March in review

Since I'm doing the monthly round-up thing now, figured I'd start the new month off right! So here's how I did on my goals for March, as stated here....

#1: The Renfrew top--done, great pattern, will definitely use that again sometime.

#2: Finish knitting the Camille shrug--check. And since I had a request from my Onyx sweater partner-in-crime, I did get an action shot of it with the dress at the wedding (this was at the reception, in a side room of the church.) Overall, it worked very well with this dress that I'd originally envisioned it with. (Aside from some fitting issues in the dress bodice itself, which I'm now in the process of resolving since I was apparently too lazy to do it right the first time. Basically, I'm taking in the side seams above the black waistband, stitching it by hand because I have to take apart less of the lining than I would by machine. I need practice on handstitching anyway, right?)

p.s. The sleeves are actually full-length, I just had them pushed up in this picture since it ended up being a bit warmer than I'd anticipated.

#3: Reconstruct that brown suedecloth skirt. Check, although I still need to do something with the lining.

#4: The next step of the Onyx sweater. See previous post for the reason I didn't finish this. (I have a phone date with my KAL partner tomorrow to see if she can help me figure out what on earth I did wrong.)

#5: Blue corduroy jacket. It's not quite done, but it's getting close.

#6: Swatch for my Strafford Tee. I did actually do one earlier this week, and am now debating what to do--according to the swatch, I had about a stitch more per inch than I was supposed to. Which honestly doesn't seem like a big deal to me, and I might just go with it since I was trying to figure out how to incorporate some more fitting into it anyway. It looks like it's pretty loose at the waist.  So I guess this confirms that I am a too-tight knitter.Maybe I should just re-knit the swatch and try to relax a bit, since I'm actually using the right yarn for once...

Essentially, though, I got 4 out of 6 done, and the Onyx was pretty much due to circumstances beyond my control. Not too shabby at all!

So here are my goals for this month:

#1: Finish the blue corduroy jacket.

#2: Go through the Jean-ius class that I have from Craftsy. Which will hopefully result in a new, well-fitting pair of jeans!

#3: I'd like to get a quick project in between the jacket and the jeans, since they're both pretty detail-heavy projects (and that's been on my mind since reading Tasia's post last week about how long sewing projects should take.) I'm not entirely sure which one yet, but I'm thinking either Butterick 5606 or a reconstruction project. (I've decided to hold off on the knit shirt I already have cut out, since that's long-sleeved and it's increasingly unlikely that I'll get any use out of it in the next several months, by the time I finish. So I may just knock that one out later in the summer when my brain turns to thoughts of preparing for fall.)

#4: Get my Onyx sweater sorted out so I can continue that.

#5: Cast on my Strafford Tee.

#6: Finish putting my fabric swatches in their new notebook.

#7: Make one scrapbook page. Gotta start somewhere if I'm serious about getting myself back into this.

One last note: The patterns have all been claimed. Sarah and Muireann, I'll get those to you asap.

Just in time....

I finished knitting my Camille shrug on Saturday! Good thing, since I need it for this coming one. I like it, but I realized after trying it on that the cut of it is going to make it a little difficult to wear with anything too strappy. I'd originally planned to wear this dress, but then had decided to switch to a different one that one of my friends passed on to me because I thought that the colors (lavender topped with black tulle) would be a little more spring-like. But this shrug looks pretty awful with the strap placement, so I think it's going to be back to plan A....just have to dig it out from under my bed where most of my spring/summer clothes are still residing first.

I'm thinking it might stretch out a bit more as I wear it-- right now, it's cutting just below my armpits. I thought about eventually undoing the binding and adding more to the ribbing, but with the way it sits on the back of my neck, I don't think I want to do that.

And here's the back in action! (Please ignore the messy hair. And the somewhat dazed look on my face in the previous picture. I'm a bit under the weather today.)

Now here's the thing I don't get--how do I always, always drastically overestimate on my yarn? So far, I've always bought the yardage that the project calls for, or as close to it as I can get when I'm always subbing yarns. So how is it that I have 3 full skeins of this left over? And what on earth am I going to do with them? (After I finish a few more queued/started projects, anyway... I have the next one in mind and may start swatching tonight.)

I haven't worked on it since last Wednesday, but here's a sneak peek of what's going on with that jacket. Which hopefully I will have more time to work on tomorrow.

Just a reminder--I'm giving away a couple of unused patterns from my stash. I realized belatedly that I was a bit unclear on the procedure in that post, so here's the deal: I am willing to split them up, it's first-come first-serve on which ones you want, and the deadline is this coming Sunday. If there aren't any takers, I'm going to put them up on the local Freecycle, but I wanted to give the lovely online community the first shot! So far, there haven't been any takers, so they are all still available.

To the bat-cave!

Ok, not really.....but looking at this picture does make me think of Batman's signal...

What this actually is is my Camille shrug, which I hastily wet and blocked before work this morning (and added a few extra pins when I got home.) I finished knitting and binding off the second sleeve last night. So all I have left to do on this, after it dries, is to sew up the sleeves and then knit some ribbing around the non-sleeved edges of that square. And weave in the ends, of course.

 I've really enjoyed making this one, actually--the lace chart was actually kind of fun to knit. And after the whole nightmare with a similar diamond-like pattern on my Cadence sweater, that really surprised me.

And I think this is the first knitting project where I've stepped back and thought to myself that this actually looks really good. I can't stop staring at this picture of the back. It looks exactly the way it's supposed to, and so intricate, and wow, I can't believe that I essentially made that out of string. That's the sort of thing I never thought I'd be able to do. I'm getting really excited to get this done and be able to wear it!

To change topics....there's been a lot of hate going around the blogs I've been reading lately over Blogger's highly annoying change in word verification. I'm not a fan either--if they wanted to make it harder to fake, fine. But did they really have to make all of the letters fuzzy and illegible, too? And cram things so closely together that you can't tell if something is an l or an i or what? I actually went ahead and turned the word verification on here off so I can stop annoying people. Only problem is, then I got hit by 3 anonymous spam comments within the first 36 hours. So I have a favor to ask...I tried switching it again to the open ID comment with the verification still off, to block those anonymous comments. If you happen to comment on this, would you be so kind as to let me know if that worked to get the word verification off? I know I don't have the most popular blog out there, and I'm ok with that....but when you regularly average in the single digits for number of comments, it's a really big disappointment to have one of those comments be a spam ad for some awful website that you could never look at while at work or around small children or without riddling your computer with viruses. (So in other words, the kinds of websites I don't want to go to anyway.) Thanks in advance for the help!

