Round 72, Hour 29

[http://users.livejournal.com/idlewild_/]

I spent the last hour scheming and plotting about the next dress I'm going to make. Was your hour productively spent? Did words flow like honey onto the screen? If so, was that kind of a sticky mess, or what? What do you need to make this hour a good one?

Comments

[lothithil.livejournal.com]

My haiku is the only real writing I've done lately, but I did manage to prep and put on a huge crock of hamburger stew. So, that's creative, right?

[http://users.livejournal.com/idlewild_/]

Yes, absolutely it is creative! It sounds delicious, what's in it?

I've been blocked on finishing any writing for about a year. Other things that keep the creativity flowing are so good for us, we need our outlets. And cooking also nurtures ourselves and the people around us, which for me is a big help!

[lothithil.livejournal.com]

G. beef, onion, carrots, taters, g.beans, corn, crushed tomatoes, beef stock and the secret ingredient, spicy V8 juice.

I'm going to try out a recipe I found for 'cowboy bread', a kind of cinnamon-y cake that they used to serve us in grade school. Or maybe I'll make cornbread cake again.

omg I'm so domestic!

[http://users.livejournal.com/idlewild_/]

That all sounds so tasty!

[lolmac]

Ooo, I wanna hear about the dress! After you've woken up and found coffee, of course.

(You tell me yours, I'll tell you mine . . . )

[http://users.livejournal.com/idlewild_/]

YESYESYES! Are you still embellishing sleeves? Will there be pics, plz??

I'm currently working on a sundress made out of a cotton print I bought last year. It's black with aviator style sunglasses, the lenses of which show bright reflections of tropical scenes. I drafted a pattern based on an existing sundress I own, with a bunch of modifications to make it fit after making a couple of other attempts. The first one fit about as well as the commercial sundress, the second one is much, much better, and on this one I'm hoping to avoid one small area of '50s style boob pointiness that crept in.

The dress I was scheming and plotting on last night is another sleeveless number, because I just live in sundresses and am pretty much motivated to sew them at all times. I have some black rayon batiste that I want to make a wrap-dress style bodice in - I have a commercial pattern that has a good bodice I can steal and modify - and then I have this amazing print rayon for the skirt. Black and a winter white/pale cream, giant hibiscus flowers and palm fronds. I think I'm going to cut four panels for the skirt to make it fairly full. And make an underlining in the black batiste. I was just going to make another copy of the sundress I *just* perfected, but then I saw a pretty, pretty sleeveless wrap dress online and everything changed. I've got some muslin on the way so I can figure out the bodice before I start messing with the fashion fabric.

Hope you wanted a firehose of enthusiastic ranting about dresses! Tell me all on your sewing front?

[lolmac]

Firehose enthusiasm about sewing FTW!

I am almost finished with the current round of sleeve embellishments, but have set that project to the back burner for a bit while I work on a lovely thing of loveliness for Missy, involving many yards of amazing drapy green silk jacquard, green velvet with gold trim for the waist and collar band, and lots of sparkly glass beads in green and gold.

I think I had told you that I ended up getting into the SCA again, which is why I have the EPIC sleeve project -- I still have a closet full of costumes, but they aren't suited for this climate, and Missy had none at all.

So here I am with all the excuse I could possibly need to wallow in silk and velvet and shiny beads . . .

-

[http://users.livejournal.com/idlewild_/]

!!! Oh goodness, that all sounds utterly exquisite. I've been enjoying my crisp little cotton sundresses, but I confess I'm looking forward to playing with some slinkier fabric. (Looking forward to == I know I will swear a lot.) The green silk jacquard sounds amazing. SCA is an excellent excuse to wallow in luxe loveliness. My millinery project this year is somewhat austere -though it does involve beading -but I'm missing that overall GLEE at having my hands on silks and velvets and all the sparkly ever.

I ... bought an embroidery machine... which I'm still learning to use, but gives me some really fun embellishment options when I can make it work. Very different from the deep meditative nature of hand-embellishing though.