More project pictures

I've been busy working on more projects! (James is making comments about how productive I get when I'm avoiding things. Whatever paper could he be referring to??? Certainly not the divorce and mental health paper I have hanging around. I deliberately choose not to work on that one when the family's home!)
This is the skirt I made for Tori, out of the remainder of the fabric from her Ball dress. There are 16 panels, so it's almost a circle, or a circle and a half!, skirt. It should twirl nicely when she's dancing.

I hope she'll enjoy dancing in this skirt! And if she doesn't, Miriam has already registered an intention to borrow it, so I'm sure she'll be glad to take it off Tori's hands.

We had a lovely time dancing with her and the twins at the contra dance at Glen Echo on Friday night. Miriam's knee was bothering her a bit, so she didn't dance as much as the rest of us did, but Samuel and James and I had a blast! Our friend, Steve Hickman, was one of the band members, and when Steve's on fiddle the music's always fantastic!
Here are the six zabuton pillows I got covered on Saturday afternoon, before we ran over to Columbia to hang out with Lee & Jon and their kids. I do so enjoy having family (by blood or by choice!) nearby, and being able to be a part of their lives as the kids grow up! It's hard to believe the twins are almost six. I remember when they were tiny and we propped them up with their giant teddy bears and took a picture of all the twins together! Now even baby Daniel's almost two, and the twins are reading!

Here's a picture of Miriam wearing the new lounge pants I made for her after I finished the skirt and before I changed to the navy thread to make the zabuton covers and our curtains. I have another pair of pants to make for her, and a pair for James, and several for Samuel- who is growing like a weed and needs comfy pants to sleep in.














I made the blue curtains for our bedroom yesterday, and then got to tease James because he hadn't obtained the cup hooks to hold the tiebacks by the time the curtains were finished, and he'd had a whole week's notice. He said something about my not usually finishing a project that quickly, but I must be mistaken! . . .Okay, so how long ago did I finish the red bedding set for the library (since back in the time when Kyle was visiting regularly!), and have had the fabric for the curtain sitting around since then. But I got that finished this afternoon too!

The curtains did a wonderful job of darkening our room, and kept it warmer, too!

The red curtains in the library will block the streetlight and let our guests sleep without hanging a towel in the window!

Projects galore!

After completing much of the last curtain panel at the Christmas Country Dance School (aka CCDS, while in seated classes or gatherings), I finally tied it off on the 5^th. Here is a picture of the first and last panels for our bedroom, hanging in the window. I made the second and third panels wider, and then had to make this one wider still for balance. It’s still not exactly the same, but that’s the delight of handmade, right?

Being on a crocheting binge, I stopped by Joann’s to pick up some other yarns to make a couple of vests. I got this one finished in about three hours. Two strands of yarn and a big hook make things go quite quickly. I love the depth of colors that comes from combining the two different blue yarns. If I use this pattern again, I’ll make the shoulder straps shorter, and probably approach it a bit differently, but I rarely follow a pattern anyway.

I’m working on another vest, made with black chenille with little specks of color. I’ll post a picture when I finish that one. It’s rather bulky, so I’m still carrying my ball of thread and the tiny needle when I go out. I am almost finished with a doily that I started in Meeting for Business on the sixth. I’ll post a picture when I finish it. I don’t use doilies around the house, so if someone wants to use it, let me know. If not, I’m thinking about putting it in the auction for the scholarship fund at this year’s CCDS.

The major project for this week was Tori’s gown for the Midwinter Ball. The theme is the Roaring Twenties, and she wanted a flapper dress. Now, if it were that simple, she could have borrowed Aunt Lisa’s flapper dress, but no! Being the princess (or whirling dervish?) that she is, Tori wanted it to have a twirly skirt that hid when she was standing still, so that the dress maintained the lines of the flapper style! Okay, have you ever tried to find a pattern for a flapper dress in January? Maybe in August or September, when people are working on Halloween costumes, but not January. No big deal. I am an old pro at making costumes, and it’s basically a sac, right? We found a delightful fabric in the red tag section on Saturday, and all those fabrics went on a further 50% markdown with the new sale on Sunday, so we set it aside.

I used muslin to make a mockup, and it worked pretty well. I was awake for hours two nights in a row, waking from dreams trying to figure out the geometry of a hidden twirly skirt. (The things we do for our kids!) After trying two (or three, depending on how you count it) variations on the muslin skirt, we were ready to cut the real fabric.

Lots of pressing and trying it on, (the fabrics hang very differently!), we ended up with a quite satisfactory dress, and I made a little clutch purse to match. I think the socks really make the outfit, don't you?

(Sorry about the gap on the page. I can't figure out how to make it go away.)

I didn’t have the right serger thread, so Tori took Miriam out to get that, and bought her flannel to make lounge pants and a soft top to sleep in. Then there are Samuel’s lounge pants, and the curtains full-length blue curtains to hang over the café curtains in our bedroom, and the ones that have been waiting to be made for the library/guest room so we can take down the towel to keep the streetlight from shining in that window, and the covers for the zabuton (floor pillows) because we like to sit on the floor, and need them if we’re going to host teen parties very often, and . . . etc.

Where has my break gone??? School resumes in another week and a half. I’ve missed having the time to do these creative projects during the semester. It’s fun to look at something I’ve made and think “I did that!”

Matching curtains!

I did it! I finally made two panels that actually match! They are the same width, and have the motifs going in the same direction, and the trim lines are the same, and. . .

Unfortunately, now that I've got the pattern figured out, I have to modify it slightly to make the last panel. The one that will share that window is only 5, not 9, motifs wide (oops! miscounted while waiting in the airport) and needs an extra-wide panel to give it enough fullness. I'll probably start that one this weekend, after I catch up with my readings and when I have time to concentrate.

This panel took less than two weeks. I started it Tuesday of orientation (8/21), did nothing more until worked on it while visiting in Christiansburg the following weekend, and finished it while sitting on the sofa making sure my niece and nephews were safe this past weekend. (I tried to read for class, but that was more stressful than productive. . . "Aunty Mary! Aunty Mary!" while trying to translated words into meaning in a new field just wasn't going to work!) Crocheting was something I could do while they talked to me, and the twins took turns "helping" me by pulling off loops of thread as they chattered.

Strawberry curtains

So, first I thought the pattern was pineapples, and related to my link to Hawaii, as well as being a traditional symbol of hospitality. I made three panels with the points oriented up. (refer to my previous picture last spring) Those panels were too narrow, and I hung all three in the library/guest bedroom window.

Samuel said he thought they looked more like pine cones, so I turned the pattern upside down for the next panel. I was sitting in the airport on the way to Colorado making the chain to begin that panel, lost count, and didn’t make it long enough, so it ended up being too narrow again.

I finished that one while watching the Tour de France (after carrying it to Colorado and Florida!), and started the next one very carefully. I just finished that one this week, as a surprise for James. (He was taking a class in Reston, VA this week, and stayed with my brother rather than commuting 2+ hours each way every day. Thanks for having him, Chuck!) With the curtains hanging in the window, James says he thinks the pattern looks like strawberries.

I don’t know, or even care, what to call the pattern. I enjoy doing the work, and like the way they’re turning out.

I’m going to try to actually make the next panel match this one! Five panels so far, and no two of them match exactly. The final panel is going to be different again, because I’ve got to figure out how to balance the design in the window, while adding width to make up for the last narrow one.

I did finally use up that first huge (1.5+ mile) ball of thread, and started the next ball to finish the last four inches or so of this curtain.