Edit, 3/10: New question for any of you who have turned off the word verification--have you been having weird issues with pop-ups since? I've noticed a definite increase in the number of pop-up windows in the last couple of days, since I initially turned it off. I have my computer running a virus scan as I type, but I've also had a lot of  extra notifications about tracking cookies and such. I can't think of anything else I would have done in the last few days that would cause this, which makes me wonder if I should just set it back the way it was with the word verification, but I'm also not sure if it's a case of the damage already being done. Thoughts?

knitting update (and a surprise)

I've been finding it a lot easier to find time to knit than to sew lately. Probably largely because my boyfriend's and my schedules have worked out over the last month or so that we can find several hours to hang out on Thursday in the late afternoon into the evening. So we've been keeping it pretty low-key and basically just cooking dinner and then watching some favorite tv shows or movies. He doesn't mind my need to keep my hands busy while I'm sitting for long periods of time, and I feel like it's easier to be social while knitting. At least at the point I'm at on this project. So except for some time yesterday when my best friend was also over and I was resizing some t-shirts on the serger for her, I've mostly been just knitting while he's around.

This is where my Camille Shrug is at right now-- the back is completely done for now (until the end when I have to finish the edges with some ribbing), and I'm about 30 or so rows into the first sleeve. It's pretty brainless for now, just a straight stockinette with a 2-stitch decrease every 10 rows or so. What's got me a little stumped as I work is that I think I may have to add some length to the sleeve--the largest size has something like a 20.5" finished length, I'm knitting the smallest size, and from shoulder to wrist, my arm measures at a whopping 24". (Told you I have monkey arms!) Unless I'm envisioning this completely wrong, since it does look like a long-sleeved shrug on the model. If my measurements are right, the lace chart plus ribbing should end up taking about 8", which is pretty much elbow to wrist on me. So I guess what I'll do for now is get it to the point where I'm supposed to start doing the lacy bit again, maybe knit the other sleeve to the same point, and then hold it up and see where it's at.

I am pretty proud of how the back turned out. Despite all of the counting, this was actually really fun to knit the whole way through. And after the nightmare that was the Cadence chart, I didn't think that would be possible! But I think it looks really nice so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks once it's all blocked!


I also made a secret knitting project that I couldn't write about until now...my boyfriend's birthday was this past Thursday, and so I made him this as part of his birthday present:

He's been rather curious about my crafty habits since he found out about them, and has been asking me all sorts of questions about it. And he did mention at one point early last month that he wouldn't mind if I made him a hat sometime. So I finished this right at the end of January. (After several bouts of basically having to lie to him over the phone about what I was working on. And I am a terrible liar.) It was pretty simple to make, other than just picking that third stripe color in the first place. (His favorite color is green, and he was wearing a black coat a lot at the time, so that was easy. Finding something manly that looked good with those two things was surprisingly hard!) This was the first project where I've actually done multiple colors where it wasn't variagated yarn, and that was surprisingly painless. The hat pattern (the Strib Hat on Ravelry) had a link to a good tutorial for how to start and end the stripes when knitting in the round, so that helped immensely. He was pretty happy with it--he's been wearing it around every time we've been outside since, and wants me to make him a scarf with the leftover yarn (of which I have quite a bit of the brown and green in particular!) I was going to attempt this, but I think that intarsia may be beyond my skills for now, so I think I'll just do something stripey and basic instead.

He ended up giving me a surprise on Thursday, too. After lots of questions about my various hobbies, I found out that he made me this:

He said he'd wanted to see firsthand what it was I enjoyed about making stuff, and figured attempting jewelry would be easier than, say, getting his hands on a sewing machine and trying something with that. So he found one of the simpler-looking projects with instructions on the Fire Mountain website, got the materials it called for, and gave this a go. He admitted that he was pretty frustrated while he was working on it, and said this isn't going to become a regular hobby for him, but that he definitely felt a sense of satisfaction when it was done! I've never had a guy make anything crafty for me before, so I thought that was pretty sweet!

Things left unblogged

Warning: This is going to be a rather picture-heavy post.

My raincoat has a sleeve now! Which I forgot to waterproof after I got done teaching last night like I'd meant to. I got sidetracked by finishing up the last two rows on the chart for the back of my shrug that I'm knitting, and swatching for another upcoming project. So I guess I'll have to do that today, and not sew on this. (It doesn't really have a lining in there yet, I just stuck it on the hanger with it so I could get an idea of what it looks like.)

And since there's not much more to say about that, I remembered that there are some things I've done more recently that I haven't written about yet. So I'm just going to put these up now.

#1: Yes, I know it's February, but I'm going to post about a Christmas ornament anyway!

The backstory: For the last few years, an out-of-town married couple that I'm friends with has hosted a game party around New Year's--basically, lots of board or card-type games and usually some kind of movie or tv-show watching that has some kind of geeky twist to it. (This year, it was a bunch of episodes of The Big Bang Theory.) And one of the first years, the guy closed the email invite with comparing Sauron (the big flaming eyeball bad guy from Lord of the Rings) to Santa, because they're both always watching. So that became kind of a running joke. This year, I had the thought one day while I was bored at work that this could become a pretty funny ornament. So I approached my best friend (who is also friends with them) with the proposal, and we agreed that I'd paint the ornaments, and she'd crochet the hats. (I made 3, because of course we each wanted one too.) Since we rode up to their house together, we had some pretty amusing moments of me gluing the hats to the balls in the car and hanging them from the rearview mirror to dry! Our friends thought it was hilarious, and so this is Sauron Claus hanging proudly near the top of their tree at the party.

#2: I'm easing myself back into scrapbooking, after basically not doing it for a couple of years. Admittedly, these aren't my most creative pages ever, and I certainly wouldn't win any prizes for them. But hey, they're done! Most of these fall into the category of "I just want to get something done so I'm just going to write on these pages that I'd already glued pictures to awhile ago and call it finished."

And you can't even see the writing on most of these, but since it's been sitting unfinished in the album for awhile, it's still better than nothing! I did have fun with making the wavy paper shapes on this one to kind of go along with the way the wall was painted in the restaurant, though.

