Hello darlings! It’s March and the sun is shining and the air is sweet and LOOK!

I planted lots and lots of daffodil and crocus bulbs last fall. I felt like I was burying a little promise with each planting hole, and now my first little promise is blooming! I also have other little promises poking their little green noses up into the air, making further promises of future blooms.

And these brave pansies are beginning to pick up their optimistic little heads again, after a brutal winter.

Oh I do love spring – but then, who doesn’t?

So in my last post I mentioned that I had been drawing and/or painting every single day, and was planning to take my watercolors along with me on an upcoming vacation. Oh, darlings, I did! I carefully packed them up (and it was the real ones, not the student set I had been experimenting with!) and I lovingly laid them in my suitcase and I made very definite plans to spend a little bit of time every day working with them. Oh yes, I did. (You know what’s coming, don’t you?) Yeah. This was Dearly Beloved’s and my annual marriage-insurance trip and . . . .

Well, what would YOU have done? The weather was absolutely PERFECT for almost the entire trip. Okay, well really — in my defense — this was when the east coast was getting totally socked with ice and snow and deep-freeze temperatures. I felt like I had a responsibility to all of you to soak up as much sun as possible. I mean, SOMEONE had to enjoy it, right? (Oops. Yeah, I agree. That was obnoxious. Please forgive me and say you’ll still be my friend. I won’t do it again.) But anyway, you can probably see how I did kinda lose my incentive to work every day.

There was one rainy morning when I spent a little bit of time on a graphite piece – here’s a sneak peek (I’ll show you the whole thing when it’s finished) —

But mostly I just vacationed. I don’t regret it, but it did break my momentum. I’ve been working since we got home, but not every day. Partly because I’ve just allowed errands and housekeeping and other uninteresting little details to take over, and partly because I have been doing some sewing again. Nothing especially thrilling – a new fleece bathrobe (Soft! Cosy!) and a couple of spring blouses now that the weather is warming up.

But I have managed to finish the watercolor I started before we left town. It was meant for the Daily Paintworks “The Relaxation Station” weekly challenge, but it was more ambitious than the ones I had been submitting and I didn’t get it done in a week. No matter. I finally did finish it and here it is:

That’s Dearly Beloved, of course, having a martini beside the firepit in our gazebo. Definitely one of my very favorite relaxation stations.

I’m still working away at the graphite piece, and I’m also working on another (even more) ambitious watercolor, and I’ve had a request from a friend to do a couple of portraits, so I have plenty of artwork to keep me busy. I’m also probably going to make a dress for another upcoming trip. Every year I go with Dearly Beloved to his annual work convention, and every year people ask whether I’ve made the dress I wear to the big cocktail party. It’s always more fun to say yes. (I’m thinking sequins this year – why do I DO these things to myself???)

Oh heavens – look at all that! I’d better get back to work now. Ta-ta darlings!

Hello again! How is your 2015 going so far? Mine is just deeeeee-lightful! What with the frigid (for Richmond) temperatures and generally gloomy skies, I have been spending a lot of time cocooning at home. And I have remained focused on artwork, which is making me one very happy girl. I’ve made a point of drawing and/or painting every single day! Right now my goal is to develop my skill in watercolor and find my own style, rather than produce finished paintings, so all I have to share are practice pieces, but I am enjoying the process and I think I am learning a little bit with each one. I bought a small (6×12″) watercolor notebook, which is just right for daily studies. What do you think of my lemon? I really struggled to get the citrus texture!

So I’ve been spending some time on a website I found called Daily Paintworks. You should take a look some time — there are thousands of beautiful pieces of art, mostly smaller works, and they are really, really affordably priced. I check in almost every day to admire the new paintings that have been posted. In addition to the work that is for sale, Daily Paintworks also runs weekly challenges, where artists can respond with their own interpretations to a prompt. The first one I entered was “Beside Your Easel.” And what is invariably beside my easel? TJ! But I knew I had to work fast, because there was no telling when he would change positions — so here is a quick and very loose sketch for which he graciously posed for about 30 minutes:

This week’s challenge was a reference photo of a floral still life. Still lifes in general, and florals in particular, don’t excite me very much, but since the whole point is to learn rather than make finished pieces, I went ahead and tried it, again in my small notebook. The whole painting is only 6×9″, and you can see that I didn’t lay out the composition as successfully as I might have! Also, Dearly Beloved and I are getting ready to do some traveling, so I also used this as an opportunity to try out a teeny-tiny travel watercolor set to see if I can minimize the paraphernalia I will need to take with me in order to keep working while we are gone. It has twelve teeny-tiny little cakes of student-grade colors and three teeny-tiny divisions for color mixing and an eensy-weensy, teeny-tiny little brush. You should see it — The whole thing is just adorable! Anyway, here’s the result of the experiment. Given the limitations, I don’t consider this a total fail, but I definitely don’t think I will be depending on the travel set for my vacation (nor will I be specializing in floral still lifes)!

