Oh dear...

... I've not been a good blogger. No posts for over two months-opps. To be honest tho, I've not really had very much to blog about! Work wise its mostly been alterations- which are not exactly exciting! Otherwise, my life seems to revolve around far too many courses of IVs - including the last eleven days being incarcerated in Papworth's CF Unit.  My health really has gotten a bit pants. I've been having IV's every four weeks sometimes only every three, and its not exactly an exciting fun thing to blog about. I'm not one of those bloggers who want to blog every tiny aspect of their lives, as most of the time I find it very hard to believe that anyone would be interested in the banality of my medical regime!  I could go into great detail about my IVs and all the tests I've been having and the problems of being in hospital, but quite frankly it bores me so I doubt anyone else wants to know! All I really want to say about my health at the mo is that it is crap, I have to take too many drugs, but it is sooooooo good to be out of hospital! I was getting serious cabin fever in there!

Another consequence of all these damn drugs is that I have had to cut right back on work. Making sure I hit deadlines has resulted in my having to work when I am on IVs which is really not ideal. Not only am I tried but  my brain is all drug addled so even simple jobs take a lot longer. Worst of all it is very stress full! The last thing I need these days; the consequences to my health really are not worth the money I may earn... So once again, my health is forcing me into changing my life in big ways I don't want. I haven't quite worked out what I am going to do but I am going to have to 'Adopt, Adapt and Improve!'  Suggestions on a postcard....

Bridaltastic!

Well despite me continuing heavy IV regime I have managed to do some work during the last couple of months!  Two more of my lovely friends from Lindy married their gentlemen friends recently and both brought their dresses to me for adjusting and adding some extra je ne sais quoi! The first nuptials were Katherine and Graham's, and as Katherine has the most gorgeous auburn colouring she wanted to add some extra teal aspects to her dress which would match her bridesmaids (which I also made for her)  Her dress was a lovely draped organza ballgown, with a lace up back and ruffle details.  She wanted to add a sash to highlight her teeny tiny waist, and add some sparkles to the flowers on the front. I only took a couple of photos in the workroom but you can see how pretty the sash looked-

I will try and get some pictures of the dress in action and post them soon. As usual my camera does not do just to just how lovely the teal coloured satin looks in real life.

The second wedding was that of Natalie and Geraint, and Natalie wanted a rather dramatic transformation for her dress! I must have chopped about 2 feet off the bottom of her skirt! Changing it from full length and  more, to tea length... This is the dress before-

and hopefully I will get a picture of the after from Natalie as I managed to forget to take the after shot- I was on IV's at the time! You can see in the picture of the front, that there was an asymmetric overlay to the skirt that stayed at tea length for a while and gave a natural length for the new hem line. I used the off cut of her skirt to make her a veil and two shrugs, one with 3/4 sleeves and one with little cap sleeves (and I still have several metres of the chiffon left!). 

 In the end she wore the short sleeved one during the day, and the sleeves when it got a bit chillier in the evening. I was lucky enough to go to both weddings and had a fabulous time at them both, I always love to see people I like wearing things I've had a hand in :-) Apologies for the lack of photos I will try and rectify this soon...

Jolly Holidays

Oh dear, not blogging very much at all recently.  Mainly because I don't really think I've had anything that interesting to blog about! I've done barely any hatting because I've either been too ill to actually manage any work, or I've been doing alterations and small jobs that are not hugely suitable for blogging. I will post a few pictures of some of the bridal work I've been doing (once I'm allowed) as that at least is rather pretty.  I did manage to go on holiday in between IV courses, with the massed Evans clan (parents, bro, Josie and Sophie) and of course Mr EB- which was really lovely. We went to a gorgeous farmhouse near Woodbridge in Suffolk for a week. Having an extremely active two year old around for a week is not hugely restful but it is great fun. I have now been introduced to the many songs that Sophie loves by The Green Balloon Club on Cbeebies. Her particular favorite is The Waggle Dance, which is all about bees and flowers. So, my next Sophie based project is definitely a bee costume for her :-) I think my favorite song had to be Mini Beast Madness, which although about yet more insects is a total tribute to Madness-including cheesy dance moves and sax solo!

