Friday, April 08, 2011

Frustration X Four

Yesterday the Spousal Unit’s hard work paid off. He was able to push the old crab apple tree down with his hands. He had spent two days digging and chopping in preparation of winching this tree down. But the tree had shallow roots and no main tap root hence the easy topple. He has it piled up to remove to the dump. We will replace it with a nectarine tree later on this month.

This poor old crabapple tree was doomed from the day we bought the place. We have pondered over it wondering if it was a crabapple or a wild apple. Last fall, we were still pondering but we knew its fate – gone from our yard. We didn’t pick one apple from it after we did the taste test.

With the warmer weather, our greenhouse is really producing. The first seedlings up now have their second leaves and the new seedlings are doing well. Elliott goes out there every day to snoop around and has chased a couple of flies on the windows. Yesterday he scored big – he got a moth. After being brushed he rolled in the soft dirt and went back into the house dirty. He was like a two year old playing in mud.

Yesterday was a day of frustration for me. I worked on the jacket and I finally hung it up. Daughter will finish it as she did not like what I had done. I thought we had agreed on the design but apparently we hadn’t. In checking our messages, nothing had been said about the design. So she will do it. Here is what I got done:

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It is not finished as I was doing the jacket in stages. I only have 72 blue stones and have to place them on this jacket carefully. I had decided to do it in stages and was working on the edges of the yokes. The last stage was the lapels.

Next I traced a pattern for a mermaid dress. I am not sure what the top is to look like on this dress so I used my basic dress top with the scoop neck. I had to find out if this dress would fit onto the dark green satin I have in the stash. I can’t get the two skirt pieces out of the fabric, let alone the rest of the dress. That means purchasing 6 meters of fabric for that dress. But the pattern is traced; one positive. I can change the neckline/upper bodice if necessary.

After that, I decided to finish up a shirt I had been working on. I applied crystals on the fronts using two different colours of purple. “It looks great”, as Ambrose Price would say.

I got one sleeve done

and when I went to do the 2nd sleeve, I was short 10 of the lighter purple and 15 of the darker purple stones. And I need stones for the collar. The stones were immediately ordered (two weeks until they are here) and the shirt  put away.

On to the next shirt and I thought I would try the design using AB clear crystals. I am not digging my design – maybe it is the colour of the crystals or maybe it is the design.

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As I look at it, it might be both. So I am thinking about it.

The only thing I got successfully done was washing and drying a piece of pink fabric for a shirt. If nothing else, I can cut out the pink shirt and start embroidering it.

End One Frustrating Day!