My latest thing

I have been working on this Alabama Chanin-style top.

I decided not to go crazy trying to make four half-T-shirts into a dress, and settled on making them into two shirts. The first has now been embellished around the neck and "just" needs sewing up.

The appliqué bits are, of course, superheroes and their emblems. These are from an old pair of pyjama pants, believe it or not. The beads are cheap and sort of irregular and shimmery: good enough, but I will seek out better ones. I hope they are dazzling when I wear it... in a humorous, ironic, superhero-with-beads, hand-stitched sort of a way.

And for the crafty types who need to know: the inside. I hope the thread ends don't stay so stiff and tickly!

A few sewing projects

I have done some things with my new sewing machine. Last Christmas a friend stored her machine here, and I made a blanket with it. Just at Eastertime I was visiting my brother's family, and his wife and I went out and each bought a machine just like my friend's.

So fun.

This is a Scrabble tile bag for one of my Scrabble ladies. She had been keeping her tiles in a grocery bag, I believe! It's very simple, but the silk fabric frays like crazy, so I had to do what I now know is called a French seam. (Sort of, I think. My seams are on the inside, but the edges are enclosed.) This was done in an evening, so I am totally thrilled with that!

I had made another Scrabble bag, this time by hand, à la Alabama Chanin. It did not take just an evening!

I forgot to take pictures when I made it, so I made my friend hold it up for me to photograph with my phone in the coffee shop where we play. Navy cotton jersey, white thread, green little beads and white bugle beads. In the top picture you can sort of see blanket stitch down the side, but it was so fiddly and just ate the thread so I had lots of knots... The bottom has a double row of just straight stitches.

One could go on and on, filling more space with beads and appliqués. Lucky for me this was a birthday present so I had to stop in time to give it to her!

My next Alabama Chanin-inspired project will be a dress. I think. Here are the four T-shirt backs basted together:

A bag dress. I have to cut the front neckline, and at the bottom you can see the cap sleeves will need to be cut off! Thursday I make a trek with a friend to Michael's to get things like a cutting mat and navy thread and some kind of beads and maybe even a fancy-pants ruler! The shirt pieces have rounded bottom edges, which will have to be cut off to sew them together.

Straight lines are not my strength. But I can see how things would be easier if pieces were the same size, lines were straight and so on!

This is a big project I've just finished: a baby play mat. It's too warm to put on top of a baby, but nice and soft for a baby to sit on and play.

Made with old jeans. I took the back pockets off and cut the pieces as long as I could.

One front, of course, is curved to accommodate the fly. I couldn't figure out how to sew the little piece in with hidden seams, so I just zig-zagged around it. 

The bits that are not old jeans are some samples a friend had. She used to sew for the theatre, and then she made luxurious cushions, so she had every kind of lovely fabric. She recently had to downsize her collection, and I was the beneficiary. She gave me the silk for the bag above as well. 

Nice cotton stripes, with a bit of denim here and there to make everything fit.

I tacked the front and back together with embroidery floss.

The back, you say? A pile of miscellaneous fleece bits, some leftovers from another friend's project, and some from the yardage sale I've mentioned before (the teddy bears and the I ♥ Mommy, I ♥ Daddy pieces).

I have another of these on the go -- two of Stephen's colleagues are having babies this summer. And they are getting crazy mats from me, whether they like it or not!

More adventures in sewing

This is really an adventure-in-waiting, because all I've done is basted some seams to see if this is at all workable.

I picked up five identical pieces like this at the yardage sale. Huge, vaguely shirt-shaped. Very good, heavy, cotton jersey.

I quickly sewed the 4 seams, and it will fit, in a baggy sort of oversized way. I need to do something with the front neckline, and I do have the Alabama Chanin pattern which I could use. Her neckline would look something like this. So I will likely do some actual cutting of fabric soon! I will resew the seams properly, and not in purple.

I'm thinking of black beading around the neck and perhaps around the bottom hem. But I am also thinking of taking two of the other pieces, cutting the sleeve bits off and sewing them onto the bottom of this and making a dress! (Here's a nice one, but mine would obviously have a seam across the middle; and here's a nice one with a seam, but all are more fitted than mine will be.) More thought is needed. I'll have to baste them on and have a look. We don't want to look as if we're running around in our nightie, now, do we? But if it is bejewelled, then who would think it was a nightie.... But if it's just a bejewelled tube... maybe a dart here or there? See, this is getting scary!

Wednesday I will meet my friend Terry, for whom I made a Scrabble tile bag in the Alabama Chanin style out of the fifth of these pieces. I will take my camera, because I made the bag and gave it to her and took not a single picture. It is totally bejewelled, a Scrabble bag fit for a queen. Stay tuned!

