Links of Interest

We've entered the swing of the holiday season here in the US, and this is already turning out to be a very family-focused time for me this year. I've also had to fit in some sewing projects. The image above is a good ol' fashioned action shot of me sewing an overcast seam on a pilgrim bag I just finished. So since I didn't have enough time to put together a more typical blog post today, I wanted to share a few links to some things that may be of interest.

Katafalk, who focuses on several types of historical tailoring and crafts, has recently become more active on her blog again. (Hooray!) She posted a few weeks back about set-in sleeves, and I couldn't love this article enough. She goes into some of the common issues and troubleshoots them so that you can adjust your basic pattern (such as the one you might get from my sleeve patterning tutorial) to something more specific to your body and your garment. If sleeves are giving you trouble, I highly suggest this one.

Friend and fellow Midrealmer, Sarai at Clothing the Past has published a basic guide to patterning a fitted dress (cote, kirtle, cotehardie). She's developed this method to work with larger groups of women at local workshops, so it can be considered a bare bones beginner method that will get you started. If you want to make a fitted dress just to see if it's a period style you would enjoy, but other methods feel too intimidating or intense, I recommend looking over her method and giving it a shot.

Did you know I have an Instagram account? I share glimpses into what I'm doing over there that I don't post elsewhere (like that finished pilgrim bag I mentioned above.) It's a great, low-key alternative to following me on Facebook too. I'd be delighted if you followed me!

This gorgeous silk hood by Lady Malina has already been sold, but it's such a pretty hood (and inspiring to boot!), I couldn't resist sharing.

I'll be MIA for the next few weekends, but during that time, I'll have worn the last of my Doppelgänger Challenge outfits. When I return in mid-December, I'll have a full recap on that experience and what I learned from it. I'm looking forward to that.

Just Checking In

I've been working hard on getting my husband's embroidered tunic done by July 4th. You can keep up with my progress on that over on Facebook.

Just a heads up: with the change in our family schedule with the end of school and the start of summer, and really nothing but that embroidery going on right now, things might stay a bit quiet here on the blog through the rest of the month. Thanks for sticking with me!

Disaster Area

Keepin' it real.

After a full on "making blitz" over the past three months, my craft room is a mess. Scraps of dresses are strewn about the floor, and a bazillion embroidery bits and pieces are scattered across my desk. Add into that several mundane projects, a dash of crafting ADD, and voila- disaster area. So instead of doing a blog post for you today, I'm going to hole myself up with coffee and a trashcan, and see if I can straighten this mess out.

After all, that is what Spring is for, right?

Just a Quick Check In

I just wanted to stop in real quick and let you know that I'm working on a pretty massive tutorial that I'll be posting next Sunday. I'll be showing you one process to turn an embroidered panel into a finished pouch. Here's a teaser:

 Exciting stuff.

Craft Room Re-do: After (Hooray!)

It's amazing what you can do with a bit of paint and a lot of advanced planning. If you haven't already seen the before pictures, brace yourself, then click here.

I think the most obvious place to start is the wall color, since it was that glaring green that really made the room horrid to start. First, after removing all the decals, we sanded down any areas where the paint had ripped off or gotten damaged. We then used two coats of Kilz brand primer (rated for a variety of surfaces, since we had a wall patch to cover), then two coats of Glidden satin paint in the color "Frozen Ice Crystal". It is nearly impossible to capture the color in photos, but I tried my best to make sure the colors were pretty true in the photos.

Basically, it's white with a very subtle hint of blue. We went with that because we wanted something pale and light, but couldn't really get behind just plain white.

The next huge change was accomplished with the installation of a new wall shelving solution. I'll say it right now, my planning & math skills rock! Each of the elements on this wall are IKEA, but they were actually culled together over a very long period of time. The white BILLY bookcase in the center was originally purchased for the new nursery just before the twins were born four years ago. The shelf ended up in here about 2 years ago, but (if you recall from the befores) it was just an item in the room and not very effectively utilized.

The shelving system we used is the ALGOT wall shelves. In order to span the width effectively, I mixed the three shelf widths. This gave us a near perfect fit. All of the ALGOT components totaled less than $50, which is pretty hard to beat. We did have an incident while getting the uprights spaced correctly where most of what was up came crashing down. We lost a shelf (resulting in the empty space where the rose tin is), but nobody got hurt. That was operator error, though, and no fault of the shelves themselves.

