Dear fellow seamstresses:

The reason your dress made with a vintage pattern doesn't fit right is probably one of two things:

1. You neglected to add shoulder pads or do the necessary alterations to eliminate the need for them.
2. You are not wearing the proper foundation garments that women in the 50s would have worn under such dresses.

Keeping those things in mind, you should probably make a muslin (using the wonderful techniques described in Susan Khalje's Bridal Couture, which is a book everyone should own) and expect to do some altering. Also, sizing is different in vintage patterns. You may be a 10 in stores, a 14 in modern patterns, and an 18 in vintage. Deal with it and always always go by your measurements instead of what size you THINK you are. I promise it's better this way, even if you end up taking something in. It's always easier to take in than to let out. :)

Inspiration!

Grosgrain is doing a guest giveaway, and I have to say that I really like this jewelry aesthetic. I only hope that whatever I end up doing will be as charming and creative as The Brass Hussy.

Sequins!

I have a party to go to in December, not four weeks away. Because it is, as I like to call it, the Final Gasping Death Rattle Party of Doom for this particular group, I feel the need to wear something FABULOUS. My association with this group began, really, with a photograph of me in a red velvet strapless dress. Now. Lest we get all annoyed at me, keep in mind that it's the only time I've ever worn it and a friend was practicing her photography and wanted to take a picture of me in it. Besides, it doesn't even fit me anymore...sadly. And even if it did, I would feel terribly inappropriate wearing it to this party, ESPECIALLY after having made such a point of keep myself covered at every party.

So. Yes. I want to wear something red and fabulous and sparkly to this party. I want to look awesome in pictures. I want to not look like a drag queen. I want to get my hair done and wear pretty makeup and rhinestone earrings and silver (or blue!) heels. I might even want to impress a date, should the opportunity arise.

I have a couple of patterns that will work for what I want (McCall's 3944 view B, OOP Simplicity 9213 view B with sleeves, or McCall's 2681 view A with a shiny top) but I'm having the WORST time finding fabric! If I find something that is perfect, it's also $200 a yard or comes from Thailand and will take three weeks just to ship. I don't want to use the glitter-dot sequins at the fabric stores even though I will as a last resort. I've been trawling eBay and Amazon to find something workable that won't break me and I've had a small amount of luck but not much. The most I'm willing to pay at this point is $20 a yard, and I LONG to live near Mood so this wasn't so much of a struggle! I can't even find the special order book at JoAnn--I think they've hidden it or discontinued everything but the Casa matchy-matchy fabrics. blar.

Perhaps on my lunch break I'll have some luck. And, if all else fails, I'll just use the cheesy American Knit glitter-dot stuff and hope it doesn't look too cheap. I'd really like to have an evening gown that isn't costumy for those (very few) Occasions I can see myself attending in the future.

Ideas? Throw 'em at me!

Update:

It's not that I haven't been busy, it's that I've been busy with other things. Also, I often forget to take pictures of what I'm doing so that the two people who read this have a reference point.

I have a few projects in progress right now--well, more than a few, but just a few that I'm close to finishing.

I'm crocheting afghans for my niece and nephew with yarn they picked out all by themselves. It's been interesting; I've taken to calling The Lad's afghan the "Amazing Technicolor Afghan" because there are, I kid you not, 7 different colors that don't necessarily match. He chose them, though, and my sister and I figured out a way to make it work with stripes. I got done and realized that it wasn't as wide as I wanted it, so I went back to the store and picked out two more colors of yarn. I hope he likes it. Charlotte chose a really lovely pink-cream-brown variegated yarn which I'll do in wavy stripes, or "tripes", as she calls them. She loves tripes. I hope to have those done by Thanksgiving so I can ship them to the kids. When Baddest Baby in the Land is a little older, I'll have her choose yarn as well.

