Hippo Birdie Two Ewes

I got a glue gun. AND a staple/nail gun. I also made two hats. It is hard to take a picture of yourself wearing a hat.

The ghost in the machine

My sewing machine was my mother's, with all the baggage that you can imagine that brings. My sister and I both learned some of our craft skills from her, and a whole lot more on our own, after she died, when faced with the piles of her unfinished projects. The sewing machine is the only sewing machine I can remember, and the memories are not always happy. Trying to stay still while yet another stupid dress was pinned on me. Her critiquing over my shoulder when I tried to sew something. Fights that usually ended with me giving up, and her taking over to finish whatever it was I was working on.

This is why I give serious thought to my training methods at work.

I take these memories with me every time I lug the heavy thing out of its case and set it up on my dining room table. And the machine objects to me. I know it does. I don't understand it, don't understand why tensioning knobs don't work, how thread can get knotted up inside the bobbin, why I have to keep rethreading the needle at random intervals. It didn't used to act this way.

It hates me.

Still, I manage to turn out some ok looking things. Maybe it has personal pride at stake? I don't know. I made this Japanese style knot bag because I hate a purse but like having something for my wallet and phone on a plane. Not bad, right? It's good you can't see in between the two fabric layers. And it isn't exactly reversible the way the pattern is supposed to be. (Hey, props for taking a picture of my own arm!) But passable enough that I'll use it.

A couple of parts of the machine broke off recently. Kinda important parts like the thing that holds on the foot. I went to Jo-Ann to ask about the existence of replacement parts. A lovely woman called Viking for me after we discovered no such listing for the model in the parts book. New parts, they said, are just not available anymore, even to those who would be able to service it, if I could find someone. The lady at Jo-Ann broke the news. "You're going to have to start looking for a new machine."

I know this will help my sewing. A new machine and I could become at least understanding if not outright friendly. But I'll admit it, I'm not ready for a new machine just yet.

Taking responsibility

I spent the better part of this evening with a good friend crafting and chatting. We're thinking of setting up regular "lumpy crafting" evenings, which is something I find wonderful.

During conversation, one of the things that came up was our mutual frustration with people who do not do what they are going to do. Seriously, people, if you say you are going to do something, just do it. It is not so hard. If you are not going to do something, don't say you will do it. It's okay. I'd rather you made no promises than promises you can't keep.

Given that context, I am pleased to announce that I completed the scarf I was working on! Just as I had hoped, though barely inside of the month limitation. I've even sewn in the ends! So it's really, really finished! Score.

Yes, duh, you should totally post the recipe

Also I think I'm getting hands like my mom's were. It's a knobbly knuckle or thin papery skin thing. It was almost weird, taking a picture like this. I am quite pleased, after the fact, to note that my finger nails are not really dirty. How lucky!

practicality on a Sunday night

I go through socks something fierce. It is to be expected, I figure, but it means I end up with a lot of holey heels. Mostly, these socks linger for an appalling amount of time in my sock drawer before finally getting thrown out. But every once in a while, I'll darn up a pair. I like doing it, there is something satisfying about the process of mending, but the end result is bittersweet.

I can never really wear these mended socks the way I wore the originals. The repairs make my sensitive feet more tender, rub in my clogs in weird ways. They are good enough for around the house, but they will never really be the same again. Strangely, this makes me want to decorate them more, to festoon them into something supremely unpractical. I'd probably stop short of lace around the cuffs, but I'd seriously consider just about anything else. An embroidered Taj Mahal on the instep? Well, that's a bit above my skill level, but not out of the question.

Just fixing the heels is enough for today, though.

These awful photographs completely fail to communicate how awesome this is

OH HOLY SMOKES, PEOPLE, I MADE A DRESS!

Check it out now (the funk soul brother):

front,

and kinda the back, but mostly a chair in my apartment.

It turns out it is really hard to take pictures of your own back!

To make the straps, I took the extra material, marked off a strip 2.5 inches wide, and then folded that in half and sewed up the edge, then turned that inside out to make the seam. Pinned those in place using my bra straps as a guide (and can I just reiterate how difficult it is to pin yourself into something you are wearing, particularly if you are using your non-dominant hand?), and then sewed those in place, then trimmed off the excess.

I am doing such a ridiculous happy dance right now, it's silly.

Time limits are for suckers.

As I was working on today's craft thing, I realized that, by way of a general approach to life, I am not totally awesome at paying attention to arbitrary recommendations about how much time I ought to be spending on things. Take, for example, thingaday. Now, I have spent way more than 20 minutes on stuff basically every day. Today was especially awesome, with my efforts clocking in at about 3.5 hours worth of crafting. Likewise with exercise--recommendations from doctors usually end up in the 30-60 minutes per day neighborhood. I train for marathons, which means hours and hours of running at a stretch, plus I lift weights three times a week. I work well over my allotted 40 hours per week. I don't come even close to getting 8 hours of sleep a night.

But here's the thing: I feel great. I make my deadlines, I don't feel unusually stressed out or tired, and I like it that I have intuitively grasped the concept that the rules people make up for how we should all comport ourselves need not prevent me from enjoying myself.

Anyway!

Today I took a $2 XXL t-shirt and turned it into a little dress by following this tutorial. I haven't yet put on the straps because, after 3.5 hours, I was done working on it for the day.


Interesting things to note:

• sewing stretchy cotton fabric is not nearly as difficult as I was led to believe
• there is a lot of thread in the seam that attaches the sleeve of a t-shirt to the torso of that t-shirt
• it is really hard to pin up something for yourself while wearing it when you have no help

Here's what I am thinking: the combination of this turn-t-shirt-into-dress technology and the bleach stencil technology could easily be combined into some kind of super hyper awesomeness.

I stole this

if you look three six entries down you'll see the same thing. the hook with this entry, my face.

i'm a stupid obey Shepard Fairey fan.


i made this stencil about a year ago.


i have headphones on.


bleach, spray bottle, stencil, easy peasy.

The subtlety of cephalopods

All right, so I am posting late, but I actually finished this at about 3:15PM. Unfortunately, I only had time to take a picture before I had to run off to a superbowl...thing. My official take on the big game? Most. Boring. Game. Ever. Right up until the last two minutes, anyway.

That said, today I did a bleach-print t-shirt thing. It's something that I heard about from that lovely and talented sister of mine, and I thought it would be a good project to work on while I was waiting for water to boil for the appetizers I was preparing.

Here it is, in all of its squidly glory:



This is when the shirt was still wet--the effect is even more subtle now that the shirt has dried, but I must admit, I am quite pleased with the outcome. As per the sisterly instructions, I used an undiluted bleach spray rather than a 50% solution (which was what was typically called for in the websites I found that described the process). I also had a sink full of soapy water prepared so that I could stop the bleaching process very quickly, and I was certainly glad that I followed that piece of advice. As she suggested, the dynamics of the bleach are not at all linear. In fact, I would suggest that a graph of the bleaching action would be sigmoidal in shape.

If I had to do it over, I would probably make the tentacles thicker so that they would be better retained in the final product, but I have to say, I am looking forward to wearing my newly minted cephaloshirt. Hopefully this is an indication that this week will be better than the last one.