Parasol!

I haven't been posting, but I have actually been productive! I've kept up with my motif-a-day on the Anna skirt, so I now only have four left, which is nice. I also finished my Jolly Holiday parasol. On Friday, I sewed on most of the trim around the edge of the parasol, and finished it yesterday. I also attached the trim at the center top. And I drew on the face/feathers of the bird on the handle with a fine point sharpie. I'm really happy with how it all came out! I'm thinking that when my velvet ribbon gets here, I will attach a piece of ribbon to be used as a tie to keep the parasol together when it's closed, since it doesn't quite want to stay closed as much as I would like it to. But other than that, it's done!

I've also made significant progress on my spats. I started with this rather terrible Simplicity spats pattern, and proceeded to go through three mockups before finally getting it right. The main problem was the slope of the ankle/shoe, and the fact that the original pattern hardly covered my shoe at all! It works now, though. Mine are made out of one layer of canvas and one layer of matte satin. I sewed the outside edges right sides together, turned, then serged the rest of the sides as if I was flatlining, then sewed the three pieces together. I'm currently working on binding - one is done, but I have to cut out more bias to bind the other one. Hopefully I'll get to it tonight, though I am already feeling pretty tired. Other than the binding, I just have buttons and buttonholes, and the elastic under the foot, and they will be finished.

This just shows how different my final mockup was from the original pattern! The second picture is the spat, minus binding/buttons/etc