I did the finish work on a Megara costume for my friend's daughter. It took me a couple of hours to figure out how to make the hip sash stand out like it does in the cartoon, and I think I swore in my head a couple of times, but it turned out pretty cute. I even used Sculpey for the funky swirly buttons--I just made half-inch thick snakes that were about 3 inches long and rolled them in a spiral like a cinnamon roll. Poked a couple of holes with a darning needle to make them into buttons, baked them, painted them gold (with one of my three different bottles of gold acrylic paint), and sewed them on this morning between 6 and 6:30. No, I don't normally get up that early and sew, but I think it's good for me and I am thinking about making it a habit. If I can sneak in half an hour in the sewing room every morning, I'll get a LOT done.

I'm making a costume for my friend Anna. Last night, I was able to serge the skirts for both the underskirt and the dress (too lazy to do real seams) and get the rest of it cut out. Tonight, after my callback audition, I'll do the boning, throw the bodice together, and figure out the half-elastic/half-waistband finish for the underskirt. If I'm really lucky (and don't keep breaking serger threads like I did this morning), I should have the basic thing banged together before 11 tonight and completely done for delivery around 8:30 or 9 tomorrow night.

I finished piecing (in less than 30 seconds) the miniature quilt I started when I was 17 or 18 and all I have to do now is find some thin batting, a sturdy embroidery hoop, and quilt the darn thing.

I purchased this lovely thing because I only have four crochet hooks, but many knitting needles "inherited"--acquired because my mom had them but I'm the only one in our family who actually knits--from my grandmother. I hope to start doing more crochet because it's pretty easy for me and I like yarn. More knitting too. I had wanted to knit a sweater by the end of the year, but the only way that will happen now is if it's a baby or doll sweater. ha ha.

I found the perfect pattern to use up some of my fancy scraps that have been sitting in a box forever (the birds and ornaments) and plan to put some together and use up some fiberfill that's just been hanging around in the sewing room.

There are also a couple of dresses I started over the summer that NEED to be finished soon. They're both within a couple of hours of total completion, and then I need to make three long skirts for winter, not to mention the numerous knee- to mid-calf-length skirts I have fabric for.

Wish me luck...

No Taos for me, but a stroke of genius:

Short story: They had to cancel the spinning workshop because of lack of interest. I guess my interest wasn't enough to make it happen. :) I'm fine with it.

Stroke of Genius That's Probably Been Thought Of: What about fleece insoles? How easy would those be to make? They'd make my Danskos extra comfy and warm...and they could be something I'd never wear on my body, like pink camouflage...

Back to Taos!

I'm going back this year for the Taos Wool Festival, even though (due to previous engagements) I'll miss the Festival itself. I'm ok with that, because I discovered the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair not too far from me. I'll go to that with my sister to get my vendor/color/touching everything fix and take a one and a half day spinning workshop (cleverly titled "Yes, You Can Spin!" so as to give confidence to someone who kind of spun once on a drop spindle, and very badly) in Taos.

I'm really really excited. I've always been secretly fascinated by spinning wheels and wanted to know how they worked, and now I feel this drive toward learning everything I can about textiles and fibers and how it all goes together. There is a very real chance that a spinning wheel is in my not-so-distant future...especially if this keeps feeling like learning to felt last year: familiar. Unnervingly familiar. I remember fulling my felt, my arms and shoulders and back starting to ache, and suddenly realizing that it didn't feel like something I was doing for the first time; it felt like something I'd somehow always known but forgotten. If I show an aptitude for spinning, I have to Do Something with it somehow.

A smaller excitement is staying here and driving through that beautiful country.

Finished!

I finished and delivered the dress on Thursday night (August 13).

I ended up doing a bagged lining, which is tricky and, quite honestly, hard to explain (I'll try later, if only to have it make sense to me), but I did it Wednesday night and it turned out beautifully. I almost cried. Except that I realized on Thursday that the lining was sagging after I'd hand-sewn the lining to the zipper. I had to make an 8" slit in the back seam, pull the hem of the dress through, unpick it all, and then cut the lining shorter by about 1/5". Totally nuts. The dress looked like a big tangled mess while I had it all up on the counter, but I managed to tuck everything back in and when I shook it out, it was the right length and the lining was laying quite nicely. I quickly pressed it (one of the advantages of underlining is that your fashion fabric doesn't wrinkle nearly as easily as it could have), sewed a hook and eye at the top of the zipper, and prayed that it would fit.

