Cattywampus

A list of sorts

I'm a bit manic right now because of some things going on at home & at work (all good, no worries, but I'm running in circles), so I'm going to fall back to the list format.

1.  Look Mom, I sewed!  I haven't had my sewing mojo for quite some time, it seems that when fall term starts and the students come in waves that I just lose all my energy for sewing, spring and nice weather bring it back.  Go figure.  It has happened 3 years in a row now, so at least I can be comfortable that there is a cycle and if I don't feel like sewing, it's okay, I will again soon.

I made a cover for my nookcolor!

I adore that fabric.  I bought the pattern on etsy from birdful stitches and I would recommend it, easy to follow and a lovely finished product.

The only thing I did differently was to use an elastic hairband in place of the fabric loop to hold it closed. 

It is most excellent, I do not have to take it out of the cover to do anything with it, and did I mention how happy the bright, flowered fabric makes me???

2.  It is theoretically possible that I will finish this Christmas quilt before next Christmas, but nobody hold their breath.

3. Pixie is fuzzy and cute.  Wait, that wasn't one of my things.  Sorry.

4.  Deep fried oreos with homemade cookies and cream icecream.  Judge if you'd like, but I finished every bit and I would order it again.

5.  Thanks to a recommendation from Jodi, whom I trust in this matter implicitly because she lives in a much colder, snowier and windier place than I do, I purchased a pair of Sorel snow boots.  Because I finally have practical snow boots, it will not snow another inch this year, and actually that's okay with me.

And they're cute too, toasty warm with cute shoes, what more could a girl ask for?

More not knitting

There's no way I can get through all the Belgium photos without getting behind in other things, so I am not going to try.   I will put up the next bit of Belgium when I have the time and ambition, but in the meantime, here's what I've been up to this weekend.

I have LOTS of knitting projects started that I have no pictures of at all, so we'll just pretend it doesn't exist for right now.

It is hot here, hot in the city is miserable.  I don't like anything to touch me when it's this hot out, so I try to wear as many skirts and/or dresses as possible.  In my pre-season shopping I was searching for skirts, again I noticed that there are very few a-line skirts out there, everything is pencil.  I do not like pencil skirts sam-i-am!

They are constricting, uncomfortable, and quite honestly they don't look very good on me.

Last year I experimented with one skirt following a make your own pattern design in a book.  That sort of worked.   

It looked much more bell-like than other skirts I had, so I didn't fall in love.  I wore it, and I will still wear it, but I didn't go crazy and make oodles of them or anything.

This year, I purchased a book called the Perfect Fit that claims to help you alter patterns based on body type to make things fit better.  I read through that today and took my absurdly simple a-line skirt pattern that I had purchased and started cutting.  I wasn't sure about the sizing, so I ended up taking about 3" off the final skirt, next time I'll cut at least one size smaller, possibly two.

I made the 'swayback' alteration and I understand why I wasn't able to fix this problem last year now.

I had a rough patch near the end where the facing was about 1" shorter than the skirt at the waistband and I tried to be good and follow the instructions and ended up with something that made me look like I had an innertube around my middle.  I almost gave up at that point, but decided to try to fix the facing and lo and behold I have a skirt!

 

You can see where it's not perfect at the waistline, it's a little bumpier than I would like, but considering the first attempt I think it's just grand, especially since I have no intention of ever wearing it WITHOUT a shirt over the top of it.

 

Also, it does NOT look like a bell.  Bonus!  Hopefully next weekend I will have time to try again with a better idea of the size I need and how to make the facing lie a little smoother.  I see lots of little knitpicky things in it that make it not-perfect, but I don't think anyone would be able to tell that it wasn't storebought without careful study.  A happy, flowery, sunshine-y summer skirt - just in time for a week of 90s!

Once I feel like I have this down and can understand why the fabric is doing what it's doing I am planning on moving on to a DRESS.  GASP!  Dangerous territory for me, I have attempted sewing dresses before and the last instance it ended in tears of rage and scissors of doom.  It was over 10 years ago and I'd like to think I've learned some things since then, but disaster is always a possibility and like knitting, there's nothing worse than spending good materials and good time on something that turns out horrible!

Stealth dog:

 

Pixie says - where's Duke??

A Dearth of Zippers

I love bags.  Small bags.  Big bags.  Anything with bright fun colors, in cute little shapes, actually pretty much anything made of fabric that I can put something in and carry it around.

When I got my Tom Bihn bag, I didn't spring for many of their attachable organizers, I figured I would wait and see how I was going to use the bag before I purchased anything else.  Then I ran across a cute little bag on Etsy and saw that the seller had included a hook that I could use to secure that bag into my Tom Bihn bag and VOILA  - an obsession was born.

I took a mental health day today and since I am right on track with my pi shawl (340 down, 200 more stitches to go!) I decided to try some tutorials I found online.

I started with this fabulous tutorial for a box bag.  The one thing about using free tutorials from blogs is that they tend not to be quite as clear as purchased directions, this one is great but I couldn't figure out what the final size was supposed to be.  I had decided I wanted to make a very small bag, just big enough for one carry along sock sans mate, small and portable for our upcoming trip, so I made an executive decision based on the size zippers I had laying around and aimed small.

