Personal Perestróĭka

Here are the dresses I made for my new cousin, Faith Alma!  She’s a farmer’s daughter and needed some tough clothes for hanging out with her daddy and her two brothers.

This dress is for picking vegetables in the garden and riding ATVs, but hopefully not through the garden.

This dress was originally truck themed, but alas, I had to hand draw the truck and it just didn’t turn out.  So I’ve covered it with a horse.  It’s like reverse progress.  The human race moves from horses to gas vehicles.  I move us back to horses.

Blue Tractor dress!  Again the original image didn’t work but this time I figured out to just redo it onto a patch and sew that on.

I’m pretty happy with how all of these turned out. The only thing I’d do differently would be to make a truck patch for the truck dress, instead of a horse patch.  But alas I didn’t think of it until I was done.  Over all though I think it worked out.

(If you can’t see the pictures, you can get them on my Flickr or just click through to the original post.)

I can’t decide what to do about the Burda World of Fashion pattern.  I’m disappointed that you can’t just go to their site and easily order a back issue.  It seems like a major failing on their part. Also all I want from the issue is the skirt pattern.  If I devoted an hour to it I could probably hunt down a similar pattern somewhere else?  Or I could just keep an Ebay search watch for the issue and hope I get one?  I have the fabric for the skirt already. Hmm….

In other sewing related news I will post pics today of my latest finished stuff.  In the meantime I am obsessing over fabric (and obviously the pattern above).  I stumbled on this fabric.  I NEED it.  At that width I could do with only a yard.  I mean you wouldn’t want to do a whole top out of it or anything.  Although, hmm, lined as an a-line skirt, just above the knee, I bet it would be pretty fantastic too.  I searched around for something similar that wasn’t $20 a yard and this is the closest thing I found. Not good enough.  But hey, $20 isn’t so much, so I will probably break down by the end of the day and buy the pretty blue medallions.  I actually have a little money I was setting aside for a jacket, but you know, I have half a dozen jackets, so maybe I’ll buy the fabric and make something lovely with it.

I found the sewing class I want to take locally.  It’s $380, but it’s 12 – 3 hours classes, so completely worth it, as that’s like $11 a class.  However my schedule really doesn’t work with it right now (plus my current travel plans would have me missing 3 of the 12 classes), so I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that they will offer it again in the session starting in January.  Which would be perfect because it would give me something to occupy myself with in the dead of winter.  YAY!

I’m having a bunch of trouble shirring with elastic thread.  It’s extra frustrating because I do this all the time.  It’s usually so easy.  I guess I need to re-wrap all the bobbins and check the tension on my machine, top and bottom.  And then do a bunch of test runs.  And then carefully pick all the stitches out of my last two projects (or maybe one, I really might just sacrifice one of them).  And then resew once I make sure it all works. Blarg.

I think I’m going to work on my master list of sewing projects today.  Not sewing, just planning.  Since I’ve finished a bunch and abandoned a couple, I guess it needs updating.  I should probably clean my sewing table too, since maybe that will help me feel better when I attack the elastic thread problem.

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Today’s picture doesn’t have jack to do with sewing, but I had a dirty dream about Alex Skarsgård last night, so I thought I’d post a picture, just to keep it fresh in my mind.  The picture also makes me want to sew a lot of fall clothes, so I guess that’s something sewing related.

Last night I had a dream that I was at a huge funeral with all my cousins. There was something I was supposed to do, or present at the end that I was like a minute late for and the Church Basement Ladies had already found someone else when I showed.  My Aunt Ina was there and she was whispering funny, embarrasing stories about all the Church Basement Ladies in my ear to make me feel better.

Things this dream tells me: I miss my family.  Which I knew.  I am supper sad to be missing my cousin’s baby shower this weekend.  And my Aunt Ina is looking out for me from the Hereafter.  Which is, uh, actually kind of weird.

