Photographs...

So, I haven't been on computers since Thursday. I feel bright and educated! Not really. The time I haven't been on seems very un-full of things happening. All I really did was sew and think and go to JoAnn's once. I also went on walks, I realise. I should do one now, but I feel as though I must get something done. I feel very pointless right now. It's beautiful outside, but I just feel pointless!

I read some of Charles Dickens over the weekend, too. Not much. Of both Bleak House and Great Expectations. It's a good thing. ;)

Now, for the pictures! I got some more sewing done today and before, but I'm not going to go to get the photos on here. Just to say: I finished tucking the second chemise front, so I'm done with all that. I also started sewing the sleeves and back-of-chemise-#2 on. Looks rather spiffy. Sewing on the bias is just WEIRD, too. It feels so strange. And on the last seam I did, the needle was being bad, or else the fabric.

This is the fabric I'm going to use for my blanket. The white-looking (it's really off-white dark ivoryish; natural colour of bamboo and cotton fiber mixed) stuff is the batting, which, when the blanket's done, you oughtn't to see. ;)
Probably paua or abalone shell buttons. I got them from JoAnn's for my chemises (however, I REALLY don't think I should use them. I just adored them, and got them, even though I don't know if they're really correct to the 1860's), and the packages for the buttons there don't almost ever have real descriptions. All this one said is 'genuine shell'.
My grandmother gave me this (among other needles) back in about September last year when I was starting to sew more. It says '1857' somewhere in there, and I REALLY wonder if this is possibly from that year. It probably isn't, but... I can't help but wiiish. One thing that hurries my hope, so to speak, is that the print and all looks like something from 'roundabout 1850, or later. I want to find out, and I'm sure I'll try. I suppose it kind of makes sense that I haven't used any of the needles yet. :P They look so fine (but I haven't a picture of them).
White squill. Took this in the yard; some of you have probably seen it already. ;)
And this was the master squill-picture I took! It's so nice that the sun was shining just on the squill; it makes a nice effect. It was in sunsetting-time.
Another nice picture; I landed the camera near the ground to take it. It's the Mousie-eye view. ;) And it is in our yard, so those houses aren't this one. The white one straight ahead has architecture somewhat like it, I suppose, though. A lot of the houses around here have hugely similar design.
The front of the first chemise. Tucked. Isn't it perty? The pattern is... three tucks, three shorter tucks, five shorter tucks, on both sides, from the middle successively, if you get it. You probably can tell. ;)
Nother pic. I was 'wearing' it. I just laid it across my front, though, really. :P

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You must be happy now. ;) Good-bye!

Floating on a cloud...

...not exactly. ;) It is quite nice nowadays. I feel a little bit jumpier, in the spirit. I just wish you all would continue praying as hard for me, or harder, because I still feel as lost as ever. Ahh, well.

The chemises (you hear too much about them, don't you?) are quite, well, closer to finished, since I last posted. I have finished one front of a chemise. It looks quite brilliant. There are twenty-two tucks on it, I believe, eleven on each side. Sadly, one side is wider in its tuckiness than the other. It looks odd. But it isn't bad. It won't worry up anything. It's very minute. ;)

It also uppifies me that the ladies on the Sewing Academy say that my chemise is very nice (two said so, so far, but I am guessing it's fine).

The cottownood tree was (and I believe still is) lit up perty nice today. Wish we lived in the country, and could see the horizon, and burn piles of wood on the lawn. Or rather, the fields. ;) I don't believe in lawns in the country. Wouldn't you think that, instead of lawns, there would be fields and fields of beautiful, rolling, long grass, even near the house? Who wants a carefully cut and tended crop of grass in front of their house? It completely murders the idea of a pretty rural lifestyle. Except, I don't believe in that, either. I just want to live like I need to make my own living, make a home, raise a family. That's my way. ;)

I'm such a goof. I put the labels for the post in before I finished writing this post... and, well, among it is wind. So, the wind was lovely today, and we got some rain (I don't know if I already said), and it has been quite amazingly lovely, with a tad of thunder, today.

Let me see. On Saturday, Mummy, Gina and I went to JoAnn's and got lots of stuff. I got some fabric for a blanket. I already had one part of it before, from Mill End Textiles, which is a lovely, cute sheep-fabric with a blue background. Very nice. It's going to be the border of the blanket. I also got a 50-50% cotton-bamboo batting because the 'cotton' batting was really 20% polyester and 80% cotton, and I hate polyester. Not to mention, it breatheth not as well as natural fibers. Therefore, we ended up with cotton-bamboo. And it's incredibly soft. And looks lovely and natural. Then, I got some dark blue flowersy fabric, and some dark blue flannel to go on the back. I have a picture somewheres, but I can't post it yet. ;) I'll try to show y'alls it sometime. It's rather lovely. I was also thinking that when it was finished, I could randomly embroider sheep on the flowered calico part of it (which is on the top of the blanket, bordered by the sheep calico), when I felt like it. So it will be a very sheepy blanket (so lovely!) And, considering, I might even embroider the flannel side of it when I feel like it. Who knows what it'll look like in twenty years! Just imagine!

Another thing I got was a lovely windowpane sheer fabric, white. I will make myself a corded sheer sunbonnet out of it as soon as I can get a pattern made. I got a yard, wish I got four, but there was less than two yards on it, I believe. I wish we got to get the whole bolt, but we didn't, ahh, well. I didn't want to make mum get more than she thought she should, even though I KNOW I could find something to use it for (undersleeves, another sunbonnet, who knows?). Evil little Rettling hath many ideas. ;)

So, that's about it. I will try to post pictures soon, but it's hard to do it. REALLY hard. I just can't do it on every computer, so I never get it done. Grrrr. >:-|

You've heard what I'm up to, now fear me! My birthday's in about twelve days (hurrah!), so I'm going to be, well, ancienter than I am now. Of course, I'm ancienter as the seconds slip by, so this doesn't really make sense, does it? (Heh heh. Randomnity!) Also, Bryan and Vicki are going to pop up on the 16th, stay till the 18th, and boyyy we've got to DO things! It shall be interesting. We've never had people really sleep over at our house before, AND our house is a dreaded mess. ;) (But, we got the dining room table finally cleaned off, and Gina's sewing on it. Heh heh.)

*edit* I forgot to say, the gadget things at the side of the screen are messed up. I can't fix 'em on this computer for some dumb reason of its own (possibly related, I think, to the Gmail-not-working thing). Awful. As well, on Sunday, I got to do my hair in a new way. My mum did a flip on it (and remarked about how much more thick my hair is now than it was, well, the last time she did it, which was probably half of my life ago, really) after I twisted the sides so that they would keep the bangs in, then I braided down the back and I still, well, haven't redone it because I'm too lazy. Another thing I did on Saturday somewhat non-officially is not washed my hair with shampoo... the reason of which is complicated and I will state later. It's really quite brilliant; my hair isn't greasy yet after four days. WH00T!