I have been promising some posts on a few of the things that have been going on in my wonderful little world and I will post them, I will! There has been such a surge in my life lately, of meeting really, truly awesome people, of learning useful, significant skills, re-calling instincts and putting them to use. And the links! Oh! The links to share and help you see things as I do -if you want. No pressure. I feel like I’m a little crazy sometimes, but it’s all GOOD crazy, which makes sense to me, and that makes it the very best learning, growing, finding kind of crazy.

Am I being too vague? Sorry, I just need to go to bed but feel compelled to share something but am trying to not be up too late, either.

1. I have a solo art exhibit at the Marjorie Wood Art Gallery from June 20-July 27th. I will be presenting a collection of insect portraits. (I KNOW!)

2. I’ve been commissioned to do an illustration of a HUMAN BRAIN for a textbook on addictions (tobacco)!! (I KNOW!!)

3. I made lard! (Trust me, it’s way cooler than it sounds!)

4. I slaughtered and butchered a chicken (we’re eating it tomorrow). (I KNOW!!!)

5. I’m trying to come up with a program that I can deliver to a bunch of gifted teenagers which combines art & science in a fun morning at school.

6. I may be trading entomological know-how in lecture form (and a happy back-up resource) in exchange for participating in a pilot SPIN Farming Apprenticeship program.

And, perhaps the biggest thing, and the thing that is making ALL of this feel possible and right and good and DO-ABLE is that, for the first time in YEARS I’m getting a full night’s sleep. EVERY STINKING NIGHT. (I KNOW!!!)

Is my excitement coming across?! I feel like I can do anything.

And I just might.

So many things, always happening, and I intend to update more, to make this a more thorough Record Of Things, partly for my own benefit, partly to share with those who I don’t see as often as I’d like and partly for my children so their vague memories might turn into personal histories. I would LOVE to have the opportunity to read the blogs of my mother, my sisters, my grandparents.

Anyway, I’m excessively sentimental right now. What was supposed to be an epic weekend turned into a spiral of grief as our beautiful, incredibly gentle, genuine old-soul dog, Raini succumbed to whatever it was that caused her to have seizures. I cannot help second guess my own decisions, though I try hard to accept that it’s unlikely we really could have done anything different.

I’m grieving hard and I know it’s a part of the process of letting go, it’s just hard to come to terms with her youth (approx 3 years old), her energy and how… just incredible her personality was. She was the perfect dog for us. Quiet, sensitive and totally had a sense of humour.

AAAAAaaaaaaaaa!

(That is a scream of awesomeness yet also a scream of OMG I Have So Much To Do*!)

*Which I bring upon myself. I went into the Grade 2 classrooms this week to help wind up their Bugs unit with some tips on seeing the beauty in insects as well as how to draw (somewhat) anatomically-correct bugs for their final project: making a pinned bug collection! I’ll pop back in next week to see how they’re going.

Theya has decided to wear her Toothless (the dragon from How To Tame Your Dragon movie, I made it for her last year) costume again for Trick Or Treating but has requested a witch dress for the school dance (tonight) because the Toothless one is pretty darn warm (designed for the cold weather we usually can count on this time of year). Thanks to some fortunate, mad sewing skills I was able to whip one up in under an hour while Lochren napped this afternoon -that includes finding the fabric in the laundry pile (always pre-shrink!), digging the pattern out from under another pile of fabric (raglan sleeves rock my world), cutting the fabric and sewing it -including some witchy lacey detail.

Now why did I just make Theya’s dress now, instead of having it done days ago? Because I’ve been spending my time working on THIS:

.. LOCHREN’S COSTUME! I can’t wait till it’s done, it’s gonna ROCK.

Oh my. I could, at any time, on any day, easily lose hours perusing and listening to TED talks (and I often do). Today I started with a talk, then onto some music and wound up on this one.

Please, watch it. Especially if, like me, you are a chronic doodler.

Note what she says at 4:20, because that’s exactly what I was doing as I was listening. I want all teachers, everywhere, to see/hear/doodle this. I’m certainly going to share it with the ones that I know.

Way back in 2008, sugar city journal posted this:

And I was in love. I have always wanted one for Theya. And one for myself. Matching ones. Or not. Maybe a few each. One made into a jacket. For each of us.

