Wow was I tired when I got home from work tonight. Mr. Lina was watching some special feature interview and I sat down on the couch and fell asleep for an hour and a half. I'm not sure when I would have woken up if my mom didn't phone.
At some point last year, Fabricland had 5" belting elastic and belt hardware on for 50% off. I don't often belt my clothing, but Already Pretty does and I think the look is growing on me. I also have a couple of dresses, both RTW and self made where another belt option would be nice. So I bought some and sewed it up. I liked it in theory, but I did not think about how it would wear when I made it. I didn't put any stabilizer on the elastic where it joins the hardware, and I tried later (bra channeling) but it still had a tendency to twist and slide down. Not really the look I was going for. I also didn't make it loose enough so the elastic was starting to stretch out and bubble. Overall, it had a place in my wardrobe, but was frustrating and tired. Time for a new one to take with me to OCFF. There was maybe an hour between finishing work and heading out, I came up with this.
I tried pictures with it on, it's just too dark, they look terrible.
Silly me did not take pictures along the way (or even of the old belt before it was cut off), but time was limited. I have some Halloween cheapo black satin leftover from my Halloween cape a few years ago. I interfaced it, added some thick canvas as sew in interfacing, AND a little bra channeling at the fold. That sucker is not moving anywhere. This elastic is stretchier and I didn't make it so tight. I certainly could have done a few things differently (again), but at least this one sits as it should and if I need it tighter when the elastic stretches, I can always fold a little over.
What would I do differently? I made a tube, tuned it and cut it in half. I was focused on the seam being at the bottom when it could have gone to mid back. I could have top stitched the satin. I could have done a prettier job of attaching the elastic to the satin, there is a not-so-pretty stitching on the inside that could have been hidden. Still, I'm happy, what I would change is either style (top stitching) or hidden, so I'll wear it. I bought enough elastic for more, might make a nice gift for my two sister in laws. Here's hoping the hardware goes on sale again.
I absolutely adore the term unsolicitation, compliments that are not prompted, particularly (perhaps exclusively) for self sewn items. I received several this weekend at the wedding I went to.
I actually had a hard time deciding what to wear. I have a RTW red dress that I've worn once and would like to wear again, and my first version of Lekala 5432 in black swiss dot with salmon-ish satin underlay. I was doing a reading at the wedding, I knew the bridesmaids were wearing chocolate brown and flowers would be in fall colours including red. I don't like wearing straight black to weddings, but I thought with the pink satin, it would work out okay. I put the option to Mr Lina, he picked Lekala.
I am reliant on friends for pictures for the most part, Mr Lina took the picture on the right, but that's the only picture of the dress we have. We were both busy chasing after our friends toddler (and taking pictures of her and the bride) and neither of us thought about taking pictures of each other. I've tried to crop out my friends from this group picture for their privacy. At least I have two angles from pretty much the same moment.
So, unsolicitations. I got compliments from several of my friends and while they know I like to sew, this is the first real dress up wear I've made so they wouldn't expect me to have made it. I actually wore this for New Years, but only the bride and groom were at that event, it was a new dress to everyone else. One of my friends thought it looked worth about $500. I love her, I think she's spent too much time at Coach outlets to believe her on that estimation. Far better than the ignorant coworker comments that Sewing By The Seat of My Pants got from her little children's outfit (not to mention all the stories in the comments). Perhaps part of the difference is we are just accustomed to paying more for formal attire than children's clothing. Who would blink at a party dress price tag around $100? $150? $200? I wouldn't depending on the dress (although as the price goes up, the likelihood of me actually buying it goes down). Another friend complimented the colour, that it fit in well with the bridesmaids and looked perfect while doing the reading. She asking if I had the wedding party colours in mind when I bought the dress. It was a nice specific compliment that resonated true.
Looking at the pictures has me realizing I really should wear better undergarments. I can tell where my nylons end at my waist, a little smoothing would be good with such a shiny fabric. The two bottles of wine consumed at OCFF the night before and dinner at the wedding were likely not helping with the tummy control situation either. That's okay, I danced and danced for the rest of the night, I got my exercise in.
