the names we give clothing

The last week of this month I'm going to be in Arizona for work (at a resort(!) which looks awsome, but which I'm not going to ever see because we're totally booked from 7am-9:30 at night either in meetings, or "breakout sessions" or in dinner/networking (which to me is just forced mingling and after ALL day, I tend to just want a little time to myself with my knitting needles and no need to be "on", but that's the deal.)) Anyway, the point is that is says we should wear "resort casual" clothing, and gave the example of shorts and tennis shoes being fine during the day. In my mind, shorts and tennis shoes are going to be paired with some kind of golf shirt or polo shirt (those might be the same thing) and I just don't do that look. I don't own a pair of shorts. I think "resort casual" says I get to wear a summery dress with a cardigan and flats! So I'm making this dress - I'm making the one on the upper right (the black one), but with straps like the one on the bottom because I want to wear a bra.

Granted, I'll never wear it without something like a cardigan thrown over it, so whether or not my bra straps show is probably moot, but I guess it's the principle of the thing. And note the fact that it has pockets, which I LOVE! I'm making it from a fabric which apparently is nearly impossible to photograph - here's a bigger piece of it.

Anyway, it's flowy and drapy and I think i'll be just great! I found the fabric in my stash, which is also great because, like with a yarn stash, it feels great to make use of something you bought with no real plan! I'm back to my old Kenmore machine and I just have a total newfound love for it! I don't think I'll replace it for a while. Oh, and another thing that makes sewing great is this little wrist pincushion that my friend Catherine made for me.

My appologies if I've mentioned it before, but it's so darn cute and totally handy! and a handy thing , when you're sitting on the floor, arms and legs going every which way, twister-style, trying to cut out pattern pieces, is a very good thing to have!

Ooh - today I also cast off side #2 of my mom's requested ponchette!

They're blocking and hopefully I can seam it up and take it to her tomorrow, which is my brother's birthday dinner at my parent's house - so how handy would that be? I suppose I could also take my SIL the baby quilt and it could just be presents all around! I can't even remember when she's due - I'm a horrible sister in law, I guess. But this IS baby #5 and I know, I know, they're all special, but it's just much less of a production now, I suppose. Anyway, the point of all this was that I'm almost done with that darn poncho and I kind of hope my mom has some overpowering AC in her office, because otherwise a wool poncho isn't terribly useful this time of year! she did say that she wants to wear it at work when she's chilly, so I think it'll be ok!

Look who's come home!

Or rather, look who taught me the value of cleaning up the stuff I have hanging in bags on the back of my dining room chair? Yeah! my Noro shawl!

I saw a bag hanging on my chair just a minute ago and thought "what's in that?" - it's pretty bad when something has been there so long it doesn't even look out of place anymore! ugh, i'm terrible. but yippe - no more tears over lost things!

One day when things were going crappily at work, I soothed my nerves by buying a stack of Kaffe Fassette fabric - I got a pack of 4" squares and a pack of 6" squares (both in the same color family - like 6 or 8 different prints of reds and fushcias.) Last weekend I started playing around with some quilt squares and after poring over one of the Fassett quilting books I checked out of the library, I sewed some together to make simple half squares. I also added in some fabric from a shirt I had, and loved, that ripped (which I realized when I was wearing it! real classy!) I put them together without a real plan as to what they'd be and then decided the piece wanted to be a pillow. I spotted some black and white gingham in my fabric stash (yes, that's why it pays to have stash fabric, and I'll never feel bad about it!) and decided it looked smashing against the florals.

I put some muslin on as a backing and quilted it up - with my old faithful Kenmore (I sent that Singer back!) and it was FANTASTIC! no fighting with it, no glitches! sure, there was no handy switch to drop the feed dogs - I had to use the little plastic plate that fits over them - very analog, but it WORKED! I took a picture of the quilting on the back side because I think it shows that I had a good time doing it (unlike the quilting on the baby blanket, which was full of anger and foul language. no baby deserves that! even though they do a lot of screaming themselves, but I digress.)

Then I thought, for the crowning glory, it needed some peacock blue pom pom trim!

I sewed it up today and I think it may well be the best pillow in the world. maybe the universe. I'm that happy with it!