Craft Enabled, Domestically Disabled

I'm amused at this.

First night of sewing class went well. Everyone has learned how to thread the machine, huzzah. And hopefully they will manage at the fabric store without too much stress after I went over how to shop in there. (I spent two effing hours in there on Friday stressing out. Okay, so I was buying stuff for 4 projects and one of them I really didn't know what I was doing, but still.)

Anyhoo, one of my students (who *cough* I think knows what she's doing just fine without a class!) was working on this yesterday while I was in there. She whipped this puppy up real fast.

Meanwhile, I am working my way through the new Generation T book. Finished a shirt last night (looks...okay), might add on to a second shirt because I'm not sure if I like it as is right now, and pretty much screwed up a third shirt because gee, patterns just aren't designed for those with boobies. Sigh. Pictures of my projects will go up...well, let's hope before the end of the month. It takes me a long time to Photoshop, requires me to spend some hours at home, and I don't think that's happening much for awhile. If I'm lucky, next weekend.

So. Excited!

NEW GENERATION T BOOK OUT!!!!!!!!!!!! Found it in the store yesterday and grabbed that puppy. New ideas! New things to make! Yessssssssssssss!

I want a wall hanging, I just don't want to MAKE the thing

I still think it'd be great to have a giant Tower card wall hanging for my show next year.

Too bad I uh...hate making huge things. Really, am I going to knit the thing? What? I hate dyeing fabric, so painting a design on wouldn't be great (plus I suck with the wax resist).

I kind of want something like these quilts, except quilting also drives me crazy. Too huge.

T-shirt wedding dress tutorial video

Here. Though it unfortunately also points out exactly why I hate working with white T-shirts: you can see everything through them. Hello, VPL. And all those bands across the boobies just to hide the boobies? Oy.

This video, on the other hand, shows an awesome technique done easily on your own that gives your shirt a braided effect. I wanna try this out.

3 Alarm Fire Dress

This dress gave me all kinds of trouble, mainly because of several sewing machines that were being evil to me. I wanted to try to make a dress that wasn't so tube-fitting, so I cut two shirt panels that were around an inch or two wide at the top and then elongated out to the bottom width of the shirt (i.e. giant triangle that's kind of equal), and sewed it into the sides of a normal T-shirt skirt. I folded the tops over a bit. So the skirt was easy.
The bodice (again, see here for general tutorial) gave me all kinds of trouble, mainly because it came out oddly large all over the top, but not enough that I could just cinch it in at the middle again. Adding in the woven in cord dressed it up and made it look more "normal."
I decided not to cut off the cord on the sides and not to trim off the extra fabric on the sides. Just kinda liked it crazy like that.
So it came out well, for all the hell I went through making it.

Mom's birthday/Mother's Day shrug

I love the "Um, I don't know WHAT this is that I asked for" look on her face in the photos.

Crafting update

Knitting: am working on swatches out of my handspun. Seems like they are coming out more bulky than worsted in the knitting. Am undecided as to what to make yet. Am still working on my regular-yarn Carnival Top in the meantime.

Sewing: I am TRYING to finish up my sewing projects before the CC closes on Friday. I just finished a T-shirt dress that came out looking good, but I had SUCH PROBLEMS making it. The skirt came out fine, but the bodice was a royal pain to make, and it didn't help that for a few days I couldn't sew for crap because I kept having weird problems with the machine crapping up. The bobbin wasn't happy, the machine wouldn't work if I used the color thread I wanted and would spool off the top...wtf? I ended up with loopy mess too often, and I'm surprised this thing wasn't shredded in the end. I also ended up doing some real fudging on the top (it's too big on the top and too skimpy on the sides...sigh), but it looks okay now. Pictures to come.

I also have a new dress that I ended up sewing the boobs more together on so as not to embarrass myself. It also needs hemming- it's one of those dresses with a layer of sheer over the underskirt, and not only is the overskirt hem all kinds of off, it's too long to be able to walk in. And when I say the hem is off, it ranges from 2 inches to 5 inches too long in places. I'm trying to figure out how to hem the sucker, but good lord, it's gonna suck. I'd serge it, but the color can't be matched with serger thread on hand.

Jewelry: I read the book Lock and Key, which features keys being made into jewelry, and now I wanna do it. I ended up buying some kind of Hello Kitty key holder specifically so I could get ahold of the fake plastic purple key. Not sure what I'm going to do with it- wire wrap and beads, I suspect.

Some examples of key art on Etsy:

• Antique keys
• Wire wrapped keys
• Locks and keys
• Wooden keys
• Lockets and keys
• Key to unlock earrings
• Key to unlock necklace
• Key collage necklace
• Pin/necklace
• Key brooch
• Lots of keys on this necklace

My spinning is done

I was so excited to finish it off, and now I am all "Crap, when will I spin again?" and I feel sad.

Anyway, my stash is done, Rainbow Sherbert is done, and now's the time to figure out what I'm going to make out of these things over the summer.

*grumble*

I have maybe 1-2 hours left of work to finish up my spinning.

AND I CAN'T DO IT AGAIN UNTIL TUESDAY. I hate the three-day weekend.

Notes to self

Possible projects for "Dark Rainbow"- I'm thinking a pullover.

• Percentage Raglan (might be a good idea with this one)
• Tubey (ditto) 
• Striped Raglan

Possible projects for "Rainbow Sherbet"- I'm thinking a skirt so it's a 3-piece set.

• Inari Skirt

Okay, I can't find much that's suitable for this, but hey, I already have the pattern.

Possible projects for the Rainbow Alpaca:

• Leftovers
• Tarantino
• Picovoli
• Diagonal Garter Vest

And now, all the yarn I made this quarter

First up, "Dark Rainbow", i.e. Motley Chaos #2: Honestly, it's not my favorite ever. Just kinda dark and strange in the execution. Oh well, sigh.

Next up: more rainbow alpaca out of the same stuff I made the shrug in. This time I stuck to making each color "straight" and in separate balls. I think I will make a stripey vest out of them or something.
Next up is the green roving I got at the mandala booth. Note: the actual color looks more like the spindle than the photo of the yarn. Could not fix the tint on this, somehow. But it is lovely. Not sure what I'll do with it. Maybe add it to the alpaca vest?
And finally, Motley Chaos #3 in progress, Rainbow Sherbert: This is my favorite one of the series. The colors all look great (not to mention yummy) together.

Another T-shirt dress I made during class

I'd put a tutorial up, but it's essentially a sized-down shirt on top and a normal skirt on the bottom, sewn together and with some cord threaded through for that empire line.

Fun with felting

I found a DIY felt mandala section at Whole Earth this year. It was fun!

Misc. glass bits I never got wrapped for Whole Earth

Kissing Mom's birthday/Mother's Day ass

I'm STILL not done with #3 (a shrug) yet.