2015 Sewalong update

Since I’ve been spectacularly lax about this (okay I have been really busy, but I feel like these things are simple enough I should have been able to get them done), I thought I’d do a quick catch all update with the things I should have made haha.

Reminder that we put two months for the something vintage challenge (which I skipped), so the numbers don’t align w/ the months anymore.

#5 – June : Something for your Sewing Table

This one is particularly sad that I didn’t do anything for, ’cause a pincushion can be really simple. And also because these are the two things I had wanted to do (which I’d still like to do before the year is out):

From the I Can Find the Time blog.
Think it’s sad I didn’t… find the time to do that?
Here’s the other thing:

I have a kit to make that, minimal effort! It’s not that exact kit, but that image is for a pattern from Pattern Pile.

#6 – July: Refashion an Existing Item in Your Wardrobe

I have a piiiiile of clothes just waiting for this. And I have ideas for half of them!
Since it’s refashioning, I can’t really find pics to show my intention, but you can take my word for it they’ll be cool when I get around to it.

#7 – August: Finish a WIP (Work in Progress)

I reeeeeally wanted this to be my quilt! I’ve been working on it off and on for over a year now, but in such small chunks it hasn’t seemed worth posting about. But I don’t feel it’s anywhere near close enough to finish in August. So it’s actually possible my WIPs will be those challenge #6 items! ‘Cause like I said, I have a pile of clothes for just that purpose.
I also have a velvet blazer I started 5 years ago or so, before I really realized the different properties of velvet. And a long jacket I started probably around the same time which is sliiiightly more likely to get finished (since it’s further along).

So we’ll see!
Hopefully I’ll start taking pictures again soon.
Costume College this weekend, so I’ve been cramming.

Partial Haitus… thing

Soooo, in-between taking pics, literally from one picture to the next, my camera’s SD card died. At the Cheesecake Factory of all places! (in my defense, their decor really looked like the Eye of Sauron was watching us eat…)

I take pictures of eeeeeverything, I have such a terrible memory I feel like I have to! So this is kind of a big a deal (and an excellent reminder to me to back up any pictures once a week going forward).

Before I descend into despondency I need to exhaust all my options for recovery, and sadly I don’t really have time for that at the moment.

So I’m not sure how the posting will go for awhile. You guys are missing out on some great beet pictures, boiled this time! And then pickled!
Also progress pictures of my house and my sewing projects and like 500 pics from Yosemite.

CoCo 2015 progress

So I’ll post about the Sewalong later, hopefully. June completely got away from me, and I suspect July will as well. I DO want to do both those challenges. I’m really going to try to complete all the challenges, just maybe not in the month they were supposed to have been done in.

Part of the reason July is failing is whoops, Costume College is in three weeks!
I really waffled on what to make, I’m just not feeling the historical vibe right now. So I wanted something cool, but not too hard to make in a short amount of time, and something I’d been wanting to do. Augh, decisions.

Anyway, I finally settled on Jareth from Labyrinth, I’ve wanted to make all his outfits for yeeeears. My absolute favourite is the white outfit he wears at the end, but there definitely wasn’t time enough for that. So I decided to do my 2nd favourite, the one I’ve always thought of as his Escher outfit, but I guess it’s usually referred to as his “Within You” outfit since that’s what he sings when he wears it.

This is the photo most available on the internet:

Many searches don’t get much better!

So I took a bunch of screencaps from my DVD and ordered the bluray.

But before I did that I oh so wisely decided to start on the mockup (yes that’s right, I cleverly did the mockup before researching. I’m pretty sure my brain has gone on walkabout).

I used 2341 for the body, and 1558 for the sleeves (which I still haven’t actually tested, but there we are).

AJ fit me, I moved some seams over, and she fit me again. Thanks! It looked so nice I thought for sure I’ll use this pattern again, so I made a paper pattern before proceeding.

Yay cutting!
The fabric gave me some issue too, because it really looks like a silk velvet to me. And given the deadline, I don’t have time to run around trying to find the right shade online when my local stores don’t have silk velvets. The one day I was free to run to SF was the Pride Parade, it would have been madness! As my friend pointed out when I asked if she wanted to join me, soooo glad she mentioned that. So instead I got stretch velvet, which is a pain to work with ;_;

Then I thought, what a perfect opportunity to talk about flatlining, as I told a few people I would. So I was flatlining the stretch velvet to the muslin mockup, to give stability and body.

