Peggy & Justin Hawkwood

Afraid of Heights?

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1438490562

(there is sound, but you don’t technically need it- about 6 min. long)

this is a climbing spot- you have a something around your wasit with two clips, and you clip yourself to the cable along the side of the wall…. or that’s what you’re SUPPOSED to do…

unlike this guy, who just Walks.

EEeeekkkkk!!

Spiky Land

How to Hem Pants - 101

Hemming Pants:

ok- the main problem is that people make them too short- if you do this, you’re screwed. So- here is my basic hemming 101:

Plug in the iron- set it to cotton. Ironing makes hemming tremendously easier.

Put the pants on with the shoes that you think you’d wear with them. Roll them up to where you want the actual final hem to be- mark it with chalk or a pin. You only need to do this on one leg.

Take pants off and lay flat- both legs together, flat; one on top of the other. From where the Mark is, take a ruler and draw a straight line AT THE SAME PARALLEL ANGLE AS THE CURRENT HEM. This may not look straight to you, but the pants are cut a certain way– keep the angle, whatever it is.

Ok- the math part.

You’ll add 1.5″ for a 1″ hem. Here’s my reason:

an average hem is 1/2″. But, a good hem is rolled twice, so that there is no raw edge of fabic on the inside of the hem. So, you need to add 1″. But, you don’t want your pants to be too short, and do you really trust where you put the Mark on the pants when you tried them on? so add another 1/2″. Ok- now you have your math: 1.5″ (If you’re really unsure, make it 2″ down)

So you measure down, towards the current hem, 1.5″ and make new marks- make about 3 or 4 of them, and then draw a new Line, Still Parallel to other Line and Current Hem- hitting as many of the 3 to 4 new marks as you can.

This New Line is where you Cut. If your scissors are good enough, cut both legs at the same time- that way if they get all funky-like, at least both legs will be that way. If your scissors aren’t good enough, then cut the leg with the line, then use the scrap you just cut off as a guide on the other leg.

Now you have unhemmed pants that are 1.5″ too long. yey.

You take your ruler or Hem Guide (black and silver measurer thing with a sliding blue triangle?) and with the pants inside out, fold hem at 1/2″, pinning every 2 or 3 inches along. You will be pinning to the inside (wrong side) of fabric, so, folding fabric towards you. USING ALL METAL PINS IS EASIER!

Do that to both legs, and lay pant leg flat and iron directly over hem. DO NOT “run” iron along fabric- the pins *will* scratch iron’s surface. Lift and Press. Lots of steam helps. If you are using pins with plastic balls, don’t iron over them- the plastic *will* melt and get very icky. Iron until hem is creased to the point where it will stay without the pins in place.

Remove pins.

Fold over hem one time, and pin again. You shouldn’t need to measure again- you know it’s a 1/2″. Folding up one more time now means you have your 1″ of fabric folded up in the hem.

Iron the new folded hem. If it will not stay in place without pins, leave them in- but make sure they are PERPENDICULAR to hem-line-to-be, so, running up and down the length of the pantleg.

Ok- Sewing time!!!

You will need a needle of at least a 90 strength (the equivelant is, I think, a 14 in euro sizes). The thread doesn’t really make that much of a difference. You can buy Denim thread- the yellowy-gold stuff- but you can use any threat which is hard to break between your hands when pulling. Poly-cotton threads are good.

Put the needle in. Thread the Machine.

Put the setting to a straight-basic stitch, not too short, not too long– mid-range. If your machine can, put it so that the needle is not centered in the hole in the foot, but off to the left.

Ok- visualize with me: machine in front of you. Pants laying on table to your Left. Put pants in machine, so that pantleg is to LEFT, and future hem is to your RIGHT. You want to position the pants so that the stitch is going to be on the LEFT edge of the hem. This ensures that the hem doesn’t unfold.

Now sew! It’s best not to sew over pins, but if you do, do it slowly. Removing them right before you go over them works well, too.

When you get to the seams in the pantleg, they will be thicker and the machine may not like them. So, when you get to that, you can either advance the stitch by hand, turning the wheel towards you- or you can stop the stitch WITH THE NEEDLE IN THE FABRIC raise the foot, and kida wiggle the fabric a bit- or you can combine the two. Just make sure you put the foot back down before you start to sew again.

Remove all pins, clip off excess thread, and iron again.

Try them on:

- if they’re too long– repeat whole damn process.

- if they’re too short– call me- it *can* be fixed, but it’s tricky

- if they’re perfect, you’re perfect & you’re done!!

tra la la la la!

Rubber Stamps?

Here’s Peggy’s Idea: just give her a small cut of it should you every make any money using her idea.

If I were a Robot…

if I were a robot, I’d like to think this is what I would look like.

The Hottest Kittens EVER!

Pointless & Too Much Information

you shut your mouth!