Whilst in Suffolk we pottered around many of the lovely towns and villages, and one thing that really struck me was the wonderful colours that many people had painted their houses. I'd heard about the tradition of painting houses in Suffolk a very characteristic pink, in fact quite a large number of houses round here are painted in that colour too.  But my favorites were definitely the ice cream colours that popped up all over the places we went to-

Aldeburgh

Framlingham

Woodbridge

I particularly like this last set of houses, as the blue house was further decorated by an amazing silhouette of I think a Regency scene. I've never seen anything like this on a house before, but I definitely think it should be encouraged, although I'm not sure Mr EB will let me start painting our house front mint green or Suffolk pink!

Peacock Green Dress

Oh dear, I really have not managed to keep up my blog well at all recently. What with December being a total disaster health wise, 2012 did not start much better as by the end of Jan I was back on the IVs, AGAIN!! I just can't seem to manage to go more than a month without them these days, which makes having any sort of normal life bloody difficult. I can't give definite answers to invites because chances are I won't be able to make it cos of my health. Work is totally stressing me out as I would hate to let any of my clients down, and I can't let the bridal clients down! I'm doing some alterations to friends wedding dresses and the thought of letting them down has left me with more than one sleepless night... so I am having to make very difficult decisions about what I am going to take on in future. I hate that yet again my bloody CF is dictating what my life has to be.

Anyway, rant over, one very good thing that I did manage to go to over the Christmas period was a wedding of Simon's friend and colleague Tom and his now wife Eden. They got married on New Years Eve in a gorgeous country house in Somerset. As the dress code was Hollywood Glamour it was an obvious opportunity to make myself a dress for a change, and of course a head piece to with it (see previous post). I decided to go for a colour I don't often wear, and don't have a dress in- dark green. I've had samples of silk from James Hare Silk for ages and I often order bridal fabric from them, but I've not had a chance to use their new heavier weight satin back crepe that comes in loads of utterly gorgeous shades. So I chose this beautiful peacock green satin and a fairly simple design as the fabric is so lush that it would be a shame to distract from it. Sadly, these photos really don't do the colour justice but you get a slight idea of how fabulously intense the colour is.

As I was stuck on IV's for sooooo long before Christmas, it was an excellent opportunity to do some beading on my dress. So whilst sitting with the drip going I would gradually add on more and more strings of iridescent blue and green beads around the neckline. Again the photo doesn't really show the colour very accurately.  It is surprising just how quickly I finished it, although with three sets of two hour drugs to drip in for two weeks, maybe I should not be so surprised....

Close up of the beaded loop at the centre front neck.

A better butterfly picture

I'd forgotten Mr EB had taken a couple of shots of the butterfly for me before we went off to the wedding on New Years Eve. The colours in this shot are far better than my poor attempts at capturing peacock feathers, although I always thought my hair was darker brown than this!

Hat a Week 5: Peacock Butterfly

I actually managed to get some hatting done whilst stuck in Papworth, but as usual it took ages for me to actually take some photos of it... I made this peacock butterfly to go with the green silk dress I wore to Tom and Eden's wedding on New Years Eve (pictures of that to follow as well!). It was a bit of a fiddle to make, as attaching feathers to wire and then onto a delicate beaded body and then onto a comb was rather harder than anticipated. In fact, next time I make this design I will probably make a small buckram body onto which I will mount everything and then attach that to the comb. Hopefully this will make it less delicate without being too bulky!



Close up of the beaded body

Its very difficult to get the sheer beauty and colours of a peacock feather to come out in a photo- I'll try getting Mr EB to use his superior skill when he has a mo! You can also see the sticky tape I had to use to attach the comb to the dolly head temporarily... As it has no hair, comb based designs can be a pain to attach to the dolly, but I would rather use tape than put a wig on it!

28 days later...

... And I'm finally line free! Hallelujah! I have gone through exhausted, past shattered and arrived at catatonic. I've tried to think of ways to describe it, having a head full of cotton wool making all my thought processes dull is one part. Having limbs like lead whilst trying to walk through treacle kind of gets the physical aspect. It's just all a bit blurgh. To be really rather annoying, it turns out that the original sample that set off the whole MRSA panic in the first place has been reexamined and reclassed as not MRSA but MSSA, or methicillin sensitive staph aureous... All that barrier nursing and schmozle wasn't necessary! Gah! A least the drugs do seem to have finally worked and my chest has improved and is drier than it has been for a long while, so I'm hopeful that I might actually be able to stay off the ivs for more than just a month - fingers crossed...

