The Soiree

Here I am at my party sporting my $2 dress after a few alterations. What did I do? I had to take in some from the back, shortened the sleeves and used the extra fabric to add a swingy gore to each side seam to keep the dress from clinging too much. This also helps the dress from disappearing when I sit down since it is cut on the bias.

It was a great time: lots of yummy food and drink, great people, and even a little Dance Dance Revolution (not kidding!) I think what I enjoy most about my parties, is seeing all the different people who are special to me mingling and getting to know each other and having a really good time. I had dreamt up the idea, and the speech to go along with it, one night last week for a toast I was going to give at my party. You know those eloquent things we think of saying to people we love just before dropping off to sleep?.... anyway, it didn't quite come out the way I'd hoped, but I think I was successful at communicating that this birthday I wasn't celebrating me as much as I was celebrating all of *you* being in my life!

Oh happy day

Yay, I'm about 99% recovered from the gunky ickiness and I'm starting to get things back in order. I'm extremely pleased with the weather, something people take for granted when it's nice like this, I suppose, but thanks be to God, for the month of May! I love the pink flowering trees and green foliage. K planted sugar snap peas, L sowed pink and purple flower seeds and a few lettuces from last year's that went to seed have come up in just the right spot in our garden this week. I finished the first of several summer sun dresses for a new client and she was ecstatic to see how well it fit and felt on her. I'm making at least two more for her!

Tomorrow, mom and I will visit the BSO symphony show house. It's been an annual tradition for us since about 1990, I think. I may post my reactions or inspirations on that later. This weekend is also the big annual Sheep and Wool Festival. I'll be missing it this year, but I've got friends going who will surely tell me all about it and let me pet the gorgeous yarns they purchase there.

Oh, and girlfriends, thanks for the long chats this week it helped a lot. (You know who you are.)

5-17-2007 A word about the showhouse.

This year's showhouse was the most cohesive of all the ones I remember having gone to. There were several rooms using a black and white color scheme, Asian influences, and soothing palette . I would say my most favorite room was The Master Bedroom, flooded with sunlight from it's many windows and decorated in colors of celedon, chocolate and accents of red, which was unexpected yet just right for this room. A close second was the Family Game Room. It was filled with so many fun ideas, I can't begin to list them here. My least favorite was the "Out of Africa" office for her. It lacked pizazz and the designer was in there defending her design and "color" choices to all who entered and would listen. There were some interesting aspects to the design but overall I found it dull and uninspired.

Every year I come away with a few practical ideas that may or may not be incorporated into my life. Sometimes it takes me years to actually carry out an inspiration. For instance, several years ago I saw a table treatment I liked and it gave me an idea for one I could use on my outside table with an umbrella. I cut out the fabric, but didn't sew it up until a week ago. This year's innovative idea that I liked, but probably won't use, was wood panel covered with faux embossed leather leaned against the walls of a covered porch. Beautiful wall sconces were then installed to the panels which hid the cords and wires. A great lighting solution for a temporary living arrangement or for those who don't want to mess with wiring inside the walls.

Philly fun

I trekked up to Philadelphia on Saturday. I had a yummy brunch at Ida Mae's, the opportunity to meet lots of interesting individuals at a cookout (and other brunch) and did a little shopping at Circle Thrift, in Fishtown. Tif found a great faux wrap 100% silk dress in a gorgeous print (above), but lucky for me, it was not her size. It only cost $2 folks! It will need a few minor alterations, but TWO DOLLARS! And it still had tags on it! I also got another dress (which I will dye) and a pink t-shirt (for the chocolate bunnies decal below) for a grand total of six bucks. I love thrift shopping.

Also pictured (bottom), some fun cotton prints I'm looking forward to working some magic with this spring. For some reason pink keeps attracting my attention. I'm also happy to report I've gotten a few new clients recently, who actually want new dresses made, (not old ratty bedsheets mended.) Yay!




