Living On the Dark Side

We in Dartmouth live life to the fullest. After all, you never know when a flock of geese will cross the street at the corner crosswalk to get to the greener grass on the other side. This is not the first time I've waited, and waited, and waited for the parade to pass.

I had a busy weekend. Retirement is the best!  First I made an excellent birchbark basket. It's excellent because the instructor really prepped all the hard stuff and make it all soooo easy (excellence nothing to do with me). I'm used to having to cut down the tree first, peel the tree, gnaw on the tree roots, etc. He made it a very relaxed and lovely day. DH used it today to pick lettuce.

Then we were at a car rally event on Sunday. It was a perfect day and I even got onion rings WITH my french fries. I love a flexible menu. 

But Monday was heavenly. I finished a new wallet and went to my first corset class. 

First, the wallet. It's the second in the Sew Sweetness pattern and it is just a bit more challenging than the first. As a series, these three patterns work well to build confidence and skills. I like the external phone pocket and the cash pockets. I used binding on the edges instead of  sewing the front and back together and flipping them inside out. I used a really stiff interfacing and turning the wallet inside out would not have happened. When your machine has all those decorative stitches and you need to topstitch everywhere, why would you go with a straight stitch? Have some fun!

Now, about corset class. It was 3 hours of mad measuring and calculating. We are drafting a Victorian corset from scratch and it was intense. I was off to the hardware store this morning for giant zip ties.  Now I just need to pick fabric. We will not be making a muslin. Shall I say that again? We will NOT be making a muslin - it goes direct to distribution. The pressure! However we do get to design in how much less waist we want. When have you ever had that opportunity? 

Today I forged on in my ADHD frenzy and finally put together a jewelry bag with my circular attachment. It is too cute for words! Here it is. I'll be posting a tutorial soon. Again, I went a bit wild with the decorative stitches. Why not?