Last days of 2012

This isn't the wowza item I would have liked to give you for the end of this year, but it's perfectly respectable as a "found" dress made from a forgotten remnant of wool mix in a pin-stripe and burgundy poly satin lining. I'm not sure the neckline is for me, as I don't have a formidable and flawless chestbone area, but for what's it worth, here is Burda's sheath from the July 2011 edition as discussed in a previous post. (Yes, it's that bright in the Swiss mountains in the winter! The gray cashmere cardigan is really not even necessary in the midday sun up here.)
This photo shows that weirdly, I've lost weight around the waist since I fitted this dress a few weeks ago. It's not actually wrinkled around the midriff—I am. I can either add a belt or take it in some more, as I'm planning to wear it at the annual Geneva Writer's Group Agents and Editors weekend in early February.
The cause of the weight loss may be the stress and exercise of entertaining whole hordes of incoming gangs of now-adult friends of my once-children. It was one thing to hand out crisps and cookies to a gaggle of little kids, but now it's a question of ten strapping Swiss men and gorgeous women at a table for dinner and breakfast at one go, and another, and another to come when the Cambridge graduate friends arrive from the UK.
We took a family walk yesterday in the "backyard" which is actually 80 sq. kilometers of cross-country ski trails. I feature my daughter so often in the dressmaking posts that I thought I'd share the two sons for a change as they relish their break from English weather.

This last is a sentimental shot to do with crafts: Notice the small folding screen in the back on the grand piano depicting the Three Magi in felt on a red background of corduroy? It was crafted by my late father as he coped with very radical surgery and followup from cancer in the early sixties, based on a project he found in one of my mother's issues of McCall's magazine. We treasure it for obvious reasons. The tree is hung with dozens of stuffed figurines based on the Nutcracker Suite from a OOP Vogue Craft pattern from the late 70's, another treasure we bring out every year and that took me truly decades to complete, doing one or two every post-Xmas week. I think there are a few shepherdesses still to do, but give me a break.
 I don't think I've shown this room before, the sitting room with the fireplace, converted in the 1960's from the former winter shelter for the goats and cows. In the background you see the hall leading to the kitchen and its bookshelves, which is followed by a dining room and then a library. It's a pretty big old farmhouse, built in 1789, which grew and grew. It usually takes houseguest a full day or two to figure it out, as it's built into a hill and there is a back door on an upper floor which leads onto the backyard, three front doors, two back entrances, and six bedrooms, two of them converted to offices.