Finished too late

My mother died in the night, slipping away in her sleep, the pain that has been plaguing her for so long finally at an end, though ours will continue for a time.

Looking around my house, my eyes keep falling on half-finished projects. A cross-stitch piece that would have been the front panel of a purse. A pattern for a nice dress and jacket set, a crocheted sweater, the pattern for a hat, all things I was making for her or had planned to give her for her birthday or xmas. Most of it will never be finished now, some will never be started. The sewing patterns will be added to my pattern collection, the cross stitch and crochet patterns added to my already full shelves, the fabric and yarn added to my stash, maybe to see use one day when I can look at it and not think about her.

Two things, one for her and one for me, I finished only today, too late to show her.



This sweater was for her. She's been asking for a sweater for a while, but we could never agree on a pattern or a yarn; I think we enjoyed the discussion more than anything else. I made this on a whim, thinking she would enjoy it and since it was something I picked, we would be able to continue our fruitless, never-ending argument. Now an argument that will truly never end.

It's made from four crocheted quilt squares that had originally been intended for a crocheted afghan, but in the end was converted to this sweater. I think it's rather pretty and it will go into my closet, though I'm not sure I will be able to wear it any time soon.






This poncho is for me, made from granny squares and carron so soft. I think the colors are great, not so bright it's uncomfortable to wear, but beautiful, slightly muted tones that just look great. Even mom thought so, when I showed her the half-finished project a couple weeks ago, before she began to loose her memory and ability to stay in the here and now.

Long summer

It's been a long summer and I'm glad that it's over, but I've come out of it with a half dozen almost-finished projects from nearly ever craft hobby I have. Yes, I admit it, I'm a flitter. A bit here, a bit there, over there and back again.

One of my first hobbies, the one I picked up on my own instead of learning from someone else as I did crochet and sewing, is cross stitch. I was in college, I needed something to work on and WalMart - at the time - had a fair selection of cheap and easy cross stitch patterns.

I let it fall off for years, but a whim had me picking it up again and now I have plans for gifts both this year and next. This is for a friend of mine. I'll put it in a shadow box and add a couple whimsical shoes.



The first day of fall is in late September and I'm working on ponchos for a couple friends. The blue is from the summer issues of Crochet Interweave and the second - though this picture ruins the color, it's a combination of pink and green that I quite like - uses a diagonal stitch that sometimes is called the crazy stitch.





I'm slowly making my way through my small group of friends, making them afghans for the hols and bdays. This is for my shoe-friend up above. She was down this weekend and I forgot and left this bright beastie out where she spotted it. Thankfully, she
commented on how much she liked the colors. Phew. It's much (much) brighter in real life, rows and rows of mitred squares.



One of the first quilts I tried to make was a postage stamp quilt. Epic disaster, if I do say so myself. As much as I enjoy looking at these exercises in frustration, I have avoided making another until I came across the technique where long strips of blocks can be sew together vertically and then horizontally, creating even corners and an almost-stress free sewing experience.

Enter in a cross-stitch sampler pattern that just screams to be made into a quilt. This is the first four blocks, a hundred inch and a half squares (yeah, I have a couple screws loose) per block, 10 blocks by 10 blocks. The plan is to have it made by xmas for my mom. She might have to wait until next year.

And an important note for anyone thinking about doing this. I went to the store and found the floss recommended by the pattern and used that to pick out my colors. Otherwise I would have made a huge mess.



And finally something for me, because every crafter knows you have to do stuff for yourself as well as other people or burn out. This is based around Caron's Tulsa jacket, but in bright neon colors and black, because I'm peculiar like that, in microspun, which is silky soft and light.

I've been beading

Well, I've been doing a bit of everything this summer - and thank the crafting gods that this summer is over - but the beading is what I've got finished.

When you live in a very small town where the local craft/fabric/yarn store is in fact WalMart and getting to an actual craft store is a bit out of range at the moment, you learn to make do with what you got and get a bit creative.

I've gotten a bit creative. :)

Ribbon, pony beads and pendants are about the easiest and cheapest things going. As much as I love the exquisite collars and delicate frou-frou necklaces that are so common in the beading mags, I don't make them and I sure don't wear them. I would break them within moments of fastening the clasp.

Ribbon, et al, are much more forgiving and in their own way, just as attractive.

Sometimes I do it simply. A length of ribbon, a pony bead and loop for closure, a pendant and voila, necklace.





Sometimes I get creative and crochet beads into the yarn.





Sometimes I get silly and see how long I can make the chain along with the beads and sometimes a heavy pendent.





And sometimes I get even more creative. Yes, that is a peyote stitch with pony beads and yarn. The current plan is to go until I either run out of beads or ribbon. No clasp, I'll simple knot it behind my neck (I prefer pedants about halfway between my cleavage and the base of my throat) and let the ends (already long) dangle down my back. Might be a bit odd, but I think it will be a neat effect.




