New Dress Ideas...

So I have spent the last two weeks coming up with ideas for the hippie dresses that I want to make and sell. :) It is really fun to come up with quilt blocks. Now I just have to learn how to make them, although I don't think this is going to be difficult. *Fingers Crossed* I have several books on quilting now and I am a pretty quick study. So hopefully I will have some finished dresses by March to sell. :) Here is the link to my dress ideas: http://www.igps.org/fraggle/dressideas/. Let me know what you think of them.

I am going to make the dancing bear dress first, since it is a panel dress and is going to be pretty easy. The spin on it will be enormous (96 inches). I cant wait to wear it to a Jake's Leg show. :P

Well that was all for now. I will post pics as I make them. And they hopefully will be up for sale starting in March. In the meantime you should check out our other stuff for sale at Curious Cat Clothing.

Books

I ordered three books on applique, quilting, and sewing hippy clothes the other day.

• Threads For Heads; By Laren Clay
• The Complete Book of Machine Quilting; By The Fannings
• Mastering Machine Applique; By Harriet Hargrave

All of them have shipped. YAY! I am very excited. My new obsession is hippy girl, patchy dresses. This one is my favorite from Snake Mountain Threads:

I think I love the colors and the artistry of the applique on the dress. The clouds around the sun are a nice touch. This is the kind of art I want to make. One step at a time though. First I have to learn how to sew appliques. Thus the book. I am really excited about the Threads For Heads book also. It is about how to make those cute apron tops (the ones that are open in the back) and spinner dresses and patchy pants. Karen and I will be adding a hippie dress section to the website once I have mastered this art. :) I have no doubt in my mind that I can do this.

I will finish the camouflage corset that I started next week. It is turning out great. I have to put the bones in, bind and grommet it and then it is done. I will have a pic of it probably next week once it is finished. Then it is on to the skirt. I will be making that on the surger, so that will be a new skill that I can add to my growing repitoir of sewing skills. This will be the second outfit that I have ever made. (The first one was a disaster, years ago LOL.) Then once that is finished I will be starting to work on the applique thing and then the hippie dresses. Simple at first I think, then more artsy.

I cant wait to start picking out fabric for them. I want the first one to have a black courderoy bodice, with black and grey calico stripes. Then I want to add Dead Head Bears in a rainbow around the bottom, and a stealie on the bodice. I found the patches that I am going to use for the dress online at the Hippie Shop. I will definately post pics of it when it is done. Should be sometime in February. It is going to be an apron style dress that ties up the back. :) Like the dress above. Good spinning.

On a totally unrelated note... I have been reading about Bush's Social Security Reform. They want to slash benefits by 45%. For those of us that live on disability as our soul form of income, this would be devastating. It would mean that instead of making $800 dollars a month, benefits would be slashed to $440 dollars per month. I don't know about you, but I can't live on $440 pir month. This would also mean that seniors would get thier benefits slashed also. To find out what you can do to help stop this pleas read MoveOn.orgs petition.

Anyway... The sewing adventure continues. See you all later. :)

Changes

Well I finally got to bed around 8 am yesterday morning. Damn this cold. And of course it is now 3 am and I am not even tired, I am all keyed up from going to the club for Goth night tonight. (I wore a Janice tye-dye LOL.)

As you can see I have made some changes to the layout of the blog. I personalized it a bit. :) I love the Dead so it seemed fitting. I made the graphics last night and put them up today. Thanks to the Dead for the bear and steelie ideas.

Well that was all I had for today. :)

Nighty night all. *hugs*

More Lyrics

I thought I would post the lyrics to my second favorite Dead song. I love the poetry to this piece, and really find myself relating to it.

"Eyes of the World"
Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia

Right outside this lazy summer home
you don't have time to call your soul a critic, no
Right outside the lazy gate of winter's summer home
wondering where the nuthatch winters
Wings a mile long just carried the bird away

Wake up to find out
that you are the eyes of the World
but the heart has its beaches
its homeland and thoughts of its own
Wake now, discover that you
are the song that the morning brings
but the heart has its seasons
its evenings and songs of its own

There comes a redeemer
and he slowly too fades away
There follows a wagon behind him
that's loaded with clay
and the seeds that were silent
all burst into bloom and decay
The night comes so quiet
and it's close on the heels of the day

Wake up to find out
that you are the eyes of the world
but the heart has its beaches
its homeland and thoughts of its own
Wake now, discover that you
are the song that the morning brings
but the heart has its seasons
its evenings and songs of its own

Sometimes we live no
particular way but our own
Sometimes we visit your country
and live in your home
Sometimes we ride on your horses
Sometimes we walk alone
Sometimes the songs that we hear
are just songs of our own

Wake up to find out
that you are the eyes of the world
but the heart has its beaches
its homeland and thoughts of its own
Wake now, discover that you
are the song that the morning brings
but the heart has its seasons
its evenings and songs of its own

UGGG!

