the peaceful peacock

Bench Mon­days. That explains a few things.

From my obser­va­tions in this side of the blo­gos­phere, it seemed that every­one had sud­denly been over­run with mice or some­thing.  Well, it just so hap­pens that it’s Mon­day and I have a pair of shoes to show you, so I’ll be jump­ing on the band­wagon for a bit.  Benchwagon?

Nice how these things work out sometimes.

As part of my chal­lenge of the utmost kind, I decided to take a fairly hideous pair of shoes (found in a free pile) and see if I could breathe new life into their tired, old soles.

They started out dirty, kind of weird shaped, and very beat up and funky-in-the-bad-way.  I ruth­lessly scrubbed them in the sink, let them dry out for a week, and cov­ered them with the fab­ric that I made from my first run on a rigid hed­dle loom.  Let’s focus on that instead of the crooked nail­heads, shall we?

There might be some more mod­i­fi­ca­tions (wood­burn­ing on the base per­haps?) and a lin­seed oil fin­ish, but that’s the gist of it.

And never is there a photo shoot around here with­out a helper:

No mice around here.  Just a bunch of cra­zies suf­fer­ing from cabin fever.  Hope this Mon­day is deliv­er­ing new views for your clan too.

bench mondays, challenge of the utmost kind, handwoven, recycle, shoes, upcycled shoes

Hi there.  Did you miss me?  There was a whole lot of hul­la­baloo going on around here for the last cou­ple of weeks but now we’re on to bright and shiny new things.  As the New Year approaches, I’ve been think­ing about one thing in particular:

New Year’s Resolutions.

Not part of my usual agenda.

This year how­ever, I have come across an idea that I like so much I’m will­ing to make an excep­tion. Not so much out of the tra­di­tion of cre­at­ing one of these lists, but because it will be a point of time that’s easy for me to remem­ber.  I also dis­cov­ered the year-long chal­lenge right before Christ­mas and knew much, much bet­ter than to begin and end such a feat right in the midst of chaos.

May I present Dot­tie Angel’s “Chal­lenge of the Utmost Kind” ~

If that’s too tough to read, the gist is that I will not be buy­ing any new arti­cle of cloth­ing for myself for one year (unless it’s hand­made).  This isn’t actu­ally a stretch since I rarely buy any new item of cloth­ing for myself, the chal­lenge for me is to actu­ally sit down and make myself some clothes.  And unlike most of the par­tic­i­pants in this dandy lit­tle chal­lenge, I do plan on mak­ing my own underwear.

This Res­o­lu­tion (cue the dra­matic voice and music) comes about out of neces­sity more than any­thing.  I’m happy to say that as the babes grow, the mama con­tin­ues to shrink.  After three years of being preg­nant, nurs­ing, being preg­nant, and nurs­ing some more, this mama is pretty ripe for a new wardrobe.  Moth­er­hood changes a woman in a myr­iad of ways, both phys­i­cally and men­tally, and none of my old clothes fit any­more.  Phys­i­cally or mentally.

So there we have it.  As I steadily work on build­ing my inven­tory for this summer’s mar­ket, I will be con­cen­trat­ing on mak­ing cloth­ing that I would wear myself…this new self that is moth­erly and respon­si­ble and wants to wear clothes that look pretty but are durable enough for me to wipe my hands on through­out our messy, puts-the-speed-of-light-to-shame kind of days.  Unique and tai­lored and with nurs­ing access but not in an obvi­ous way.   A lit­tle funky and off the beaten path but able to with­stand what­ever laun­dry set­ting I put them on.  Kid proof.

Those kinds of clothes.

Stay tuned for “the big reveal”, as lady Tif puts it.

challenge of the utmost kind, dottie angel