A thing I found

Yesterday I went to the yardage sale (actually, the More Than Just A Yardage Sale) at the Textile Museum. There was a section with three big bins of "miscellaneous" and you could cram a grocery bag full for $2. Deal!

One of the things I got from that pile was this.

It's cotton-like, woven, quite thin fabric. Maybe there is linen in there? I don't really know how to tell! I'm betting on cotton, though.

And it has a dress pattern printed on it in various sizes! You can see below that some of the white has smudged in the middle of the piece.

I love it, and want to make something like a bag (Oh, Mary, another bag?) that shows the white. But it seems that if you were to make the largest size of this dress, wouldn't you want the white lines to wash away? Now I am scared to wash it, but of course I'll have to bite the bullet and do it sometime!

It's a Women's Emb Dress. Apparently.
With a collar.

It's like a blueprint. And like the big quilt the museum has (which I can't find a picture of... rats). Hey, maybe I could just laboriously trace the white lines with embroidery!

I guess I will try a gentle, cold wash soon.

I'll keep y'all posted! I also got some other great finds and I'll try to show you more of those in the coming days.

My Alabama Chanin amuse-bouche

When I tweeted that I was going to do this, Mason-Dixon Kay replied:

@squaremary It's the @alabamachanin amuse-bouche. So fun!
— Kay Gardiner (@KayGardiner) March 28, 2014

Indeed, my bouche is certainly amused by this!

You get one piece of plain cotton jersey, and one piece with leaves stencilled on.

You can outline the stencil and then cut out the middle.

You get another piece of fabric with the same leaves stencilled on the wrong side, which you can cut out and appliqué to your top piece.

You can rummage around the house and find some beads to sew on in a scatter pattern or in a nice line.

You can even appliqué a leaf and then cut out two layers of fabric.

And outline leaves with beads and little blobs with stem stitch.

Lots of work to do! I can see why a handmade dress from this company costs a small fortune. It's a labour-intensive way to do things, but oh, so fun!

When I finish I will have a nice piece of decorated and embellished fabric. Will it get put on the wall, sewn onto something else, made into a Scrabble tile bag? Only time will tell!

Totally random lightning blog today

I just learned that I was the 26810th person to join Ravelry. Woo hoo!

Spring has finally sprung in earnest. The garden is out of control. I gave away several ferns and chunks of hosta, but it is still over-crowded. Oh, well!

I made a chocolate cake the other day, following a recipe I have used a million times. I used gluten-free flour, which I have done successfully several times, but this time I have lumps of flour throughout the cake, making it virtually uneatable. I even got ice cream to disguise it, but the kids ate the ice cream without the cake. Rotters.

I am making a sample Alabama Chanin thingmabob. I would love to show you a picture, but the whole "find the camera, upload the pictures, where is the cable" thing is holding me back. Sometime soon, though.

I also have two partial baby mats machine-sewn together. I can see how the sewing machine makes life easier, but I am still too rough and ready with it. Straight lines only. Cut things to fit on the fly. Don't mix fabrics.

However, I am also collecting a whole variety of fabrics, some in teeny pieces. My friend used to sew professionally for the theatre, and then she made luxurious cushions, so she saved every scrap to embellish them. Now she is de-cluttering, and I am finding myself with enough material to make about a thousand Scrabble tile bags. (Must find a new thing to make, as well.)

Oh, the camera, I must go find the camera!

Rowan and Martin's knit-in

Rowan has a new yarn called Pure Wool Worsted. It comes in a zillion colours and they are showing it off by having a mystery knitalong, where you get a pattern for a square each week, knit a bunch in many colours and end up with a blanket at the end. The whole thing is designed by Martin Storey, hence the cute name. (Though perhaps the youngsters don't get it...)

Of course, I am not following the rules, but am knitting the squares in Rowan Denim. Sort of.

The first pattern was easy to just knit and knit, and I stopped when I finished a ball of yarn. I also messed with the pattern a bit and added half-triangles at the side because at first I thought that looked better. Now I think the zing of those "empty" sides might have been a good idea after all, but alas, too late now. (I think you can see the squares "as they should be" at that link above.)

Then I had a few days to kill before the second clue was released, so I just looked in my book of squares, attached a new ball of yarn and knit something.

Clue #2 was a star that I somehow didn't take a picture of. I will likely do one on another strip of this blanket, but it was not super fast and one had to think and look to make sure the star came out star-shaped.

Monday was a bank holiday in England, so Rowan released the third clue today. I had a few days with "nothing" to knit, so I started just doing double moss stitch in ecru. That got boring so I made this square in a square.

