Diamond 2: Green calico

We went to Galveston for meeting this weekend. I wanted to get some pictures of some things I missed last weekend when my camera battery ran out. The new set is here.

This house (Sealy at 21st, a block off Broadway and just northeast of Ashton Villa) has always been one of my favorites. Lots of houses in Galveston have been raised and had stories added underneath, which saves the trouble of rebuilding kitchens and other traditionally first-floor rooms that have complex plumbing, etc. You can see that the second-story door is actually a formal entrance, and that the columns are continuous through the second and third stories but not through the first, which was likely added later.

Mom's favorite, the "Mardi Gras house" (19th between Sealy and Ball), was decorated. That's what we call it, not its official name.

And this ruined foundation (Harborside between 14th and 15th), circa 1870, was built on the site of Jean Lafitte's Maison Rouge. I'd love to know what both houses looked like.

Then, I came home and started a prairie skirt. I needed an easy, stash-busting, project.

I saw this pattern on eBay and was admiring the 3/4-length skirt with the flounce:

But the pattern is a basic tube-with-elastic waist pattern. For one: Yawn. For two: Who needs a pattern for that. For three: Tube skirts never look like that in real life because the same amount of fabric is both bunching up around the waist and trying to achieve romantic prairie-skirt sweep. It just doesn't work. Beware artistic license in pattern illustrations, ladies!

So I got out Diamond 2, the elastic-waist A-line skirt pattern. Less fabric around the waist, more sweep at the hem, still easy to sew.

It also seemed like an excellent prospect for the parsley-green Concord calico, which I adore but which I readily admit is not an easy color/print to wear:

However, it just screams "prairie skirt!" doesn't it? I think it needs white lace trim around the top, and possibly at the hem, of the flounce, so I have to get some of that this week. I got as far as cutting the body of the skirt (not the flounce) and sewing up the pockets and side-seams. Gathering the flounce will be a pain, and binding the flounce/skirt jointure won't be fun, but it will be worth it.

Set here. Mostly OCD-ish pictures of my loony seam-finishing practices.

I think I really need a white peasant blouse now. Dang. One thing off the list, another one added.


You know what this will look good with, right? Uh-huh . . . red boots!