October 08, 2009 @ 05:25

The boys will be spending Halloween away this year, it’s a daddy weekend.  So we did our Halloween fun last night.  Pumpkins all carved, they may collapse before the big night arrives, but so be it.  We’ll carve some more if the weather is uncooperative to our enthusiam.  So have you picked your costume yet?  I’ll be Cleopatra.  Soon as I find the right shoes.  Sounds like a Trixie project . . . 

September 07, 2009 @ 21:23

Somehow over the last couple of weeks, I’ve found my finish-all-those-projects energy.  Very not like me.  But I have in the last three days done the following: 

Cleaned out two junk drawers and one closet. 

Finished two sewing projects, one of which has been languishing for two years.  No . . .  really . . .  two years. 

Cleaned house and caught up the laundry. 

Packed away summer clothes, sorted through winter clothes, gathering in the process all the things that must go to either consignment or to charity. 

Painted a group of picture frames and then reassembled and hung them all. 

Hung a grouping of a dozen cork board squares and a map of the U.S. and begun adding all the summer roadtrip souvenirs to it. 

Painted some patio furniture.  The patio furniture is definitely my favorite . . . 

November 12, 2008 @ 06:47

See?  That didn’t take long, did it?  So, I’ve been telling myself for years that I was going to build a nativity scene for my front porch.  It’s the justification I use for never throwing out a leftover scrap of fabric from costuming.  Hey!  That two inch strip of brocade might be very useful for one of the wisemen!  Shut up!  My mother built one a few years ago.  It was lovely.  Unfortunately, it came to a very sad end.  It had to be retired because a neighbor’s dog kept running off with the baby Jesus.  Yes, please do, a great big snort laugh right now is exactly the proper response . . .  I’ll wait for you . . .  Mom would come home from work and baby Jesus would be gone again.  She would search the yard and up and down the block until she found him, abandoned in a ditch, or even in the middle of the street sometimes, and return him to his little manger.  Eventually, she just couldn’t do it anymore.  It was just too depressing to add papier mache patching the baby Jesus’s head to the your list of holiday chores.  Just not nearly as festive as decking the hall, is it?  Although I can say both of those tasks are equally aided by the liberal application of egg nog.  Now my mother’s yard is populated with those giant blow up light up things.  The grandchildren love them.  And the neighbor’s dog apparently isn’t big enough to abduct a twelve foot snow globe.  Slacker.  But I do miss the holy family.  So I’m going to make one for us.  I’ll be on the look out for strays in the neighborhood now.  But I think I may have to bolt the Christ child’s little butt to the manger.  Just to be safe.  I’ll keep you posted. 

 November 05, 2008 @ 07:11

The costumes are delivered.  Praise was recieved for them.  If I had known everything that was going to happen, I never would have taken the contract.  I lost just shy of a full month of production time because of the lumbering university’s financial system.  They did not pay the advance until 30 days after having recieved my estimate.  And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have thousands lying around in case of brocade emergencies.  Oh, how nice that would be, right fellow SCA folks?  So, by the time the university wheels ground out the advance, it was too late for me to say hey, you guys, I can’t do this.  I was not the original costume builder.  The first was forced to leave the project when her grandchild was diagnosed with cancer.  How horrific.  And I hope her family is making it through such a terrible time.  The director searched for weeks with no luck finding a person crazy enough to think they could pull off the project.  So it came to me late already.  And anybody who knows me will tell you what a sucker I am for a sob story.  I’ll give away the farm.  So, I could not in my version of good conscious leave them hanging in the wind like that.  The set design was already scrapped for the same reasons.  The company said no check, no set.  And who could blame them?  A minimalist design was chosen in the original plans stead.  Just a scaffold on the set.  That’s a lot of pressure on the costumes to carry the visual theme, no?  So what did I do?  I spent every waking moment outside of my boys’ needs and my job in front of the sewing machine for the last six weeks.  Plus a couple of vacation days.  My fingers bled.  My back ached.  My eyes blurred.  And I enlisted the aid of some family and friends that saved me.  Baby Sis and Stephie in particular.  They were delivered on Sunday.  And Thursday is the opening night.  There are things about them that I hate.  Shortcuts that could not be avoided.  A shocking level of skimping in some areas.  I hope that no serious costumer is present.  They’re fine for everyday.  Not fine enough for Sunday, that’s all I’m saying.  I’ll post more pictures if I can get them. 

Not too bad for 30 costumes in 27 days, I suppose . . . 

And I’m happy that the election is done.  And happy for the results.  I think McCain is a good man.  I personally am a mostly liberal / sometimes conservative Christian.  Even a registered Republican, if you can believe it.  But I can’t remember the last time I voted for one.  Each year it seems the gap between what I believe and what the Republicans deliver widens further and further.  I am absolutely sure that the Republican Party has abandoned all but lip service to the matters that I believe in.  Caring for people above corporations, our evironment, and the list goes on and on.  I am sorry for those within it that still struggle to do what is right.  However few they may be.  So I voted for hope.  And thank god, hope won. 

So despite my one very bitter disappointment with the banning of some very qualified families from being able to foster children in need, I’m happy.  Hope you have a happy day today, too . . . 

October 07, 2008 @ 21:36

My dining room looks like the answer to the Roanoke Island mystery.  It’s littered with pieces and parts of Puritans.  Sunday afternoon I watched The Scarlet Letter again for further inspiration.  Not that I’m building anything quite as beautiful as the 1995 version with Gary Oldman and Demi Moore.  I didn’t see it for the first time until I began this project and it was recommended.  It is luscious.  So much so that it actually made me a little sad as I sat in these deep piles of earth toned linen and wool for the last several days.  This coming weekend however, I get to the good stuff.  This weekend will be dedicated almost in it’s entirety to Hester Prynne, Hester and Pearl.  Friday I will be ordering several tall hats from a custom hat maker, boots and shoes, the last of the things for the remainder of the cast.  And then I am off to buy the last of the fabric.  Yards and yards of it, all for Hester and Pearl.  I haven’t looked forward to a project with this much creative enthusiasm in I can’t remember how long.