Theodosia's Dress

Created on: 8/7, 2008 at 09:07 pm

I'm really really tired. The meeting went well today with my client. We ended up bullshitting for a good two hours after business was concluded. She's a great person to talk to. As of right now, I've had too little sleep, too little to eat and WAY too much coffee. I'm feeling a little brain dead.

I did get in some lovely beading time on Thea's dress and managed to get the hem in too. Unfortunately, the nicely matching thread I bought for it is MIA. In a hurry, I had to use black. My logic is that it would best be lost under the beading I planned to put around the hem. I did have to change my original idea for the beading around the hem. I wanted to make sure that black was well hidden. I used a variation of the daisy chain to create a wreath-like effect. I can't wait to see how it turns out. So far, so good.

The dress looks shapeless and baggy, kind of like a sack. With Thea's permission, I gave her a photo-op fitting to better give the idea of where it's going.

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Around Town

Created on: 8/6, 2008 at 10:40 pm

I saw this graffiti yesterday while waiting for the Southbound 7 to Langley. Where, I ask you, on earth, besides the south end of Whidbey, would you find such a thing? KFC is murder? Angry tree huggers indeed. And then there is the rebuttal, done in black sharpie- Tasty, tasty murder! I had to laugh. There I am, beading on Thea's dress in a bus shelter, staring (apparently) out into space and laughing like a loon. The guy sitting next to me looked over in that direction to see what I was laughing at. Of course, there's nothing there. After my second loud outburst of laughing, he scooted away a bit. I went up there today to get a picture of it for the blog but the nature of the plexiglass made it difficult to catch on film. I had to press my husband's bag against the outside of the shelter to catch the etching and a pink tissue paper against the black marker. In the picture you can also see DH's kilt and Irene's son, who's name I can never remember. (Why yes, this IS a small town. Why do you ask?) A quick update on Thea- I got all of color A spiraled down the front of the gown and am about halfway back up with color B. I still haven't hemmed it. I spent my sewing time today doing that freaking liner. I have to get that hem in before I get done with the color b or I will be hemming by hand as I bead the ivy around the bottom. Grumble, grumble.

I did manage to get down to the beach today. Pickings were slim. The tide was pretty high. I ended up getting two pieces of beach glass, a crab's arm and a funkily shaped piece of driftwood.

I think this is going to make a nice doll head after I wash the gunk off.

We finally got the dimensions right on the chainmail bag liner. Here's the finished product. As this is the first one, DH and I have put our heads together for improvements on the next. I have suggested a wool strap, maybe a bit longer than this one, as I like to toss the strap of my bag over my shoulder and let the bag ride on my opposite hip. This one was bought by a belly dancer who will use it to house her zills. I would also like to purty it up some. It needs some bling; beads, bangles, a silk drawstring instead of the store-bought one this bag has. Oh yeah. Next bag will be a work of art.

Dimensions on the bag are 7 inches across at the top and seven inches deep when the bag is closed. That reduces to zilch at the top when the draw string is pulled tight and four inches deep when the top is all the way open. Now you can see why making a right-fitting liner was such a bitch. The dimensions change depending on how the chainmail sits. DH is taking orders if you're interested. $50 plus shipping.

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Artless Wonder

Created on: 8/4, 2008 at 09:36 pm

It feels like I didn't get any art done today, though that's not the case. DH is making chain mail bags, cute ones at that, and I spent my day making liners for them. Or at least perfecting the process. I did four bags between last night and this morning before work and none of them fit. Each mistake brought us closer to the real thing, though so all is not lost. Plus, I have four cute little bags for myself. When the last bag didn't fit I gave DH the people's eyebrow. You DO know how to sew, do you not? He's making the next one and by god, it had better work. I got some beads on Thea's dress last night and I can safely say I'll probably get the hem in tonight and maybe a few more beads. There's a work deadline in the morning and I'm not even close to meeting it, so we'll see.

So far you've heard about the antics of my family, but you haven't seen them. Let's remedy that, shall we? This is myself and my two daughters, 3YO and 5.

You also have to meet my mom, Julie Ritter, who is the genius behind HotFlashGlass. Right now she's having too much fun in front of the torch to do the behind the scenes work entailed in going live on the internet, but she's gonna get here eventually. This is the four of us girls having a tea party early this spring.

I took this one of DD2 recently. Just before I snapped the pic I said Look Cute. So this is what cute looks like to a pre-schooler. I'm hep to that!

This is her being extraordinarily cute.

And this is DD1. Before I hit the button I said Give me your best princess look. So now you've seen the family but for my very wonderful husband. He's film-shy, so you may be in for quite a wait. Also missing is the beyond fantastic husband of my mother, my bad-ass brother and his exceptionally cool family. I'll see what I can do.

