Accomplishments

I had a GREAT extra day off.  I accomplished a lot of what was on my list, but not everything.  I did get the check from my brokerage and got over to the fabric store.  I did find a light-weight black fabric that will be perfect for a pair of pants for DH.  I'll try to get to that by early next year - it's not a rush because we're heading into colder temps now.  And I got over to Dick Blick to take advantage of the 20% off everything one-day sale as well as use a 40% off one item coupon that they had Emailed me.  I bought crayons for Sebas' box.  I'll strip the main box next week at the shop (as I recall, that's where I have my stripping solution at), and then can start refinishing the box.  I bought a 120 Crayon mix yesterday for a great price, as well as a nice shapener that I will insert into the side of the new box.  I'll build divider/risers in the interior of the box, cut out and insert the sharpener, and decorate the exterior.  The box itself is perfect for this application which is why I had purchased it.  By the time I'm finished with it, it will be adorable.  I see the finished item in my mind's eye and just have to work towards it. 

I just love Crayola Crayons.  I grew up with the
64 crayon box and still think that crayons are
one of the BEST gifts EVER! 

I had planned on spending the day at the sewing machine and that's exactly what I did.  I got home around 11:30 am, starting my load of laundry and settled down with my cape.  If I was on Project Runway I would just have used my scissors and cut around the stitchline to separate the satin lining from the wool, but I decided to use my seam ripper instead so it took more than an hour to get the two layers separated.  Then I began finishing the interior seams.  I could have left the seams as they were - rough, but I think that visible seams should be finished.  So I spent several hours pinning and sewing the three long seams down the body of the cape, the line up the center of the hood, and the joining between the hood and the body of the cape.  Then I pinned and stitched the entire exterior seam.  Everything has to be sewn in the proper direction to allow for the cloak to fall properly.  Then I threw it back into the washer and dryer again.  And I decided to give up on the embroidery and do what I do best.  I picked up some metallic fabric paint and I will be painting the scrollwork on the hood this morming.  I can set the paint before Sunday and mount the closures and I'll be ready to wear it on Sunday.  That's been my goal because it will be a colder day (temps into the upper 50's).  We will have a long day at the Fest because we always close the Fest down on the final day.  It's always a bittersweet occasion - it gives my Sundays back to me, but also means that winter is right around the corner. 

Sigh.....

I got the old embroidery removed from my cloak last night and tossed the cloak in the washer.  Any cloak that I have needs to be able to be washed regularly.  I am not a fool and I've been working with fabrics for many years.  I always pre-wash my fabrics.  And, indeed, this cloak has been washed at least two times before.  This time the wollen overcloak shrunk where the satin undercloak did not.  Sigh.....  So, not only did my white markings for my embroidery not come out in the wash, but the lining now needs to be shortened.  My other alternative will be to split the two pieces apart and cut new pieces for each.  I actually think that the wool shrunk to a good length, I had been a bit worried thinking that the cloak would be a bit too long anyway.  But I'm not happy that the wool is still shrinking.  This will have been the third time that I washed this fabric and it should have settled down by now.  It also, with this latest issue, will not be ready to wear for Fest this weekend and that was the whole purpose in removing the embroidery and attempting to wash the embroidery pattern markings off the cloak.  It won't be ready for this season.  I will now have to separate the hood and its' lining and re-align the two pieces to account for the shrinkage, then re-embellish with embroidery.  Since I am doing that, it presents me with many possibilities.  But, as I said, it will not be ready to wear this weekend.  It will be cold this weekend - 40's to mid-60's Fahrenheit, and I will miss not being able to wrap my wool around me.  Maybe I'll just go ahead and shorten the lining anyway ... no.  I just can't bring myself to wear something less than 100%. 

Isn't this beautiful?  This is machine embroidered. 
Unfortunately, this is WAY beyond the
capabilities of my machine.  But it's certainly pretty!

The cloak pins, on the other hand, are progressing well.  They should be complete by the end of next week if I get some early morning time at my silver bench.  The backs are cut out and just need to get into my polisher, then I need to make and set the rivets, and finally set the enamels into the settings.  Rivets always cause me some problems, so using them again is not a bad thing.  I am using pretty thick wire for the pin tines and the rivets so things should be sturdy.  What a project - this one has taken me far too long and, since I'm so picky, is still not complete.  Sigh....

Ouch!

It's going to be nice, but cold, at the Fest this weekend.  Having my cloak is going to be important, and I did the template for the backplate of the cloak pins yesterday.  I will drill and saw today and Friday morning, set the rivets and the pins will be ready to go.  That leaves the cloak itself. 

No, my machine is more modern than this one.  But
this is pretty cool, isn't it?

I am not happy with the hand-embroidery that I have done up to this point.  So I decided to try out the machine embroidery features of my sewing machine.  My machine is old, but it can satin stitch, and that's really all I was looking for.  I tried several different methods and threads, ended up having to run out to the fabric store to get thread that I liked, and continued experimenting.  While doing that, since the embroidery part for the type of stitch I was doing requires the pressure foot to be removed from the needle leaving a naked needle, I ended up with a serious oops.  The naked needle impaled my finger.  Ouch!  Everyone who has a sewing machine has sewed through their finger at some point - usually when they are children.  I am here to tell you that it still hurts when you are an adult.  I was "one with the machine" for a bit - the needle wouldn't retract because it bent when it impaled me.  But I manually retracted the needle after a couple of futile tries using the foot pedal.  I cleaned it up, put on a bandage, and went back to the machine with a new needle.  Results?  Well, it will take more practice before I am happy with my skill levels on this but it might give me the look that I need.  Next week I don't get a studio day so I can't play, but in the meanwhile I will take out the embroidery that I don't like and wash the cloak.  That should get rid of the marked designs that I was using.  I can reapply them easily when I am ready to try the embroidery again.  In the meanwhile, I will at least have a useable cloak this weekend. 