What a weekend. Today is totally a recovery day. It's 1pm, I'm still in my house coat. I know I'll be heading out at some point today, but I can't say I'm in a rush. It's been a busy few days between the OCFF conference and my friends wedding.
Leaving OCFF early because of the wedding was really hard. We participated in a fantastic workshop about the value of presenters in Canada. The start time was different in some spots than others so we missed the first hour of the 3 hour session. Sad because we really enjoyed it and it felt like there was still more conversation to have. We participated in the small group discussion on demographics. Most folk festivals and folk societies have more ah.. grey hair than what may be sustainable. Nothing wrong with having seniors, but you need younger audiences to replace them at some point. From a festival perspective, they actually do okay with young families by having kids tents and programming, but they struggle to appeal to teens-20's. Personally, I think that's okay so long as you can get them back when they have kids. For us, attendance is a struggle in part because of kids. Either it's an expensive night with a baby sitter, or we only get one of the couple, and if a kid gets sick, it's a last minute cancellation. It's the opposite problem that most of the other presenters have. In talking to someone from the Haliburton Folk Society (they also do Home Routes) he found our problems amusing as they only get senior-seniors, not even boomers.
The afternoon was mostly formal showcases, caught a lot of acts out of the Manitoba room. I'd say my favourite that I could host would be The Crooked Brothers. The Magnificent 7's were also great, harmonies, rock-a-billy meets bluegrass, but... with 5 members, too big for me to host. We'll support them from afar. I talked to one of the band members a few times, they truly seem like a family by choice.
The evening has formal showcases from 8-11, two rooms to bounce between. We saw a great kids act out of Newfoundland, Shelley Bean & the Duckety Muds. We've never hosted a family show, but we're starting to think maybe we should given our demographic issues. We stayed for Beaucoup Blue from Philidelphia. They area father/son duo, beautiful harmony, I think I'm in love with resonators between Beaucoup Blue and The Crooked Brothers. Beaucoup Blue would be perfect for a house concert. We wanted to go to the other room to see Manitoba Hal but were so entranced we stayed for the full set. We also enjoyed Layah Jane, Jadea Kelly, Ann Vriend.
Then off to the craziness of Private showcases. 3rd and 4th floors of the hotel, each room changing every half hour or so. It's insanity and we tried to focus on people we didn't know already. First up was to see Jon Davis out of Montreal. He actually remembered meeting us last year and joined the presenters workshop in the morning. He mostly supports his independent music through teaching and being part of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Choir. Scott Cook was another highlight of the evening. We have his CD already, loved it, but sometimes live doesn't match with produced, but Scott was so entertaining, half an hour was not enough.
And I am feeling a tad sheepish about meeting Mark Reeves. We saw Mark maybe in 2007 at Summerfolk. I thought he was just fantastic, he has some amusing and cheeky lyrics, great sound and a beautiful voice. His song VDub was the first song we played when we bought the Jetta. He has done Home Routes the past two years, but not on the Ontario route and every year when the list comes out I lament that it's not fair that Alberta gets Mark and I don't. So when I crossed him in the hallway with a bit of ah... wine induced false courage, I babbled at him about this. Seriously. I didn't shut up. He was getting an offer to go join some friends outside for a "fresh of breath air" as my high school friends might say and I was oblivious, Mr. Lina told me later. Sigh. At least by the end of it he did want me to email him and remind him of the when and where of our conversation. Good to know I wasn't so scary to be ah, unforgettable.
There were other great music, I'll probably talk about them over other posts. We went to a wedding and I got a few unsolicitations on my dress, but I think this is getting long and link filled enough.
So one last video. Given my Mark Reeves story and as much as I liked a lot of the more country or blues sounds of the weekend, the singer/songwriter folk is my favourite. Also, I found a video of him doing a house concert so this has the feel of what it's like to come to my basement for a show. If you like this, there is a 9 minute selection of the same show on You Tube. Here is a much shorter video for "Takes a While to Get Like This"
Some days I completely lack focus at work, today seems to be one of them. I was asked to do a project at work that focused on 4 things. I figure for 4, I can do a 5 page deck on each and it won't be so bad. But every week there are 2-3 more of these things to do. If I knew I'd end up doing 32 of them, I wouldn't have structured these presentations this way. I am just bored of doing it. There are only so many ways to write essentially the same thing.
