Let the Rendez Vous Countdown Begin!

I have completed quite a few sewing projects in the last little while.  We had an event with the MLHS at Mr E and C's place and quite a few sewing days of just C and I.  as such, I finished my chemise, a bonnet, half of a low class work woman's jacket, a reticule to match my spencer jacket, started on a willow basket and embroidered one of my pockets.

Outer fashion fabric of my jacket.  

What the finished product should look like.

The embroidery on the first of two pockets.

My reticule with embroidery done by yours truly.

New bonnet.  I changed out the fabric from purple/grey to brown so it matches more of my outfits.  Looks quite nice over my day cap.

This is the type of basket we were working on.  Mine is more football shaped and not nearly done but in progress none the less!

In addition to the 114 days until Mississinewa, there is another event in Grand Portage, MN in August I'm going to try to attend.  If that's the case, I hope to finish my jacket, two bed gowns and a skirt.  It would be amazing if I can attend, although it does drop my deadline for finishing costumes down to 51 days.  We will see what happens.

In other news, there have been a 7 sheep born at Mr E and C's farm.  One had to be bottle fed and has become everyone's little buddy.  His name is Blue and he is just the most adorable little thing ever!

We also have a garden this year at Big D's dad's place.  Our tomatoes, cauliflour, peppers, peas, beans, carrots and even purple carrots are coming along nicely.  I can't wait to start enjoying some of the veggies!  I'm so excited for fresh peas. Oh, and lets not forget our bad ass, bobble head, gangsta gnome that Big D picked out.

Sewing and Thrifting

While I haven't done any sewing in a while, due to my participation in a fundraiser production of "Guys and Dolls", I do have a back up of pictures of the stuff I have in progress!

My making and refashioning of clothes has continued.  Here we have Roberta modeling my pink summer dress.  I started this dress a few years ago but it got stuffed away in a corner as my costuming for MLHS and quilting became more important.  I have to put in the dreaded zipper and hem it up.  I know it sounds silly for a Crazy Crafting Cat Lady, such as myself, to actually have a crafting kryptonite, but I do.  I'm forcing myself to do more with it and I have a pair of pants to make, complete with zipper, once I finish all the sewing jobs others have comissioned me to do.

Mine and Big D's soon to be sister in law, K-Ruf as we affectionatly call her, is the one that donated all her old clothes to me.  (That's where the black skirt with the ruffled kick pleat and the purple shirt came from.)  She gave me this lovely dress that someone brought back for her from Venezuela I believe.  It needed no alterations and has beautiful hand embroidery.  I thrifted the belt for $3 and the shoes for $12.  I am so in love with this outfit!!!!

(Not the best picture, but I cropped it from a bigger one of Roberta wearing the outfit)

I thought the shoes I thrifted were a good deal until I found these beauties on a trip to Walmart with Big D.  They were on clearance for $9 but rang through at only $3!!  You can see Kokanee eyeing them up in the background giving her approval for my deal of a find!!

Now its off to the theatre for a night of "Guys and Dolls".  It's opening night and runs until Sunday.  For those of you in the Winnipeg area, it's at PTE and starts at 8:00pm!!  Come out and see what a bunch of dentists can do!

Back at it again

Wow! Has it really been over a month since my last post?  Not a lot of crafting was completed during that time, but a lot was done.  Big D started school, and at this point only has a week left.  He passed his road test first try and is now fully licensed to drive a big rig.  He'll be off to work on March 4th which I know he is both excited and apprehensive about.

I am taking one step further to solidifying my title as crazy crafting CAT lady.  Big D's Grandma is moving into an assisted living complex and cannot bring her fur babies with her.  We can't take both of them, but we have agreed to take Monte who used to belong to Big D.  He is a 7 year old maine coon and has a lovely disposition.  I know Meeko will get along with him, but Kokanee may be another story.  We'll see how it plays out with two people and three cats in our apartment. (Big D used to have a cat named Chevy, this is Monte and Meeko's middle name is Carlo...do we see a pattern here?)

