Beaded Forest

Post-rain garden

Now that several days of spring rain are over (and a bit of chaos in my life has settled down!), here are a few images of the garden (yes, the lilac picture is the right way, even though it looks like it's sideways!)

My recent sewing projects

Here's what I've been up to, sewingwise:

The shirt is my adaptation of New Look 6621, and the skirt is self-drafted.  You can't really tell from the picture, but the skirt has inside-out French seams, making nice vertical lines down the mid sides of the front and back (I got that idea from a Vogue pattern).  The shirt is a bit brightly colored for me...I usually go for earth tones...but I had the material and was feeling ready for spring!  It's a stretch cotton so it fits really comfortably and wrinkles less.  I like the pattern and will use it again, now that I've made all my adjustments on it.  The two pieces weren't necessarily meant to go together, but they teamed up nicely for the picture, I thought.

On to other subjects...Harry's in big trouble!  Turns out he's been stealing from the neighbors.  We were aware of a few mishaps..."borrowed" gardening tools and the like...but we got a call from a neighbor last night that Harry had chewed up his baseball mitt, and two of his bicycle helmets were mysteriously missing.  One of the helmets was discovered this morning, its condition, shall we say discretely, a bit worse for wear.  So...he'll be getting some new helmets and a mitt on us, and Harry will be a bit more supervised outside!   

More evidence of spring!

Every week there's new spring beauty popping up!  The forsythia has been blooming for a couple of weeks now, and it sure brings on a bright, happy yellow to wake everything from its winter slumber.  I love these little frittilaria I planted a few years ago...they come back every spring:

My neighbor Kathy gave me a few of these from her garden a few years ago, and I love their Dr. Seuss-ness, and that little flower, hiding underneath the huge leaves:

This week's daffodils:

You can't have spring without a Bleeding Heart or two!

The dogwood tree:

And finally, the little jack-in-the-pulpits which pop up all over the woods.

I've been doing a bunch of sewing, but haven't gotten around to pulling out the dressform for picture-taking.  I'll do it soon, I promise!

Signs of Spring!

A few of the local flora popping out, now that warmer weather has arrived:

A wild violet;

Can't remember the name of these guys, but they appear all over the place!

One of the gazillions of different daffodil varieties I've either planted or inherited;

Lovely nodding hellebores;

These guys are one of my favorites. They appear all through the woods this time of year, with speckled leaves and little nodding flowers. So sweet and bright among the old dry leaves!

Kewpie

Harry brought this home the other day from God knows where, and David decided it was worth a cleanup.  So here the kewpie sits, in the sink, receiving a little bath. 

Pattern adjustments

I just finished making some adjustments in my pattern for the blouse I showed off in the last post (the first blouse listed)...there were some fit issues that needed some work, and hopefully I've figured them out!  So I'm gonna give it another go-around and see how it turns out this time.  I really do like the pattern, and it's worth fiddling around with for the perfect fit.

This is pretty much all I've gotten around to this week.  We were out of town for a few days, so that threw everything off!  But it's always nice to get away and do something different. 

I'll document my progress as the blouse comes along...

What I've been up to

I've been doing a bunch of sewing lately, squeezing it in when I have time.  I've been thinking of Spring/Summer tops!!!  The main project I've been working on is this one:

It's from an out of print Vogue pattern (7999), and I should model it on myself...it's looking kinda bedraggled here, worse than it looks in real life (also, it's not finished).  I actually love the pattern, which is very flattering on me.  Emphasizes my waist and glides over problem areas!  There are a few problems with this rendition, and I need to make some adjustments to have it really fit right, so I'll fiddle with the pattern and make it work.  I'd been looking for a pattern with a side zipper, a style which has always worked for me, and this one fit the bill.

This is KwikSew 3419, and I've made it a couple of times.  Once again, it's fitting kinda funny on my dress form...I've got one of my bras on it, but there's still something off in the boob area.  Don't know what's up.  But it's a flattering style on me...has that nip-in-the-waist-and-glide-off-the-hips thing again.  I had to raise the neckline, because the first version I did was a bit too revealing!  Just like the Victoria's Secret top below:

I added the stretch lace inset for modesty purposes.  Who can wear these super-low-cut things, and where are they going in them?

This camisole (with an underwire bra attached!) is from Sahalie, but it was a little too long to fit right.  So I hemmed the bottom, something I've never done on a store-purchased knit.  It ended up a little wonky, but I think some additional steaming with the iron will help.

So, those are my sewing adventures for the week!  I'm going on a little vacation this week, so no sewing time...boo hoo!  But yay vacation!!! So it balances out.    

I'm back!

