Last week Nan suggested that she could use a new apron. She prefers the half-apron style rather than the full, oil cloth, make-a-total-mess-and-wipe-off, version my mom and I both use. My aprons are from Harrods and I love them, but there's something about a sweet little half apron that just gives me the urge to sew.
Yesterday after work I headed over to our local pharmacy/appliance/porn/party/fabric shop to buy some cute foodie fabric. I didn't see any sketchy dudes walking out with paper bags this time, but I did get some discrete photos with my phone just to prove to bridesmaid C that I wasn't nuts and that the best fabric store in this crazy city also has a porn shop in the back. It's only a matter of time before my license plates are ripped off in the parking lot.
After browsing for a while and chatting with the shop ladies about mu-mu patterns (they're so not in style I don't even know how to spell mu-mu) I walked out with three fabrics, each with a fruit print: lemon, bananas and cherries. I was also assured by the shop ladies that my 87 year old grandmother has earned the right to wear my great-grandmother's thread bare mu-mu if she wants to. Whatever, she didn't like her mother-in-law and the thing is nasty. But I digress, this trip was about the apron, we'll address the mu-mu on another day.
Last night in bed I sketched out my apron pattern and calculated my cuts. This morning I woke up, had a frustrating experience at JoAnn and then got to work on these cuties:
Reversible half aprons with big bow ties. One for me and one for Nan.
I also spent the entire day with one eye on the front yard where the baby birds from the palm at the edge of our yard were jumping from the nest and learning to fly. Having made the mistake of putting a baby bird back in its nest years ago, I now know that when baby birds leave the nest their first step before flying is to find cover in shrubbery for several hours to a few days. Fortunately, it was very hot so the neighborhood cats were fairly lethargic and I only had to hiss away two. I'm a little nervous that as it cools off tonight the cats will be out on the prowl. Huge fan of the birds, not so much of the cats.
Any suggestions for something fun for the back? The rest of the time I worked on baby gifts for bridesmaid W. Here's a picture of the applique onesies and matching burp cloths I made for her:
And I spent a few hours at the beach Friday and Sunday afternoons, knitting.
I wonder if this could be a wedding expense. Fresh eggs for Sunday brunch?
She is enjoying retirement on the farm while I sweat it out in Florida. She would not like it here at all. Plus, in Maine she has my entire bed to herself and she has the pool for afternoon swims. She lives at the resort.
So the frostings can last in Florida sun for over thirty minutes, but less than an hour. Somewhat irrelevant, but good to know. It is worth noting, however, that the melted chocolate chips in the mint chocolate chip are to die for right now, and the melted chocolate frosting tastes like the most amazing hot fudge sauce ever.
I punched out 50 vase stickers and tested out my new circle cutting tool, which we'll use for the menu cards:
and then I started to cut the menu cards. But after eight hours sitting around in the air conditioning, I got anxious/guilty/frustrated about being inside. So at three in the afternoon I slathered on some SPF, grabbed my towel, and headed to the beach!
too bad they don't come in blue & pink!
Given S's name, naturally our house is the bee hive. I've even designed the logo for our first baby bee. Hey, it's my birthday, I'm not getting any younger, and every kid needs a logo. My birthday key chain will be perfect to hold the keys to the next hive, that is if I can bear to actually use it and get it dirty!
S and I were taking photos with very pregnant bridesmaid W when my mom called so I wasn't able to see the photo she took very well. If I had been home I would have asked her to take a photo of the entire wall of fabric just in case there was something that I liked and she overlooked. Oh well, maybe there will be another shipment when I'm home in August!
This morning I ordered 186 paper lanterns from asianideas.com after the woman who I was going to share lanterns with found out that her fiance is surprising her with a honeymoon that requires that they leave directly from their reception. She couldn't vouch for the disassembly team and I didn't want to risk not having lanterns on time. I'm planning to sell them all after our wedding.
The lanterns will hang in the tent and in the apple orchard. To add some color we'll hang four feet of pink ribbon from each lantern, doubled up so each will have two two foot tails hanging down. I bought pink hanging ribbon from PaperMart.com, where I also bought the ribbon for my dress and for the bouquets.
And I bought a roll of three inch wide ribbon to tie around the table cloths of the high-top cocktail hour tables.
Also from Paper Mart, I bought 500 white paper lunch-bag sized bags (500 was the smallest quantity and less expensive than 100 elsewhere). To go in the paper bags and on the reception tables I bought two gross white votive candles,
and two gross frosted glass votive holders on ebay.
I really hope that I'm able to resell most of this stuff after the wedding so we can recoup some of the costs and minimize the amount of crap we have laying around for the next 50 years.
Off to Billy:
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