So…work has been keeping me pretty busy lately, but I finally got around to taking pictures of the projects I’ve been working on at home.
You are currently browsing articles tagged sewing.
Lest you think that I have been doing no crafting, I’ve finally got some photos to share. I had to keep these to myself for a while because it was for a baby shower gift. Well, now the shower is over, the recipient is pleased (so I hear), and I can show off a little here!
Now that Christmas presents have been distributed, I can share them here! My goal was to make everyone’s present this year, and even though I didn’t make that goal (It’s really hard to find appropriate handmade gift ideas for men…), I think I did pretty well.
I believe that my last blog post was shortly after I returned from my trip to Charleston. It was not long after that I started experiencing major pain in my right wrist. As a quilter/knitter/computer user, I get pains in my wrists from time to time, along with some tingling sensations in my fingers and forearms. But this was different. This was major, waking-me-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night, unable-to-use-my-hand-at-all-for-the-first-half-of-the-day sort of pain. A trip to the doctor confirmed that it’s carpal tunnel syndrome.
I’m a little behind in posting this, but I took all the photos for it last weekend, so it’s better late than never! I told Shawn that I wanted to spend all of last weekend sewing. I often think this, but then things come up and I get a minimal amount of actual sewing done. But last weekend, I stuck to it and actually got some projects done. Or got a solid start, at least. A few weeks ago I got a good deal on shirting from fabric.com, so it was time to make some shirts for work.
Nassau is a weird post in the Foreign Service world as far as housing goes. Housing at most posts comes complete with the standard issue Foreign Service furniture. It’s kind of weird to see pictures from people’s homes around the world and think, “Hey – I have that exact same living room set.” However, in Nassau, all housing is landlord-furnished. As you could guess, this can either be really good, or really bad.
It’s Friday (good), but I’m up early (bad). Shawn had to go to work early this morning, which means that the dog got up early, which means that I needed to get up early. His early departure also meant that Shawn did not make the coffee this morning (really bad), so forgive me if I’m not exactly coherent. I also woke up this morning feeling like I got too much sun yesterday – like my skin is stretched too tightly over my body (also bad). I firmly believe that you should never really feel your skin. And as much as I like having a “healthy glow,” that’s countered by the fact that I’m terrified of looking like a piece of worn-out leather when I’m older. That and skin cancer.
As some of you may know, I spent a lot of time while we were in Kyiv working on starting my own business. Witty Designs is a line of handbags and accessories – both designed and constructed by myself. It has kept me busy over the past two years, but the biggest stumbling block in Kyiv was that I could not ship products anywhere. However, I was able to hold a few trunk shows during our last year in Kyiv. I am so grateful to members of the Embassy and expat community there who encouraged me with their ideas and, most importantly, bought my bags.
This past weekend was our last official holiday in Ukraine. Happy International Women’s Day to all the ladies! I really think we should take this holiday more seriously in the States – who doesn’t love receiving some bright flowers in the midst of winter? I decided to celebrate by doing some shopping. I realized that although the exchange rate here has been moving drastically in my favor, they haven’t started jacking up the prices of fabric yet. So fabrics that used to be $13 a meter are now closer to $8 a meter. Much more in my price range. So I picked up a few meters on Saturday:
Today I had what is perhaps my most successful shopping trip in Kyiv to date. It probably helped that I had really low expectations going in. In fact my mom was on standby to purchase the needed items in the States and ship them to me if today had been a total bust. But I was triumphant in finding fabric and notions for my dress for the Marine Ball.