A few days ago I was tired, now I'm knackered!  Home improvement abounds! We've been trying hard lately to get the house in a more homey state lately, and with my parents coming over we've tried getting it in a better place faster!

A few weeks ago a friend noticed our deck was kinda rotten with little trees growing out of some of the boards, so with the help of Dan our pal who can build or fix anything in the world, we have a new deck!

I love stepping out on the boards and pretending in my head I'm out on a ship (I have been told this is crazy, but I think after growing up in England on patios instead of decks, those wooden boards just hold a kind of magic for me!)

So the outside is looking good, and the inside is still a work in progress. Lot's of furniture coming from Ikea, and been clearing room for both that and people. The amount of trash I took out yesterday made me feel bad, and Friday pick up isn't going to be much better!

Rooting through cupboards and closets has been an adventure, I've found yards of wonderful fabric that needs sewing up into something, as well as several unfinished projects from days gone by

Still, it's exciting if hard work. We haven't felt all that rooted here since I moved, but now things are feeling settled, and it'll be nice to have a place we'd feel proud to have people over in.

So many things have been happening lately it's hard to know where to start! Work has been slammed in an exciting way, and life has been just as full, my parents are coming over on Sunday! I haven't had 2 seconds to post lately so I'm going to get started on catching up...

Last weekend the postman came to the door with a surprise package! A little box from my friend Sarah filled with shiny silver tea goodies! (this girl puts Martha Stewart to shame, check out her blog for craft adventures and Infernal brownies!)

I was so amazed and excited! There are 7 teaspoons, and small fork and a sugar cellar!

The first I tried to do was make a Victoria Sponge to use the sugar cellar on, but it didn't turn out quite right, I'll have enlist my mum to help when she's over next week! As soon as I can find my polish and background I can't wait to put these up on fancy Girl!

As well as the lovely silver wear there was a home made lollipop! She made with her daughter, it was a big red flower and tasted of cake!

It was all such a nice surprise to sit down with in the middle of running around like a crazy person.

Septembers issue of Shojo Beat has another of my tutorials for any one interested! It's on making your own personalized pencil cases!

I used the lovely Sebastian as the model for mine, and can't wait for my evening class to start again so I can take this little guy out with me!
We also got a mention in the Get Japanese Fashion article which was rather cool!

On a nerdy note I was excited to see a new series Honey Hunt in there from the creator of Hot Gimmick. I loved Hot Gimmick so I was kinda excited to see this one pop up!

Further adventures in trying to come up with a lolita dress suitable for wearing in a Virginia Summer

I started this a while ago, then kind of dropped it as I became convinced it was going to look stupid no matter what I did. Then with a rash of Jane Austin movies on TV over the last few weeks I decided to sit down and just finish this bad boy.

i was working with a regency period construction and patter for the top, can you see how there's no opening!? Back in the day they used to make a dress with flaps that fastened together in front, and a kind of "bib" that pinned over them so it looked like there was no opening! It's a fun construction, and you can make it bigger and smaller to keep a nice fit!

This dress didn't come out great, I was kind of sloppy with it since I was convinced it would look dumb in the end. Still with Summer almost over, I think I came up with a comfortable Summer Lolita dress.

I have my new site Fancy Girl up and running today. I've been working on it a few minutes every day or so for a while now and here it is!

I have the knotting tutorial up for any one who was waiting for that, and a bit about my tea set collecting too. The site isn't a lolita site per se, but it is going to be about some of the fancy little things I personally find quite fun! Kind of like a more organized extension of my blog over here I guess.

Any way hope some of you can make use of it.

Things have been busy so it's been work and knotting lately. I picked up a copy of a translation of Art Du Brodeur (Art of the Embroiderer)  by Charles Germain De Saint-Auban who was the embroiderer to King Louis XV. It had a little bit on knotting! It talks a little about what to do with your knotted threads, but no info on how to make them, which was fine except... it had a diagram of a whole new knotted thread!

I kept trying different things to try recreate this new knot, I spent hours online looking for info, hours trying to get my knots to stand up like that, then gave it up as a bad job. Yesterday however I tried something new and eureka! The double sided knotted thread!!!!

beyond knotting though this book is pretty interesting, it has first hand accounts of the tools of the trade used back then, as well as some of the designs used on clothing for the wedding of the Dauphin (later Louis XVI) and other people and occasions.

maybe not blog worthy, but I haven't posted in a while and this was so exciting to me!! (and yes still going to try do a tutorial, but time has been hard to find lately, sorry it's taking forever)

I did a little sampler with some knotted threads I had made on my new shuttle, and since a good few people were still wondering what you do with all those knots here are a couple of photos of some rough embroidery I did with them...


Sadly I tried turning these into a headdress and failed, the good news is they didn't take too long to do and I got a few photos to share out of it all!

We went down to Cookville Tennessee for a week to see Dusty's parents on the 4th of July. We had a fun drive down and back up!

We bought a pretty large arsenal of fireworks, there was a scary moment when Dusty's dad accidentally put 2 mortars in the tube though, one went into the air with a spectacular pop, the other blew up on the ground >___<. This might make me a sad person, but I was super excited for the snakes after seeing them on South Park years ago, I'd never seen one in real life before but they were way cooler than expected!

We took a few trips out and about, ate at a wonderful communal restaurant called Monell's in a neat Victorian house and got to hang out with some great people as well as eat some great food! Took a trip to see a dairy, and a neat heritage museum filled with things i wanted to pull out and get a better look at!

On the last day I did a little craft stash building. I'm kinda itching to make something after a week of not really getting stuck into a good project!

So that's my week in a nutshell! Back home now and getting stuck into work, though still really tired from the trip. Apologies for the lack of photos, I need to learn to take my good camera with me on trips.

I finished up a new period lolita outfit this week, my new lolified chemise a la reine!

The dress itself was a nice easy project, but I just didn't feel it was done till it had a hat to match!

At first I started the project out of fascination because i didn't really like these dresses much in the past, and also because I thought it would be nice and light for Summer. I found however that I do like these dresses, but for most people myself included, they do need a corset, so not so much for a modern Summer day.

Much more romantic that I normally like, I wasn't expecting to want to wear this once it was finished, but now I've tried it on I'm looking forward to wearing it out!

Also happy because the hat looks great with nor traditional lolita dresses, and even with regular street clothes! I bought a book on millinery recently and looking forward to wear more hats!

So I was playing on Poupee Girl and they have had the cutest Teru Teru Bozu in Catherine's Shop lately. I was looking at mine and thought, "I wish that were real" and so i made myself a little one! I wonder if he will work?


Teru Teru Bozu are little dolls said to cheery away a rainy day! People in Japan hang them up in their windows during the rainy season, I might hang this little fella up in my window if I can bare to stop playing with him!

Any one on Poupee girl can visit him in my closet here too, it would be nice to get him some votes for the rainy season!