Sorry blurry. After I pinned all that (because it’s stretchy and flimsy, it needs loads of pins), sewed it around the edge and pinned another panel I realize what am I doing? This is a terrible example of flatlining! This muslin is hardly adding *any* body, these pieces are still way to floppy and soft.

I just happened to have some denim hanging out waiting to be made into a sleeping bag… bag so I grabbed that instead. Way better.

Then I took a break for making another jar of pickles.

Mmm… haven’t actually tried these yet. But looking forward to it.

Anyway. So started sewing the back together.

I don’t have a velvet board so I just pinned a scrap to my sleeve roll to try to press it a little. Being stretch velvet… it doesn’t really press.

(sorry for these all being a little blurry, tired picture taking)
So I whip stitched the seam allowance to the denim, I’ve only done the top here ’cause I just wanted to get it to the point where I could put the back fake yoke on.

SO! That’s where it is so far. I’ll hopefully get the rest of the seam allowances sewn down while visiting my granparents this weekend.

Oh and wig!

I sewed loads of trimmed down wefts into a punky wig I got… 9 years ago in Japan (for a Roxas from Kingdom Hearts II costume I never finished), so happy to finally be using it! I actually bought two wigs off Amazon I was going to sew together for this, but when they came in the colour matched perfectly, so I’ve only cut apart one.
E said she’d style it for me, so one less thing I have to do!
Gotta sew like the wind now!

Sweater Weather (not really)

Oh whoops, didn’t realize how long it’d been since I posted!

So there was a bit of a heat wave here in CA last week. It was super warm, as in even I was warm and that hardly ever happens. It was over 100 F but I can’t remember by how much.
Anyway.
I decided that it was a great time to make a sweater!

A few weeks ago my sister and I went a liiiiittle crazy with the redtag table at Joann, getting loads of lovely stripey knits to create more Korean menswear inspired shirts.
I also picked up a really light weight loose weave black and white striped knit, just a little over a yard left on the bolt.

I’ve wanted a black and white stripey loose weave sweater since I saw it on Toshiya when this picture came out:

I don’t even remember when that was now… I’m thinking 2004-2005. I can’t even remember what this pic is promoing, I haven’t followed dir en grey in years :/
(Side note, I’m also quite fond of Kyo’s outfit, the one front & center)

I decided to do a cardigan instead of a sweater, ’cause I wanted something easier to put on and take off, since this is such a light fabric I was thinking it’d be used mostly for summer days. Plus I think the last time I had a cardigan I was 13, so it’d be a nice something to add to my wardrobe.

I took a loosely knit sweater I had (bought for a River Tam costume that I never actually wore now that I think about it, but I wear the sweater quite a lot) that I like the general shape of and sort of traced it with pins onto the fabric ’cause I had no idea how to mark this.

Turned out to be good anyway, because this fabric was super shifty.

I made slight adjustments on the pins and cut!

Also this way I was able to make sure the front and back stripes would match up.
It was mostly a quick serge job, though I put stay tape in the shoulder seams and the back neck line. I don’t really know what I’m doing when it comes to knits, but it just seemed like a good idea!

It is actually even, I kept thinking whoa why does it look like that, but I didn’t realize until I turned it around for the back shot that the fabric was clinging to the form and there was a large wrinkle across the back.

Fixed for the pic 8D

I love how it looks on the form, it’s almost exactly what I wanted (I wanted the sashing a bit wider, but ran out of fabric, partially due to cutting it longer then changing my mind). A slouchy stripey casual cardigan. Love.
Well.
On meeeeee it doesn’t look nearly so nice!
It looks like … I don’t know, slobby instead of slouchy.

My mum suggested taking the shoulders in, we’ll see. For now I’m calling it done. But I may see if my local Joann has the fabric and try again and give this one to my wider shouldered sister.
It was just nice to make something and have it done!

Sewing aside, here are more garden things!

My lemon cucumbers are super happy, so I did a quick pickle with some of them. SO GOOD.

Seriously every time I chop up some of my beets I run and get my camera, they are just so lovely.

Lastly, my pole beans are looking pretty happy! I’m not actually sure how to cook/eat pole beans, I just thought they’d look so pretty going up my fence. Guess I should look into it!

2015 Sewalong Challenge #4 Complete

Augh so behind in posting.

Buuuut, I did complete challenge #4 – Something for the Home. And only two days late, so really, doing okay.


I did reusable cotton pads. Uh, the makeup kind, not the menstrual kind.

I cut a bunch of 3.5″ squares, all scraps yay.

The batting and the cotton came from my gramma, I can name almost everything they’re leftovers from.