Studio Day - What to do??? What to do???

So today is my studio day.  I have enamels calling out to me to be used, a sketchbook that is screaming at me to get some work done in it, my cloak pins to finish the final template for, the cloak itself (I don't like the embroidery that I've done on it thus far and think I'll rip it out, wash the cloak, and start again) and I still have a den full of books and papers from "the flood" of my broken plumbing pipe several weeks ago.  I guess I won't be bored.  I am grateful that I finally finished the story I was reading at 5:30am this morning.  Every spare minute I had was spent trying to finish it.  And now that I have, I have a bit more time and a bit less perched on my brain to get done.  That's at least a relief. 

Some possible embroidery elements.  Maybe...

So what to do?  I do think that I will work on the cloak template and tear out my embroidery and wash my cloak to eliminate the designwork.  I can reapply it later, but I'll dump it for now because it's not 100% what I want.  The cloaks that I was looking at at Fest over the weekend used a separately applied front plaquet to stabilize the front edge and I'm tempted to do that.  I'm sure that they do it because it adds stability and also adds strength for any fasteners.  Since I am planning on using cloak pins for that purpose, a plaquet may not be my best solution.  I'll have to play with this today because we are getting into the last few weeks of Ren Faire and I know at least one of those days will be cold.  I plan on wearing my new cloak for that day and I have to get myself in gear to have it completed on time.  We'll see how much I actually end up able to accomplish, after all, it is only a single day. 

Keepin' On

Yesterday was actually fairly productive. I washed three loads of laundry, pickup up more paper bags for the shop, bought a very fun box to play with, cut out my silver, edited a chapter for my Beta friend, and started drawing the mirror. I will have to re-do the drawing - refine it and change the scale. But at least I did get it started and I can work from that. It was very pleasant to pick up a pencil again. Shame on me for letting them sit unattended for so long!

I also got the next three elements for my embroidery transferred to my cloak. I'll try and get those embroidered over the next two nights if I'm caught up on my computer work. The only thing I did not get to was more refinement of my cloisonne designs. But I'll get more done this week and those don't have a deadline. Now to continue this trend into the next few days - to do the soldering and continue with my cloak pins. I'm pleased - I haven't picked up my torch in too long and I've missed it. Yippee....Sandi and Fire ... ... ... .

Studio Day and Movie Report

One of the gifts that my DH gave me for Christmas was dinner and a movie. Because I wanted to see Avatar and he wanted to see it on a weekday so that the crowds would be less (the movie was still close to sold out - five weeks after it was released, so we didn't avoid the crowds), we went last night (Tuesday) for the 7pm IMAX 3-D show. I don't get out of the shop until after 6:15, so by the time I got to the theatre it was too late for dinner, but I had planned on that and had a small lunch while working. We decided against munchies at the movie and just concentrated on the picture instead. I think this was Jim's first experience with a 3-D movie. But I know that when 3-D technology becomes available for home television viewing, this is one movie that I'm buying for that! I loved it! Yeah - very tall blue beings with tails that can fly was awesome, but even better was the ability of all of the sentient beings to plug into the world. As one who has always believed in ley lines and sacred spaces, this movie really hit home. I highly recommend it when it comes your way. Well worth the time and money.

Today I have the usual long list of errands to do and then I can get some personal art done. I need to saw out the platforms for my cloak pins so that I can solder them later this week. I also have to transfer the next designs for my embroidery, and I want to draw a mirror that was referenced in a fan-fic yesterday and that perked my imagination to pick up my pencil and see what it would look like based on her description. I'd like to color it in also - we'll see. I also want to refine some more cloisonne designs to start later this month or early next. In total, I'm looking forward to a creative afternoon.

Now It Gets Interesting...

Football. You either love it or hate it, but I love most sports and football (American style football) is one of my favorite sports. The local professional team has been playing VERY well this season, and the game that we played yesterday was a crucial one. And we won....decisively won. So, Sunday will see my DH and I glued to our television again, watching our beloved Minnesota Vikings go up against the New Orleans Saints. This will be a telling game and the winner of this one goes on to play in the Super Bowl. My friend Seth will probably be rooting for the Saints - he has roots in New Orleans. But I'll be hoping for the purple to prevail and for our home team to win the division and, in two weeks after that, the Super Bowl. Go Vikings!

While I was watching football yesterday, I did take advantage of the time to take out the old embroidery from my cloak so that I can iron on new patterns on Wednesday and begin the new embroidery. I'm much happier with the new style and look forward to progressing with this project that has taken much longer than it should have. I also will saw some silver for my cloak pins on Wednesday so that I can solder things together later in the week. So far the week's projects seem to be on-track. What are YOU going to be creating this week? It's Monday...time to think about it! Even when you don't have the time to create in reality, you can still think about projects and the steps you will need to take to accomplish them. Think creatively.