Seamripper

Ebony photo

Here's a photo of Ebony. It doesn't look so great with the pink shirt, but I'm pretty proud of how it turned out, considering it's my first non-rectangular piece of knitting (well, except Eve).

Baby Uggs and Alpha Hats

Oh man, after reading the discussion on Craftster, I thought these were the cutest darn things, so over the weekend, as I was knitting up a storm (in the storm), I knitted three. Yes, I know, you only need two for a pair, but I'm making them for Prentice and either her sister Cameron or my friend Simone (who's having twins). It just depends on how many pairs I can get out of the yarn I bought.

I wanted to take a picture of them on Chris's porch, when it was covered in snow Saturday morning, but alas, I forgot. Here's one taken on our kitchen table:

I also knitted up Alpha, the hat from Rowan's Ribbon Twist Collection, in the same brown that I used for the Ebony shawl. I thought the earflaps would come out differently, but maybe the girl in the picture has a longer face than I do or maybe I just read the pattern wrong. I think it's pretty cute, but it's a bit goofy, too.

I love Rowan patterns. I want a subscription for Christmas. That free frilly poncho pattern is too cute.

Dachshund skirt

I don't know why, exactly, but I am on a roll with sewing lately. Maybe it's because I actually have free time now that I'm not training anymore.

Next up, is my modern take on the poodle skirt. Inspired by my "split dog" slippers, I'm going to make an orange wool skirt with a brown wool felt dachshund wrapping around the side, the head in the front and the tail in the back. I think it'll be cute! I may even get a chance to finally use my non-Bedazzler Bedazzler for the eyes, in a nod to the '50s poodle skirts.

I've been really inspired lately by the clothes from Boden and Anthropologie. They're so fun. I like companies that keep some whimsy in their designs. I think that's what has drawn me to the Rowan sewing patterns. (I want a Rowan subscription for Christmas.)

Ponchos

I want to knit a poncho like this one, from Banana Republic, but I can't find a pattern for something similar. I think I might try to make up my own simple cable pattern, knit two rectangles, sew them together, and leave an opening for the neck.

In the meantime, here are some other poncho pattern sources, while I'm mulling over what to do:
From Canadian Living magazine
Lion Brand Yarns' poncho page
About.com's poncho page

Pants Workshop

I had the first class of my pants workshop today at Muse. I have to say, they have a genius setup. There are six folding tables (the long ones that you can probably buy at Office Depot for about $35), two plastic folding chairs for each table, three ironing boards with really nice irons, two loaner sewing machines, a boom box, and that's about it. It must have been relatively inexpensive to set up, but at the same time, what more could you possibly need for a sewing classroom? If you had a sewing business during the day, it would be a perfect way to help pay the rent by using the space in evenings and on weekends for classes.

The pattern seems pretty straightforward so far. I should have gotten as far as starting to attach the zipper, but unfortunately, I sewed two wrong sides of one pant leg together and had to rip the whole thing out. I don't know why, but I always do that in classes (and I swear, I don't do it at home. Really, I don't).

The teacher, Kelly, has already pointed out some easier/better ways to do some things: she uses large D-rings from a hardware store as pattern weights and she highlights all the important markings on a pattern so it's easier to pay attention to the important stuff and ignore everything else. I also found out that the way I do darts is apparently the "professional" way, although she added that some people, when they get about a 1/4" from the point, decrease the stitch size for the last few stitches parallel to the fold.

Ebony

After many, many misstarts (and people at work asking, "How many times have you started that thing?"), I'm finally on the second skein and almost past the scalloped lace pattern portion. I'm hoping it's easy going from here.

Skirts, skirts, and more skirts

I finally had time to make the teal cotton skirt a few weekends ago (and finally hemmed it last week). While I was sewing up the sides, I realized that the cotton was pretty thin, so I thought I'd try to do a lining for it. With the help of my handy-dandy Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing (which someone at Discount Fabrics on Haight St. recommended to me, and I wish I knew who it was because I really need to thank her), I did it! And it was easy! The only problem I found was that the interfacing at the top looks strange hanging over the lining. I had an idea from my Boden skirt, though. They attached the lining to the hem of the interfacing, not the top of the skirt.