Emily tried it on for me and JulieG and it DID fit. She looks so pretty in it! We were so excited that it looked that good that I think we were almost crying. :) Emily's getting married!

I'll post pictures soon--I have to sync my phone and find them--but my sister just graduated with her MA in Humanities and my grandma and other sister are in town. Grandma is leaving for home (Seattle) in a few hours and I really need to spend time with her; she's the only grandma I have left. :)

Toodles for now!

August 8, 2009

I'm stalling.

I had a weird night, totally unrelated to sewing or creativity at all, but it's still getting to me.

Wedding dress goals for the day:

1. Finish the underlining (two skirt panels to go, but they DO have to be pinned and smoothed out before I sew, so it takes a bit longer).
2. Mark the darts, either by thread tracing or soapstone. Probably both, just in case.
   
3. Don't be intimidated by that tricky bodice--I've done it before, I'll do it again, and it's not hard. I'm just worried about having to unpick anything because I'm afraid the needle marks will show. I'll just have to take it slow so I can
   
4. Finish the basic construction and
5. Cut out the lining.

Goals for me:

1. Eat.
2. Quit at 6 so I can run some errands (new ironing board cover...?) before seeing a play at 8.
3. Get to sleep before midnight so I can
4. Wake up early tomorrow and sew.

Should be an interesting day!

July 29, 2009

So last night I got home from work all ready to cut out Emily's wedding gown (well, at least the shantung and the organza for the underlining) only to discover that my dad was taking me and my sister to Wendy's. Not being one to turn down a grilled chicken sandwich, I agreed to go knowing that it was taking about an hour away from my cutting time. I could have used that extra hour, as it turns out.

When we got home, I kept forgetting that I had other things to do, like laundry, practicing for the voice lesson I thought I had today but didn't actually have (my vocal coach is out of town and I forgot), opening and installing the mouse for my netbook...but I finally got down to business. After washing my hands twice and forcibly reminding myself NOT TO TOUCH MY FACE EVEN IF IT ITCHED because I didn't want oils from my hands and face transferring onto the silk. As it is, I barely touched the fabric anyway.

We'd had to guess on the amount of fabric, because the silk shantung only came 54" wide at the store but the pattern only had yardage amounts for 45" and 60" fabric, and while I know there's a formula for converting fabric widths, I couldn't remember it. Using all my spatial orientation skills (and they are sort of mighty when it comes to sewing, I think) and those of the owner (who is mightier than I), we were able to get a pretty good estimate of the amount we needed but I was very nervous when it came to laying out the muslin on the shantung and beginning to cut. Especially after buying this book and being reminded that I should have cut the muslin with much wider seam allowances than I had. I had to do some altering in my head, which was interesting, and I could only mark the fabric with a soapstone marker because anything else would have either not come out or would have left a mark. (Soapstone markers are great because any marks disappear completely when you rub them off, but let me tell you, it's hard to see a white mark on ivory fabric and I may end up thread-tracing the long darts in the front.)

I laid out the fabric in my usual way, folded selvedge (selvage? whatever; they're both right) to selvedge, knowing that I'd definitely have enough if I could cut it that way. I soon discovered, though, that the usual way wouldn't work and I'd have to open it up and fold it raw edge to raw edge. While I have a pretty big cutting table (thanks to my dad who built a wheeled platform for a big office desk/conference table) and a pretty big cutting mat (30X60), I needed more space for the fabric to stay off the floor. Just to the right of our cutting table are the bifold doors to the sewing room and there was just enough room to set up my ironing board at the end of the cutting table so the fabric had something to sit on. I had to warn my dad and sister not to attempt to come into the sewing room for a while, as this arrangement would mean the doors were blocked. After I got the fabric laid out and the grain lined up, I began figuring out how to lay out the pattern.