The lacy triangles are from today's new clue. I'll finish this strip, 3 balls of Denim long, and then start another one using the same patterns until pattern 4 is released next week. If all goes according to plan, by the end of eight weeks, I'll have a blanket.

This has sort of become my one and only project now, but I did knit a hat and a half standing in film festival lines.

The little ring of ribbing on the right has become larger. I used that brown for the ribbing and made the crown green. I also knit part of a sock for Arthur and a teeny bit of a sock for Elaine. It will all get finished sometime...

Ten days, eleven movies

Last year I paid attention to the Hot Docs film festival for the first time. This year I did quite a bit of pre-festival volunteering, which got me seven or eight vouchers for films, and I worked five shifts during the festival, earning more vouchers. Volunteers got to rush the opening night screening for free, and I gave Stephen some tickets, so it worked out that I saw 11 films.

I made lists as soon as I got the screening schedule, picked volunteer shifts based on where I wanted to be when, changed this and that, found that seeing too many movies starting at 9:30 pm was not a good idea, cancelled shifts, saw movies I didn't expect to... I have a better plan for next year already!

There were two movies I really wanted to see that I missed. One is 112 Weddings, which I stopped worrying about when I learned it would be coming to our local cinema in May; the other is Advanced Style, which went rush almost immediately. I was going to try to see it on Saturday but that didn't work, and I have since learned that they turned away 100 people from the rush line. I can just hope it shows up somewhere!

Here's a quick look at the ones I did see.

(And I now realize I should have been writing this as I went ...)

The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz: This was the opening film of the fest. Aaron Swartz was a young programmer and internet activist who irked the powers that be. It's a horrible story of how a good person in the wrong place at the wrong time can be "made an example of," and how an individual can get forgotten in the mess of legal showing-off. Really good, but very sad.

Sacro GRA: This film looks at the people who live around the GRA, the ring road around Rome. I kept wanting a map, but that was not the point. The road wasn't really that important. Even Rome wasn't really that important! It was just a few stories of quirky people doing their quirky things.

The Basement Satellite: Another tale of a guy with an idea. Our hero is an artist, not a technical whiz kid, but he wants to build a satellite and get it launched. Individuals usually don't do this!

We see him filling out reams of paperwork and trying to raise money for insurance and fees; finding a machinist who can make his parts quickly and precisely; soldering things together carefully on a strict deadline. He sold T-shirts, which took a lot of time and brought in little money, though it was his main fundraising idea. Really interesting, if a bit slow.

I Love Kuduro: Kuduro is modern dance music from Angola. This film was full of great characters and stories of people who'd lived through civil war, but there were just snippets of the music and dance scene. Not as great as I'd wanted it to be!

Alfred and Jakobine: Ah, an adventure and a love story, with an ancient London taxi!

Really fascinating -- Alfred and Jakobine were "shutterbugs" even back in the day, so the filmmaker had their Super-8 movies and photos from the fifties, when they drove their taxi around Africa and Asia. Lovely story and beautiful film.

Meet the Patels: This was my favourite! The characters were charming and real and funny. The use of animation here and there was brilliant. The story was gripping. (Will Ravi find true love??) I think this will win the audience award, but it's not been announced just yet.

Super Duper Alice Cooper: I was lucky to get tickets to this showing, with the directors and Alice Cooper in attendance. (Often the directors are at the screenings and answer questions afterwards, but on this occasion they actually got to sit in chairs and be interviewed in a more formal manner.) I remember singing School's Out in 1973, but then Alice Cooper faded from my consciousness a bit. This movie talked about his beginnings, his stardom, his excesses. Highly recommended.

(Funniest non-movie moment of the festival: We were waiting for the movie to start, people were coming in to the cinema, and Barack Obama walked in, wearing a suit and tie, waving to the crowd! We gawped, until I remembered that a movie called Bronx Obama, about a lookalike, was also showing at the fest! Photo to prove it.)

Everything Will Be: A beautifully made movie about Vancouver's Chinatown. These few blocks have been home to Chinese Canadians for more than a hundred years. Now, things are changing, with old buildings being knocked down, new businesses coming in, condos whose residents don't want to shop at little green grocers, and the mah-jongg societies still holding on!

ThuleTuvalu: Thule is in northern Greenland; Tuvalu is in the Pacific Ocean. The film follows a few families in each place as they see first-hand how in one place the ice is melting and the hunting season is changing, and in the other, the lagoons are becoming salty, the beach is eroding, the little reef that makes up the country is in danger of being flooded.

Shield and Spear: Very interesting look at artists in South Africa today.

