Prompte et Sincere

By the end of August I'd figured out that if I didn't rekindle something of a creative life, I was going to die, beautiful baby, handsome husband, and stable-if-not-exciting job or no.

By the end of September, I'd made no headway, but I did suppress my panic about leaving said baby with her loving and competent Da long enough to spend 48 hours in Grand Rapids at Art Prize with a couple of my oldest friends, MLP and C. This turned out to be an excellent thing to do, not just because these are very good friends, but because Art Prize is a very, very good event. I knew not to underestimate Grand Rapids after Newsweek proclaimed it the 10th most dyingest city and the city retaliated with this, but the level of the submissions and the realization that there are regular people out there, thousands of them, doing beautiful and singular and passion-driven things every day made me almost giddy, all in all.

Within hours of getting home, MLP had picked 30 minutes of raspberries and turned them into 3 pints of jam, and C had taught herself to popcorn crochet, churning out the little top in the pictures for her very own sweet V. pretty much as quick as she could get her hands on the yarn. Cabe destacar that neither of these women has anything approaching an easy life or a lot of time on her hands, but they get shit done, and they love me. They love me! And so, although this post and the last had to be prompted by an email from M, I have prompters and am prompted. Here is my heart. Cor meum tibi offero. Talk at you soon.

For the record

I did make the five little Oliver & S outfits for V. and her cousins for Grandmafest this summer. I cut them out in April, putzed around with the little dress bodices in May and June, and then basically powered through the rest in the first couple of weeks of July, finishing at 2 a.m. on the last night available for sewing. Other than the time pressure, particularly during the hours from 9-2 on that last night when I discovered that I'd attached the back of the size 5 to the size 6 shirt and vice versa, a mistake I'd have to remove four sleeves to fix, it was enjoyable work; the outfits were appreciated by the respective mamas, who were ultimately the ones I was doing it for; and V., at least, got a good amount of wear out of hers through the end of the summer. But given the ratio of creative manifestos to actual output recorded on this blog, a bit underwhelming. Which leads me to the next post....

In which she bites off perhaps a bit more than she can chew.

Well, I'm not quite the mama in creative overdrive I'd planned on being, but I've made a few things: a sundress that I worked up in peacock blue with cream dots just about 10 minutes before it got too cold for V. to wear it; a party dress in a very old-timey blue lawn that I worked on in the week of V's birthday but finished in January; and a poncho that I knit from variegated, hand- loomed and painted wool V's Tia A. brought back from a trip to Wales. Also, I've successfully navigated the transition back to full-time work and I sometimes read books.

But now the sew-o-rama begins. I just got Little Things to Sew from Oliver & S* so I could make this for V. to carry her beertje around; that might actually have to wait behind this and this, which I'm making up in various colors and combinations of this, this, and this for V. and five little cousins for Grandmafest this summer at the end of July.

Wish me luck.

*Do you notice a theme? Besides liking to support the business of an old acquaintance, I love these patterns! The construction is impeccable and the instructions are great. I am improving my technique with each pattern I complete.