I am mostly recovered from yesterday’s dramatic meltdown.  Although I have to say, 2009 has just been kind of an awful year.  It’s definitely had it’s good points, but I couldn’t say with any authority that those have outweighed the bad.  Ugh.

Here’s something nice:

Macedonian Apron Designs.  So bright and pretty!

(Picture from a geneaology website, captioned “with her aunt Ina.”)

Now, I generally don’t generally give any credence to horoscopes other than Freewill Astrology, but I read them some times.  Today mine said:

When you’re feeling this positive, it’s easy to see how those good feelings might be contagious. Go ahead and spend some time with the people you love. Make them laugh, pass out a whole bunch of hugs and be sure that they all understand that you’d do anything to make them feel good now. Oh, and don’t be surprised if the person you love most teases you into doing their bidding — not that you’ll mind, of course. In all, it’s going to be a romantic, happy day.

How my day actually went:

I stayed up way too late last night.  This morning I was unceremoniously woken up by an unnecessary text message.  Libelle and I had planned to go to breakfast, and we had to go right away (because part of my current miserable oral care routine means I can’t put anything in my mouth for an hour after brushing, so I need coffee and food ASAP in the morning, then brush). So she’s calling me “grumpy bear” and we stumble off to the Biscuit House, get food and coffee and as I wake up I end spending an hour ranting about something upsetting that is only frustrating me more because I have no control over it.

At home, Libelle is getting ready for her fun road trip to Atlanta with Jedlet.  I start work on a couple sewing projects that are almost done.  Libelle leaves and I spend a little bit of time sewing and a lot of time ripping out stitches, and then resewing.  And then ripping out some more stitches.  I gave up for a bit, looked for a skirt pattern and found the PERFECT one.  But it’s in a past Burda World of Fashion magazine, which means I can’t get it with out spending days/weeks/months searching for a copy on Ebay.  Arg!

I had some other errands to run.  I did not run them because I thought it was Saturday. At some point I realized it was not Saturday but also too late in the day to do the things I’d needed to do on Friday. Went straight from cursing myself for not doing them earlier, to cursing myself for , well, not doing them earlier, but in a different way.

And then it was time to get ready for work. Mother Nature thought this would actually be a great time to start my monthlies. Fantastic. (I should also add, though I haven’t spoken of it here, I’ve been having some serious, incredibly painful complications with my teeth.  In addition to everything else, I’ve had just really a lot of pain for the past week. And I’ve been working very hard to ignore it, part of which means not talking about it.)

At the beginning of my shift a friend really pressed me on how I was feeling and I just cracked.  Like actually ran to the bathroom crying.  I don’t think I’ve ever done that before.  Certainly not at work. Effing embarassing.

At the end of the night I’m relaying this to a lovely friend of mine and she wonders why guys don’t get it.  When we (girls) say, “I’m okay” or “I’m fine” in response to “How are you?” and we don’t elaborate that’s code.  It means just drop it and move on. It means we don’t want to talk.  Think about it, every other time you’ve asked how we are, we’ve told you about the tomatoes in our gardens, and our Aunt Edna’s lupus, and the cat scratch on our shin, and the argument we had with our mom, and the dress we are wearing next week to a wedding and which yoga class we just came from.  “I’m fine,” is a conversation ender.  Don’t press it.  Or you might be the one to send a girl running off crying, and hey, no one wants that.

Anyway, I made it through the night.  I feel better (except the mouth pain). I will write it off as a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  I will continue not to give any weight to my horoscopes.  Hey, horoscope, I got your romantic right here, come closer so I can whack you in the nose with it.

(P.S. I made a cranky baby smile tonight, I had a hilarious text conversation with my cousin, I made decent tips tonight, I had bacon for breakfast with Libelle, and the new Oxford American came in the mail.  Silver lining, yeah.)

