At Her Leisure

Monday night I sewed the ribbon straps on my 1937 cami-knickers and threaded the ribbon through the top row of eyelets. Wednesday night I finished my 1888 knit orange pincushion. Today I've got pictures.





In need of a new knitting project, I ordered yarn Wednesday for a sweater from a 1907 pattern that looks like it will work for both costuming and modern wear.

This has been a good week for finishing things. Within the last seven days, I have finished two pair of wool pants, a wool circle skirt, a new 18th century muff, a Christmas present for a friend, a pair of Christmas ornaments for my daughters, and put the ribbons back on my 18th century cap. I have also finished the knitting on my 1937 cami-knickers. The pieces have been pressed, and I've started assembling them. With any luck, they'll be finished tonight.

Am I ever glad to reduce the number of projects that I have in progress! I don't usually have a lot of UFO's lying around, and I'm finding it extremely irritating.

I haven't really posted progress on projects lately other than the 18th century jacket that I finished right before Hallowe'en. So here goes.

I finished my husband's cross-stitched lady about three weeks ago and got her to the framer in fairly short order. I got the call yesterday that she's ready so I should be picking her up Monday, barring any more pressing errands arising. I guess that means my husband is getting his Christmas present quite early, but he wants her up on the wall by Thanksgiving.

Since then I've made some good progress on my 1784 cross-stitched garters. They're not a high priority for me, but they're good for working on when watching TV with my husband. I've got enough done of one of the quatrefoils that it's starting to look a lot less garish and a lot more like the originals at the MFA.

On 1 November I continued my tradition of starting to work on Christmas ornaments for the children. I make each one an ornament each year. Thus far they've been felt applique ornaments, but I finally ran them out after making MT's ornament this year. Neither JoAnn's nor Michael's has carried them for the last couple of years so I'm taking that as sign that I should go in a different direction. I knitted T a miniature stocking and am knitting M and E little snowmen. The snowmen themselves are knit and stuffed and half of their clothes are knit. Now I just need to finish knitting the clothes, bead their faces, and dress them.

My 1937 cami-knickers are progressing slowly but surely. I'm nearly finished with the waist ribbing on the second body piece. Just 69 more rows, and I'll be ready to assemble them.

Finally, I started making wool pants, a purely modern, purely utilitarian project. One of the wools I had bought turned out to be too lightweight for pants (the dangers of ordering online, but I don't really have any other options) so the plan was changed, and it is becoming a skirt. The skirt is one piece, and the bias is hanging out even as I type. The pants aren't so far along, but one pair has the zipper in so the rest is pie on that pair. The other is still pinned to the pattern pieces.

It sounds like I've been doing a lot. Now if only it didn't mean that I have a whole flock of partially-finished things lying around! With luck, I'll finish the ornaments and skirt this weekend and make good progress on the pants through the week.

This was a good week for project progress. I finished the little witch dress except for a sash and finished the last bit of the fairy costume except for a couple of bows for trim. I started cutting out the buckram for the witch hat yesterday but found that I didn't have enough for the crown. That made the second trip to JoAnn's yesterday.

I cast off the first half of the 1937 cami-knickers. I still need to pick up the stitches along the bottom to do the garter-stitch bit there, but since I had very little yarn left in the ball I'm using, I decided to start the flap instead. The good news is that I should only need one more ball of yarn than the pattern called for. I'm glad to see this project moving along.

Finally, there's the cross-stitched lady for my husband. I'm getting pretty close. I have fewer than 4500 stitches left. Maybe he will get it by Thanksgiving, but if not then, he should have it by Christmas.

Tonight I start trying to wire a hat brim for the first time. It should be interesting.

Yes, this is another "week in review" post.

Now that I've decided to finish kids' Hallowe'en costumes before getting back to my stuff, I feel that I've begun to make good progress. The little witch dress is finished except for hemming the sleeves and skirt and binding the armscyes due to a complaint about prickly organza seam allowances. The fairy costume is nearly complete - I just need to put elastic in the waist of the skirt and some trim on the "vest," if I can find something suitable. Then I'll be tackling the witch hat, which hasn't even been started except for cutting out the fabric.

I'm halfway through the waist on the first piece of the 1937 cami-knickers. They progress a little slowly, but they do progress.

Finally, cross-stitching: the top left quadrant is finished as is the lady. Now it's just a whole lot of green and a little blue left to finish the background. I remember this part from when I did it before - I got really tired of the green after awhile. This time I've been careful to work on the green off and on all through so there won't be quite such a big space that's 90% one color.

Our English country dance group demonstrated at the Wilderness Trail Festival downtown on Saturday. We danced at 11:30. It started to rain at 11:25. It didn't rain too hard, but it was enough to make the stage slick and soak my dress six inches up on the walk home. I wore my 1750's print sacque from the curtain-along last year. It was as much fun to wear as ever. The blue silk ribbons on my cap bled in the rain, but it washed out so no harm done.

It was the first wearing of my new stockings, and they were great. Even though my feet were wet, they didn't feel bad. I love wool.

We took a couple of pictures after we danced, but I didn't get any so I can't post any.

This week I finished my 18th century stockings, to my surprise and pleasure. I then started a 1937 knit cami-knickers and am proving my questionable sanity by starting one of those knit 18th century pinballs, the tiny gauge ones that are probably beyond my knitting skill. 3-0 needles really didn't seem small at all, but the 6-0 ones are going to take some getting used to.

I made decent progress on my 1868 green silk dress, fitting and sewing the darts and making up the waistband. I know it's not much, but I'm trying to split my time between that and the children's Hallowe'en costumes. They are now all cut out except for the buckram for the witch hat, and I'm waiting for the millinery wire I ordered to arrive before I start on the hat. I've run up a few seams on the two outfits but still haven't made it through the first round of seams before pressing. There's loads of time before Hallowe'en.

And, as I do every week, I worked on my husband's cross-stitched lady. I'm getting close to finishing the top left quadrant. The whole thing should be finished by...mid-February. Three days a week cross-stitching really cuts into my time for other needlework.

This week I continued to work on my 1868 dress. My bodice now looks like a bodice except that it needs darts. I didn't put on my corset to fit them Thursday night, choosing instead to be good and start pressing my new bolt of muslin. I got through about half of it. I suppose I should finish pressing that tonight, and then I can get back to sewing with a little less guilt.

The 18th century stockings progress, even though I haven't knit a stitch this weekend. I've only got about 75 rows left, and after 30 of those rows, they start decreasing fairly dramatically. I should be able to finish them in time for the Wilderness Trail Festival in three weeks. And I've ordered yarn for my 1937 wooly cami-knickers so I should be able to start on that as soon as I finish the stockings.

The cross-stitching progresses. I'll be glad when it's finished, and I can sew on the weekends too. Giving up three days worth of free time a week really cuts into how much you get done.