What's Going on Today. And Tomorrow. And The Day After That.

Oh, man. There is such a huge mess around here. I'm trying to organize--there's a story there, and I'll try to get to it soon. I know I keep saying that, but I'm kind of overwhelmed: the short story is that I'm having some construction done here in 3 1/2 weeks, and before then I have to deal with this:

What do I mean "deal with this," you ask? What I mean is: see that wall on the left, the one with the window? It's going. As in: going to be torn down to the studs and replaced. Which means? Which means everything you see in this photo, plus a TON more, has to be made gone. Vanished. Cleared out and moved away. Like I said, that's a whole nother post, and I'll get there soon, I swear.

In the meantime, as I deal with the total overwhelm of that, I've been trying to finish up smaller projects that have been hanging around.

Here's one. It's a dress I bought at the consignment shop to wear over jeans. I liked it, but it looked too much like just a regular dress worn over jeans. While I like that look despite the Fashion Caution that it "makes you look bulky," I don't like dresses that look just like dresses. They need to look more integrated or something. Whatever--I don't even know exactly what I'm after, but I knew what to do with this one, and I got it done in just one day ("a day" of stitching means some in the morning before Moe takes over my lap, some at Starbucks while we're drinking coffee, and maybe some during the movie we watch with dinner: we Netflix movies and watch one every evening. Sometimes it takes two evenings per movie. We eat dinner, our one actual meal of the day, about 10 pm. Don't even ask; the cook sets the dinner hour, and I don't complain because I don't have to cook. Well, OK, sometimes I complain. But then you know me: I complain about oxygen and gravity. Actually, it works out pretty well for the most part. So sometimes we don't watch a whole movie. If we do, I stitch while I watch after I finish eating. This wasn't the case when I was having wine with dinner; then I'd be all relaxed and would just sit and watch the movie. Without the wine? I don't relax until I get in bed. Too bad for me; great for getting things done, though!)

ANYWAY. So here's the dress before:

 Ripped out the hem on the sides going to the back so I could make the transition smooth.

And here's the dress after:

 Cut it short in the front and tapered toward the back, which I left as it was.

 I love this look and will miss it when it's no longer in fashion. Oh, I'll still wear my stuff; it will just be a lot harder to find stuff made like this. But I'll wait a couple years, and it will magically appear in the thrift shops!

Not much done to it--I shortened the front part and hand-stitched the hem. I thought about adding stitching to a bunch of the other seams, but I think I've learned my lesson: Wear It First. I haven't actually done that yet, and who knows? I might hate it. I might never want to wear it again. In the past, I've painstakingly stitched things, adding tons of stitching, and then discovered, upon the first wearing, that I didn't much like them. Maybe they didn't fit so great, or maybe they felt dowdy, or maybe I just didn't bond with them. So this time I'll be wearing this before I do more. If I love it, I'll add more stitching and switch out those boring buttons.

Then there's this:

I got it with all those linens I bought here. It was wadded up in a box, stained and stiff, hideously ugly--I didn't even want to touch it. I brought it home and washed it, and it turned out lovely (even though the tag said to hand wash and dry flat (I tossed it in the washer and dryer--I figure it's like this: clothes in this house have to sink or swim. If they can't take the stress of laundering, they need to go live somewhere else. I'm not going to baby my clothes, and there's room for only one diva in this house (What? You think I mean me? Oh, please! I mean Lennie Lulu, of course.), it laundered beautifully and was nice and soft when it came out.))))) I love the outside seams, even though they're serged (which I find ugly). And I love the nubbliness of the linen. I love how many different textures of linen there are, from the stiff, wrinkly ones to the soft, heavy, drape-y ones to the fragile ones to the nubbly ones.

But the color was ugly, and I didn't think I could live with it, so I dyed it yesterday. Now, the thing about dyeing here lately is that I've basically run out of dye. Oh, sure: I have some dye. But it's colors I don't much use, plus a little bit of grape. Some bright green (for mixing). Fuchsia, which I don't use by itself (I use it to pump up hot pink.) All the others, I've used up. I've been using them up steadily, forcing myself to dye things whatever color I had left. I don't want to order dye until I can afford to order leggings (to dye) and a dressmaker's mannikin. And that's not cheap. I've wanted A Real Mannikin, in my size, the kind you can pin things on, forever. And Lyric's post made me salivate. See how she's got the fabric arranged on that useful mannikin? Sigh.

But I'm not going to be able to order that because, well: read the first part of this post and imagine the expense of having a wall reconstructed. Yeah. No mannikin for me this year.

So I thought maybe I could mix up some passable acid green out of avocado, lemon yellow, and bright green--the jacket had a green khaki tint, so that was the only way I could go. I thought maybe the avocado had a little fuchsia in it (the chartreuse does), and I had enough lemon to brighten it up. So I hoped. When I realized it wasn't getting there, I put in a tiny bit of fuchsia, but it's still not that zing of brightness I wanted. I think I can deal with it, though. I have some floss that will go well.

Here it is now:

I've got to put the buttons back on--I think I like them, but I'm not sure.

But today--and tomorrow, and probably all weekend--I'm going to be dealing with this.
It's the stack of projects waiting for me to get to them, and it is daunting, indeed. These are all things I love and want to work on. I think. And there's the problem: I have to go through them, one by one, decide if I love them enough to work with them and, if so, in what order. The things that are going to take forever, like the long journal skirt, and the long vest, and the duster, and, and, and--those will come later. I need to get the quicker, smaller projects done and out of the way first. I can't file them in the closet because--duh--I will forget about them. I have no memory (I can prove this: I sent a credit card payment in last week. TWICE. Two separate times, on two separate days. I saw the duplication and was all set to call the bank and complain but then thought, "I wonder if I did this. Maybe I should check before I pitch a fit. You think?" and checked, and sure enough: I did it. Then forgot I did it. And then did it again). So, yeah: no putting unfinished things in the closet.

The EGE had a good idea: he suggested I sort them and put them in order and stack them on the couch out here in the office studio. We sit on it in the summer but not so much in the winter--the floor is concrete and cool in the summer and coldcoldcold in the winter, so in the winter we sit on the couch in the living room where it's warm and toasty. Of course, in addition to his idea, I have to label them: pick out the floss and/or beads I plan to use and put them with the garment, print out a label reminding me of what I planned to do (I could probably remember (snort) if I held the garment up and looked at it, but I don't want to have to do that if I'm grabbing something quickquickquick to take with me, or before I've had coffee in the morning or whatever). Some of these could be finished in an hour or so; some will take months.

Here's what I'm talking about, right in the middle of the kitchen (I had to set up another table as a Triage Staging Area):

So that's the plan today, and I've got to get busy~~XO