Monday media and miscellany...

in which our plucky heroine has a mildly productive day...
doing various housey chores, and completing a few of the smaller projects that have been on my to-do list...

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Here is a short interview with the artist Shirley Hughes:
and here is a longer interview with her part 1, and part 2
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~ week 7: reversible camisole top ~

Week seven - a reversible camisole. The camisole needed decoration, rather than being the two plain solid colors that were all I had in the fabrics that suited Kenya's wardrobe. The blue "denim" color side, now embroidered with the same motif as the hemline of the bell bottoms, makes them look rather like a jumpsuit when worn together, or maybe one of those 60's sportswear/playsuits made of separates...

I suspect that making this garment would be easier at a somewhat larger than Tiny Rag Doll scale... I used the camisole from the basic TRD pattern booklet, modified to make it reversible, fastening in the back, and changing the criss-cross shoulder straps to plain. (I don't know why I find fixed crossing straps so difficult to use when dressing dolls, but I always switch them out to be fastened with snaps or hook-and-eye instead, or as in this case, to just be plain shoulder straps)

I used cotton twill tape for the straps, which I "dyed" with Sharpie marker; running a Q-tip dipped in denatured alcohol over the markered tape evened out the color really well, and once dried, it is reasonably washfast. I have used Sharpie markers from time to time to get effects on fabric for dolly clothing, such as the specialty motifs for Kenya's dashiki.

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Today I decided that one of my speedy projects would be to make some pressing tools useful for making dolly clothing. I cut a chopstick in half and covered most of it with a layer of wool felt, for pressing sleeves. Then I cut out two vaguely carrot shaped pieces of linen herringbone, stitched and turned them leaving a gap big enough to then very tightly fill the form with wool fleece. This creates a sort of extended sewing ham for pressing skirts and bodices. I expect that these will be in pretty much constant use when I am sewing tiny garments, as their larger cousins are when I am sewing for myself.

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well gosh, my left great toe looks mighty ugly today. The whole area where the chunk of 4x4 hit is an ugly purple bruise. Fortunately it is not very painful, and does not impede my ability to walk or to ride my bike. Wellington would be very annoyed to miss out on his multiple daily walkies!

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It isn't my imagination that it seems like so many more of the folks I know have caught COVID this summer...

Graphic from "Map shows states where COVID levels are "high" or "very high" as summer wave spreads" from CBS Healthwatch...

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August SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	2 pillowcases	nut chopper handle	-
2	yak print	-	-
3	tiny bell-bottoms	-	-
4	tiny camisole	-	-
5	small pressing tools	-	-
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. my late friend Larissa gifted me with a blueberry bush when I moved into Acorn Cottage twenty years ago. This year it has been really prolific (compared to prior years), and I've been enjoying picking berries in the morning, and thinking of her...
2. Interlibrary Loan - I was able to get a copy of "A Life Drawing" (the illustrator Shirley Hughes' autobiography)
3. YouTube, where I can listen to and see all sorts of wonderful interviews with people...

Time of Isolation - Day 1486