Happy Friday friends!
I come to you today holding a question that at some point every woman asks herself… what to do with clothes we love but never wear?
The photo above is of a dress currently suspended under that decision.
I loved it when I first bought it six years ago… but…
There was a niggling thought that the colour isn’t quite right for me. The pink, depending on what light it’s in sometimes suits me and sometimes makes me look ill 🤒
It’s the reason the embroidery on it is still unfinished.
I’m stuck with it between these two thoughts:
I love the embroidery and the dress itself and it’s almost finished and it’s already taken me so long to stitch, plus the linen is gorgeous! 😍
Every time I put it on I want to take it back off again. 🫤
I have four choices:
Finish the embroidery and gift it to someone who will love it and wear it. 🎁
Finish the embroidery and find a way to make it suit me (maybe wear with certain jewellery??🌸)
Turn it into a skirt and use the top embroidered part to sew into something else. ✂️
Unpick and start again with different colours. 🤯
I’m already leaning towards one of the above very strongly and I wonder if you know which one…
I’m not saying I’ve definitely made the decision yet. But something needs to be done with this dress. It has hung in my wardrobe like this, unfinished for years.
Surely it deserves a life outside my wardrobe. One way or another it deserves to step out and be enjoyed.
What’s held me back over the years was the place I put myself into. I got stuck between those two thoughts above and any work needed to complete it felt like it was too much.
Leave it as is…? But it will never be worn.
Finish the embroidery…? But I’m not sure I like it.
Cut it up and sew into something else…? But what a waste of a great dress!
Unpick and stitch in different colours…? But that’s so much work plus I’ve already stitched so much of it!
No way out.
The only thing to do is to choose one of the above and just start.
I took the photo below for my “About Me” page on my website. You can’t see the other unfinished sleeve and no one will notice that the scalloped line under the neck is a pen line waiting to be covered with stitches. Wearing it for that one photo was fine.
But it was only the second time I wore it. In six years!! (I wore it once before it was stitched on my 50th birthday)
So what to do?
Let’s get on with the rest of the newsletter. Talk about other stuff, look at a stitching tutorial, maker of the week, what’s happening in The Wednesday Tribe…
And then I’ll tell you what I’ve decided right at the end.
Maybe by the time I finish writing todays newsletter I may have changed my mind.
Close up
Let’s do another motif!
(Is it pronounced mow-teef or mowtyff by the way??)
This week I’ll show you how to draw this flower. You’ll need a coin to trace a circle and that’s it. The rest is easy, I’ll show you how. Then we’ll stitch all the below stitches together.
Also do you remember last week I only did two leaves, (the bottom two) and left one undone (the top one). Well I finished it, I did it in a leaf stitch and added an open fly stitch over the top. I also added the dark green back stitches over the bottom left leaf.
The flower is super easy to stitch. I hope you love it!
If this is your first time seeing this, we’re up to week 4 of an ongoing project. You can see the start in issue 79.
Maker Of The Week
- DIONNE TUALLY ARMSTRONG -
As you know I love seeing your finished projects. Often I will just scroll through the Facebook group where over 6000 of you are sharing your finished pieces. Today I was scrolling through and this one certainly made me stop and smile. This is the “Lola” pattern as stitched by Dionne and I really love the little blue daisy flowers that she added onto the wing. They’re not on the original design but I think they make it look better. Wish I thought of that! Dionne also wrote this in the group when she shared the photo:
“I’m so excited!!! I’ve just finished my very first hand embroidery EVER!! Thank you Kasia! I have thoroughly enjoyed this.”
Dionne if this was your first ever embroidery, I take my hat off to you and I applaud you! Amazing work!!
From The Tribe
The October design arrived with some colourful fish swimming amongst the plants. Every month, other than sharing…
the pattern
magazine
stitching instructions
lessons
video tutorials
colour variations
pattern variations
(ok, ok I’m just showing off now… 😎😝)
I also sew a finished project out of my own sample. This month I made a pouch for my crochet hooks.
I luuurve it sooo much!! eeeek! Storing my crochet hooks here suddenly makes me feel like I’m a world class crocheter… (I’m a beginner).
I will also admit that having that in my bag when I take my crochet out somewhere does make me strut a little. Just a little.
Although my sewing skills leave a lot to be desired, i still think I did a fabulous job of this. Hey it works, it’s pretty and I made it myself That’s a trifecta of crafting success in my world. 😂
If you’re curious about The Wednesday Tribe you can read all about it here…
Till Next Week!
And that’s a wrap! See you next week. Byeeee!!
Big hugs xxx
Kasia 💕
P.S. 😂 just kidding!!! I know I said that I would tell you what I’ve decided with the dress…
you ready?
…sigh…
I’m going to unpick it and stitch it again in different colours. I know it’s a lot of work, but I arrived at this decision only by NOT wanting to any of the other options. Let me know what you think…
Have a beautiful weekend!
xxx