Painted Banners and Over-Skirts

or Why I Ended Up in Bed all Weekend

I refuse to submit to the fact that I just don't have the strength and stamina that I think I should have or used to have. After cancer in 2001 and West Nile Virus(WNV)in 2003, I seem to have lost about 30% of my strength. My immune system was still compromised from chemo when I contracted the WNV. I have to push myself fairly hard to get things finished in a timely manner. Unfortunately, no one know what a good lead time is. All last week, I hammered away on painting these canvases. Of course the weather refused to cooperate, no painting out of doors, heavy moisture in the air, etc. Even with acrylics, things took forever to dry.



This was the most challenging one and some of its detail shots.









This is the one that sank me.




I was suppose to spend the weekend in costume at the Heritage Days at Fort Lupton, CO with our Katte Beth and our Spinning Mistress, Darla from the Ren Scots but I couldn't get out of bed on Saturday morning as I had had a relapse of the WNV as a result of being too tired and was running a low grade fever. That and the fog that socked in my truck so badly, that I couldn't see it from my front door and its 15 feet away, maybe. I looked at the traffic cameras from here to Fort Lupton as well and it was pea soup all the way. High speed, winding highways, bad conditions, not my idea of a fun trip. The fog also lasted all day Saturday and the temperature didn't get over 50 degrees. So, discretion being the better part of being a chicken, I stayed home. It's just as well, as I didn't get out of bed for any appreciable amount of time until mid morning on Monday. My daughter, Erin took good care of me, bringing me real food to consume instead of a handful of crackers, LOL.

I was given the band of Seminole Patch Piecing forever ago in a de-stash swap. I always knew it was going to be a hem band on a skirt or something. It was blue tho and I don't do much in the way of blue in my various costuming pieces. Then, I found my Folkwear Prairie Dress pattern and decided I wanted to make the dress again and I found a blue/cream calico print for a dollar a yard (the length of dress I wanted to make take 5 + yards). I will wear this dress with the keyhole pocket apron over in warm weather and I will wear the patch work over-skirt over it in cool/cold weather. Part of the reason I wanted to make it again is so that I can wear it when I hang out with my friend, Katte Beth when we are at Fort Lupton.

I decided to make this over-skirt on Tuesday to wear on Saturday as well as finishing the painting of the banners. (I thought the break to sew would ease the impatience for the paint to dry, HAH). I also did my regular life stuff of knitting with friends, meeting friends for coffee, going to the library, cooking, laundry, re-arranging the furniture in my bedroom, packing for the weekend, yadda, yadda, yadda and so forth. Sadly, it all proved to be too much.

Here's the detail of the over skirt I also referred to in the title.

Here's what the Prairie Dress looks like with the keyhole pocket apron.









Then, the worse happened late yesterday afternoon, I broke a molar! So, I am currently in a fog of pain and percocet til I can get into a dentist this afternoon. I will then proceed to give them all my money to either fix it or yank it. More to be revealed, sigh. Therefore, the monotone brown banner, above , is again on hold as I can't think enough to paint it. This post alone has taken me over 2 hours of stopping/starting and spell check to write. However, a couple of my regular readers pinged me and wanted to know what was up. So here, tis!