I have also had my first proper shower for 28 days! Yes, I know that sounds utterly disgusting and like I have not washed in all that time, but don't panic, I have! The problem with having a port is that the needle is in my left upper chest, and it's covered with a fairly large dressing. You have to try and keep this as clean and dry as possible to minimise infection risk. The port line goes all the way to just by my heart so if bacteria got into it via the access point it could go very quickly right round my blood stream, not something I want to happen. So you have to be really careful to not splash it- not easy, especially when you have long hair which needs washing. This means showering becomes a fairly comedy routine or trying to shower one side of your body whilst sponging round the dressing! The other rather ick thing is that when you take the dressing off after fourteen days there is rather a lot of dead skin and oil from your skin stuck under it, so after 28 days it is just gross, but now I am clean and fresh and can splash about in the shower as much as I like- bliss!

December disaster

Well so far I could really have done without December, and that's before I've even started thinking about Christmas. I had an awful head cold that rapidly went to my chest. So off to Papworth I went and got two weeks of Tazocin and Colomycin, annoying but necessary. It meant that I had to have a line in at the G and S ball, not really an accessory I'd chose to wear to a white tie event, but at least I got to go. The drugs didn't really fully get me better, so I was expecting to have to do another week. What I was not expecting was that a sputum sample I gave them at day seven of the drugs would come back as MRSA positive and that the doctors wanted to admit me for two weeks of three antibiotics to eradicate it.... Argh! Now MRSA in itself is not that much of danger to people with CF as it does not cause a massive decline to the lungs. However it's not something I really want lurking so I could see why the consultants wanted to be so aggressive in their treatment. What is really annoying is that by having an instance of MRSA I was immediately banned from the CF unit because of the risk of infection to the rest of the unit... So I had to have a side room on a different ward. Fortunately, the room was very nice and ensuite, sadly the air conditioning within was incredibly noisy and I could not turn it off. On the first night I was freezing and ended up with an awful headache. Also, the staff are just not the same as the CF nurses, who I've known for years, are experts in CF care and let you sleep undisturbed. They also don't quibble about heating up food that you've brought in yourself, home cooked or bought. As I was being barrier nursed the housekeepers simply woud not heat up anything for me... Apparently once something has been into a barrier nursed room it is not allowed out again, even if it's going to me nuked in a microwave! However, this was not a protocol observed by all of them, some of them would, some of them lectured me on infection control and would not! I've lost quite a bit of weight as a result which will result in the dietician yelling at me! Being barrier nursed is just frustrating!

To my further annoyance five days into the treatment the docs tell me that actually I might not have MRSA! Apparently as the lab has moved from Papwroth to Addenbrookes some communication issues have sprung up. The lab did not ring up the CF nurse to tell them of this MRSA as they are meant to, it just popped up on the computer when they checked for the results. So Sam the CF specialist nurse rang up and they confirmed it was MRSA. However, because the lab has had a few mix ups in the aftermath of the move my consultants got the consultant microbiologist to re-evaluate my results to make sure the diagnosis was correct. So possibly hurrah I don't have MRSA! Eventually the consultant got back to them saying that the initial pattern of growth for my sputum looked like MRSA but after a while of continued growing it didn't! So they are resending several of my samples to be more thoroughly tested to try and get a definitive result. So they know it's definitely staphaureous, which I have grown occasionally for years, the question is, is it methicillin resistant or not??? Apparently it is an 'unusual organism' and they need more data to decide. In the meantime I am left with all this to-ing and fro-ing as to whether all this treatment was actually needed. This regime is pretty hard core, ciprofloxicillin, fosfomycin and teicoplanin are all very strong. But I'm carrying on with it just in case, but it's only cos the lovely Dr Barker is very understanding, that she let me out after a week of incarceration and dropped the dose of fosfomycin from four doses to three. Doing a dose every six hours results in very little sleep and near hysteria! I also may not have needed to be barrier nursed at all if I don't have it, what a waste of bloody time that would have been. Darn microbiologists! I don't think they realise that the bugs are actually from people and how much stress messing up causes them...

Real life photos of a dress in action!

