Summer Fashion Show, Day 1!

I haven't been knitting much--it's too hot!  But I have been sewing a lot, and neglecting to post any of it.

I love thrifting, as you well know if you spend any time here, so it's no surprise that this dress was once a frumpy, matronly thing that I pulled off the rack because of the beauty of the fabric.  Seriously, the pictures don't do it justice.

Multiple pinnings, seamings, tryings-on, and six hours of bead work later, I have a new favorite dress!

Wanna See a Hat Trick?

I can't quite say, "If there's a craft, I've tried it" yet, but if you don't watch me, I will branch out.  This excursion into doll-making took me a week and I'm extremely pleased with it.

Meet Caitlyn, Sheriff of Piltover, of League of Legends, in doll form.

Why, do you ask?  Well, I'm a geek, and I love geek-craft, and she's my favorite champion in the game so far.  I've only been playing about two months, so I haven't gotten through all of them yet, but Caitlyn is just fantastic.  And Riot Games does a weekly Summoner Showcase that features all sorts of player-made things.  When I started playing, my husband showed a few of them to me, and promptly said, "You should make something."  Unsurprisingly, I agreed!  So here she is.

The doll itself is made from the extremely popular Pretty Poppet pattern by ghilie, which I can highly recommend; I've done some basic toy making before, but never a jointed doll, and I had no problems constructing her.  It's a very good pattern, thank you, ghilie!

She's made of mostly recycled materials, which I am quite proud of--her skin was a Danskin tank top, both dress fabrics were thrifted formal gowns, the petticoat base and ruffled trims are scraps of bedsheet, and all the leather is from one of my mother's damaged purses, kindly donated to my upcycling collection.  The new materials were the yarn for her hair, her eyes, the wire, the lace for her petticoat, and all the thread to sew her together...not too shabby!

Her hair is a wig made of yarn hand-knotted onto a mesh base--in this case, a piece of an onion bag, if you can believe that.  The hat is fabric-covered cardboard, held on with extra hair extensions threaded through the base, which I tied to her wig.  Not the most stable thing, but it was very important to me that all her clothing and accessories be removable for future repairs.

The dress looked complicated at first, but wasn't too hard once I broke it down into sections: pieced bodice, waistband, gathered skirt, glued-on leather trim.  It took me some thinking to come up with a material suitable for the cog "buckle"--but I had a plastic lid from a Crisco can in my box of random craft things, and with my trusty X-acto knife, some paint, and some Super Glue, I had my cog charm.

Her leg bands are sections of purse strap.  These were a challenge second only to the boots, which came slightly later; my sewing machine couldn't handle the leather, so I couldn't sew it together.  I'd used Super Glue on the leather for the dress, and that held well enough, but it wasn't strong enough to hold the ends of the straps together.  Add to that my lack of tiny gold buckles, and I was stumped for a little while.  But when I was checking my bead box for something to substitute for the buckles, I found the copper wire, and an idea was born.  Both end of the leather are notched on opposite edges, and I contrived a method of linking the notches with the wire, then wrapping the whole thing extensively to hide the join.  They'll come apart if you play tug of war with them, but they hold just fine otherwise.  And they look cool.  I liked the effect so much I made myself a bracelet out of the strap I had left, despite the fact that I don't really do steampunk!  (My husband thinks I should, though.  Maybe when I have a job that doesn't have a uniform...)

The boots are an ode to the power of my hot glue gun.  There's no way in hell I could have managed them without it.

The arm bands and gloves use a modified version of the wrapping from the leg bands: I refined the notches a bit and used brown thread instead.  The gloves are held together above the thumb with that wrapping, then below the thumb I lashed a thin thong to one side, which threads through a slit on the other and then ties around the wrist.  I'm really proud of that.  Really proud.  Somebody give me a medal already!

I don't see myself churning out doll after doll now, but I would certainly make another one in the future--it was a lot of fun!  I do have two nieces that are going to need fancy dolls someday, but since right now, they're 3 and 1 years old, I think I have some time before they're ready....

It Pays to Pay Attention...

...to flyers tacked up on your local grocery's bulletin board.

Sure, usually it's puppies for sale, the local high school drama productions and musicals, and the like.  And then, there's the ad, hand-written in black Sharpie on cheap construction paper, that makes it worthwhile.

The one for the massive 50-cent sale being held on Saturday morning at the church-run thrift shop you rarely go to because the hours are so limited and unconventional.

Totally and absolutely worth it.  Even though it was a 22-minute hike each way and I'd already done my run for this morning before I left.  My feet are complaining, but my hands are so happy!

Check out the loot...

Destined for yarn reclamation, from left to right: 100% cotton, women's large, long-sleeved; 100% merino, men's large, long-sleeved; 100% cotton, men's XL vest.  The merino is the real find, of course, since never once have I stumbled across cashmere, but I'll take what I can get.

Destined for my wardrobe: on the left, a long-sleeve scoop neck, content label missing--but it feels like a high-quality synthetic, too shiny and slinky to be cotton.  On the right, a turtleneck tunic, long sleeves, knit from a fine-weight acrylic boucle.  It's incredibly warm without being heavy, and it's very, very, very soft.  Out of season now that it's finally spring, but I see myself wearing this a lot.