Situated within the shelves is a wall cabinet I picked up from IKEA's fabulous As-Is. I'm fairly certain it's from one of the office storage lines.  Below that, a drawer shelf with brackets acts as a secondary surface. Under that, an old bookcase of my mom's works as a side table for the chair bed. The chair bed never really had a home in this house until now. It's a great place to sit and will function well for us as a guest bed. We've got an old Navy poster that's been kicking around since my mom was actually in the Navy before I was born that will go up on the wall here properly at some point.

Most of the colored storage boxes are also IKEA (the KASSETT line), and they hold all kinds of things, mostly fabric. A 10-pack of cheapo banker's boxes from Walmart acts as the primary long-term storage along the top. It's also almost all fabric.

The hanging rail was a really good addition. I'm glad we thought of it! Here we can store dresses in-progress rather than having to toss them over a chair or put them in a pile somewhere. Out of all the workflow decisions we made, this will probably end up having the largest long-term impact. We also have an ironing board on the back of the door and a smaller, table top board that hangs on the rail.

We decided that we needed something red on this side of the room. We picked up a cork board and I used acrylic paint to make the frame red. It's a pretty close match to the red of the Target lamp on my desk. The top of the shelf works well as a standing counter for smaller projects.

The narrow space below the wall cabinet and the drawer shelf was a nice spot to put some photos and display some tiny books.

One of the key goals I had was to separate my office from my crafting areas. For so many years, when I wanted to sew, I had to push my computer aside. When I wanted to work, my sewing machine needed to go away. And my work piles mingled with my sewing piles pretty liberally. Pens and pins cavorting together. Not a pretty scene. I'm so glad to have an "office" now!

My desk (also IKEA) was a birthday present back in 2008, and I've had those white ALEX drawers for about as long. The new sewing table top came from IKEA's As-Is (it has a dent in the top of it it). I picked up the legs several months later.

I even got organized on the inside with a new drawer organizer in my desk.

I also competely cleaned out the white drawers and made room in there for lots of flat projects including a drawer dedicated to my meager collection of scrap booking supplies and a pile of photos. Most of the other drawers look just as neat now.

The cabinet in the corner was an awesome score.

It used to be in one of the kitchen vignettes in the design showroom where I work. They decided to remove that kitchen earlier this year, and I asked one of the designers how much it was, thinking there really was no way I could afford it (it's solid wood custom construction). She brought it up to the powers that be and I ended up getting it free of charge! At the time I didn't know how it would go into the craft room, just that it needed to. The center shelf inside was damaged when they removed it from the wall, so I need to get a replacement shelf still, but it's an awesome piece that I love having in the room.

I cut my papel picado banner down and picked out my 6 favorites. The frames were a lucky perfect size. With a few pieces of sizing tape and a level, I got them up in a nice, wall-filing grid that's so much more polished than just hanging across the wall the way they were.

In the other corner, mom is using two sizes of folding tables (from Walmart) to create a corner desk. She's still got her decorating to do, and some shelves to put up, but the added work surface has already proven useful as she's working on a quilt and a scrapbook at the same time, and neither project is getting in the way of the other. Now that's an organizational feat!

The tall BILLY bookcase at the end of her table was purchased at the same time as the short one for the nursery. It was still in their room, but has been swapped with a wall shelf so that mom could have a bookcase and a visually-defined boundary to her work area.

At the end of the old worktable from grandma is a rolling RÅSKOG cart- a long-time wish list item of mine- that's holding current project materials.

We're also now allowing the kids in here, and have provided some touches for them. The play mat was always getting in the way in other rooms (it wouldn't ever stay flat in the floor), so we brought that in here. A black box holds toys.

I wasn't entirely sure how I wanted to use the drawer shelf, but it turns out to be a pretty good location for my embroidery works in progress.

We used the same yellow linen curtains that we had in here before, but added tiebacks. These were actually created from an old embroidered guitar strap I had picked up years ago and never knew what to do with. Glad that beautiful handwork can finally be appreciated!

I tossed some ribbons and woven trim that don't have a project yet into a jar to go along with a few keepsakes. The rose tin has buttons in it. The white ceramic salt cellar is from France and was my grandma's. I actually remove the lid and scope and use it for water when I do illuminations.

