New Jewelry

These earrings are made from vintage turquoise beads I've had in stock for years, 2 nice antique coral beads, and new sterling silver beads from India. So nice I may have to keep them!



More new stuff...

Kantha Jacket

The embroidery continues. The jacket looks like a crazy sampler since I use it to practice stitches that have completely slipped my mind and fingers. I love learning new techniques and seeing the patterns grow. In the meantime, I used a lovely kantha quilt I got from Frioz on his last visit to Bellingham and made a jacket from a Simplicity pattern classed as "easy". Well, most of it was easy, until I got to the front lining and the collar, when it looked like a crazy jigsaw puzzle. But it worked! All it needs now is buttons.

Finished...here are the photos

Almost finished. I had the kitty outlined in black and she didn't show up so I picked it all out and went with gray. The crescent moon is done with an underlayer of white pearl cotton and silver thread over for a padded effect. The stars are in silver. Havin' fun!

The Owl and the Pussycat

I started embroidering again and it's working out quite well. I am full of ideas about what to do with this old Flax tunic and have decided to use it as a sampler, to learn, to explore, and have fun. Here is a photo of the bottom front right.

This is the cartoon for The Owl and the Pussycat, which will cover most of the back of the jacket skirt. I have since added a crescent moon. I got the design from a drawing online. I'd like to do the moon in some silver embroidery thread I bought.

Ready to sew

Three patterns cut out. One new tunic pattern from Marcie Tilton, a gored jacket pattern using the Kantha quilt I got from Firoz' visit, and a third, a jacket pattern I reconstructed of a Georgian garment from the 1700's. I used a piece of cotton/linen I dyed brick red last year. Should be fun to see how these turn out. I will post photos.

Sewing Projects

Here are some of the sewing projects I've been working on. the first two photos are my interpretation of a Khamu jacket I brought back from Laos in 2011. I had to size the pattern up. The green jacket is hand woven Lao silk lined with Robert Kaufman polished cotton. The blue jacket is indigo dyed hand woven Lao silk lined with purple polished cotton.

The third Chinese style jacket is hand woven Lao silk lined with purple, again. the cuffs of the jacket are pieces of a hand woven silk skirt border from Laos.

The black jacket is a rough bengaline style silk, hand woven, bordered by Kaufman's silk/cotton blend in a bright peacock blue. It is fully lined and generously sized. Very elegant.

The last piece is my own pattern for a steampunk/circus vest made with kutnu,a cotton silk ikat woven fabric from the Gaziantip area of Turkey and long used for folk costumes, jacket and traditional yeleks. It is lined with red silk/cotton.

When All Else Fails, Drop Back and Knit

Today I finally put together the dress I've been thinking about for several months. I made the pattern for the bodice, but I am afraid I didn't put as much energy into it as I have on some projects, and because of that, the entire design was just a little off. This always pisses me off, because I've gone and ruined another piece of perfectly good, and somewhat expensive, fabric. As I ripped out the seam that connected the bodice to the skirt, I was careful to smooth out the pieces I will salvage and use for some other, now smaller, project. Sewing is like that for me. One great triumph and several crappy failures. So I decided to start the embroidery project I had laid out. Well, it's just not my day. The embroidery cotton was too thin for the project I had in mind...I do have plenty of other, thicker colors, but I found myself frustrated and astonished that my embroidery skills had deserted me too. So, yes, I have thrown in the thread. I'm downstairs now, knitting...and that would be re-knitting...the sweater I started last year and decided to unravel and start again...with a different pattern...one that is very simple and I'm sure I can finish...maybe.