Our new fur baby, Monte

I finally used my Fabricland gift card from Christmas and happened to go on a day with some killer deals!  They had cotton prints on buy one meter get TWO free.  For once, I didn't go wild for quilting fabric but instead bought enough to make a new outfit for the MLHS. (okay, you got me, it's in preparation for Mississinewa this year!)  I've also started working on the embroidery for my reticule to match my spencer jacket I made a couple months ago.  It's coming along nicely, although I think it's lacking a little something.  If  any of you Regency experts have suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.

OOOH!!! Fabric!!

Embroidery on the reticule

I have done more work on the 9 patch quilt, but nothing really worth mentioning or showing other than its coming along well.

Keeping with the title of my post, I am back at it on a knitting project from 2006-2007 and earlier than that.  My Grandma started a cardigan sweater for my Grandpa back in 1956.  She was the queen of UFO's, so of course the back piece was finished and no more.  Some of the yarn was used years later for socks and now there isn't enough of the original red to complete it.  Her and I had discussed how to go about finishing it with what we had left.  We decided that a sweater vest with a contrasting colour for the front would be the best option and came up with a nice little design.  I haven't worked on it since she passed away.  I pulled out my very neglected yarn bin today while teaching a friend to knit, and decided it was time to get back at it.  I managed to complete 10 rows (two block strips) today and I feel really great about it!

Me and my Grandma back in 2000

The progress so far on the front of the vest.  Please excuse my laptop and over sized sweat pants! lol

Going through my stash, and knowing how many projects I have on the go at any one times makes me wonder, how many UFO's do you have?  

Block a Month Quilt

My parents had a New Years Day shindig at their place today and all of our friends that are taking part in the Block a Month quilt a long were there.  We were instructed to bring our quilt squares so we could compare and I managed to snap some shots of the products so far.  Everyone picked a different colour scheme so it was really neat to see how everyone's are coming together.

Left to right the blocks belong to Diana, my mom, mine, Marcia and Krista.  I tried to do a few panoramic pictures but they didn't turn out too well.  This is the best one, despite everyone's hands in there.  Everyone was ogling the quilt squares, even the menfolk! It will be really neat to see how everyone decides to finish their quilt with sashing and borders.

I cut up the 15 fat quarters, some fabric from my stash, plus some of my fabric from my trip for the nine patch quilt I saw on Pinterest.  A few of the girls from MLHS are getting together for a sewing night.  I've already packed up my sewing machine to head on over and start assembling this bad boy.  I laid out three different colour combinations to hopefully try and recreate the picture.  Here's what I have so far.

I have a ton more squares than I thought I would, so I might see if I have enough for colour themed quilts.  We will see what happens during this creative process!

Happy 2013 to everyone and keep on crafting!

Scottish Symphony: A Selkirk Settlers Celebration

I had an absolutely WONDERFUL evening out last night with the MLHS at the symphony.  They were premiering a new work by Sid Robinovitch called "Red River" which was commissioned by the Seven Oaks Historical Society to commemorate the Selkirk Settlers bicentennial.  MLHS was invited to hand out programs in costume and be general ambiance.  Myself and three other ladies were present and we received free tickets to the symphony.  Not only did we get to experience the world premier of this beautiful work, but two other pieces.  Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra in C major by Beethoven and Symphony No. 3 in A minor by Mendelssohn.
 

 

I took this photo during Beethoven's Concerto.  The pianist, Beatrice Rana, was phenomenal.  She couldn't have been more than 22 and played all three movements from memory with intense passion.  When I played piano, many years ago and never this good, Beethoven was one of my favourites to play.  He didn't show up very often in my curriculum, but when he did I would endeavor to play his pieces.  I even sought out a few to learn for fun and played "Moonlight Sonata" for my high school production of Dracula.  Anyway, Beatrice's performance was amazing beyond words.  I would go again to the symphony, if only to hear her play.

