Perfect matches

These mitts have been finished since October, but only ended up with their new owner last week. My friend J lost one of his favorite mitts and asked me to make a new one. Miraculously, I found the perfect yarn in the first store I visited. I decided against choosing an off-white base yarn; the new one will get appropriately dirty soon enough, I hope! It was fun to just count the stitches on an existing piece and mirroring them. I hope these two decide to stick together now, despite their age difference or the fact that the older one was so brutally dumped by its life partner.

In other news, if you ever wondered what 16 000 sequins look like - and who hasn't? - take a look at what I got in the mail today:

I'm resisting an urge to pour them all out and roll around in them naked. Let's just hope my luck in finding perfect matches continues when I go to Tallinn next week looking for some fabric to pair off with these. There's a knit around here looking for its fabric soulmate, too, so a lot of luck is needed.

Work, work, work

Learning is hard. Especially learning stuff about yourself. For instance, for me it is apparently almost impossible to learn that if I work really hard on a project with a tight deadline, I cannot just carry all that energy over to the next project when the first one is done. No matter how many times it happens, I'm always surprised when the Crash comes. It always makes me equally surprised that if I try to push through the exhaustion, it does not work. And the most amazing surprise of all is that if I actually take a couple of days and rest, I feel better.

The past week has been another learning experience, let's hope it sticks this time. The past month or two have been very busy with work, and all the energy I've had left was spent on dancing more than crafts. Pole dancing, hoop dancing, tribal fusion, oh my! Dancing makes me feel so good, whether I'm busy or between projects it never fails to pick me up.

Despite having had hardly any time or energy for crafts, I do have something small to show you. Helsinki Burlesque Festival is an event I never miss, and this year the theme was 'over the rainbow'. I suck at dressing up as it is and this year my costuming plans fell through, so at the last minute I decided to take a very literal interpretation of the theme and make myself a little fascinator/hair clip thingy.

Because you need a raincloud to make a rainbow... get it? Get it?!

I've had those raindrop glass beads lying around for over three years, they are lovely and I still have a ton left. The fabric is silk and I sewed the sequins on with little beads. I guess a satin fabric would have been more flashy, but that's the story of my life... I dressed up as a raincloud, after all. I even made an elegant little dress with grey jersey and the same silk, but didn't take a picture. It's hard to photograph dresses on yourself, and the darkness of February certainly did not help. I did take an action shot of the clip, though. And had a splendid time!

And the dress is right there, so...

Of course, being sort of easily excitable a person, I now also have not one but two burlesque solo numbers under way, and there's a lot to plan and design and sew. My other craft projects, namely the two knitting ones I shared a glimpse of in the last post, are progressing, but slowly.

Oh, and speaking of learning new things, the big cat has adopted a new, smooth style to hang out and look cool.

The leg is limp. If I grab it and wave it around, he looks at me funny.