At Her Leisure

I finished the beading on the skirt of my 1897 satin evening gown yesterday. Now it just needs to have the waist and hem finished. Of course, 1897 takes a lot of work to make a hem.

I also finished the embroidery for this year's crop of Christmas ornaments. I started working on them at home after I finished the "Street Scene."

I finished the "Street Scene." It took two years, three months, and four days, though there were a lot of days in that time that I worked on other things. I spent most of the afternoon yesterday and all morning today cross-stitching, but I was so close.

We spent the weekend with my parents for Easter, and I worked more on the "Christmas Village Ornaments." I finished cross-stitches and half-cross-stitches on the first one and started the second one.



I also worked on a knit 18th century pinball. I haven't made one in years, but I saw the book of patterns when I was looking for something else recently and decided I wanted to make another one. I got about three quarters of the way through the first side, but I don't want to try to unroll it to take a picture so you'll just have to wait until the side is done and blocked.

I had a short business trip this week with flights delayed due to thunderstorms both ways. Christmas ornaments are supremely portable so I worked on the ornament I started in Williamsburg last month.



The top half is finished. The next time I'm out of town maybe I'll finish the cross-stitching on this first ornament. Now back to the "Street Scene."

I got to the halfway point on the seventeenth page of the "Street Scene" cross-stitch last night. While I still have almost half the page left, there are only like five colors in it so it should go pretty quickly.

A long weekend with a good deal of travel is good for needlework projects.

I made the little laundry cross-stitch and all the buttons for my 1919 cape sweater. I started the first of the Christmas ornaments for the year.



marianme already posted about our weekend here: https://marianme.dreamwidth.org/459361.html. I had a grand time. The travel was fairly smooth, and everything went pretty well the whole weekend. I didn't take pictures, but that's the norm for me. I'll refer you to Kim's pictures here: https://flickr.com/photos/7181690@N03/albums/72177720324115022/

It's the first time I've been to the ball in five years, and it was so nice to be back. I danced everything except the Minuet for lack of a partner and "Ely Waltz," which is a circle mixer. I'm not very fond of circle mixers, and they're a very inefficient use of the floor space. There were enough dancers to be a bit tight around the edge of the floor, but of course the whole center of the floor is empty. I suppose you could set up two sets in concentric circles, but I've never seen anyone do it. I wore my embroidered 1800's dress again, and it was quite nice to dance in.

It has been cold here. I know it's nothing compared to points north, but three solid days without getting above freezing is unusual here. I keep the room upstairs where the sewing machine is closed off so I don't waste a lot of energy heating a room that isn't used much so I haven't wanted to work on my sewing projects this week. Curling up under a wool blanket and cross-stitching is more my speed in this weather. As a result I'm getting close to finishing the 15th page of my "Street Scene" cross-stitch. It's also been good weather for working on the 1919 cape sweater so it is now finished except for the buttons. I'm planning to work on those next weekend.

It's supposed to be back in the 70's by Monday so I'll probably work on my sewing projects some this coming week.

I'm halfway through the fourteenth page of the "Street Scene." I'm going to continue working on it solidly through the weekend, and then I'll go back to every other day on it and every other day on something else. I'd like to get some of the other eight projects that are lying around partially finished moving along. Yes, I have nine projects in progress right now. It's very weird for me.

I finished the thirteenth page of the "Street Scene" last night. This page went particularly quickly since the sky has fewer colors in it than the buildings and the like. I spent less time looking for more stitches of the same color since I could use up whole threads of a color in a fairly small area.

I finished the knitting on my 1901 bicycling sweater yesterday. I'd like to get it assembled over the weekend, but we'll see. I also just kind of want to work on the "Street Scene" cross-stitch today.

Knowing I was close to finishing the bicycling sweater, I cast on a 1919 cape sweater that I think will be really cool. I'm about fifty rows into it. It's garter stitch like so many c. 1920 sweaters seem to be, which makes it super easy. At some point it might not be a particularly portable project because it's basically made in two pieces with just the collar and belt done separately. We shall see. At any rate, I hope it will make good winter knitting when a pile of wool in the lap isn't so objectionable.