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Saturday Sounds and Sights

Created on: 8/2, 2008 at 11:36 pm

So, last week, DH agrees to do a solid for Gordon Stuart, partial owner and head chef of Gordon's here in Freeland. DH is an extra hand, doing whatever, and in return we get to go and eat tons of free gourmet food. It's supposed to be an artsy type thing. Cool, says I, but I can't imagine trying to concentrate on my taste buds (Remy: Don't just hork it down! Emile: Too late.)while making sure my kids aren't ripping up Gordon's $30 a plate establishment. Buttttt... that doesn't mean I'm not going to try. I am a foodie of the worst sort. I live for a great culinary experience. I had kind of envisioned me sneaking in, piling a plate and getting back out as fast as I could, savoring the delicious meal while the kids ran their steam off in the field next door. So imagine my delight when we arrived to find a BBQ smoking on the front porch, a beer garden (bleah, beer, yuck) attracting quite a crowd, and a stage at the top of the field next door with hay bale seating. Oh, hell yes. We arrived at 3pm and left just after 8, and only because the kids were losing their shit. Surprisingly DD1 went first, freaking out when she disobeyed me about going into the tall grass with the big kids. I went to the edge of the grass and called her out. She came out with those big eyes that said she knew she was in trouble and she promptly sat on her bum saying "Don't smack my butt, mom, please!" You'd think I beat my kids with that kind of reaction. I had to keep my mom-face on to keep from laughing. DD2 had followed her into the grass, lost her shoes and had cut her thumb open on a blackberry thorn in the minute it took me to get across the field and find them in the grass. Which is precisely why I said no in the first place. So DD1 spent the performance of the Burmese girls, who were doing folk dances, crying about how mean I am. Yikes, dude. I didn't even smack her butt!

So... art. Today's art consisted of me building a sweet facsimile of a bird's nest. Unfortunately, I forgot it at the scene since the kids were doing some Klingon Opera and I wanted to make a quick getaway before their howling outdid the sound from the 12 foot speakers. After I post this, I intend to do a bit of beading on Thea's dress. I only laid out maybe 30 beads on it yesterday. Chop, chop! Shipping date is September 8th.

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Seasonal Trip North

Created on: 8/1, 2008 at 10:53 pm

Whidbey Island is its very own weird little microcosm, divided into North End and South end. If you drove straight up the island you'd see first Clinton then Langley (or at least the road into Langley), the the strange little hiccup of Bayview, then Freeland, which is where I live, then Greenbank and finally you'd exit the South End by pulling through Coupeville. Some people count Coupville as North End. It's where the trees open up, the croplands are tucked right up to the freeway and the herds of alpaca, sheep and goats give way to cows. I feel like it's South End at heart because of all the art shops and touristy places. The last stop before swooping across Deception Pass, a bridge you have to see to believe, is Oak Harbor. The picture is looking north up my street. The bunnies are everywhere. Out past the big trees in the back is the ocean.

There is a very Us Against Them mentality between North Enders and South Enders. Oak Harbor is heavily populated and it's also a Navy base. That doesn't fly too well with the tree-hugging, wool sucking hippies on the South End. I grew up in a Navy town in Idaho (amongst other places) and I have dreadlocks. Basically, I can live and let live in both groups. I don't let island politics get to me. I suck my wool while I contemplate the menu at the fast food joint. Yep, no fast food on the South End. Unless you count the Dairy Queen in Clinton, but I've never seen a more Chi-less bunch of pseudo food in my life. Even the ice cream is dead. How do you kill ice cream?

So today DH and the girls and I decided that Wendy's was calling our name and we packed it up and headed North. It was a nice ride there and back and I've added a mini crochet hook to my collection and picked up some cotton crochet thread. I've been pondering for weeks how to stick a not-quite-flat stone cabochon to a doll and have it be able to take some abuse without falling off. The solution, I believe, entails crocheting a bezel, gluing the back with E600 and then stitching the cotton net to the doll body. This will have to be covered with something else (I think, though it might look good as-is) but I will rest assured that it's not going anywhere. I also got 12packs of crayons for 22 cents each. Dude, I bought an armload!

Today's art was dyeing. Here's all the batches I did between today and one day last week. The color is Kool Aid and it freaking rocks.

I also put my beads in order.

My mom, who is the bestest mom in the whole world, sent me a care package of beads last week and this is what was in it. Thanks, Mom!

I still need to work on reading with DD1 and color names with DD2 (yep, school got shoved to the side today), but if we get that done I hope to get to the collage we collected stuff for last week. Pictures tomorrow!

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