glittergoods

WIP Friday

I miss the whole WIP Friday craze, I do.  Not that I miss the pressure of having something photo-worthy going every Friday (though it did challenge me to reconsider the whole notion of progress, photo-worthy, work), but I miss the talk of creative process that it brought up.  It seems like the current blog trend is a big ta-da of the finished project, which -- don't get me wrong -- is great, I do it as much as anyone else, but there's something chatty & homey about giving a peek behind the scenes, isn't there?

Here's what I'm working on today.  I had other plans, but then my daughter had a fever & stayed home from school, so I decided that today was a good day to work on the idea I have for party favors (I am willing to do many many contortions in order to avoid making a batch of princess shirts).  This is my prototype, so it's rough, but I see where I'm going now.  Please note that my love of two-color screenprinting, even when not strictly necessary, continues in full-force.

I'm also working out here, in half-hour chunks as my fevered miss gets her tv + couch fix.

Isn't this golden elderberry excellent?  I was promised that it will stand up to the total lack of shade my front yard gets in summer, but I'm a little nervous.  In the meantime, though, I'm enjoying the feathery lime green against the giant rosemary (ridiculous, it was a 4" culinary plant that I stuck out there & now it's 4' tall.  I still cook with it.) & the round fat sage leaves (also culinary, I should just give it up & plant a humongous mediterranean herb garden out there.).

Here, though, is the more honest view.  That grass burns out by mid-June every single year, & this year we're ripping it out.  We're expanding the back bed, adding beds in front, & putting a crunchy gravel path down the middle.  I can't wait.

pink princess party flags

I'm deep in planning for my daughter's upcoming birthday party, & since I already did the glitter name banner plus I have a whole lot of pink fabric left over from the doll quilt (which is going to get its own post one of these days, once I finish the whole big project) plus there's the whole princess theme that I have to orchestrate, I've made three strings of pink party pennants over the past week.  I am a party flag machine.

This is not a difficult project, as probably everyone but me knows, since I am maybe the last person around to  make a set.  I wanted double-sided (if all goes well weatherwise, we'll be hanging these in the backyard, otherwise I may be using them to cordon off a pen in the living room for seven tiny sparkly sugar-rushed princesses), with pinked edges (while I was googling around about these, I saw a very nice set with bias tape edging, but I wanted fast & dirty), with the minimum of cutting fuss.  Here's how I reinvented the party flag wheel:

I made a template (very sophisticated technique = folding a mag subscription card in half, cutting from top corner to bottom middle, then retracing the whole thing 1/2" bigger onto an old manila folder), but because I always, always end up hacking up my templates with my rotary cutter, I cut out my pieces 1/4" larger than the template (sticky tape on the back of the template keeps it from moving around on the fabric).

I stacked the pieces wrong sides together, sewed down one side & up the other with a 1/4" seam allowance.  My pieces didn't always exactly match up, but as long as the mismatch stayed under 1/8" I didn't bother with it.

After I sewed the flag together, I put a pinking blade on my rotary cutter & trimmed off 1/8" inch from each of the long sides (marking my 1/8" from the line of stitching).

The first string I made, I did a very careful job of pinning the flags to the bias tape, but quickly realized that  I needed to shift things around while sewing anyway, so from then on I just put in a pin or two to keep each flag in reasonable order as I worked my way down the line.  If you were doing an easy repeating pattern, I don't think there'd be any need to pin at all, but I'd given myself a slightly complicated repeat (two main fabrics, alternating every 4th flag, with the three flags in between being somewhat randomly chosen except one of the three needed to be one of the predominantly non-pink flags, also I wanted it to look like I just threw it together & it landed perfectly, you know the effect I mean), so pinning was easier than trying to keep a whole bunch of piles organized.

I was planning on a 1/2" wide tape holding the flags together, but I accidentally bought single fold instead of double fold & didn't feel like going back to the store, so 1/4" it is!  The tape is folded in half, sandwiching the  unsewn short side of the flag, stitched 1/8" from the folded edge.  I put my first flag about 12" in from one end, & just tucked each following flag into the tape when I was about 1/2" from the end of the flag before it (this worked better than pinning to keep the flags placed tightly together).  After I got all the flags on (last one placed about 12" from the other end of the bias tape), I went back & put the same 1/8" seam in each loose end, after unfolding the tape at the end, folding 1/4" up crosswise (to hide the raw edge), & then folding the tape closed again.

They seem to cause my husband to cast meaningful glances at used car lot flags when we drive past, but I think the tiny princesses are going to love them.  Too bad that, as of now, there's only a 40% chance that they'll get to love them out in the backyard.

return of the elephant, only smaller

Since last we met, I've managed to get the taxes in, to not catch strep from my husband (who was very sweet about being banished to the couch, &, really, it was only one night), to get my daughter's party invitations out the door (she wanted Barbie, I wanted Fairy Tea Party, we compromised on Princess, sigh.), & maybe most importantly, I managed to perform a reducing exercise upon the Giant Elephant Doorstop.