Yes I know I have not blogged in a month-total hat a week fail! But to be fair,I have had the head cold from hell for the past month, although it feels more like a year... I'm back on the IVs in an attempt to stop it going to my chest, which to be honest has not worked as it has and I am producing more gunge than a bad horror movie-sigh. Also, as is so typical as soon as I feel really grotty I get loads of requests for work which I have tried to keep up with, but some requests have had to be refused as I simply don't  have time when I feel this crap-its so annoying! This cycle of IVs every four to six weeks is just getting me down. I nearly missed the GandS Reunion Ball which would have been awful.  I did manage to go for some of it, but that was with a line in (not a particularly attractive look!) and doing no dancing (boo hiss!) and leaving early.  Better than nothing, but still so frustrating. I would have loved to dance with my lovely friends, but at least I got to dress up and see them.  I will try and get some photos of Mr EB and myself in our finery (white tie no less) but I didn't take my camera with us as it doesn't fit into an evening bag! Hopefully some of my friends will have got some shots of us...

Anyway back to the point of this post, I have received some lovely photos of an unusual gold bridal dress I made earlier in the year and it is so nice to see it on a person not my dress dummy. Helen actually wants me to remake the fabric of her detachable train into another garment (watch this space!) and very kindly gave me these shots when she popped over a while ago to talk about this new project. I have to say I think Helen looks amazing! She just has the style and personality to carry off this fairly unusual and dramatic dress-

I love these pictures! She just looks so happy and I like to think her dress added to her enjoyment of such an important day in her and her husbands life:-)

Hat a Week 4 - Spotted Bonnet

This weeks hat was a bit of an experiment. I wanted to try combining the two main ways of making hats, blocking and flat pattern making. Blocking is using a wooden shape and steam or heat to mould the hat form on the block, usually felt, straw or sinamay, for example this black felt cloche. Flat pattern cutting is when you work out how to make the shape out of flat pieces, for example this tricorn and most of my first hats were made from flat card patterns cut from buckram and then covered. The two methods are a bit like draping on the stand and flat pattern cutting when making clothes - one is done on a model in 3d the other flat on paper in 2d. Id never tried combining the two before and it is doable but can involve a lot of trial and error.  This hat is inspired by a hat made by Jeanne Lanvin in about 1910, the back is created on a block and brim was cut flat then the two were joined together.  It is a lovely tight fitting back sweeping into front brim that extends over the forehead.  I suppose it is technically a bonnet rather than a hat, but it is a rather charming that I have wanted to try and recreate for ages.

This is hat once the two parts have been joined, the edges wired and the shape mulled in domette. You can't really see the join (which is the idea!) but it runs from ear to ear over the top of the head. I finished the hat with a fabulous scarlet polka dot fabric and decorated it with black bias strips inspired by the decoration on the Lanvin hat. The back of the hat is pleated to take in the excess fabric around the curved back.

Detail of the pleated back.

As some of the under brim is visible when being worn I decided to line the whole in the same polka dot fabric, which adds to its rather cheerful appearance. I am really pleased by how this experiment turned out, and I have definitely learned a lot about using both methods in one hat! The next hat a week maybe a bit late as I actually have the opportunity to make a swanky dress for me for the G and S Society 50th anniversary ball in December, as well as some other ongoing work, so the hats may well have to take a bit of a backseat for a little while at least.

Hat a Week 3- Not really a hat.....

... But still something you wear on your head so I say it counts! These are some Victorian beaded flowers. I have been trying to make them for ages but have not been able to get wire thin enough to work. The beads themselves are only about 2mm wide with a teeny tiny hole which is fine if you only need to pass the wire through it once but to make the flowers you may need to get two or three passes through it and my usual wire is way too thick for that. I was going to order some very fine gauge wire over the Internet but the sites I use only offer big reels of wire and I didn't really want to buy a big expensive reel before I knew it would work. John Lewis let me down for once and only had the 0.6mm wire I usually use that is too big. I finally found some in the crazy little craft shop in Saffron Walden called Colour Craft. It's one of those amazing shops that are crammed floor to ceiling with a huge array of craft stuff. Wool, beads, tapestry thread, paint, books, pencils, brushes and more fills the shelves. I can't think why I didn't go there before probably cos I don't go into SW as much anymore so just didn't remember! So I finally had my wire and I have sooooo many beads, so off I went. It really is very simple and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to do. Even on IVs and drugged out of my head I managed to make these three in a couple of days. I've popped the two silver ones in hair pins and the third iridescent one may go on a hat.

