Swatches

In an effort to choose a fabric for my wedding dress I ordered 17 swatches of silk from fabric.com. Everything from "iridescent mushroom," which turns out to be fairly horrid, to "iridescent majestic apricot." Let me tell you, this is a really hard decision. And my original color plan won't work as well as I had thought it would. Hmmm......

UFO's

Unfinished objects. Works in progress. Call them what you will, mine are getting out of hand. First we have the half-made green summer dress that I'm totally uninspired to finish. It's something about the rain and the low 60's temperatures. I'm still wearing jeans and a fleece most days!

Then there's the quilt that I started, um, last spring. I had actually begun quilting it by hand when I realized that I just don't have the patience for it. It was summer then too, and sitting under a quilt was not my idea of a good time. It's lived in a neglected heap ever since. Now I'm working to machine quilt it, and quickly, so I can get it done and put it to use.

And the blue silk, of course, is for a dress that I'll wear to a wedding next week. As you can see it's not moved much since the last time I mentioned it. But I'm still planning to wear it next week.

And that's not to mention the napkins for my wedding or the chair I started to reupholster (demolish) in February, or the scarf I've been knitting....... Man. Does everyone have a pile like this?

Stash

Hello, my name is Kristen, and I have a problem with hoarding fabric. It's gotten out of control. We have a traditional New England built in cabinet in our dining room, and all the drawers below it are stuffed to the gills with my fabric stash. (This would make my Dad crazy. My Mom had the exact same problem. Her fabric had taken over an entire closet! At least I know where I get it from.) There's the fabric intended for elephants. There's the fabric I got to make who knows what with that's still in there. There's the giant pile that's supposed to magically turn itself into napkins for our wedding. And then there's the leftovers. I hate throwing away the extra bits left over from various projects. Case in point? Fabric from my sister's wedding. From last April.



I ordered 30 yards of silk and made three dresses from it. Two had long trains and bell sleeves, so that used up quite a bit. But I then saved ever scrap bigger than about 6". Come on, it's dupioni silk! You can't just throw that stuff away. Well, today I've come here to tell you it was totally worth it.

Our friends, the ones I made invites for, are obviously getting married and I clearly need a new dress for the occasion. But even more than a dress, I need a new purse to carry with said dress. I'm so bad with formal purses. I own one, and it's light purple. So I found myself some super instructions, bought a purse frame, and went to work.

Step one involved re-dying my silk. My silk was originally blue and white:



Then I accidentally put them in the wash together before I made my niece's dress, and came out with blue and light blue:



I wanted the light blue to be even darker this time around, so I stuck them in the wash again. Shameless, I know. But effective.



And it from there it was simple! I used the dark blue for the purse. The lighter pieces are larger than the dark, so I set those aside to make the skirt for the dress. I'll piece together the rest of the dark blue to make the top. Pictures will come when I, uh, actually make this dress. But for a grand total of $7, I'm now the proud owner of an awesome dupioni silk clutch. And completely convinced of the merits of stashing. :)

Odds and Ends

Man, it's been a doozie around here. I promise to return to my standard programming in the next couple of days.

This week was my last for teaching private lessons, and as much as I love working with the kids I think we're all ready for summer break. At least it's mutual. Summer for me has grown to mean 6 weeks in Maine, away from all cell phone service and regular internet connections, but we've got different plans this year. It means I'll be working quite a bit more than usual, for better or worse, but there will still be a change of pace from my usual routine. I think I've learned that I find balance like a pendulum finds center. I'm always way over to one side or the other, and just skimming past center on my way to a different extreme. Right now that tiny speck of centered-ness on the horizon is looking awfully nice.

So give me a couple of days, and I'll be right back with you. Trust me, I'm looking forward to it.

One of those days

I had a lovely morning, and then my afternoon kind of took a turn for the worse. Can it be summer yet? I'm putting up these pictures from my morning to try and end on a good note. And here's to a better tomorrow.

Save the Dates

We just got the first bunch of these out in the mail. 5 months left!

Travel Themed Invitations

I've been away from this space for longer than I'd like, so let me show you a bit of what I've been up to!



Our friends, Peter and Jamie, are getting married in a couple of months and they trusted me and my gocco-ing skills enough to let me make their wedding invitations. Peter is one of my favorite horn players, and Jamie works in research with autistic children. They're really pretty fantastic. They met in Germany while Peter was studying there for a year and Jamie was working as an au pair. The two love to travel (they're going to Tanzania for their honeymoon!!) so that's becoming the theme of their wedding. And after a lot of brainstorming this is what we came up with for their invites.



As you can see, they're luggage tags! The cover page is cut from vintage map wrapping paper that we found at the Paper Source and had cut down to size. A friend of theirs drew the great silhouette of the two birds in flight. I gocco-ed the heck out of the whole bunch, and all four of us sat down one night to trim corners and punch holes.



I love all the invitations I've made with the gocco so far, but I think these are my favorites. I like how the travel theme carries through to each page without being campy. They're classy and elegant, while still looking modern and personal and unique at the same time. So congrats to Peter and Jamie, and I'm glad these turned out so well!