Sew Distracted

Holiday update

Despite my best intentions I have not been keeping up.  We have a house full this year for the holidays and I have been enjoying all the wonderful time with people I don't get to see often enough,  so there will be no more posts until early January, after the house has cleared and some semblance of peace has returned.

We are going to be padding out a dressform for my DSD this week, so the sewing room is not being ignored completely.

I will leave you with some photos of a beatiful set of embroideried placemats, napkins, and coasters I found while my mom and I were out antiquing one day.

placemats:

coasters:

and napkin detail:

Wrapped

I adore Christmas.  I just can’t help but be happy in December.  And it doesn’t really matter if I get everything done that I hope to get done.  It is just hard for me not keep humming carols to myself, especially the traditional ones like “ “Oh Holy Night”, “Lully Lullay”, and “The First Noel”.

Most of all I love wrapping gifts.  I love paper and ribbon and tinsel and little bits of decorations lovingly wrapped around packages.  I know that the packaging itself really isn’t that important, but I can’t help myself.  Even the most simple gift gets wrapped in glorious paper and is surrounded with yards of ribbons tied up into extravagant bows.

Then, on Christmas morning I am the first one up staring at the tree, eagerly awaiting the time when the others arise, and all those packages are opened and the wrapping ripped to shreds.  I can’t explain it.  I love wrapping packages.  I love watching other people open their packages more than I enjoy opening my own.  I love Christmas and the idea that for one day at least the idea of “peace on earth, good will to men” might actually be true. 

Pretty packages and peace.  Sounds good to me.

Skirting the Issue

The beautiful wine velvet has become a skirt of sorts; it has become the tree skirt.  Ahhh, one way to deal with temptation, because as it was: (a temptation that is), I was ready to chuck all Christmas plans out the window, tell my family to order pizza on Christmas eve, not decorate the house, or distribute my usual platters of cookies and Christmas candies or do any of the other things that I love during the holidays.  I was going to hole myself up with my new Hot Patterns skirt pattern and red velvet and not come out until I had a skirt.

That plan has been successfully aborted and delayed until next year, when my mind will be much clearer.

I do this every year, wrap some lovely piece of fabric around the base of the Christmas tree.  I am happiest when I have huge pieces that I can drape and arrange in extravagant folds so that it extends well beyond the border of the tree.  I have used cottons, velvets, silks, brocades, even, one year, a beautiful Chanel tweed, which later became a beloved suit.  And yet, every year I tell myself that I could have made a skirt for the tree, or even bought one.  That latter choice is not all that likely as I always find fault with the skirts in the stores.  Over the years I have had plans, often grand in scale, for the tree skirt I would make.  They never materialize. 

When I was young, naive, and full of energy, in my early 20s,  I thought I would embroidery one in panels, perhaps recreating beautiful stained glass windows and tying them together with velvet or brocade.  I planned at least 12 panels of embroidery, although I aspired to more.  I thought I would do one a year.  I would have been finished long ago if I had ever undertaken that project. 

Once I wanted to make a beautiful and grand needlepoint skirt, probably the size of a rug since I don’t like wimpy skirts.  That one was never started either. 

Once I was going to make a skirt of silk and velvet pieces like a crazy quilt, with embroidery and perhaps even beads....

You guessed it.

I still have fabric, plain old fabric, under my tree.  Probably always will.  But you know, after that fabric is made up into some favorite garment, it’s cool to think that I am wearing my tree skirt.

Of wrapping and cutting

I did finally finish cutting out the vest.  Despite my best intentions, and after announcing several times the night before that my first priority for the day was to do some cutting, I did not get started until 4:30.  I had hoped to cut before shoveling the snow, but various interruptions occurred and the day did not go as planned.

Well, what is new in that?  Nothing, nothing at all.

After the vest was cut and dinner was made, I was just too tired, and the back to sore to cut some more,  (that new cutting table is looking more and more attractive) and I have the vest and a sweater set cut so there is plenty to sew on right now.  Besides at the moment my sewing room is piled high with various Christmas gifts waiting to be wrapped (only a few more to ship), so sewing time may be limited to rather rare moments between holiday preparations.

I wrapped up the gifts for my nieces and their children so they can be shipped out on Monday:

The pot in the background is filled with vegetarian vegetable stock that I had just finished making.  This one was based on winter squash and leeks, along with miscellaneous vegetable trimmings and spices.  The Christmas preparations have begun, along with some menu planning and recipe alteration to accommodate the preferences of my vegan 2-step-granddaughter, who is expected to be joining us. (step-daughter's step-daughter).  There will be plenty of choices for the more carnivorous minded as well.  I have never been known for having a shortage of food on the table or in the pantry.

