Of Mice and Man-boobs

Fifteen days down, 351 to go.  Fourteen creations, and a mini-shopping spree.

Three plays in process, 5 more in the planning (just through May!).  There will be more plays later in the year (I hope!), I just don't have anything booked or scheduled yet. 

Zipper tape flowers, for reals.

Saturday was my husband's 50th birthday.  To commemorate the day, I got the biggest cinnamon rolls in the Twin Cities for breakfast, plus a pecan roll for myself.  Except he had a breakfast meeting scheduled for 10 a.m., so the kids and I enjoyed our rolls, whilst he went elsewhere.  I had a cave tour at my part-time job, so I wasn't around for lunch.  But we all managed to be together for dinner.  We had a lovely, large meal at Chianti Grill, then waddled over to a big old bookstore to attempt to walk off some of the pasta and birthday cake.  Which is to say, I was in a food coma all evening.  Fortunately, I  finished the second fingerless mitt (from my previous post) Saturday afternoon, so I did create something.  And they're lovely.  I found the zipper flower pins in a bag of trims that my stepmom recently gave to me; I wanted to add my own touch to these lovely mitts.

My Sunday consisted of a board meeting for my theater company, as we prepare for our second production, Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap.  Then off to a stumble-through and production meeting for Slasher; during which darling husband and 2/3 of my offspring decided to text or call me within a 30-minute span.  All independently, unbeknownst to the others.  And all because the hubs forgot to get milk.  The one thing he needed to get at the grocery store - and he forgot.  Well, he's 50 now, and his memory is going to pot (along with his belly.  This man is not aging well.)  Which meant a quick stop at the store on my way home, to purchase said beverage.

Finally, home. I fixed myself a late supper (good thing I have veggie burgers in the freezer; made me feel better about Saturday's splurge), poured a glass of vino, and settled in to watch the Golden Globes.  And thought about a quick project to work on from the comfort of my couch.  Because of the Golden Globes, I passed on the second episode of  Downton Abbey on t.v. (I'll catch it today online!), but I still wanted something inspired by the gorgeous outfits seen on that show. 

I had a small amount of black velvet ribbon trim left on a spool; certainly not enough to trim anything, but the perfect amount for a choker.   The women of Downton Abbey wear beautiful chokers paired with long beaded necklaces for their fancy dinner parties.  Also on hand, a beaded/sequined applique, perfect with the ribbon, and a plain hook clasp.  This was an easy handsewing creation - I turned under the cut ends of the ribbon, sewed each clasp half on the two ends, then centered the applique and hand-stitched it in place.

I feel like quite the fancy lady with my alpaca-silk mitts and velvet-beadwork choker.  These may be the last items I create for myself for a bit; with so much costume work in the next few weeks, my creations will include the following items: a horror film-inspired mask for Slasher; man-boobs for The Complete Wrks of Wllm Shkspre, Abridged (yep, just like Shakespeare's day - men playing the women's roles); and perhaps some little gifts for the cast of The Mousetrap, inspired by the title.

Seriously, the book just happened to be there.

A little teaser

Sunday's creation was almost a failure.

This happened last night. I've been anticipating this night for a while now, and thought, "What could be better than a 'Downton Abbey'-inspired creation??" Something beautiful and luxurious. A friend suggested an exquisite hairpiece - and when I saw Lady Rosamund's headwrap in the dinner party scene, I knew that would be next week's project. GORGEOUS!

But last night, I wanted something I could work on whilst watching Season 2, Episode 1. I decided to make a small drawstring purse.

I had a scrap of velvet, dyed a mottled blue, green and purple; also some green dupioni silk for the lining. Perfection.

Then my evening started to unravel; we were low on milk, so a quick run to the grocery store before The Show - not only milk, but requests for the following food items as well: blueberry bagels, strawberry cream cheese, Pop-tarts (that's not gonna happen!), and Toaster Strudel. The kids were thinking about Monday breakfast. Made it back, then ran to my workroom to grab my supplies; I wanted to work and watch in the greatroom.

As I turned from my sewing table with my arms full of supplies - I dropped my box of pins all over the floor of my workroom. ALL OVER THE FLOOR. All the pins. Everywhere. And no Ryan Gosling around to pick them up. Sadness.

But my show was starting, I had to get to the sofa, with my fabrics in hand. What I didn't realize was that the episode was two hours long. I could cut out the purse, but no sewing until after 10 p.m., after everybody was in bed, and the dog was let out for a final time.

I finally had the purse pieces together by 11:45 p.m., but it wasn't pretty. Sewing velvet requires some concentration and finesse, neither of which was happening so late at night.

I've decided this isn't a FAILURE in my creation-a-day goal, because I made something. It's just not complete. I'm off to work for a few hours, then I'll finish up the purse, and move on to today's creation - whatever the hell that will be.