Easiest page ever, and one that was truly made recently. I just slapped the pictures from the manicures we got for a friend's wedding, oh, 4 1/2 years ago onto a piece of patterned paper and just wrote on it. I don't know why I kept putting this off.

This one had been mostly done awhile ago, except for one thing...

See that writing? Yeah, bubble letters that I colored around with a black marker on top of the paper that was already there. I don't know why I didn't finish that one 3 years ago, either.

The actual layout took some effort, due to all of the little photos....the writing falls into the category of "it's getting kind of late and I don't feel like taking the time to type this and choose a font and print it and everything." Honestly, I'm thinking I'll just have to transfer all of my fonts to my laptop, because the printer is in the kitchen, and then I can just sit next to it and feed paper into it to print things. I'd be so much more productive that way.

I'm a little more proud of this one, from a concert I went to back in 2008. Same deal, just writing on the paper myself, but the gold pen makes it more fun.

And I did enjoy doodling on the patterned paper some to go along with that paisley printed scrap of paper that already had the gold on it.


I do have another page about halfway done, but this one actually will need stuff printed on the computer before I can glue it all down. Ok, so I have several pages about halfway done, but at least I'm starting to get some work done on them now!

Aside from the laptop for writing, I'm hoping this will help...one of my major deterrents has been that my scrapbook stuff is mostly put away, so every time I want to work on it, I have to haul a bunch of stuff out and figure out what I want to use and then put everything else away and then put what I actually did use away and it just takes so much time. I like things I can just pick up and work on. But when I was out running errands with my mom recently, we stopped at AC Moore and she found these little totes on clearance. It has all of these pockets and even a pull-out drawer at the bottom, so I can store a good number of the most basic tools I use (other than my computer for typing, obviously.)

See that box? That's about 2 years' worth of photos that I recently got printed. And that's not counting all of the photos from the 2-3 years before that where I either only halfway did a page or just stuck some paper with it to do later or never started at all. Kind of overwhelming, isn't it? But since the stuff is here now, that will make it easier to start chipping away at these and actually get some more albums done. If I can ever sort out once and for all whether it would be better to organize everything after my last fully completed album chronologically or by broader categories. (My last fully completed album stops at the end of spring 2006. And there's so many holes in the chronology from photos I never finished--or started--that I'd thought categories might make it easier. Either way, I have my work cut out for me, now that I've actually been in the mood to work on this again!)

Two things:

#1: Figured I should update on the knitting. Here's where it's at, around 37/54 rows of the back. (I know the picture looks a little weird and ghostly, due to the white quilt back that I had it sitting on....but hey, you can see the details!) Aside from it being at the point where I can't knit this and watch tv or listen to music with lyrics that grab my attention because there's too much counting involved, I think it's going pretty well! (I'm really, really glad I had the Cadence sweater to practice those diamond-like patterns on.)

#2: In the interest of stashbusting, I went through my two bins of clothes that I had to reconstruct in some way or other, and ruthlessly culled out about half of it to take to the thrift store. So now I have it down to one bin. One very full, overstuffed bin that is still hard to fit on the shelf. But at least I was able to move it to a lower shelf, so I don't have to stand on a chair and potentially throw out my back every time I want to grab it. Yeah, I need to get on actually making some of those. And now if I see anything really cool that needs some tweaking when I visit Goodwill this week, I can justify it!

That''s all. For now. Back to sewing.

the wearability factor

I think I was on the right track with my Cadence, in purposely making it longer. It's rather loose up top, and the belt is quite necessary for this to work on me! I like the styling of this--though you can't quite see the whole outfit, I'm wearing it with my skinny jeans and my taller brown boots and it's just very comfortable, but still nice enough for flute teaching later. For what ended up being such an open knit, it's surprisingly warm--hurrah for being able to wear alpaca!

My main concern with this is the neckline. It's stretching like crazy as I wear it--it was about 2" higher when I put it on this morning, and if not for letting it dip lower in the back, it would quite easily be falling off my shoulders by this point! So I'm trying to figure out what I can do about that--whether it would be better to weave some of the leftover yarn into the neckline to try and tighten it up, or attempt a row of crochet around the top to cinch it in, or what. Because that's the sort of thing that could take away the wearability factor in what is already a much looser sweater than I would have preferred.

But aside from that, the knitalong is complete. So I wanted to publicly thank Kristin for her expertise and patience with us newbies, and Sarah for coming up with the idea! Despite the frustrations, I did have fun and learned a lot!

So, moving on. I did a bit of swatching and then cast on my next major knitting project last night. This is the Camellia Shrug from the Winter/Spring '11 KnitScene, and I'm making it in a nice-feeling (and washable!) cotton/acrylic blend that I picked up at the yarn store on Tuesday.  I'm 14 rows into it so far, and other than the annoyance of trying to cast 4 stitches onto 3 double-pointed needles without them sliding off and making me start over a couple of times, once I got it going, it's been a fun knit so far. But I'm really glad that I had the Cadence to work on first so I could get used to reading a chart! The diamond pattern actually isn't all that dissimilar, either. It's just a lot more increases, since it starts in the middle and goes out from there in the round.

I've also got my raincoat "muslin" done! This is the sleeveless version of it. And it looks a bit big, but I'm actually going to leave this as is with no adjustments. For one thing, this is being made to wear over bulkier winter clothes. For another thing, it has a belt anyway. So all I need to do is take this apart, trim the seams back down to normal from the 1" that I allowed for test purposes, and I can get started on the actual cutting out! (And then figure out what to do with that main front piece, since I'm not sure if I'll need to line or underline that or not.)

One final comment on the next several posts in general... I know there's occasionally a debate amongst sewing bloggers about whether it's better to show all finished projects, or in-progress things. And I know there are people out there who have no interest in seeing unfinished projects. I'm one who tends to show more of the process. And I'm ok with that. For me, the process of putting a garment together is as significant a part of the enjoyment as wearing the finished product. I had a nice reminder of that recently when talking about my sewing with a newer friend. (Well, boyfriend, actually. I seem to have stumbled into one of those relationship things over the last month--thus my quasi-resolution to just keep things as pressure-free as I can this year!)  So I'm unapologetically going to keep writing about things like how this raincoat comes together. And my barely-started Anthropologie-esque refashion. And this shrug that may not look much different than it does now the next time I take a picture of it. And whatever other sewing or knitting projects I end up doing this year. Because most of us who sew aren't solely about the destination most of the time, are we? It's about the journey and the learning process, too. And that's something that should be celebrated.

back in the saddle...

