The loveliest shawlette

This is likely my favorite shawlette of the bunch. The pattern is written as a summer shawl, but I made mine in a cashmere blend so it’s great for transitional weather.

Project details:
Pattern: Summer Flies by Donna Griffin
Pattern availability: Free online
Yarn: Recycled cashmere blend from a thrift store sweater
Needle: US8
Time commitment: 1-2 weeks

In general, I liked knitting this pattern. The increases seem kind of arbitrary, which generally bugs me. But the alternation between stitch patterns was nice, and the yarn was a dream.

Ugly ducklings

I had intentions while making these pillowcases, I swear. They were as follows:

• To distract myself from being angry last weekend. Making the same thing again and again tends to help with this.
• To remind myself how to sew a straight line.
• To not ever spend ridiculous amounts of money on bedding. Because seriously, the cost of most bedding is mind-blowing.
• To make a dent in my fabric stash.
• To not care too much about making anything adorable.
• To have flannel pillowcases.
• To bite the bullet and finally learn to re-thread my serger.

And I fully met all of those intentions, proud to say, with the help of this tutorial. Here are my three favorite new pillowcases:

(Also, it’s one month until my birthday! What should I do during my last 30 days of being 21?)

Stately ponies

I’ve almost definitely blogged about this little project before, but I don’t think I’ve given it a proper post. I found these magnificent bookends at the thrift store a few months ago, and fell in love immediately. Only problems:

• The paint was chipping, but they were too intricately carved to be sanded.
• The color was awful. That seventies reddish-brown.
• They were basically useless. Made out of wood, they weren’t heavy enough to function as bookends. Not even close.

Solutions:

• I bought a can of gray spray-paint primer and gave them each two very light coats.
• I originally thought I would spray paint the final color on, but it was too difficult to get the spray paint in those little crevices without making a drippy ugly mess. So I gave them three coats of acrylic paint. Yup. It took forever.
• I screwed them into the bookshelf  from below. Now my bookshelf has a hole in it, but it’s worth it.

I particularly love these because they surround my favorites of Grady’s library.

Giveaway embroidery 1: Her majesty

It’s embarrassing how far behind I am in posting about this. This photo was taken almost a month ago, which is about when I painted the frame (which used to be a hideous terra cotta thing) and gave it to Shea, the first giveaway winner.

What’s even more embarrassing is that this unicorn (Shea is obsessed with unicorns and irony and sarcasm) sat on my desk for at least a month before I got the frame. I went searching for the perfect frame a few times, but was really lazy about it.

And what’s the most embarrassing is that I’m in the exact same place with the final two giveaway pieces – those belonging to Jack and Dani. They are both currently finished, sitting on my desk. In need of a good ironing session and a frame.

Also, I’m considering doing another giveaway after I frame those two. It was good practice for me, to have to plan and embroider things that I’d never do on my own.

Anyway, I love how this turned out. It was my first time working on evenweave (which sucks balls, in my opinion), my first time buying thread specifically for a project (as opposed to winging it with whatever I already had), and definitely my first time embroidering a unicorn.

Lessons learned:

• Pick the frame before you finalize the design. This frame is a little too tall and thin for the design I chose (which was based off of a coloring book page I found online), and it drives me crazy.
• Don’t use evenweave unless you’re working on something geometric. You can obviously see the little wiggles in her majesty’s mane, where I struggled with the rigid structure of the fabric.
• Just buy carbon transfer paper, already. My current method for getting embroidery designs on the fabric is just stupid. Stoopid.

Written Jan. 12.

10 cool random things

Whoops, I missed a few weeks. Sorry about that. Here’s a late post to make up for it. Coming Thursday, 10 cool homey things.

WATERMELON DEATH STAR. This makes me feel almost like I could really fall in love with someone someday.

From Cat High. I adooooore this one – a kitteh feminist! “The Feline Eunuch!” Love love love. I just asked Winston if he was a feminist and he flipped me off.

Make an old book into a journal!

Tie-dye your own tights! I want to make two matching pair of tie-dyed tights for Grady and myself. It would be amazing.

Lee Meredith dyed this skein of yarn in a crock pot, and you can too. Seriously. I keep on almost buying crock pots at thrift stores, and then I realize that for the price of a crock pot I can buy a pair of pants for Grady. Let’s talk about the ridiculous prices of baby clothes sometime.

You can also make a planner out of an old book.

Real-life Pacman!

This is a weird-looking cookie recipe that also includes this handy pattern for a gift box.

Real Peanuts. Teeheehee.

How to ply yarn using a drop spindle. A dear writer of mine at the UVU Review gave me a hand-made drop spindle recently, and I haven’t yet dared make anything with it. As soon as I buy roving, I know I’ll be obsessed with it.

