Busy!

The feis season is picking up! Here are two more dresses done.

This one was shipped, so no pictures of it on the dancer yet.

This dancer requested a "Garden dress"

This one has a shawl made in the same technque as the recent scarves.

My birthday is coming up and for it I get a day to myself to make myself something.

For a mum who works fulltime and has a pre-school child this is heaven itself!

p.s. the hat wasn't accepted into the show. Oh, well...

Leaves Falling Overhead

Update- the hat was delivered to a Guild member who is transporting a carload to Fergus today to be juried for Threadworks2010. This is my first entry into any juried show. It doesn't matter to me if it is accepted. Of course, it would be great if it was, I just really wanted to get something done for the show.
Rosalind suggested the name I used: Leaves Falling Overhead. Cute and clever, Rosalind. I love it, thank you!

Leaf Hat

Crowning glory Trees

Trunks Lining in shot silk

Tam on a ham!

This hat was made in the theme of "Trees". I was very literal in my interpretation but it has some subtle Canadian symbolism thrown in. The dark base has copper flecks is represents the Canadian Shield and our natural resources which form the base of our geography and our economy, the top represents our society's basis on a cultural mosaic, and throughout the leaves and lining the top is a red/turquoise shot silk that represents the French/English union that our country was founded on.

I used the scarf technique of bias strips of silk and wool to represent tree trunks and the leaf applique for the tree top. I hoped to put it in a juried show but am not sure if I will since I missed my shipping deadline. I thought it was due next weekend. Ooops.

I am trying to reach a Guild member who is travelling with a car load of items to drop off but cannot find her email.

Now to think of a name. "Slip into Fall" is the current favourite.

I love the name Rosalind has suggested- Leaves Falling Overhead- and so it has been named. Thanks Rosalind!

Leaves

I am working on an applique design of autumn leaves. The plan is to make a beret type hat with it.

Cut out and laid out.

Half stitched. I used a satin stitch in a toning burgundy/brown colour.

Stitching done.

I think this would be a gorgeous pillow. The problem is that kids and cats sit on them and lie on them and sometimes even spit up on them (mainly the cats nowadays). Hopefully a hat will be treated with more respect. Although, knowing both my kids and my cats you never can tell.

Scarves

Thanks to everyone for your recent comments. My little girl really is growing up. She is learning to read and has a large personality. She takes up a lot of time. I am trying to enjoy it now because I know I will miss it when she starts school in September. I can't believe how soon that is!
A friend pointed out that I haven't done much for myself lately, and took my child for a while to give me a bit of time to do so. These scarves are the result.
I had a lot of bias strips left over from all the Irish dresses we have made over the years. I decided to serge them together in similar colourways and made some scarves. I used three threads on the serger set in a really close stitch and pulled on the strips as the went through to create a ripply effect.

This one is shades of purple with some pinkish purples and serged in purple. It photographs very blue. There are a few poly satins, some acetate satins, silk, metallic silk and some poly satin back shantungs. In this one I made long strips with many colours in each then serged them together.

The turquoise one is my favourite. I have given it to a friend. She looks after Maisie every Thursday for me for free so I try to make her something every week or so as a thank you.

The fabrics are a lot of acetate satins in teals and turquoise with some silks and some metallic silks as well. I made long strips of one colour, then serged all the strands together. It was very stripe-y so I cut the scarf at 45 degrees and serged it back together, making sure the stripes didn't match up. I like the effect.

The last one is I cut from leftover velvet burnout on chiffon yardage. I cut bias strips in 2" and 1.5" widths. I serged the strips together to make long strands, then serged the strips together, alternating between right and wrong sides. I also alternated the stitching between strands so that it showed on one row, but was underneath on the next.

Once I had all the rows together I cut them apart on a 45 degree angle in both directions and serged them back together, flipping each piece so the right side strip was butted against a wrong side strip. The chiffon tended to pull out so I had to reduce the density of the stitch to prevent that. I plan to add some beading to them in the lower 4-8" or so.

Maisie's Easter Dress

This is the dress I made Maisie for Easter, sans the brown waist ribbon.

This is what she wore: a purchased dress from Nana.

Take a bow, Maisie!

Happy Easter everyone!