Ciaooooooo - and oooooooooh it is cold!!
Hi my dearest friends and Hive community: I'm writing to you from my beautiful-but-super-cold tent, in the gardens of this (dysfunctional!) rental house up the Portuguese glen near Cojâ....
Luckily I've repaired the tent, after a big storm forced the central pole (in the top photo) through the top of it: I had to resew through several layers of canvas and plastic, to get the stability of the form again.
We're feeling slightly better, since partially vacating the property, and pulling Vincent's mattresses plus all our winter blankets down the steep xisto steps and under the gorgeous canvas dome... This was our first night out of the house, and we don't intend to sleep there again!
Long story short, this has been an extremely challenging week, between keeping the house warm versus not dying of carbon monoxide poisoning; and negotiating with a landlord who is negating everything we're telling him (about the myriad serious problems in the house). Hmf. Last time I ever rent anything, ever.
Meanwhile, I've tried tried to focus on my needework, and have found it very difficult to concentrate (what with the emmissions from the stove), or to make progress on any projects, what with most of the contents of the house being in a state of flux... We have booked our journey back to Italy, and are counting the days until we get on the long bus-ferry-train-taxi trip back to the Arthouse.
But I managed one great achievement this week: my old red pinafore dress, one of my first big sewing projects a couple of years ago, from an old bedsheet - I transformed it into a pair of magnificent trousers!!
I've been imagining these kecks for a while, but was very nervous - as you can imagine - to cut into a favourite, handmade dress... It took some serious courage to make the first cut, taking off the pinafore bib and the straps, but I did it!
The remaining top edges of the now skirt were half good and half needing a new waistband, so I used the cut straps (which were pretty long) to make a nice waist border for the back of this new (temporary) skirt, to match with the front.
This involved keeping the elesticated waist until I'd sewn the new waistband in, then cutting it out after, which helped me not have to reset the gathered fabric. I took a rough measurement of my waist where I wanted the new trousers to sit, then a measurement of the waist-to-gusset and the back-waist-to-gusset.
This led to the - huge! - cutting of the legs! Huge in two ways: both gigantic new trouser legs, and a great leap of confidence in my making the cut. Phew: a messy and nerve-racking procedure, but I did it!
From there it was all about the details, and the proving; my first try-out felt like having a wedgey (hehehehe!) but then I remembered a great 'crotch fix' which @kesityu.fashion told me about when we sewed together - it took me an age to remember it, what with the stove emmissions accumulating in my soggy brain, but eventually it came back to me. I removed a good chunk of excess fabric from the groin, and made space for my ample pelvis: much better!!
Then onto the ankle finishings; by which time I was really focussed and into it, knowing that my brand new super-trousers were tantalisingly close to existing.... I'm going to tell you more about that in the next post, which should also have me frollicking around in the final trews: it has been too cold and chaotic to do a photoshoot, but @vincentnijman and I are going to get on it this week under the sun, between packing boxes and suchlike...
Until then... Have a very blessed new season if you're in the northern hemisphere, now that solstice has passed... All good things are coming in this exciting new era.
With the utmost Love and Blessings!
Yea rent owners always never want to take out money to fix what's wrong in the house, you gotta do it yourself
At least you relaxed a bit with the trousers work
Yes! He could've at least offered to return to us the final month's rent.... But yey, we're excited to get on the road (and sea!) soon and to get back to Italia 🤩
It's good you are leaving, monoxide issues are serious crap
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Sorry you had to go through all those troubles, but glad It will be over soon, the trouser you managed to make amidst the troubles, proves how strong you are.
Sending lots of love from here ❤️
Thanks dear @glorydee 🥰 And aye: the trousers make me feel all flexible and string - ready for anything! 💪
It’s really sad that your landlord is doing that and I’m sorry about it. On the bright side, your trousers look so cool and I can’t believe you made it from bedsheets? Wow!
Yey: they were first a sheet nibbled by mice, then a big pinafore dress, then (now) a pair of trousers; I love how versatile fabric can be! 👏
You made the trousers in a strange way, very good techniques. It's very difficult to stay in a tent this winter, it's good that there is no snow.
Oh, for sure we're glad it isn't snowing yet! It is near freezing temperature at night though: we have lots of blankets on the bed and hot water bottles and everything 🙏
It hardly ever snows in this part of Portugal. Only higher up, in the mountains.
This look so amazing and beautiful, greetings.
Ciao, dear Clare. Storms in Portugal appear to be rough.
My and Madeleine’s tent after one of the storms was completely torn apart. Fingers crossed that both of you cope with the situation.
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Wow; that would be hard to sew back together, for sure, @jendasek !! I'm very blessed to have such a sturdy tent, which is over 20 years old now. 😇🥰😍🤩Yesterday we water-proofed it again, which made a difference to the inside temperature as we slept 🥳
#hive #posh
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