Craft Enabled, Domestically Disabled

Week three of self-portrait class

I really like this one. This one actually looks cheerful and kinda like an anime character.

Here's all three together. Very interesting to compare them. Depending on where I position the mirror, I definitely get different looks. I angled #1 so I was looking down to the right, #2 so I was looking left and #3 so I was looking up and to the right.

I like these two together best, it's like bad twin and good twin somehow.

The first pic looks so sad compared to the third.

 

 

Just wanted to point you to a post on the other blog

This is marvelous.

The Rapunzel costume

So, I'm pretty near the bottom of my personal wish list of costumes. This year I decided to do Rapunzel, since I love the story/am obsessed with towers/think Tangled was awesome. I was going to make my own yarn wig, but dear god, it was taking me a long while to put all the hair on--plus, well, I was making something else instead that was more urgent. I ended up buying a regular mauve skirt rather than making a Renaissance-style skirt because I didn't have the time to spend sewing for hours. Mostly I was spending my time designing a Rapunzel bodice.

 

I did this by originally starting with the Askew pattern, which I'd always wanted to do. However, I could not get the gauge on it for anything. Converting gauge somehow didn’t work either because I am an idiot or can't do math or god knows what. I finally just cast on enough stitches for my own gauge to eventually be as big as the schematics.

1. I cast on 52 for the sides, did 15 stitches for the straps, and left out the garter stitch rows. 
2. I took in the sides a little when stitching it just to make it fit a little better.
3. I Crocheted little eyelets (4 sts in one st to make a circle) every inch on the sides that make up the front panel.
4. I made a small 5-sts-wide purple panel and sewed it in between the two sides. 
5. I made a long pink crocheted chain (F hook) and threaded it through the holes. 
6. I crocheted lace along the top--1 hdc, 1 dc, 1 tc, 1 dc, 1 hdc in the same hole, then 1 sc in between each lace bit. Did in pale pink yarn.
7. After blocking it, the top STILL came out really big around the top, so I took out the lace hem, folded in the edges and resewed them down, then used crochet to decrease by 2 all around the edge before I re-did the lace. Much, much better.

I like the look of Askew, but man, I don't get how that pattern works at all. I'd like to make another one of these tops, but I am not at all sure how to do it right.

As for the sleeves, I based them off of how the sleeves were done on this one. I put buttonholes in (a la Trout River) because while I'd wear the bodice in regular life (I'm weird), I am not a poofy princess sleeves sort the rest of the time and I'd want them detachable after Halloween. Plus they're just easier to work on when not attached to the whole thing.

1. I cast on 72 sts (I figured out how many to do by picking up and knitting around the armhole, then ripping that out and casting on separately, I wanted to do the sleeves separate from the bodice) and k 1 round, join in round with size 7 needles. Leave a marker at the joined spot.
2. Row 2: purl 20 sts, bind off 2 sts, purl 7 sts, BO 2 sts, p7 sts, BO 2 sts, p7 sts, BO 2 sts, p 20 sts.
3. Row 3: k 20 sts, cast on 2 sts, k 8 sts, CO 2 sts, k 8 sts, CO 2 sts, k8 sts, CO 2 sts, k20 sts.
4. Row 4: purl all sts.
5. Knit in round for 1.5 inches (8 rows). Then start wrapping and tucking at the end of every round.
6. Row 1: knit until 1 st before last st in round (where your center marker is), wrap and tuck.
7. Row 2: purl until 1 sts before last st in round, wrap and tuck.
8. Keep repeating this pattern, w&t’ing at the end, until you have around 10 wraps on one side and 11 on the other.
9. After that: continue the same kind of thing (do not start knitting where the w&t’s are), except when you get to the last 2 sts before the last w&t, knit 2 together or purl 2 together at the end of every row. Do this 8 times.
10. Then knit in the round for 2 inches.
11. After that, mark off about 20 stitches (10 on the side of each marker). Except for those 20 sts, knit 2 together for all the rest of the stitches. If you were using circular needles, this is where you’ll need to switch to DPN’s.
12. Knit for one row.
13. After that, switch pink shades and knit in round for 10 rows. I put all the stitches on a holder after that in order to deal with the sleeves (easier to do so that way while they're short and detached!).