My holiday seems to have been filled with surprisingly little crafting! Though most of it is due to necessarily putting things on hold. I'm going to have to go pictureless for this post since my desktop monitor seems to have gone into a coma, and that's where I store my photos. (On my laptop now.) But I'm starting a few new projects now, so here's what I'm kicking off 2012 with...

1. The winter raincoat. This is still very much in the muslin stage. I'm making a mock-up out of the flannel that I'll eventually be underlining the lining with to check the fit, and I wasn't able to finish cutting it out until today because I somewhat underestimated how much I would actually need (I think the flannel was more narrow than I'd anticipated after washing/drying) and was just short enough that I couldn't squeeze in one sleeve piece. So I had to go back for one more yard, and wash/dry that. I won't actually be sewing on it this afternoon since we've been having some power flickering issues. It's pretty windy here today. (Thus the monitor coma.) So I'm leaving my machine off for now, but maybe I'll start actually basting that together tonight.

2. In the meantime, I'm playing around with the beginnings of my first Anthropologie-inspired recon of the year. I've been eyeing this one for the last couple of weeks....
This is the Attapeu Jacket. There's a crazy amount of detail in this one, and so I'm not planning on doing a literal copy of this one like I more or less did with the pants from last summer. But the idea of something bright and colorful is really appealing to me now that we're firmly in the clutches of the blahness that is Mid-Atlantic winter, and I have a couple of pieces in my reconstruction pile that could make a really fun shirt version of this. I'm planning to post this one more step-by-step than I've gotten in the habit of doing, so you'll probably be seeing a lot more of that soon!

3. The Cadence is currently sitting on a bunch of towels in a bathroom, blocking. So hopefully that will be dry in a couple of days and I can actually wear it! In the meantime, I'm going to go to the local yarn store this afternoon before I start teaching and (hopefully) pick something up for that shrug I mentioned in a recent post.

So that's me....what are you doing for your first project(s) of the year?

Reconstructing a reconstruction

About 3 years ago, I took a velvety dress from Goodwill and chopped it off to make a quick top to wear for Christmas Eve services. I've barely worn it since--I was never fully satisfied with the look of it. So I finished re-reconstructing it last night--I've been slowly poking at it in between sewing Christmas gifts, painting ornaments, and knitting away on my Cadence sweater.

I accidentally deleted most of my in-progress photos before a party, so this will have to do. Basically, I took off the black ribbon, and then cut the shirt around the same point because of course there was a mark from the stitching. I had to take in those princess seams a bit too on both the top and bottom, because it was still a bit on the overly loose side.

I cut some strips from the remaining portion of the original dress, used the newly-taken-in top portion as a guideline for how wide to make each segment, and did some gathering where I joined them to add some interest/conceal the oddness of having a princess-seamed waistband. (Incidentally, don't look inside the shirt here--it's not finished well at ALL, but I'm not going to let it bother me for this one.)

I think it's an improvement over that black band. And done just in time for when I need a solid green shirt for Sunday. No pictures of it on me right now--I've been condemned to glasses for the week, since I somehow managed to scratch my eye or something from sitting at the computer with my contacts in and blinking funny. And I'm ridiculously nearsighted, so either I'd be squinting funny, or just look funny period. (I hate the way I look in my glasses, honestly.)

Next up on the sewing agenda: the raincoat! My plan is to trace it out today, since I'm having one of those off-from-the-part-time days and only have a couple of lessons to teach later on. And I'll be test-fitting it with the fabric that I'm actually planning on underlining the lining with. It's less wasteful that way, and I don't feel bad about marking up or piecing together bits of flannel that won't be seen.

I'd also like to work some more on the sweater, since I'm about 3-4 rows away from finishing the decrease section. I think I'm going to try it on after that, and then start working on the sleeves so I can make sure I can get those long enough to fully cover my arms before I determine how long to make the torso. I'm hoping to knock it off quickly, ideally by the end of the year, because I'm thinking ahead to yet another cousin's wedding that will be coming up at the end of March. I don't have to sew a dress this time, thankfully, because I think this one will fit the occasion and season just fine. But I would like to knit a shrug to go with it, since the end of March is still kind of cold for sleeveless. I'm thinking this one, which I've been eyeing ever since I bought that magazine just after I started knitting, in black. I just need to figure out what sort of yarn to use, since the called-for yarn is way too expensive and not in black anyway. I'm kind of eyeing this--I've had to handle 100% cashmere before and it was ok, though not great, so I think I can take a chance on 5%. And the silk will make it a bit warmer too. And I know I'm good with cotton. The price is still a bit higher than I'd like, but at least black is a very versatile color for my wardrobe, so it's not like it would just get worn once. But I'm going to sit on that for a little bit, and see if I can find some time to run to the local yarn store and see what they have. After all, I still need to finish Cadence first.

Now that it's over...

...I can finally show what all I've been working on over the last 6 months or so for my friend's wedding that was this past Saturday. So I made 3 of the bridesmaids' shrugs (all but the girl to the left of the bride)....



...sewed on at least half of those little blue beads on her dress (I wish I had a picture of the train, but I'm at the mercy of my friends on photos, since my camera was being completely uncooperative that day and refused THREE sets of rechargeable batteries, one of which being fresh out of the charger!), as well as that insert in the halter top, made 5 sets of the jewelry that the bride was wearing (as well as her mom's earrings, which can't be seen)...

...sewed the blue ribbon on the edge of her veil...



...and hemmed the front of her dress shorter so that her blue shoes could be seen. (Cobalt blue is her favorite color and she really wanted it in her outfit!)

Whew! I think that's everything. So that's what I've been doing nearly every Sunday since October. I'll admit it was getting kind of stressful near the end, especially since stuff kept coming up that I wasn't originally supposed to have to do-- like the third jacket, and her mom's earrings. And I really hope I never have to put that much work into one wedding again unless I'm the bride! But I'm still glad I was able to help her out with her day-- it gave me the opportunity to spend a lot of time with her beforehand, and since she and her new husband are leaving for his home Down Under today and it'll be at least a couple of years before I see her again, that was definitely a good thing.

