Cozy Rosie

Tonight I made a pair of tie-dyed pink leggings for Rosie from Ottobre January 2007's Capri Leggings pattern (#17 in the magazine). They're not exactly capri since they look full length to me...but that was the name of the pattern.

Rosie Clothes

I've been busy sewing clothes for the 6 year old daughter of my best friend's niece, and here are some of the results:
A "Dutch-style Pinafore Dress" from Ottobre magazine(May 2006); a long sleeved t-shirt from Ottobre's Creative Workshop 301 set of patterns; a pair of capris made with some nifty Paris-printed stretch poplin, Simplicity 5655 (Sadly,OOP. I have another 4 or 5 pieces in the works - when I'm finished they'll be shipped off to Rosie who lives in Portland. I hope she likes what I've made for her...

Daylight Savings Time

Here's a sign of our times found yesterday at the Goodwill - a stylish clock put out by the pharmaceutical conglomeration responsible for Levitra. It must have been tossed out by a doctor's office. Perhaps it clashed with the Cialis calendar or the Viagra teddy bear in the reception area. My question is - shouldn't it be a 36 hour clock? Isn't that stuff supposed to keep a man capable for a day and a half should his intentions be postponed by unwitting in-laws or neighbors keeping him apart from connubial bliss? At first I was attracted by the unique style of the clock, then it hit me that it was a marketing ploy for an Erectile Dysfunction drug. I am undecided whether I should pop it open and replace the clock face, or just leave it the way it is and celebrate the wonders of better living through chemistry...

Margaret Layton's Jacket

Well, I have been the world's laziest bum recently, letting project after project pile up. Here is the inspiration for my Jacobean Jacket, which I have cut out and finished the edges of, but haven't sewn together.

Margaret Layton's jacket is in the V&A in London and I had the good fortune to see it not once but twice last year on my two visits to the UK. I had little interest in the Jacobean era before, but was totally mesmerized by the floral embroidery...instant conversion!

Here are a few pieces of my jacket - as you can see it has princess seams which are not in any way period, but since Margaret Layton was about a size 4 or 6 and I am a size 22, it works out good for me! Additionally, I haven't the patience to embroidery much of anything these days, but I found a piece of Jacobean-esque tapestry material at the Goodwill recently and yelled "Dibs!" on the spot.

He Who Must Not be Named

Close friends know I'm a devoted bumpersticker cognoscente - I even wrote a compelling paper for my Museum Studies certificate explaining why bumperstickers should be considered collectible items of Americana. Well anyhoo, I spotted the most perfect bumpersticker this morning on the way into Redmond.

On a different note, I was rummaging around at Value Village the other day and came away with 3 Issey Miyake patterns for a mere 69 cents a piece! O marvelous day! Two of them I'll probably put up on eBay but the last one, now OOP is the same one I lost a bid on a few weeks ago:

God, I love that coat! I also love this beautiful black cherry colored silk taffeta I've been eyeing from Silk Baron:
slobber slobber drool.
I had a few problems finding just the right lining for the Issey Miyake Futon coat I've been slogging over for the past few weeks and finally decided to order some habotai silk and silk paints from Dharma Trading so I could get exactly the colors I wanted and do a little salt technique on it...should be working on that this weekend. The biggest bugaboo is fabricating a silk steamer so I can set the silk paints into the silk, but there's good directions for a down and dirty silk steamer on Dharma Trading's website.

Getting ready for the Writers Conference

This Friday I am participating in the Whidbey Island Writers Conference which is organized once a year by the Whidbey Island Writers Association. Whidbey Island is one of the islands that make up the Puget Sound community, to get to Whidbey Island I have to take a ferry from Mukilteo, which isn't too far from my home - maybe 10 miles or so. I am excited to go because there are always so many dedicated writers at conferences like this one, many of them struggling with their manuscripts just as I am. Also there's always a good chance to meet agents or editors from the big publishing houses, so it's fun to try out my pitch on them, even though I'm nowhere near to finished with my novel.
I haven't written much lately, on the book, that is, but I've been thinking and thinking about it and re-reading Susanna Clark's "The Ladies of Grace Adieu." I love the metaphors she conjures up as well as the odd premises of her stories. She's created a faery world that sits just outside our modern comprehension, as if it's in our peripheral vision, evading us as we glance toward it.

Apart from writing, I picked up an incredible beadwork-oriented book the other day called
Beading with Cabochons: Simple Techniques for Beautiful Jewelry. It is filled with exquisitely beaded semi-precious gemstone (and dichroic glass) cabochons, and details of the techniques the artist used to create the beadwork. Utterly fantastic work. It sets me dreaming.

Plus Size Swimsuits

You ever reach a point where you just have to admit to yourself that you are a large woman? And even if you do lose that 50-60 pounds you keep intending to lose, you're going to be large in the meantime?
Well, I ordered some plus sized swimsuits today from SwimsuitsForAll.com and lucky me, I got them on clearance! The first one is a retro 40's-ish polka dot cutie and the second is sooo waaaavy and grooovy!