I admit I had a couple of moments of near-panic when I was positive I was short by 9", but after some clever arranging and a LOT of prayer, I figured out the best way to get everything on there with room left over. It took quite a bit of laying it out, standing back, minute adjusting, standing back, skootching, standing back, completely changing my mind, standing back, squinting, praying, more praying, and standing back before the lightbulb clicked on and I knew exactly how to lay everything out.

Then I prayed AGAIN before cutting it out. I was grateful during that hour or so to have two sizes of rotary cutters, some good scissors, very long arms and fingers, and a good eye, not to mention the "Firefly" DVDs kindly lent to me by my friend Damon. Silk shantung, once you lay it out and get the grain all right, is wonderful to cut. It doesn't shift, it's not hard on your cutters like some polyesters are, and the handy ribs help you keep your pattern exactly on grain. It was a lovely experience. Some time around 10 my mom got home from Girls Camp and I had to show her what I'd done and how beautiful the fabric was. She was impressed with both (my mom loves me!) and said that it would be a beautiful wedding dress when I was done.

I (probably stupidly) started cutting out the satin-faced silk organza at about 10:30 PM, but since I already knew the ideal layout for the pattern, it wasn't too hard....except that because silk organza (especially the satin weave) is so crisp and lofty it was a BEAST to keep straight on the table! As I was cutting out the front of the dress I had to hold the rest of the fabric in place with my hip, which was a little tricky and another time I was grateful for long arms and a good eye. If a fabric like this is a little off-grain, it can make the finished dress hang weird, and I didn't want that, so I was very careful. In retrospect, I should have not tried to cut two pieces at once and instead, just done one piece at a time. It would have taken longer but probably would have been a little easier considering how late it was getting. However, I persevered and tried really hard not to swear at it, and it all came out just fine.

After everything was cut, I thought about sewing the underlining and dress fabric pieces together (you layer the organza over the shantung and baste all the way around the edge, so instead of two fabric pieces, you essentially have one) and getting a head start on the main sewing that I'll be doing next week, but it was after 11 and I decided to err on the side of caution: needle marks don't always come out of silk and I didn't want to risk having to unpick anything. So I worked on that shirt dress (made out of men's striped brown shirting! ha ha!) for myself and got the bodice seams serged, that weird alteration done (faked), the skirt, facings, and collar sewn together, and everything pressed. I still need to trim and clip the collar and I probably need more buttons (I lengthened the skirt and I prefer it if the buttons don't end above my knees) and I have to sew the facings and buttonholes and sleeves and possibly put pockets in the skirt, but it won't take long for it to be done. I quit just before midnight and cleaned everything up before heading to bed...where three of the four family cats had already made themselves very comfy. I slept with the door open so they could leave when they wanted to. :)

Tonight I plan on getting as much sewing done for myself as possible, do another load of laundry, watch the rest of "Firefly", and return the DVDs to Damon before the busy-ness of the weekend.

This weekend

This weekend, I've done the following:

