We've had two days of absolutely glorious weather - blue skies and sunshine that brought out a widespread display of winter-pale limbs.  Yesterday I had lunch on the lawn at uni with some friends, and we just sort of refused to move and half-seriously talked about taking the rest of the afternoon off to drink champagne in the sun.  We mustered up some virtue from somewhere and managed to knuckle down to work until 4:30.  There was still plenty of sunshine to enjoy, and skipping out a half-hour early made us all feel just decadent enough.

Today . . . today I dusted off my red sandals and my favorite summer skirt and trotted off to do some shopping.  I had great fun pretending it was actually summer until my feet let me know that I should've taken a bit of time to break my sandals back in before trekking all over the city in them.  I found a birthday present for Miss C, who's celebrating her first birthday tomorrow.  Her mother says she loves books, and I'm more than happy to indulge her in that.  It was fun browsing the baby books and rediscovering some of my old favorites.  I wish I'd asked which of the classics Miss C already has, because 'Good Night, Moon' and 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' are both available as board books now, and should be part of every child's library.

Shopping for myself was not entirely as successful.  I found no sandals, and none of the few other items I was looking for.  I did find a straw hat, which will come in very handy, both as an accessory and a project.  I have two projects now.  Here's the 'before' picture:

The hat, as you can see, is rather boring.  It is sitting on a sleeveless black linen dress that is also boring.  The original picture showed more of the dress, but I decided that was pointless, because it's boring - and slightly mutilated.  The neckline has a keyhole that apparently tied at the top until the previous owner of the dress decided to cut the ties off, leaving ragged edges around the neck.  I tried sewing them up, but they had already frayed quite a bit.

I'm still unsure whether this is a good idea or not, but I thought the dress might be greatly improved by the addition of some visual interest.  Specifically, a trim of random buttons around the neckline, serving to both hide my lumpy repair work and add some color.  A friend directed me to Buttonmania, a little store downtown that specializes in buttons and buckles and such things, so I went there this afternoon.

I had way too much fun picking through boxes of buttons.  I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed playing in my mother's basket of sewing notions when I was a kid, but it came back to me as I was poking through mounds of buttons, looking for anything pretty, shiny, unusual.  I raked up fistfuls of buttons from a basket by the door, digging down to the bottom after the little ones, feeling the slippery slide of them through my fingers and enjoying the cool plastic clatter as they rattled away to the sides of the basket.  I eventually came away with a good-sized handful:

I'm thinking I'll sew them on ribbon or bias tape and then fix that to the neckline of the dress, so it'll be more easily undone if this notion turns out to be a badly misconceived one.  You can't tell from the picture, but the big glass button on the right has a very pretty wreath of blue and yellow flowers around the edge, and the shop owner basically threw it in for free, which was a lovely gesture.  That, and a dark green ribbon, are going to be sewn on the hat, which should complement my green dress nicely when I'm done.

However, neither of these projects will be on public display any time soon, as the weather is about to take a cold turn tomorrow.  It gave the day a bittersweet edge to know that I'd be retiring my sandals and summer clothes for awhile after this all-too-brief airing.

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