 

When I was cleaning out some boxes in a different room, I found my collection of llamas. The little sign says, "The floggings will continue until morale improves." Came from mom ages ago from I'm not sure where. My grandpa collected "See, Hear and Speak No Evil" monkeys. The little metal ruler with the monkeys doing the exact opposite was AWLAYS my favorite. The photo is mom and me at Hocking Hills, Ohio- a favorite vacation spot.

 

My knitting bag and a basket with my Royal Knitwit hats sit on the shelf by the chair bed. The basket on the top shelf holds a baby sweater in progress. The bottom shelf holds books for the kids.

We hung a lamp from the ceiling to give the chair bed some task lighting. It's got all the colors we've highlighted in the room.

We still have stuff to bring in and put away. There's still lots of space throughout the room, and there's a possibility that some of our under-table space may disappear, but we've already sort of accounted for that in our planning. In fact, it would be sort of weird if we ended up not needing to do that.

We've already highly enjoyed coming in and starting some projects as we continue to refine the space. My husband also actually comes in the room now (and, honestly, we couldn't have gotten those cabinets up without his help, so I'm sure he feel a bit of ownership in here now). We were all in here just the other day hanging out and talking. That was surreal enough that I had to point it out mid-conversation.

So. Now that's taken care of. Time to get back to the project pile!

Craft Room Re-do: Before

It will probably be on the quiet side around here for a bit. For several months now, mom and I have been slowly getting the ducks in a row to completely re-do our shared craft room, and the time has finally arrived to start making it happen. Because of this, I won't be set-up even remotely to work on much of anything (except maybe a few more hats for the Royal Knitwits), and my computer will be tucked away in my bedroom and only really be turned on for work-related tasks.

I have no real idea how long this will all take, but I'm pretty excited about what a remodeled and totally re-organized craft room will mean for our productivity. And to give you an idea of why this really needed to happen, here are some before photos when it was at its worst last year:

 

I have to cringe. Really. There's a queen-sized mattress right there in the middle of the room. We had to put it there since there was nowhere else to store it at the time, and immediately it got piled up with all manner of things. Works in progress, fabric purchases, stuff we had gotten to help with organization (oh, the irony), and even things that my husband needed to get away from the kids. We try to make a concerted effort to keep things under control in all the other areas of the house (admittedly, we often fail), so this sort of became the one room we stopped caring about.

Eventually, we did get that mattress out, but it was already too late. Over time, we found ourselves working in there less (and therefore working on our projects less), and getting so frustrated by our lack of order that we often stopped even trying to start new things. As two people with a lot of creative energy, this was a major problem.

There's one window in the room that faces the west, so it gets really good sunlight in the afternoons. This is where the cutting table resides. My grandpa made it ages ago for my grandma, and it passed onto my mom, so it's a heirloom piece. It really wasn't getting the respect it deserves.

In the corner, there used to be a closet, which was pretty much a catch-all, but was also where my garb was theoretically supposed to go. (You can see my wedding dress there too.) Ultimately, in the grand scheme of our house, the closet would eventually become a part of the hall bath, and since we really needed an intact corner more than we needed a closet in this room, we went ahead and closed it off. Here's what that looks like at the moment:

I loved the papel picado banner mom had picked up for me 2 years ago on her trip to Texas, but the only thing I could think to do with it at first was to simply hang it up. Absolutely horrid over that green wall. I've since purchased white frames from IKEA and put my 6 favorites in them. It was the colors in those 6 that really helped to steer our choices for other items we'll put in the space, like that red lamp on my desk above.

You can see in the photo below a few of the other items that will be used in the new space. We got blue, teal and kraft tan boxes from IKEA to store a lot of our stuff. They will feature prominently in the new space. I have to laugh now, looking at these photos. It was horrid!

We've got most of the stuff moved out, and we're getting ready to start taking the decals off the walls and then we'll get rid of that awful green. Here's what it looks like right now:

It all has to go somewhere, though, so mom sacrificed her living room. She's being a real champ for the cause:

Ha. Not pretty. But I'm really excited about it. We've chosen a very pale blueish gray for the walls, and most of our other organizing pieces are white. We also have several pieces we've collected to prevent it feeling too much like an IKEA catalog. In the end, we hope it will be a nice, bright, fresh space that we can think and create in. Anything's got to be better than what it looked like, right?