Even so, I'm glad I can just focus on making stuff for myself again for awhile!

And some exciting news-- Gwen at After the Dress... recently had her 100th post giveaway, and very generously decided to give away a gift certificate to Spoonflower, as well as some help from Etsy designer Miss Black Pepper with making a design for it. And I won!! So now I just need an idea for some custom-printed fabric. I'm thinking it might be cool to do something with sunflowers, since they're my favorite and it's hard to find fabric with them that doesn't look all country or cutesy. So it would be nice to have a sunflower dress in a print more appropriate for a 28-year old instead of an 8- or 48-year old... Must think about this.

Preparations

No pictures to show for it, but I've been spending quite a bit of my free time this week in making preparations for this weekend's craft/Doctor Who marathon with Tracey and Cassie. Mostly little detail things for my scrapbook pages--changing journaling fonts from all default Times New Roman, slapped some paint on a couple of things yesterday, swapped out my sewing machine needle for an old duller one and sewed some paper pockets for pages that needed them tonight. (One of my favorite techniques for doing so-- much sturdier than the average scrapbook adhesive, no problems with things getting stuck in the slightly-peeled-away sections, and sewing on paper is just fun! I still need to print out almost everything writing-wise, and I'm hoping I have time before I go to do some of the more detailed work (stuff like cutting out letters for titles and that sort of thing. What I would love to be able to do this weekend is just mostly assembly work so I can get a lot of pages done!)

Some more mini-wardrobe prep, too-- my mom went to Joann's yesterday after having found a McCall's pattern that was the style of shorts I wanted to make for it (she's my main real-life person that I bounce sewing ideas off of). I'd given her my fabric sample of the print and asked her to look while she was there and see if they had a sweater-type knit that I could use-- they didn't, but she did get me the pattern and some light khaki fabric to make them, as an early birthday present. She also picked up a couple of skeins of yarn to do some test knits, having offered to knit a rectangle for me. My mom is the best. :-)

The shirt is coming along well-- I set in the sleeves last night, and sewed the side seams. In that order-- it was sooooo much easier to iron the sleeve cap when I could just open out the sleeve! The only difficulty I had was in lining things up at the underarm seams--one side is slightly skewed, but I don't think it'll be that noticeable. And the other side is pretty much perfect. All I have left to do is the hems, but I didn't do anything on it today since I was either working or working on scrapbook stuff between lessons. Maybe tomorrow.

Biting the bullet

I went ahead and ordered most of the fabrics I'll need for my mini-wardrobe from fabric.com over the weekend. So here's the rundown:

For this skirt, I got this chocolate brown bamboo. (My most expensive item, other than possibly the print.)

Not exactly a color from the original print, but I think this ivory rayon jersey knit will coordinate well enough for this shirt.

This is the denim for my jeans. I figured that having some tan woven into the brown will bring it very nicely into the color scheme. Besides, jeans goes with everything, right? I haven't tested it yet, but I have this pattern in my stash, so I'm going to use that to test it.

For my short-sleeved, woven top, I decided I wanted the look of a peasant blouse (every hippie beach bum has to have one, right?), but more fitted. Fortunately, I remembered this already tried-and-true pattern from my stash-- I've already made the flutter-sleeve and sleeveless versions, so this time it'll be the one with the little puff sleeves. My fabric will be this light blue cotton gauze. (On clearance, woohoo!)

So I still need something for a pair of shorts (including a pattern), and of course something for a shrug. At this point, I'm seriously considering just buying some yarn in the color I wanted and commissioning my best friend to crochet a loose-weave rectangle for me! (The pattern I'm strongly considering is seriously just a rectangle of fabric that's sewed together at the bottom just enough to make sleeves, so it has that whole drapey kimono thing going.) Or would a regular knit fabric be good for that sort of thing?

In other news, I started sewing that embroidered top together yesterday. The neckline is done, the front is all sewn together. I still need to sew on the lower back, the sleeves, the sides and the hem. Maybe tomorrow.

Mwahaha!

Had a sewing day with my friend Nicole yesterday, so she could use my serger to make a knit dress. And she loves using the serger now. She's going to have to come down again because she didn't finish, but I think I've made a convert.

And I got a pretty significant chunk of the bridesmaid shrugs done yesterday-- did a test and discovered that yes, I can machine-sew the trim! So I'm at 2/3 done for that. And then I just have to assemble and sew in the linings. Guess I'd better get on that... I just want them done so I can sew MY stuff again!

Scrapbusting!

It's not the prettiest thing I've put up here. But right now, I am all about using stuff up. And this has the dual function of using up scraps cut from muslin pattern tests (and eventually the test runs themselves) and spools of almost-empty thread. I used up two tonight on just this little piece.

So what is this for, you may ask? This is me finally starting an organizer for my jewelry stash, because I'm tired of digging through a jumbled pile of earrings and untangling 15 different necklaces every time I put an outfit together. I've been neglecting my accessories out of sheer laziness/frustration with it as of late, and that's just not right because I have so many fun hand-crafted pieces of jewelry. So I'm taking advantage of my current organizing mood as of late. (Not to mention wanting to procrastinate on those bridesmaid shrugs.) And hoping that this ends up being one of those things that is so ugly that it's kind of cool. :D

I think I created a monster with that craft supply organization day. Since then, I finished cataloging my fabric stash on Saturday. (The grand total was something like 70 pieces of fabric that need to get used up! But I'm happy because I gave the two pieces I wasn't willing to even catalog to my fellow sewing bridesmaid on Sunday. She actually wears pinkish stuff, and I never do, so hopefully she'll find some good use for them.) And, since I still didn't really have the time or inclination to start on those shrugs, I've also started making myself a catalog of my pattern stash. I have 3 bins full of patterns. (I should have 4, possibly 5, because I also have a bunch that just sit on the shelf on top of one of said bins.) I made myself a little form in Word for stuff like pattern # and description, required yardage and notions, etc. And then I've been scanning in the technical drawings and bringing those into the doc and printing it out. (On the recycled paper that wasn't working so hot in large quantities for BurdaStyle patterns, so yay for that.) I'm writing in the info on the printed form because it's just easier than retyping and deleting everything every time. And then they're going in a binder with dividers for what type of pattern it is. It's kind of fun to see what all I have, and have already found a couple of patterns in my stash that just might work for using up some of the smaller yardages I have, so yay for that!

