Unwearable Muslin

I sewed a pair of shorts:

I seem to have cut the pattern for Simplicity 1887 View C,too small, as I cannot get them over my butt. Disappointing, but I suppose my sewing strategy is to make wearable muslins. As such, I shall take this to be the risk that comes with sewing that we mitigate by making a muslin first (which I generally think is wasteful, which is why I make wearable muslins). Thankfully I tested this pattern with inexpensive fabric first, as opposed to the $19/m fabric I'd wanted to buy.

I suspect they would fit someone with 34 inch hips, which mine decidedly aren't, and I am shipping them to someone they may fit.

Up North

I was lucky to be invited to spend this past weekend on Georgian Bay, and, it was glorious.

My top three favourite weekend moments were: roasting s'mores over a bonfire on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night; finally having sufficient courage to climb to the top of an abandoned lighthouse I'd been too chicken to visit on an earlier trip; and, cliff jumping into the lake.

I Made a Skirt

I sewed a skirt this past weekend:

The shape is based on Badgley Mischka pattern from Vogue, V1127, but I added an extra inch at the waist, and a waistband.

And I wore it to the Smut Soiree:

{Because I love Hollywood gossip.}

Favourite Things

Early mornings are one of my favourite things in life, and though I could enjoy them often, I don't. I did this morning, though.

Here is the view from 6am:

The Last Five Books I've Read

The last five books I've read, in order:

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson (2010); We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver (2006), though I have yet to see the movie; The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement by David Brooks (2012); The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2010); and Just Kids by Patti Smith (2010).

After blowing through the first two books in Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy, I couldn't wait to read the third. It took a week of streetcar rides and late nights during the last month of my contract at work. It was far from the strongest of the three, but it helped me to love reading again.

I read We Need to Talk About Kevin on a long weekend at the cottage. It was a very troubling book. I'm not certain I can suggest anything that redeems it.

At the first opportunity, once back in the city, I bought The Social Animal and Just Kids, two books as different from the last two as I could find.

The Social Animal was so interesting I read passages out loud on a road trip Greg and I took to the coast in early May.

Everyone who read The Hunger Games told me that they read it in one sitting, staying up late, avoiding family and friends to finish it. I was no different.

And then I read Just Kids. Patti Smith, I had no idea I would love the story of your friendship with Robert Maplethorpe as much as I did. I loved it so much that I broke down crying at the end, in a public place, in front of strangers. I drank a glass of wine, and then read the ending a second time. The setting, the 1970's and 1980's music and art scene in New York City, suited my end of work mood and properly started my summer of being a flâneur in the city.

Victoria Day

Kate had the brilliant idea to rent bikes on Centre Island this past Victoria Day. We took the ferry across the harbour and rode around from one side to the other:

Then we went for dinner and gelato, stopping at Kate's for sweaters and chairs, and then watched the fireworks at the beach with Charles and Camilla:

balance of the tulips, two months on

They then looked like this:

And this:

Finally this: