I did more muslin tests of the dress and came up with a decent fit (the front view came out too blurry, so this is just the side view...which I rather liked because I could see triceps definition!)

After I finished the pattern I decided to go back to the store to get some more fabric, as I just wanted a few more choices for the appliques, as well as some metallic thread to do the stitching.

I was expecting a visit from my dad, so I ran a bunch of errands and gave up a day for that. He wasn't able to make the visit, so I get back the time I had planned to spend with him. That meant I was able to cut out the dress and lining and sew up the bodice. I decided to underline the bodice with silk organza to give it a bit of body. It was too drapey and hanging too loosely. Now it's a bit stiff, but the weight of the skirt will help to smooth it all out.

Here's a shot of the bodice on the dressform. I need to rework the padding on the dressform because I realized after fitting it on there, and then I put it on, the width of my back is more than the dressform, as is the shape and curve of my bust. The pads help, but not enough to exactly duplicate my shape. But that's a project for later this year. I know I'll never be that skinny again, unless I totally stop lifting weights and try to drop about 20lbs of muscle and fat.

I decided yesterday that the skirt was going to be too boring with just a bunch of appliques and that I should break up the background of the skirt somehow. I chose the ribbon motif that is on some of my fabrics, wrapping up the gifts. Here you can see the painting on the skirt. It took all day to do. I hope it works as well as I imagine it. Some projects don't and that's always a bummer.

Today I am working on the appliques. I was going to do just all circles, with some having stripes of coordinating fabrics on them, but they were too flat. I will do some that way, but it still needed more depth. I tried stuffing them with batting, but that didn't work out, so now I'm going with yo-yos made of the same fabric. Like a tone-on-tone effect. It looks cute so far, but right now it's all just out on the table and not on the skirt.

It will take me the rest of today and probably tomorrow to get the appliques done and temporarily placed on the skirt. I'll have some photos of that tomorrow. So far, so good. I have 6 days left and I'm feeling confident about being able to get this done in time.

It's all about creating art every day. Something I seem to need motivation to do! It's way too easy to get distracted by every day stuff (or the internet) and accomplish nothing. Lots of thinking about making stuff, but not much doing.

I am hoping that participating in this event will make me feel more aware of the need to work creatively every day. I don't plan to make a piece of art daily or complete a piece daily, but to genuinely work at something daily.

And so yesterday being the first day of the challenge I worked on a new dress.

Not just any dress, but a dress for a challenge, hosted by the sewing machine dealer/shop where I bought my Bernina 830. The challenge was to purchase 3 half yard cuts of any holiday fabric they had in stock. And at least 1/4 of a yard of each of those 3 must be used in the project. Project in my case being a wearable, but could be a quilt or table runner etc.

Holiday fabric? Ick! Well, I thought it would be a great challenge, because how you can make something elegant and lovely if it's made with fabric covered in Santas or snowmen?

Well, I found some lovely fabric there and chose my three. I was also able to pick up my new Bernina cutwork tool, which I hope to figure out installing on my new imac (yes, the brand new 27" imac...not the quad...didn't need that...but it does have the absolutely fabulous magic mouse!). You can see the fabric, challenge rules and my new cutwork tool in it's lovely box in this pic:

I was drawn to the little branches of berries (I assume that's what they're supposed to be) in the interesting color way. A fresh take on the holiday red and green, it's a dark red with olive! The little presents on the coordinates is are the same colors, with some light blue and brown. Quite pretty!

It took some thinking and brainstorming, and some research into current trends, color and styles, but I came up with something quite pretty. A full skirted dress based on a fall 09 Jason Wu dress. His is a beautiful green, very much like the Pantone "Warm Olive" that the color predictors mentioned. I have dyed up some rayon in a similar green, though mine is more closer to an "absinthe" green. Bright, but not like lime.

I will be appliqueing the above fabrics onto the bottom of the skirt of the dress, and then stitching around them in a contrast thread. I plan to use red thread, which will match the red piped neckline and armholes. It will be a very striking color combination!

Oh, and the finale will be tons of hot fix rhinestones I'll be applying all over the dress in green, reds and blue. Softer versions of the colors in my fabric palette, which will give lots of shimmer and sparkle, but won't be too overwhelming (I bought the tiny sizes of stone).

I love rhinestones...who doesn't? I can hardly wait for them to arrive.

In the meantime, here are pictures of the dress (as muslin) in progress from yesterday and today:

This one was just the second fitting...pretty bad, but it gets better!

Today I am going to lengthen the bodice a bit (I am short waisted and really need more length in the bodice to off set all of the fullness of the skirt) and take in a bit at the waist, scoop out the armholes a bit and then try another, with a zipper so I can try it on me and not a dressform. Dressforms are great, but no matter how I pad up or down or mess with it, it's never exactly my shape, though it's close enough to get a good fit. I just refine it at the end on myself.

And here is one last picture of my dyed rayon along with my 3 holiday fabrics. I have decided to call this dress "Holiday Baubles".

Here's a shot of the bed (very plain room still, notice stack of books by my side of the bed!!!) coming from the hall entryway in the room.

I decided to go with a purple and a blue. I was going to make it into one piece, quilt it and then hang it as a reversible hanging, with a red/orange one on the other side, but Will liked them as is and asked me not to quilt them.

I used wax and several reds/blues and one purple to mix up my own palette for the purple banner. I seem to have not taken pictures, but you'll see later on that it ended up matching the coverlet I bought from Crate and Barrel.

