Rough stuff

Need to match thread to your husband’s golf trousers but would rather not have to actually bring them along to the shop?

Find a floss! It will be close enough for jazz, as my music teacher Lucy used to say….

Never too old for a new toy!

Take that, arthritis! Think again if you think you are going to keep me from pursuing my new passtime. 

After some online research and video watching it was just a few clicks more to have a stencil tool sent. 

A lighter touch is needed but how great to have a complete image to use for cutting appliqués. An emery board will take care of the rough edges. I traced the image onto my Mylar with a sharpie and placed an 11×14 bit of glass over a cutting mat to protect it. Got a little fume-y in the sunroom but I think that was from going too slowly. 

Away to test my new airbrush tool (as recommended on the AC site) in the garage. 

Braveheart

I wish I was brave enough to do it. 

Altering the garden party dress into a skirt and top was in my head even as I was designing it. 

‘Cut the top to tunic length then add a waistband as needed on the skirt’ thought I. 

Now that my creation has served its purpose it deserves to move on. Got no garden parties, weddings et al on my summer schedule. I don’t need this as is any more. 

I could stencil and reverse appliqué the top so that it could be reassembled for a dress ‘look’. 

Or make a top in the reverse color scheme.

This shouldn’t be so hard!!! Measure twice, then cut!

Tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow. 

When you don’t know what to stitch next

you might as well spend some time making sure your craft room doesn’t qualify you for an episode of ‘Hoarders’. 

I made a good stab at emptying the mending and small refashions box today: taking in Ts, mending a pair of capris, reducing a pair of handkerchiefs that I was told were too large (?) and putting pockets on a refashioned apron that was too short so also needed length. 

Purple linen bought in Shenzhen and a recycled flowery ‘Daisy May’ type top furnished the scraps for the additions to a recycled tartan dress bought during the early days of our two years in Hong Kong when I discovered most of my summer clothes were still too warm for that climate. 

Slowly but surely I’ve been taking apart clothes from that time if I still like the color and print and weight of the fabric. There’s enough now for a tub swap!

I guess next time I’m tucked away in the craft room I’ll play match the pattern to the fabric so I can get going on some new hot weather clothes for a St. John AVI trip at the end of the year. Sure don’t need clothes like that here at home at present. We’ve had our three days of summer….

Something for the weekend

Another bag of black and white circles cut from the scraps of the dress and bolero, my travel sewing kit and patience. 

Best to have too many flowers to sew on the hat Monday than too few. 

If you need me, I’ll be at my

club. 

Garnering odd looks as per usual, but narry a comment. Those flowers for the hat I need to wear a week today are not going to spontaneously assemble themselves out of the hundreds of black and white circles of jersey in my handbag….

Drops mike

Places dress and bolero on Dorothea to allow the wrinkles to hang out for a few days. 

Makes tea. 

Does not need to wonder where last three weeks of life went!

A sixties vibe

Wouldn’t you say?

You could almost wear the dress inside out. 

Yeah. I’m ready to be done with this project! I’m already mentally planning the next dress but it won’t have a set finish date, which will hopefully make the process less of a chore. 

If I had to do it all again

Certainly felling one’s seams is easier to do pre-construction but I wanted one last fitting before committing. 

I’ve only myself to blame. I made a mock. I should trust years and years (and years) of experience. It’s another day of fiddly work on the cards. 

Sigh. 

No wonder I feel a bit like the kestrel chicks on my family’s farm! These wee things and their three siblings were carefully measured and weighed a few days ago. (They sort of ‘play dead’ when the folk involved in the kestrel project visit to check the boxes dotted about the orchard).

No chicks were harmed in the taking of this photo! 

The trouble at this stage

is that it LOOKS done — until you get up close 

and see all the felling and binding work. 

It’s  a lot more fun to work on the hat design this afternoon in the sunroom….

I don’t think there’s time to make a small handbag for my car keys, two forms of ID and phone. 

Perhaps I need to look through the three USPC (unusually shaped purse collection) boxes up in the loft.