I started a wrap up post on Thanksgiving, but it's waiting on pictures off of the other camera. Mr. Lina used a fancy shmancy camera to film the Post Lifers and when it went on sale I wasn't surprised when he wanted to buy it. I can barely figure out how to take a picture, never mind take pictures off of the camera. But when he does, we'll have some picture filled Thanksgiving post. Possibly before the American Thanksgiving. Possibly.
Net-net, turkey took forever to cook but tasted good. Annabelle was FANTASTIC, I've never seen someone suck so much sound from a tambourine. Most songs she played with her acoustic guitar, a couple on the mandolin and one on the fiddle. However, it is the tambourine song that stands out and yet I couldn't tell you the words I was so fascinated by how she played the tambourine.
Sunday and Monday were lazy days. We went for a hike, ate so much leftover turkey I'm about to start gobbling, and rested. I made up a few dishes with the leftover turkey so there are some easy future meals in the freezer now and I still have two pots of bones to make soup (also in the freezer). That's going to have to wait, I'm turkey-d out. Next week I'll make soup.
There isn't a whole lot of sewing going on in there. We're going to the conference for the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals starting tomorrow. It's like drinking folk music from a fire hose. We went last year, one of the artists we hosted suggested we go, he had one an award there and thought it was fantastic. Programming quite literally starts at 9:30am and ends officially at 2am but some rooms are designated as all night jamming sessions and others just kinda happen. The OCFF conference started as a few people who put on folk festivals saying, hey, we all struggle with the same issues, lets get together and talk about it at the pub. This year, there are over 600 attendees. Most are musicians trying to get the attention of folk festivals for booking gigs next year. Workshops fall into three groups, aimed at performers (ie. "Stagecraft"), aimed at presenters ("Audience Development") and general topics ("Emergency Planning"). In between are official showcases where 4 rooms will have music running concurrently. 11-2am, they took 2 floors of a hotel and every single room had music changing every 30 minutes. It's insanity. We will be seeing a lot of music for the first time there and some of it is likely what will show up in the Home Routes and Summerfolk bookings for 2012.
Last year we met Samantha Martin. We had seen her at Summerfolk and were totally blown away by her voice, but OCFF gave us a chance to talk to her and exchange information. We ended up hosting her for her first house concert gig in May. I did not have a clue of how important house concerts were becoming until we went to OCFF. It always felt like they were doing me a bit of a favour coming to perform in my little basement with 18 of my friends. But I swear every time someone saw house concerts on my name tag, it was like dollar signs went off and I suddenly had a new friend.
So with lack of Thanksgiving pictures, I'll add some music. Last year we saw Annie Lou and it turns out they got booked for Home Routes. We will be hosting them (well, as a duo, all 4 won't fit in my basement) in April. I was sitting in the audience for this specific performance at OCFF 2010.
Living in Red has put out a Pay it Forward offer and as much as I suck at mailing things out, I figure that I have a year to do it and I do like surprises in the mail. My issues with mailing things is getting to the post office more so than the postage cost, so this is open to anyone.
I will make a little something for the first 3 people who comment on this post. It will be a surprise and you will not know when it will arrive.
I will have 365 days to get this surprise to you. The catch? To get a goodie from me you must play along too! Share the giving love on your blog by promising to send a handmade goody to the first three people comment on your blog post.
You must therefore have a blog!
After commenting on my post, you have to go post this on your blog.
This weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada. It's a much less important holiday in Canada than in the US, but any time you want to give me a day off from work I'm a happy camper.
