Summer School Is Out!

As much as I had a fabulous class this semester, it's going to be nice to have a little bit more free time for myself again. At least the prep for the fall class is mostly already done! It was just trying out a totally new project this summer that really ate up time. But it was worth it, I'm really pleased with how it worked. And the fall class is 4 sessions (12 hours!) longer, so I think it'll work even better. As a reminder, all of the students started out with this: 

And through dying, seam ripping, new pattern drafting, gathering, and adding elastics and zips, we ended up with these radically different garments:

Students were really into the poof this year, lots of gathering! And of course the one time I just decide to go ahead and draft them trouser bottoms to begin with, they all want to make big skirts. Oh well!

But now I'm back to my various (too many right now, I think) independent projects. Dear Jane is still chugging along. D-9 was a nice easy put-together. One of my favorite color combos too. 

D-10, on the other hand..well, I made a mistake, the little HST patch in the lower right hand corner is upside down. Don't care enough to take it apart and re-sew. 

Dyed a bunch of things black. I've had a hard time finding nice sturdy cotton/linen thread in black or gray, so I dyed a few different types, probably for use in the shoes I'm working on. The tape is for the braid coat, to join the panels. I found the perfect thickness and material of tape-at Jo-Mar of all places--but it was a sage-green color, so I top dyed it gray. 

Speaking of shoes (I mentioned I have too many projects right now?) I dis-assembled the prototype shoe and marked everything out. 

I started cutting out the soles and adding the groove to stitch them onto the upper. I know a lino cutter isn't exactly the proper tool for that, but it gets the job done pretty well.

A little more frivolous, but I worked a sidewalk sale in Haddonfield, NJ recently, and there was a fancy yarn shop there selling weird half-balls and bits in grab bags for cheap so I bought a couple random things. I normally can't bring myself to spend money on fancy (read: new) yarn but it was really cheap! So I made myself a Waffle Hat for when it cools down. Still need to finish my poor neglected cable scarf, I'm just a little afraid of trying to figure out where I left off.