Otherwise, let's see... I've almost finished tearing apart 2 pairs of jeans for a reconstructed skirt, and pretty much busted a seam ripper in the process. I got some fabric in the mail today (some Amy Butler that I'm going to make a new spring/summer purse out of, as soon as I make up or find a pattern to adapt. I might have to raid my mom's stash, because she has a ton of funky purse patterns!) So let's see... that brings my total so far up to 2 stash pieces I have to use. I also stopped procrastinating, somewhat, and cut out the three shrugs and linings today. And started sewing the muslin scraps-- that was because I was between students and didn't have a whole lot of time.

An award, Thrifted goodness, and a question

I got an award today! Thanks, Alviana!

Rules and Responsibilities--
1. Copy the award to your site.

2. Link to the person from whom you received the award.

3. Nominate 7 other bloggers.

4. Link to those on your blog.

5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominated.

So I'm nominating:
1. Sharon at Adventures From the Sewing Studio
2. Christina at StinaStuff
3. Antoinette at Clevergirl.org
4. Angelia at Sew Much to Sew
5. Linda at Danvillegirl Sewing Diary
6. Regina at Creative Kismet
7. Hillary at the gleam of rose tea

It was hard to narrow down, because there's so many great bloggers out there, but these are all women who have been particularly inspiring me lately with great projects, loads of productivity, creative use of stuff, great inspirational pictures, etc. (Plus, to my knowledge, they weren't already given it by someone else recently.)

Second order of business: Thrift store madness! Spent about an hour and a half there with Cassie last night, and had some very productive (and fun!) shopping time.

I got these things to just wear as is (I really didn't need another T-shirt, but I couldn't pass up a cute one with a horse! And I just love that 70's looking knit dress. Though I will be wearing it as a tunic over jeans. With a shirt underneath. Because otherwise, I cannot go out in public with that low of a cut!)





Inspired by the aforementioned Antoinette and her fantastic men's shirt recons, I got four button-down men's shirts to play with.
I particularly liked the pintuck and embroidery detail on this one. I think I'm going to have a lot of fun girlifying it.


And then I had some fun in the dress section, and found these two. The long dress will probably turn into a shirt of some kind--it fits a little too snugly for my mental comfort (especially showing off my hips!), but there's such great color and depth in that mesh overlay that I couldn't pass it up! See?

The one on the right is a wrap dress, and I'm thinking it might stay that way. But I'll have to make it smaller, because it's a bit too big all over for me. Some black contrast might also be good. But I thought this print was pretty fantastic too.



Third order of business: The question, which is actually twofold. And will be a bit rambling. You've been warned.

So my intention for today was to cut out the 3 bridesmaid shrugs, since I've been shamelessly procrastinating all week. I finished trimming down the muslin on both sides to make the two different alterations (I can wear the same as one of the bridesmaids, but the other I had to shorten a bit in the back to make up for her being a good bit shorter than both of us.) And then I took out the fabric and realized I hadn't actually washed it yet. Oops. So that will be procrastinated on just a little longer, since it's been spending all day in the laundry room. So what I've been doing today instead is finishing up going through my fabric stash, measuring it out/cutting samples/putting them in my little notebook that I'm now using for such a purpose. It's been fun and enlightening and I found a bunch of useful stuff that I didn't even know I had (like stuff I was given.)

But here's the thing: There's several pieces that I just don't know what to do with. Particularly when it comes to things that I've already used for a project, but have a decent amount left over. For instance, this dress right here. It's a great dress. I have about 1 1/3 yards left. I don't feel like I can make a skirt from it, particularly since it has that shrug to go with it and that already gives it a bit of that two-piece look. Or this shirt, which I have about 5/8 of a yard left of that fabric. Too little for just about any clothing project I can think of, too much to throw out. And then there's some pieces I have that I just know I'm never going to use. I'd just go ahead and give them to a thrift store, except the ones around here just don't sell fabric in a form that's not already bedsheets or curtains or another article of clothing. (I know that a lot of you do live near thrift stores that do sell that and vintage patterns and such. Lucky.) And it's not like I have any kids that I can just use up these pieces on.

So here's my twofold question.
a) What do you do with your fabric that's leftover from a project, or that you just don't like anymore?
b) If I stuck some of it up here for a giveaway/exchange, would anyone be interested in it? (I'd only be able to ship within the US, sorry!!)

Edit: I just finished the stash sorting. Grand total: About 78 pieces of fabric. And that's not counting scraps. Or reconstructable clothes. Maybe I should just take all the little scraps and do a Freecycle bag or two...or three...

Sometimes I just don't want to sew.

I've had people ask me before if I would ever consider trying to make money by sewing. Admittedly, I have gone back and forth on it, but when it comes down to it, I really don't think I would want to. See, I have this tendency to not want to sew when it's something I have to sew. Like, for instance, the pantsuit that I spent so much time on in December. I'm in one of those moods right now, because right now, I have to make those shrug jackets to go along with the bridesmaid dresses for my friend's wedding. It wasn't so bad when it was only two, but now that I have to make 3 of the 4, I'm beginning to feel like it's a lot of work. And it's not like I haven't done anything at all-- I cut out and sewed together the muslin over the weekend, and fitted it on the other two bridesmaids to see what changes need to be made. But after all the additional work that went into the shower (which was Sunday--and incidentally, Kaylee was a hit), I kind of need a break from wedding stuff! After all, when you're as single as it gets, it's just not healthy to have weddings on the brain all the time.

So I had the entire day off yesterday--wasn't supposed to, but we had some bad weather that prevented me from driving out to do my flute teaching--and I didn't sew at all. That's not to say that I wasn't crafty, though. I did a LOT of scrapbook work yesterday--got out the stamps and embossing stuff and made some embellishments, and I typed up (and even printed out!) some journaling, trimmed some papers, sketched out a few more layouts, stuff like that. I still have some work to do (mainly on the writing end) but I should have several pages that will only require minimal prep work before assembling for our crafty weekend. And since I was working mostly in my room, I also got to spend the day chatting with a couple good friends over IM.