Here is my new sewing machine!!  It’s a digital Brother, factory refurbished, so I got it for about 55% off (including the same 25 year warranty the new machines come with).  To buy it I sold one of my manual machines and pair of cowboy boots (I will surely get more use out of this machine than my 8th pair of boots).  I have only played with it a little.  It has so many stitches!! Here’s a tiny few:

What I noticed most so far is that they few things I’m still good at as a seamstress, this machine appears to fix for me.  I have always had trouble regulating speed, especially when I need to go slowly.  This machine has speed settings, so when I need to go slow, I can just set it for slow! Also the needle always ends in a perfect down position, which is great for appliques.  And it has a fancy button that raises or lowers the needle to perfect up or perfect down.  These probably seem like such simple things to more advanced seamstresses (or people who already have fancy machines) but I can see that this is going to make many things much easier for me.

I kept the heavier duty of my two Kenmores.  Partly because I think a back-up is always a good idea and partly because I do a lot of shirring with elastic bobbin and I think that probably is guaranteed to go smoother on a manual machine (plus I can just keep the machine set up with elastic thread, so I don’t have to keep switching).  And all the fancy presser feet I bought in the last year also fit this machine, so I can switch them between machines!

I am very excited about this.  I guess I better get cracking on my big list of projects.  In the past 18 months I have gone from a 14-stitch machine to a 25-stitch manchine, to this fancy, digital 60 stitch machine.  I can’t wait to start making better utton holes!  The next step in my sewing evolution (in a few years) is an embroidery machine.  Then I will have to go entirely to children’s sewing because I will want to embroider hippos on everything!

Trying to look up some stuff and it’s getting complicated because I have way too many tabs open.  You’d think I’d bookmark the links I mean to talk about, but now, I need them open so I don’t forget.  So here’s a little browser cleaning for you:

Rollasole.  Little ballet flats you can buy in vending machine in UK dance clubs.  For when your fashion shoes hurt too much at the end of the night.  I’m not sure how I feel about this.  ON the one hand, they are actually cute, and having a pair to carry around for emergencies doesn’t seem like a bad idea.  On the other hand, don’t wear shoes that hurt.  Of course sometimes even good shoes hurt depending on circumstances, so we’re back to having pair for emergencies.

Love this!!!  It’s like the best made up words ever.

Syrian calligrapher Khaled Al-Saai. Beautiful, simply, simply beautiful.

I’m watching Kingdom of Heaven.  Kind of.  This the 4th or 5th time I’ve tried to watch this movie.  Once again, I’m not paying enough attention to know exactly what’s going on.  Because the movie is so incredibly boring.  SO BORING.  I just don’t know how you can take story like this, in such an interesting time period, in such a gorgeous setting and make a complete snoozefest out of it.  I so wanted to love this movie.  And let me tell you, I enjoyed the incredibly awful Clive Owen King Arthur movie.  I love The 13th Warrior.  But KoH isn’t so much unwatchable as it’s just so boring that your mind wanders, even in battle scenes.  Troy and Alexander also suffer from this problem.   What is wrong with movie makers today that they can’t even make a good story out of an already good story?  It almost feels like an intentional joke, like these renowned director’s got together and made bets as to who could take an epic story, get an all-star cast, spend insane amounts of money and make the most interminable movies ever.

Image is from The 13th Warrior which I should be watching instead of this dreck.

Amid today’s crazy booming thunderstorms I made cupcakes.  Rainbow cupcakes with cloud frosting! Hooray!!!

First we mix the batter:

Which comes out looking more like something for dyeing Easter eggs, than something you’d want to eat.  In fact they don’t look much more edible after they’ve been baked:

Obviously what we need to solve this problem is cream cheese frosting.  Lots and lots of cream cheese frosting:

And the the most important part, eating:

I have almost finished my last TOP SEEKRIT sewing project (pictures soonish).  Today I cut out my next two projects.  I’m hoping to make it at least little way through one of them tomorrow, though real life often interferes in my fantasy of sewing all the time.

