Red-Letter Day

Many crafters collect supplies like there was no tomorrow.  And then discover that they still never have the right things for the next project and head out to the store.  Right?  

Well, this little hat proved that old adage wrong.  This is a repair job I'm doing for Basya Berkman Vintage Fashions.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Thin Ice Theater's spring production for our youngest actors was Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Eileen, our director, created an abridged script, using The Bard's original words but only 45 minutes long.

I decided, after a very short thought process, to set the play in ancient Greece, according to the script.  Oberon instructs Puck: "A sweet Athenian lady is in love with a disdainful youth. You will know him by the Athenian garments that he wears."  And that's how Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius: "Weeds of Athens he doth wear," says Puck, as he anoints Lysander's eyes with the magic flower.

It always bothers me to hear those lines while the actors are dressed in full Elizabethan "weeds" or modern day clothes or whatever else the director has imagined.  I'm just picky, I guess.

Tablecloth Update

So, I've been plugging away at The Tablecloth.  I've only been able to sew where there is solid green and solid purple, while waiting for the variegated threads to come in.

Here's how it started out:

Trip Around the World

Well, yes, there is a quilt pattern called "Trip Around the World", but that's not exactly what this post is about.

I've been following the statistics on the readers of this blog, and I'm so excited to see tendrils of connections spread out from me here in the US to so very many countries.

Changing Shape

I was given this lovely caftan by my friend Julia, proprietor at Basya Berkman Vintage Fashions.  When she's scouting out fun vintage outfits, she sometimes finds things she thinks I'll probably like.  She is nearly always spot on correct!  It's like having my own personal shopper.  

This caftan has lots for me to like.  For one, I always love woven plaids.  I love to explore the subtle color variations as the stripes of colors cross and interweave.  I also like all the embroidered details.  And in this incredibly hot, hot summer, I've taken to wearing dresses all the time - so much cooler even than shorts.

But there's just one problem.  You'll notice the long straight shape of the caftan.  But I am not a long straight shaped woman.  

Tiny Clothes

This is a story that spans four, maybe five, generations.  

My friend Debbie and I have known each other since we were 12.  Our moms were friends, too.  Debbie has a grandmother who is now 106 years old.  She used to do pretty much any kind of needlework and sewing you can imagine.  So she and I get on pretty well!

So here's the intergenerational tale.

Flower Power

I seem to have crossed some sort of invisible line.  I'm starting to get "old" quilts for repair that are full of fabrics just like the ones I actually remember wearing.  I'm still not quite able to conceive of this shift in things. When I started learning about and repairing antique quilts, it was the 1980s.  Generally the most recent things I worked on were about 40-50 years old, made in the 1930s and '40s.  Well now, people are still bringing me quilts that are 40-50 years old, but that now places them in the 1960s or '70s.  Those were my coming-of-age decades.  I seem to have been here on the Earth for quite a while now.

Here's a walk down memory lane for people of the same vintage.  The quilt belongs to a friend of mine, made by her grandmother, and containing scraps from making the clothes of her childhood.