{"id":1443,"date":"2011-05-17T14:42:52","date_gmt":"2011-05-17T18:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/?p=1443"},"modified":"2011-05-20T20:18:40","modified_gmt":"2011-05-21T00:18:40","slug":"excuses-sewers-tell-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/?p=1443","title":{"rendered":"Excuses Sewers Tell Themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes, I&#8217;m not entirely honest with myself. \u00a0I say things like:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I just have button holes to finish on this project. \u00a0It&#8217;s OK to start something new.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not in the mood for fiddly right now. \u00a0I want to make something quick and easy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m using stash fabrics. \u00a0That&#8217;s got to count for something&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, those are the excuses that landed me at the point where I&#8217;m at right now with this smocked dress. \u00a0It&#8217;s been lingering in my sewing room since last summer and while I&#8217;ve worked on it in fits and starts, I keep finding something else to work on and the guilt has finely gotten to me. \u00a0I hauled this pretty pink, front-buttoning bishop out of the UFO pile this weekend, determined to finish it up in a timely fashion.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"cherie\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/cherie-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I have one goal in mind here.<\/p>\n<p>MUST. \u00a0FINISH. \u00a0DRESS.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p>It&#8217;s the same gorgeous swiss dot that I made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/?p=1392\">this top<\/a> out of: \u00a0in fact, the top was made of the remnants from cutting this bishop.<\/p>\n<p>The pattern and the plate are from<a href=\"http:\/\/www.countrybumpkin.com.au\/product_info.php?cPath=2_78&amp;products_id=406000&amp;osCsid=9edt555hic1rf7osm8gjobgq83\"> AS&amp;E #44<\/a> (1998) and it&#8217;s called &#8220;Cherie&#8221;. \u00a0When I saw this fabric last summer, I knew it was perfect for this dress. \u00a0Only problem is, I just can&#8217;t seem to get any traction with it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-345   aligncenter\" title=\"cherie\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/ASE44.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I finished up the smocking no problem and back in the fall, I tackled the glorious lace hem treatment. \u00a0Isn&#8217;t it lovely?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"cherie\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/cherie-6.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But that&#8217;s as far as I got before I folded it up, tucked it in a ziploc with all the floss and got on with other things.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-345 aligncenter\" title=\"cherie\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/cherie-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p>So why didn&#8217;t I finish this dress the first time?<\/p>\n<p>Well, which excuse would you like first?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was the wrong season.&#8221; \u00a0This dress is summer personified and by the time September rolled around, I was in the mood for corduroys and wools, not light as air cottons.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s too large for my niece right now. \u00a0I&#8217;ve got lots of time to finish it up.&#8221; \u00a0AS&amp;E always run big and while this is a 24 mth, it&#8217;s very long and very full, which means that it will fit Ellie this summer but she would have swum in it last summer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"cherie\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/cherie-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve run out of the dark pink floss and keep forgetting to take the DMC# with me.&#8221; \u00a0Yes, my excuses are that pathetic. \u00a0Because God knows, I&#8217;m never, ever in the notions shop. \u00a0 Nor do I ever purchase floss by guessing at the colour. \u00a0Nope. \u00a0Never. \u00a0Ever, ever. *eye roll*<\/p>\n<p>Finally, I blame the bullions. \u00a0Because there are a lot of them: more than 65 of the little suckers. \u00a0Needless to say, that&#8217;s a lot of wrapping and tugging and smoothing. \u00a0And for some reason, while I love the look of bullions, sometimes they seem like more work than they&#8217;re worth, what with the tangling and the bulging and the tongue at a 24 degree angle accompanied by the the &#8220;<em>would-you-just-slide-through-you-bloody-goddamn&#8230;&#8221; <\/em>mutter that accompanies my bullion making when the muse is not with me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"cherie\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/cherie-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But enough. \u00a0No more excuses. \u00a0Here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve done since I took it back out on the weekend:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"cherie\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/cherie-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve got most of the pale pink rose buds done in the top row and started on the leaves.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve completed the centres of the white roses and started on a few of the outer bullions.<\/p>\n<p>I still have to complete the bottom most row of the trellis (hence the remaining gathering threads) and cut out and mark the centre button band (one side is embroidered). \u00a0I&#8217;ve ordered the narrow lace edging to complete the front band and the pink buttons are already in my stash. \u00a0I will try and post regular updates. \u00a0It&#8217;ll keep me honest if I know I&#8217;m supposed to post them here for the world to see \ud83d\ude42 I want to get this dress done by the time my SIL comes down for a visit in June. \u00a02 weeks. \u00a0I can do that.<\/p>\n<p>Right? \u00a0Err&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>But since the excuses are limitless and my time isn&#8217;t, I&#8217;m trying *really* hard to keep those pesky UFOs to a minimum but they seem to creep up on me. \u00a0Do you have lingering projects? \u00a0What&#8217;s your best (worst?) excuse for leaving a project behind? \u00a0A lack of time? \u00a0A problem you just don&#8217;t know how to resolve? \u00a0Boredom? \u00a0Short attention span?<\/p>\n<p>Come on! \u00a0They say confession is good for the soul&#8230;:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes, I&#8217;m not entirely honest with myself. \u00a0I say things like: &#8220;I just have button holes to finish on this project. \u00a0It&#8217;s OK to start something new.&#8221; &#8220;I&#8217;m not in the mood for fiddly right now. \u00a0I want to make something quick and easy.&#8221; &#8220;I&#8217;m using stash fabrics. \u00a0That&#8217;s got to count for something&#8230;&#8221; Unfortunately, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,18],"tags":[49,72,75,69,76],"class_list":["post-1443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-smocking","category-wip","tag-ase","tag-bishop-dress","tag-bullion-roses","tag-swiss-dot","tag-ufo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1443"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1478,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions\/1478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairemeldrum.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}