I probably won't end up starting the shrugs until the weekend-- tomorrow is band day, so I have more work than during the rest of the week ATM, and I also have a flute demo for kids that I'm trying to get ready for that's on Thursday. But I've got till March, so I think I can allow myself a little procrastination. There's only 2 pattern pieces, it won't be that hard. In the meantime, I've still got scrapbook work to do, and embroidery to work on so I can actually sew that shirt, and pictures of Friday's reconstructed shirt to take.

Friday Favorites, Episode 12: The all-sewing edition

Wow, so I guess this marks 3 months that I've been doing this regular feature! Though it'll be a short one this week, since all I've had time to do with the blog feeds is skim. So I hope I didn't miss anything really cool! So this week is all sewing.

1. Not so much a technique or tutorial, but this shirt from The Sewing Divas was a good reminder about how crucial pattern layout can be with certain prints--not something I usually think about, but should more often.

2. Sharon B posted a link to a tutorial for little stuffed fabric birds. They're just really cute.

3. A few weeks ago, the featured project at Threadbanger was this "shrug wrap thingy", as they dubbed it. This week, they posted a step-by-step how-to with pictures, which is far more helpful to me because then I can print it out and take it to where my sewing machine generally resides. And I liked this one.

4. Favorite refashion of the week at Wardrobe Refashion: Someone made a belly dancing skirt out of jeans. Must weigh a ton, but it looks great!

That's all for now. Happy Friday!

Standing Still

I'm at a bit of a stuck point on my shirt. I wasn't totally happy with the look of the shrug, and after some experimentation and trying on things already in my closet over the shrug (and a second opinion from my mom, who's used to my sewing questions), we came to the conclusion that it's the texture of the grey. It needs more contrast. Style-wise, what looked best over it out of what I had was a chunky-knit cardigan (though the color of the one I have is all wrong). So I figure I have two options-- try to find some kind of knit at Joanns' (since I need to go anyway and exchange some paper for my scrapbook) and sew from scratch, or try to thrift something grey and sweater-like that I can reconstruct. The latter would be my preference, but it's a case of a) being able to find something that's the right color and not wool and b) whether they even have sweaters out still, since it's spring now. But I'm going to be going there this weekend anyway with some friends, so I'll add that to my small mental list of "things to look for so I can totally destroy them with reconstruction ideas, mwahaha".

So, rather than start a new project and leave this one unfinished, my brain is content to simply ponder the things I want/need to sew in the upcoming months. Here's a sampling...

1. I really want to attempt something along the lines of Anthropologie's Doolittle Blouse. I just love that assymmetric button thing. The only pattern I know of is one from Burda, and I saw a review on BurdaStyle from someone who made it and was completely unhappy with the fit, and I think this could be a really fun reconstruction anyway. So I'm hoping to find a ginormous men's button-down at Goodwill that I can tear to shreds for this cause. (Or, if I'm extremely lucky, store leftovers that are two of a kind!)

2. Years ago, when I was in high school, I made myself a messenger bag out of a pair of wale-less corduroy pants that my brother no longer wanted. (My first reconstruction, really.) I hauled that thing around for almost a decade-- it was the perfect size for stuff like city day trips and outdoor summer music festivals. The lining was hand-sewn in the bag, so I had to repair it probably a dozen times or so. After Purple Door this past summer, I was finally forced to admit that this bag has finally begun to fall apart beyond repair. So this is the other thing I want to find at Goodwill-- a pair of sturdy pants that I can make another bag out of! I need something for rock concerts! (I still have the original bag so I can use it once more for dimensions.)

3. I need to make myself a purse for a wedding this summer that I'm a bridesmaid for. I have some silver satin left over from a skirt I made a few years ago that will go perfect, since our shoes are silver. It's very lightweight though, so I'm going to need to do some serious stabilizing. (Probably in the form of fusing it to heavier-weight fabric before even attempting anything with it.) The challenge: I need to make it elegant and compact, but still large enough to hold both my car keys and (more importantly to me) my camera! Along with other bridesmaid necessities like cash for the hairstylist, lip balm for touchups, and bandaids for the blister I'm more likely than not going to end up with from my shoes. :P

4. A few years ago, I had several weddings to attend during the summer, so I made this dress, hoping I could wear it for all three. (Different crowds.) Unfortunately, the dress was horribly unflattering, as you can see, and I didn't have time to make another one until before the third wedding. I liked the fabric still (despite the pink) and so I didn't want to toss it, so it's been in the recon pile for awhile. Now that I have a serger, I think I'll be able to deal with the sheer much easier (hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to do those rolled hems on the bottom and then I won't have to do the folded-under-pain-in-the-butt-on-sheer hems!) So I'm hoping this will be the year that this dress becomes wearable again. There's actually two layers of the sheer, due to the assymetric, so I think I'm going to try something different for me and try to reconstruct it using an actual pattern. I'm going to check out a few of the major pattern companies (especially Vogue) before I settle for sure, but at the moment I'm thinking that BurdaStyle's Cate might work rather nicely.

I'm not just thinking of sewing, of course-- the scrapbook bug has bitten me again, and just in time since another bridesmaid and I are going to be putting one together as a bachelorette gift for my friend who's getting married this summer (kind of a last look back at her single days, since she had a rather whirlwind romance). We've already done the photo scanning, I did the necessary editing, they're getting printed now, and we're going to sort them out and see what else we can get done on Monday. I'm also pondering some of my own scrapbooking, of course, and I have about five more necklaces and six sets of earrings to make for the rest of the bridesmaids (I'm doing our wedding jewelry), and I have an ATC sketched out plus one in progress that I want to do...

But none of this tonight. I've been fighting off a headache all afternoon, so I'm just going to sit here with the tv and the recipe pile I'm organizing-- brainless, and I made good progress with it earlier so I want to see how much else I can get done here.

Inquiring minds want to know...

Since Mom2fur and Sharon wanted to know what happened with the yoke, first of all, sorry for taking so long. I didn't have a chance to do anything with it until tonight.





Had a bit of an adventure trying it on and trying to hold up the straps, and discovered that they were indeed too short. But since I'm too lazy to rip out the whole thing (and a bit concerned about messing up the main fabric), I decided to improvise.






I was hoping for one of those "strap tie" looks-- basically it's just a tube the width of the strap, stitched onto the edges. I knotted the ends of the threads before clipping too, and I'm hoping that will be sufficient to hold it-- I thought it would look nicer if I didn't backstitch.