10 cool homey things

Tips for growing strawberries from Tipnut. I’ve only heard sad stories about trying to grow strawberries in a home garden in my county. The birds always get them. My grandpa used to paint rocks red and hide them along the borders of his strawberry patch so the birds would hurt their beaks and then get scared off, but I don’t know if that worked. This year my neighbor has covered his patch with garden fencing to keep birds out – we’ll see if that works. I wasnt’ going to try for any berries at all this year, but then some beautiful little blackberry plants kind of fell into my lap. I’m assuming my local squirrell population will get to the fruit before I do, but there’s still hope. Bla, bla, bla, just another blogger talking about her garden.

Winston would tear this cat house from Sew Take a Hike to shreds. Like as soon as I set it on the floor it would be demolished and vomited on. But it sure is cute.

This tutorial for making candles in a crockpot is awesome, because I’m always on the lookout for new things to do with my crockpot. So far I can make some great not-refried beans, and that’s about it. And also I’ve been saving all of my used candlewax since I was like thirteen. I’d love to make traditional dipped candles, but that’s just not realistic right now.

These framed succulents are just beautiful. Unfortunately my garden is being overrun by a succulent-y looking weed, so while I recognize the beauty of this idea, just seeing it makes me angry.

This doily throwpillow tutorial from Smile and Wave is also beautiful – but I hate throw pillows. Why do I always hate the things that I love? Also that blog is amazing.

I feel like I should have this book.

Ah! I’m saving up little jars for this – my craft room will eventually look so awesome. I’m really excited about it. And I think this is a really rare kind of storage; it seems both baby- and cat-proof. And spider-proof! And mouse-proof!

This is neither baby- or cat- (or spider- or mouse-) proof. But wouldn’t it be lovely next to a puffy armchair?

Next year I want to start a lot more of my plants indoors, and I’m preparing for it well ahead of time. It might not happen, because I’m still completely clueless about where to put it – I don’t know of any baby-proof places in the house that get good sun. Anyway, check out these tips for starting from seed.

More throwpillows! I want to use that freezer-paper design for a dress for Grady. Maybe a pillowcase dress, with a gathered neck.

How to de-frouf a children's dress.

At least once a week, I dig through my bin of things to finish sewing, and unearth a children’s dress to diy (which is new a verb).

I was thinking I’d give you a basic tutorial on how to make a children’s dress wearable; the directions would be very general and indirect, because each dress is different. Anyway:

1. Find a children’s dress that suits your fancy. Take it into the dressing room to see what possibly could be done with it – the most important thing is that the torso isn’t too small for you. Also, the shoulders should be appropriately loose, and it shouldn’t be shorter than you’re comfortable with. Don’t worry if the armholes are too tight – that’s an easy fix if you’re willing to part with the sleeves (which I almost always do).

2. Decide what you want to do with it. It’s not necessary to draw out your plans completely (I never do), and sometimes just going with the flow with it is fun. But you should at least know if it needs to be shortened, taken in, if the neckline needs changing, and if the sleeves are staying or going.

3. This particular dress actually fit me pretty perfectly, but I wanted the waistline to be a couple inches lower, the sleeves had to go, and I was thinking of re-creating the yoke entirely. Crew necks do not please me.

4. Off with the sleeves. Since this dress was machine-made (and had serged seams), it was easiest to just turn the thing inside out and cut off the seams altogether. Also, I knew that the bodice was going to be changed dramatically, and I could just fix the armholes later.

5. It’s also important to decide whether or not you want to keep the attached ties that come with so many children’s dresses. In this case, I don’t really want them. So, I’ll have to undo the entire side seam to get rid of them – if you just cut them off you still see the little stubs, and that’s not pretty. I usually like to get rid of the ties, because a nice sturdy belt usually does the trick in making you not look like a cupcake.

6. Since I wanted the waistline to be lower on this complicated dress, I either had to lengthen the shoulders or Use different means to lower the bodice. So, I just cut off the top of the dress haphazardly.

7. Then give up for a while. I’ll continue the tutorial later; it will include re-shaping the bodice, re-purposing the waist ties, and deciding whether I want the buttons in front or back (which will be a struggle, I can tell).

I know my tutorials are all kind of half-assed, but if anyone wants to see how to do something specific, don’t hesitate to ask.

Blue Sheer Embroidered Dress

This is what the dress used to look like, back in it’s nightgown days. But then it went on a date with a pair of scissors, and came home looking like this:

I was making a funny face, so that was just cut out. But I love how it wrinkles and how it flows. And also, this thing breathes. Which is necessary for a Utah summer. And I like to think that when paired with a leather belt, it’s not too nightgown-y.

And if I hear any comments about how the 4th of July has already passed, I’ll throw a small fit. Blue, red, and white don’t only mean one thing!