From Top to bottom: Warm pink/coral cotton batiste with Morroccan print in red and pink flowers, Pink and White floral (alternates pink on white to white on pink), two of the same print in slightly different color families --florals with butterflies and silver accents, Lipstick print (for a handbag), and last, Purse print (also for a handbag, I think).

Boars, Books and Best Friends

I had a little shindig this weekend, an excuse to eat Chinese food, crack open fortune cookies*, talk about and exchange books, and visit with some of my most favorite women friends. Those invited were asked to bring a book or books they would be willing to exchange, there was great deal of variety representing the diversity of my friends. We had books about pregnancy and childbirth, novels, theology, sci-fi, non-fiction, cooking, crafts and how to books, among others. Everyone went home with something new to read. I'm looking forward to reading "Me talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris and a couple other books I saved out. I took the remainders to the Book Thing after visiting Baltimore Clayworks with my out of towner, Tif, who needed to collect her friend's artwork that had been displayed there. It was inspiring browsing the galleries and the gift shop. There were several pieces in the teapot exhibit that made me want to get my hands back into some clay again. Thoughts are brewing for taking a class on Raku...


*Fortune cookies, I learned, are much funnier if you add the preposition "in bed" at the end. (Yeah, it's a wee bit juvenile, but still humorous.)
Here are some of my favorites from the evening:
Luck will visit you on the next new moon.
You are a gentleman of outstanding wisdom.
Speak softly and sweetly.
To be mature is to accept imperfections.
Your kindness and generosity will be appreciated by others.
Many possibilities are open to you- work a little harder.
Emotion is energy in motion.

Greek Tradition

My friend, Tree, is getting married this May and she has asked me to be bridesmaid. Saturday was the engagement party, which was my very first of that sort. You see, Tree comes from the Greek Orthodox Church and her parents are elated that she is finally tying the knot, so they've pulled out all the stops. I have very little experience with Greek culture and I know very few people in Tree's life. We became friends in college while we were preparing to become art teachers. So I didn't see much of that side of her life. But Saturday night, I got to see quite a bit. There was a brief ceremonial betrothing and exchanging of gold necklaces and blessings, annointing of oils, and then came the dancing. First the bride-to-be and future groom danced, not a slow, close romantic dance, but a handholding, side to side circle dance. The family of the bride and groom then joined them linking hands and then the extended families and eventually everyone was invited to join as the circle of linked people spiraled inward with the betrothed in the center. Every so often, Tree's father would throw handfuls of dollar bills in the air. Real dollars! I assume that this is symbolic of him giving a blessing of prosperity, but I'm not sure of the origin of this tradition. After several dances to traditional Greek music of people holding hands and linking arms and dancing round and round, the D.J. played some jazz, oldies and typical dance floor tunes. At one point, I glanced over and saw that Tree's father was wearing a bright red fedora and cape and was hoisted on the shoulders of some other men. Then even later, I noticed that many of the men had their shirts torn to shreds. I asked Tree about this and she simply replied, "It's Greek Tradition." (Oh, well, that explains a lot.) She added, "It's like the smashing of dishes". I can't wait for the wedding! Maybe I'll need to brush up with "Greek Weddings for Dummies" book.

Belly Flops and Belly Rolls

I was able to get out for a little fun recreation today. I took Light Rail down to Baltimore's Inner Harbor for Flug Tag today. For those of you unfamiliar (as I was), Flug Tag is an event where people create man-powered flying machines and test their abilities to fly....landing them in the harbor. Some were designed well for flying or at least, gliding down to the water gracefully and others were just fun to watch plummet, flop, or even get hung up on the side of the platform before going down.

Then this evening spent a few hours with some girlfriends learning how to belly dance. Just watch me figure 8, belly roll, chest pop, and shimmy. It was great fun. Our instructor first performed for us a dance where she balanced lit candles on a tray on her head. Later I learned she does the same dance with a sword! Now that would have been cool to see! But the candles were pretty impressive. Not sure when I'll have opportunity to put any of these new learned skills into practice, but it was entertaining and I think that I may have created a few new synapses in my brain because of it.