So ta-ta until next time!

Hello again! This will just be a short post from my phone — I’m all tech-y and stuff! I thought I would update you on what I’ve been doing (y’know — in case anyone was losing sleep wondering!). I’ve been focusing on artwork instead of sewing and designing. I just don’t seem to be inspired to make anything right now.

But I’m really enjoying drawing. I’ve been trying to learn to work in colored pencil, and I’ve started a new graphite piece as well. Nothing really to share there, but here’s a quick little watercolor sketch I did this afternoon.

I’m kinda happy with it, so I thought I’d share. I really, really HATE the taste of raw onions, but they sure are interesting to paint!

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone! How did you celebrate New Year’s Eve? Do you want to know how Dearly Beloved and I did it? Okay, I’ll tell you.

We did exactly the same thing we do most winter nights: we had cocktails by candlelight. You see, this is one of our rituals. At the end of the day we make a point of leaving behind whatever frustrations and issues we have been dealing with, we light candles, we put on music, and we sit together in our living room. We don’t save it for special occasions. We do it on week nights and on weekends. We do it on birthdays, holidays, and Tuesdays. It is a part of our life together. In the summer we do the same thing, except outside on our deck, overlooking the garden. Growing up, our children knew that they were always welcome to join us, but that they were expected to behave like civilized people and engage in thoughtful conversation. If they preferred to do something else, that was perfectly fine with us – but we were going to spend an hour reconnecting and recharging.

So that’s just what we did on New Year’s Eve. We had cocktails by candlelight, we ate dinner, and afterward we went to bed. No party for us that night!

Instead, we saved our partying for January 2, when our local public television station hosted a preview of the new season of Downton Abbey. It was held at a beautiful, recently-renovated, historic theatre:

  Altria Theatre, Richmond VA

Attendees were encouraged to come in Downton Abbey-inspired costumes.

Now I know – I just know – I am meant to be at Downton Abbey. I can see myself there. Can’t you?

Look – they’ve saved me a seat, right back there next to dear Cousin Cora!

And there again – next to dear Mrs. Levinson! (Why would they save those empty seats if they weren’t expecting me to join them?)

Look! SEE THERE? That could totally be the back of MY head, right there at the dinner table with everyone!

Oh, they’ll all come out to welcome me home. I just know they will. I’m very certain I have blue Crawley blood running through my veins. Probably a rather high proportion. It’s just I haven’t quite had time yet to complete the geneology chart.

So anyway, even though the current season is set in 1924, I was more inspired by the costumes from the first season, which was set in 1914, and decided to base my gown on that period. The thing is, gowns from that period were almost always exquisitely beaded.

(Soooo beautiful)!

And exquisitely beaded fabric is EXPENSIVE. And while I do enjoy hand-beading, I didn’t leave myself a lot of time to make this dress. So what was a girl to do?  I decided to improvise. . . .

I had had a scrap of black beaded lace in my stash for years. This became the inspiration for the rest of the gown. I found a rather pretty piece of iridescent silk at Joann. It wasn’t an especially high-quality silk, but then again, it wasn’t an especially expensive one either, and it would do nicely for a costume party (I’m sure the professional costumers will provide much nicer things when I actually get to Downton Abbey!). Backed with the silk, the lace became the bodice of the gown.

The sleeves and overskirt needed to be a soft, drapey sheer fabric. In 1914 it would certainly have been a silk chiffon or tulle. Joann (my only resource at the late date when I began the gown) has a vast selection of sheer fabrics, but I despaired of finding one that looked right for the period. Most of what Joanne had were organzas – much too stiff. The tulles were nylon – also much too stiff, and dreadfully cheap-looking. There were a few chiffons – better, but all of them polyester, which is still nowhere near as soft and drapey as silk, and also not nearly sheer enough. At last, buried in among the novelty fabics, I found a tulle that had the right hand, but had a shiny coating on it – also not at all period. But – eureka! – the reverse was completely matte! I snapped it up and raced to the cutting counter before anyone else could discover it (because everyone knows about the huge demand for drapey matte tulle among today’s modern sewers!)