By the way I was in a fender bender on Friday afternoon when I was coming home from having stitches taken out from dental surgery and I rear-ended a dark green humongous SUV, causing damage to that car's bumper and a couple of fender dents to my precious Jeep...When I got home I did feel like crawling into bed with the covers up to my nose and hiding from the world...I didn't realize I had any injuries until a couple of hours later when I was scrabbling around on the floor cutting out pieces of dupioni for the Issey Miyake Futon jacket and I felt a big lump under my right knee...I must have bruised the bone when I hit the brakes. Also have a huge purple bruise on my other thigh where I must have hit the steering wheel. Other than that, I am okay and my Jeep is okay. To quote the lady whose car I rear-ended "Thank God for big all-metal American cars!"

Snohomish Attacked by Giant Felt Fruit

I never thought I'd see the day when I would be making felt fruit. Yep. those hideous centerpieces from your childhood dreams have manifested in reality right here in Snohomish county. Regard how nonchalant Jinx is by this news. She's not happy but she's not particularly frightened. Perhaps a trifle annoyed at having to share space with neon-colored felt fruity things.

These 27 pieces of non-tasty fruit are props for a children's production of "The Jungle Book." Apparently they are lobbed by hoards of small child actors at an evil tiger as it leaves the stage. Hence they are soft sculptures filled with the loftiest polyester stuffing so no one gets seriously hurt. Except perhaps the audience which might suffer hysterical blindness after witnessing such an event. After all they are unnaturally neon-colored. The stuff of nightmares.

In case you want to create your own trauma inducing giant bananas, Linda has graciously allowed me to post the banana pattern she drew hastily in a moment of abandon.

Celtic Knots for Beaded Jewelry

Now for something completely non-sequitur -

A few years ago I was heavily into micro-macrame and created a necklace that had some Josephine knots as part of the design. It received some modest acclaim, but I wanted to further explore using Celtic knots in my work. The other day, I happened upon a neat book called Celtic Knots for Beaded Jewelry by Suzen Millodot. Wonderful!

Okay, More 30's Patterns...

If you have ever had to create period costumes for theatre shows, you might have found, like me, that period-accurate shoes and hats are the hardest items to find. So I've been cruising around the net looking for 30's hats and have found two purchases. This one os Butterick 6928 from 1936. I'm thinking of using the C pattern.

I am thinking of using hat 1 or 4 from this pattern for one of the other ladies.

Also, I just couldn't help myself with this pattern for a dressing sack from the 1910's... for myself of course, not this show!

Vintage Patterns from 1930 for Theatre Production

I am starting to collect vintage patterns and ideas for the costumes of a theatre production of "Brecht on Brecht" which I will be directing sometime later this year. Here are a few of the patterns in my collecton that inspire me.

Some of the actual costumes will probably be found in second hand stores; some of them I'll either have to sew myself or hire an extremely talented friend of mine to sew for me, since I probably won't have the time to do that myself.

There are three women characters in the play; one is a musician, one is the wife of a rich doctor and the other is a young journalist. Most of the fabric we'll use is already in my stash; I do have to go out and find a nice piece of faux fur for a coat collar for the rich doctor's wife.

Sacrebleu!

My friend, a propmaster for a children's show at the Village Theatre needed a special prop built - a blue colored stuffed horse that serves as a mascot for a highschool in a musical version of "Midsummer Night's Dream". I thought I would have to blow this pattern up to at least 150 percent of its original size, but they were happy with it being just 22 inches high; here he is partially finished. Still have more of his mane to put in and he needs eyeballs and lids. I used Vogue pattern 7603 which was created as a companion pattern for those 18 inch high snobby looking dolls. I think this pattern would work really well for creating unicorns or pegasi...might make a purple velvet unicorn for a friend's 6 year old daughter...

Issey Miyake Futon Coat

I have four or five other projects I'm working on, but I'm planning on working on this Issey Miyake Futon coat next.

I've already ordered a brown and indigo dupioni silk for the body of the coat and a cornflower blue with chocolate flashes dupioni for the outer bands.

I'm going to see what I have in the stash that will match for the lining. Since I'm rather large as it is, I don't want to use a high lift batting for this coat so I found some cotton and silk very low loft batting at JoAnn's yesterday that should do nicely.

Pictures from Cannibal!

About 5 years ago I worked on a no-budget musical called Cannibal! the Musical. It was based on a cult movie by Trey Parker and featured the only man in America ever convicted of Cannibalism- Alferd Packer. Our version of Cannibal was presented as part of the Seattle Fringe Festival in 2002; later another theatre group picked up on the idea and did their own version. We had virtually no budget for costumes; I chose to put most of the guys in Henley shirts and jeans and ratty old boots, since Henley shirts were 2 for $5.00 one week at a local second hand store.

