I Want to Be a Part of It!

Once again, I'm not posting here but I am posting elsewhere...
Check it out.

Black Widow Bling over at the {NewNew}

If you like this little arachnid, then head over to the {NewNew} etsy blog to see how to make her!

Gilligan

—My heart has joined the thousand for my friend has stopped running today.

With all due respect to all the other bunnies I've known, he was the best.

The hole that he has left behind is huge.

Blog? I have a blog?

It would seem that I took the summer off.
A vacation in Minnesota, a sick pet, a trip to Florida, and various day-to-day life things took over.

Not that I've not been crafting.
A knitting project has been finished (but must remain secret to protect the innocent recipient), some quilts progress has been made, some items have been added to my etsy shop, and some clothing projects have been completed. It's just the photographing and uploading that hasn't happened.

So I'm easing back into it:


1. Tanya's Wet Feet, 2. Tour Eiffel Snack Bento, 3. St.Mary's vs Lawrence, Nebraska High School football, ca 1957, 4. Purple sensation, 5. Robert Downey Jr。, 6. Whiskey Sours, 7. Church - St. Petersburg, Russia, 8. Sour cherry blueberry pie, 9. Conan O'Brien and E.T, 10. Baywatch - a dreamy nature, 11. Conscientious objector day, 12. The Ghost of Tom Joad

I saw this post on the Scoop and I thought I'd give it a shot. I totally cheated though. I made one with the first photo as suggested, but it did not look good at all. So I tried again choosing the 2nd photo and that turned out much better...except that I slipped and picked the first one a couple of times. Ah well, It looks nice overall.
Though I don't get the photo of Conan & E.T. at all.

Down On the Boardwalk

The Coney Island Mermaid Parade was two Saturdays ago. It is a yearly must-see event for me. My memory is a blur of sparkles, sweat, seaweed, and sunscreen. To be honest, I don't remember seeing that many mermaids...or maybe we just didn't photograph them. You can get lost in a sea of scales and tails over here. My eye is more often drawn more to the cephalopods than the sirens. There was a girl out there who had a great beehive/pod hat and a tentacle skirt. It was very cute but too far away to photograph well. I missed the sea monkeys and the giant crab from last year. Oh well.

Everyone decamps to the boardwalk and the beach after the parade, including us.

Every year I always think "next year I'll dress up" but this year I at least finished a mermaid-themed dress. It's Heather Ross (Munki Munki?) fabric that I bought ages ago when it was on sale at Repro. I used the simplest of patterns but managed to make it an unholy, complicated mess. I believe it's been nearly two years in the making because I created so much extra work for myself. First I had the brilliant idea to add cutouts (long keyhole?) to the front and back. Since they're totally unsupported, they drooped horribly. Then I made double fold cotton bias tape to bind the edges and tried to sew it over a teeny-tiny seam allowance. The fabric is rolled sooo tightly and I really needed to use a thimble just for slip stitching. My fingers were terribly sore, but in the end it was worth it. I am especially happy with the orange crochet-trim inset. I have discovered within myself a dormant love of orange. Especially with pale blues and grays.
And finally—a little backyard action.
There were 8 of these guys originally on one lone fennel plant. I fear that they may have become snack for the birds, though. I haven't seen them for days. So no backyard black swallowtails for me this year, I guess.

Double-dipping

OK. Maybe this is "cheating" in the blog world, but check it out.

A Thin Line Between Cute and Camp

That line may have been crossed with this particular apron for Tie One On—Havana Nights. I had the red ruffled stuff lying around from the early stages of wedding dress-planning many years ago. What was I thinking? I dunno. I think it works pretty well with a Cuba theme, though.

I'm happy with how it came out. I'm tickled that I made my off-the-shoulder design idea work, but I also suspect that shrugging it back up will get old pretty fast.



