I have not been motivated at all lately to do much of anything, especially those things that I know I must do. I am starting as a long-term sub for an English Language Arts position for 6th and 7th grades on Tuesday. I have been trying to get “my” classroom organized, but even that is not very motivating to me. We have done some things lately though:
This is a duck that my 3rd grade daughter made (with lots of Mommy help). We used the instructions from Mariska’s blog. It was fairly easy, though I would change some things for a new sewer, like the pattern size (bigger), and make sure that we used felt (no unraveling), instead of stash fabrics.
We are also gearing up for our middle school Madrigal Dinner. My 8th grade daughter will be participating in this, so this is the dress that we have started for her…although, if she gets the Half-Man/Woman part in the Madrigal play, it will be a moot point.
And a detail of the beading….I have been on a beading frenzy lately.
Notice the BE–YOO–TIFUL dressmaking dummy that one of my bestest friends, Kelli, gave to me! I have named her Bianca, and the sad, yet beloved, Minerva (my duct tape dummy) has been moved to the pit that is my basement.
I am still waiting to hear back from Sew Retro, and I also joined Wardrobe Refashion. This is another place that I am excited about, but they haven’t written back to me yet either. I will be patient, and try to abide by the rules of not buying new, making things from fabric I own, and refashioning thrifted items. I am trying to include our daughters as well.
And in this vein, I have completed a project that I am extremely proud of…
I bought this pattern AGES ago, and was disappointed to get it home and find that it only had the skirt piece. So I made some pieces up out of newspaper, and scaled it down to my 8 year-old’s size.
I had the polka dot fabric from when I was redoing the bathroom. It was originally going to be curtain valances, but I found something else.
And here she is…
I did decide to join the Sew Retro blog (if they will have me). Their August/September challenge is to make a dress, from vintage pattern and/or fabric. I will do this!
Right now, I am working on those flapper headbands. I made great progress on a peachy orange one during a viewing of Chocolat, but I got bored with the peach beads, so I started another piece. This one is a hip decoration, ala this:
(click for full-size)
I am really excited about how these are turning out. I tried to bead a purse for someone an number of holidays ago, and I wasn’t crazy about my technique. This time I am beading directly on Aida cloth, used for cross-stitch. The beads are sized–1 bead=1 space on cloth, so this makes it slightly easier to estimate how many beads I need for each section. I will put some pics on real soon!
