Home Alone

  wee dress 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Well it's been a week now since we handed in our final draft of our book to the publishers and I'm just starting to feel like I've got some energy back. I spent this Sunday/Monday home alone (and took an extra day off) as Martin and Miss P went down to Seattle to visit with some friends and do some back to school shopping. This was the first time I've been alone in the house for an extended period of time, and while I love the two of them to pieces, I must admit I was kind of giddy at the thought of it. As the summer wore on I kept a little mental list in the back of my brain cataloging all the things I might do with my expanse of solitary home-time. That list included things like having a gaggle of girls over for champagne on the deck, undertaking a new garden project, starting to paint the house, countless dormant craft projects, and on and on. In the end, I flaked. Hard core. There were bubble baths (one day I even took two), there was tea, there was pie (store bought!), I plowed through a mindless novel, ate tofu and brown rice (Martin is allergic to the former and not particularly fond of the latter), and even went so far as to indulge in some truly vapid nostalgia (only one disk though). It was great. I certainly didn't "accomplish" all I had hopes of, but as I say I'm beginning to feel whole again.

I did get one project started: my gorgeous god-daughter's birthday gift. The photo you see there is of the dress I made her, and the rest of it (which will remain a surprise to the internets until it is safely in the mail to her and her mama) is well on its way. I feel like a bit of a nitwit that I hadn't yet thought of making little girl dresses out of some of the gorgeous contemporary quilting cottons out there. I think that's partly because many of the ones I've seen around have been a bit more crafty in design than I would be up for in an evening project. But earlier this summer I was at a very chic kids boutique and fell in love with a little girl's dress, that like this one here was a very straightforward pattern, but used a bright colourful print. I resisted buying it, as it was a long way from cheap, but this little number took almost no material and about an hour and half to make including hand stitching the hem. Ah the joy of little pieces of clothing. So much quicker. I hope it will fit her, I made it a bit big so she could grow into it, and if she outgrows it I figure she can wear as a tunic.

Anyway, now that I'm rejoining the world of the living I do have a number of domestic projects on my mind. Too bad summer seems to have up and left us, rather rudely. Perhaps it will come back for September.

Comments

[Tara]

I love the fabric you made that dress out of. Where did you get it?

[Sam]

Ditto to Tara's question, I think that may make a perfect table cloth for our kitchen nook table (or something similar).