Now for the improvisation – I needed the tulle to be beaded. I wanted the effect of heavier beading at the hemline, fading gradually to none at the top. So here’s what I did:

I stitched some lace trim to the hemlines of the sleeves and overskirt. And since I didn’t have time to properly bead it by hand, I used glue. Here are the tools I used:

Aleene’s Super Fabric Adhesive is very thick and sticky. I squeezed a blob of it out on the waxed side of a scrap of freezer paper. Then, I used tweezers to pick up a bead, dipped it in the glue:

And placed it on the lace:

Because the glue is so thick and sticky, it held the beads on the delicate fabric beautifully, but after each bead I needed to dip the tweezers in some mineral spirits (yeah, I know the picture is blurry – but you get the idea):

And wipe them with a paper towel:

It sounds like this process would be tedious and time-consuming, but I listened to an NPR podcast and got into the zen of it, and it actually went surprisingly quickly.

Here’s what one of the sleeves looked like when it was done (I have no idea why the pictures are sideways — they are right-side-up in my computer!)

I did two layers of lace trim on the overskirt.

And here’s what the gown looked like when it was finished. Ta-da! All ready for the Downton Abbey soiree here in Richmond, and for my Downton Abbey premier! (Julian Fellowes, are you looking?)

And remember what I said earlier about the dinner scene? Look at the beautiful updo my friend Sabrina Shell did for me!

I told you it really COULD be me at the dinner table with the rest of my Crawley relatives!

Ta-ta darlings — until next time!

Good afternoon everyone. I have something to say. (Warning: this is a long and self-absorbed post. If you want, you can stop reading as soon I’ve said what I have to say. I won’t be offended. For that matter, you can stop here. It’s really okay. But I still have something to say.)

I AM AN ARTIST.

Does that sound silly? Egotistical? Pretentious? Too bad. You can disagree with me. You can even laugh at me if you want. I’m still declaring it. I AM AN ARTIST. There. I said it. Twice. I’m not entirely sure what “kind” of artist I am, but I am an artist.

This declaration has probably been building for a while, but it’s bursting out of me at this particular moment largely because of two articles I have recently read online. This morning I read this one by Eva DeVirgilis. The title, Expose Yourself In Public, was certainly intriguing! I once worked with Eva and well remember what a lovely person she is. I have also watched the YouTube video of her TED talk, which is delightful. Eva recommends putting your dreams out in the world even when you’re not sure of yourself. Of course, everyone has heard this advice many times. It’s not an unusual message. But today, for some reason, her message particularly resonated with me. It reminded me of this article, which I read a couple of weeks ago, where the author asks why creative people shy away from the word “Artist.” He points out that the word is freighted with an enormous amount of stereotype and baggage, and people who create things often don’t feel worthy of it. And that resonated with me too.

To publicly call myself an artist feels scary. I don’t have anything hanging in a gallery. I’ve never won a prize. I haven’t sold my work on any sort of regular basis. I don’t even have a particular medium. I just make things. I make a lot of things with a sewing machine, which doesn’t fit into any sort of traditional definition of art. And I may regret this post. I do feel exposed. I know some people who read this will roll their eyes. But there it is. I’ve always wanted to be an artist, and now I am declaring myself one.

I often tell people that I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I know it’s an inane line but it’s meant to cover up my embarrassment at not “being” something: a teacher, an engineer, a human resources officer, a consultant. Something I can name. Because I’m not. I’ll spare you the details, but I’ve toyed with an Education major, an English major, law school, historic preservation, open-space conservation, tax law, art school, fashion design, dressmaking, and costume design. I’ve “been” versions of those things at times. But I keep jumping around. My father called me flighty. Dearly Beloved (more flatteringly) calls me multi-talented. I’ve called myself all sorts of things, both kind and unkind.

But there’s been one constant all my life. I need to create things. The only period in my life when I didn’t create things was when I was in law school, and I remember saying afterward that I needed to begin drawing again so I could figure out where I was the last time I saw myself. During my historic preservation and open-space conservation years, when I was working in offices, I obsessively made things in my spare time. I remember one of my colleagues giving me the oddest look as he strolled through a park during a lunch break and spotted me happily sitting on the ground under a tree, knitting. Sometimes when I couldn’t stand not to, I even surreptitiously drew during work hours at the office.