Finally, a shirt-dress I will never wear, both because I've never been a shirt-dress person, and it's too small to boot.  But that fabric!  I just fell in love.  I'm not sure what the fabric wants to be yet, but I will save it from its wretched shirt-dress fate.

I need to find out how often the church has these sales!

Over a Year Later...

...I can finally talk about this project again!

It was a Knitty sub, kindly rejected.  It was re-purposed into an Anticraft sub, which was accepted, but didn't fit the theme of the last two issues before the hiatus its on now, so I'd have had to sit on it for probably at least another year, and I just didn't want to do that!  (They were very sweet and understanding when I asked to pull my submission, and I will certainly say that I look forward to submitting again when they return.  Come back, Anticraft, come back!)

So here it is, at long, long last: Drusilla, available for sale.

Much credit and love to both my models: my friend and coworker Jessica for the Knitty version (top) and my friend and fellow blogger Kara for the Anticraft version (bottom).

Drusilla is a rectangular lace shawl based on a complicated edging pattern that I dearly loved, but found difficult to memorize and nearly impossible to work correctly.  I set out years ago to use it in a shawl, but it never quite worked, and this time when I turned to it again, I simplified the edging to make it far easier, but in a way that still maintains the spirit of the original.  And what better way to show off a lovely edging than to put it on both sides of a stole, and make the center a simple mesh?

Want one of your own?  Here, let me help with that.  If you end up making one, be sure to let me know, either here or over on Ravelry, I love to see what people do with my designs!

The Embroidery Obsession Continues...

...with the completion of the third kimono in the series, which I have dubbed "Purple Pinwheels."

So named because each of the spirals uses a shade of purple and another color, and of course because I crayon-tinted the background purple, or really, a strange hybrid of Wisteria, Purple Mountain's Majesty, and Plum.  Gotta love Crayola color names.

The elephant in the room: the border fabric is wrinkly.  I'd intended to use a light blue fabric to echo the two blue spirals, but the color just wasn't right.  While pawing though my scraps for alternatives, I found a long, long, wrinkly strip of fabric that was once the bottom of a tiered ruffle skirt that I decided to shorten.  I sliced off the gathered top seam and ironed the hell out of the strip, and this was the best I could manage.  The color was too perfect to pass up for a few wrinkles!

Now that that's out of the way, take a good look at the reason this kimono took me almost two weeks where the others both took only a few days:

Nothing but heavy chain stitch as far as the eye can see.  (Well, back stitch border as always, but that took me less than ten minutes, it doesn't count.)  And of course to get the spirals neat, I had to work both colors at the same time, as opposed to leaving a channel for the second one, which would have made working heavy chain stitch nearly impossible anyway.  I am officially insane now, I'm never ever doing a piece entirely in this stitch again.  Even though I really like the way it looks....

Kimono #4 is in the planning stages, but finding a complementary color palette that also meshes with a border fabric that I already have is proving problematic.  In the mean time, I'm working on finishing the needle book I started to give me some relief from the miles of heavy chain stitch, expect that one in the next few days!

Will I ever get back to my knitting again?  Who knows, stay tuned!

Totes for Tots

While I have no children of my own as of yet, I do have quite a few in my family to craft for. My one and only sibling, my dear, dear brother, has already produced five charming offspring, a set of triplets first, followed by twins.  The twins are less than a year old, and I haven't made a darn thing for them yet (they're too young to care!) but for the three-year-old triplets I have produced, over the years, blankies, various amigurumi animals, beanbags (a very big hit on our last visit) and a play mat for said bean bags.

My mother wanted to give them "book" bags for their recent birthday, since they're going to be starting those darling little preschooler workbook/coloring book things.  Her contribution to the gift was picking out and purchasing the fabric; mine was making them.

I hadn't planned to do them all in one day, but the first one went so well (only 1 h 15m, including drafting the pattern from the book measurements) that I just kept going.  Pretty basic lined tote bags, with the same fabric used for all parts, light interfacing, narrow boxed corners.

All three fabrics are Debbie Mumm for Jo-Ann; the two boys got different Noah's Ark prints (that and Disney stuff being the overarching themes of my brother's family) and my sweet little niece got Bedtime Bears, chosen for this:

The bear has a pink teddy bear, and so does my niece.  Pink Bear goes everywhere with her, though usually gripped by its tail, not feet, but close enough.

I had these finished last week and in all the embroidery excitement I completely forgot to blog about them.  Fortunately I remembered today, because I still haven't finished anything on my to-do list, though the third kimono is only probably a day or two away from completion.  And the needlebook is started.  And I'd still rather start eight more projects than actually sit down and finish anything.  Good to know, I guess, that my terminal case of start-itis isn't limited to my knitting!

The Power of Deep Breathing and Turkey Sandwiches

I woke up today feeling less than ideal, and soldiered through work feeling no better.  I've been meaning to get back to doing yoga at least a few times a week, if not daily, so today seemed like the day to start over.

Fifteen minutes of that, followed by a healthier-than-usual lunch of salsa-and-turkey on sourdough, and a homemade fruit salad, I feel much more like a real human being.

What do you do to feel better on a blah day?