unearned grace

...in which our plucky heroine shifts focus from grumble to grateful...]

My kindly houseguests cleared a path through the backyard weedfilled jungle to the feral plum tree, and picked up all the undamaged windfalls, and most of the fruit still on the tree. All I need to do is put the plums in the freezer, and toss the damaged windfalls for the chickens. Happy girl will have plums this winter!

The feral plum tree has given Acorn Cottage somewhere around 12 to 14 lbs of tasty Italian prune plums. I neither planted or take care of this tree, which is wedged between the shed and the back fence, but the plums are sweet and unblemished. Girl is filled with gratitude for this unearned bounty.

Another nice thing about prune plums is how very easy they are to process for freezing, all that is needful is to cut in half and pop out the pit; easiest fruit save blueberries...

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Have almost finished the nomad trousers, (a variation on Vogue 8499) all that is left to do is the handwork of stitching a bit of ribbon over the join between the loose trousers and snug embroidered cuffs. The pattern as drafted fits me fairly well; I did shift the two side leg darts up, so that they bracketed my actual knees, since the capri length pattern fits me like full length pants. The only other alteration I did was to reshape the crotch curve to eliminate the wedgie backside, which entailed simply scooping the seamline about 1cm. Seriously, the target demographic must have no bottoms!

I might actually make these again at some point, the integral pockets are great, and the fit is pretty comfortable. This pattern definitely requires a drapey fabric though, I used a rayon (ottoman?) with a tiny woven-in rib, in a bright periwinkle blue. Why ever did such a color end up in my fabric stash will remain forever a mystery?!?, but for a wearable muslin/SCA underlayer/lounge-wear pair of funky trousers, it will be just fine. Once finished this will be another item for Make and Mend 2012.

Monday musings

There are two more garments to complete the Autumn 6PAC... will our plucky heroine meet that goal, or will the other additional planned sewing fill up all the allocated stitchy-time... let's see... besides another pinafore and a pair of overalls for the 6PAC, the list for this month has an entire new set of SCA clothing (steppe nomad trousers, underdress and overcoat; the overcoat will have hand stencilled printed designs), also three additional Make & Mend items (rework one garment + make two non-daywear garments) Hmmm wonder if the M & M could be combined with the SCA, after all there is not much difference between an underdress and a nightgown, which would give me one of the three) And, of course, there is daily work, and household chores, which take up so much time when I could be sewing! Well, by the time winter finds us, at least there will be sturdy warm clothing to keep the chill at bay

revised Autumn 6PAC

dk neutral overlayer - dk neutral bottom - dk neutral top - alt neutral overlayer - alt neutral top - color link top -

- brown twill pinafore - brown twill overalls - brown t-shirt - black pinafore - black t-shirt - blue/black/brown t-shirt

Saturday snippets

My sister is a great one for noticing what missing objects would make me squee with happiness... Most recently, a gift package arrived from Amazon and inside was the complete set of all three Alabama Chanin books! What a wonderful addition to my reference library; our plucky heroine is looking forward to even more experiments with handstitching decorative clothing.

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Make and Mend is progressing along, so far the projects have been small enough for transit handwork.

Thanks to the beautiful shot silk organdy from Luz Clara, I was able to make suitable roses for the wedding guest hat. All the roses are backed with brooch findings, rather than permanently attaching them, and as my friend Dayna has a great passion for purple, I knew from the beginning that one of the rose brooches would be a gift for her, to add to her (purple) summer straw hat, and I think that she was quite pleased.

This week I used the small leftover scraps from my bag holder project to make a new potholder for the kitchen here at Acorn Cottage. The scraps, combined with a partially wornout hand towel, were transformed into a bright and useful cooking helper. I know, simple pleasures for simple people, but when it is grey outside this winter, every bit of brightness is welcome.

there and back again, part 1

in which our plucky heroine travels to K Falls for a wedding of dear friends, with an unexpected side journey to Crater Lake...

'twas a long drive from Portland to Klamath Falls, on a sunny September afternoon

There is an incredible quality of light in the high country, and the sunset colors are vivid

After the wedding rehearsal, Vandy made some last minute alterations in the brides gown...

...while Stacy, the lovely bride-to-be, used some of her creative skills to add a personal touch to the wedding favors.

The next day would be the big event...

(our plucky heroine bossed the sparkly springy ribbon around, and tied neat bows on pairs of candles)

To be continued, with more pictures, tomorrow...
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there was a very fancy hat decorated for this event, (the bride had requested that we all wear "fabulous hats"), with lots of organza roses made from shot silk. Making the roses was not too difficult, though the organza was quite springy. I followed the general guidelines posted here  The roses are one of my Make and Mend items, being made from a gifted large remnant of silk, that matched my summertime party dress perfectly

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My dear mother, noticing my struggles on more than one occasion to identify the pretty things I photograph, just sent me a field guide to North American wildflowers. What an excellent addition to my reference books... thank you Mom!

make and mend

Over on New Vintage Lady's blog, she posted the Make and Mend challenge for this year, and since it sounds like fun, and like a number of the requirements are things that will make good handwork projects 'til it is cool enough to resume knitting, look for an assortment of additional projects in the next month and a half.

These are the Make and Mend criteria for 2012:

• Make two crafts from scrap fabric, (hat, pot holders, table runner, etc.).
• Rework one garment.
• Make two wearable items not meant for day wear (i.e. : jim jams, robe, slip, etc.).
• Embellish one item (i.e. faggoting, pin tucking, embroidery, etc).
• Make one item (in addition or one of the items above) for someone else.

The idea of make and mend is not as twee as it sounds; to be able to repair, or actively reuse household things is a resilient skill. I do not discard clothing until it is worn out, and often then the useable parts are remade into something else. But then, I make pretty much more than 90% of my wearables save footgear. My first project though, will be something far from utilitarian: silk organza flowers... hopefully the tutorial for t-shirt roses will also work with a more ethereal fabric. The fabric, as mentioned yesterday, was part of a bundle sent to me by an online pal from the Stitchers Guild message board (thanks Luz Clara), and shows obvious signs of having pattern pieces cut from it, so surely fits the description of scrap fabric, albeit a rather large scrap!

These are my ideas for what to make:

• fabric flowers to decorate hats + potholder from leftovers from kitchen plastic bag holder*
• Rework black thrifted dress into jumper
• two slips aka underdresses for added wintertime warmth
• Embellishment will not be a problem, pretty much everything I make has some kind of handworked decoration
• if I post what I will be making for someone else, it will not be a surprise...

* apparently I forgot to post about this small project, completed a few weeks ago...as part of the ongoing attempt to do at least one thing every day to combat entropy, I stitched up this bag holder, made from about half of a tea towel, to hang between the kitchen and the workroom. This bit of useful storage has been on my to-do list for months now, but took less than an hour... The more that there are "places" for the needful stuff to live, the more focus can shift to more interesting things than why are the plastic bags on the floor again