Blog Referral

This month, my blog referral is:

Som När Det Begav Sig

The direct English translation of this Swedish blog title is "As In the Days", and it's a wonderful compilation of a great many topics of interest to medieval clothing enthusiasts. It is maintained by Sarah W (who also writes a more general blog, A Most Peculiar Mademoiselle), a wonderfully talented wife and mother who is thankfully willing to share her knowledge with the rest of us!

Topics on Som När Det Begav Sig include medieval sewing techniques, medieval children's clothing, tools and resources, and even a wonderful post devoted to taking great photos of your medieval life that keep the viewer in the moment and entranced by your ability to travel through time. Even when I already know about the particular topic she's discussing, I finish reading the post and feel like she's filled in some of the gaps, or I walk away truly inspired to be more intentional and authentic with my medieval work.

Google's translate option does a pretty fair job with the Swedish, but there are a few words that it can't quite get. I haven't come across any of those yet that I couldn't figure out within the context, though.

So why are you still here? Visit Som När Det Begav Sig!

Blog Referral

This month, my blog referral is:

Katafalk

Cathrin, a "crafty girl living in Sweden", uses her blog to share her sewing, tailoring and crafting projects, which, lucky for us, include a great number of medieval items. She's extremely well-rounded in her skills, switching from sewing to wood-working, to leatherwork. I get the sense reading her blog that the act of making things, whatever method is required, is enjoyable to her, and her results are very inspiring. Her version of the Lengberg bra is a must-see for anyone with more than a D-cup, and all her tutorials are very informative and easy to follow.

She also has a Facebook page that she uses to fill in more details or for sharing smaller, quicker projects, so I highly recommend getting updates from her there as well.

So take a moment (or twelve) to check out Katafalk!

Blog Referral

I decided during my break, that I wanted to take an opportunity each month to refer you to another blog that I have found helpful, inspiring, or fun to read. This month, my blog referral is:

Renikas Anachronistic Adventures

Anna is a mom living in Visby, and her blog chronicles her medieval garb/craft making and research. In recent posts, she shared a few versions of Housebook style dresses, and a version of the Lengberg bra.

She shows her progress with photos (always helpful!) and her results are envious. I think she's one of those great medieval costumers that really gets a kick out of trying something new, and it shows in her work.

So go on- go check out Renikas Anachronistic Adventures!

Mundane Sewing

During my blogging break I did a LOT of mundane sewing. With a baby shower for a friend, Christmas, and a couple of other odd projects, my sewing machine was certainly busy! I took pictures of everything, so if you don't mind the diversion from medieval sewing, I'd like to briefly share those projects with you.

I started off with creating a messenger bag for Owen, who is a huge fan of bags. I had recently purchased a wonderful book, "Oliver + S: Little Things To Sew" by Liesl Gibson, which is full of great accessories and toys for kids. I didn't do a great job, but it was also a learning experience for me, since sewing a bag like this requires a very different set of machine sewing skills than the medieval items I make!

Still on a roll with bags, I designed a bag for myself inspired by a hoodie sweatshirt. I drafted it myself and learned a bit more about bag-making in the process. It's not perfect, but it was fun to make something completely from scratch based on a vague idea.

I took a break from sewing to try my hand at a basket making technique I'd seen on Pinterest. It was very fun and I got a nice little bedside bowl out of it.

Then I worked on creating some items for my friend's baby shower. Knowing babies as well as a person with 4 would, I decided that a much more valuable gift than just something for a newborn would be something to help with that most fretful of baby things- teething. In addition to some helpful things, like boogie wipes, quick-action pain-relieving gel, and a chart I found on Pinterest that details when each of the baby teeth come in, I made a couple of things as well. I used the "Bapron" tutorial from Craftiness is Not Optional and made 2 for those slobbery teething days, a rabbit ear teething ring similar to the one I'd made earlier this year, and a bag to put it all in, which I used Truly Myrtle's tutorial to create.

I liked the Bapron so much, I made another one for Archer as a Christmas present. He's had a pretty rough go of teething himself, and has had many slobbery days!

For Christmas, I wanted to make sure that each of my kids received something handmade. Hats are toys in our house, especially for my son Lee, so I made him a really cute bear hood, also from the Oliver + s book.

