There’s an artist, from a Nigerian family who lives in England, who makes the most beautiful gowns… They are in a colonial style, but made of traditional African fabric. The juxtaposition of these elements is fascinating, and a fascinating echo of how these “traditional _African_ fabrics” are actually a product of Holland.

I love them. And in homage, to this artist, I’ve been working on dresses for CoraMaezy and her friends. This is the first try, using some “African” fabrics I had in my stash.

Found these at mom’s. Hoped to use them to do hand embroidery but they are too slick. But aren’t they beautiful? I get sympathetic reverberations of the thrill mom must have had as she collected them . . . My challenge is to find some way to display them. <3

I have several days off work and I’m so excited. Have a lot of fun things planned like “doing nothing”, reading, sewing, sleeping and seeing friends. Last night when I got off work I continued work on the Mori Girl outfits for my little friends . . .The plan is to have a Winter’s Day tea party. The weather seems like maybe it’s going to cooperate, we had a dusting of snow last night. But if Oscar’s feet (mudballs) are any indication, it’s melting out there right now. But I hear we are really supposed to get blanketed for Thanksgiving…pics:

I went to see Liz Whitney Quizgard’s exhibit at contemporary 108. Beautiful!

so. I was working on a kuspik for CoraMaezy. Using this super soft, recycled-from-an-old-jumper corduroy. But I needed some trim. I wanted something furrish, but what?

I roamed the craft stores and thrift stores, thinking. Found this eyelash yarn, loved the color and texture but it wasn’t “enough”. I tried making a chainstitch, but still not enough. I remembered those crazy spool knitters from childhood . . . So I called my talented sister. <3 She knows how to make string into clothing!!

She showed me how to make i-cord with double pointed needles. Perfect! Soft, thick, fuzzy…

But as soon as I took the Little Miss out for pictures in the snow…I realized she was missing something… Mittens!

My first attempt at following a pattern and I have to admit I’m pretty proud of them. <3 I can’t believe I made these!

But like always one good idea leads me down a rabbit hole of other ideas, and having success with mittens means . . . Time to try a sweater?

Lol. I had fun and learned a lot but… My pattern following skills leave a lot to be desired.

Undaunted, I set out to try again.

Love this yarn. Asymetrical buttoning somewhat corrects the fact that it’s too big?

One more try:

This was my last sweater attempt for a while.

Now I’ve got schemes on making a bunny. We’ll see how that goes.

How to knit a bunny rabbit – free pattern and step by step tutorial

W

hile dreaming through my fashion sourcebooks I found a picture of a forties dress with pleats in the front that intrigued me. And interrupted every other project I’d been working on.

Pink silks in progress.

by the time we were through, we needed matching shoes and hat. Of course.