Happy Halloween!

It will probably come as no surprise to my loyal readers that I pulled one of my historic outfits to wear to work today for Halloween.  Why would I go buy something cheap from Walmart when I have all these lovely outfits to wear!  I got a co-worker to take a picture of me.  This is the outfit I wore to the dance in Mississinewa.  Seeing as how I didn't get any pictures of JM and I at the dance, I figured this would be a nice substitue.  You can also see, that once my dress dried, the stains on the bottom were a lot less noticeable.  You can see them faintly if you're looking for them, but I feel its fine to wear.  This will just have to be my less fancy dress.

I was also checking out the Mississinewa 1812 website and noticed that they had pictures up from this past year.  I didn't make it into any of them, but JM and Claire got in two at her clothing workshop, and I found one of Barb playing the harp.  I figured I would upload them so you could take a peak. 

Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!!

Working on my PhD

I have been SUPER busy in the last couple of days getting some quilt tops done.  I saw a picture on my Mom's Facebook page that really made me think, I had better get some sewing done before I start any more quilts.

With that being said, I cracked down and not only finished the Jump Rope quilt, but I have made a ton of progress on the Gryffindor quilt I've been designing.

I found this pin on Pinterest which gave me the inspiration to pick up the Gryffindor quilt again.  For those of you new to my blog, I drafted this pattern from a knitting project I did.  I turned each stitch into a 1" square of fabric.  The end result was 600+ tiny squares I need to assemble for the centre crest on the quilt.  I was doing them one at a time, block by block and I was really dreading my decision to make this quilt.  Not only was I pleased with the ease of assembling the centre crest now, but it makes the piecing more even.  Check out this section I re-did after seeing the results from the iron on interfacing.

I'm a little ashamed of my piecing, but I think you can see how much better the result is.  If you are ever considering doing a quilt with this many small pieces, I 100% recommend this method for constructing it!

On that note, I've been up far too late sewing and I need to get some sleep.  I have to be up early to hem my day dress if I want to wear it to work for Halloween tomorrow.  Some people go in store bought or scary costumes, history nerds go in period costume. :D

Quilt-A-Long block 2

Big D and I went to visit my parents tonight.  I hadn't seen them since I left for my trip to Mississinewa.  I had to return their GPS "dirty Gertie" to them, tell them all the stories about my trip and I wanted to see about washing my dress.  The machine here at our apartment building has been known to eat clothes and my 1810 day dress was the last thing I wanted to find chewed in the laundry.  I put some spray and wash on it and we ran two cycles through my mom's machine with every fancy dancy wash mode possible and this is what I ended up with

Oh wait...that wasn't the dirty part.  Lets check the bottom of the dress.

Okay, so it was a fail.  Honestly though, I'm not too heart broken.  The dress is a little too long and people are forever stepping on it causing me to have to repair it almost every time I wear it.  I think if I hem it up, not only will I get rid of most of the dirt stains but I'll never have to worry about fixing it again.  Worse comes to worse, if I don't get the stains out with the re-hemming, then it will just be my muddy Mississinewa dress that I won't have to worry about when the hem gets dirty.  My mom said I should think about making a new dress anyway.  I love how she feeds my costuming addictions!!

While I was away, Mom picked up my fabric for the second block of our block of the month quilt.  It's more half square triangles, which kind of scare me, but not as much as they did for the first block.  I'm still going to make a test block.  It can't hurt to practice plus I get two quilts for the price of one!! Who doesn't love extra quilting right?

My Mom and Dad also got me a fancy little Christmas ornament.  I have a love for shoes, the higher the better.  After the two falls I took this summer I've been in flats and hesitant about wearing some of the bigger shoes I own.  That, and Big D and I are hoping to own a house before we turn 90 so indulging in shoes has been at the bottom of my priority list.  None the less, this will make a wonderful addition to the tree once Christmas throws up all over the apartment again.  Big D thinks it will just end up another toy for the babies. He's probably not wrong!

In addition to the ornament, a friend of my Mom's gave her more purses.  I managed to get a like new purse before that's Chinese Laundry.  I was shocked to find out the value of the purse, so when Mom said she had more purses for me to look through, I couldn't say no.  Here's what I got!

