Tag: 27 Dresses

The Workshop

What a fun day.  I loaded my four huge tote bags of stuff into the car, along with my trusty sewing machine, and off I went, tea mug in hand, to the workshop with Marie Ozmon, sponsored by the Jockey Hollow Weavers.  Marie has a very varied background, but loves to manipulate fabric into constructions and wall pieces, playing with color, crocheting fabric strips, cutting apart layers, and generally having a great time with a needle and thread.  It was so great to just sit all day with my weaving buddies, playing with our sewing machines, and diving through piles of stash.  It doesn’t get any better than that.  I had terrific fun with my machine, switching feet, playing with stitches, trying to see what it can do, and I can’t think of a more enjoyable way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

workshopsamplerWe basically started with four layers of fabric, stitching them together in a random way, and slicing through the layers to reveal the underneath, manipulating them, folding them, adding embellishments, and generally entertaining ourselves.  This gives me a terrific jumping off point for that illusive project 4 I have been mulling over in the back of my mind.  I think I posted that project back in December, but may have come up with a starting place for where to take all those leftovers and pieces of wonderful fibers.  But that will have to wait until I finish the Arctic Sky jacket, and my California conference.

My son is picking up Chinese food, and we will be leaving in about an hour for the show Footloose, that’s the production where I altered the 27 dresses which turned into 33…  You can read about that adventure in the blog Help Wanted and SuperBowl Sunday…

A winter storm is due in tonight through tomorrow.  I am so done with winter.  California, here I come…

Back to the Projects

So my usual Monday morning task is to dust one level of my house.  Since yesterday was a wash, with the guild meeting, and feeling lousy, and my daughters five hours of extra-curricular events, I’m lucky I had the 10 minutes to blog.  So I picked up the dust cloth and started dusting this morning, and the upstairs is much harder than the downstairs, because it has a) my husband’s office, and b) my studio.  As you can imagine, both rooms are a nightmare to dust.

fabricI moved the roll of fabric from what I originally described as Project 5, way back in the beginning of January  off of my loom to dust, moaning that it may be awhile before I get to my poor naked looms.  But I have fabric still to sew…  I returned the roll of fabric to the top of my loom castle, and then decided to actually move it to my cutting table.  The sari lining I had originally put with it in the January photo, was instantly replaced with one of the new ones my husband just brought back from India.  It is a gorgeous cyan blue, with little Jacquard motifs in gold metallic.  It is a better match, even though the original sari would have worked, the original sari competed with the lime green piece of felt I made with a friend on a whim.  I love the edge of the nuno felt piece, the irregular felted edge would be so amazing peeking out of a princess seamline like piping.  And I found three big buttons that I liked with the fabric as well.

patternSo I poured through my back issues of Burda, and found the pattern I think ties this all together, shawl collar, lightweight jacket, princess seams, welt pockets, cuffs, and I like the little belt in the back.  Oh, and it calls for three big buttons…   🙂

So I feel like I am embarking on a new relationship, whenever I finish a project, there is a mourning period, where I am actually depressed, I feel like a passionate relationship ended, that it is gone from my life.  It is all about the process for me, and when the project is done, it just hangs in the closet, or goes out for exhibit, but it is the passion of figuring it all out, laying awake at night, jumping out of bed to get through what I need to accomplish so I can dive into the latest solution.  You can probably tell this brought  me out of my slump…

There is so much going on in the studio, but I am slowly chipping away.  I finished the latest five alterations for the HS Musical production, which came in after I finished the 27 dresses.  And I got a rough outline for my architect sister’s website.  Just waiting on the final photos of all the home additions and renovations she designed, the befores and afters (which totally amaze me, I know what I can do with a piece of fabric, but to do that with a house? )  I am feeling a bit better today, thanks to my mom’s famous home remedy for stomach ailments, sip on honey and vinegar mixed in tepid water.  Works every time…

I got the work shipped out for Small Expressions, and generally got back into the swing of things.  My to do list is onto the second page, which is always scary, but I’m in a brighter mood, with a project to execute, and I’m actually beginning to feel human again after the stomach virus from the weekend.  And it is suppose to be 60 degrees tomorrow.  Can spring be far away?  There is less and less snow/ice remaining, and pretty soon, little shoots popping out of the ground!  And you know what that means….  Gardening season!