Gnome Costumes!

It may come as no surprise that I love costumes. Not only do I enjoy making them, but I really love wearing them too. Wearing a costume just gives you a little different outlook on the world, and a peak into what it would be like to be a different person. I also really like to do my costumes right. No store bought costumes or slapdash things thrown together at the last minute for me. The problem with that is that every year when Halloween rolls around, I am very busy and only get a few hours to actually sit down and make my costume.
This year my husband and I decided to be garden gnomes, because, not only are they awesome, we knew we already had the big clothing pieces we would need for the costumes. We made the hats, apron, beard and belt, but everything else came from our closets. I was very pleased with results (especially for how easy it was), and now I have a great gnome outfit should I ever need one again!

The wedding dress!

So, remember how I posted about making a wedding for a friend several months ago? Well, due to some delays in getting the fabric and my busy schedule, I ended up doing all the sewing about two weeks before the wedding. I was in such a hurry to get it done that I didn't take any process pictures, but I finished it with time to spare and it came out beautifully if I do say so myself!

Here are some pictures of the dress on the day of the wedding.





This one is a little blurry, but it seems to be the only picture I got of the dress from front.

I am back!

Whew! Life has been busy, but good since I last posted. I got a new (to me) car, lots of family came to visit, and the biggest event of my summer- my puppet show of the Pied Piper of Hamelin! The show was very well received, and we are looking forward to performing it again soon.

Here is one picture of the puppets from the show. Please do check out our puppet blog too. It is all set up now, and I posted pictures of the whole puppet making process!



Now that the show is complete and I have had a little bit of time to relax, I am getting really excited about fall. I still have a few weeks until I start back up teaching this fall, though, which is good news since I still have a wedding dress to make! I will be going fabric shopping later this week, so look for my first dress making post sometime next week. Hopefully I will have some garden update pictures too, we got several tomatoes already, but there are lots of green ones still!

Garden Update

Hello! It seems to me that I am overdue for an update on the garden. I am very pleased to say that between what we learned from experience last year, and the better weather this year, the garden is doing pretty well. I haven't picked anything yet, but I have lots of photos to share.


Here is the view from one corner of the garden- you can see a little bit of most everything.

Pea plants and a pretty pea blossom. There are a few pea pods almost ready to pick, I think I will go back for them and a few other things this weekend.



Radishes! They don't look ready yet, but seem to be better this year since we spaced them a little farther apart.


Cucumbers- the plants are still a little small, but seem healthy. We probably won't have cucumbers until August.



Mixed greens lettuces- I am definitely picking these this weekend and making a salad. I also plan to plant more seeds afterward so we can get a second crop.



Green beans- these are also basically ready to pick!


Green Peppers- as you can see we have a blossom on one of the pepper plants, and they both look healthy.



Chamomile- It is growing! I was not sure it would there for awhile. Now I just need to find out how to make it into tea . . .


The tomatoes- Four of the five plants are doing wonderfully. The small plant in the second cage there has some wilting and yellowing leaves. I really hope it is not blight. It may just be over watering- it doesn't really look like blight yet. I am giving it until this weekend to get better, but if it doesn't I might have to get rid of it so the others don't get infected. There are lots of green tomatoes that need protecting!




Last but not least Zucchini- The plants are looking good, and there are some blossoms. I just hope we actually get some zucchini this year, last year we had tons of blossoms but none ever fruited.

Ribbon Bags Ahoy!

I finished the ribbon bags last night, and I am pleased with the way they turned out. It also means I have completed two big projects this week, and have a nice feeling of accomplishment.

Clean Studio!

Hooray! I finished cleaning and organizing the studio yesterday morning, and wanted to share pictures of the results. It is kind of a tour of the space as you walk in to the room and turn around clockwise.



After the cleaning was done, I spent the rest of the day working on the ribbon bags, drinking tea, and enjoying the room.

In the Works . . .

School is out! June 11th was my last day teaching after-school classes for the year, and as much as I enjoy teaching, I am really excited to have a little more time and not have to spend my evenings planning for the next class. It has only been a little over a week so far, but here are the projects I have been working on:

I have an order of several ribbon bags for a wedding party. I have finished weaving the ribbons and am now working on the bag construction. Here are a few in process photos.


The puppet show is my biggest project of the summer. I don't have any exciting pictures yet, but I did get the puppet blog all set up and ready to go. You can check out the design now, and I will let you know when the first post goes up.

The other thing I am working on is FINALLY getting our little studio all unpacked and organized. The story here is that we had a HUGE studio space before, but we moved out in Dec. because the building needed lots of repair that the landlord couldn't/wouldn't take care of. We decided the best choice for now was to move our studio into our spare room, which is pretty small. Lot of stuff + small space + no free time = still not all unpacked. I am determined to get it done in the next few days though.

Here is a picture of the room at the start of the day yesterday. I should have thought to take a picture at the beginning of the week so you could see how disorganized it was to start.


Here is a picture now- it is getting better everyday. I will post again when it is all done and beautiful, and maybe have a little party for myself when it is finished!