As for the sleeves, I originally tried duplicate stitch since a relative of mine suggested that that might fix my guitar sweater issues. I...don't think that looked so great in the execution.

 

I ended up taking that out and just knitting stripes separately and sewing them on to the sleeve.

To make the stripes, I measured the length between the start of the coral pink 10 rows at the end of the sleeve and the garter stitch edge on the other side of the sleeve. I did this for every few inches. Since my gauge was 5 sts = 1 inch, it made it pretty easy to figure out how many stitches to cast on. I did 30-33-35-38-40 or so stitches per row (depending on the sleeve's length on each area) in coral pink. To do each stripe, I cast on the # of stitches, knit one row, purled one row, then bound off the next row. I pinned them lengthwise to the sleeve and hand sewed them on.

Because I wanted to use yarn already around the house and I didn’t have any appropriately colored yarn in worsted weight left, I used 2 strands of Bernat Softee Baby to knit the skinny end of the sleeves for 17 more inches, and then put the same kind of lace edging on the ends.

I was going to make a wig out of yarn for this, but.... in all honesty, I got bored of putting the yarn on...and on...and on.... and it's not finished. I bought a wig and some fake flowers, braided the wig, and then tied the fake flowers into the wig.

Probably not my best ever, but not bad for the effort.

Edited to add: I won the contest! Overall winner over 2 offices! (Though I will admit that not many dressed up.)

Norma ruched tank

I didn't make this, but HOLY SHIT, IT EXISTS.

Seriously, LOOK AT THIS DRESS. Look at the stringy wovenness around the waistline and all the danglies. HOLY SHIT. I found it at a thrift store for $6. It doesn't even have a label on it, so SOME magical person has to have made this! It's amazing! It had to be mine :)

Another year, another Halloween costume trophy

I was pleased to hear that last year's winner wants to keep her trophy, so here I am making another one. I wanted to make it fairly well different from the last go-round (and it was requested that it be ah, slightly smaller).

I wanted it to be different...was originally shooting for a haunted house theme, but it wasn't executing well. Maybe next year. I decided to go for a spiderweb theme, with hanging wacky things in the web. Then I decided it needed a white backdrop...and I needed to make something out of yarn..

In the end, it came out 2-sided. The winner can display it either way!

I pretty much made up the ghost pattern from scratch to fit the frame--kinda on the spot, didn't write it down. Oh well.

 

 

Self-portrait class, week 2

I posed the mirror at a slightly different angle for this one. I think it makes me look like I'm feeling suspicious.

Here's a comparison shot from weeks one and two:

Natural dye workshop, week one

I went to a workshop in natural dyes today. We dyed stuff--in my case, 3 skeins of yarn, 1 batch of roving, and cut up samples of cotton leaf fabric--in brazilwood (light red), pokeberry (dark red), pomegranate skins (oddly enough, yellow) and black walnuts (brown).

 
We also did some ah, impromptu sorta-dyeing by plucking roses, spraying a T-shirt with soda ash or water, then sandwiching some petals in between the fabric and...well, hitting them with a hammer. It came out with odd results.

 

Yeah, I don't get why red roses + water = red and hot pink, pale pink/orange + soda ash= light green grass color, red roses + soda ash = dark green/blue....Very strange. I felt sorry for everyone on the first floor having to hear us hammering.

Here's how the yarn came out.

And the roving--only did that in 2 shades of red.

Yeah, some of that came out paler than I'd like. We're going to do more techniques and creative stuff involving different sorts and levels of dyeing next week, so I may redo them.

But as for the leaf fabric...wow, check how those went.

Interesting....

So I'm taking a self-portrait drawing class

Here's week one. I like that I can draw myself without looking like I have a giant pumpkin head, the way I look in photos usually :P

This is what happened when a CC friend drew a self-portrait of herself. Followed by me drawing a cartoon version of me. Followed by her drawing a cartoon version of me. Not bad either!