A Little Damp Around The Gills

This is the first day in ages where it’s been raining constantly. And of course this is also the day that I had to hoof uphill to the dentist at the crack of dawn to get my new bridge installed. Fun times! At least we’re done now and all I have to do is take it easy on chomping for 24 hours or so to let the adhesive set and we’re good to go. Hopefully for a good long time. Right now I can tell the freezing is coming out because I can feel the bruise from the needle. Oh poor me.

So what is with people these days? As I was walking in the rain this morning, nobody else nearby (I erroneously thought), listening to podcasts on my iTouch, I suddenly got shouldered aside by a lone jogger. Sheesh! It surprised me. It was just plain rude. He could have yelled out that he was coming and I would have politely moved over. It’s not like the sidewalk was that constricted. It was an older guy too and obviously one with no consideration. His mommy unfortunately didn’t manage to teach him not to shove little old ladies around. What if I was unsteady on my feet and got knocked down? Would he have just kept running and never noticed?

Anyway I did get to wear both my Minoru Jacket and my new Tulip Tunic. Along with my pirate boots with the tops flipped over my knees and an umbrella, I kept pretty dry. Yes, I finished my sewing project yesterday and I’m actually quite pleased with how it turned out, difficulties aside. Wanna see?

Tulip Tunic

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Note I was practising my goofy model poses here!

Completed:  April 2012

Fabric:  cotton/lycra interlock, true red, 60” wide/1.5m. From Dressew.

Notions:  6 red plastic buttons, clear elastic, 5/2 perle cotton (emergency string!), Mettler polyester sewing thread, poly serger thread.

Pattern:  Self-drafted using my dartless stretch blocks for the bodice and a ruler for the skirt.

Comments:  This tunic really doesn’t resemble my original inspiration much (a dress from the Navabi website):

But that’s just fine with me. I like my version better. I was forced to scrap the ribbing fabric remnant that I was originally going to use for the bodice when I found out that it was too stretchy and lightweight to support the relatively heavy interlock skirt. The clue was this crazy distortion that happened when I tried to bind the sleeve hem:

I was pretty disappointed but realised that I had enough of the interlock to make the bodice as well as the skirt so that’s what I did. I used a little strip of clear elastic to help keep the shoulder seams from stretching out. Luckily this time the bindings worked out fine. I machine-stitched them on before serging just to make sure they were going to cooperate. After serging and pressing flat, I topstitched them down with a small zigzag.

I also had trouble with the skirt when the hem binding (which I did differently from the neckline and sleeves) stretched out more than I expected. I saved the slight bubble effect by threading a string through the binding and securing it at the seam-lines. Hopefully it will hold up over time. I probably should have used the same binding technique that I used on the neckline instead of the fold-over version. But I didn’t know that until later!

The buttons are more for decoration than function but I do love the funky pockets. They can hold my hankie and my iTouch.

Oh, and I got this exciting item in the post:

It’s an art postcard from Cynthia St. Charles, an art quilter who’s work I admire a lot. This went through the mail all by itself and survived well but with just a little thread coming loose there at the left top corner. Here’s the back (addresses hopefully fuzzed out enough for privacy):

It’s called “Bamboo” and quotes Bruce Lee “Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.” I love it! Thanks, Cynthia!

That Was The Week That Was

It got away from me. That’s my excuse for my radio silence and I’m sticking to it. Oh, and there was a lot of family involved there also. I babysat Rosebud at her house on Monday night and slept over on the couch. Then I spent Tuesday morning continuing with the visiting until Milady Daughter had a chance to drive me home. They live in Surrey which is anywhere from three-quarters-of-an-hour to an-hour-and-a-half away – depending on the traffic. Wednesday was Rosebud’s next appointment at the hospital clinic and we learned several exercises for her foot. She has resigned herself very well to her boots and bar system and her parents have a spiffy new clip-on bar on order. It’s sparkly purple! And it will do her until she doesn’t need it any longer. Unfortunately they haven’t gotten a new batch in yet so Rosebud has to wait awhile to switch over.

