12/28/13: Breaking the Silence and Sewing a Lace Belt

When a person comes back to blogging after 6 months of non-blogging, she has, obviously, a lot to talk about. That is where I am at today and I don't have a clue of where to begin! Maybe I should start things off with a short recap. . .

The last 6 months or so were full of many long days at the farm working the fields and market. Last year our orchards didn't produce any fruit (apples, peaches, etc.), because of a frost we had in the Spring. This year turned out to be plentiful. We had a beautiful crop of apples and peaches and they haven't looked so blemish-free in a very long time. A good portion of our field crops were also successful, such as our tomatoes, sweet corn, and pumpkins. As always, there were certain set backs and trials during the year that involved a wide array of causes. Those that stand out in my mind are the late crops of potatoes. We planted potatoes in three different locations and only the first patch produced potatoes with high quality; the other two were combated by disease and scab. If you ever planted a garden--especially one with vegetables--you would know that it is a very good idea to plant a variety. Don't just plant one thing, plant an assortment so if some disease, bug, flood, or drought comes along and makes your tomato plants wither, you'll still have those carrots that you planted next to them. :)

My time wasn't solely spent at the farm this year. I also was working part time in the kitchen at the Summer camp that is right down my street.

As the farming season was slowly fading away in October, I went in high gear for an upcoming December craft bazaar happening at a local church. What was I selling? I will tell you all about it in the next post!

In all the Summer/Fall craziness, I managed to do a little crafting. I made curtains for my bedroom and I finally put together a belt using one of A Fashionable Stitch's belt kits, which she no longer has in stock. I was really disappointed about this when I heard the bad news, because her kits make it so incredibly easy to execute! Maybe she'll get kits later on when her new brick and mortar fabric shop is running smoothly; congrats Sunni!

So here's the belt being worn with a ready-made, loose fitting linen dress of mine:

To make this belt I used two fabrics: a lace fabric and a white lining. I cut a strip of each and basted them together. I then followed the kit's instructions for the belt, using the two basted fabrics as one fabric, like an underlining. I used a small scrap of white bias tape for the belt loop.

The part of this project that I would deem the hardest, was setting the eyelets. I first thought that I needed to go out and buy a tool or something for this step but as it turns out my mother or grandmother had an eyelet tool, I just never knew what it was until I searched the internet. This is what it looks like:

And this is what it was made to do:

This belt may be a small accessory and didn't take much time to do, but I am so proud of it. For a long time I included belts in the category of leather shoes--a clothing accessory you simply cannot make at home, (unless of coarse you buy a truck load of new shoe making tools and materials, something I'm not planning anytime soon). In a nutshell: a new crafting door has been opened.