Back To The Drawing Board

Was invited to a Girl's Night Wine and Paint at 16 Main Art Gallery in Madison. I went, and we were given a board with a pre-printed ballerina on it. Our job was to paint her in acrylic. I was a good girl and followed the instructor step-by-step. It was a totally different method of thinking for me, and I think it confused a lot of the other women in the class. I found myself expounding color theories more than once. Basically, we were supposed to glaze the color on in light, watered down washes for the dark parts, then add white to the color and glaze the light parts. And mix a background color (one of the colors straight from the tube) with brown (she never said if she meant or warm or cool brown, which, depending on the color each woman chose, could turn out ok or horribly wrong). If I could do this over, I would have made the background a lighter, golden brown color. Or a bluish gray, like a Sargeant painting. I understand the concept that a dark background will make a lighter ...

This is an old couple with I think a baby in a carseat-holder thingy (what are they called? I never had one for my kids so I don't know...) They are getting ready to leave the church/school playground now that the traffic has died down (there's only one way out). What caught my eye was the beautiful brilliant turquoise blue of the woman's top, and how well it looked with her skin tone. You don't see brilliant turquoise? Well, that's because this was drawn in Yarka sauce, as a sort of quick sketch. Which means a better, brighter pastel painting to come.

A recent romp through the dress-up clothes chest prompted my girls to ask for some underpinnings in their current sizes. Miri couldn't find any skirts to use as a petticoat, and Lina really wanted pantaloons to wear under HER petticoat and dress. She wanted a corset too, and I told her no way am I breaking out the eyelets and the hammer right now.      For Miri, I took some leftover blue flannel fabric (that I had originally intended to use for Celina, when she was smaller) sewed up the sides, put elastic in the top, let her pick out some lace, and sewed it to the bottom. DONE! She wears it all the time, and though it's a little warm still, it's nice to know that she'll probably still wear it when it gets colder and she actually needs a cozy skirt. As you can see, she clearly enjoys wearing it whenever and wherever she can.  For Lina, I got out the old pantaloons pattern I had originally gotten when she was in preschool. She had come to a point where she couldn'...

I realize I went a really long time without posting anything at all. It wasn't because I didn't DO anything. I was mostly working on the flower girl dresses. I did do a few smaller projects at the same time, not to procrastinate, but because I either didn't have the space (like inside my car waiting to pick up my oldest), or the ability to concentrate on such a big project (most of the time the girls were awake). So here are a few other things I did these past months that I never found time to blog about (free computer time is at night, and I needed night to work on the dresses): I really wanted a floral print top (I don't own any -well, now I do. But anyways...) so I bought one at Target. This is the back of it. To make it less generic, I decided to add lace to it around the collar. This picture is of the back. It has an exposed zipper. As I was adding the lace, I got the idea to use a lot of it vertically down one side in a manner similar to a Isabel Lu top I'd...

AHHHHHH...feels so good not to have any deadlines. To not have any tricky mathematical problems to solve. Any squirmy children to fit. To celebrate, I decided to make something for myself. I took one yard of purple knit fabric that I was actually saving to make a blouse and used it to make a dress. I'm not so good at fitting things on myself yet but this one was supposed to be loose so it was ok. This is probably the first time I've ever sewn something that was so no-frills and plain. But...I only had 1 yard of material, so I did the best with what I had. Lucky for me I'm so short. The dress has a rounded boatneck collar, a v-necked back, and has a bodice made up of 4 panels. And I didn't even mention the best part yet: this dress has pockets. Yeah, pockets. Which is hard to find in a dress. Or anything made for a woman. I made mine out of the same gray lining I used for the girls' flower girl dresses. I've had knit jersey clothes with pockets of self-ma...