• Finished a skirt, which involved sewing the yoke facing by hand because I tried to sew it twice by machine and it just kept shifting. Mental note: don't use linen for that pattern again. And then, when I put it on for church this afternoon, I discovered that it was at least a size too big. This is a Vogue pattern, which fit me really well, and it was too big. This either means I'm losing weight, or the pattern is nuts. It's Vogue, though, so I'm betting on the weight loss. Unfortunately, altering the thing will essentially involve re-sewing it. I'm not ready to that, although I had time today.
• Got Emily's muslin all marked and then I unpicked it and pressed it and marked it again so I can cut out the shantung in the next couple of days. I'm a LITTLE nervous, but it will be just FINE.
• I looked at the unfinished dreaded brown butterfly-print dress that I added sleeves to, and then decided not to deal with it. I have to take the neckline in (there's no easy way to do that!) and I should have put a back zipper in to begin with because the side zipper is stupid. Mental note: if you're adding sleeves to a sleeveless dress with a side zipper, it's probably best to assume that you should just do a back zipper and save yourself the annoyance.
• I stashed some fabric for fall. I'm not in the mood to cut it out yet.
• I cut out my brown striped shirt-dress and I'm really excited to finish it. So excited that I forgot to serge the raw edges (which I do on just about anything that isn't lined) on the bodice before sewing it together, but that turned out to be a good thing because in my slapdash fitting (putting it on over my shirt because my baby niece kept opening the sewing room door) I realized that I'm in for a tricky alteration that seems to be more or less universal: While I've gained about a size over the last few years, I haven't gained weight in my shoulders or chest. My bustline, yes, but not my chest. I'm just as thin there as ever, but if I cut out a dress or shirt in the bigger size, it means the neckline, shoulders, and upper chest are too big. Ugh. Maybe I'll have to do the tricky and obnoxious size-grading maneuver where I keep the chest and shoulders the smaller size and grade up to the larger size from my bust down. Hate it. I am annoyed that I gained enough weight to have to do extensive alterations. So the dress isn't done, but I hope to have it done by the end of the week when I go to a family reunion.
• I hemmed a pair of capris that came unhemmed in the wash. No big deal.

I think I'm actually making a huge dent in my projects, but, quite frankly, I'm so annoyed that I have to do the above-mentioned chest alterations (remember that chest is different from bust), and that the skirt I thought I cut out in my current size is too big, that I am easily frustrated and discouraged and I have days at a time when I don't want to sew ever again. However, the creative spark will burn and I keep finding things I want to make.

PANTS!

Not only is that a line from "The Hudsucker Proxy" (one of my all-time favorite films), but it is the title of my current dilemma.

After a few years of working part-time for very little money while finishing school and not being able to afford more than the very basics of a wardrobe, not to mention digging out of a period of depression following the break-up of my engagement, I finally got a decent full-time job. As a result of better pay, I spent probably a little too much money on clothes, including LOTS of pants. I have a 34 inch inseam, and when you don't make much money it's hard to justify spending $60 + on anything, let alone pants. When I started making more money, I ventured into Gap because I knew they had long pants in stock nearly all the time. I spent over $300 on Gap pants last year. It may not seem like much to some people, but it was a lot to me! And I was so happy to find pants that were long enough that fit well that I went a little crazy...

Now I have a dilemma. I have all these pants that I bought a size bigger (because I was a size bigger) that now are too big. I have the skills to alter them (much as I dislike altering anything) but I wonder if it would just be cheaper to buy new pants in my regular size. When I consider what my time is worth and the time it will take to alter all those pants (something like 6 pairs), it might actually be cheaper in the long run to just buy new ones and give my old pants away. Quite a dilemma, eh? What a pain.

Where is my time machine?

I really want to pack up the thousands of beads and sequins, the 13 yards of white Thai silk, and the 6 yards of dark pink silk, and go back in time and talk to Christian Dior, Ciel Chapman, Jacques Fath, Edith Head, Hubert Givenchy, Alix Gres, Madeleine Vionnet, and Charles Frederick Worth. THEY'D be able to design the perfect wedding gown for me.

No, I'm not getting married, but it definitely couldn't hurt to have a team like that behind me when the day comes!

So here's a conundrum:

Do I put away the winter fabrics I bought several months ago and never made into anything, or do I make the projects and store them in my slightly crowded closet until I can wear them again?

Hm.

I think I'll put away some and leave some out--I've got a few yards each of charcoal and red all-season wool suiting that will be made into long skirts, and I don't have enough long skirts. I also want to make Vogue 8364 but I don't know if it would look good in one of those pretty embroidered linens from JoAnn. Maybe it would. I'm thinking the olive green with the beige/gold flowers on it would be nice in this pattern. But before I do that, I need to cut out a wedding dress pattern and wash some muslin so I can get a good start on the sloper for Emily's wedding gown! Yay!

