Craft Enabled, Domestically Disabled

"Umbrella" dress

I've been working on the Umbrella Dress for awhile. I finished the eight panels of the dress and I really love how it fits, but I've decided to scrap adding sleeves to it and I tried making the collar of it and it came out...like this. So I'm scrapping it. 

This does lead to a dilemma of "this is clearly the shape of a warm weather dress but in heavy fabric," for sure. I wasn't sure whether or not to add on the sleeves to make it more winter-y, except it's already a short dress so that may be futile? I tried walking around in it outside in the sun in the afternoon to test that theory and it mostly was wearable, albeit maybe wearable on a day when I'm not walking around in direct sunlight carrying crap. I won't be walking to work any more, so maybe it's more feasible on a car commute. 

I wanted to do a project where i combined two different sized yarns--two DK yarns to make the worsted gauge--and then the random change come from when I ran out of one yarn or another. It has two different sides-one teal/purple and the other purple/pink, with other colors mixed in.

Now I'm trying to figure out if I can make the same dress but in DK gauge and then make it with two strands of fingering. Maybe I can do that math?

Things that did not go so well

Problem #1: making a collar for a dress and it came out way too big, long, etc. Like I considered repurposing it as a hem addition and..nah. Looks like weird cowl. 

Problem 2: shouldn't have interpreted the instructions as "make it bigger and it'll come out okay when you put in the elastic." Nope. Had to take it out. 

Vest in a week

I made this vest in a week for my costume for Twelve Angry Jurors. We're using the "Twelve Angry Women" script for it and then throwing in a few guys, and moving the time up to 1969 so we can have some gender wars going on. I was told "dress like Jennifer in 1969" and I note that I've been told I can crochet through the entire show--in the Twelve Angry Women script, someone's doing it!--so I thought I should add a vest to my "what a hippie would wear to jury duty" pastel swirly dress. 

Alterations: didn't do the waistcoat back and just made one back panel because nobody's seeing my back in the show, did every-other-stitch decrease around the armpit square panels at the front to make that area fit better. Lion Brand Ice Cream yarn worked great for this. 

I finally finished this.

Why yes, this project from 2022 still didn't get finished until April 2024. Why? Because I hate these little letters in this project, tried to make them look better, they just aren't going to look better, I give up, perfect is the enemy of good, let's just finish this sucker.

The importance of blocking

I'm making the Umbrella Dress right now (yes, still obsessed with umbrellas this season), and someone asked me why you'd have to block (i.e. get it wet and pin it down to dry flat) a project. This, folks, is why. See unblocked stripe on the left that totally stockinette rolled, and the right side piece after being flattened and blocked, followed by a photo of blocking in progress on my boogie board. 

I note that this is another project (like Western Wrap) in which I'm trying to use up Random Balls Of Yarn Around The House. After using up a bunch of stockinette, I realized I had a lot of DK weight tiny balls around, and this project looks like it would suit multiple stripe colors. So I'm knitting with two balls of DK to get a worsted gauge with this project and feeding in different harmonious colors. One side of the dress is likely to be teal/purple and the other side pink/purple, depending on when I run out, I suppose. 

Another day, another broken umbrella

It's (still) that season. This is an umbrella I got for $10 at Goodwill, reasonably figuring it was going to break soon (lasted slightly under 2 months), that I admit I bought with thinking of "what can I do with it once it breaks?" in mind. I didn't have another umbrella that went with it color or size-wise, so what do I do to keep the panels intact? I still can't find much online on reusing umbrellas and turning them into clothes, but this vague link about mentioning an apron gave me the idea.

I sewed up the holes around the umbrella top and whatever edges got nicked in liberating the fabric from the very broken mechanisms, then added some elastic ties at the back around the waist. Voila, fastest craft ever.

Coffee Shop Wrap

I have been making this one for a friend for two months. My, has it been difficult. We went with the kit online so for once it uses the same yarn as the actual pattern (something I pretty much never do), and...I had some issues.

• I did a little practice yarning before saying I could do the pattern, and the yarn said "worsted." Upon getting the kit yarn, it is not. It's DK.
• If I had used the actual needles I got the gauge at, it would have been waaaaaaaaaay too big of needles and made me insane. I used size 10's (per pattern, if not getting correct gauge) and I can't even imagine doing it in 11's or 13's or whatever it came out  as the gauge for me. Heck no. Trust me, it was big enough as is.
• Frankly, I felt like size 10's were too big for this yarn, as everything was fairly loose and gappy and made it super easy to drop a stitch and not notice, and lose track of where the increases were. I took it out and re-did rows a LOT. A LOT. Here's comparison shots of the shawl with size 10's,
• ,
• and if I'd knitted it on size 6's, which are much more appropriate to DK yarn size. I would have been a lot less stabby feeling.
• Even so, it was huge. I have a 52 inch cord I had to dig out and you can see it was even longer than that. 
• 

I actually kept track of how long it took to make this shawl. I normally don't really do that, but the friend asked about paying for labor and I thought, "there's no way in hell that can happen," but tried keeping track anyway by only working on this at home with a timer going. Of course that ended up being kind of difficult and I ended up pulling out so many times that I stopped timing those, but it came out to about 33 hours. 

I'm really happy I managed to successfully finish it, though, because I had my doubts! 

Mayzie LaBird

In January, I saw Seussical at Davis Musical Theatre Company. Obviously my favorite thing about it was the Mayzie LaBird costume, referenced here on the Costume Reference Post 1. I decided I wanted to do my own version of this, for everyday wear (minus the long tail). It probably would have been better to do in DK weight, but I could not find neon yarn in that--everything but the lime is Caron Simply Soft, the lime is Premier yarn. So it'll be a bit heavy, but oh well.

I based the tank top off this pattern, though I didn't do the crossed stitches and had to make the shoulders a bit longer and I added another row around the neck, then added my own ruffle pattern of single, hdc, 2dc in same st, hdc, single over and over again on the edge. I also had to take in the sides a bit, but overall, not bad.

I used this pattern for the skirt, though I ended up making the waist less wide and adding another ruffle and making each ruffle about 12 rows long. I also added the same ruffle edge on each layer on the last row. 

 

(since taking a photo of my cleavage just felt Tacky, here's a closeup of the neckline ruffle pinned to a boogie board for blocking.)

Umbrella skirt

I had yet another umbrella break. This really makes me sad (they break all the time these days, thanks, global warming storms and winds), especially since it was my favorite umbrella, that changes color when it rains. I did order another umbrella, but I did find a way to save this one by combining it with another plain black broken umbrella of the same size to make (another) rain skirt.

Here's the approximate instructions, my friend Mary Moore helped me figure out how to pin and sew the whole thing together, including using a serger to do most of the panel sewing. I'm so happy I got to save this and to be able to show it off to wear in public!

(Note: Mary said at one point, "This is going to be the greatest thing ever or the biggest flop we have ever done.") 

I got it wet in the bathroom so I could show how the colors work.

We're about to have yet another rainstorm here, so hopefully this comes in handy one last time before rainy season ends here. 

 

The Masked Singer--The Ugly Sweater

Awhile back on the UK version of The Masked Singer, they had Knitting. (reveal of who it is here.)

Last night, the US version had "The Ugly Sweater." Y'ALL GOTTA SEE THESE PHOTOS I TOOK OFF THE TELLY. 

Here's a likely guess.