Look, I actually made something!

It’s been quite the pathetic past couple of weeks—no finished projects. Thanks to craziness at my day job and illness I haven’t had near the amount of crafty time as I usually have and I’m about to chop what free time I have even more starting in May, when I start taking classes for a certificate program. Thankfully it’s only a 7-month program, so I’ll be finished just in time for Thanksgiving and life can return to normal. So I’ll be attempting to make the next couple of weeks of freedom super productive before I get on studying lockdown.

I did manage to finish a small embroidery for our embroidery wall. Have I mentioned it before? I’m going to embroider small tidbits from our adventures and hang them on the wall of our stairwell. Some tidbits you want to remember, but it doesn’t necessarily make sense to print out a photo of them to hang on the wall. For some reason I think stitching an embroidery of it makes it less weird and more homey than a bunch of small photos of strange/funny things.

First up we have a tuk-tuk (pronounced “took took”), which Nick and I encountered on our honeymoon in Guatemala.

To get into the closest town, Panajachel, we hopped into the back of a pickup truck, but to get home from Panajachel, we flagged down a tuk-tuk (the pickups aren’t as prevalent in the afternoon/evening as they are in the morning). The tuk-tuks have a small motor, two wheels in the back and one in the front, and are steered by a handle bar (this is the funniest part to me). The drivers zip around the mountainside roads like crazy and I remember one night ride back to the house when I was convinced that we were going to careen off the side of the mountain (there are rarely guardrails). While we preferred the bed of the pickup trucks, tuk-tuks left us with fond memories of visiting the neighboring towns.

I’m waiting to hang up the embroideries until I have a few of them finished and can better arrange them. The next item for the embroidery wall is a funny road sign that we encountered during our Great Western Adventure. It involves a bunch of French knots, so it may be a while until I check back in regarding the embroidery wall!

Week of The Hunger Games

Well things have been a little quiet around here sewing wise. After I finished my Minoru, I started on a muslin of the skirt from Simplicity 2215. I should have learned my lesson from the Sewaholic Crescent skirt, but I didn't. Skirts with gathering/pleats that hit at my hips are just not flattering on me. I did not take a picture.

Then I decided to make a Pendrell out of some leftover fabric that I had from my St. Simon's Dress, but it turned out that I didn't have enough fabric. I did have enough of the scraps to make the blouse from the Lisette Market pattern, but I've never made that blouse before, so I decided to make a muslin first because I knew that I'd have to make some adjustments to the bust. Then I discovered that I didn't have any muslin left. Gah!

So, things haven't quite been working out. Then I got sick and had absolutely no energy all of last week. So I read The Hunger Games trilogy! I somehow managed to avoid most of the Hunger Games trailers (it must be our cutting back on TV), so I didn't know much about the books before I started reading them. I started the first book last Monday and finished the third book yesterday. What quick reads! I've mentioned before that I am a huge Harry Potter nerd, which I read back-to-back during the summer of 2007. It was the summer of Potter! I guess this past week was the week of Hunger Games. They weren't my absolute favorite books, but they were interesting enough to make me want to keep reading.

Have any of you read them? If not, I recommend, especially since they won't take up too much of your time! This week I hope to whip through a khaki version of the Lisette Market skirt. As long as I don't get sick again I think it will happen!