After cleaning out a section of the garage, my mom located an old fabric doll of mine. She was in good condition, but I wanted to get a lot more good years out of her. I had recently thought about making a medieval dress-up doll for Kara, which would give me a great opportunity to show my only daughter what dressing well and lady-like was as she grew up. I made some modifications to the doll itself to make it work, then I completed her with a mid-15th century German outfit. Everything is removable so when Kara has an interest in a different look, I can swap out the outfit easily. I posted more about the doll, including the before and after, on my other blog.

 
It took me some time to determine a good homemade item for Owen, since I'd already recently made a him that messenger bag, but then I realized that he's started to amass a collection of Hot Wheels, and could probably use a place to keep them. I made him another bag based off an old Martha Stewart tutorial. It's got 8 pockets on the outside for cars, and a large pocket inside for track pieces and additional cars. This was my first time working with felt in this context, and I really liked it.

I also taught myself the basics of knitting, which I always thought was too hard for me to learn. After practicing for about a week, I made my first knitted item. Actually, two items, since I made a pair of boot cuffs. I used a pretty teal wool yarn, and they're soft and warm. I need to put the needles down, though. Knitting is VERY addicting.

All of these projects allowed me to perfect my skills and know-how, which is never a bad thing, but I think I'll go at a slower pace for a while!

Checkpoint

I've been massively busy lately with a huge amount of various projects, including getting ready for my 3 oldest kids' birthdays starting this coming Sunday. Thus, I haven't had much of a free opportunity to post here. I am, however, working on creating my pink wool supportive dress, and I will have a great deal to share with you about it, as well as some of the lessons I learned doing an experiment before starting the dress.  I just wanted to check in right now, though, to let you know that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth- I just seem to have misplaced all the extra time I have. *snort*

I've been doing some thought-sharing over at my other blog, Growing Up Medieval, so if you really miss me, I encourage you to check that out!

Bored

I have had a completely unproductive week.  I got slapped with the bored stick.  Motivation has left me, and most days I've honestly been too bored to do anything.  It's in times like these that I wish I had a "reset" button.  I hate this feeling- I hate wasting inspiration.  In my boredom, I've been spending inordinate amounts of time on Pinterest, and I've located may beautiful things (primarily of a mundane nature), and though I find inspiration in these items, I've got the automatic inclination to file them away for later. 

When I was a teenager, I never imagined that I'd still experience boredom ruts as an adult.  And at least when I was a teenager, I didn't really have anything to do anyway, so the ruts weren't really all that detrimental to my life as a whole.  As an adult, however, I have a to do list 10 pages long.... an absolutely no desire to check any of them off.

I'm just waiting for that one moment that sparks the fire again.  That one piece of inspiration that reminds me that I really am a creative person with lots of things to do.  It'll come. Soon, I hope.

Did you notice?

Did you happen to notice that you can find The Compleatly Dressed Anachronist on Facebook, Flickr and Pinterest?  Use the buttons in the sidebar to connect with me elsewhere!

I'm also in a bit of an inspiration plateau as many of my regular blog reads have gone silent for a rather long period of time.  I'd love to know what medieval craft/costuming/history blogs you read, or sites that find inspiring to visit.  Let me know in the comments which ones you think I should check out.  And it's totally cool if you let me know about your own blog if you have one!

Illuminated Manuscript on Wikimedia Commons

Did you know about this? Wikimedia Commons has a directory of manuscripts organized by century? No really, it's right here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Illuminated_manuscripts_by_century

I'll be over there goofing off for the rest of the evening now....

15th Century Raglan Sleeve Kirtle Pinboard

I just created a new pinboard over on Pinterest to keep images that might be evidence for a raglan sleeve on a kirtle.  There are only 3 there now, but as I find more I'll add them.

Wimple Headwrap Tutorial

Sophia, from the Shire of Isenfir, just shared with me a link to a wimple headwrap tutorial I'd not previously seen.  The site is in German, but the photos are easy to follow.  I think I definitely need one....

Introducing...

I'm not sure if I'd mentioned this before, but my husband and I had chosen to not find out the sex of baby #4.  We'd found out with Owen and the twins, so we figured that leaving that as a surprise would be a nice difference this time around.  In the weeks leading up to my scheduled C-section, we had pretty much decided on a girl's name, but a suitable boy's name completely eluded us.  Nothing seemed to fit.  Only a few days prior to going to the hospital, we were between 2 names, one of which was a very recent and quite random find.  Laying on the operating table, my body numb and the surgery just about to start, I turned to Dearg and stated this newest name firmly, still with no idea if it would be a moot point.  With a heave to my body, the doctor's voice range out- "Hope you wanted a boy!"  With a smile, Dearg looked down at me and said "Archer Patrick" in confirmation of our choice.

