Prom Dress '09

 

Here's this year's Prom Dress. There were many extra African American Quiz Bowl t-shirts this year, so I was able to get 3.

This was created by measuring for the bodice. It's a really simple shell with bust darts. The skirt is made with 2 shirt bodies with plenty of pleats for fullness. The skirt also has a kangaroo pocket concealed within the pleats. I created the waist panel with a doubled t-shirt hemline.

I dyed the finished piece with a procion dye. This should have produced a completely matched piece, but apparently the thread in the shirts and the thread I was using both contained too much polyester. They remained white. The flowers were sewn on afterward by hand. They each have a vintage shank button as the center.

It's totally customizable. I will definitely be making more of these.

Glass fusing random fun

   

These are my three favorite pieces I made at the Etsy Pittsburgh team glass fusing workshop. They declared my fish tank the "winner", despite the fact it wasn't a contest. I also like it very much. I would make more of them. I also learned that if you layer the glass, it can be called tacking. Fusing seems like a more logical term. We should be doing this again soon. I also found a studio really close to my house where I can also do this, among other things.

Fortune Teller Swap

 

This is the fortune teller I made for the fortune teller swap. I tried to create media message fortunes. I used magazine images and words. Our traditional fortune tellers used 4 colors on the outside, which the reader would spell as they opened and closed it. The inside contained 8 numbers which the reader would count off as they opened or closed it. Then on the third selection, the reader would read the fortune under the number you picked. Other versions have you read the fortune without the intermediate counting. As children, we seemed to value suspense.

the ultimate neglect

Here are the few things I have done since February, which I have already ripped out. Even with my new policy of only pulling out legitimate mistakes I managed to accomplish almost nothing in 3 months.

 

This is the third iteration of this sweater. Still too short and misshapen.

 

Here is the base of an alpaca lace sweater that I already knit up and ripped out 3 times. I was totally winging it, and it took a lot of experimentation to find a suitable lace pattern. This particular version created strange gaps between the lace repeats. Later versions were lacking sufficient positive and negative space.

 

It was also a little too scalloped at the bottom. There was no real focus on scallops in the pattern, so it mostly just resembled a mistake. So I treated it like one and ripped it out. Since sipping out two more versions, I'm almost done with the current usable one.

Fortune Teller Swap

I swap with Swap-bot!
I called these things fortune tellers, if they got called anything at all. There are lots of things in life that I don't have words for. Like these. It's a Cootie Catcher Swap. I honestly didn't know what it was for until I clicked on the swap because I didn't call them anything most of the time.
So mine is fun and exciting. I hope so, at least. It was totally fun to make. Flickr pictures tomorrow.

Crochet Hook Roll

I swap with Swap-bot!
Here's another one I'm sending out tonight. I made lots of slots for hooks. The pictures will be posted on my flickr later - maybe tomorrow.

Monster Mascot Swap

I swap with Swap-bot!
Here's a swap I'm in. I'm sending out today - except the due date was yesterday. Whenever it involves sewing, I spend forever and then decide I hate what I made. I had to make 3 monsters to get one I thought was good enough to send out. I took pictures of all three. They will be posted to my flickr later.
I think What I made is almost as cute as the example photo. I hope my partner likes it.

why you should swap

Sometimes it's fun to make pieces of art just to send to other people.
If you are excited about what you made, you still get to take a picture of it before you send.
If you can't bear to part with it, you can always make some more that you hope to be less attached to.
You don't always have a way of selling things you want to sew, but you can give them to people and get something in return.

I would never have made this little creature if I didn't have a person to send it to. I had nowhere to keep him.

red purple semi-carded batt

red purple semi-carded batt, originally uploaded by hairycarrot.

I've been doing a lot of spinning since I got my wheel. So far, I've noticed that I can control the fiber a lot better with all the compacted practice I've been getting in. I left this skein as a single, which I didn't used to do. Besides from that being a weird verb construction, I just wasn't satisfied with singles.
When you ply, the second twist returns the fibers to straight. You untwist the original twist from the singles around each other. I was able to balance my twist with the natural tendencies of the wool, so this was a satisfactory single.
The batt was not heavily carded in the first place, making the yarn more likely to have color clumps. This done has lots of red, purple, and black. It's the third lightly carded batt from bflo that I've spun.

pink elephants

Today I reopened my etsy shop with a new finger puppet: the pink elephant. It was nice to have a vacation and go over my stock. I'll be listing things occasionally as I finish them. I have a few other puppets that I have never listed before. I'd like to list one new puppet design a month. I have one ready for February. It's time to start planning for March.

I don't really have anything planned for Valentines items, but I might list the couple I have left from last year. I don't want to make any more conversation hearts unless I design a new pattern. I've had my fill of that one.

Yarn action

This is my box of art club fiber. I've been holding it until I could use a wheel. I was certain that I could spin it thinly and evenly. I was going to play at my friend's house, but I ended up getting my own wheel. Very exciting.


These singles are spun from the blue roving. I made one on the drop spindle, and then these two on the wheel. They match up pretty well even though I used two different tools to make them.


This single came from the brown, pink, and silver roving. I plied it after this. There is much more left, so I should end up with quite a bit of yarn.

This batt was a bonus in my box. I used it to spin up a thicker yarn.

Here is the batt spun up. I plied it. The size is probably about a 4.