Walking on Air

I think I need someone to pinch me to make sure I'm not just dreaming.  So many good things have happened this past week that I find it hard to believe I'm really awake.

It started last Tuesday.  First I had lunch with a very good friend that I hadn't seen in a over a year.  It was great to catch up on everything.  Lots of good things going on in her life.

After lunch, I went to check out a wearable art store I'd heard of from Barbara Poole, another fiber artist in the area.  I wanted to see if it might possibly be a venue for my jackets.  I am absolutely thrilled to say that the store was beautiful, it really does sell one-of-a-kind items, AND the owner was happy to carry my jackets.  (I had brought pictures, just in case.)  So as of today,  my kimono-style jackets and free-lace scarves are available at Dahlia, 97M Union Street, Newton Centre, Massachusetts.  I hope you'll stop in there when you're in the neighborhood and help me spread the word.

The next wonderful thing that happened last week, was that one of my neighbors commissioned a custom jacket for his wife.  This will be the second jacket I've made for her.  When we got together last week, she told be that she'd worn the first one at least 200 times!  And it still looks great if I do say so myself.  This one will be a quilted, reversible hip-length jacket with pieced bands up the front and on the sleeve cuffs.  She wanted blues.  Here are my preliminary choices.  We'll see if she approves.

Then Friday my daughter Sonja e-mailed to say that she'd received an award for outstanding performance in her division at work.  It was so nice for her to get recognized by "the powers that be" at work.  It's just not the same when it's your mom telling you you're great.

By the weekend we were both riding high, so when we heard that the studio next to us here at Western Avenue was going to be available in June we decided to jump on it.  Sonja will give up her little personal studio down the hall and we'll double the size of our joint studio.  We'll knock out part of the wall to make one big space.  It will allow us to expand our display space, hide all our messy supplies, and have more room to work.  It's going to be a lot of work to reorganize everything, but it will be awesome when we're finished.

...so if I'm just dreaming, I don't really want to wake up.

Riding the Roller Coaster

I've had quite a ride this past month.  I hope I can stay off the roller coaster and on more level ground for a while.  I've spent a good deal of time working with my siblings to get my mother moved into an advanced care assisted living situation.  If you've been there you know how much mental and physical work is involved.  Luckily the four of us work well together and we found a situation that we are all happy with. Our mother seems pleased as well, so we're hoping things will settle down for a while.

With all that going on, I haven't had much time for sewing, but I did finish a jacket yesterday.  I call this one "Persuede Me."  The fabric is a nice, buttery-soft micro-suede.

I think the fabric was designed with chair covers in mind.  It consisted of panels with what looked like organic "squares" screened in the middle of a beige ground.  I loved the patterns and the colors, but it took me quite a while to figure out how to use it.  I finally decided on my "default" of cutting it up in strips and then putting the strips together to create a new whole.  Once the new fabric was created, I added couched squares to add texture and echo the squares and rectangles.  Then I found a beautiful sheer fabric with a woven leaf design for the collar and cuffs.

Here's the back:

I'm trying to keep up the momentum by moving right on to a new one.  A bit ago I pulled out several lovely wool fabric remnants in coordinating shades of jade and a lovely watered silk.  Now I need to figure out how I can put them together for another one.