These are from a Mexican Star quilt she’s making my uncle/2nd cousin/family is confusing.

These I’m not sure about. It’s so familiar I know I’ll kick myself one I realize what quilt they’re from. The pieced bits were already pieced scraps.

The pink is from a sewing carry bag my gramma made me, the dark purple is I think from my brother’s borgello quilt, and the impressionist flowers are from my mum’s double wedding ring (I think that’s the pattern? Something about rings) quilt.

The flannel backs are from some scrap flannel I bought to put pockets in my jimjams sometime ago.

All together I made 25, but I gave some to my sister. So far they’re working great!

And now some more beet pictures. They’re just so pretty every time I eat them I take pictures ;_;
Even if gardening didn’t make me feel hobbity, I think I’d still plant beets because they’re too lovely.

Misc May

May is over! It was so busy ;_;
I still need to do another wedding dress post, so I’ll leave that out, but other than that I’m just going to photo dump pretty much XD

For Mother’s Day, I made Marmalade!

 WHAT A CHORE. 12 lemons freshly washed.

I followed this recipe. I’ve never done anything like this before, but my friend had made marmalade with my lemons and I really like it, so she sent me the recipe she used and I did my best!

Thankfully one of the random extra dishes my grandpa gave was this juicer. Thankfully because I hadn’t even bothered to check I had one before beginning.
I’m great at forethought.

Forever later, all juiced!
Then you have to scrape out all the insides and then slice the peels thinly.

 Then you blanch the peels three times. I really don’t know why.
Then you add back the juice and add a bunch of sugar and just… stir FOREVER. Until it sets. I didn’t even know what that meant so had to look it up.
But it didn’t set, and I got tired of waiting.

 My prepped jars. I didn’t end up filling them all though.

 Then you have to boil the jars. I didn’t read the instructions before hand, because who knows why, and so didn’t have a pot large enough. I could only do the three smaller ones, and then the two larger ones on their side.

They did actually set! Later. So I don’t know what I was doing wrong that I couldn’t tell? But it’s still delicious. Probably won’t do it again in a hurry though! The whole process took me 6 hours @.@

 So I actually made this in December, but when I made it I couldn’t find my snap press so gave it to my sister without taking pics. Then later I went and put the snaps in, and forgot to take completed pics. Then AJ mentioned maybe making a makeup bag so I took these pics for her.

 I really like this bag, my sister who’s huge into makeup says it’s great for a travel bag. So I may make one for myself.

These are terrible pictures I know, but this is the pattern I used, and bonus it’s free!

 I went to RuPaul’s DragCon in LA, it was super fabulous. But I really didn’t take many pictures, idk why D:

 These are some of RuPaul’s outfits, gorgeous.

 LOVE this dress.

 My friends on the pink carpet, they so fancy.

I didn’t dress up, I have nothing fabulous and couldn’t make up my mind in time to borrow something. Plus then I would have had to do my face aaaand, I’m just so lazy.

The signs were amazing. I should have taken a pic of all of them.
Ah well.
Moving on.

 I sorted all these blocks I got from the Northern CA Quilt Rush and then chose some to make my sister this shark pencil case she requested.

 Totally mis-measured and thought I’d only need 6 squares initially, whoops.

 All cut out!

 I didn’t read the instructions all the way before starting this (surprise! That’s become a trend with me lately, need to stop doing that…) because I figured how hard can a bag be. So I would have done some things differently.

 Like the seam in the middle there? Is to make the pouch round (and contain the upper fin), I wouldn’t have put one in the bottom, so the bottom could stay flat.

 Also it’s smaller than I thought it would be, too small to even fit my hand in, so I’d make it larger if I did it again.

But it still came out pretty cute! Oh and the zipper mouth was really hard and fiddly because of the smallness.

 Quick garden shot. The sweetpeas look SUPER cute with my roses. They took so long to come up I thought they weren’t going to, but then they exploded. Nice and fragrant 😀

Finally, aren’t my beets beautiful! 
Also delicious.

2015 Sewalong Challenge #4 Inspiration – Something For The Home

So the last Sewalong Challenge was for two months, March and April, to allow time to make a full vintage outfit. I skipped that one to make the wedding dress (which, btw, finished! Only 2 days later than my hoped for finishing date), but back to it now!

This month the challenge is “Something For The Home.” I have some ideas that are way outside my time frame, and I have some ideas that require me to have actual furniture first (that’s the plan for the summer! … Hopefully), but realistically I’m going to have to stick to small things!

First up for me is resuable makeup pads!

