Long weekend

Loving the long weekend, and thought I show a bit of what I've been up to.

After the flowers are ironed on, before they are sewn down.

A friend of mine loves the sweatshirts that are turned into jackets, embellished with applique or other cute things. This was meant for last year's birthday gift (it takes me a while, as many gift recipients can attest - the full time job gets in the way, as do other commitments and little things like having to clean the house, cook and clean up the meals and manage all house and car maintenance on my own...).

The ribbing on the sleeves and the bottom of the shirt have been cut off and the sweatshirt cut up the middle of the front. The ribbing at the neckline is turned down and handstitched with dark green pearl cotton.

The flowers on the right are on the back of the shirt; the fourth one just over the shoulder on the front. At the far left you can see just a little bit of a much larger sunflower, this one a half flower that snugs up against the new opening up the front.

All that took longer than you would think. I'd traced the  petals and leaves (about 65 pieces all told) onto fusible, paper backed web and cut them out some time ago. Saturday, I spent the day ironing those pieces onto the eleven twelve different fabrics, cutting them out and fusing them first to one another on a teflon pressing sheet, then to the sweatshirt.

Today I'm going to start sewing them down. First, I need to do some experimenting. The sleeves had to be shortened about three inches even after the ribbing was cut off, so I have some actual sweatshirt to play with. The decision: use a loose satin (tight zig zag) to sew down the edges, or a more decorative (and putzier to do) narrow buttonhole stitch? The buttonhole would be done in  all black, I think, helping to set off the flowers. But I'm lazy, so it may well be the satin stitch, in colors to match the appliques.

It hasn't all been sewing. Sunday I was on graphics, where what should have been a simple morning became complicated very quickly. Nothing too difficult to handle, but more nerve wracking than it should have been. So much so, I took myself out to lunch afterwards, opting to go to the local Albanian restaurant for "breakfast all day". There really isn't anything bacon can't fix.

Thanks to the holiday, I was able to stay up late, to catch both Downton Abbey (which I may stop watching, as I hate Lady Mary and am tired of men throwing themselves at her vapid, selfish, stuff up self) and the US premiere of season series three of Sherlock.

Staying up, however, lead to sleeping late. I've had breakfast, cleaned the kitchen a bit, had a couple cups of coffee and watched a bit of Fringe on Netflix. Time to get back to the sewing for a while, before I run some errands and fix up lunches for the rest of the week. If you have off today, enjoy it. IF not, thank you for being willing to keep things running for the rest of us.