I finished my spencer jacket just in time to wear it to this event.  I managed to trim the cuffs with fur but not the collar.  We all had so much fun going to the symphony in costume.  We were looking for someone to take a photo of us all when two ladies came up and asked to have their picture taken with us.  We agreed if they would take one of us.  It worked out to be a good trade.

L-R Myself, Kira-Lyn, Zaley and Debbie

Debbie took a few poses, but I like this one.  She asked me to "look off into the distance remembering your homeland".  She's such a riot!!

  
I had parked underground, not wanting to ruin my dress anymore.  It had been snowing all day and we were supposed to get this horrible winter storm.  When I left the concert hall last night, it looks like it had kicked in full swing.  We were promised 20-30cm (8-12 inches) of snow.  This is what it looked like as I drove past the concert hall, which is actually on the same street my work is!

I was sure glad Big D had put the winter tires on the car!  The plows have been out now, but not when I was traveling home last night.  It was so slow going I didn't even get out of first gear, but other than that it was fine.  When I talked to my mom this morning, she said their property looks like a winter wonderland.  I told her to take some pictures so maybe I will get to show you what a beautiful place my parents have.

Hope all of you caught in this storm are keeping warm and safe and everyone have a great day!

I GOT ONE!!!

It's been a few days but rather busy ones.  I have great news!!

Panaramic shot of where we were sitting! Gotta love iOS 6!!

Sunday morning, Big D and i went back to the same spot in the south end of the third field where all the action was.  We got there early, thanks to the time change, and sat and waited.  Big D was getting discouraged and thought that maybe we weren't going to see anything as the deer were "late" from the last two mornings.  No sooner had he expressed this, one lonely buck moseyed out into the field.  He was snacking on winter wheat and making his way south down the field.  We watched with baited breath, fearful that he would turn east into the bush.  Big D tried his buck call several times but the deer didn't even twitch an ear to it.  He turned and started slowly towards us.  I had my muzzle loader cocked and ready to fire, all I had to do was lift my gun, aim and fire.

He was about 90-100 yards away and then it hit me, buck fever.  My heart started pounding so loud I was certain that the deer was going to hear it and run.  My arms were shaking as I raised my gun and Big D whisper yelled at me to shoot.  A tense split second that felt like several years and BOOM!  I fired but I was so focused on the deer through my scope I didn't even hear my shot, feel the recoil of the gun or notice him stumble.  He didn't run at all or drop, he simply started doing a quick walk past us.  Big D whistled to get him to stop and fired another shot.  I heard the shot hit but again he didn't drop and he didn't run, he just kept going on his way.  We both reloaded as fast as we could and Big D jumped out of the bush where we were sitting, saw the deer down the field on the bush line and fired a third time.  Big D's dad was sitting  in his tree stand and said he never heard an impact from the third shot, so the deer just walked into the bush.

We did some tracking but couldn't find any evidence of him having been hit.  Thankfully, Mr E came out to the farm to help us track it and after two hours of bush walking, we found him!!  He was about 2-3 years old, about 200lbs on the hoof and I believe 4 points.  Given that not everyone is a fan of seeing icky things, click here to see a picture of Big D and I with our harvest.  We decided to share the glory because there were two impact points, both from each of our first shots.

He's now packaged up in our freezer and hopefully we can fill the other tag during riffle season.  If we do, then we're set for the year!

On the sewing side of things, JM came over tonight to help me lay out the pattern for my spencer jacket.  I need it for an event Saturday night.  There was a symphony composed in honour of the Selkirk Settler Bicentennial and the MLHS has been asked to be present in costume.  I'm going to wear my peach day dress, as its the only fancy one I have right now.  The jacket is going to be chocolate brown velvet with a brown silk lining.  I have an old fur coat that i'm going to remove the collar from to put on the spencer, as well as trim the cuffs with fur.  It's going to be super fancy and I hope I get some nice pictures of me in it.

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!!

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 .

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