Right now, I need to finish some laundry and put some patterns away and buy thread and a zipper for impossible-to-match yardage and serge around one more dress and cut out the other pant leg for my sister's pajamas (I didn't cut four because I'm used to doing a 1-piece leg instead of a 2-piece leg and I wasn't paying attention to the pattern...) and do some mending and some hemming and see if I have the patience to make a slip-liner with cap sleeves for a silk chiffon dress I bought 6 years ago.

Busy weekend! I hope it's productive!

Things are shifting...

Last night, after some friends from church came to visit, I felt inspired and energized to tackle the ever-increasing piles of fabric in "my" sewing room. I hit the serger hard, almost completing 1 pair of pajama pants (I just have to do the leg hems and the elastic casing) and serging the raw edges of another pair of pajama pants, a skirt, and a dress. Then my ankle got tired because I was sitting on a high stool and my foot was at a weird angle, so I walked around a bit before digging through my zipper box for a zipper so I could finish the skirt after discovering that the tension is off on the sewing machine which means one of us needs to take it in for a check-up. I of course chose to do a lapped zipper, which isn't my favorite thing to do anyway without being as tired as I was. I think it turned out well, but I (wisely) decided not to attempt the planned rolled hem or waistband binding (since I decided that I will just bind or face almost all my skirt waists instead of putting in the stiff and uncomfy waistbands because of the very scant distance between the bottom of my ribs and the top of my pelvis/ribs).

It felt good to be sewing again, and I hope to have a pretty new dress (the rose-colored damask is FINALLY cut out and serged around!) for a friend's wedding on Monday, and my sister will FINALLY have her red, flannel-backed satin pajamas that should have been finished in December. *shame*.

As for the things that are shifting, I'm mentally composing a post for my introspective blog about what has led to the following decision: I am applying for a core fellowship position to study weaving and silversmithing at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. I'd been searching for a graduate degree program in textiles and have been discouraged by the sheer expense of it, not to mention the blank wall of death that rises in my brain at the thought of taking the GRE. It hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks a few weeks ago that I was looking for the wrong thing and should, instead, be looking for crafts schools.

So I did.

And I will say that, when I read the description of the core fellowship at Penland, I felt exactly the same way I felt when I registered for a workshop during the Taos Wool Festival last year--a mixture of familiarity (hard to explain), excitement, the urge to cry from unexplained happiness, and a little bit of fear--which means I need to somehow do this. I don't know if it's going to pan out they way I hope, but I know I have to try. The deadline to submit the paperwork and 10-item portfolio (which is the part that makes me the most anxious, as I haven't done a lot of fiber art at all) is October 1st.

Ack.

Pray/sacrifice/cast runes for me.

Summer projects

I got a lot more stuff cut out a couple of weeks ago before I visited family in Seattle. It feels good to have made a dent in the (neatly stacked and organized) piles on the cutting table. This week, things will slow down and I'll have my evenings free again, so I'm ready to make a dent in the (neatly stacked) pile of cut-out projects while watching the rest of my Fred and Ginger boxed set and trying not to cry during "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle". Gets me every time.

My niece told me that I need to make a brown dress because she has a brown dress. Little does she know that I have some brown shirting with pink and red stripes just waiting to be cut out! Hooray! I've knitted a few more washcloths and am starting to feel a little more confident about actually achieving my goal to knit a sweater this year. My sister wants to get a big order of flour-sack towels to embroider and give away or sell, because we both have great ideas for such things. That may be a project for this summer as well.

That is, of course, if I can get my major summer project up and running by the end of May.

I'm making a wedding dress for a dear and lovely friend, and I'm SO excited I can't stand it.

That's right--a wedding dress.

I smile every time I think about it!

a-hem.