And then one day Dearly Beloved did the greatest thing anyone has ever done for me. He told me to quit my job and go back to school and study art. “You’re not happy,” he said, “And we need to do something about it. We’ll find a way to do without your paychecks. I don’t want you to look back on your life and regret not having done the thing you wanted most of all to do.” I still get emotional thinking about that morning.

So I went back to school. I completed the Art Foundations course required of all freshmen (I felt so funny calling myself a freshman in my 30s!). I thought I wanted to major in Illustration, but ended up choosing Fashion Design instead. (Flighty? Multi-talented?) Oh, I loved it. I designed and I illustrated and I sewed and I beaded and I embroidered. I made wonderful things! And then I graduated.

What does one do with a Fashion Design degree in Richmond, VA? Once again I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say I’ve experimented with a number of ideas and I haven’t exactly been a financial success. It’s not a good feeling. I struggle with guilt on any number of fronts every day. Dearly Beloved still carries the entire burden of supporting our family. I have no answer to the ubiquitous question, “And what do you do?” I’ve tried designing and making clothes for myself, for other people, for runway shows, for possible sale on Etsy. I’ve designed and made clothes just because they were in my head. I experimented with art quilting and thread painting. I draw in graphite. I used to draw in Prismacolor. I’m taking a watercolor class. I’ve made jewelry. I’ve costumed theatrical productions. I’m all over the map. Flighty? Multi-talented? It doesn’t matter any more. As Drew points out, artists are people who share the indescribable need to create something. And as Eva recommends, I’m going to stop apologizing for who I am and start appreciating everything I have.

So this little blog is about to change. It started off as a personal sewing blog along the lines of ones I’ve admired, like Oonabaloona, and Pretty Grievances and Goodbye Valentino, and Erica B’s DIY Style, and oh so many, many more where people post pictures of themselves wearing their wonderful handmade clothing, and review patterns, and talk about sewing in general. I still love reading them, and I’ll still probably still do some posts about things I’ve made for myself, but I’m going to stop limiting myself to that. Even more importantly, I’m going to stop feeling like I should be emulating other bloggers. I’ve decided it’s okay if Her Fine Hand doesn’t fit neatly into any particular category. I’m all over the map, and my blog can be too. I’m calling myself an artist, and I’m putting that dream out into the world. And this is how I’m doing it.

So there.

Hey, guess what? I’m famous! Yes, it’s true. Or at least I’m about to be. As soon as the next issue of Altered Couture magazine hits the shelves I expect my life will no longer be my own. Paparazzi, interview requests, free travel, endorsement opportunities . . . Ah yes, but I will be gracious and real. I will not allow my celebrity to turn my head and change me. I vow to keep my private life private and protect my friends and family from the intrusive curiosity of the public . . .

Wait, what? You don’t know Altered Couture? You don’t eagerly look for each new issue to appear, anxiously awaiting all the inspirational new projects it showcases? But, but . . . . it’s all about projects where people alter or embellish old clothes to make them new again! How can you not have heard of it? I thought this was the sort of thing that fascinates EVERYONE!

Oh well. Looks like I might have to wait a while for the whole celebrity thing to happen. But anyway, I really am about to be published. The new issue comes out on November 1, and one of my projects is in it. They did a 4-page spread! The publisher sent me an advance copy. Want a sneak peek?

There. Don’t you feel like you’re in the know? See? It’s really me!

So this project was my response to a challenge called “Work to Whenever.” The idea was to take some sort of “work” clothing and make it suitable for some other sort of occasion. I used a wool tweed jacket I found in a thrift store, switched out the sleeves, added a hood, and changed the buttons to make it more colorful and playful. Here are the jacket I started with and the sweater I used for the sleeves and hood:

Both of them are pretty grim, huh? You can kinda see the finished project in the photos from the magazine, but unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of it to share here. I did it as kind of a lark just before the deadline, and just packed it up and sent it off when I was done. If you really want to see it, you’ll just have to buy the magazine. (Should you actually want to do that, I know you can usually find it at Joanne Fabrics, and I think you can sometimes find it at Barnes and Noble.) Or, if you don’t want to buy the magazine, you can just bask in the happy knowledge that you know someone who is (almost) famous.