Yes, that is real Gucci!!  I now own a Gucci purse.  It's just a flimsy little bag, but the label on it is all I care about!  Big D just rolled his eyes and said "like you need any more purses".  I told him I would throw some out to make room for the new ones so I had better get on that tomorrow!

I'm off to bed now.  I have an early day tomorrow lugging all my stuff to the new office.  I'm so excited to have my own desk again and not to have to share with a whole bunch of other people.  That, and I'll get to use one of my new purses tomorrow.

**UPDATE** After my dress dried, the stain faded and if significantly less noticeable.  I wore it to work today for Halloween and you wouldn't be able to tell it had been muddy unless you were looking for it .

Back to Quilting

After I got home from work last night, I sat down and did some sewing.  I finally felt a little better from my cold and decided to make use of my time.  I was so in the zone I forgot my phone was in my purse on silent and missed a call from my mom...oops! I finally finished assembling the rows for the Jump Rope quilt!

I originally wanted to try to have no like colours touching in the rows or columns, but it seems kind of hard to avoid.  I don't think the few that are look bad so I'm going to leave it like that.  I did get three rows sewn together last night and pressed before I decided it was bedtime.  I'm hoping that I can finish it soon.  I have a blue plaid I wanted to use for the back but now I'm not sure if I want to use it anymore.  It doesn't seem to go with the top as much as I thought it would.  Time to go bed sheet shopping!!  Now I need to come up with a fun way to quilt this one.  I think I want to look for stencils and do a fancy design on this one.  Something other than just straight lines and swirls that I've done before.  If any of you out there have resources for that, let me know

And, for your viewing pleasure, my little "helper" Kokanee demonstrating the cat rule "if I fits, I sits"!

Mississinewa 1812 (part 3)

I haven't gotten this post up as quickly as I wanted due to a busy few days and trying to fight off a cold.  I think I'm winning the battle but I won't call it won yet.

We greeted Saturday morning refreshed and renewed after our hot butter rum tottie slumber.  Our wonderful neighbours had an enormous pot of coffee on the fire which was amazing.  I'm very much a coffee girl in the morning, especially Tim Horton's coffee.  Given that there are none in the USA, or at least in the parts that we were travelling through, I had been making due with whatever truck stop gas station coffee we came across.  I drank the campfire coffee black which is very out of the ordinary for me, but at that point I didn't care.  It was liquid gold as far as I was concerned.

JM had a bit of a head start on me in the morning, which anyone who knows me won't be terribly shocked to hear.  I met up with him and the large event tent at the middle of the site where one of our fellow MLHS members, Claire, was giving a workshop on how to properly tailor garments.  It was incredibly informative!  I knew she was a genius when it came to making clothes but this was unbelievable!

After the presentation, we decided to hit the town and burn a hole in our haversacks buying up any and every historic trinket we could find.  That and we needed to get some breakfast and what a tasty meal we found.  Enter the epic giant baked potato!

....................... Now that I've given you all a moment to drool over that wonderful tasty mess of potato, butter, sour cream and chives, I'll continue my tale.

JM accepted an invitation from Sally at the American Military camp for us to take tea with her at 2pm that afternoon.  Click here to read about taking tea.  The only variation from this website to what Sally explained at the tea, was the end of the tea was signaled by passing around the cake platter.  But before I get ahead of myself, back to the fun.  JM and I had almost 3 hours to kill walking around the market area known as Rivertown or Merchants Row.  We bought everything from a walking cane for JM, teas, fabric, books, ear rings for the dance that night, EVERYTHING!!  Here are a few pictures of the things I bought and of the tea that afternoon!

My new burgundy hat, beeswax candles, cutlery set, teas, lantern, fingerless gloves, fan, ear rings, lip balm, tea ball, french reproduction coins, silk fan and broom!

Modeling my new hat!! I love it, although Big D claims I look goofy in it.

JM dressed in his afternoon best ready for tea

At tea in Sally's tent.  JM sitting next to Millie in the gorgeous blue spencer jacket! (I wanted to snatch it off her so bad!!) Next to her is the amazing Claire who gave the workshop.