Little iridescent flower with rounded petals

I know this is a couple of days late, but I'm still struggling with lack of computer and having to swipe Dad or Mr EB's when they don't need them! The one I was using wont connect to the wifi at my parents house cos basically it is a bit rubbish... oh well better late than never!

Hat a Week 2-Black felt cloche

Well so far so good, I've managed two hats in as many weeks! Oh ok, I actually made both this one and the ivory pill box in the last fortnight but I only just finished the inside of this one so I'm using it as Hat a Week 2. This one is a black wool felt cloche made using another gorgeous Guy Morse Brown block that was my Christmas present from my parents. I love the shape of it, its so smooth and curvy! It also has a string groove around the bottom of the brim which really does make blocking so much easier. You can see in the first picture how you just use a cord to pull the felt into the groove and use one pin to secure the cord tightly. I also used a cord to pull the felt in tightly around the base of the sideband so that it adheres nice and closely to the shape of the block.

Here the hat is off the block and with the edge wired and finished but not yet decorated, you can also see how messy my workroom gets mid hat making!

Finished! I was pleased by how the geometric hat band turned out. It's made from overlapping circles of red and white felt that are finished with a black satin cord tied in a little bow.

Close up of the trim and bow.

A Hat a Week

Recently my health has been rather depressing. I'm now on ivs about every six to eight weeks, when once I only needed them every six months. My lung function is about 50% now, which to be honest is crap and means I am tired all the time and I can't do things that I love, like playing the flute or lindy hop. This combined with some other health rubbishness which I won't go into cos its all a bit raw still, has made me a bit depressed. I've been prone to depression since I was a teenager and I can now recognise the signs that mean I'm on a downward spiral. In an effort to prevent myself sitting in a corner and brooding about how unfair life is, why me, blah blah blah I have decided to start a new project. I find that forcing myself to keep busy and think about other things does help stop me getting too depressed and gives me time to try and sort myself out. So my project is A Hat a Week- pretty simple, I am going to make a hat a week, although I include in 'hat' pretty much anything that you wear on your head, so veils, fascinators, flowers, tiaras, anything that attaches to your head! This will of course be work and health dependent sometimes I may not manage it, equally if I don't have much on if I may even make more than one hat-how reckless and daring!

My project has also turned out to be computer dependent too! I have actually had this post and hat ready for about two weeks, but unfortunately my faithful old computer, emphasis on old, turned up its toes and died-again... So I have been unable to blog properly cos the ipad doesn't really do photo uploading easily. Thankfully Mr EB really is a computer genius and managed to get all my files off the old computer and apparently can even get it working again, although this involves time which is something that he does not have a large supply of. So eventually I shall get the old machine back, but in the meantime I am borrowing one of Mr EBs spares!

So the first Hat a Week is another bridal one. This is a mini pillbox made from ivory sinamay and finished with an ivory ribbon and silver wire spirals set with swarovski crystals and freshwater pearls. When I use this block again I am probably going to use it slightly differently in that instead of blocking the whole hat with one piece of sinamay I'm going to block the headband and tip as two separate pieces then sew them together. This should make it easier to turn the sinamay under at the bottom, with one piece there is a whole lots of fibre that has to get turned in!

A Veil for Holly Race now Beckett!

Lucky me!!!! I finally got asked for a silk tulle veil by my lovely friend Holly! She is such a stylish lady and knew she wanted an ultra soft, drappy veil in silk tulle, so whats a girl to do- buy lots of silk tulle:-) Don't get me wrong non silk tulle is also lovely stuff but it has much more body so when you gather it up it is more pouffy and has more volume- ideal for petticoats and some styles of veils but not if you want a lighter less fluffy look. Silk tulle is just like cobweb, all wispy and light. It also sticks to itself, just like cobweb, and everything else as well. This can get a tad annoying, but its worth putting up with because it moves and drapes beautifully. The lightest breeze makes it dance-oh God I sound so soppy! Holly also chose a lovely ivory lace to edge it, which went beautifully with the lace of her dress. As you can see from the pictures it just looks beautiful (shame the workroom is such a mess...)

 

This is a lot of Tulle!

Detail of the Lace edging

This is a picture taken at the wedding by Albert Palmer- we had such good luck with the weather! I love the movement in the veil, and you can see just how long it is as well.  Gorgeous!

I love this photo!