Almost There

I've got just under three weeks left to go on my costume project and a list of things to do for it that feels about a mile long. Which means this week will be another quote post.

The End of an Era?

I found out recently that my boss plans on putting the business up for sale at the beginning of next year. I can't say this comes as a huge surprise because she is at retirement age now. Also, her husband is retired and wants to travel a lot and naturally she wants to go with him.
However, if she doesn't sell she is apparently planning on closing the business which would be a shame as it has been around for nearly 40 years.
Thinking about the business closing or changing hands has me kind of sad and I've come to realize the place has become a kind of security blanket for me after that last disastrous job change. After all, my boss was kind enough to allow me to come back part-time, as well as working in the off-hours at my own discretion, in order to finish projects. I don't imagine a new owner would be quite so relaxed about that.
Of course I always figured I'd be moving on after I am done with school anyway, and hopefully I should be done sometime in the middle of next summer, so the business closing or changing owners doesn't directly affect me as much. However, it does add a little to my panic over the post-graduation job hunt because I was planning on working there while I search for something more permanent, and it means no longer having a security blanket to run back to should I end up in another crappy job situation.
*Sigh* I'm happy for my boss that she will get to move into retirement one way or another. I just wish I could find the right job already, end my constant questioning over what line of work would be best for me, and have that part of my life settled so I can move on to thinking about other things.

Costume Preview

Currently I'm working on embroidery for the costume, which is something I've never done before. I am doing it all by hand which takes a while but I can listen to music or watch TV while I do it, so that's great.
My embroidery is definitely the stuff of beginners (so don't look too closely at my pictures!) but having done it I am ashamed I put if off for so long. I was so worried about messing things up that I didn't start until now when I have so little time left and now that I've got the hang of it I'd really like to do more for the costume, I just lack the time.

Anyway, I wanted a snowflake pattern but not a typical snowflake, something more stylized and I found the perfect match with this Celtic snowflake which I found on Urban Threads. Really I can't plug this website enough. It's fun, it's fresh and it's definitely not your grandmother's embroidery. Go check it out if you're interested in embroidery and want something a little different.

Okay, here's the pattern I got:

And here is my embroidery of it:

It looks darker in the pictures but it's white embroidery floss on white polyester shantung using a simple backstitch. I thought white on white might be hard but turns out it hides my uneven stitches fairly well when it's off the hoop. However, because it's white on white it has a tendency in certain lights to look like wrinkles in the fabric (or that could be my beginner embroidery skills) and I wonder if maybe I should have done silver on white instead. Oh well, no going back now.

Don't Blink or You'll Miss It

Time seems to be speeding up for most things these days, except work and school, but this year summer especially felt as though it was over in a flash. It feels almost like I went to bed in May and woke up in September and summer was just a brief dream I had.

High temperatures are predicted to be in the 80's for this coming week, and yet ever since September began it has felt like fall in the air. I wonder if that has to do with the sun slowly changing position in the sky so our days are shorter and we get less direct heat?

Whatever the cause it feels like summer is over and I missed out on many of the things I look forward to in summertime. I didn't even get to make ice cream once and I remember thinking last winter how I couldn't wait for summer so I could try making a couple new flavors. Oh well, I guess there's no rule that says you can't enjoy ice cream in the fall and winter too.

But I also missed out on camping and vacationing. I got out of town for only one night this summer to go with my family to a concert in a nearby city. That was the first time I had left town in over a year. Ugh. It just makes me doubly determined to plan some sort of vacation for when I finally finish this degree.

Down to the Wire

It's crunch time on one of my projects as I now have less than two months left to do the majority of what needs to be done on it.

For the past several years I have made elaborate costumes for Halloween. It started out as a way to indulge a childhood fantasy of mine, which was to be a belly dancer. So I made my own belly dance costume and after that it was just kind of expected at our annual family party that I would debut a new creation.

But the kind of costumes I do are fairly expensive and time-consuming to make and then I only really get to wear them once or twice at most.

So before I began this costume over a year ago I decided it would be my grand finale. I've gone through three different dress designs, even going so far as to make most of one dress before changing my mind. Then I got busy with school and work, and instead of working on the costume I kept putting it off. It was supposed to be done for last Halloween and now I'm scrambling to get it ready for this one. I'm hoping when it is done I'll have the time to do a picture post of everything that has gone into it as I am aiming for it to be the most elaborate costume I've ever done.