After a long creative dry spell, I think I'm back!  Or at least headed in the right direction.  I don't know what it was, but I just couldn't get myself to do anything craft-related for a month or so.  I managed to get a lot of eBaying done, which was an accomplishment (I've got lots of stuff sitting around that someone else could have more use for than I do, so I feel it's my duty to get it into their hands!  Makes more space, too!), so that's a positive.  There's still more eBaying to be done, but finally I feel motivated to get out the sewing machine and scissors and start doing something fun! 

I started out with a project that totally flopped...more on that another time...but now I'm doing some t-shirts using a TAT (tried and true) pattern, so they should work out fine.  I think I'm getting in the mood for warmer weather! 

And I ran across this gorgeous fabric while surfing the net:

Please click on the picture so you can see the detail...I love it!  It's a William Morris cotton from Waechter's Silk Shop, and I had to have it.  It has no assigned use just yet, but its proper place will become evident at some point!

I also have to remark on David's cooking of late...it's been terrific!  He made this fabulous shepherd's pie which came out of the oven so lovely I had to take a picture:

And delicious too!

More to come...I'm back in the swing of things, I can feel it!

What Harry's doing today...

...and what I get to do is stay home from work!  A foot of snow is expected today, and our driveway hasn't been plowed, so I'm not going anywhere.  Whoo-hoo!!!!

Makin' some jewelry

I've spent the weekend doing all sorts of non-craft stuff...spending time with friends, doing housework, taxes (oh boy!), etc.  I put a few household items up on eBay, since they've been sitting around way too long.  As soon as I finished posting them, David tells me there's a big eBay boycott week starting today!  I had no idea. Well, too late to do anything about it now.
Finally I got around to doing some beading this afternoon.  One of my co-workers wants to buy some gift jewelry from me, so I made a couple of pairs of earrings for him to check out.  And the necklace is for me!  I love this ceramic focal bead from ArtBeads, and had to put it to use.  I combined it with faceted glass, jade, pearls, and hessonite garnet.   It'll go with a lot of my outfits. 
I've been experiencing something of a creative slump, but hopefully getting my hands wet with the beading will get me back on track. 

My dish is done!

I'm so pleased!  Here's my first-ever pottery project, glazed and fired.  It's not fancy, and it definitely has flaws, but I love the way the glaze turned out and I'm very satisfied with my first attempt.  I might have to go back and do more! 

Here's Harry, looking pensive after watching the Westminster Dog Show.  You see, Wirehaired Vizslas are still not recognized by the American Kennel Club, and he's disappointed.  Poor Harry.

Experiments...

This is the general state of my work area.  Chaos.  I've been experimenting with various things, and haven't come up with too many finished projects to show off.  Some of my experiments are paying off, though, so I'll hopefully have some fun stuff posted soon!

In the meantime, I just found out yesterday that Rockland Center for the Arts wants teachers to display/sell some items in their new display cabinets, so I came up with a couple of new things to put in there:

A couple pairs of earrings, and...

...a Spring scarf.  Guess I'm into the blues, pinks, and purples right now!

Pottery Party!

I was thinking of titling this post "Pot Party", but people might get the wrong idea!  The most serious substance there was my tin of homemade oatmeal-raisin cookies, although things got a bit crazy when the power went out for a while!  I know nothing about pottery, but my neighbor Paula has her own pottery shop here at the Co-op, and invited members to come over and throw a pot or two.  Given the freezing rain and other wintry nastiness falling from the sky, only a few of us showed up (and I nearly fell over more than once on my way), but we had a great time...and I learned a lot!  Here's Paula at her wheel:

And here's my first-ever plate!  The feel of the clay and the wheel are so wonderful, it was really a pleasure.

So later it'll get fired, and then I can play around with glazes.  I hope I get invited back soon!

Slavic Soul Party!

This is me last night at an event hosted by the Rockland Center for the Arts (RoCA), where I teach jewelry classes (in fact, I taught a beginner's class yesterday morning!).  It was a fabulous time!  There was a pasta dinner, which was great, and we sat next to some of the board of directors of RoCA...they were a lot of fun, and it's always good to make those kinds of connections!  Dinner was followed by music by Slavic Soul Party, which is an amazingly cool brass band.   

Go to their website and listen to some of their music...there's no way I can describe it here!  I brought my friend Barb, and we danced all night (boy, am I sore today!).  Here's the crowd having a good time:

And here's Barb, dancing with our friend Andre...

I whipped up a necklace and earrings to wear to the event, using raw sapphires (aren't they gorgeous?), pearls, silver, and a great ceramic pendant from ArtBeads.

It was a terrific evening, and made me realize I have to get out more!