Close. Very close.

This weekend was the SAT at the Friends Gather BB. I didn't quite meet my goal of completing all three sheep, but I did make great progress and qot quite close. Overall, I'm happy with what I did get done.



During all this marathon stitching, we watched part 2 of the first series installment in the latest Britcom we've found, A Fine Romance (with Judi Dench). Funny, with a similar humor as As Time Goes By. Judi was a young chick in this series. We also watched a couple episodes of The Last Detective, which is a Brittish crime drama with Peter Davidson (in the version we're watching), whom we really liked in All Creatures Great and Small and At Home with the Braithwaites. We also watched a very odd thriller called The Hour of the Wolf. I'll let you just read the synopsis on imdb. (Netflix really needs a rating for 'Liked it, but it was wierd') We also watched A Good Woman with Helen Hunt. This is based on an Oscar Wilde play, and has that wonderful Oscar Wilde wit. Very good.


DH and I met up with my parents, DSis and her boyfriend this weekend to celebrate Fathers' Day/Dad's Birthday. (Hope everyone had a lovely one...Father or Fathers' Day, whichever! :o)

From previous posts, regular readers know my dad is quite handy with wood and power tools, so he's used to getting the phone call now and again that begins, "Dad, can you make me..."

Now, in my dad's heyday, he was very athletically inclined (and is still in excellent shape), has always been a runner (and even ran marathons into his late 50's) until he had problems with his hip that made him slow down and walk. He would walk/run the steps at the highschool stadium until, finally, his hip made *any* walking almost impossible. So, he got a shiny, new hip in September 2004, and he's back to running (not walking) the highschool steps. He's a bit of an icon there, and was featured in a local newspaper for having run up 1,000,000 steps in a few years (if you count the down steps, that's 2M). He started counting before his hip slowed him down and finished up after he got the new hip. He's well on his way to completing 2,000,000 steps up. Go, Dad!

So, anyway, because Dad has heard so many Dad-Can-You-Make-Me's, he cashed in a favor for me to sew him up some (really obnoxiously printed) running pants (he'll even cut them out!). So, part of this weekend was spent sewing up a test pair to see how it fits and once we get a good prototype, I'll be making him a running wardrobe.

Here's Itchey, on my sewing table, supervising my progress. You can see the top of the pants in the green fabric with palm trees and the pattern we're using. Since he cut them out, it took all of maybe 10 minutes to sew up all the seams except the hem and waistband. I'll do those this evening and mail them out to him tomorrow. (DH is excited, he gets to use my grommit maker to put the grommit in for the drawstring - and I'll have to hear Wallace and Grommit quotes the whole time, I'm sure!)



Dad's been on the lookout for frog material for a pair of running pants for years. Mum made him a pair of frog running shorts back in the 80's that, to dad's dismay, wore out after many, many wearings) So, if any one has some 100% cotton frog material, not kiddish or feminine (about 3 yards) that you no longer want, please let me know!