After tea, JM and I did a bit of reading from his Jane Austen manners book to make sure we were nice and proper for the dance that evening.  I scoffed at a few of the instructions, including her insistence on pinning up your train when going to a dance.  I figured with my dress only having a small 3" train that I would be fine.  Yeah, right!!  Tell that to my muddy hem after JM stepped on it at the dance!!  Boy did he have fun giving me a  hard time over that one!  At Jane's suggestion, he decided tot ake a nap as "one should be well rested when not accustomed to dancing til 5 in the morning".  I decided against it since our dance had an end time of 9pm.  I went to visit Barb and Dennis for a bit and enjoyed some of their music and company.

A little before the dance was to begin, I woke JM and we drove into town for dinner.  The vendors had closed but we found a "McDonald's Inn" to have dinner.  Classy, I know but that's how we roll.  We returned in just enough time to dress for the dance.  I unfortunately don't have ANY pictures of us at the dance.  The lighting wasn't very good for pictures and we were having such a good time that it didn't even cross our minds.

After the dance, Debbie, another one of our MLHS members, stopped by our tent for a drink or two of Kraken.  We walked her back to the British Military camp where the rest of our group was staying and got a first hand look at their marquee tent.  It was slightly more glamorous than our tent, with two bedrooms and a dining area.  JM went back to bed but I decided to stay and enjoy the festivities with the rest of our group and some of the American friends we made.  Boy was it ever a wild night!

The large, elegant table inside the marquee tent

Me and Jane.  Her and I go way back, long before our MLHS days.

Alex, one of our MLHS gentlemen on the far right, with a few of the others in the British military

It was a rough morning the next morning, but JM and I found the perfect solution to get going on a very rainy Sunday...more of the giant baked potatoes and a smoked turkey leg!  This thing was massive!  JM had suggested we each get one, but sharing one seemed like a better idea.  Good thing we decided to do that because we hardly put a dent in it.  Here are a few goofy pictures to give you a good laugh.

We wandered around, picked up the last couple of trinkets we just couldn't live without and took some pictures with our friends.

JM and me with Barb and Dennis.  We look a little like drowned rats because there was a torrential downpour 5 minutes before this picture was taken.

Sadly, our time at Mississinewa 1812 was coming to an end.  We packed up our camp, said goodbye to our friends, wished a safe trip to our other MLHS members and headed out on the road.  We managed to find a route that did NOT take us through Chicago and it was a much nicer drive home.  We laugh, sang, plotted and schemed over costumes for next year and craft ideas for all of the wonderful fabrics we picked up on our trip.  All in all, it was an amazing experience and I can't wait to go again next year.  In the meantime, I have adjusted back to modern life quite well, although I drink a little more tea than before and read a little more Jane Austen.  

JM and I couldn't have done it without the help of all our family and friends though.  My mom and dad for giving me the gift of spending cash and their GPS which we named Gertrude Patricia Sutherland....or Dirty Gertie when she decided to act up.  Mr E and C for lending us their tent and vehicle and Meeko and Kokanee, my fur babies, for putting up with a very bored and antsy Big D for 5 days, lol.  Now all I have to do is wait until next year!!!

**UPDATE**

One of our fellow MLHS members just shared this video.  Our members from the British Military camp are now famous!! Check it out and see what all the fun is about!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1pnlwpZhnc&feature=share

Mississinewa 1812 (part 2)

Welcome back to read more about my awesome trip to Marion, Indiana for the events of Mississinewa 1812!  I'm still feeling a slight hangover from my trip and a bit of trouble adjusting to modern life again.  Some of you may read that and laugh, who would have a hard time adjusting to modern convenience.  Well, ask any reenactor and they can attest to it.  Putting the blue jeans back on and getting into the daily grind again can be tough after living 200 years in the past.  Thankfully, the wonderful teas I bought while away have been helping to soothe away some of that pain.

(Sunrise as we came up to Mississinewa)

So, it's Friday morning and JM and I have finally arrived at the Mississinewa 1812 site.  The place is vibrating with excitement as several hundred school kids are unloaded from their busses and filed into the site.  We managed to get in via the side gates promising the attendants that yes we were in fact here as participants and not general public sneaking in for free.  Although, I'm sure that there was little doubt in their mind given our disheveled appearance and how tightly we were clutching our cups of coffee.