The blue one was also done with wax and several shades of blue. I added a bit of olive green to add some bright contrast as well as a dash of red to bring in the purples that I loved from the other banner.

This was a fun project. I really really love painting on silk in this unplanned, freestyle abstract way. The wax is perfect for this and I find I use it much more than I do gutta. I like to start out by flicking the wax here and there, it really makes the final product pop!

You may think my colors are off in the above picture of the blue, especially once you see the finished banners, but no, the colors get really bright and beautiful after steaming. They look just as beautiful after steaming as they do when wet (most dyes dry less bright than they look wet, so you have to remember that when working with that beautiful colored liquid, Sennelier silk dyes are opposite!).

Here are the banners hung. They were originally cut and painted at the size of 6' x 22". They shrank a bit after steaming, and of course I made a narrow hem on the sides and pocket at the top and bottom for the rods.

The good stuff. Here's what I bought (be warned, lots of photos!).

Paint kits from Stewart Gill. The lady selling these is also the maker/manufacturer. She was so cute with her Scottish accent. And she said I was so thin and pretty and reminded her of Terry Hatcher. She's my new best friend. ;)

They had a great deal where if you bought 4 kits you got $40 worth of free stuff. I chose the fresco flakes (never used them before, can be painted over and resemble chunks off of an old fresco), extender and some stencils. One stencil is a fingerprint. How cool is that??

I have had 3 jars of Stewart Gill paint. It is awesome stuff, but there's a few different lines and I was never sure which to get. This way I can try most of them and then buy more of those I like. The colors are different from Jacquard's Lumieres, so if you're interested in metallic textile (and mixed media) paints, check them out. They can be purchased from a few vendors her in the US. Joggles.com carries them, I know for sure.

Ahhh, yes. Here are the scissors. The 2 pair unpackaged were my own Ginghers. The cheetah handled ones had a bad nick and were getting dull. The little ones were very dull. I keep scissors everywhere in my room (at the sewing machine, at the serger, at the ironing board, at the cutting table) so that as I move from station to station they are available and I'm not looking for them. With 2 pairs out of working order I was messed with my system.

Somebody on the quiltart list said go to a certain booth to get them resharpened, which I did. And upon pick up I was able to test them (how great is that???!!!) and I bought several more pairs which they will sharpen for free next year. I'm definitely going back for that!

Here is a cd I bought from a lady on Threadpainting. Terry White is her name. I know how to do the basics, but this was an advanced cd I thought I'd try. And I bought a new embroidery hoop which is rubber with a grippy ring inside, which should be better than my old wood ones.

And all of those packages of thread? She was closing out her stock of Wonderfil (which I haven't used but heard good stuff about) and was selling each pack of 2 threads for $5. A super good deal. I think I got 8 packages. That's 16 spools of thread for $40!!!

This is the book for the display "SAQA at 20". It was a beautiful exhibit, no photography, so I was pleased to buy the book. The "Sense of Humour" exhibit is also in this book, but I loved it for the "SAQA at 20" quilts.

My favorite was this one by Virginia Spiegel, "Boundary Waters 25". I loved the texture and blending. Gorgeous.

Here is a garment I bought from Elizabeth Jenkins. She was in my katazome class at SDA. She's a handweaver. This is made of rayon chenille.

Ok. I will state upfront two things, one, I am very unabashed about giving my opinion on what I saw, and two, I didn't see everything. I will just comment on what I saw.

First, is this piece, by Marilyn Belford, "Medea Escaping". Warning...very big rant ahead, only the brave of heart should continue reading.

I had a great time. I think Emily enjoyed it as well. I know that she was really surprised to see the numbers of people and just how big the whole thing was.

We shopped first (because long ago I discovered that everyone else looks at the quilts first, has lunch and then shops) and then saw quilts. I don't think I saw all of the quilts, but I saw most of them. I realized this morning that I must've missed the wearable art section, too, since I saw none. Not even in the Hoffman Challenge area (which had some really beautiful dolls). The gypsy doll challenge was great too. I love dolls made by people who are really talented and imaginative. Each one is such a little work of art. I was overwhelmed and forgot to take pictures!!!

There was also an exquisite display of Chinese indigo fabrics.

I really loved this display. I noticed that the designs are noticeably different from Japanese katazome and indigos. The designs, which must've been done by stencil, are like little dashes instead of solid lines like the Japanese designs. I wish I'd thought of taking a closer picture to show it, but I didn't. I was just so intent on trying to fit so much into our remaining hours in Houston that I didn't take pictures of all that I wanted to.

This was the centerpiece of the Indigo display. It was so cool, hung from the ceiling.

The next display over that really impressed me was this one of quilted trees. They were all the same size, and each was done to represent a different species of tree. Also hung from the ceiling, they were quite impressive and tranquil.

The other really impressive display was this quilt from Philadelphia. I didn't catch the story that was being told by the guide nearby, but I overheard something about each square being done by different people.

Honestly, I didn't care about the story or meaning, but what I did love was the display and beauty of it's simplicity. In the area where the quilts are the lighting is different, much more subtle than the fully lit shopping area. It's not something that I really noticed in past years, but this year with these displays I realized that it makes a huge difference to the emotional and visual impact of these beautifully designed displays. BTW, these quilts were displayed behind plexi, which explains the shine in the picture.

These are just a few of my pictures. Tomorrow I'll post the pictures of my favorite quilts that I was able to take pictures of.