I can’t remember if I have ever evangelized here about Summer Soles.  They are fantastic for those of us who go sockless in summer.  Seriously not sure how I lived without them.  But I also go through them fairly quickly in summer.  And sure, they aren’t expensive, but I’d rather drop $20 a month else where is if I could, so I endeavored to make my own.  (HA!  I said “endeavor” because I’m watching P&P while writing this.)  A little research and far too much searching online for materials at good prices.  I might be alone in a club of folks who want to make these, but in case you do, what you need: felt (70% wool/30% Rayon blend, no other blend will do), Dritz Res-Q tape, an old insole as a template and a Sharpie to trace it with.  The fabric tape doesn’t remove as easily from some inner shoe surfaces as the real Sumer Soles adhesive does, but if like me you never wear certain shoes without them, it doesn’t matter that much.  Price per comes to about $2.75 (including your time to make them), about a 65% savings.  Awesome!

True Blood paper dolls, for the truly obsessed.  But where’s Eric?  Don’t they know that no one cares about anything but Eric?

You know what I never get tired of?  The search terms that land people here.  Some recent gems:

sunlight deficit disorder
mediation letters
shipment has left seller facility
lords of the cosmic jest
prince albert’s own jacket
hippie desserts
how to come out of the closet to your parents
what do you do with sewing tape
feeling very sad baby
edwardian librarian

Today’s picture brought to you by my own online search for “prince albert’s own jacket.”

I’ve been considering labels for the inside of clothing that I make.  I started searching online last night just to get an idea of how much they would cost.  While searching I found this tutorial.  And hey!  I already had twill tape and iron-on transfer paper laying around the house.

Labels!

I tested a couple and they seemed to wash just fine.  Of course since they just say my name, it seems almost silly to put them in clothes that I will be wearing.  Like I’m gearing up for summer camp or something, but I don’t care.  I’m so excited I’m going to sew them into everything I make!

Also considering getting a stamp made of the one I like the best.  Then I can just stamp them with fabric ink, or directly into the garment in some cases.    I can’t decide which I like best though.

I got my permanent bridge put in today.  It was relatively painless, though it feels really weird in my mouth.  Pictures when it’s all healed. Still eating soft foods.  Still very bored with them.  Bleh.

I should be making to-do lists.  And maybe doing something productive.  Instead I am making Libelle watch True Blood with me.  Much more satisfying than anything resembling work.

This is an un-retouched photo of a necklace I made.  I took it using the light box I built the other day.  I am very, very pleased with the results.  A little contrast and brightness balance in Photoshop and I think my online photos will look fantastic.  HOORAY!!

Last night I dreamt of sewer drains full of fist sized, sluggy, colorful, jelly-like lumps.  They were garden gnomes at rest.  They didn’t have skeletal systems.  They ranged from mischeivious to downright evil.  When in action, they firmed up and took on the appearance of normal garden gnomes.  In my dream, Libelle and I were trying to help some guys eradicate a particulary hideous nest of them from a school before classes started.  It was strange, terrifying and kind of gross.

Okay, all my nattering on about the Fossil handbag was not an inducement for one of you to buy it for me.  But wow, thank you, thank you, mysterious benefactor.  The only other mystery gift I’ve ever received was some jars of lemon curd .  And while that was fantastic, this is AMAZING.  It smells like heaven.  It’s purple like joy.  I’m thrilled to have it.  I’m over-awed at your generosity.  Wow, everyone, just wow.

Had a lovely, lovely weekend.  Went to the Tomato Festival with Queen Mab (Queen of the fairies, who is not so tiny anymore) and her parents henceforth known as the Queen Mother and Haiku King because her mother looks like a fairy queen as well and her father–formerly Chef Daddy–is no longer a chef and won the Tomato haiku contest.  Grand champion, best in show of over 400 hundred entries, so that was pretty exciting.  I managed to only miss one little spot with the sunscreen and didn’t really get burned.  We had surprisingly delicious tomatillo and basil ice cream and ran into lots of neighborhood folks.

I confess that I never got dressed on Sunday.  As evidenced from yesterday’s post I spent the while day watching the first season of True Blood.  I did laundry, cooked, polished some boots, worked on some sewing projects, sorted out jewelry supplies and tidied up a bit (before I messed it all up again).  So the day wasn’t a complete loss.