After finding our group, locating our camping spot and a mini melt down on my part, we crammed ourselves back in the car and headed into town to the YMCA to shower and change into our costumes.  These were the nicest public showers I have ever seen with as much hot water as one could want.  It was glorious to put it mildly!!

Back at the campsite, we still weren't able to put up our tent.  Vehicles were prohibited between 7am and 4pm due to foot traffic from the public.  To pass the time, JM and I went and found some food and did a bit of shopping.  I stopped at one vendor in particular, Jas Townsend & Son, to put in an order for Mr E and C and pick up a lantern for myself.  I believe I forgot to mention, but Mr E and C were nice wonderful generously amazing enough to lend us not only their walled tent, but one of their vehicles so we could go to Mississinewa.  Their request for us to bring back a few things for them that were too heavy to mail order from Townsend was definitely something we had to oblige given their generosity.  After that was accomplished, I took my leave and had a nap in one of our friends tents.

A couple hours later, JM woke me as it was time to bring in the car and start setting up.  We were both surprised with how easy this tent was to put up.  We didn't have a fancy tent like some of our group with room for a receiving area, but we did manage to make ourselves a "kitchen" and a "bar" so we had some level of class.

The little bar made on the upside down wash tub

The little kitchen area complete with plates, bowls, cutlery and two pots for boiling water on the floor

The tent setup, my stuff on the left, JM's stuff on the right.

Now that we had a home, everything was right in the world.  We found some food and headed over to visit with friends Barb and Dennis.  JM met them about 5 years ago when he was last at Mississinewa.  Barb makes the most wonderful hot butter rum totties and we sat there most of the night enjoying those.

My new lantern behind my little mug of rum tottie

The company of new friends and the rum totties were the perfect way to end that day and to put me into a nice sleep.  JM and I borrowed Big D's propane tent heater which was much appreciated that first night.  We didn't preheat it the first night so it was chilly when we went to sleep, but it did take the chill off so it was comfortable after a bit.

Mississinewa 1812 (part 1)

Well folks, I'm back!!  What an amazing trip it was and boy oh boy do I have stories for you.  Let me tell you the story of our trip, probably in a few posts.

Thursday morning, bright and early before Big D woke up, JM and I left town for our trip. Destination: Mississinewa 1812

We packed the night before, had all of our documents and cash in order and had composed the most EPIC road trip playlist ever in existence.  We made it through the border without incident and we were officially out of our country and on vacation!

Our first stop was Cabela's in Grand Forks.  Big D is, well, big.  At 6'7" tall, he is ridiculously hard to clothe.  Most stores, including our Cabela's, don't stock his size all that often if ever.  We managed to find him a winter jacket that was half price AND in his size.  He was so happy about it, that last night after I got home and gave it to him, he had to try it on with the rest of his hunting gear to see how he looked.

We stopped for lunch in Fargo, and then headed on out to Minneapolis.  What awaited us there was amazing!!

Neither of us had ever been to a Jo-Ann's Fabric before and boy were we pleased with what we found.  I spent quite a bit of cash, but came out with at least three times the fabric I would have at any fabric store up here!!  My favourite find was this bird fabric.

I was in love with it for one reason only.  Last Christmas, I went to the Manitoba Museum with my family.  In one gallery, called The Nonsuch, there was this little painting.  I've been going to this museum my entire life but somehow managed to miss it until that trip.

Since then, I have been taken with the idea on how to draw from this for a quilt. I had done a sketch for an applique to make a small wall hanging.  I think it will now be incorporated into a full sized quilt using all these wonderful fabrics.

(the top right and bottom left fabrics are more gold than the peachy colour they appear to be in this picture)

I still need to find some green fabric to pull in all the colours from the painting, but I think I'm off to a good start.

After Jo-Ann's Fabric, we gassed up and headed to JM's sister's place for dinner and a quick visit.  It was so lovely of them to let us dine and dash and it really made a huge difference.  It was the perfect break needed during a long road trip.  Wisconsin was quiet and we talked and listened to music.  We were getting more and more excited as we neared Illinois realizing we were almost in the home stretch of our trip there....when we hit Chicago.