One of the main stories was about this painting called the Spear, by Brett Murray, and how strongly the governing party objected to it. Also featured were photographers, musicians, designers, black and white, who are trying to move forward, to live in a country with real freedom of expression.

An Honest Liar: The Amazing Randi is a magician and escape artist, a professional deceiver of audiences. He objects to people who pretend to be "inspired" or channelling supernatural forces when they are using the tricks of the magician. He and Uri Geller have a long history! Really good movie, delightful story, fascinating interviews.

You can see trailers for gazillions of the festival movies here.

Of course I knit waiting in line. That's up next!

Weekend accomplishments

Oh me, oh my.
I bought a sewing machine.

All in all, I had a pretty good weekend:

1. Shop for a sewing machine! DONE, and I didn't even have to bring it home on the train. They are shipping it to me tomorrow. So I just have to finish up everything here before then... It's a Pfaff. I'll show you when it comes!
2. Read a Jasper Fforde novel. NOT YET DONE. I started, and will finish, but the bouncy train is no good for reading and the chatty family is not, either!
3. Knit. IN PROCESS. I finished clue #1 of the knitalong, just knitting and knitting till I finished a ball of Denim, and then attached a new ball, found a new pattern and carried on. I am always surprised by the Rav chit-chat about this. People are crazy for getting gauge, worrying about half an inch on one of 48 or 64 or whatever squares, and talking about sewing it together when it's a mystery knitalong and we don't know what the designer has in mind. (I am not worried about it, because I know I won't do what the designer says, anyways!)
4. Knit something else. IN PROCESS. Still no verdict on the teeny sock needles. I found it easier to knit the denim, so I have just a few inches, mostly ribbing, but nothing very exciting yet. 
5. Hang out, go shopping, have dinner, play pool, talk about renovation, talk about aches and pains... DONE.

I'll get pictures of all this stuff tomorrow when the friendly UPS guy brings my machine. Pretty exciting!

I won't even have much time to fuss about with it for a little while, since it is Hot Docs time again. I am working 6 volunteer shifts and have a bazillion movies to see. (Those are the ones I already have tickets for. There are plenty more that I am excited about as well!) Fun times ahead.

Away for the weekend

It's Easter, and we are riding the rails down to London to spend a couple of days with my brother and his family. I hope to accomplish several things:

1. Shop for a sewing machine! If I buy one, I'll have to bring it back on the train, but it seems the best idea, because I can shop with my SIL who knows something about sewing machines. The Sew Show is here next weekend, and a girl could get a "deal," but it is not convenient for me to get to and I have other plans for next weekend anyways. 
2. Read a Jasper Fforde novel. I have read the first in this series and I *think* I have read the second. Yeah, pretty sure... So, this is the third, and one I have on my bookshelf.
3. Knit. Now, there's a thing... I have started the Rowan Pure Wool Worsted Knitalong, but of course I did not go out and buy 17 different colours of wool, delightful though that would have been. I am making my squares in Denim. One square pattern has been released, so I will just putter along with that. Not even sure I will make squares, or just keep going and make a strip. Only time will tell. 
4. Knit something else. I bought a 9-inch circular needle, and will attempt to knit a sock, holding teeny tiny needle ends delicately in my fingertips. I like this idea a lot in theory, and I did try the needle out in the shop, but I am somewhat nervous and think I might find it awkward after a bit. No trouble with losing a sock needle on the train, and no opportunity to poke oneself in the face while squinting up close at dropped stitches, so I think it will all be good. Right? 

I have no pictures. Not even pictures of flowers poking into view, although I have seen a crocus and heard rumours of daffodils. Perhaps next week!

What to do, oh, what to do?

I wonder if I have a list somewhere of all the WIPs around the house. Surely I have had this crisis recently.

Ah, yes, from before the Olympics:

1. second mitten (now I don't need it till October)
2. Malabrigo scarf (makes me sneeze, but very pretty)
3. Botticelli (sew the dang thing together!)
4. Sunday Best (or start a whole new denim gansey)
5. that beautiful golden shawl you might not have seen but I have knitted about an inch on it (yeah, whatever)

We can add a few more:

1. Arthur's second green sock
2. a baby blanket (I've knit about 8 inches on a strip)
3. a hat

And then there are the things I see on Ravelry and want to join in on:

1. the Rowan mystery blanket KAL, which might end up being the same thing as the baby blanket
2. A 1940s KAL, which might result in a hat and socks for the baby, forget the blanket. This is my book, from 1941. It seems like every dang hat has ribbon rosettes to tie the hat on. If I am doing a 40s KAL, is it cheating to change the pattern and knit a little button band under the chin? 