So this is my Azalea shirt so far (and I hope it's not really as assymetric as it looks! I have got to figure out a way to stabilize my perpetually leaning dummy.) Just for the record, this isn't what the belt is going to look like--I just wanted to cinch it in to see what it would really look like, and to give me a guideline for draping the shrug. I want to make that before I make the waist tie just to make sure I'll have enough fabric.

So I'm thinking maybe something like this for the shrug-- basically all I did was tack it at the waist to form a sort of shawl with "sleeves". I'll probably have to modify this to make something like actual kimono sleeves, so that it doesn't slide right off my arms in unflattering ways while I'm playing my flute or something. Right now, it's just kind of sitting there. I do like the shawl collar with this drapey shirt, but need to figure out a simple way to make it. I also think I want a wider belt than what Burdastyle uses-- theirs looks like it's maybe 1.5" wide tops. So I'm debating whether I want to do a long wraparound tie, sort of like a kimono obi, or something that laces in the middle a little more like a corset. Leaning more towards the tie, but it depends on how much of the solid grey I have left.

Shirts, Soup and Students

I just wanted to give a shoutout to my flute students-- as I was reminded today, they're such a wonderfully creative group of kids! And not just with music...
This isn't actually from today-- it was part of a Christmas gift that one of my long-time students gave me this past year. I'm not sure if she or her mom did this one, because they're both kind of crafty, but I love this thing. It's basically just a little cardstock sleeve for a pack of post-its, held closed by a little teeny piece of velcro. I love the play on words with the music stamp, of course. And I'm trying to protect it in my bag as much as possible, because I seriously want to keep using this thing once the post-its are gone!


This is what made me think to blog about them-- I teach once a week after school at a private school in the area, and they've been on spring break for the last two weeks. One of my girls went to Flordia over her break, and she came in today and announced she had a present for me. So I opened it up to find this-- a handmade necklace of a seashell on braided embroidery floss. She immediately said I didn't have to keep it as a necklace if I just wanted the shell, but as I told her, I love seashell necklaces so this is perfect. (Tried it on and it's a good length, too, so I'm definitely keeping this as is!)

I figured while I'm at it, I'll also share one of my favorite soup recipes. I love this because it's easy and rich and has a bunch of vegetables in a way that I don't mind eating them (I do try to eat healthy, but seriously lack a natural inclination to eat veggies!) I adapted this from a recipe in a make-ahead-and-freeze cookbook that my mom brought home for me once (I'm chronically in need of things I can just make and stick in the freezer for when I get home from teaching and I'm starving and/or have limited time to eat before teaching again.) So without further ado...

Beef Barley Vegetable Soup
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 1/2 lb beef stew meat, cut into bite-sized cubes (and I cut off as much fat as I can too)
1 bell pepper, chopped (I like the red ones, but you can do whatever color you like best)
1 c. carrots, chopped (or you could probably use the pre-chopped frozen ones)
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 bay leaf
4 beef boullion cubes (I actually use this beef boullion paste stuff in a jar instead-- sooooo much better than the powder stuff!)
1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes in juice
2/3 c. uncooked barley
1 c. frozen green beans
1 c. frozen corn

In a medium soup pot, heat oil. Brown the beef stew meat over high heat and remove with a slotted spoon. Turn heat down to medium, then saute the bell peppers and carrots in the soup pot just until tender. Return meat to soup pot. Add 5 1/2 c. water, thyme, bay leaf and beef boullion; simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. Add tomatoes (with juice), barley, green beans and corn, then simmer for another 25 minutes. Remove bay leaf.

The original recipe called for chopped onion too, but I'm not a fan of onion so I replaced that with the carrots. You could add them though, just saute them with the pepper. I also cut back on the original amount of tomatoes and had to add more water than it called for. Seriously, you could probably add whatever veggies you want. It's a very thick, hearty soup, and freezes great, and is perfect for a quick meal (once it defrosts) on a yucky, cold, wet day like this that makes me think that weather that's warm enough to allow me to wear my recent sewing projects is never going to get here!

Speaking of sewing, I started sewing on my adaptation of BurdaStyle's Azalea dress yesterday afternoon. I'm making mine as a tunic top, so I eliminated the underdress (the drapey top stuff is thick enough to not be see-through, and if I'm going to be wearing this as a summer top I don't want an extra layer that close to my skin! Not with Mid-Atlantic humidity!) and shortened it a good bit. It's been a pretty easy sew so far-- the thing that took me the longest was the zipper, and that's because I'm trying a new technique to do lapped zippers instead of a center one in the side seam. (Not definite yet, but there's a chance I might be teaching a friend's daughter how to sew with patterns-- the mom can sew, and the girl has her own machine and can make simple things like quilts and pillows, but she really wants to learn how to make clothes. So my friend said she doesn't know how to use patterns very well, and I offered to help out. If that's the case, I want to see if this type of zipper is easier than the centered ones, because I remember when I was a kid, zippers were the most frustrating thing to sew ever. Sometimes they still are. And the lapped ones look nicer anyway. Not that I'm going to let her start with zippers, mind you, but you know it's only a matter of time before she wants something that involves one.)

Anyway, I'm nearly done with the tunic already-- still have to finish the yoke (ran out of time and bobbin thread around the same time) and then hem it. And then I have to make a belt, because it looks like a serious maternity top without it. I saw one in Threads that looked interesting-- a bias-cut tied one that hugs curves very well, which might be perfect to cinch it. But I need to see how much fabric I have to deal with, because I decided that I wanted to make a shrug out of the yoke/belt fabric as well (since I'm an ice queen and get ridiculously cold in over-air conditioned spaces. Which, around here, is pretty much any building that's not my house. Plus then I can wear it sooner, because that will make it good for spring as well.) I don't have a pattern for the shrug-- my plan for now is to stick the Azalea on my dummy and drape something with kimono-like sleeves and see if I like it. And if I don't, it's off to dig through the pattern stash.

But first, off to actually sew!

Edit, 9:57 PM: Oh, this could be bad. I sewed the wrong straps together, so the armholes are in the front and back instead of the sides. And I did some major trimming/corner chopping. Oh, I hope this is fixable without redoing the entire yoke....