The year we met (which will be next week), Mr. Lina and a few friends realized no one had family to eat turkey with, so they decided to host their own turkey dinner and we've been doing this ever since. We call it the "orphan's" Thanksgiving and it's aimed at anyone without family to join. Now a few of them are like us, met people here and have in laws to visit, but after 10 years, they feel that our Thanksgiving is their tradition. We host it on the Saturday leaving Sun/Mon for family plans. Most years we have between 16-25 for dinner, we make the turkey, gravy and stuffing, everything else is pot luck. After the year of 10 pies and no vegetables, we push people to post what they plan on brining and I always keep some extra veggies around just in case. I'm actually not too sure how many people are coming, but we have a 14.185 kg (31 lbs) turkey courtesy of my parents. I can't lift it to get it out of the oven for basting. Mr. Lina took a picture of it in the oven, it's pretty funny. Right now, he's off at the film premiere for The Post-Lifers and I'm babysitting "Tom" as my mom calls him.
This year, there will be something a little extra going on after the turkey is done. We're part of Home Routes which string together people who want to host house concerts into a tour for the artists, 12 gigs over 14 days. My part of the deal is hosting 6 concerts over the "season" Sept/Oct/Nov and Feb/Mar/Apr, feeding them dinner and usually putting them up for the night. The person who had tonight asked to trade and we preferred the weekend date over a Tuesday so we'll be hosting two concerts in October. It's going to be good to get back into the house concert swing. Our last show was June 4th, it's been a good break that has me wanting more.
Tonight we are hosting Annabelle Chvostek, a former member of the Wailin' Jennys. She wrote the title track to the Juno (Canadian version of Grammy) nominated album Firecracker. She has a really pretty sound and a great sense of humour. This is the title track to her CD, Resilience.
I was summoned for jury duty this week. I like the concept of civic responsibility and I wouldn't mind serving on a jury to see how it all works out. That said, perhaps a 6-7 week trial with 3 weeks notice isn't always going to work out well. I have vacation planned next Friday, then a week in November. Mr. Lina was sure this was going to be yet another reason to not visit New Orleans. But it all has worked out well. The judge deferred my service so I'll be called again in a few months.
With such a long trial I was wondering what on earth it could be. Someone at bowling was at jury duty last week and his was a 5 week murder trial. The trial I was called for was mostly drug charges (spanning Canada, USA and Peru) and some weapon charges. The time consuming aspect seems to be more about complication than the forensic details of murder. 5 defendants, 5 lawyers, 16 charges although not all of the charges were against all 5 defendants. It took a surprising amount of time just to check that they all entered pleas to the right crimes. I wasn't expecting that to be part of jury selection, so this was a pretty cool learning process even if it was relatively short. Here is hoping the next time I'm called it's something less complicated with more lead time so I can plan around it.
And more Google translate humour from Lekala (keep in mind it's not their fault Google isn't thinking in sewing terms). Dress 4023 is a pretty knit dress, and I do like to buy knits it seems. This is something I could tackle without directions I think. There isn't that much to wrap my brain around.
No crazy name like yesterday, it's simply a knitted dress. But the pieces, there are 3 in total, you'd figure front, back and sleeves. No... it's back, sleeve, and rack. It would only be funnier if there was a separate upper bodice piece that really was for the "rack". Then in the instructions they say to sew darts on the shelf. I half expect them to talk about the boobies if there was more than 3 steps to the instructions.
The court house just happened to be near a Fabricland. And I used the last of my snappers on my latest Sencha blouse between the buttons. So I HAD to go. I did show restraint. I bought some wide waistband elastic at 50% off. I also bought some 5" wide belting elastic because I made an elastic belt for myself and love it, but seem to have misplaced it and I could make it better based on the old one. I resisted many other things that were 50% off, but I came home with 2m of this poly/viscose (took me a minute to realize that's rayon) at $4/m from the clearance table. It's got a bit of stretch and feels very soft. I put it in the machine/dryer to prewash and it seems to have come out well. It's a pretty plum colour with black.
I was just browsing through the Lekala offerings. Many that I like I have or they look too complicated to tackle with Russian instructions. I was looking at this dress, 5854.
The "photograph" picture of it isn't all that thrilling, the necklace makes it look like there are buttons. Lekala has a photo contest of sorts so a lot of patterns have a link for finished garments. I liked the way this looked finished so I thought I'd download it.