I also had to make up some costumes for a band of Trappers; I glued and sewed all sorts of trinkets and fur all over some jeans vests and found a skunk skin cap for one trapper and a Unionist soldier's cap from the Civil War for another.

Here's the cast photo; we were too cheap to have proper pictures taken, so we all piled into one of those Photo Booths at Seattle Center and took turns...

The Evil Tooth Fairy - Who Knew???

I found this picture of the Evil Tooth Fairy. She made an appearance a few years ago around Halloween, and I haven't seen her since, but BEWARE! She might show up on your doorstep some day! Don't let her in! She has a pair of pliers! And she doesn't leave you any money!

She is totally evil!

It snowed again!

Take a look at my January Snow album

For those of you into James Bondage

My friend Ian went to a James Bond New Year's Eve party as Kamran Shah from The Living Daylights. He and his wife Zanne came over earlier that day so he could learn how to wrap a turban; I was sick with the flu so Linda, in one of her brilliant moments (she has a lot more of them than I do these days), gave him a lesson in head wrapping.

Brecht on Brecht

Today I found an old photo I took in 1990 of a play I was co-directing called "Brecht on Brecht" by George Tabori. We only had 4 actors for this show and we had set it in a sort of "holding station" for fugitives fleeing from Nazi Germany. I am thinking of reviving this show and just ordered a copy of the script from Samuel French.

Happy New Year!

Here's a snapshot from last March while I was in the UK with my friend Linda. We were freezing our butts off at Stonehenge, laughing because it was so friggin' cold!

A Belated Merry Xmas, Y'all!

Exquisite children's book illustrations

I found these wonderful illustrations for Beauty and the Beast the other day on the web - they are so very lyrical

Instant costume for non-descript Arthurian type personnage

I just found this picture of myself looking slightly out of it (whatever it is) that was taken before I went to a costume party with a "come as a famous author or character from a book" theme last summer.
I scrounged and scrounged around and couldn't find anything I thought acceptable, or that even fit well, since I'd gained so much weight in the past year (thanks to sleep apnea and just plain over-eating and no exercise). So when anyone asked me what character I was I said either Morgana from the Arthurian literature, or an obscure angst-ridden ghost from one of those gothic novels with a made-up name like "Guilthaven Manor" by a fictitious author like Sir Sheldon Deveint, Victorian novelist and naturalist.

Of Sorcerers and Men

I just picked up Susanna Clarke's newest book to read: The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories - I love, love, love the way she writes!

I have been listening to one of Barnes and Nobles' Portable Professor series called "Of Sorcerers and Men - Tolkein and the Roots of Modern Fantasy Literature" by a professor named Michael Drout and I am thoroughly enjoying the entire 7 CD disk series. I love listening to Audio CDs while I'm working or crafting or sewing or whatever. I also like his distinction between Magical Realism and Modern Fantasy - all this time I was struggling to write a fantasy novel, when really, my writings fall closer to the Magical Realism genre.


Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts and words about Caspian - I miss him greatly, but every day gets a little easier for me. Today I'm supposed to go pick up his ashes (I had him cremated), but don't know if I've the heart to do so quite yet.

Caspian is gone

Caspian didn't make it through the night. He made it through surgery, woke up for a while then went into cardiac failure and died. I hurt so bad.

Caspian - the new Peg Leg Pete

Caspian's surgery has been set for Monday. It looks like the tumors are too big to debulk, so he will have to have his leg taken off. I have been at loggerheads with myself over this for months - I know that cats do quite well on three legs, but I was so very unsettled about his having to go through such an ordeal. At least we were able to preserve it for 10 months after diagnosis, and I do believe we tried to do everything humanly possible to save that leg.
He had stopped eating a few days ago, probably due to the pain of the tumors, and the vet was happy to give him an anti-inflammatory that helped to alleviate his misery. His appetite has returned and he is still hobbling around and following me for walks out in the cold weather. He is such a beloved little man in a fur suit!

This is how I feel after two nights of not being able to get to sleep! I've been very worried about a dear friend who was admitted to the hosiptal the other day after having two seizures out of the blue AND my poor kitty Caspian who has massive tumors on one leg and may have to have his leg amputated...

I do hope it is darkest before the dawn, becuase right now, my world is incredibly dark.

Frost

I love how the frost tinges just the edges of this leaf.

Mermaid backgammon set

Today my mermaid backgammon set arrived from Bali! It is gorgeous! It had been sitting in a Federal Express warehouse for a few days since they couldn't get through all the snow and ice to deliver it until today. I'm working on the Jacobean jacket today and it is slow going; I'm now on my third muslin...

Paper sculpture workshop

About a year or so ago I took a class with Dave Wood, an Australian calligrapher. His class dealt with combining paper sculpture with calligraphy; here is the capital "A" that I made during the class.