Happy Canada Day and good wishes for July 4th to my US readers.
My holiday weekend has begun with some computer issues. I am attempting to fix them myself so Lord knows how that will go. The experts either want a ton of money to fix it or they want you to buy a new one. Grumble, grumble, grumble. In the meantime, I will use my phone.
I took some of my seniors out for a jaunt in the park last week and I saw two woodpeckers. In fact I was dive bombed by the little darlings!
My group, Victorian at Heart, launched our costuming season this past Victoria Day. We dolled ourselves up and headed out to Lower Fort Garry to tour and take photos.
Here is Shirley in her lovely plaid ensemble. Love the jaunty hat!
Lottie is in a lovely golden print. She had fabulous curls under her hat!
These lovely ladies were not to proud to shake the hands of the day maids.
I wore my 1861 Señora dress. I left off the jacket because it was just too hot.
I had fun with my phone afterwards, playing with filters and frames.
The highlight of the day was the dance in the men’s quarters.
And after a little of the Governor’s rum (aka iced tea) I took a twirl on the dance floor too. 
I really thought more of my costumes got out of the closet this year but I guess not. I think it was because there were no events like the Dicken’s Festival or Coco where multiple costumes get worn. Here are the ones that did get out.
Seven in total. Eight if you count the time I played a hooker at the old jail and stood in my undies for the audience.
I’m hoping, this new year, my costuming buddies and I will make it out to the Dicken’s Festival in Saskatchewan. That will increase the number of dresses that get worn! I also hope that I will have the opportunity to wear the ones that didn’t get used this year. I don’t like the idea of dresses languishing in the closet too long. But perhaps that may encourage me to part with the ones that no longer thrill me. The ones that have flaws that now seem glaringly obvious.
PS. I hope you folks had a good New Year’s celebration and you enjoy this new one. May your troubles be few and your joys be many!
I like these posts. I’m always surprised at how much I’ve actually done in a year! So lets see if this year holds true-in spite of the extra stresses and giving up on Historical Sew Monthly.
Lets start with the non wearable items: rock painting.
Next up: modern sewing projects.
Modern knitting and crochet. There were quite a few of these, including one where I spun the wool myself.
There were a few historical knitting projects.
There were not as many historical sewing projects as in years past but more than I thought!
The total is 25 which works about to be about 2 a month. Not to shabby! I’m happy with that.
I hope for myself another productive year and I wish it for you readers as well. I also wish happiness and peace!
I’m a bit Grinchy about Christmas. This attitude comes from my line of work which involves decorating my work space so that my seniors get into the spirit of the season. By the time I’ve put 3-5 trees (with varying degrees of functioning lights) and a crap load other things, I am not in the mood to do my tree at home. But the hubby insists.
Once it is up, though, I’m glad I did it.
Most of my ornaments have a little sentimental story attached so I enjoy the walk down memory lane.
This year, I took some of my birthday gift cards for Micheal’s Craft store and bought new garland for the tree. I was tired of the ancient tinsel garland that I have used for decades.
It wasn’t exactly cheap so I wouldn’t have actually paid for it myself. But with gift cards, I could afford to splurge. Better the garland than spending the cards on more wool to add to the hoard.
Okay, that title is a bit exaggerated! We had a costume contest for Halloween at work and I won “best individual costume for staff”. Unfortunately everyone thought I was either a baker or Little Bo Peep. But I’m not complaining. It got me a gift card for free food at the cafeteria and another costume got out of the closet.
This is another non-Victorian post. Sorry ’bout that! But, I bought a new toy and thought it would be fun to share it with you. It is called an Embellish Knit.
It is basically a mechanized spool knitter.
I bought it with two intensions…one is to take cheap crochet thread and use it to make cording for decorative trims on Victorian gowns. Cording and soutache is NOT cheap.
The other intension is to take all the cheap wool I have been hoarding for years and turn it into chunky yarn.
My first project used up 3 balls of this synthetic wool.
The Embellish knit turned those three balls of wool into one massive ball of chunky wool.
The beauty of chunky wool , of course is that it knits up quickly. The heavy neck cowls seems to be popular these days so I may try knitting up one of those with this stuff and see what it looks like.
Once I have knitted it up I have no idea what I will do with it. Donate it to charity? I have no idea. Another idea is to just make balls of chunky wool with my machine and old wool and see if I can sell that at my friend’s craft sale table. One thing I know is craft sales don’t just attract people who can’t craft; they attract people who can craft who are looking for ideas. A knitter may be attracted to an unusual looking wool.
Hopefully my next post is a completed project post-either a neck cowl or a corset cover! Have a good Thanksgiving Day Canada!