Then right into Thursday which was my Spectrum Study Group. This time we played with browns: Persian walnut (Juglans regia) husks, cutch crystals and red sandalwood powder. I had the walnut soaking for about 2 weeks and it was a lovely dark mud! The cutch was in large crystals and took about half an hour to dissolve in boiling water with lots of poking and stirring. We poured some cheap akvavit (donated by our Danish Member) over the red sandalwood and it became a lovely red mud but it never released much colour even after simmering for an hour. The walnut (about 3 litres of husks, no idea of the weight) gave us cool browns on the wool and silk yarns but much lighter tans on tencel and cotton. Cutch at 50% WOF gave lovely dark golden-browns on everything and more golden colours in the exhaust bath. The red sandalwood at 100% WOF was a PITA to strain out with cheesecloth and then coffee filters and produced only pale apricot colours. Pretty but not what we were expecting. I know there is lots more colour in it but no idea how to extract it! The literature warns of dulling the colour with too much simmering. Any ideas welcome. I still have the “sludge” in a bucket waiting for inspiration.

Of course I was too busy and tired to remember to take photos. Doh. There were only 5 of us this time and I didn’t have anything to dye myself. I did get a donation of a skein of wool yarn but it still avoided getting itself photographed.

However I do have a Finished Object! Drum roll please…

The Watercolour Quilt

Begun: dyeing – August 2010
Completed:  March 4, 2011

Fabrics:  5 elderly cotton sheets and a couple of curtains, plus 2.5 flannelette sheets that I kept undyed for the “batting”. The rest were “parfait” dyed (technique from Ann Johston’s Colour By Accident) using Procion dyes and soda ash.

Thread:  Signature-QT, 100% cotton, 40-tex, variegated Rusty Orange.

Notes & Comments:  I had collected a number of cotton sheets from both my adopted mom and T-Man’s auntie and wanted to make a rag quilt for the bed as an alternative to our usual wool blankets. After dyeing the cloth I spent quite a long time (months!) slowly tearing it all into 8” pieces and making sandwiches of two pieces of plain cotton with a piece of flannelette in between. I needed 195 of these to make a quilt 15 squares X 13 squares with 1/2” seams. That’s 585 individual squares. I counted.

When all the sandwiches were pinned together I spread them randomly across my study floor and arranged them in rows and columns. I needed two folding tables to support the weight as I sewed them together, wrong sides facing, and I still managed to break about 4 needles in the process. There are the places where the seams come together and the machine has to go through 12 layers of fabric! I’m glad my old workhorse can handle the pressure – even if the #90 needles had occasional difficulties keeping up.

Once the quilt was sewn together I clipped the seam allowances so they would fray. I was a bit afraid to do too close together and didn’t clip right to the seam line either. It was still a very big job and took me about a week to finish. I wore seamless quilter’s gloves which helped avoid blisters and used my sharp little Fiskars sewing scissors.

After all the seams including the edges were clipped I washed the quilt on a full cycle in the washing machine. I have a very large old top loader that pretty much handles everything I throw at it and this was no exception. Lots of lint came out and I should have used the drain sieve! Then into the dryer and I had to clean out the lint trap three times to keep it from completely clogging up. The seams are now maybe not quite as frayed as I’d like but I’m sure they will continue to do so in subsequent launderings so I decided to leave it at one time through the washer and dryer.

The only thing I might have done differently is make it 14 x 14 squares which would have fit our double bed a little better. It’s still shedding some lint but the seam allowances are quite puffy and full which is what I had in mind. We slept under it last night with the Circus Blanket underneath (and a plain sheet). That’s a lot of weight on top of us because they each weigh about 8 lbs! I found it very cosy but definitely not as warm as all wool. Which is kind of the point for an intermediate season’s bed cover, no?

Feathering My Nest

As the sun was shining in my skylight beside me yesterday afternoon, I worked hard on my sewing machine and got 9 of the 13 rows of my quilt sewn together. I’ve never made a “rag” quilt before and it’s both easier and harder than a regular one. Each piece is made into a mini-quilt sandwich and you sew them together with a wide seam wrong-sides-together. These exposed seams then get snipped at 1/4” intervals so they will fluff and fray and become a 3D design element on the quilt top. The back side is flat and plain. I’ll show a photo (or several) when I’m done.