 

Would you believe it, it worked!  And instead of a plain zipper pull I put a D-ring on the pull so I can hook it into my Tom Bihn bag on the key holder.

 

I wasn't that thrilled with my first zipper attempt, but I think I did a better job with the second one.  Instead of making another bag in the same style, because that would be just nutty, to make another bag once I figured out how to do it..., I wanted to make a travel make up bag because mine died and y'know, we have that trip coming up.

Magazine shown for size.  It ended up a little bigger than I envisioned, there was another guessing of measurements on my part because I wanted to make it fatter on the bottom than the pattern stated, but bigger is better than smaller, right?

 

I used the very helpful instructions found here for this one.

I love the exterior fabric on this one, I may make a larger box bag with it, more like sweater sized, or big enough to hold a sweater until it gets to big to carry around, if that makes any sense.  I like the ones with zippers better than the draw string bags (which I have oodles of) because they are neater and more compact to carry in my bag, for around the house the draw string bags still work just fine. 

I also found a tutorial for a kindle case which looks pretty easy, but I'm not sure why I would need one.  Even given that I don't need a kindle case (because I have a cover that came with it as a gift), I still want to make one.  It's not that I don't like my current cover, I do, it's leather so it smells nice and it folds open like a book, it's all good, but I could MAKE one, in whatever fabric I wanted!  It doesn't make any sense, but I suppose that's why we call them obsessions.

I came to a grinding halt in my bag making efforts because all my zippers where either 7" or 9", for the larger box bags you need either a 12" or a 16" zipper.  I will have to make a trip to the one store I know of in the city that carries zippers or wait for a free shipping coupon from Joann's, that would work too, either way, no more bags for me for now.  Sigh.

Skirt Conclusion & finally some knitting

So, I washed it and it still looked all stiff and no matter how cute the blue was it just wasn't working.  I dreaded ripping out that seam and pulling off the bias tape, sooooo I didn't, I just cut it off and took an inch off the skirt, no harm, no foul.

Action shots with a matching shirt to get a better idea...of course the part in the back where it puckers is completely covered up by this year's long shirt styling.

It's still a bit bell-y though, just not as stiffly bell-like as before.  I think that the next one I make I will make the angle a little less steep, less A-line, if you will.  I think I can handle that.

It's frustrating, this trial and error thing, not something my temperament is suited for, but if I can persevere it will be well worth it.  I have some fabric for another - and even for a dress if I'm feeling REALLY ambitious - so the next weekend we are home I will give it a whirl and see if I can make a less A-line a-line skirt.

In the meantime I have a skirt that fits well, is a really fun summer pattern, and that I am not at all embarrassed to wear out in public.  In fact I'm sure I will wear it to work one day this week.

Not tomorrow though because tomorrow is Jury Duty.  I am taking my ipod and lots of knitting, I am hoping for a calm day of knitting and no actual jury to serve on so I can happily go back to work on Tuesday.  

I'm not excited about the prospect of going there tomorrow instead of work, but the idea of being stuck in a room waiting with nothing to do but knit is certainly not giving me the heebee jeebies, y'know?  

I am working on the pompon top, which is a pretty fun knit now that I've gotten past the size 0 ribbing.

I'm not sure if they are supposed to, but the pattern looks like little flowers to me, leaves on the bottom and the blossom where the purl stitches are.

It's a fun little pattern, I am doing the body in the round and I am NOT excited about getting to the front/back separation so I am purling rows, but it is inevitable.  Actually, I guess it isn't, but if I want to wear the silly thing it's inevitable.  This is a pretty good shot of the color of the yarn too.

Oh and one last thing, I did make one thing that worked the first time around today!  I made these jam oatmeal bars.

I had a yellow cake mix that was for a birthday that I didn't end up making a cake for and I thought - why not?  I had to add some water to get the batter to 'clumpy', but other than that the recipe worked perfectly.  They are really yummy and taste more like dessert than a snack, but that's okay with me!

Skirt Update

Well. Here it is.   

I'm satisfied with my sewing job, the zipper is a little 'eh', and the seams could be cleaner, but it fits and all and all I'm pleased...except...

hem tape?  it says to use it in the book if you want, the lady at the sewing store said it would be fine.  I wasn't it as a short cut, just because I like the blue b/c it picks up the blue in the flowers and gives it an unexpected punch.

but...it looks like I'm wearing a bell.

What do you think?  Be honest please, I don't really want to take the tape off and redo the hem, but I'd rather do that than feel like I look all stiff-like.  

I know I'm focusing on it and that makes it worse b/c I can't see anything else, so tell me true, should I get out the seam ripper?

In this pic you can see where it pulls below the darts, my fashion student friend tells me that it's simply b/c my undies are there and cotton doesn't have any give to mask that.  Oh.  I wouldn't redone them a gagillion times if I'd known that!  Next time I'll try without the darts and see what happens.  And for sure without the tape.

I am washing it right now, hoping that a spin through will take some of the stiffness out of the hem tape, but I have my doubts.

I'll update if it does.