At Her Leisure

I did a lot of needlework this year, but I didn’t make a lot of things. I liked the things I did make, but they were generally lengthier projects.

It was a much better year for events. There were several DFWCG events, and I went to Costume College. A friend and I even made our own mini-event where three of us dressed up, ate out, and went to a play.

( This year’s projects behind the cut )

One of my goals for this year was to work from my stash. I was not nearly as successful as I was last year. The 1908 eyelet dress was all stash, but then the 1805 embroidered dress was all new materials. The 1876 dress was all stash, but the three bathing suits were all new materials except for a couple of balls of yarn. “Winter Lace” was stash, but “Street Scene” was new materials except for a few skeins of embroidery floss. The 1916 dress was stash, but the 1940’s dress was new materials. The stays, the nightcap, the vest, the Eleonora stockings, scarf, kerchief, skating cap, and flute décor were all from stash. The 1910’s purse materials were a combination of stash fabric and new threads. I bought wool fabrics for three dresses, wool yarns for two sweaters, and cotton yarn for a quilt that I haven’t started yet. I bought fabric and embroidery wools for an 18th century wallet. I bought some miscellaneous embroidery threads that don’t necessarily have a project planned. On the balance, I think that means that I had no net change to the fabric stash but increased the yarn and embroidery supplies I have. I shall have to try harder not to buy things in 2024.

I finished the 1876 dress! I'm glad it's done. I can tell that I was rather apathetic about the project and didn't do my best work, but it still looks good. No pictures yet. I have plans to wear it next month so I'll share pictures after that.

Having finished that, I did another row of blocks on my cross-stitching and then started my 1921 crochet bathing suit. I'm still really excited about it. The current plan is a row a day since I think that will tire my hand a bit. I do hope that this project teaches me to hold a crochet hook more lightly.

I finished hemming the flounce, but due to the heat advisory and requests from the power company to conserve power, I didn’t start pressing the pleats. The heat advisory is over now so I’m hoping to make good progress on them tonight. 150” is a lot of pleats.

I did some knitting and cross-stitching last night instead. It was nice to get back to the cross-stitching. I’ll do a week of it as soon as this dress is finished.

I started making the fringe. I didn't do a good job of timing it to see how long it's likely to take to finish the whole three yards, but I'm close to one yard after a few hours of work yesterday and about 45 minutes this morning.



I'm happy with how it's coming out.

I started hemming the 450" long strip of taffeta for the foot pleating yesterday too, but it's very tightly woven so my fingers tired after awhile. I'll try to strike a good balance between foot pleating and fringe.

I have five weeks. That should be plenty of time.

I want to make an early 1920's knit bathing suit like koshka_the_cat did recently. Then I was browsing late 1910's cardigan patterns and found this "cape sweater" that looks like it would be perfect as a swim cover up.

Model 822 on page 73
https://archive.org/details/utopiayarnbookbe00bars/page/72/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater&q=sweater

A few years ago I figured out that it was a bad idea to have my two knitting projects both be stockings. Now I've found out that having two things on size US 4/0 needles is a bad idea. Everything grows really slowly so months of work feels like very little progress. Granted, they're both background projects, but still.

Of course, if I didn't have a deadline on a dress I'm making, I would absolutely be knitting this week, and my stocking would be growing nicely. Still, it's like half an inch per hour so it wouldn't be fast growth.