The Bride was turned over without any problems. To kill time this morning I hit a craft store to find out if there were any pretty appliques in there and ended up spending about $5 on some tiny fake flower, embroidery floss, and scissors to make the bride a bouquet. What bride is complete without one? It took me all of 10 minutes to make while I waited for the fabric store on the other side of the parking lot to open up for the day.

I managed to score an awesome deal on 2 yards of gorgeous satin Asian-themed fabrics to make 2 monkey-sized kimonos and 2 yards of a matching fabric for jubans and obis. Sometime next week I should get the socks (or even tomorrow, depending on how fast mail is running from NC this week) and can get started on the first of the two geisha monkeys I’m making (one for myself and one for Sarah, but Sarah gets hers first). By good deal, I mean that I managed to get what was easily at least $50 worth of fabric, a few spools of thread and a spool of ribbon for $30.

Tomorrow we’re supposed to go to Mom’s for lunch and to assist with the removal and installation of the giant bay window in the front of their house. That should be fun.

School starts on Tuesday. I’m hitting that nervous point, and now I’m fretting over shit I haven’t been nervous about since the first week I was at college in ‘95. What if I go to the wrong place? What if I can’t find my classroom? What if no one likes me? I picked up a small notebook today to right down assignment stuff in, because I know how I get when it comes to homework. As it stands, the current plan for my days will consist of school in the morning, lunch, and then homework before I pick up Eddie at work at 4pm. He’s already agreed to quiz me and leave me alone in the bedroom if I need study while he’s at home with me.

I decided that I’m going to bring the Bride to walmart tomorrow, since I’ll have the car anyway and because I want to see her face when she gets it. This way, I can bring it down to show it to Nanny first, then bring it up to Walmart. At that point I’ll head to the fabric store to check out some kimono-type fabric. I’ve got an idea brewing in my head already, and hopefully it turns out ok. I’ve also found a pattern for the kimono and bookmarked that site, and bought the wool socks. Plus, the sock-seller said she’d be happy to supply me with bundles of green and white socks if I get swamped with orders for more stepdancers, which is awesome.

Today I’m doing some dishes and changing the sheets on the bed. I can’t do the dishes until after 9:30am, as I’m waiting for a local freecycler to come and pick up the Rubbermaid closet we’ve got in the kitchen blocking the dishwasher and the fridge. I don’t know how he’s going to fit it into his PT Cruiser, but I do know that we managed to fit about 7 people in one once while I worked at Colibri, and they’re deceptively large inside. If it doesn’t fit, I’m sure we can get it popped apart a bit in the driveway.

Speaking of freecycle, why don’t people understand that when I say something has been promised (and that I’ll repost if it’s not picked up for whatever reason), that they can’t have the item? My god, people, you’re swamping me with emails for a $15 pop-up closet that has been promised for 12 hours and is due to be picked up in 10 minutes, emailing me isn’t going to change that.

Tonight? Survivor, and then the premier of CSI. I’m also taping the premier of ER, since CSI is a 2-hour and I don’t want to miss ER. And since I haven’t mastered the art of taping one channel and watching another, we’ll be watching CSI in the bedroom. This just shows that we need to get a Tivo or something like that.

Woot! Law & Order premier in 10 minutes! Must finish post before then!

The bride is finished. Eddie brought home a packet of beading needles and I put the beads on the neckline, in the flowers around the veil, and even managed to whip up a tiny pair of “pearl” earrings. I don’t want to give her up, I’m just that pleased with the way she turned out. Eddie brought in a swatch of the gown’s fabric today to show the woman who commissioned it and she loved it, so hopefully she’ll be pleased with how it all turned out. I really wish I could be there to see her face when he brings it in.

Her daughter is the one who got the stepdancer and is supposedly bringing that monkey into dance class this week, which means the possibility of several more stepdancer monkeys to be made. I emailed the woman I buy my socks from to ask if there’s any way that I can get bundle packs of just green and white socks. Hopefully I can find out by Friday.

I’d barely finished the bride when I’d received another commission, this one for a geisha, which should be a lot of fun to make. Friday I’m taking the car because I need to get my birth control filled and get a haircut, so I’ll hit the fabric store and check out some kimono fabrics.

Tomorrow I’m going to make a purse. I’m thinking pink with butterflies. Pictures to come, of course.

The stepdancer monkey got her tail put on yesterday in anticipation of going to her new owner today, but Eddie forgot her here at the house. Once I run the dishwasher I’ll put her by the door in the kitchen for him to bring tomorrow. The Irish bride monkey is coming along. I sewed up all the pieces the other day and stuffed the body, and I just sewed up the monkeycrotch. Unfortunately I don’t have enough stuffing to fill the other bits today, but Eddie should be picking some up for me when he leaves work. This one takes more stuffing because the socks were wider and longer; the legs are about 8″ longer than any other monkeys I’ve made. I’ll have to modify the dress pattern a bit so that the skirt part is longer, otherwise the monkeygirl will be in a miniskirt for the wedding.

Once I get done with this one, I’m going to make an effort to get a bunch of the smaller ones made out of all the socks I’ve got stashed in the sock-bag. Expect to see more of my original smaller monkeys showing up online again. I definitely need to get myself something to store all my sewing shit in. I’ve got fabric, thread, pins, and socks all over the place. There’s bits on the couch, and bits in the bags. Everywhere.

I finally managed to finish the stepdancer monkey today. So here’s the vitals on her. She’s made from a pair of emerald green and white striped socks. The stripes are about 1″ wide and go from the ankle up to the top of these over-the-knee length socks. All finished, she’s about 30″ long from her head to her toes. My only complaint about the socks is that the toe seam is done in white thread, and gave the monkey a sort of “franken-monkey” look, which I was going to cover with a doll wig, but decided to keep things simple with a tiny strand of fake pearls.

Her dress is a darker green velvet with a pleat on each side. The inner part of the pleat is a brighter green fabric. The loopy white trim is vintage 60’s and found on ebay, and the lacey heart appliques were straight from Wal*Mart. The hearts are on either side of the two pleats and on the bodice. I think the next time I do a monkey with a dress it will be strapless, as the monkeys don’t have shoulders and the bodice doesn’t end up fitting very well.

And because I thought she just needed a little something extra, the monkey has a bracelet of the same loopy trim on each hand.