Tunics are black

Because my tendonitis still hurts and knitting is curtailed, I sew.  This black blob (at least that’s what it looks like in the pictures) is a cotton knee-grazing tunic/dress recently completed by moi.  Butterick 5555 is it’s official name.

The fabric is a cotton seersucker, but it’s a novelty seersucker.  What the heck does that mean?  The suckers are about 2″ wide and makes the dress look wobbly.  I think it’s nice, but if you’re a pressed and shoeshined kind of of person, you’d hate this dress.

What can I say, it’s an easy pattern.  Not to say I didn’t screw it up.  I did.  It’s supposed to have a little mandarin collar.  Don’t see that do you?  I forgot all about it and finished the neck.  Just the front neck, mind.  Then I had to figure out a way to finish the back neck without making it look all janky.  I used a bias strip and it’s worked out ok, black and cotton are very forgiving.  I shortened the dress about 1″ and that’s about the only mod I made.

I’m wearing a belt in one picture, but honestly I’ll never wear this belted.  It drove me mad just taking pictures in a belt.  A whole day?  Insanity!

Pattern Review here.

Pinnie

While perusing the internets the other day, I came across some cute pictures of pincushions made from fancy teacups.  That looks easy and useful I thought as I knocked the box of pins from the sewing table once again!  Fast forward to me having to update tons of software on a seldom used ancient but fully operational laptop, and with all the sitting about waiting I thought I’d give pincushion making a go.

The teacup is from Goodwill and was 98 cents.  The fabric is a scrap, the stuffing was a leftover and the instructions I used are here.  I used a 10″ dinner plate as a circle template, added basting stitch by machine and just stuffed up the pouf.  When it was as  stuffed as I could get it, I knotted off the threads.  I don’t have a glue gun but I do have reusable mounting tape (I used it to stick a bracket bit back onto my car stereo – shut up it worked).  I used a couple pieces of the mounting stuff and shoved the pouf in with great enthusiasm.  Works just fine so perhaps I should retire the taped together white box of pins that I bought at the FIT bookstore when I was a student?

Rayon is not my friend

Well that was sucky week at work.  Spring breaks all over the country take place at different times.  Did you know that?  I do.  Moving on.

Before the aforementioned horror, I did make a couple of things.  At left is the latest incarnation of Sewaholic Renfrew tee.  I’d not made a round neck version before and quite like this one too, but I think I’ll make the round neck a bit less wide since you are seeing entirely too much of my sports top in the picture.  The fabric is a tissue rayon knit from Stonemountain & Daughter.  It’s that very thin fabric that curls up on itself especially awfully if you pre-wash it.  Per an internet tip, I didn’t prewash and the top shrunk.  The picture is the shrunken top.  It still fits, but it’s rather shorter than when it went into the washer.  I shall have to not heed that “no prewashing” tip again.  The internet does lie sometimes.

The right are two pairs of my tried and true flannel PJ bottoms.  Of course I had to bust out the bunny print in time for Easter and the rosebuds are so sweet.  When I make these pjs now I assemblyline the construction so making two (or three) take not much more time than making one pair.

If you’d like to make some PJs too and want some hand holding, there is a sewalong PJ party hosted over on Did You Make That if you’re game.  I think you are!

Powerball, shmowerball

Well I didn’t win the Powerball tonight so I’d better cancel that bulk buy of yarn and fabric.  Hold please…done.

What I did do was finish my Paulie Cardigan.  I found some yellow buttons at the Joann’s last weekend.  I thought I’d get gray buttons but gray turns out to be incredibly hard to match.  Who knew there was such subtlety to gray?  So yellow buttons were my best bet.  Photo at right is of my boobs in the background, yellow buttons in the foreground.

I dutifully wove in the ends and blocked the cardigan and voila!  Finished.  I love the finished sweater but I did give myself double tennis elbow knitting this up on small needles without adequate break times.  Two acupuncture sessions have begun to help but  I shall be knitting my next sweater with fatter yarn and larger needles.  No word on what sweater that will be.

Sweater details:

Pattern:  Paulie by Isabell Kraemer (free pattern!) my rav link here; Yarn:  Fiber Optic Yarns – Foot Note (lovely stuff); Mods:  I didn’t do any waist shaping and knit a few extra rows to make the raglan lines long enough for my well developed shoulders.  I also didn’t do sleeve decreases until about the elbow level because I didn’t need to.  It’s just that simple.  Try on the sweater and work with the fit you’ve got.  My developed biceps did so not want to be decreased upon.  Only after I passed my enflamed elbows did any decreases happen.  The whole point of the top down sweater is to try it on as you’re going.  I knit on the i-cord edging from the wrong side since it looked nicer to me from that side.  I skipped the shawl collar since there was no way my yarn would want to be squooshed into folding over for ever and ever.  V-neck is fine and dandy.

All in all, I made a very low impact sweater.  I skipped most of the shaping and collar.  I just knit until I needed medical attention and here we have Paulie!

P.s. While it may look like I’ve just returned from the gym in these photos, rest assured these phots are BEFORE I went.  Sadly this was as good as I got today.

Hot cross buns!

The Easter candy has been in the stores since Valentine’s Day and for some reason I’m suddenly overcome with a craving for Hot Cross Buns.  Today.  Now.  Hurry!

Ok, there is a difference between hot cross buns I’ve had here in the U.S. and those I’ve had in the U.K.  The U.S. ones are sweeter and the cross is usually icing.  The U.K. ones aren’t very sweet and the cross is some kind of flour goo.  I wanted the U.K. kind and the google machine came up with this recipe by Nigella.  Whatever your feelings about Ms. Lawson, these buns are damn good.

