At Her Leisure

I made quite a bit this year, including four knit pinballs.



The rest is behind the cut.

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1. The front of my 1930's sweater is finished! I'm not going to post a picture because it looks just like the back except that the neck is lower.

2. If you like pork, apples, and pie, you should try this recipe for Cheshire Pork Pie. It's really good. (It doesn't reheat all that well, but that's because of the crust - no pie reheats very well.) It's also pretty easy. When I do it again, I'll cut the pork into bite-size pieces instead of slices because eating a pie with a knife and fork is a bit weird. I'll also skip the olive oil, which is an alteration to the Williamsburg recipe. I really didn't need two tablespoons of butter/oil to brown the pork. I couldn't find any McIntosh apples at the store so I did three Granny Smiths but could have stood to do four. I don't have a sensitive enough sense of taste to tell the difference. I don't tend to rave about food, but this was really, really good.

3. My current pinball project has been slowly idling along, but I'm halfway finished with the second side. If I do it at night, I'll have it finished before Christmas, which I've kind of set as a goal. After all, I've been working on it a little at a time since August.

4. I finally bought false hair to work with for historical events. One of my goals for the year was to get better with hair. I've done a bit throughout the year, and jenthompson helped me figure out what color I needed so now I've got something to work with.

5. My white Regency dress doesn't fit over my 1790's stays. The stays are too high in the back for it. I had hoped...oh, well, I guess I can't retire the silly ones just yet.

6. I took pictures of my new spencer today, but I'll post about it separately in a bit (or tomorrow or whenever I get a chance).

7. Kaycee has posted lots of events for the Houston Area Regency Society. If anyone wants to come play with us, check out the Facebook page. I would particularly like to draw your attention to the archery event on 4/23 since it seems to have been really popular last March with the DFWCG.

I ordered cream-colored wool, and it came yesterday, but it's not cream. It may be butter, or it may be buff, but it's much darker than I anticipated. I've been looking for white/off-white wool for about three years now, and the only things I've seen have been heavier (like flannel or broadcloth) and/or at least $25/yd, which is too much for something I'm not going to get a lot of chances to wear. (Actually, I don't want to pay that for fabric for pants that I'm going to wear to work/church at least once a month.)

Now I guess I have some options, and I'll need to decide. Is this as good as it's going to get, and if I want the dress, I'll just have to make it with this, probably with brown trim instead of the green or navy I had been planning on? Do I return it and assume the dress isn't to be right now? Do I try dye remover to see if that helps (obviously on a swatch first, but cutting a swatch will probably make it unreturnable)? Do I hold on to it for some unknown future project (nothing is coming to mind right now except that there was a dress from the late 1860's in the collection at Smithfield that was about this color, though it was probably a cotton or cotton/silk blend, and I wouldn't have enough fabric for the overskirt that went with it)?

Hmph.

And when I was trying to assemble Christmas ornaments last night, my gathering threads broke so I didn't end up finishing that. I'll have to tackle the rest of that tonight. At least the sleeve patterning and cutting for my spencer went well.

I finished patterning a spencer last night, but I didn't feel like cutting so I just knit instead. Still, having a pattern is good. Maybe I'll cut it out tonight. I'll probably have to feel a bit more ambitious than I am at present, though. Knitting is good too...