I realize now that I'm wearing the same shirt that I wore for my last apron here. It's my penchant for prints in my wardrobe. I don't have that many solid colored shirts/skirts in my closet, so when it comes time to photograph an apron my choices are limited. I actually made a blouse last summer that's even more Havana Nights than this apron, but it would have been visual chaos underneath the ruffles.


Thank goodness for deadline extensions!

••••••••••••••••

This is not art/craft related at all, but is very good for my blood pressure. I could watch a loop of this all day. The clear-the-dirt-out push just kills me. My very first bunny (Bunny Jean) loved to dig. We would let her dig down just far enough that she could fit in the hole—which was pretty deep since she was about 14 pounds—then out she'd come and the hole would get filled back in. Poor girl.
She was a good bun.



Finally, on the offhand chance that I don't post between now and the weekend (me?) I will be with several other members of the {NewNew} etsy team over at the brooklyn flea on Sunday hawking my wares (those prints you see over on the top right!).

RIP iron

Oh, old iron, we've had some good times.
Remember that time when it occurred to me that I might have left you on when I was about halfway through my 50-minute commute? How we laughed together when I got home and realized it was just my slightly obsessive-compulsive nature that made me think that. I wouldn't leave you on. Not you. Never you. Well, now you're gone. Off to the landfill, I guess.

Maybe I shouldn't be telling you this, but you've been replaced. Yes I'm sorry, replaced.
Now I have this fancy-schmancy digital thing that beeps at seemingly arbitrary moments—on, off, ready, shutting down—it all sounds the same to me. It's not all bad, though. It does turn itself off... I guess... there's a glowing red light that stays on and unnerves me enough that I unplug it anyway. And the steaming function actually works...

Well, old iron. It's been nice knowing you. I will never forget that you helped me make many, many things, including a quilt long enough for my brother (a little excess height runs in my family) and my wedding dress and I know that you would have stopped me before I left the house with my skirt looking like this.



The fancy new iron certainly didn't.

PS. The iron would want me to tell you that the blouse was made from this pattern, with a few alterations. The new iron may have pressed the bow, but the old iron made all the rest of the shirt right.

Mr. Pink

This humble pink fellow is over in the Softies Central "2nd Annual Softie Award" flickr pool. He's waiting patiently along with a bunch of other cuties for the first round of judging to be completed. He also has an elephant friend and a "cutest face" friend*.

The judges are currently picking the top 5 for each category and you should be able to vote on those by the end of the week (or weekend.)

There are a lot of really cool critters/creatures over there.
Check it out!

*My fingers are now requesting that I take a break from hand-sewing...or at least use a thimble. Ouch.

Refreshing the Old Wardrobe

These came from across the pond after I read about this particular ebay seller here (which, incidently, is the only blog that I read regularly that is capable of giving me withdrawal symptoms). Spendy me!


Hmmm... I wonder why I fell for this one?

This is my first foray into Liberty fabric. It is indeed quite soft and nice to-the-touch. I have every intention of making a couple of springy vintage blouses out of these. If I keep this up then I will have to start thinking in meters instead of yards.

Fake Spring

Spring doesn't quite seem to want to show it's face in New York, so here's my little contribution. I hope it helps to hurry things along.
I just don't want to think about just how much time it's taken to get this far.

Their Time to Shine

This is Shiner.
He was doing part of his nightly exercise routine—gearing up for his big delivery day on Sunday. You have to keep those reflexes tight!

He's been our resident Easter Bun ever since this guy


handed over the torch and retired from active duty a few years ago. Now Gilligan lounges around like Easter is just another day. Though he still hides little tiny round eggs for us. They never get tired of that.

I wanted to post these to show off my little guys while belatedly climbing onto my furry soapbox to say that rabbits make wonderful pets but aren't really good pets for kids and real rabbits make terrible Easter gifts. You really should know what you're getting into before you get one. They're prey animal who are hardwired to chew—which means that they don't necessarily want to be picked up and carried about and will undoubtable find some pair of your shoes (my favorite fluevogs!), an article of your clothing (my favorite black sweater), your rug (yes, the purple rug he's up there dancing on), or a piece of furniture (my blue vintage couch) to chew. And that doesn't even cover the dangerous (i.e. electrical wires) chewing potential.
Bunny-proofing is important!