Hopefully super fast and easy, I can use scraps, and will be perfect for the post-facewash toner. I’ve been using witch hazel because I read to, but I can’t tell if it’s made any difference because I never really looked at my face before using it to know XD Whoops.

More ideas under the cut!

I’ve been meaning to do “unpaper towels” for awhile now, I even bought a big snap set to use on them. But I already use kitchen towels and cloth napkins all the time, so at this point these would be more for the cuteness factor.

Plus the more I thought about it the more setting it up with all those snaps after every wash seemed like a pain, more of a pain than reaching into a drawer and grabbing the closest dishtowel. But I saw someone’s blog (which I can’t find now, sorry) who instead of setting them up in the paper towel roll they put a button hole on one side and hung them on a hook. So I may do that!

Technically I don’t have a swiffer, I have a sponge mop, but I think I can use the same principle and sort of… make it swiffer like. And I could use some of those snaps I bought here!

I don’t know if I’ll get to something like this, but I’m all for DIY things that save me money & use up scraps.

More ideas, not sure if this would actually be useful for me, I don’t think I’ve plasticwrapped a bowl in the last 6 months.

I think I’m also going to try to make a… I don’t know what it’s called. Door draft blocker? There’s a door to the bathroom in my room and if the light is on in there it’s quite bright. It doesn’t bother me if I’m already asleep, but if someone goes in while I’m drifting off it wakes me right up.

Anyway! I’m sure there are loads more home crafts people can come up with, but those are mostly what’s on my mind.

D’s Wedding Dress Progress 4

Plugging away on the dress! I’m at a stage where there’s a lot of hand work so it the progress looks very slow and hasn’t been worth posting about. I’m in a (hopefully) final push right now, I’m trying to finish by this weekend so D has time to get it to the dry cleaners and I have time to catch up on my Arabic homework before my class is over (I keep telling myself it’s just for fun and the grade doesn’t matter but… yeah no).

Anyway, I realized I actually hadn’t posted as much as I thought, so I *do* have something to post about 8D

I want to post more garden/produce pics though, ’cause it makes me feel Hobbity, so, later.

Right so, wedding dress.

After that stage I had D come over and we pinned lace on all over.

Looks nice right?


Actually it turned out really different.
‘Cause after that we turned towards the back.
 

And in the back we wanted a much more symmetrical look.
Then we decided that due to that we needed a more symmetrical look in the front.

So some things stayed, and some things ended up changing.

I had to take each piece of lace of bit by bit and take photos as I did so I’d remember what bit went where, that part of slow going.

LOTS of pics like this.

Then we had to do quick skirt fitting, since it’d be easier to do that without all the lace bits.

The skirt is just basted on here.

After marking height and such I took that baby right off ’cause man is it unwieldy.

And then the slow slow process of hand tacking bits of lace all about.

This is from way earlier this month, I’m almost completely done w/ the lace now, but I still need to tack the lining to the zip, put hook and eyes in the appropriate places, add the buttons, attach the skirt lining and all those myriad finicky finishing things.

I probably won’t properly post about it again until it’s done, so close!

Garden!

Back to sewing later. For now, a garden update!

I can’t seem to find a pic of it totally before I started working, but here’s the section of my yard I’m focusing on gardening right now.

I was scraping weeds before putting a planter box down. D gave me several of these planter boxes! This was taken in January I think.

You can see just beyond the box there that there’s a strip of dirt, in there already my mum and I had planted some peas, beets, and raspberries.

I was positive I’d taken pics in the interim, but I can’t find any… kind of a bummer ’cause I remember taking a pic of the cute stick teepees I made… anyway, flash forward to April!

I finally get around to putting dirt in that box! And I started laying down landscaping fabric and putting bark over it.
You can see my peas are coming up nicely!

This is more how it looks now, I still haven’t put anything in the bin closest here, ’cause I need to go get more dirt.

Produce though!
This was the 3rd.

 I  ended up sauteing them with some of the beets I thinned out and some bok choy.

BLOSSOMS ON MY RASPBERRIES.
Super excited.

And on my strawberries! But I don’t expect much from them this year.

Tied some sticks together from a fig tree that was in my sideyard but was randomly cut down right before I took possession.
Planted my cucumber seedlings!

Still lots of work to be done!

 On the 8th I picked a bunch of peas!

I’m pretty sure I sauteed these also.

But!

On the 12th I saw I had even more!

I munched away on these while working on some other stuff. Yum!

So not a LOT in the scheme of things, but it was exciting to me 8D