I've had three pairs of pants in my sewing room waiting to be hemmed for, oh, three weeks now. I haven't hemmed them because I've been wearing skirts more, but last night before I went to bed, I thought, "I miss my brown, green, and pink plaid pants and I want to wear them tomorrow with my pink sweater. I'll have plenty of time to hem them and wash and dry my hair in the morning!" and then I went softly to sleep. Until my alarm(s) went off between 6:05 and 6:31 AM. I thought about staying in bed for a few more minutes, and then remembered that I was going to hem some pants. "10 minutes," I thought. "Maybe 15."

However, when I got to the sewing room at 6:50, I had to try them on because I hadn't marked them earlier. Then I had to press out the old hem, which involved setting up my sleeve board, finding the spray bottle, and plugging the iron in after moving the lamp. Then I had to find thread that matched. Then I decided to do a blind hem instead of regular hem. Then I had to change presser feet and wind a bobbin of the thread that was close enough but not perfect. And then I had to adjust the stitch width. Then I had to press again. Then I had to put everything away.

Then I looked at the clock. And it was 7:15. The hair is curly-dried-naturally today instead of the smoothed-with-hairdryer-and-round-brush look I was aiming for, but the pants are hemmed and I made it to work on time (barely).

Remind me to make sure I have matching thread for the other two pairs of pants the night BEFORE I want to wear them.

Ugh.

Yeah, I'm a big talker.

Anyway. I love plaid. Love it. I also love pleats. This is a serious problem, because I hate matching plaids when I'm cutting things out. I have this great (ugly to some) plaid wool (actually I have three different wools) that I want to make skirts with and I love pleated plaid skirts and I put off cutting anything out because matching plaids is so annoying to me. And, once they're matched perfectly and being sewn, I remember that I don't have a walking foot or one with those little rollers on it, and even though we have great differential feed on this machine, the plaids nearly always come out just a fraction of an inch off. I'm talking MAYBE 1/16 of an inch. Enough to annoy me.

*sigh* I'm cursed, I tell you! Cursed!

2009

You know, I didn't get a lot of sewing done over the holidays. I'm a little disappointed in myself, but I'm glad I spent time with family and friends instead of locking myself in the sewing room for 10 hours a day. I'm trying to come up with realistic goals for this year--I had previously thought about doing a project a week, but then I realized that I'll probably have a lot on my plate this year and don't want to cause even more stress by trying for the nearly impossible. I think, instead, that I'll go for a project a month. That seems easier to accomplish, right? Yes.

I've decided as well that I want to improve my knitting skills enough to make a sweater by Christmas. This means that I'll need to practice, and practicing entails lots of scarves, washcloths, hats, etc. Because I really don't have room for a lot of stuff right now (seeing as how I don't have a house or apartment), I'll probably be giving stuff to people. If you like a project I'm doing (and I'll post progress photos), let me know and I'll send it to you. I love knitting and crocheting, but I'm realistic enough to know that I can't keep everything...so I might as well give it to someone who can use it!

Next up for the knitting: washcloths. Lots of them. I can get probably 3 washcloths out of one "super size" skein of Sugar n Cream yarn (I have a weird fondness for variegated things), and I have purchased something like 8 skeins lately. Before you scoff, I will tell you right now that knitted washcloths last forever--I found a pattern by a woman who says her knitted cloths have lasted 10 years--and are very absorbent. I made a test one for my mom and she's quite pleased. Pleased enough to want to find crochet cloth patterns and make them for her sisters. My sister wants me to make her several of them in red and bright green, and I'm happy to comply. If you want to try one, let me know and I'll throw one on the needles!

I'm still working on my sampler scarf, and I plan to knit a blue wool scarf in a "divided squares" pattern--the squares are divided diagonally in a half-knit, half-purl pattern and it's quite nice. I chose a solid almost-Williamsburg blue wool for this and I'm excited to see how it turns out.

I'm just about done crocheting a black boucle scarf. It's the same triple-crochet I did for Laresa's afghan and it's a nice lacy effect when you use a size N hook on a thinner yarn. That should be done this weekend. I have a bridal shower tomorrow but when I get home from that, I'm cutting out pajamas and skirts and I hope to sew a skirt and a dress before church on Sunday.

Happy New Year!