Well here it is, 6:22 AM. I am still awake, with a cold. I have been lying awake in bed for 4 hours now and just can't get to sleep. So I am going to write to you.

I am feeling much better since the whole breakdown on New Year's. I am back to my usual semi-perky state (although I do have a cold). I think that the holidays just put a lot of stress on me beacause it is a family time, and I don't exactly feel like I have one of those. My dad and stepmom are pretty cool, but they are doing their own thing. So I am left on my own. Not that this is a bad thing, but when the holidays come around I get lonley for mom. *shrug* I guess that is normal.

Lately I have been looking into making patchwork clothing like the hippie girls and boys wear. I found some amazing websites out there. My favorite so far is MarshaMellow's website. Her dresses and appliques are so pretty. I want to make clothes like that. So I ordered a book on how to make the apron dresses and tops and patchy skirts and pants. I am really excited about it, and I wish that it would get here soon. Course it's only been 4 days since I ordered it.

Karen said I could be the hippie side of Curious Cat Clothing when I get good at making stuff. :) I am very excited about this and have lots of ideas floating around in my head. I have been coming up with patterns in photoshop to applique. I have some neat ones so far. :) I will post pics at a later date when I get my projects page up and running.

I started sewing my camouflage corset this past week. I got pretty far on it, and will probably finish it this week. All I have left to do on it is to put the bone casings and bones in, bind it, and grommet it, and it is all done. Then I will start on the skirt for it. I will definately post a picture of the finished outfit.

All in all I am pleased with the way my first real sewing project is coming along. I am pretty good at this sewing thing. I can't wait to start more projects. Like hippie clothes. LOL.

Well that is all for tonight. I am going to go try to lay down again. TTFN! *hugs to all*

New Year and New Obsessions

Well Montauk was kind of fun. I had a breakdown on New Year's Eve which wasn't so much fun, but overall I had a good time. I will post pictures when I get them all from Karen. I think the break down was from stress, and expectations not being met, and loneliness. It was all couples except for me and Ran, and that kind of got to me. So I had a good cry and then pulled out of it in time for midnight. Ok... About 12:30 is when I pulled myself together. I was really tired from lack of sleep all weekend, which was part of the problem. If we go next year I am requesting a bedroom even if it requires me to pay extra. None of this single person on the couch thing again. Bah!

So I have made some resolutions for the new year. I have decided to join the YMCA down the street from me this year. My goal is to lose 10 pounds a month for as many months as it takes to get thin. :) I am tired of feeling unattractive and I was to wear those cute backless hippie girl shirts come summer. :P The other big one that I made was to eat better. No more of this pizza every night and hot pockets every other night. I am sick of them anyway. Those are my two goals. Smoking will be next years resolution I guess since once I join the gym I wont be able to afford the patch to quit. Although I am looking into shuffling my medical insurance around. I am paying for 2 insurances (Medicare and Medicaid). I really only need one so when I figure out which one I am dropping I will be able to save 100 more bucks a month. If that is the case I will be quitting smoking this spring. I think.

Well with the New Year I also found a new obsession. It is called Maple Story. It is a MUD (Multi User Dimension). It is a graphical MUD though so you can see what you are doing as opposed to the traditional MUDs that were text based. It is really cute. Here is a screen shot of my character Arriana...

Cute isn't it. :) When I get my complete outfit I will post another picture. Although that will be a while cause the outfit I want I can't use until level 28 and I am only level 14. I am a Mage on the path to becoming a Fire Magician. I love the game so far. It is semi social, I made my first friend on there today. So now I have someone to adventure with when he is on. :) YAY! So anyway that is what I have been doing since Sunday afternoon. Playing Maple Story. If you are into MUDs at all you should really check this out. It is a page scroller like old-school arcade games. And all the monsters are adorable so far. Mushrooms, snails, tree trunks. Those are the ones I have net so far, there are hundreds of them though. It is a great game, and it is free. :) Free to download and free to play. Right up my alley.

Well off to bed. I am a sleepy Mage... Bye!