Today I ran lots of errands, built myself a macro photo studio.  I need to get different lights as the ones I’d planned to use aren’t bright enough.  Kind of sucks because I probably could have found something at Target today, but alas I didn’t know until I’d already gotten home.  I paid bills, made a healthy dinner and went to yoga with the Queen Mother.  Now as a reward for my virtuous living I will spend the night on the couch watching more True Blood and eating chocolate covered dried cherries.

I’d feel bad about “undoing” all my good work, except that on Saturday I put on skirt I haven’t worn in quite a while and it was HUGE.  This is skirt that I let the waist out on by 2 inches before I went to Spain a few years ago.  Now it doesn’t even stay up.  So my choices clearly are to take the skirt back in a couple inches or eat chocolate cherries until it fits. Hmmmm.

Picture taken at the 2003 Chelsea Flower Show.

Libelle is still out of town and I am being kind of lazy on this Sunday.  Ha!  Of course even if Libelle was here, chances are I’d still be sitting around in my pajamas.  But since she is out of town, I am waiting and waiting to watch the last two episodes of Being Human.  Even though I am dying to find out what happens.

Because I needed something to watch I am watching True Blood. I am only on episode 2 of season 1.  I have clearly not at all been paying attention to mainstream media since I had no idea that this was based on the Sookie Stackhouse books. I read the first three books when they came out and in general I like vampire things (which seem really, really popular lately, is that Twilight fall out or something else?) so it seems like someone would have told me I should be watching this show.

As with any adaption it has it’s problems.  And of course the original stories themselves require a lot of suspension of disbelief (and I don’t mean just believing in vampires, but more the weird secrecy about part of it and how the rest of the world would respond to the existence of vampires).  Still it is well enough made TV to be cracky cracktastic crack.  I just wish the guy who played Bill was hotter.  Alas, they don’t yet let me cast all the TV I watch to my own specifications.  I do actually really like Sam.  And Tara.  And oddly enough, Jason.  Sookie is the epitome of a Mary-Sue, which is oddly likeable in this instance.   But maybe the thing I like best about the show so far is the credits.  They are subtly creepy and promise great things for the show.  The images are disturbing but somehow home-like as well.

Huh.  That’s a lot of words about TV.

So as I watch I have been slowly and carefully continuing to strip down my possessions.  I’ve talked about this a little here before.  I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.  Some of it is a Zen thing, some of it is just feeling sort of burdened by everything I own.  It’s not like I need to pack up and go at any moment.  No, it’s more like a few years ago I started looking at some of my stuff and feeling like I didn’t know who it belonged too.  And then, it feels weird to say, but there is such thing as too many shoes and too much clothing.  And then there’s the stuff that’s just stuff.  I have spent a good part of my weekend sorting through the tons of stuff I have just in case I need it.  And you know, some of this stuff I have literally been packing up and moving around for YEARS and still haven’t ever used any of it.  And so it goes away.  Hopefully to someone who will use it.

Of course some of the things I have way too many of are because I can’t find the right one.  Hand bags for instance, I buy one that seems good, use it for a bit and then shelve it in favor of one that might be better.  I did once find the perfect bag, but alas, when I got mugged last year it was one of the things I lost and I have not been able to find another one like it.  When my sister was here about a month ago I saw this bag and swooned over it.  It perfectly fits all my criteria.  I didn’t buy it though.  And I’ve been kind of obsessing it over it ever since.  So I guess I’ll smartly save my pennies for a few weeks and buy it. In purple.  Which is less practical, I guess than brown or black, but more me, non?  And hopefully this one wil prove to be a great as the one that got away.  Otherwise I’ll have to keep acquiring handbags.

Heh, the fact that I am sitting around in my pajamas contemplating vampires and handbags is probably a sign that I need to get out more.  Maybe I’ll go make dinner.  And then watch some more vampires…

The picture on this post is a conversation between my mom and one of my cousins.  It just cracks me up so much I had to share it with everyone.

