff underneath the bed. And I do mean stuff--laundry basket, viola, American Girl doll and her paraphernalia in a large bin, some blankets folded up that only get used at night.

Hubby's workshop.  Mine is right next door on the right.  It wasn't presentable enough at the time to take pictures and share on our listing.  It looks more organized now.

Interestingly enough a single gal has bought our house.
She is going to have so much room to work with.

Master BR Staging

I have to say that I have this weird-ish feeling about showing you my master bedroom.  It feels like I am showing you the deepest part of my life.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  But really, putting your house on the market is a weird experience.  There are friends of mine who haven't ever been in my bedroom and now I am posting pictures online to sell it and letting total strangers meander around my house to look at whatever they want.

It's just weird.

Our master BR is 10 feet by 13 feet (plus a few inches).  Decent size for a 1960 built rambler.  We have a king size bed with a very large headboard.  That doesn't leave a whole lot of extra room.  But we haven't really cared.  However, in order to sell our house, the staging ladies recommended we remove the headboard so the room will more accurately reflect the size.



Here is the picture of our master BR from the first round of trying to sell.

And here we are after completing their recommendations.

Same room, same bed, same big pillows just recovered differently.

And here is our little powder room / master half bath off our bedroom.

We moved the entire headboard out to the garage.
Added risers so we could have some more storage space underneath the bed.
Flipped the duvet to the plain navy side.
Got rid of some pillows and changed the coverings of others.
Added this quilt to the end of the bed for some color.
Took the lamp table from the LR and put it as a side table.

Details:

• Bed risers bought at Wal-Mart for $7 and some change for a 4 pack.  We needed to buy 2 packs  because for a King size bed you need 6 risers.
• White bedskirt/dust ruffle made from thrifted Queen size flat sheet.  Used the piece that goes between the boxspring and mattress from the previous dust ruffle.
• White European pillow shams from a thrift store fabric purchase.  Paid $4 or less for about 4 yards of 60 inch wide white poly-something fabric.  Tied like this.
• King size pillows--made simple white satin pillowcases from thrift store fabric hase for less than $2.
• Quick reference for standard pillow sizes.
• Paint for baskets in the bathroom is Rust-Oleum 2X Ultra Cover Paint + Primer Satin in Eden.

LR Staging Changes

This past weekend we started round 2 of trying to sell our house.
This whole process has been an "experience" to say the least, and not one I hope to repeat any time soon.

The end of November we cancelled our contract with our previous realtor, took our house off the market after 5 months of lots of showings and no offers, and took a breather of sorts.  I could do a whole rant post about our previous realtor but I will spare you those details.  I am trying to move on and move forward.

Two weeks into December we had picked a new realtor, met with their staging ladies and got their recommendations and started feeling hopeful again.  Some of their suggestions we could do easily and right away, others needed more time, energy and muscle power.  And really I just couldn't deal with a lot of it right before Christmas and trying to get our oldest daughter off to college the first week of January.  My brain could only deal with so much.

Here is the previous photo of our LR for our MLS listing last year.



The staging recommendation was to move some of the larger pieces out to make the room appear as large as possible.

The bookcase on the left and the 2 side pieces of the TV cabinet were moved out.
Packed up most of my quilts and just about every single book we own.
I think I only have 4 or so on my side table in our room and that is about it.
The furniture placement was altered as well as the rug placement.
And the shoe bin/bench (lower right corner barely visible above pic or below about the middle of the pic by the couch) will get put in the back of the van for showings, along with 2 cellos.  With as many people as we have in this house and trying to reduce clutter, there is no way we can completely eliminate shoe storage, in Winter no less.



Thankfully we didn't have to move the piano.

Here we are now that the changes are completed.

What a difference!

In the first 4 days after our listing went live we had 14 showings and an open house where 15 people attended.

Seriously, what a difference!

Quick quilt gift--Scrappy 16 patch

I had this quilt waiting to be sent to Lynn for her quilting magic when we found out that a family at Church was in need for Christmas.  So instead I did some easy straight line quilting--since that is really all I can do with any of my machines--and we gave it to this family along with other items and money that members had donated.



I like that it has an Irish Chain feel to it, but it isn't really...

I have to say my kids were very encouraging when I asked them if they thought this family would like the quilt.  You really just don't ever know what people are going to like.  Not everyone can appreciate the beauty of scrappy.  And for anyone who sews or quilts, even "easy" projects take some time and effort.  But they thought it was a great idea and reminded me that we have plenty of quilts.  Yes, yes, we do.



Taking pictures wasn't that easy.
During this time period we had overcast days for almost 2 weeks straight.  Yuck!!
This was the best I could come up with before giving it to this family.



Details:

• Cut 3 inch squares sewn in a 4 by 4 block configuration.
• Made 30 blocks.
• Each block has 4 different fabrics in it.  And I am pretty sure I didn't repeat any fabrics.  I actually went back and changed 2 or 3 blocks that I noticed did have a repeat.  It was kind of bugging me--just a touch of OCD.  So that means in the end I used 120 different scrap fabrics.
• Sashing between blocks cut 1 1/2 inches wide.
• Border sashing cut 3 inches wide.
• Yellow check fabric for binding.
• Backing was a soft red chambray type fabric.
• Finished size 59 inches by 69 inches.

I received a couple Pilot Frixion Ball Erasable Pens at a "Favorite Things" Party back in December.  These pens are amazing!  I used them for the first time on this quilt to mark my lines in the border.  All I had to do was to wash the quilt and the lines were GONE.  But I could see that they would disappear with just a little water alone.  The pen even comes in light colors so if you need to mark on darker fabrics you can.  AMAZING!!  You may want to try one out for yourselves.  The giver said she bought them at her local Staples store.