All posts filed under: Felicity

1760 Frou Frou Francaise thedreamstress.com

Five years later – Frou Frou Francaise progress (finally!)

It’s had a five year hiatus, but the mostly-Queen-Charlotte-inspired  Frou Frou Francaise is back on my sewing schedule. It hit the shoals of inactivity back in 2013 for two reasons.  First, the fabric was really hard to sew, and was aggravating the chillblains and other arm problems I have in winter.  Second I realised that I had two meters less fabric than I had thought, and wouldn’t be able to finish it without significant piecing – and even then without all the trimming I’d hoped to have.  The two combined were just too demoralising, and I packed it away in the naughty bin. I’m really trying to clear out my PHD (project half done) pile, so, inspired by all the people who were planning to make Robe a la Francaise based on the American Duchess 18th century costuming book, I pulled the Francaise back out after Costume College last year, and re-assessed it to see what I could do to finish it. When I set the dress aside 5 years ago, the petticoat was completely …

Felicity the sewing cat thedreamstress.com1

Five for Friday: What I’ve been up to, June Edition

What I’m working on: Trying to accomplish things faster than the disaster roller coaster that has become my life can run them down. I’m not sure what’s going on, but sometime between June & November last year Murphy’s Law decided to take a really personal interest in my life, and annoying, time consuming, money demanding things have happened one after the other.  You’ve heard about the epic computer crash of January 2017, and then there was the stove that decided to stop working and needed replacing (buying appliances is pretty much my least favourite activity in the world, and takes forever), followed by ‘Oops, it turns out your electrical system won’t support a modern stove, you need to re-wire a big portion of your house’. This was followed by ‘Felicity needs dental surgery’, which is scheduled for next week and a bit, so I’m a little freaked out by that… And that’s the stuff I can tell you about (there have to be some boundaries). There are perks to some of the disasters.  For example, …

Kittens Inn kittens thedreamstress.com

Kittens + Tea = Happiness

I’m part of the Wellington Sewing Bloggers, a group of awesome Wellington-based (for the most part) women who sew, blog, and get together to eat cake, drink tea and talk about sewing and blogging. For our latest get together, we outdid ourselves, with sewing, blogging, cake, tea, and KITTENS! The Kitten Inn, a cat rescue charity, offers afternoon  teas where you can play with their not-yet-adoptable kittens before and after your afternoon  tea to help socialise them.  ZOMG! Your tea money supports a good cause, the kittens get used to lots of people, you get to play with kittens, and if you’re really, really lucky, you manage to get away without the firm and absolute conviction that you must come back as soon as the lot of kittens you played with is old enough to be adopted out, in order to snag one for yourself!  😉 Those of us who were kitten inclined had a wonderful afternoon of kitten playtime, kitten cuddles, tea, cake, more kittens, photos of kittens, wishing we could adopt all the …