The photo above is pretty silly, but Archer lived up to his name a few hours later.  Dearg stepped to the bassinet to see that our newborn boy had positioned his arms and hands to look like he was holding a drawn bow.  Drawing in the missing pieces was just too cute to resist.  And if you follow the Zodiac, you might find it also interesting (and completely coincidental on our part) that his sign is Sagittarius- the Archer.

He is very much like Lee in looks (and also very much like Dearg) and is also pretty laid-back like his next oldest brother.  It's very odd to have only one newborn again, but it's refreshing (especially when it comes to the breastfeeding schedule!)  When we came home from the hospital, it was remarkable to us how large the twins were- before we left I still thought of them as babies- now they are HUGE!

There is an event this coming weekend, but it may be too soon for us to attempt to go.  If we do, he'll probably wear an hand-me-down outfit.  With 3 children growing up in garb (and my tendency to keep all of it) I just can't justify making new garb for him right now!

While I'm healing, I'll finish up my black fur hat, and if I feel like I've dropped down in weight enough, I'll get my new linen apron cut out and started.  There's always something to work on, even with a house full of kids!

Mundane Sewing Projects

I decided a month or so ago that I wanted to complete a few mundane projects before the baby was born, and I wanted to specifically look for projects that would allow me to try techniques I had never taken a stab at before.  I found three projects that I really wanted to make, but offered three levels of effort: a nursing cover, a toiletries bag and a diaper bag.  I think they were successes in terms of the process, though there are a few things I could have improved.  I used three tutorials I found online (after some extensive looking!), and here are the results:

First, I made a toiletries bag, using some leftover gray wool and a cotton for the lining.  It's a good size for a whole mess of travel-sized toiletries.  It will also double as a quick-grab bag for diapers and a small bag of wipes.  I used a boxy bag tutorial and included a little handle.  The lining is hand sewn in.  I found on my second trip to the hospital that packing a bag of travel-size toiletries was SOOO much better than trying to get my full-sized items packed.  This way, I've got all the toiletries I need ready to go, and if I accidentally leave any at the hospital, it's no big deal.  I had never sewn a zipper on anything before- so that was the major challenge on this project.

The second project was a nursing cover, which I made using this tutorial.  The cover uses D-rings for the strap around the neck (which I hadn't sewn on before) and uses boning at the front center to keep the cover open at the top for easier viewing and air circulation.  The boning was interesting to work with.  I actually either didn't follow the directions exactly, or the directions had an error, and I had to pull the boning out of the casing to turn it around, because I'd already sewn the casing down.  That was interesting.  I did a very poor job of keeping my lines straight during sewing, so a close up isn't very pretty!  After trying to breast feed the twins at the hospital with no cover, and nurses and doctors always coming in and out of the room, I was really feeling the lack of privacy.  I decided that a nursing cover was definitely in order this time!

The final project, and the most complex, was a diaper bag.  It's not really a diaper bag- it's more of a purse that's large enough to hold kid's stuff.  I used the Not Just Another Pretty Purse tutorial.  I made several modifcations to the pattern pieces (made the bottom and sides wider, and changed the shape of the inner pockets.)  Adding magnetic clasps, a key fob, an interior pocket with a zipper, AND piping (!) were the challenges on this one.  I discovered that, though I wouldn't call it "easy", sewing piping on is a lot of fun!  I used a thick flannel between the layers, but in retrospect, I probably should have also used a stiffening interfacing to prevent the sides from drooping so much.  There are three layers of plastic canvas in the false bottom, as well as a piece of cardboard placed under it, to try to keep the bottom stiff so the sides are forced to stay up a bit more.  The main purpose of this bag at the hospital is to hold the toiletry bag, the cover and some items for the baby (like the outfit he/she will wear home).  I'll also toss in a few items for me, though it's not large enough to hold my clothes for going home (I'll just leave those in the car and have Dearg bring them in when I'm ready for them.)  I'm interested to see how long it "lives" before it starts to fall apart!

 

 

I've got less than two weeks before my C-section, but I have a few random projects that I might pick up and work on a bit between now and then (like my new Tres Riches hat).  We'll see how much I can get done before the baby arrives!