I got lots of helpful comments about the whole giant immovable zillion-pound beanbag situation, & I have to say that I think that the sand/polyfill suggestion that came in from a few different people is a great one...if you don't mind that your doorstop is the size of a tiny little car, like those ones they have in France that only come up to my waist.  Plus, the seams were visibly weakening after only a couple days' worth of mistreatment by my kids, & I have no desire to chase a zillion pounds of beans (or several pounds of sand, even) around the house with my omop (much as I love it).

So I took the thing completely apart except for the handle & took 1/2" off of each piece, then sewed it back together with the recommended 1/2" seam allowance.  It worked beautifully except my cutting must have been a little funky because the top didn't fit back in as well as I would have liked, but I don't really care too much because look at this:

It took both of these boxes, full to overflowing, to not-really-fill the original version of the doorstop.  Shrinking the pattern by 1/2" all around cut the amount in half, practically (you can see that I scooped a few handfuls out of the second box, but in half has better dramatic impact).  My husband says that this is an excellent example of the difference, or relationship, or something, between area & volume; I say that it means I don't have to strap on a back brace before propping a door open.

Much, much better.  First of all, it's much more pleasingly plump.  Also, you can actually see some chair around it, & I don't hear its constituent threads straining quite as loudly when I pick it up.  (Speaking of:  the pattern recommends slip-stitching it closed after filling, but since you're stitching one of the bottom load-bearing seams, I would (& did) go with a good sturdy whip-stitch instead.)

In this action shot, you can see that it now looks comfortably doorstop sized & might not be quite so scary to the local cats.  On the down side, it's no longer big enough to hide the fact that I should seriously consider one of those metal scuff plates for my front door.

snip

My husband gave me a gocco PG-11 for my birthday last month, & I have been rushing past the box while casting wistful glances over my shoulder ever since.  No more!  I finally managed to get my fingers inky this afternoon.

I've gotten perfectly fine registration from my PG-5 with only minor hassle, but I'm not going to say no to a paper guide & adjustable print bed, believe me.  Result:  ode to my Fiskars, in three screens.

you can't even see the holes in the picture

Ha, thanks for all of the sewing genius indulgence.  That was a little joke with myself, since I am so very much not an intuitive seamstress.  I've definitely come a long way over the past year, though, & I happen to have the sort of temperament that is 1. usually willing to give it a whirl to see if it works & 2. then (usually) willing to take it apart & do it over again when, inevitably, it doesn't work, so it's very satisfying to see that my doggedness has started to pay off.

Really what I need to be doing is getting back to the glitter, especially since I am now officially on board to be a vendor at at the Baz Biz section of Maker Faire at the end of May.  After our disastrous work/play family trip in December, we decided that I'd only apply to one show requiring plane tickets this year, & MF easily won out because of the relative closeness + high geek factor (have to keep the help my husband happy).  It was a good time last year, & I'm curious to see how the venue changes they're making this year (last year was a separate outdoor section with tents, this year is inside in the middle of things, with tables) affect things.  So, anyway, it's glitter time, only my computer decided to reboot itself & thereby lose a bunch of work I was doing, including a many-layered Photoshop file, & after I stopped cursing my computer & my own habit of living dangerously, backup-wise, I decided that I'd drown my sorrows in finishing that second log cabin pillow that has been languishing lo these many months.

You may recall that this is the second of two similar pillows (challenge being to use same group of fabrics in a different way) & was supposed to be donated to the second of the two school auctions we were involved in this year.  I was having a horrible time keeping my quilting lines straight on this one, though, & so I put off finishing it until the night before the donation deadline, at which time I promptly used my seamripper to put a hole in that red fabric up at the top there.  I stuck it shut with some wonder under, but it wasn't really auction-quality any longer, plus the quilting was still making me crazy, so I put it aside, again (& made up for it by bidding a little more enthusiastically at the auction than I'd planned. We ended up with an excellent garden consultation package that is happening this coming Tuesday & which will hopefully help me redesign the way-too-suburban landscaping plan we had drawn up last fall, so clearly the seamripper was guided by fate).

I like this pillow a lot (which is good, since various holes & wonky bits means it's never leaving the house), but I think it suffered some from the Round 2 Curse that I often run into with my projects, where the second try is never as easy or excellent as the first & much worse than the third, & I'm pretty sure it was the curse that led me to believe that stretch corduroy would be a fine choice for the back, no problem!  I love my stenciled twill tape ties, though (a zipper would be sleeker, but that tape makes wonderful little bows), & I also like how fat this pillow is (the cover is 18" square on a 20" pillow form).

Other pillows I've liked lately:  Blair's, on gorgeous new couch; this & this from Tree Fall; Dioramarama's Gee's Bend inspired one.  We used to have a lot of pillows on our couch, but time + toddlers have done away with most of them.  Perhaps it's time for a pillow renaissance!