Coming soon, afghans, shawls, quilts and cross stitch oh my.

The costumes

Not the greatest pics, but it's hard to do this right when you live alone. It's not like my cats can take the pics, lol.



The woman who was going as fire had to cancel. I was less than pleased with the way one of my costumes was going and here were perfectly good black wings (see previous post) going to waste. :) I found some thin black fabric for a shirt and harem pants and some red for a bodice and voila, fire fairy.



This is the earth fairy and it's brighter in real life. That green is like a line green and it's trimmed with purple. The shirt and pants are a dark colored but lightweight jungle type print. I'm an earth fairy on acid. :)




A good view of the wings. I took a normal bodice pattern and simply made it longer and put bias tape around the edges for a bit of punch. Because of the way the shirts lay - exposing my upper chest and shoulders - sunscreen is going to be a must.



And my friend's toga, made without a pattern. I found a picture and just made it up as I went along and I'm very pleased with the end result.



The wings look really good with the toga, probably the best looking of the bunch.

First a note about wings

About the wings...it's like an addiction. Once I figured out the basic idea and got over my 'i can't make wings like that!' and figured out that wings were wings and it didn't really matter that they weren't perfect and like movie-wings, I had a blast. I'm having a hard time stopping and actually ended up making wings for both days instead of just one. :)



This set... I had a lot of fun with this one. It's for my 'earth fairy' costume. I was going to go with browns and greens, a proper earth fairy, then well...that was boring, so I went for bright instead in greens and purples.

I simply wrapped the wire together, covered it in floral tape and tied tufts of green and purple net along the way. I also covered an elastic headband and wristbands in the stuff. A bit itchy, but the overall look is great.



This is actually one of my last attempts. I simply croceheted around the wire frame with sparkly gold yarn and though it doesn't really show up well here, in real life, it's rather pretty. A friend is wearing a 'store bought' costume the second day and the yarn on this matches a snood I made her. The dress is restrained by my standards, so I was going for something simple and discreet.




This one isn't quite finished, but everything else is and I didn't want to delay posting pics and enjoying a sense of a job well done, so...just pretend this one is finished. I found a different type of wire for the last set of wings, it's thinner but a bit stronger than the first type and I discovered it twists in such a way that will very little effort, I get nearly perfect 'butterfly' type wings. If I had known the first time around there would have been fewer temper tantrums!

Wings

So, I got this crazy notion into my head last fall, shortly after TRF. My friends and I were going to Scarborough in April and we wanted to go as fairies. That was an interesting conversation, I admit. It started out with 'do you think we should all have a theme?' to 'let's go as fairies and I'll make wings!'

Next thing I knew, I was going as Earth, and my friends were duly sorted as Air, Water and Fire. The first problem was simple: I had never made wings before and didn't even know where to start. Costumes were not a problem, even when confronted with making costumes for four in four months (in three cases, making two costumes, so in the end, seven costumes in four months) but wings? I was clueless.

I quickly googled how to make wings and was confronted with various options and ideas. Even before I could start to make wings, I needed to know what 'style' of wings to make, which meant knowing what costume everyone was wearing. Try pinning down four women - one of whom had a firm idea of what she wanted, while the other two were clueless - on costumes for a faire four months in the future, not to mention finding a time to get us all to the same fabric store was a bit of a challenge and more than once, I doubted the wisdom of this newest challenge.

Thankfully, it all came out good. :)



This first pic does not look like much, but my hand to the sewing gods, in the end, it will rock. These are my wings, for Earth. I found those feather things at the Dollar Tree one evening and while they are clumped together right now, when I am finished, the wings will be spread out in a fan. I am crocheting a duster to wear over a bodice, tunic and trousers.



These are lotus wings, for my friend who is going as Water. She is wearing a turquoise dress and flutter cape. I am going to add some paint and glitter to the wings for a bit of depth. These had to be the simplest of the wings. I made a wire frame and stretched white knee-highs over the loops. :)




Ah, the air wings, how I hated them. When I first made the frame, they were my favorite, but after several failed attempts, I think I almost hated them. First, I tried to cover these with cellophane, but they were too plain, so I splurged and bought fantasy film, but I came to hate the film with a fiery and vivid passion. Hate. I finally bought tulle and after several false starts, figured out how to stretch it over the loops and use ribbon around the edges, to quite a nice effect, I thought. My friend is wearing a toga with these wings.




Finally, the fire wings, the only ones who went from beginning to end without any change. At TRF, I saw these hats that were little more than net and ribbon tied around elastic. I forgot to take the pic when I had the chance, but there is a hat to match this. Going as a goth fire fairy, my friend is wearing a black chemise and black/red overdress with this.

In the end, despite several false starts, I don't think I spent more than ten dollars on any of these wings, excepting the wire, which even when spread out over four pair of wings, wouldn't up the final cost by more than ten dollars each. The best sort of costumes, anyone will tell you, are the cheap ones. :)