High Tea

 I finished my maroon skirt and a new vest for a high tea this afternoon. Events are such good deadlines.

I think the vest could fit better at the back waistline. I added tails to the vest in back, and I'm still not sure if the tails flatter my good part or make worse my worst part. I used some of the remaining maroon linen as lining, and brown tropical wool suiting as the outer layer, with mother-of-pearl buttons. I also practiced my welt pockets and added one to the vest.

I got to wear my Gibson shoes...

And check out my cool party favor- embroidered silk ribbon flower hanky.

Downton Abbey in Maroon linen

It snowed pretty wildly this morning. We've gotten more snow in February than we did in December and January put together. We all stayed home except for Caleb, who doesn't mind driving in snow.

Today I made a linen skirt. I've said it before and I'll say it again, linen is just the best. I order often from fabrics-store.com, so I get the email deals and such. This month they had a deep maroon medium-weight linen go half-off for a day, and so I bought three yards with my saved store points. You don't often get linen for $4.50 a yard!

Lady Mary of Downton Abbey, Season two-ish, in a nice maroon skirt.

I used this basic Simplicity pattern and it turned out fine; I also added welt pockets and lining(pictures may eventually follow). I prefer fitted-waist flared-skirt patterns- Very Downton Abbey and much more flattering than gathered waists. I love the every-day dress in Downton Abbey. I've never been a fancy dress sort of person; I much prefer plain and simple.

Mary in another maroon skirt. I traveled by train a fair amount in Scotland and a bit in Russia, and can I say it's not so romantic as this picture makes you believe. The train stations in Scotland did seem to be painted either green or purple, though, like in this picture.

Mary in another really nice looking skirt. Though if we were all tall and skinny like this we'd look good whatever we wore.

February Happenings

Green Stars Wholecloth

  The Pistachio Quilt has begun. I've safety-pinned more than half and started the central star medallion, and it's all very exciting. It's a North Star pattern, with eight spikes.

This month I bought a couch(Craigslist win) and made cheese. Loving the couch, worried about the cheese. It just doesn't smell too good. In fact, it smells really bad, but I can't bring myself to throw it out.

Jobs: This week I had an interview with Princess Hoodie(code name) and another tomorrow with the Clothing Shed(also code). Princess Hoodie is seasonal sewing from home, as many hours as I'm willing to take. The Clothing Shed is the job I mentioned back in December before I was hired at O2FS. It's a location closer to home and has a Christian manager. They weren't hiring back then, and I was surprised to get a call from them this week asking for an interview. We'll see what comes of that.

Today I took a picnic lunch to the Fort. It turns out that yes, the chimney does have a flue; and not knowing which way was open or closed, I had to find out through trial and error. My first trial was error. I lit a fire and the room filled with smoke; I had to throw snow on it to put it out so I could reach in to pull the flue open. Even after that it was incredibly smoky, and by the end of lunch I was thoroughly smoked.

But it was still really cool to see the Fort again.

Scraps

People give me random things, since they know I sew. Here I have several old wool/poly sweaters and cardigans from various people:

And here they are again cut into mittens:

 I also worked a bit on my scrap blanket this week.

My scrap bag was getting full, and Grandma had given me an old wool skirt, so I used the skirt and some scraps to add six more rows to my scrap blanket. All it is is four inch strips of fabric sewn together; a few more strips, and I think it will be big enough.

Pirates!

This week I realized I've forgotten how to count. As a nanny I generally had about three kids, certainly no more than ten, and I have fingers enough for that. I've been at the cash register at work lately, and starting and finishing I have to count out my cash to make sure it matches the numbers in the computer. It NEVER comes out right. Oh the drama, the emotional trauma, in counting thirty dollars in change three times over with the managers watching!

The Pirate Dress is finished. I did the eyelets by hand this week, and finished the hem by machine. Despite lacking a model, the dress is listed in my Etsy Shop.

 It really did turn out well.

Also for sale in my brand-spanking-new Etsy shop; this cloak. Doesn't it look cool?

Working in the New Year

In 2013 I had a stomach ulcer, two siblings got married, house-sat for a month and took a six-week working vacation to South Carolina.

In 2014 so far I've bought a new bed and got my first "real"(taxable) job. Should I be proud I've avoided taxes this long, or dismayed that I don't know what to do with my tax papers at this age?

I sill have a job at O2FS and work is always interesting. Now the holiday season is over all the seasonal employees were let go, and everyone's hours were cut in half. This is kind of nice because all the co-workers I kind of didn't like are gone; but it also means less work for me. I've mostly been in the fitting room, but last week I was trained to use the cash register. That was mildly alarming; remembering all the details. But I got through it and only forgot to give change once. Most of my co-workers are really friendly, mostly hispanic or black, and mostly students working around high school or college. There are some post-college employees who are working O2FS as a lower-level second job(why would anyone WANT two jobs??). I'm pretty clearly different from all the other employees(one of the managers was like, "you're pretty religious, right?")

O2FS is sharp a departure from the private nanny jobs I've worked over the years(which was deliberate). There's six managers to please instead of one or two parents to work with; there are dozens of other employees to remember, and obviously being in customer service there's lots more personal interaction. You have to be nice to everybody! There's also a lot of profanity. I wouldn't say profanity really upsets me, because there's not a whole lot I can do about it, but in this non-Christian work environment there really is a lot of profanity.

Holidays 2013

So, I took a holiday from blogging. But now we're firmly settled in 2014 and today is my day off, so a post is in order.

My long break was mostly because I got job shortly after returning home, so I've spent a fair amount of my holidays working. It's a clothing retail job, so the holidays are the busy season. It's part-time, but I still got scheduled for forty hours this week. Since I don't want to reference my job location blatantly, I came up with the code name "Over 21 and Forever Single," which makes the acronym O2FS. My introduction to O2FS was a nine hour shift on Black Friday. Retail is interesting!

The Fezziwig Ball happened, too. No pictures of me, of course, because I kept running in circles, but everyone looked great.

Christmas was good: We were given so much amazing chocolate for Christmas(a perk of Dad being an Church leader). Right now I'm steadily working through the mint fudge. I've hardly had time to do any sewing; I'm just trying to keep up on my own mending and alterations.One simple item I did get done: a brown satin skirt.

Plain, simple bias-cut maxi skirt. Good for church or more formal occasions.

The one thing I really wanted to get done during the holidays(but didn't get to) was lay out my next wholecloth quilt. It will be queen size; I have a pale green linen-cotton for the top and a white sheet for the bottom, and this time I bought real queen-sized cotton batting instead of using my polyester leftovers from Grandma. I'm really excited about it: the quilt will have a mariner's star central medallion and various things around the border, like acorns and pineapples and birds and I don't know what all, and it will probably take me years to finish. So there you have it: my first goal for the new year- Start the Quilt.