They are all different and are all just full of personality as long as you have the patience to sit back and let them be who they are. Our two are as different as night and day, but we love them both!

It is impossible for me to not relax when I look at this.

And, yes, it's an ad, but could bunnies and the House Rabbit Society have a better spokeswoman?

Happy Belated Easter!

The First Sign of Spring?

Perhaps.

Though it was more spring-like here earlier this week. Now it is drizzly and dreary outside.

sigh.

Don't tell me the groundhog lied to us?

I guess I'll have to make due with my very slowly growing fabric garden.

Did I Mention That I Finished Something?

Because I did.
I actually finished it a few months ago, but besides being my first "real" intarsia, it was also my first project with steeks, so it sat around while I screwed up the courage to actually cut through stitches that had taken me days (weeks) to make. Then there's the blocking process which, along with sewing the pieces together, is my least favorite part of knitting.
But it has to be done. I mean, if you want to be able to wear it.

On the other hand, the knitting part of this vest was so much fun. Every time I work on a different type of knitting I think, "this is the technique for me!" I like cables, sock knitting, lace, chunky-yarn knitting, fingerling-weight knitting, etc. etc. etc. However, I really think that intarsia may really be for me. I love being able to do straight, simple knitting with quick little color changes to break-up any potential monotony. Plus, it's very easy to see if you've made a mistake (I never seem to catch my cable mistakes until I've run through the whole pattern), and pretty easy to fix a mistake since the color you need is just hanging back there behind all the action on the front lines. So I guess I'm saying "yay" intarsia!





The pattern is from See Eunny Knit and I highly recommend it. Though do believe her when she says the vest is meant to fit snugly. I like the vest a lot, but I do have to do a little shimmying dance to get it off! I showed my true midwest colors and used Brown Sheep yarn—I guess the Nature Sport? (Sorry, I bought it 2 years ago...)


Here's another photo from the back...
And if you've checked in here before, you may remember this, but that was really the second intarsia project—I just managed to get the photo up first.

Bernard is Lonely

Poor Bernard.
He looks sad, right?
He had some views on Etsy and then something went awry over there and my view counts were zeroed out.
Now he only has a sad little 1 next to his name.
Won't anybody even give Bernard the time of day?

Ack! Is Quilting Month Over Already!?!

Because I barely got anything cut out, let alone pieced.



Well, O.K., I did do a little piecing.



I guess I misunderstood. I thought "Quilting Month" meant start 5 new quilt projects in 29 days. (Though I did start one in January, and I already had most of the fabric involved in all of these.)
This red & white West fabric has been lying around forever (well, since it was on sale at Reprodepot, anyway)



It is a humbling experience to lay just one of these squares on top of your bed (and ours is only a full-size). and imagine how many other 1 1/2" squares you'll need to cover that sucker up!



Lucky for me, only one of these projects has a real deadline.



And fortunately, it is not this one... yes, this will be hand-pieced. whew.


For me, February was also "sit on the couch while hacking your lungs out and going through multiple boxes of Kleenexes" month, which made tracing templates for hours and hours seem appealingly simple-minded.

Check out these cute and lovely quilts, too! (Check out her flickr set, too!) You know I like this one, too!

If I Were a Wee One

I'd want to wear overalls covered in cute little elephants.
These are for the newish little son of friends of mine. I think these are just cute enough to be worthy of his cuteness.

I believe the elephant fabric was from superbuzzy, and the dots were from Cia's Palette. Kid's clothes are just the best thing to make. They're quick, relatively inexpensive due to their small size, and usually almost unbearably cute because of that same small-size thing.

He really is going to look smashing in them.

Hats Off!