 

we now return you to your regularly-sized sewing

Before I tackled doorstoppus elephantus, I'd been working slow-but-steady on springy pieces for my girl.  I am so in love with sewing right now that she's really just an excuse for buying new fabric & trying new patterns, but she seems to be pretty satisfied with her end of the deal. 

These pants are my first attempt at the loose linen-y summery pants I was envisioning, as well as being my first attempt at, well, pants.  It was surprisingly hard to find the kind of pattern I imagined, & this one isn't perfect (I was thinking wider, more flowy in the legs), but the more I watch her run around in them the more I love them, also I did a really good job on the pockets, which makes up for any other faults.  They're a linen/rayon blend that I got on sale at Joann, & although I can't tumble-dry them, they're sturdy enough to take a round of tacos with a stain spray chaser & still look great. 

One detail I ended up really liking is the use of the yoke at the waist -- same idea but different construction as the skirt I always make, which I should probably just refer to as The Skirt --  with a really wide elastic inside.  It's got a nice flat fit, which I think makes the pants look a little more "finished" than your basic elastic-waist variety (though I'm considering trying one of those patterns out as well, maybe from one of my Japanese books -- second book down in that post, the pants I'm eyeing are not pictured, but are similar).

Speaking of Japanese books, though, I finally broke away from The Skirt & made a skirt out of one of the books I got about a year ago  -- & showed off in a post where I mention my "developing skirt obsession," ha. 

Knee length, gathered waistband, nice deep patch pockets.  It, like its friend New Pants, has survived a round of chili + stain spray with aplomb.  This was the first actual sewing project I'd attempted from one of the Japanese books (the felt boxes don't count, since nobody has to wear them), & although I spent a long time studying the setup (& figuring out which pattern pieces I needed to trace), once I got started, it was pretty obvious.  I did run into some deep confusion about the waistband directions, & I'm not sure that my solution was the proper one, but I ended up with all the seams matching, so clearly I am a sewing genius.

 

but I couldn't fill up the elephant*

The doorstop pattern was the tipping point for me with Lotta Jansdotter's book:  I liked, upon flip-through, quite a lot of what I saw (though at the same time, a lot of what I saw wasn't SO different than what I'm seeing in a lot of the new hip crop of sewing books, yes?), not to mention the book is a lovely object in its own right, but the doorstop (well, & I really love a couple of the pockety bags, too, but they look much harder to whip out) really sold me on the book, not least because the door to the kids' room is hinged the wrong way or whatever it is that causes it, in its natural state, to be either open or shut.  Thus, the doorstop seemed the perfect solution for the desirable partially-open state, plus it seemed the perfect project for the half yard of lightweight elephant canvas I'd gotten from superbuzzy, which was wonderful but not very...practical for the kind of stuff I mostly do, in its half-yard canvasyness.

Also, the picture of the doorstop in the book?  Cute, hard-working doorstop + saucy sauntering back end of a cat?  Clearly, my house would be much improved with a doorstop like that.  Also, in a bit of foreshadowing, please notice how jaunty & well-stuffed the doorstop looks, while at the same time managing to not look like it has the density of a small neutron star composed of fabric & dried beans.

Ok, so, perfect.  I spent the evening a couple of nights ago cutting & sewing, all went smoothly, I had just enough elephant fabric, etc.  The pattern is easy, the only tricky part is making sure the corners all match up.  Which I did.  The only thing, though, is that in the end, my doorstop looks like it ate the doorstop in the picture, & had room for the cat, too.

It's not that it's the wrong size (following the pattern got me a thing that's the advertised size), it's just that I didn't really think through what 7 x 8 inches would mean in real life (this is common for me; I'm regularly surprised at things being much larger/smaller than they looked in the picture).  The directions call for filling it with five pounds of dried beans -- now, I realized that my mistake was picking up five pounds of dried lentils & not thinking about the weight/volume situation, but even so, after I raided my pantry & swapped out some bigger beans for the lentils, it still took approximately one million pounds of dried beans to fill the thing, & by fill I mean "fill," since I didn't have enough beans to stuff it/was scared of making it EVEN HEAVIER & it has since presumably stretched, so things are pretty saggy all over.

Then I thought that maybe the cat in the picture was a giant among cats, making the doorstop look dainty in comparison, so I tried bribing my own (not small) cat with food to strike a pose.

Are you kidding?  Get that freakishly GIANT THING away from me, she says.

Anyway, as I was chasing the cat around with it, I noticed that the seams are starting to look dangerously stressed out (this is in part thanks to my kids, I'm sure, who cannot resist anything with a handle & so this  doorstop is not exactly living the staid life of your average doorstop) so it looks like I've got some reconstructive doorstop surgery in my future.  It's a fantastic concept, & I really love the shape & the handle, but the little elephants would like to carry a few fewer beans, I think. 

*Points for getting reference to semi-obscure Dan Zanes song.  We have tickets to his show on Saturday!  I am as excited as the kids!