Blue Jeans!

I just had to post here and brag. Oh yeah, this was a lot of work and took me four solid days, and boy am I proud of it! :^)

I started by drafting a pattern from a pair of jeans that I love... and which are falling apart. I didn't cut them or take them apart, I just pinned the part I was measuring to some old cream-colored twill fabric I had in my stash (and I pinned through it to the measuring board). I traced the finished sewn shape. When I cut it out of my jean fabric I eyeballed it and cut between 1/4 and 1/2 an inch more fabric to each side of the pattern piece.

And then I tried as hard as I could to mimic the construction of the original pair of jeans. It was pretty neat actually. Most of the seams that have double stitching are folded together so that the cut edges are completely enclosed inside the seam. One side is ironed to the wrong side and the other is ironed to the right side, and they're dovetailed together. This seam is fun to make.

I got it to fit pretty closely to the old pair, although it was a bit roomy. Luckily I waited until after sewing to wash it for the first time and it shrank to an almost perfect fit. The waistband is still a bit on the loose side, but it's not too bad since the hips fit really well. (Oh, and I was the idiot who was too lazy to put that last little detail on mine - belt loops. And of course I could have used them).

The only thing I was really unhappy with were the front pockets. They needed to be deeper, and sewn into the fly better. Oh well, I guess they're just for sticking my hands in since they're too shallow for anything else.


Front



Back



Back Pocket Detail



My Butt



Jaunty Butt



Belly



Incidentally, that is the only belly picture I was willing to post because I look like I have a serious beer gut in the side view pictures! My husband needs to hurry up and procure a DDR pad. :^)

Dishtowel Love

Well, I forgot to mention in the last post that the undies only really looked that good for a brief while. They started stretching and sagging really quickly so I'm going to have to work on figuring out some sizing and construction issues before trying to share a pattern.

So not fun. So frustrating. Especially after so much work. And I didn't really have any easy projects to work on, nor did I want to start work on my next design after that de-motivation. I didn't knit for two days.

I was beginning to twitch.

I really needed a brainless, satisfying knit. So I picked up some linen/cotton yarn I had dyed a cheerful pale lavender, and hunted down a dishcloth pattern.

I knitted off that entire 50g of yarn in less than two days. It was VERY satisfying. And I had an FO that didn't require a good fit, and wouldn't matter much if it stretched or shrank a bit in use.

Yay!











I love this pattern. It is the Basket Rib Handtowel, only mine was washcloth sized because I ran out of yarn.

Spanky!

I finished a design recently. It's lacy, and made from a silk/cotton blend that I recycled and dyed.

And I wear it on my butt! <8^o

So anyway, if you're at work, or you just don't want to see my butt, or whatever, you might not want to scroll down further...





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Ta-da!















I know, I know. Trust me, I left out all the pictures that made me look flabby, or misshapen, etc.

Some of the Cute

I just had to throw a few pics of my little boy at you. :^)

He's rediscovered his hammer (and will probably have it taken away within the next couple of days, oh man it is SO LOUD!)

I caught him sticking it in the back of his pants! To my knowledge he has never seen a workman of any sort using a hammer. I'm wondering if it's in his genes somehow. Or maybe he has seen either Papa or GranDad do something similar. I doubt it, but it's possible.






Yesterday he wouldn't take a nap at the usual time. So I gave up and just cut his hair and gave him a bath instead. Then he falls asleep in the cabinet! (And, incidentally, totally hot-boxed himself. He's been doing really great with the potty training this week, but he must have had a poop right as he was almost asleep. Poor kid!) He actually had the doors closed. We discovered the stench and the cuteness when we opened the door to check on him. (Yes, of course we dragged him out and changed him just as soon as the pictures were taken).



It's been a really long time since I was able to fall asleep in a cabinet!


So, a couple of funny things he's said recently:

In response to "Why don't we go potty now?" he tells me "How about we don't?" just the other day. I'm cracking up so hard and he laughs with me. And even more recently he wakes up from a nap, sits up and leans back on the couch and looks over at me. "Soooooo....How's it going, Mommy?" In between flustered giggles I manage to respond "It's going well. How's it going for you?" And he just grins and grins while I laugh.

I sure hope he manages to hang onto some of his attitude through school.

Some of the Crafty

I finally got some pictures of the baby hat I alluded to earlier. It was a ton of stitches to cast on for a baby hat, but it was very cute and enjoyable to knit. I ran across one of my neighbors the other day and was somewhat surprised to see that she is expecting. Due in September... yeah, we don't actually see our neighbors very often.

Anyhow, she was as cute as could be and expecting a girl, and I just had to give her something (since I've been on a baby-knitting kick lately). I really should have given her the miniature booties, I suppose. She's Asian and so is her fella (probably husband but I didn't look for rings and I try not to assume), so if anyone's baby would have tiny enough feet at full term, she would be a good candidate. :^)

But I'm pretty sure she will get good use of the hat. I really hope it fits the baby during a winter season, haha.

Anyway, here are pictures!










In other news, I'm attempting to knit an octopus for the big sister of the twins. I'm almost done, but now I feel the crazy need to make a piratey (or maybe mermaidy) doll to go along with it. I've never made dolls before... but the ones I like the most have at the least a sculpey-ed head. So I gave it a try. The cats have since taken her for a wild night ride, stupid cats. I do have an armature for her, but I can't quite figure out what to do for the rest of her body and my hand-sewing skills leave something to be desired...







Pretty cool for try #2, hey?

New Freebies

I have charts for the card suits up, if anyone wants them. :^)

Bags

I've been playing around with a sewn bag idea I had. It started with placemats. My sister-in-law gave me a cute bag, and in discussion I found out she made it from a placemat by sewing up the sides and then sewing in a triangle at the bottom two corners.

I had the idea to make a square zipper bag that way, and so I did. And it was fun. I keep tweaking the way I do it, and it keeps getting better-looking AND easier to do. Kind of amazing, really. Check out a few:

This was the first one. It took forever. I measured for everything, but after this one I made a triangle pattern for the corners and it saved a LOT of time.






I did a couple more and started putting a small ribbon loop at the back end of the zipper so I would have something to grab at both ends of the zipper. I also gave up the wrap-around zipper, although I might go back to it someday. The really long zippers get pricey!

This is the bag I made for my mother. I did top-stitching along the zipper at the very end, but the next bag will have it done as soon as the zipper is done. There's no reason to wait, and the added bulk on heavier placemats makes it impossible to sew a straight seam once the corners are sewn. (She wanted a floppy bag).






I also finished knitting a bag, my miser's purse. I based this off of an article in Interweave Knits discussing miser's bags. The yarn was dyed in the wool by my friend, and then I spun it with the intention of plying it. Except it was too loose for plying, and I really liked it as a single but it was very thin. I got something like 13 stitches to the inch on this.