I finally got smart and set up two small folding tables on either side of my sewing machine chair. The one on my right has the pin box and the next pile of squares to be sewn together and the table on my left helps support the weight of the growing quilt. I found that taking out the pins that were holding the squares together before beginning to sew makes it a lot easier and quicker since I don’t have to stop so often. I can do each short seam in one pass but when sewing a complete strip onto the quilt I have to stop often to align the next section and make sure the seam allowances are opened properly. I’ve been matching the seams and sewing as straight as possible between them and it’s going fairly neatly. The heavier thread is perfect but I’ve managed to break a couple of needles so far on the super-thick seams.

Before it goes in the washing machine and dryer to fray the seam allowances the quilt will be about 91” x 105”. It might contract a little afterwards but because all the sheets it was made from are vintage and have been washed many many times, it shouldn’t shrink much at all. The reason the quilt is so large  is because my bed is made so that the covers absolutely need to tuck in properly. It’s only a standard double bed but anything short of queen size isn’t large enough and wider is better still. The finished Watercolour Rag Quilt will have the longest dimension across the bed so it tucks in right under the mattress. Most important!

Switching gears as I am wont to do, word has it that baby Rosebud is none too happy in her boots and bar. She’s been fussing up a storm and everyone is hoping that she will get used to it Very Soon. Or at least that we can find the right combination of socks and lacings to make her more comfortable. Because there is absolutely no option but to wear the darn things! She will get it checked out again next Wednesday but meanwhile her poor mom is going a little nuts. My job is going to be to modify her sleepers with feet into footless ones. Happily most of the ones we got her last time were already suitable. I was hoping that the ones with feet wouldn’t be a problem but apparently the seams are too thick and dig into her skin. Sheesh. What a princess.

So switching again, I’ve found a couple of miscellaneous things you might be interested in:

• Deb Robson’s intro to her new Interweave video “Handspinning Rare Wools”. I just love how she gets all choked up at the end! So sweet.
• An article in the Ennea Collective on how to photograph your fibre stuff. Don’t forget to read the rest of the issue (and back issues) also, especially if you’re a spinner.
• The wonderfully opinionated Kathleen and her Fashion Incubator blog. Even if like me you aren’t involved the fashion industry, it’s worth it to go back in the archives for fascinating discussions of clothing sizing, industry insights, pattern grading, and a whole lot more. Don’t forget to read the comments where a lot of the juiciest stuff goes on.
• Interweave has come out with their second issue of the eMag In Stitches. Will I buy it? Pricey so I haven’t decided quite yet. Bought their other eMags though and enjoyed reading them, especially the SpinKnit one.
• The latest issue of Knitcircus magazine. It used to be a print mag but went digital. You need Flash to view it. Like both the Ennea and Twist Collectives, this is a free article/pay pattern publication. However the patterns are available only in a full packet and they become unavailable as the next issue is released. Only $7.99 for them all though so that brings it in line with print publications. If you miss it, some “out-of-print patterns” are available individually or from the designer.

I’m sure there’s a bunch more but that’s all that I had staring me in the face for now. Should keep you occupied for awhile anyhow. <smirk>

Yes, I know I have more FOs to post. Coming soon. Meanwhile how about these photos that I took while walking over the Cambie Bridge on Saturday using Ruby, my iTouch, and the way-cool Hipstamatic app:

Hipstamatic magically makes everything and anything look fantastically artsy, doesn’t it? (T-Man is envious because he has an older iTouch with No Camera. Awww…) Well I’m off to finish sewing my quilt now. Then the clipping is going to take several sessions if I’m going to do it without damaging my hands. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time…

Don’t Take Your Woollies Off Yet

I know that my little indoor gardening attempt was kind of rushing the season. Even though the crocuses are out around here, it’s unfortunately getting colder again. We even had a skiff of snow yesterday to prove it. I have at least 2 flats of plants that should go out in the greenhouse every day because there’s not enough room for them under the lights but I feel bad about it. They are fairly cold-tolerant but I think freezing temps are a bit much! Though it’s not bad if the sun is shining to heat things up in there. Oh well. If we end up eating them right from the pots instead, I can always plant seeds again. As a matter of fact, I will plant them again anyhow. Succession planting is a good thing.

