Final-ly!

At last!  I am free to write a little something, and I have pictures of my way-cool final projects to show you.

But first a word from my sponsor: the laundry. 

Ten or so loads of laundry. This is after five loads got washed and put away.  There's still about five left to wash, too. :-/

Yes, laundry weaves in and out of my blog like the warp and weft in the fabric of my life (poetic, huh?).  In fact, my very first blog post was about the laundry.  This is because laundry is, unfortunately, a huge part of my life. For some reason my family, although they are lovely in almost all other respects, is ... hmmm, how do I put this? ... laundering-deficient. They can wash and dry, but not fold and put away. So last Friday, after my Bridal Wear class (and hence my last big school sewing project) was done, I thought I'd tackle the laundry. Well, after I had a little nap. I was determined to wash and put away all the dirty laundry Friday night, so I grabbed the hamper from my room and went to tell the kids to grab all their laundry, too.  And then I peeked into my girls' bedroom.  All four of my girls share one room, which is a recipe for disaster; the entire floor was piled at least a foot high.  I knew I'd never get all of their laundry unless their room got completely clean, and that meant they needed Mom's help.  First I sorted the ten loads of laundry that were actually in the laundry room, and then I bravely entered into the girls' room.

My goodness! :-/

Five hours, one-and-a-half hampers of clothes, and two trash bags later we had maybe half of the room done.  Back at it on Saturday from 11 a.m. to about 3 p.m, and it was almost done—by kid standards it's finished; by my standards there's still a little more to do, but by then I'd had enough fun in that room.  All in all, we took out three kitchen trash bags, two bags to go to the D.I., and three very full hampers of laundry. We did get all the laundry out of there. Hooray! And as of Monday night, I'm happy to say, all of the current laundry is washed and folded, heaped on my couches and waiting to be put into dressers.  Now I can move on to fun, Christmas stuff with my family (which, naturally, I'll tell you all about as we do them).  :-) Yaaaaayyyyy!!!!

Whew!  Glad to get that laundry out of the way.

Now, to post my final projects!

Stress Management and Meditation classes only get a token mention, and this is it.

In Knitwear our final project was to design, illustrate, and draw the pattern for an outfit—a top and bottom, or a dress (we also had to include samples of the fabrics we would use). 

This is my lovely design which, I think, is quite cute and might actually look good on me.  Unfortunately I only made a children's size two pattern, so if I want one I'll have to re-pattern it in my size. (And no, I don't think this is a fabulous design for a two year old, but that size uses less paper—unless you decide to remake it in your own size after all.)

In Embellishment we learned all kinds of things you can do to fabrics to make them more exciting, from dyeing to beading to cutwork. It was a fun class, but worky.  Our final project was to make something using at least four of the techniques we'd learned throughout the semester. I struggled to come up with a fabulous idea.  At first I wanted to make an heirloom baby dress, but twenty-five yards of lace was out of my price range.  Finally I decided to make Christmas stockings!

I have to tell you that our old Christmas stockings are very cute—at least I like them. They are all made of knit fabrics that I'd used to make clothes for my kids when they were little.

our old Christmas stockings

But Embellishment and Christmas just go together, don't they? So I built some new stockings to hang by the chimney with care.  My very cute kids really liked each one that I turned out, and they are sure that my teacher is keeping them all.  They asked (more than once), "Mom, after you give these to your teacher, will you make some for us?" :-) I got seven completed for my class, made one more yesterday morning, and will probably round off our ten some time this afternoon. Here are the stockings (which designs may, someday, appear in my Shoppe at the North Pole—a boutique of old-fashioned, hand-made toys that exists solely in my imagination...for now.)

Ahem.  The stockings:



ombre-dyed fabric with hand-beaded snowflakes



faux chenille and jingle-bells

color-blocked and crinkled

embossed velvet and beaded fringe
(the embossing didn't work, so I'll probably try again)

the grandma stocking
(paper-piecing)



the candy-cane stocking
(heirloom sewing with beaded fagoting)



the ornament stocking
(applique and trapunto)

pin-woven plaid

needle lace

ribbon application
I have to say, I think they are all awesome!

But Bridal Wear was my favorite class this semester. It was at a great time of day (nine to noon), and it was a small class of people who know how to sew, so we could just go in and work while our teacher, Eugene, was there to give a few tips, answer questions, and bounce ideas with.  Very nice.  In this class we had to illustrate and make a dress for a real, live person.



my original illustration for Lindsey's dress,
with the fabric swatches attached

 At first I wasn't sure where to find a model.  Who needed a bridal or prom dress?  I certainly didn't want to make one for myself! I decided to make a prom dress for Lindsey, even though she won't be old enough to date until the end of June; the dress can sit in my closet until next year. We decided on a full-length gown, covered in tulle, with lots of ruching, and a corseted back. I worked on it almost exclusively during class time (hardly any homework), and got it done just in time to earn my A—excellent class!  Eugene told me that I have really good craftsmanship (which is an extremely high compliment, coming from him!), and I have to say that I think it is a pretty darn amazing dress.

A pretty girl in a pretty dress!
It's all finished but the hem
—it's kind of too bad I have to hem it,
because I love the way the fabric
just puddles all over the floor

dress back

back dress detail

 So school is finished, at least for a while.  I'm going back in the spring, but I am definitely taking the summer off this year.

And, until tonight, my laundry is done, my house is fairly clean...Let the Christmas festivities begin!