AKA – what the hell happened to this summer?!?!
August was super busy, as you may have guessed from the total lack of any blog post. So I’m going to see if I can summarize everything in a singular post – here we go!
Work Conference in NYC
A work conference took me up to New York at the beginning of August, so I ran through some of my sewing shops and bought a minimal amount of notions and a maximum amount of reflective piping. I had a good time at the conference, and as always, it was great to see colleagues from around the country.
“Make It Fit” Workshop at Stitch Sew Shop
The weekend after I got back from the conference, I took a 2.5 day workshop at Stitch Sew Shop, in Old Town Alexandria. The “Make It Fit” title meant that the eight of us in the class had plenty of one-on-one time with guest instructor Taylor of Blueprints for Sewing. I made two muslins of the jacket I eventually will make out of my lovely reflective tweed from Dashing Tweeds, and now feel confident in the fit. I need to clear my sewing “schedule” a bit first so I have time to focus on this Big Project. The workshop was a ton of fun, and I hope to take more workshops in the future.
Actual Sewing!
I managed to make a dress and a pair of pants in August. The dress was a quickie Terrace Dress by Liesel and Co., out of this delicious Windham Field Day Bloom Sycamore cotton print that I obsessed over the entire workshop weekend at Stitch Sew Shop. One of the women working there had made a lovely shirt out of the lawn, which they were out of, so I made due with the quilting cotton. I really love the way this dress turned out and see wearing it alot, even through the colder months. 
I also made another pair of wide-legged trousers out of this Art Deco-ish Charley Harper “Skimmerscape” barkcloth. An Instagram sewist suggested I make pants out of this fabric and she was right, they are fab-u-lous! I can also see getting a lot of use out of these in the coming months, because I can fit thermal underwear under these and won’t feel like a stuffed sausage. ; ) 
Biking in Dresses!
I’ve done a teeny bit of biking lately but it’s been dreadfully hot, and I just couldn’t bring myself to voluntarily add to the sweat. I noticed that the biking I have done has been in dresses – there’s something wonderful about biking in a dress. It feels so much more freeing and fun than anything else.
Reflective Meet Up!
A definite highlight this month was getting to meet a social media friend *in person*! But Iris isn’t *just* a social media friend – she’s the designer and owner of Reflective Society, creating lovely, imaginative, and simply wonderful reflective accessories. We spent hours talking about All Things Reflective, life, the crafting world, and why we love reflective things so much. She knows about so many more reflective products than I do, and gets to spend way more of her waking hours thinking about reflectiveness, and I love her work. She even made me a lovely set of lace-covered reflective buttons! I can’t wait to pick a pattern to use them. 
Textile Museum
Almost the last thing I did in August was become a member of the George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum. Then I was able to take the Members’ Tour of the new textile exhibit, “Woven Interiors: Furnishing Early Medieval Egypt.” The textiles predominately date from the 4-7th centuries, and the details and fine work is just stunning. It’s amazing that they have lasted as long as they have, and we have a very intimate look into every day life of that time period. Even a small wooden toy horse was shown along side some of the home furnishings.
Looking Ahead
The advent of September suddenly makes me feel like I need to start planning for the holidays! But first, I am taking a workshop on shibori fabric dyeing, have some big sewing projects to complete, we are doing a road trip through West Virginia in October, and I have some biking to do. Ideally I’ll blog more often, but I know how life is, and have to confess that probably won’t happen. You can always follow my adventures in between blog posts on my Instagram account.
What do you have planned for the fall? How do you manage the lead up to the holidays? Who else is planning to sew gifts for family and friends?
tinlizzieridesagain 