I live in a fairly large city, not the biggest in Canada but large enough.  We don't have freeways like some Canadian cities, but I'm no stranger to highway and interstate driving.  This was beyond anything I could have prepared for.  Despite having the GPS, JM ready with toll money and him being the calming voice in the car as I lost it trying to navigate this twisty turning multi-level high way system, we came up with one way to sum up that portion of the trip.

After our heart rates returned to normal and we managed to calm ourselves down, the rest of the ride was uneventful.  It was beautiful as we approached Marion, Indiana and the site of the Battle of Mississinewa, the sun came up over the hilly countryside.  It was absolutely breathtaking!

Day one of our trip was over, but we had finally reached our destination.  We likely would have made it a lot sooner, but it was nice to stop along the way to shop and visit.

I hope to have a second post up soon with the events and sights of Mississinewa, but it's WAY too much to have as one post.  There is so much crafty historical goodness!!!

Sunday Morning Snapshots

Just a short post on this quiet Sunday morning.  I finished my block a month quilt piece last night.  It has to be turned in while I am away on my trip, so I have to bring it to my mom to turn in for me.  I'll still have to pay because I'm not there myself, but I'm perfectly okay with that.  It's only $5 after all.

I like the way the fabrics came together after I had assembled it.  When I saw the pieces, I was not too keen on the fabrics I had chosen.  Now, I'm quite happy with it and I can't wait for the next block!  I think I will make two again so that I'm working on two quilts at once for the price of one!  Who knows, maybe I'll even do a third with the pretty pretty fabric I pick up in the states!!!!!!

I don't feel that my corners are as nice on this one than my test block, but maybe I'm just being picky.  I'm just happy I did something with triangles and survived!

As promised, I have a picture of my Eye of Partridge shawl.  It's more like a tiny scarf as you can see in the picture.  For some reason, the edge ruffled when I did my cast off and I'm not sure why.  I think it looks neat though and I'm happy I finally finished it.

That's all for this Sunday.  I'm headed to my parent's place tonight with Big D for Thanksgiving dinner.  It should be a tasty good time!  Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian readers!

Fun with Pinterest

I've been doing a whole bunch of pinning on Pinterest as of late.  I decided it was time to try a few of the ideas on there.  The first adventure was attempting to make skinny jeans from regular wide leg or boot cut pants. (I recently bought my first pair of skinny jeans and have gotten over the fear of thunder thighs when I wear them.  Now all I want is skinny jeans!!)

I found a tutorial on this blog about a lady that thrifts and DIY's almost all her clothes.  The jeans I bought were black so I thought I would take a chance and try to make a blue pair.  I have 2-3 pairs of wide leg blue jeans.  Unfortunately I don't have a before picture, but I'm quite pleased with the after.  I had one of my co workers take the picture of my finished results.  One leg does seem to be a little tighter than the other, but I'm pleased with the overall result of my first Pinterest clothing DIY.

I love my iPhone and I love listening to music on it.  It's so convenient and just plain awesome.  The one thing I hate is searching through my purse for my headphones and spending most of my bus ride trying to untangle those things.  They must have a mind of their own because no matter how I put them into my purse or pocket, they always come out looking like this.

Thankfully, I ran across this nifty little pin that claims to stop the tangle and makes your headphones unique and customized.  No more fighting with Big D over whose headphones are whose!  I did a portion of mine so far.  I'm not sure how I'm going to get around the volume button or the little clippy thingie, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. 

I also FINALLY finished my Eye of Partridge shawl, or as Big D knows it, the truck repair shawl.  I started it over 3 years ago when he bought his truck.  It was used and had a blown transmission but the price was more than right.  Every time we would go to his Uncle's place to work on the truck, I would bring this knitting project along with me to keep myself occupied.  The truck was repaired but the shawl was not done.  It went missing a few times in my bins of crafts, and the pattern took a vacation as well, but I finally finished it.  The funny thing is, Big D sold the truck about a month ago!  I'll upload a picture of it later.

For now, I'll get back to work watching the snow whiz by the window.  Yes, you read correctly, it is snowing here.  It's not staying, thank goodness, but it's making things cold, wet and slushy.  None of which I like in early October.  On the other hand, it is the perfect crafting weather!!