So I didn't sew this one recently, but it's from the same pattern as the other two. I got the fabric at Kweejibo on Haight, which, sadly, no longer sells remnants. I attached a wide bias tape to the hem, but I didn't really like it, so I decided to fringe the hem. I used an article from an old issue of Threads to figure out how to do it. Basically, I ironed on seam tape and sewed a zigzag stitch to prevent the fabric from fraying too far up, then pulled the threads by hand. Besides covering our entire living room floor with thread right before my parents came to town, I'm pretty pleased with the results!

This pink tweedy skirt was a little more of a challenge. After trying to finish the seams on my pink and black skirt, I was a little hesitant about working with this kind of fabric, so I asked this super nice lady at Joann's what to do. She recommended sewing up the edges of the pieces, right after I cut them out, with a zigzag stitch so I stop the edges from fraying and finish the seam in one step. Ta-da!

I still need to hem the skirt, but I'm going to do a fringe hem. This time, though, I'm going to hem it normally, and then cut the hem so it has a double layer of fringe. I think that will look a bit better. Although I just realized that it means twice the work!

Eve--Done!

Although my sewing wasn't the most, um, neat when I attached the satin ties to either end, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.

If I were to make it again, though, I wouldn't leave the ties nearly as long. It's pretty crazy. Still, I can't wait to have someplace elegant to go to so I can wear it.

Nakiska

So, this is a terrible photo (and why did I put it on that green pillow?), but it proved that I finally finished Nakiska. The curse was broken! I finished this up on a plane ride, and once I got the hang of the cable, it was really pretty easy. This will come in handy for snowboarding season.

Democrafts.org

After reading this post and checking around Craftster.org for some political crafts, I had this brilliant idea of making all sorts of donkey-themed crafts to support the Democratic party and calling it democrafts.org, but I couldn't find any examples. Actually, that's a lie. I found a bunch of things on Christian sites, but I felt bad coopting their crafts for political gain.

See, we liberals are moral.

P.S. I totally want the first t-shirt in this post.

"Crate and Barrel" pillows

Now that my triathlon is over, and I've completely ignored my goal of staying in shape post-tri, I've actually had some time to do things I'd been putting off, like millions of craft projects and spending time with C.

One of the first things I did was bang two more of my Crate and Barrel type pillows out, in black and khaki. I had cut them out and sewn them ages ago, but I needed to get foam and finish them up. I still need to attach the buttons, but they're 99% done.

When I made the maroon one, I used 4" millinery needles to get the thread through the foam. Oh, and C. squished the cushion together so the needle wouldn't get lost in the middle of the cusion. It was kind of a hassle.

I'd like to make more out of ticking, and instead of using buttons, maybe just some thread to make them look like little mattresses. That's what appealed to me about the first Crate and Barrel ones.

Results are coming in...

When I picked up my laundry today (yes, I send my laundry out. It works out to be $1-2 more. Go figure.), the laundry lady said, "Oh, I'm glad you came early. I'm closing in a half hour so I can go vote. We have to get a new president."

So, since I'm too nervous to watch the results coming in, I thought I'd do a quick status update on my projects.
Crate and Barrel floor cusions: 99% done. I still need to attach the buttons, though.
Nakiska: Done! And once I got the handle of it, it was actually pretty easy.
Eve: Done!
Skirts: I finished the teal skirt, rehemmed the pink and black skirt, and need to hem a pink tweed skirt.
Guitar cake: Check out the full details below.

Man, it's so nice to have some free time.

Next on the list:
Brown gabardine pants. I'm taking a class through Muse workshop, this Sunday and next Sunday. We're making bootcut pants from Vogue pattern 7301. It should be pretty cool.

Pink tweed jacket. Yep, now that I finished my first two lined skirts, I'm going to try to make a suit jacket from Simplicity 4954, with fringed edges to match the hem I'm going to put on my skirt.

Some sort of Christmas gifts for people. Stay tuned.