In anticipation of snow

There is nothing quite like trying to buy Calcium Chloride the day before a snowstorm, but that is precisely how I spent part of my day today.  It started this morning when I casually told the Husband that they were predicting snow for tomorrow morning, and thank goodness I did too.  He told me that we were out of salt for the driveway, explaining that he hadn’t mentioned it before because I had such a bad cold and he didn’t want me to have to go out and get it then.  Of course, I am still snot-brained and dripping like a leaky faucet, but I do have much more energy and presence of mind today so off to the stores I go to find the elusive salt.

Usually we are much more prepared with salt supplies, trying to keep enough for at least 2 snowfalls in stock.  In this household that means three 50 pound bags, as it takes 75 pounds to salt our 600 foot long, steep, curvy driveway.  The salt makes a big difference in what is left after the plowing is done, and in how quickly it melts, especially since most of the driveway does not get direct sun in the wintertime. Although the salt expenditure is significant, the difference is highly noticeable, and the driveway remains far more passable with less shoveling.

If the powers that be are correct this time, it looks like we will be at the center of the coming storm with approximately 10 inches of snow predicted.  What fun!  I love looking out the window at the white, snowy world.  Everything becomes so silent and peaceful.  For a few minutes after a snowfall, if I am lucky even a few hours, I can pretend that the world is a calm, peaceful, and happy place.  That is until I go out near the malls in the pre-Christmas madness.

As I warmed my hands around a nice cup of hot coffee following my 45 minute stint of salt scattering, I thought about the wonderful prospect of a snow-day.  There are things to do.  I am a little behind on holiday preparations.  But I decided that I will ignore them all.  Tomorrow I will finish my cutting, cutting out the projects I had originally planned, plus one more.

My pattern order arrived from HotPatterns on Tuesday::

I didn’t order anything really fancy and I did not expect them to arrive so soon.  Today some beautiful wine stretch velvet arrived from Candlelight Valley. 

The photo is not mine, I copied it from this page  on the Candlelight Valley website.  My photos ended up too blurry and pink without flash, and too dark, almost black, with flash.

I'm not yet sure which version of the skirt I will cut.  Tomorrow will tell.  Tonight I have to wash the fabric (and I still have to iron the sheets).

The remainder of the vest has not been cut.  I had truly hoped I would get to it, not that I was likely to get to the sewing soon as we will be leaving for Boston by late afternoon today and will not be back until Late Sunday night.  I have no handsewing to take with me although I do plan on taking knitting.  George will be at a meeting so I will be free to shop, wander around, go to museums and just generally hang out.  I am looking forward to it.

I am also looking forward to meeting May from Sewing World who not only sews but is a fabulous knitter.  What fun.

I had originally had a small stretch of time on Tuesday, but the new Design Within Reach catalog arrived and in it was this fabulous modern shelving system .  I immediately thought of my sewing room.

I have long wanted (needed) to put some kind of shelves with cubbies along the blue wall.  I have looked at all the local stores and closet places and just about everywhere I can think of for a modular system that I could put up that would fit there, under the beams from my post and beam ceiling, in the space I have, in a way that would meet my needs and be aesthetically pleasing.  Nothing was working out.  I had reconciled myself to the fact that I would never get what I wanted unless I had a custom-built bookcase/shelving system put in, and frankly my sewing room is not high enough on the priority list for that right now.  If II go to all the expense and bother to build a built-in and have it really well made, I feel I also have to deal with the panelled walls which I hate, the floor that I don't like and so forth.  I would rather deal with those issues in the more public areas of the house first.

When I calculate everything out with these modules, which are 18 1/4 by 18 1/4 by 10" deep, I realize that they just work out to fill the available space, depending on how high the little feet are that go on the bottoms.   HOW EXCITING! 

Besides I genuinely like the high-tech modern look of them, or at least I imagine I do from the photos.  I hope I am not dissapointed when I see the real things. I'm going to stop in the Cambridge DWR store and take a look.

But now, I think this can actually happen.  I still have to work out a new counter-top and cabinets for a sewing table one wall as I am going to replace the old desks i am using now.  But, with luck I should be able to pull this together this winter and will have a place to hide when the outdoor demolition and construction starts in March.

I'll let you know what develops.