I just spent an inordinate amount of time completely deconstructing the sleeves on a jacket, entirely remaking them, then taking it all apart (again) and putting it back to the way it was. Sometimes sewing is way more frustrating than it is relaxing.  I think I’m done sewing for the day.

Now I have to decide if I should go to bed or stay up and watch the last two episodes of Being Human.  I am completely obsessed with this show.  I’m only episode four but it’s utterly absorbing. I have teenage-like crush on the werewolf character.  Overall I like how all the characters play off each other, although I think Annie and Mitchell are kind of annoying on their own (he makes bad bad choices continuously and she can’t see the forest for the trees).  Is anyone watching this but me?  It’s running on BBC America right now and you can get it on On Demand if you have Comcast.  C’mon, people, join me!

I guess I kind of like the idea behind this new Nashville paper.  I am kind of confused about the choice to make it a print publication.  I mean I guess you get a wider audience, but given the state of news papers today it seems weird to start a new one.  Especially one that doesn’t actually have any news in it… Okay well, none of them have timely news anymore thanks to the internet, so maybe this is best use of a print paper.  I’m just not sure who their audience is after the novelty wears off.  The concept it self just seem much better suited to online.  I haven’t seen a copy yet but is it filled with ads or what?

Sunday, day of rest.  I am sitting around now in a grubby tank top and yoga pants, so that’s kind of restful (if by restful I mean slovenly and lazy).  Not an empty day.  After a quick trip to the store I came home, cleaned up a little and ate lunch.  Then did way too much ironing and cutting.  But hey, my next FIVE sewing projects are cut out, so that’s some good accomplished.  I really need an assistant to do my ironing for me.  And maybe the cutting too.

Then I made pie crust using my mom’s tried and true recipe (tastes delicious!) and made mini pies.  The first round was pepperoni and cheese savory pies.  About four inches across (sadly devoured before pictures could be taken).  They were good but a little crust heavy.  Next time I think I’d roll it thinner, and maybe make them in triangles instead of circles.  But again, the crust was delicious, so who cares if there was a little much of it.

After that were much smaller fruit pies.  Marion berry and lemon.  Technically I guess they are jam tarts, since I used marion berry jam and lemon curd instead of making tiny amounts of pie filling.

I will probably do this again, but I will probably buy pie dough or, more likely, puff pastry.  If you have a nice kitchen that is well appointed, I will totally come to your house and make them all from scratch, but in my teentsy kitchen it’s nearly impossible to roll anything out and have a place to put things as you make them (I had to clear everything off the counter and lay a bamboo cutting board over the stove surface just to have almost enough room to work).

Now I am going to pin stuff together so it’s ready to sew tomorrow and contemplate the next baking experiement: rainbow cupcakes.

Tiny pie lollipops. Lollipies. LOLLIPIES. I probably will not make these, but I do see some very tiny pies in my future. Time consuming, sure, but probably worth it. I’ve made hand pies before. I was just thinking about them the other day, but now I want to make two bite pies. Tiny, tiny pies!

The original blog, LuxiRare, the tiny lollipies came from is very strange. It’s high fashion and food which seems odd–or not sewing and cooking go together, I guess. It’s just so very different from the usual cutesy quilting/knitting/ combined with cupcakes blogs. It’s weird sort of gothic-y unwearable clothes combined with delicious looking but very hard to make food. I lost an hour browsing it last night when I should have been asleep. Her pictures are gorgeous even if I find much of her subject matter and the clothes she makes weird.

Feral houses. A little sad, but gorgeous pictures!

Macclesfield Alphabet book. Used to produce 15th century “luxury” books. Weren’t all books a luxury in the 15th century?

Moroccan Inspired Dessert Table! I’m not 100% sold on the colors here but the concept is fantastic and it does all look lovely.

Not as old, or as storied, but still fun: American castles.