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Just truckin' along here. It's starting to be the End of the Semester, which means finals are approaching, which means my free time will decrease slowly and then increase rapidly (after finals are done.) This week, I have mainly been working on The Dress, with a little spinning thrown in. (I also knit the first four rows of Chart B on my Haruni before deciding it wasn't very good movie knitting, and set it aside for later.)
The spinning continues, albeit slowly. I got to the yellow section of my rainbow braid! It's very highlighter-yellow, a bit cooler in tone than I thought it would be. Should make that section of the final yarn very bright. I got to spin last night with a new local spinning group in a very nice, roomy, comfy, locally-owned coffee shop. I don't drink coffee but their Italian soda was delicious.
The dress is in the "hand base the underlining to the fashion fabric" stage, which I've never done before. The silk organza is hella slippery and the basting takes a while. Also upon taking this picture I realized at least one, possibly more, of the pieces I've already done have to be redone, as they're all bubbly and not smooth.
:(
On the other hand, I did get fancy new dressmaker's shears. (An unwise purchase, in retrospect, but at least they're nice.) They're Gingher micro-serrated shears, and they cut amazingly. The microserrations supposedly grip the fabric to make it easier to cut slippery fabrics (like, I dunno, silk organza?). I should try it on chiffon.
I was hand-basting last night when I couldn't sleep, and got to thinking about magic stuff—in Tamora Pierce's books (I'm thinking of Circle of Magic, specifically, but also in the Tortall universe) the characters have special magics in their particular areas of interest. (I find it interesting that the magics correspond to what the characters love, but of course that may be a correlation = causation situation.) If I lived in that world, I'd like to have either textile or animal magic (so, either Sandry or Daine, basically.) But of course, I don't. I have to put in all the slogging hours hand basting this dress, and I can't just order the thread around or demand the organza stop slipping and lie flat. (Silk apparently likes Sandry, so I assume she wouldn't have this problem.) I'm still pondering the economic implications of that. And, you know, in worlds with craft magic, you might meet someone who doesn't have magic but who excels in their field, because they're exceptional. But never anyone else. "This is Sandry, who is awesome with textiles and has magic. And this is Sally, who is incredible—and she doesn't even have magic! How incredible! (Oh, and this is Carrie, who is sorta middling with textiles and doesn't have magic, and isn't worth mentioning, even if Sandry might have been sorta-middling without any magic.)" Doesn't happen.
On the plus side, no one here has magic, so at least that's one even playing ground.
The spinning continues, albeit slowly. I got to the yellow section of my rainbow braid! It's very highlighter-yellow, a bit cooler in tone than I thought it would be. Should make that section of the final yarn very bright. I got to spin last night with a new local spinning group in a very nice, roomy, comfy, locally-owned coffee shop. I don't drink coffee but their Italian soda was delicious.
The dress is in the "hand base the underlining to the fashion fabric" stage, which I've never done before. The silk organza is hella slippery and the basting takes a while. Also upon taking this picture I realized at least one, possibly more, of the pieces I've already done have to be redone, as they're all bubbly and not smooth.
:(
On the other hand, I did get fancy new dressmaker's shears. (An unwise purchase, in retrospect, but at least they're nice.) They're Gingher micro-serrated shears, and they cut amazingly. The microserrations supposedly grip the fabric to make it easier to cut slippery fabrics (like, I dunno, silk organza?). I should try it on chiffon.
I was hand-basting last night when I couldn't sleep, and got to thinking about magic stuff—in Tamora Pierce's books (I'm thinking of Circle of Magic, specifically, but also in the Tortall universe) the characters have special magics in their particular areas of interest. (I find it interesting that the magics correspond to what the characters love, but of course that may be a correlation = causation situation.) If I lived in that world, I'd like to have either textile or animal magic (so, either Sandry or Daine, basically.) But of course, I don't. I have to put in all the slogging hours hand basting this dress, and I can't just order the thread around or demand the organza stop slipping and lie flat. (Silk apparently likes Sandry, so I assume she wouldn't have this problem.) I'm still pondering the economic implications of that. And, you know, in worlds with craft magic, you might meet someone who doesn't have magic but who excels in their field, because they're exceptional. But never anyone else. "This is Sandry, who is awesome with textiles and has magic. And this is Sally, who is incredible—and she doesn't even have magic! How incredible! (Oh, and this is Carrie, who is sorta middling with textiles and doesn't have magic, and isn't worth mentioning, even if Sandry might have been sorta-middling without any magic.)" Doesn't happen.
"Not everyone who loves a thing has magic with it, you know," Rosethorn said. (Tris's Book, p. 49)
On the plus side, no one here has magic, so at least that's one even playing ground.
