You asked about the pattern...

Here's the next dress - a floral with a pinafore apron of Scotties!! Notice the sweet buttons.
Here's a fanciful kitty pattern, with a matching headband. This one was really fun.

I didn't have a pattern (have you seen them lately? They are outrageously priced!!) So I unrolled some Christmas paper - a lovely shining green - and turned it over. I sketched the pattern on the backside, measuring the width and length. I then wrote my own instructions right on the paper and began cutting and sewing. It was really easy - I do not own a button holer (the machine goes frontwards and backwards and that is it!) so I either sewed the shoulder straps shut with buttons or cut them on a taper so I could tie them. Each dress has four parts: a front, a back and two linings for the top. I just cut them the same as the front and back, sewed the right sides together, turned them right side out and then sewed the front to th back at the side seams. I did the hems by hand. Once you get started, the dress takes about 20 minutes (not counting the hem!) The hardest part is picking the fabric.

Today I'm headed to the Maine Press Association Spring Conference in Augusta - I'm really looking forward to spending some time with colleagues....

Isn't it nice to have a job where you really like the people you work with? They are some of the smartest, kindest, most caring people I have ever met. Doesn't that just fly in the face of how newspaper reporters are portrayed in movies and on t.v.? Those images are such crap.

We are moms, dads, grandmas; we get scared at accidents and cry in the bathrooms of courthouses during trials. We mourn for losses and worry about our neighbors whose homes burn. We must watch our small town politics unfold with NEVER expressing our own feelings or opinions. Our primary goal is to record history, whether it be the history of our towns, the history of our state, our businesses, our people. We are ALL after nothing but the truth of the word. And if we print the truth and you don't like it? Kill the messenger.

Wow - where did that soapbox come from?