*The bathrooms in many of the bars have a peculiar feature: actual keys in the doors to the stalls. I kept thinking Wow! How long till those were stolen if this was america!

*After our first day of walking around, Justin & couldn’t help but notice the blinding pain in various parts of our bodies. For Justin it was the ankles, shins, neck, and shoulders. For me it was the balls of the feet, the calves, and the lower back. Even better was when we realized our ibuprofen was
at least 3 years expired, and to top it off, our room was the 4th floor, and there are no elevators. Absinthe helps in the numbing of pain.

*Justin’s excellent black leather trench-coat was starting to fall apart and is so heavy that it’s hurting his shoulders after wearing it for so may days in a row. So we went to get him a new jacket, and we noticed the weirdest thing: the zipper on separating zippers is on the other side of the jacket. This may not seem like a big deal, but try next time you zip up something: you have become accustomed to holding the zipper with the left hand and zipping up with the right hand. Trying to switch is like trying to tie your shoelaces the other direction. Possible, but really frustrating. He bought a jacket with buttons.

*When you vacation to a place that has different foods than you are used to, your digestive system is a bit confused and sometimes gets really pissed off at you, and it’s not very subtle about it or care about the timing of it all.

* When walking around in very cold weather I have leggings on underneath my jeans. After using the restroom I need to reassemble my layers to go back outside. I am also wearing a fully buttoned and tied leather trench-coat and thick gloves. Should, upon hours of walking and hundreds of stairs, I need to readjust my underwear that has shifted from one place to another, there is no subtle way to do so; not with gloves, thick jacket and 2 layers of pants. One simply needs to decide to ignore it or find a blunt way to solve it.

*The bathroom stalls are very small in some bars. They even smaller when you need to disrobe 15 lbs of outer layers to use the bathroom and you don’t know what to do with said 15 lbs of jackets, hat, and purse. Once I went into a stall ~4’ wide. There was a toilette and a coiled radiator heater in it. The radiator was hot to the touch and had a roll of toilette paper sitting on it, heating up (I moved it). Since the door opened inward to the stall, the first thing I encountered was a hot radiator. So I kinda stepped past it onto the toilette, closed the door and stepped down onto the remaining 1 sq. ft area of floor across from the radiator. Then I shed my outer layers and dropped them at my feet onto the square of floor. Then I tried to undo my pants, turn, & land bare-bummed on the toilette instead of the radiator. I succeeded, thank all gods. Sitting there was, well, toasty: knees and ankles pinned together because there was no room over by Mount Jacket and I wanted to avoid Mr. Radiator. There is the problem, however, of wiping. You cannot do so and keep your ankles and knees pinned together. I kinda shifted sideways, sorta putting my feet on the jacket pile and to door, careful not to knock out the key out of the keyhole. I’m doing this while eyeing the 1/2” gap between my bare upper thigh and the radiator. Then, basically, I had to reverse the entire operation to become clothes and leave the stall.

Tag- you’re it!

let’s go paint the town!!

There’s a lot of graffiti here.

There’s also a lot of random statues and thing on walls which, as far as we could tell were just ornamental.

What we didn’t do

No Thank You..

 We didn’t go see a black light version of the Broadway musical Cats. We kinda wanted to, cuz, dude! Black Light Version of Cats! And we kinda had plans to go see it, but then 45 minutes before the show we were in our hotel room and I said “Ok- lemme know when this gets annoying” and I started singing and repeating “OH NOW Never was there Ever a CAT so clever as Magical Mister Mestopholes” for about 4 rounds until Justin cut me off and said “Yeah, we’re not seeing Cats.

We had planed on seeing the Historical Fantasy Show, which we got a brochure for on the street. “Daily Shows” apparently means only Friday & Saturday. So, we were going to go see that on our anniversary on Tuesday, but alas, it didn’t happen. Brochure said something like Come eat the way that the medieval people did: with their hands! as you watch sword fighting, bundle up in firs, watch beautiful ladies dance and maybe ever get your fortune told by a palm reader! It sounded cheesy and kinda fun. Oh well… maybe a different time we’re in Prague on a Friday or Saturday.

We did not go ride in the horse drawn carriages. Although the horse are quite cute, they do smell like horse, and the horses in Prague were like us: rather gassy at times. All those dumplings and bacon wrapped pork medallions filled with camembert cheese in a onion and mushroom sauce. So good…

Walking and Bundling up

pretty woman- don’t walk away, hey!

10 year Anniversary for me and Justin!!

It’s hard to not feel frumpy when you’re wearing 2 layers f pants and literally 6 layers on your torso.
You become rather shapeless.

Women here are wearing stilleto boots while walking on really old colbblestones with 1/2” - 1” gap between the stones and 1/2” - 2” deep grooves. Very Brave Women.


Pedestrians do not- I repeat DO NOT have the right of way.