At the time I didn’t have any money to spend on patterns and now that I’ve been reconsidering, the pattern is out of print and, after contacting the site, I found out there are no plans to reprint or otherwise publish it. I was seriously bummed.

Then it got my wheels turning, I had my heart set on it. I have a pretty good grasp of sewing and how it all works and comes together. So I gave it a go last week, using some vintage-pattern quilting cotton from the thrift store and a pair of linen pants that went through the dryer too many times and are now too short for me -and making a small one for Theya because, hey, it potentially means less fabric wastage if I fail miserably.

I think I did alright, actually.

It’s a bit big on her but that’s always a good thing with kids, it’ll last longer. Theya loves it and wore it to school today. I’m pretty pumped about making a few more (and the next one will be my size).

I really, really suck at pattern-making. I alter the shit out of things as I go along and also make up stuff at the last moment, which sometimes fails and sometimes works but I don’t necessarily remember which. I need to take notes, I think. And photos. In any case, it really was pretty intuitive and, assuming you know the basics of sewing, I’ll tell you what I did (with some links to examples just in case).

• First, take a good look at the frock (here). Print it off, too. Notice that it’s made with raglan sleeves, a gathered yoke & sleeves, and some trim for the top & sleeve hems.
• Then I worked with this wonderful, wonderful pattern. SOOO easy. This is what I used to make Theya’s First Day Of School Dress and her Crazy Fancy Night Dress.
• I cut the cotton print out with a lower neckline (I shortened the sleeves and front & back by about an inch -from the top), to make room for the yoke.
• I sewed the sleeves and front & back together and trimmed the top to make it a nice smooth curve all the way around. (Inside of sleeves and sides were not sewn shut yet.)
• I measured the TOTAL width of what I had at that point -around the neck/yoke area. I THINK I had about 16″ (so 32″ all around). I cut the legs of the linen pants into curved strips (so they’d curve evenly when gathered) and once they were strung together, it was about 22″ across (44″ around). I did the same with the sleeves, but I don’t remember the dimensions.
• Then I sewed them into ruffles (basic idea/tutorial is here) and made sure the finished gathered sections were the same width as the neck of the tunic and the sleeves.
• The sleeves were a cinch to assemble. I added the ruffle section, then used a narrow strip of cotton to the hem for a neat finish and tie it all together. Once both sides were done, I closed up the sides of the dress (sew along the inside of the sleeves and down the sides of the tunic, per the raglan dress pattern).
• The top was trickier. I considered using my new best friend (FOE) around the yoke so I wouldn’t need buttons but that seemed like cheating and I didn’t have a length of FOE that would match, anyway. So, I cut a slit in the existing tunic on the right side (chose arbitrarily), then sewed the linen, gathered yoke around and finished the hem with a length of scrap linen (didn’t want the cotton trim there, dunno why, just didn’t).
• Oh yeah, you can see in this photo that there is an extra, ungathered section of linen RIGHT in the middle of the front of the yoke. That is an example of me screwing up. It’s not terribly obvious, I might embroider something there, if it bugs me enough, or I may just leave it. Once I had it sewn around most of the way I realized I had mis-measured and it was going to be short an inch or so, so I just added a section BUT didn’t make it long enough to gather well at all, so… whatever. I did like the way it curved around neatly and evenly, so yes, definitely cut the strips in a curve for the yoke section (the ruffled for the sleeves were cut from straight rectangle strips).
• It was starting to look pretty darn awesome, but I still had to add the trim around the slit and the button loops. In the original photo (from SCJ), it looks SO neat, but I wasn’t sure how she pulled it off and I was tired but wanted it done so I just did a simple strip of linen around the front edge, flipped it around and sewed it down (rolled hem) on the inside then made rolled hem strips for the button loops & tacked them to the back side.
• The buttons are from the linen pants (they had the rolled-up-capri option so there were a lot of extra buttons on the legs) -hence the perfect match. Once it was put together, I sort of didn’t like the colour combination. It honestly made me think, “CLOWN” but not enough for me to toss it. I cut one of the pockets off the ass of the pants and cut what was more of a dress down into a shorter smock. Once it was hemmed and the pocket added, I liked it again. So I kept it.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with it, but I think it would look better in a solid colour (and the whole thing the same fabric, or at least the same fabric but in different shades). I am tempted to try dying the whole thing crimson and seeing how it turns out, if the colours tie together better -but then the buttons may not match. It would look better if it fit Theya better, too, I think. I also think that the ruffles would look better if they were fuller, so I’d suggest outright doubling the circumference of the openings when measuring out the sections to be gathered. I was only going to use 4 or 5 buttons but the gaps looked funny so I went with as many as I could fit (7), maybe a section of fabric added to the right side of the slit that sat underneath the buttons would all for fewer buttons -without skin peeking through. The sleeves could be a wee less billowy, too.

