Christmas in July

Procrastination, anyone?

Here are some Christmas presents I made this year, that I guess have taken a while to post about. Yeah, that's how I roll.

I decided to do sets of crocheted coasters as gifts last year, with varying color schemes personalized for each recipient. Each coaster would have a solid color base and a crocheted lace doily applique of a unique pattern which were adapted from various snowflakes I found around books and the internet; adapted enough to not look too seasonal. The yarn I purchased was acrylic for the base and cotton for the applique, so entirely machine washable, and heat tested to make sure they had no problems with hot mugs. Then I found little metal tins which would hold each set.

White on beige for my father and stepmother, since it's a classical color scheme she prefers.

White on blue for my aunt and uncle, since blue is her favorite color.

Red on black for my grandparents. I inherited my preference of red from my grandmother, who takes her love to a marvelous degree. These would fit right in with her decor.

A marvelous success! They turned out just as I had hoped.

It's Raining Rainbows

Congratulations Boston, on a wonderful Pride 2011! I did my part volunteering in the parade: getting soaked in the rain and hoarse from all the shouting. It was a total blast, and to cap off the end of the festivities, I needed to be sure to have a dress to drool for.

Enter this glorious pattern from Vogue:

It's soooo 80's. I just can't stand how marvelous it is.

The next step was the fabric. I ended up choosing a striped calico from Joanne's, about as close to a rainbow as a national chain store can get. I suppose I could have considered attempting that craziness that is "matching of obvious stripes" but the fabric was expensive enough -- I wasn't going to go overboard.

Then came the cutting.

And cutting.

And more cutting

You see, Vogue patterns turn out gorgeously. They hang like a dream. They're also really complicated and involve multiple pieces. This particular pattern required 17 individual pieces, most of which required 2 pieces of outer fabric, 2 pieces of liner, and 4! Count them, 4! pieces of interfacing (note: the exclamation point is just for exclamation, not the mathematical operator of factorial)

But I persevered. And then, of course, despite the fact that I confirmed my measurements ahead of time and was careful to use the right seam allowance, the dress didn't fit. Good thing for corset-style, however, it was relatively simple to alter.

And boning! Did I mention the boning? I don't think I've had the patience to put up with boning since 2004. Yikes.

But you know, it does hug the bosoms quite flatteringly

All that hard work turned out spectacularly, if I do say so myself. I wore it to the final night of Pride, and got so many compliments from random strangers to put a smile on my face till same time next year!

Happy Pride, everyone!