Glanalaw - delighting in pure song

This week it's been incredibly hot and humid, and I realised while staring at my closet trying to pick clothes that I don't have many good "every-day" summer dresses.  I needed to fix that!  So I dug through my fabric shelf and pulled out this blue and white gingham, which was actually a queen-size sheet from the thrift store.  It's sturdy and fairly crisp but very soft, and I thought it would make a nice dress.  It was not entirely a success.  Do not be fooled by look of extreme happiness in most of these photos.  It was HOT and the sun was in my eyes and we kept having to stop so I could wipe sweat off my face and neck, and as you will read I was less than content with the fit of the dress.  But I like some of the images we got even if I don't love the dress!  I think I'll keep my sister as my official photographer - she does a geat job.  The pattern I chose is Butterick 5209, one of their "Retro" series from '47.  I reall...

Three summers ago I made myself a bathing suit, and this summer I finally got around to blogging about it!  I can make all sorts of excuses - I was living in Tennessee and didn't have my family photographer (i.e. my sister) close to hand... I was busy... I didn't go swimming much... but really the main reason is I kept telling myself I'd take pictures and blog the suit when I'd lost that weight I've been planning to lose. Well, three years later and some of it is gone, but I decided to stop making excuses and being self-conscious and just take the pictures already.  And you know what?  I won't be getting calls from Victoria's Secret begging me to come model for them.  But I made a suit that fits me and flatters my figure, and I think it looks good.  And I had a blast with the pictures -- broke out the curly hair and the red nail polish and the really big hat and pretended I was Katherine Hepburn or someone! This was me saying "Oh look! A fis...

The last month or so I've been working on assembling a set (a pair? I don't know what the proper term is!) of late-Victorian combinations and now they are finally done and my sister came home from vacation so I could make her take photos and then it FINALLY stopped raining so we had some decent light, so here they are!  (Phew.)   I'm playing Mabel in our community theatre's production of "The Pirates of Penzance" and we're costuming it to roughly 1890, including for me proper corsetry!  So I decided I needed some new underthings to go with it.  (My corset cover and drawers are made of very fine lawn and are therefore too delicate for stage work, plus they're about a decade or so later in style, which doesn't work so well.) I scaled the pattern up from the one given in Patterns for Theatrical Costumes .  We've had the book for a while but I've never made anything from it before.  It was surprisingly easy - I don't have a pr...

In the process of tidying the house, I piled all my current needlework together and then noticed something. (Crocheted lace for a petticoat, another Amy Pond scarf , and the blue is some test-knitting that I can't tell you about yet!) Red white and blue.  Apparently I was subconsciously patriotic when I chose my knitting! I hope you all had a happy Fourth of July!  I spent the week in a house full of cats who are terrified of loud noises, in the middle of a neighbourhood which LOVES fireworks and cannon and explosions of all sorts.  So it was an interesting weekend.  However everyone goes back to work tomorrow so maybe the evenings will be quieter now!

Well, mostly Victorian, anyway.  All my "historical" underthings had a wash today, with bluing to make them extra white.  Lots of soft cotton and knitted lace. Here's also a sneak peek at my new combinations, which will be officially introduced once my photographer gets back from vacation!