I changed the recipe a bit by using Trader Joe’s Golden Berry Blend which is golden raisins, cherries, cranberries and blueberries.  I didn’t have cardamon pods or whole cloves so I added 1/8t of each to the list of spices.  I added 1T sugar and 1/2t salt to the dry ingredients list.  I used the microwave to heat the milk and butter and just let the dough rise for two hours until doubled instead of overnight.  The crosses were made with the flour goo that I spooned into a sandwich bag and snipped the corner off of to make a disposable pastry bag.  Super easy recipe and Yummy!  Plenty sweet with all the dried fruits and the house smells like heaven.  A win!

Scrappy tote

Yesterday I thought I’d get the lead out and make up another Renfrew Top that I’d already cut out last week.  I just needed to change the thread on the serger and try out my plan of serging the Renfrew Top rather than sewing it up with the regular machine.  It’s really not hard to change the threads on my serger, just a little bit fiddly so I’ve been putting it off.

So why am I showing a tote bag instead of a Renfrew Top?  While all these ideas were marinating in my brain, I came upon the lovely Jorth’s post about making a shopping tote bag.  I somehow thought I should change the serger threads and test the machine tension out on this tote bag.  So I grabbed some cotton fabric scraps and serged this tote up in no time at all.  I only needed the regular machine for topstitching and attaching straps.  Easy.  Make some of these up for your shopping trips if you’ve got scraps aplenty like me.  I immediately tested mine out with a quick run to buy wine.  Success!

WordPress does indeed hate us

I guess WordPress has made some changes to their commenting system in response to some VP asshat at WordPress getting their ID stolen or some such.  This has made commenting harder/impossible for some of you.  Cheryl has posted more details here.  I like her idea of you putting “wp.” before your real email addy as a clue for me to know it’s you.  I really don’t know what to do about this.  It’s a free platform that I came to after becoming totally dissatisfied with my pay service at Typepad.  I’m running out of ideas here…

Dreaming of baked goods

Ok, seriously.  I know!  But scouts honor, that was the best picture I came up with in the two seconds I allotted to take pictures before changing into pajama pants.  Since it looks like I’m dreaming in the one on the right left, I added cake.  Cake always makes things better.  The possessed demon face of the right picture has been cropped into oblivion.  You may thank me now.

What am I trying to show you?  Well it’s Burda skirt 10-2001-119 of course.  I made it from some lovely soft stretch babycord, so soft it looks and feels like velvet.  Let me tell you…I traced off the pattern from that horror of a Burda pattern sheet, adjusted the pattern to fit my womanly curves and cut my fabric.  All should be well, no?  No.  Apparently cutting stretch babycord sets some sort of spread demon free in that fabric and it was all I could do to stop the seepage.  I had to staystitch the heck out of it and steam it like a piece of broccoli.  Damn.  There are consequently construction issues (I’m looking at you pocket wrinkle sewn into the side seam and non matching waistband seams) but I wore it out of the house today and I didn’t get arrested or public shamed.  Win!

If you sew and want to know more, please click on the review at PatternReview.  If you don’t sew, know that this skirt now fits 1″ below my navel rather than at waist level where it started out the day.  This babycord must be some sort of mutant material that’s still alive!  I think a spell in the washer/dryer will kick some babycord ass.

Edges

First off thanks for the FB birthday greetings!  That was awesome to get so many happy notes!  Yes indeed, Monday was my birthday.  I had a great birthday weekend and am still on vacation.  That’s right, I’ve got two weeks vacation for my birthday.  That is how I roll.

Now you’d think I’d have lots of crafty efforts to share with all that time off, but no.  I don’t.  I’ve still got tennis elbowS and have for the most part stopped with the knitting until the pain subsides.  I did finish the neckband of the Paulie cardie though since I’m itching to knit.  I worked a row now and then, stretched and I seem to have survived.

The neckband is super cute with the icord bind off in contrast color.  It’s a bit of pain to do, but really not much more work than a tubular bind off.  I really want to start the sleeves.  Perhaps I’ll try a row here and there just to test the tendons?

Does anyone have great tennis elbow cure-alls?  I’ve got stretches from my PT and ice the offending elbows.  Any miracle cures?  If not, I’ll have to get going on the sewing since that doesn’t seem to hurt.  Argh!  Such a cute sweater to finish and I can’t work on it (much)…

No knitting

I’ve sadly got no knitting to show.  I’ve got tennis elbow in both elbows that is exacerbated by repetative work motion.  Well I’ve got to work, so knitting has slowed.  Luckily I’m feeling much better already but I didn’t bring any knitting along with me on this weekend pleasure trip.

Where am I?  Well you know it can’t be far because I’m all traveled out by work, so long plane rides just aren’t happening on my off time.

Tired of guessing?  Too obvious?  Yes, it’s Los Angeles where it’s 81 degrees and the palm trees are swaying in the breeze.  The neighbor’s tree is jammed with grapefruit and it took me an hour to drive 20 miles yesterday, just in case you needed more proof.  Having a fab time though!

If you’re wondering about the pic on the right of the mosaic, it’s a farro dish I made a few days ago that is fan-freaking-tastic.  Recipe is here and I simplified it by cooking the kale in the microwave for one minute.  I also used 6 cups of liquid rather than the 4 in the recipe.  It’s really delish so try it (farro from Whole Foods btw).  Later!