BTW my second try at planting weld seeds is also still not showing. After the first fail, I thought my saved seeds from last year were somewhat immature so I went back to the original (unreliable) Richter’s seed but nothing is happening. Yet. Sigh. At least I have one last plant in the garden that should give me enough material for a single dyebath when it bolts this summer. And another chance at viable seeds. The Japanese indigo isn’t showing yet either but I’m not concerned about it yet. Some things take time and I’m not really that impatient. It’s too cold out in the garden anyhow.

Changing the subject, I have some good news – baby Rosebud has now graduated to her boots-and-bar system. Yay! No more casts! Now she can have more frequent baths which she loves. She is supposed to wear it 23/7 however and the system does make it somewhat tricky to dress and change her and a lot more awkward to carry her around. You certainly can’t just pop it on and off every time you want. It takes quite a lot of effort to put the boots on correctly, snugging her feet in properly with no wrinkles in her socks and doing up both a buckle and laces. Then the bar has to be bolted on to the bottom of the boots between them and each foot turned to the correct angle before tightening the nuts. It can take 10 minutes to get it done right! But it’s still a huge improvement even though it means yet more appointments at the hospital clinic. They have to check and adjust angles and boot sizes and mommy has to learn stretching exercises to apply to her foot. It’s an ongoing process. Rosebud is definitely going to get some real use out of her granny-knit socks now! Like these ones:

Rosebud’s Fourth Socks

Begun:  February 10, 2011
Completed:  February 18, 2011

Yarn: unknown leftover sock yarn from the stash (probably overdyed by me), superwash wool/nylon, approx. 25g.

Needles:  Clover Takumi bamboo dpns, 2mm

Pattern:  Damselfly’s Basic Socks on 44 sts, 2/2 rib for 3” before heel flap, foot 3.25” before toe decreases, dec to 5 sts each needle, dog-ear reduction.

Comments: I keep knitting these for Rosebud. More to come.

Later I realised that I’d already made a pair with this yarn for a nephew’s new baby last year. He’s long grown out of them now.

I have several more finished and nearly-finished projects to share. But right now I’m on a roll with the Watercolour Quilt. Finally. You may remember my project that I started last summer when I “parfait” dyed a bunch of cotton sheets and curtains left from my late adopted mom and Thom’s late auntie. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time since then ironing the pieces and tearing them into 8” squares: 390 of them to be exact. Then there was the undyed flannelette sheets for the batting: another 195 squares. Then I had to put them together in 195 sandwiches made from two pieces of cotton sheet in the same dyelot with a piece of flannelette in the middle.

Finally all of the sandwiches were pinned. Here’s what my study floor looked like on Sunday after I had them all strewn around:

Then I had to arrange them in rows and columns 13 x 15:

I was trying to make a “random” organisation keeping a relatively even distribution of the colours around the quilt. I think it looks pretty good! I labelled the rows with masking tape and stacked them up in order. Now I have to sew them all together with 1/2” seams. For that I was going to use random thread from the stash but I found I had a cone of size 40 quilting thread in variegated rust colours which is perfect for this project so I’m using it instead. It doesn’t fit on my sewing machine’s thread spool but it seems to stay put behind the machine with the thread guided around the spool and into the thread guides as normal.

It makes me glad for the power of my old Pfaff sewing machine that enables it to penetrate through the six layers of fabric. When joining the strips together at the seams it’s twelve layers! It’s much harder than it should be to keep an even seam allowance but hopefully once it’s all clipped and frayed you won’t be able to tell. I’ve got 3 rows done and joined together already. Figured it was easier to attach them as I go. It just gets heavier and heavier and is like wrasslin’ bears to get it under the presser foot! I’m either going to be very strong or very broken when I’m done this project. More anon.