A Sewing Weekend and a Field Trip!

My class' play is coming up in 10 days, which means I'm busy sewing and crafting for it (pictures of the completed stocks made of styrofoam coming soon). Thank heavens for my serger, muslin, and RIT dye. I have been able to whip out 5 tunics for Merry Men and 3 monk's robes in very little time for very little money. I'm rather proud of the monk robes since it was a total case of "cut a little, serge a little, what should I do next?". BTW- that's Sasha in the corner, always wanting more attention. Enough with work, on to the fun stuff.

We went up to Portland yesterday to look at the Da Vinci Exhibit at OMSI (very cool) and get some fabric for curtains/cushions for the guest room. After going to three other Portland Fabric Stores, I finally remembered the delightful "Mill End Store", keeper of more great fabric than I can comprehend at one time. We'd forgotten their huge decorator section and finally found THE fabric we'd been seeking there - Amy Butler August Fields Bright Buds in aqua. Buying designer fabric, especially Amy Butler, sort of bothers me since I do hate doing things that everybody else does, but I can't help it, Amy Butler fabric just delights me. They only had 2 1/2 yards of it left, which was enough to make these curtains and have about 20" left over. (The little picture doesn't really do the fabric justice, click it to see a more accurate representation of the fabric.)



The tabs are made out of a dark green, slightly coarse weave decorator fabric that matches the green in the Amy Butler so well you'd think they were made to go together. Thank you to Q's keen eye for spotting that bolt. I got a lot of the green so I'm going to make a cushion for the reading nook out of it as well. It's going to be a rectangular boxy cushion and the Bright Buds is going to be the sides. We're going to get the blue paint matched and paint the wall behind the bookshelves, at the back of the reading nook, to provide a little interest.
I need to dig up a bit more of the Bright Buds online to make a throw pillow and create some sort of covers for the nightstand (since it's ugly) and the top of the chest of drawers (to protect it from scratches) and then that room will be done.

When we went to JoAnn's last night to get the black out liner for the curtains, I was right behind a lady buying the sweetest green/brown/blue/white striped nursery fabric and there was a 1 1/2 yard piece that she didn't want that the sales lady was going to have to put back. Since the fabric was already 50% off and the last 1/2 yard was an additional 50% off for being a remnant, I got the whole piece for about $4. I cut my favorite sundress pattern out of it today with a bit of creative piece placement. Hopefully, that will get sewn up soon and I can post pictures here.