Oh, I don't know!

That's that job done

Long, long ago, I knit my eldest sister a present for her 50th birthday. I believe that would be 1992. Since then I've knit 50th birthday presents for another sister, a brother, 3 sisters-in-law. At last, this past week, my youngest sister turned 50, and she got a pair of fingerless mitts. Now, until Arthur turns 50, I figure my job is done!

These Pomona Mitts are from the Unofficial Harry Potter magazine from Interweave and named for Professor Sprout. They are cute; the picot edge is tedious but interesting once it's knit and the short rows are a good way to shape the garter stitch mitt.

But the pattern in the magazine is set out very oddly and edited ... not the way I would have done it. I rewrote it all out so I could keep track of rows, and changed the wording. No one needs the instruction "knit to 6 stitches before the marker" when something like "knit 8" will do, surely!

Anyways, annoying but ultimately good.

My stoopid elbow is upset at all this knitting, though! I want to make a baby blanket for this summer! I want to knit Stephen a new hat for next winter! I want to knit myself a cardigan of black denim!! Not to mention socks, hats, half-knit things all over the house. But my arm is really not up to it.

I think I'm just going to have to take up more reading...

Oh, look, I just found an article that says how good crafting is for your mental health... Maybe I should just get that sewing machine.

Stephen went to New Hampshire

This was apparently on a church fence in Hanover, New Hampshire. He didn't inspect as thoroughly as I would have, but we suspect it is individual strips of garter stitch. Nice, eh?

The cloche is finished

This was the original Ravellenics project, which got a bit neglected during the Games, due to the WIP wrestling that was going on. But now, voilà, finie.

The pattern says to knit the brim 21.5 inches long, but of course, it stretches!

So I made mine 18.5 or so, and it fits around the hat and around my head and all is good. Also, I was running out of yarn! I have about 10 or 12 feet left, so plenty to have knit another inch or two on the brim, but this makes a nice snug fit.

I don't know if I will rush to make this again. I think another time, I might knit the bobbly hat, with a nice rib along the bottom and not bother with the very chic and slightly fiddly brim. This does look nice, though, I think...

Okay, maybe it was all worth it.

I gotta medal

I finished my socks and my shawl, and I get this little .jpeg file for my troubles.

And, moving on, I have a baby blanket to knit before July. (Yeah, don't mention those other things I once said I'd knit. Oh, like that hat... yeah, 21 inches of a garter stitch band... I'll get to it.)

Last of the Olympic knitting

The project that I'd specially chosen for my Olympic/Ravellenic knitting was this hat, the Popcorn Cloche.

Eleven bobbles around the hat, every four rows.

DNF, did not finish.

I'll keep working at it -- as I keep saying, it's only a hat! But I will not say I'll be finished by the end of the week or anything drastic like that, because we know how that sort of thing turns out.

I've already joined a group on Ravelry to knit during the Commonwealth Games in July!

Let's take a moment to check on that list of WIPs I made back in January.

1. second mitten  (no progress)
2. green sock (one could count the second sock in here, I suppose)  (done, and I'm thinking of the second)
3. Elaine's socks (and she for sure gets two) (done like dinner)
4. the cotton shawl with the miserable edging (sigh) (super done)
5. Malabrigo scarf  (no progress)
6. Botticelli  (no progress)
7. Sunday Best  (no progress)
8. that beautiful golden shawl you might not have seen but I have knitted about an inch on it (no progress)

So, the new list looks like this:

second mitten

Malabrigo scarf

Botticelli

Sunday Best

that beautiful golden shawl you might not have seen but I have knitted about an inch on it

Don't you love how you can copy and paste and have numbers change to bullets? How did this happen? Oh well. 

I will knit my Olympic hat, and then I will pick another of these WIPs. Oh, perhaps I should think of that second sock which seems to have fallen off the list. Oops. And I have a birthday gift to make and a baby gift to make. And so on and so on! 

The medals are coming thick and fast now

Canadian women won gold today in curling and hockey, and I finished another WIP!

The out-of-control fringe has been tamed, or at least, finished.

Started before our March holiday in Rome last year, so almost a year on the needles.

The orange marker on the right is where I was before the Olympics. I once again proved my theory that if you work at something it gets done, and if you don't, it doesn't. Astonishing every time. 

An Olympic moment

I finished Elaine's socks.
These were begun in December, in a fit of enthusiasm.

And just by chance (and a tiny bit of looking at the calendar) they were finished in time for her birthday.

Now to figure out all that "finish line" stuff on Ravelry to get my medal. And still two events left to complete. I am less sanguine about this now, but am pretty sure I can get one done! Go Team Canada!