First I save the pictures, then I save the pattern, then the instructions. They open in Russian and Google offers to translate it. They title each outfit and this one is called...
I wish I was kidding...
Snicker...
5854 Knitted dress with a smell
(Makes you wonder where they shop for fabric, eh?)
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SELECTION OF FABRICS: jersey medium or low degree of elasticity of natural or mixed fibers .
AND YOU NEED: rubber band
Make sure you don't forget that rubber band. At least the fabric recommendation makes sense.
Thank you to Fehr Trade for pointing out that Lekala is offering size 44 and 46 for free for a month. Oh I like these months. I've downloaded a ton in the past and while I'm slow to make them up, I love glancing through my folder of possibilities. The few patterns I have made up I have done more than once so it feels like I have used more than I have. The size 46 with a FBA is pretty close to my measurements. I also need to shorten it. Surprisingly, people do not often design patterns with152.5cm height in mind. (Doesn't that sound taller than 5' and a half inch?)
I wore my new Sencha blouse yesterday and it did pretty well. Something is pooling in the back, but tucked in it looks great and the covered buttons bothered me less than the snaps did. I was surprised by that. Sadly, pictures will have to wait for another day. It was Mr. Lina's actual birthday yesterday so I spent the evening hanging out with him. He was feeling tired and a bit under the weather, so we had beef stew and leftover cake at home rather than going out. Warm comfort food on a rainy day.
Yesterday was a pretty busy day so I think today is going to be as low key as it gets. If I'm dressed by 2pm, I'll be impressed. Friday night I worked on another Sencha blouse, it just needs snappers/buttons in the back. I will do that and hopefully have some pictures to share soon.
Mr Lina's birthday is tomorrow, he decided he wanted to celebrate with a "Shitty Movie Night". We host SMN a few times a year when he gets the itch or I'm going out with friends overnight. Boys come over, they watch horrible movies, eat snacks, Mr Lina and one friend generally buy the most horrible, cheapest scotch they can find and share the bottle. It was a good time with old friends and a few new friends from the movie project and rather fitting for his birthday. Last nights entertainment included Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!, Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version of Space Mutiny and closing with The Crippled Avengers. All horrible movies, but entertaining in their own way.
I should remember to take pics prior to the event.
I went through a phase of wanting to bake cakes when I was about 23 I think. This was not overly successful. First problem being that my stove was no where near level. My attempts at 7 minute frosting never quite turned out. Eventually, I decided my appetizers were better, there wasn't a need for me to make cakes anyhow. But birthdays are special and we weren't doing anything crazy for his birthday, I thought a me-made cake would be a nice touch. And it was. Chocolate sour cream cake and mocha chocolate butter cream icing both actually turned out. Both recipes were from my Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book 1982 edition (apparently first printed in 1930). One single serve of Taster's Choice made for a nice mocha flavour (Mr. Lina loves coffee so mocha seemed appropriate) in the icing. I had a half jar of sherried raspberry pear jam in the fridge, I used that for the filling in the centre. It made for a really moist and adult chocolate cake between the sherried jam and coffee flavouring.
We also went to see my fertility specialist and it was rather anticlimactic. He wants me to see an immune specialist in Toronto. Um, why didn't we do this last year when I was sending blood to California? Ah, well. With what we have planned through Oct/Nov, the frozen embryo transfer wouldn't happen until January anyhow so I'll go talk to another doctor. This guy isn't a fertility specialist, but because he is an immune specialist, he has many clients who have repeated miscarriages. Here's hoping we get in to see him soon-ish, you just never know how far out specialists are booking appointments.
I have mentioned that Mr. Lina had a movie project this summer. I have a trailer to share. Keep in mind the film is 18 minutes in total, it's tough to show enough in a trailer without giving away all 18 min of the film. Although this is a comedy, the special effects are awesome so aspects are kinda gross and the film itself is most definitely adult in sexual content (not actual sex or nudity, but talking about sex). The trailer is tame. I bring you.. The Post-Lifers.