So, in case you were wondering, there you have it. I am very keen to try making a jacket version of this, in some heavy-ish chenille jacquard I have, oh, just kicking around. Longish (body and sleeves extended) for me, with buttons all the way down the body -but spaced out more or it would make me crazy putting it on and taking it off. OH! And a huge, gorgeous hood. I’ll post photos if/when it happens. For sure.

YES, Theya has no hair!! She was so fed up with the ordeal of keeping her fine curls under control, she asked for, “a boy haircut.” Once I pointed out that we could probably donate her hair to make wigs for cancer patients (and I made her think about it for a week to be REALLY sure), she was sold. She loves it so much and gosh, I can’t blame her, that girl has the eyes (and face) for a pixie cut -she ROCKS it.

Recently I had one of those moments, you know (do you?), the kind that sort of puts your life and your place into perspective and makes you want to quit all that lallygagging you’ve let yourself get accustomed to and get your butt in gear. It helps that there is That Nip in the air these days that means the kids will soon (tomorrow!) be in school and I’ll start having time to myself again. And it has me clearing the cobwebs out of my fingers and sewing machine and paint brushes and getting the gears in my brain (both sides of it) greased up and ready to hit the gas.

It helps that Theya and I decided that she needs a First Day Of School dress:

I’m thinking of Yule Card designs (*squeal* they’re gonna be GOOD this year) and making a dragonfly bed-spread. I’m thinking that, for once, the thought of having Cable TV is exciting, when I watch TV, my hands are free to make all sorts of terribly delightful things. I’ve hinted (or out-right blurted) some of my ideas on my Work Blog.

I feel so.. pumped. Even the thought of another 10 months of lunch (and snack, in Lochren’s case)-making can’t dampen my mood.

I’ve had several inclinations to write, but once I sit down here, I’d rather go do.

Start with some lengths of plywood that were left in the garage by the previous owners. Add a new package of jigsaw blades, 2 packages of hobby hardware, a few small nails laying around the tool boxes and a bit of glue to get:

Then go for a walk through the neighbourhood forest to collect things that had fallen onto the ground (and we’d had a pretty nasty hail storm last week so there was a lot of foresty debris on the ground):

Then, sit outside in the shade with a hot glue gun and under the direction of two excited children, start adding beautiful embellishments:

What I love most is that it can be an on-going process. We like to walk in the woods a lot, we’re certain to find more and more things to add as time passes. And the kids love it just as much as I do.

Wheesh!

It’s mid-July and I sort of feel bad for not posting but I also don’t feel bad at all. It’s been a good kind of busy around here. Mostly the guilt I have stems from not getting any Work done (paintings are still not up on Etsy) but it’s easy for me to let go of said guilt because we’ve been busy having the Best Summer Evar over here.

There have been fireworks (Canada Day!):

And some most-excellent canoeing:

In other words: I have priorities. And they are awesome. The kids will be headed to Camp G&G in a week, so I’ll have some time then to focus back on my other job. Until then: wear sunscreen & citronella and make sure you drink enough water.

My first public display of artwork is 3 days away! I am getting more artwork done now than I have over the past month, what can I say, I work well under pressure! I won’t be posting any more photos until after the Artwalk, I have to save some surprises for the show, right?

I’ve decided, instead of creating a portfolio site based off this site, that I wanted something separate and more professional (I need all the help I can get) so that this site can remain more personal without feeling like I have to keep up any semblance of proper decorum fitting a professional artist …OK, wait, what would that be? Based on the typical artist stereotypes, I guess I’d have to take up smoking and partying a lot more? I guess I don’t really have a point -other than that I am looking for an excuse to launch this:

*Phew* Now that that’s over with, I need to go varnish a 3′ Bombus wing.