Month: May 2010

Chirag and Neha

We flew east for three days to attend Chirag and Neha’s wedding. What a happy and proud group of family and friends, and what an amazing weekend.

My photos barely turned out, so I’m waiting for the real ones from the photographer, but the wedding was beautiful and fascinating. Friday night was for dancing – the women danced garba (a circle dance that looked simple but graceful to the untrained eye, but after watching women coach some of the little girls out in the lobby I could see how much skill was involved)

And then everyone danced raas – a group dance that involved tapping sticks against your opposite in a shifting circle. The beginner version just involved keeping time with your sticks and making sure you approached the correct next person after each clockwise shift. The advanced version featured all sorts of leaps and twirls – athletic and beautiful to watch. We particularly enjoyed watching Chirag and his cousins. The sticks were decorated with red and gold designs and there must have been wax coating them, since my hands smelled like kindergarten crayons afterwards.

Neha was gorgeous in her saris and I loved this photo of the little girl admiring the henna on her hands from the mehndi ceremony.

Such fun, too, to get the chance to see all of the MIT guys.

On Saturday morning, there was a procession on the groom’s side (he rode a horse with the prettiest coverings), he was accepted by her family, and then a multi-staged ceremony to bind their families and then the two of them together.

Then on Saturday night, there was a dinner and reception with dancing and toasts and fun.

In a pinch

Is there anything you can’t do with painters tape??

We have a wedding this weekend with three events (and therefore three dresses). All of my pre-baby dresses are still too tight in the chest to zip, so it meant some shopping. I had one dress from a wedding in November, found another online, and had to hit the stores for the third dress. I found this at 50% off the day before we left. The top was so flattering, but the skirt had about twice as much fabric as anyone could ever need.

Twenty minutes later, I’d seamed and hacked along my nice straight painters tape lines, and ended up with a nice A-line. Huge improvement!

To Do list

I’ve been working late for the last few weeks and my knitting and sewing backlog is suddenly ridiculous.

(Of all the dire problems to have, right?) The two pairs of fabrics on the left are for lightweight summer overalls that I will start as soon as I come up with a pattern template. (Suggestions are welcome, too, if you know of cute options that are roomy enough for cloth diapers.) I love both of them. Those turtles and the brown fabric will be reversible, in my mind’s eye. 🙂

Arts & Crafts

A project that I’ve been meaning to try for months: freezer paper stenciling. I’d done a ton of printmaking in high school and then none since then, so this was a fun treat, and way simpler than silk-screening, etching, or linoleum blocks. This was a first attempt – pretty good so far. I’m still slightly dubious that the color will hold, but I’m enjoying the results for a bit before I try a test wash.

I’d spent a while several weeks ago combing the internet for good sample images, and now I have a great backlog. It was a fairly speedy process (about 45 min, probably? Though of course there were interruptions) and the individual steps (tracing, cutting, ironing, painting, peeling, and ironing again) were each quick and satisfying.

If the color holds, then I’m all excited about the possibilities – the number of cute boy onesies drops off precipitously at 12 months, but with a not-really-crawling-yet baby, onesies are still so much more practical than shirts. Many of our go-to stores so far only have onesies with polo collars (odd choice, I think. Our baby, at least, is more chin than neck at this point). And I’m not such a fan of baby clothes with words on them, which limits the options ridiculously. I’ve found a bunch of great options, but only on boutique online sites or etsy – love that look but the prices are daunting. The ones I used for this project are four packs of Carters onesies than I found for 50% off plus a coupon, so they come to about $2.10 each. I was pretty delighted about that. I have three more in the 12 month size to decorate soon – still deciding which designs will win.

Backyard

Can you believe it’s already time for the irises to be blooming again??

They’re magnificent this year, and there’s even the first pretty yellow rose to accompany them. But I can’t believe it’s already mid May. Time is flying.

The rosemary is blooming up a storm. Apparently the butchering I gave it last fall didn’t phase it in the least.

I spent the last few evenings cutting back the ferns now that all the fiddleheads are out and uncurling. They look so new and upright, especially compared to the last few weeks of bedraggled and lank.

At the ends of the rockwall, the pansies and forget-me-nots are running rampant at one end.

While the mint is truly taking over the other. (This was after a batch of mojitos, which didn’t even make a dent.)