We’re quite busy these days at String Central. I continue to work on the long green sampler. Here’s the latest strip, photographed in early dawn light. This pattern is also in TNCM2, albeit without the gridded voiding. The little complementing border was stolen from a different TNCM2 pair.
TNCM2 as a whole also progresses. And to top it off, Younger Daughter and I are hard at work on an outfit for her to wear to the Waltham Watch City Festival steampunk gala.
Long time readers here may remember that last year at this time, Younger Daughter spent quite a bit of April and May in Children’s Hospital, in the throes of an argument with her burst appendix. She had wanted to attend the festival last year, and was very disappointed to have missed it. As a distraction, we planned out the outfit she would have liked to have worn. Being on the young side, what we designed for her was more steampunk than steamy-punk (no exterior corsets, hip high hemlines, or fishnet stockings). As incentive for cooperation with often uncomfortable hospital requests, I promised to make said outfit.
Now a year later, she’s totally better and my promise has been called in. We’re about halfway through the venture. A blouse/waist has been obtained (an antique barn bargain retread). We’re just finishing up a camel wool walking skirt, and will be trimming it next week with black and brown point folded ribbon. She’ll be decorating a brown suede bolero with copious brass buttons, plus a watch, a compass and a magnifying glass. The bolero and buttons were also flea market finds. Pix of all of these as they near completion. But I can present her hat:
She started with an costume top hat, and excised about 2 inches of height. She covered the surgical scar with a brown ribbon, complete with a bow and streamers in the back; then added feathers and gears.
Cute, no?
String-Or-Nothing 
How much time have you spent on the new band? I tried a small part of embroidery like that but it seems to take me forever to do, not sure if it is just because it is foreign to me or not. I love the new band, which also reminds me that I need to get busy with my project again, I haven’t done a darn thing in the past three weeks other then try to keep my child from spilling stuff on it or stealing it, lol. Would you consider taking a picture of the back of the project? I am curious to see if it is reversible or what the various "messy" areas look like as I have nothing to compare the back of my work to. The hat is perfect as well. I am definately looking forward to seeing each individual piece on that. I tend to like steam-punk looks on various things, but have only seen that stuff on the net and in magazines. But then again, I like hiding in my house and other then work don’t go out much, so it is no surprise that I haven’t seen it.