This was supposed to be a Christmas present, but my timing was bad.
Nonetheless, we apparently have 6 more weeks of winter, so it was appreciated anyway.



It can be hard to knit for other people. I am so not a "brown" person when it comes to color (with a few exceptions) but I have definitely married one. He probably wouldn't have been happy with the seafoam blue-and-red or green-and-purple color-combos I would have knit for myself. When I bought the yarn I had to close my eyes and just hit the "buy" button, hoping it would end up OK.
He's happy. I'm happy.

The pattern is from Hello Yarn and it just has the best name ever.
Maybe I will make the mittens in crazy colors for myself...?
Arrrrrrr!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Kansas!

Ad Astra per Aspera
(To the stars through difficulties)

Re-Purposed For My Own Purposes

Here's an example of something I made from one of the vintage patterns in my collection.

I tend to be too much of a fabric junkie to resist buying new fabric when I get my hands on a new pattern. In this instance I believe that I acquired the pattern and fabric at the same place—an unusually fruitful stoop sale. Most of the time these involve lots of toys and uninspiring clothing, but I came across one a few years ago that had a whiff of professional estate-sales type to it. I purchased a couple of cool patterns, including this one (and one from the 20s, which I have yet to even unwrap for fear of it disintegrating in my sweaty little hands). I also bought an old flowered tablecloth from her. It had a few stains, but I was just starting to buy vintage cottons fabrics and it seemed so delightfully cheap. I can't say for sure that I had the idea of making the shirt from the tablecloth at that moment, but it all came together pretty quickly. The fabric wasn't quite big enough, so I pulled some heavy white linen out of my stash and covered the seams with ribbon that mostly matched—see my forearms). I avoided the biggest stains when I was laying it out, but some still made it onto the pieces. My solution to that was to pull out my embroidery thread and do a little wacky, girlie, florally, freehand embroidery wherever the shirt looked a little icky.

Here's another angle (where I seem to be arching my back in an uncomfortable way!)



And, a nice little detail shot.
Eat your heart out, Anthropologie.*



This was a super easy blouse. I like the look of button-down shirts, but I can't say no to one that tosses that aside and says "Just use a side zipper on me." The woman in the pattern obviously agrees with me. She looks so casual and free! I also ended up making the pants from this pattern. They were an exercise in patience and alterations. I am no fan of low-rise jeans, but I am also not a huge proponent of pants that are so modest that they practically billow out and rise up to meet your ribcage, if not quite your armpits. I am on the thin side, yes, but I swear I had to take in at least 3-4 inches on every seam anywhere near my waist and hips. And I made it in a dark, ahem, stretch denim. Occasionally I will try something on "in progress" and end up in laughter.
This was definitely one of those times. Those pants probably wouldn't have seen the light of day except that I trimmed the cuffs with some cute vintage bunny ribbon.
Bunnies solve nearly all of my problems.


*Okay, okay, I'm sorry, anthro. Will you still let me come in and at least peruse your sale racks?

Trying to Get Organized

I didn't technically make any New Year's resolutions (and I usually don't anyway) but I definitely feel the urge to straighten up and organize things.
To that end, I have been trying to scan my vintage patterns so that A) I can keep track of what I own, and B) I don't totally destroy them by dragging them out every couple of weeks to paw over them. In theory I can check out the yardage requirements if I'm scooting out to fabric-shop over my lunch hour, too. (Although I do already have fabric for Ms. McCall's 9666 up there.)
Then, when I've gotten really organized I can start posting them to this and posting pictures of garments I've actually made from them. Someday.



When I started collecting them I was heavily into the 50's patterns. I still am, but am also finding myself thoroughly charmed by the super-simple mod patterns such as this lovely lady.

I've even found myself eyeing a 70s-era pattern(!). I'm going to have to draw the line somewhere—nothing past 1979 for me...the 80's were not a good thing, fashion-wise as far as I'm concerned.