analog me

Goodies!

My birthday was a pretty unspectacular: I got up, went to work, came home, drove about 100 miles to pick my son up at his grandparents, ate dinner in a small town diner, drove back home and fell into bed. Still there were a lot of nice moments that made for a good day--and one high point. When I got home from work, I was in a hurry when I found a package on the porch from an unfamiliar address in Texas and just ripped it open not remembering that I had signed up for the Summer Sewing Swap organized by Kestrel. 

Goodies! It was a kind of birthday fiber festival that only a sewing sister could have put together.

Yup, there are three gorgeous skeins of yarn, enough embroidered fabric to make something exciting, a much needed zipper (because I hate having to go out an buy them), a Jalie pattern and a little surprise.

Thanks Shawnta! Not only do you look amazing in the Thurlow shorts you just made, but you gave me the biggest grin of the day.

Lookie, there is even a sweet Texas-themed thimble!

A couple days later we were on vacation and had some time to really celebrate. My birthday demands are small but challenging to excute. I must have a genoise cake with whipped cream and berries. My husband came through again.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Happiness.

P.S. I is alive and sewing just taking a bit of a break from blogopolis. It seems to be a bit of an epidemic this summer.

 

Random Tuesday

Some of my readers have been saying things about "Spring Dresses." For example, it was suggested that I should re-make that dress for Spring. As you might have seen from my latest high fashion photo shoot, we here in Minnesota are still in what a dear friend calls "Sepia Season." 

Yes, I should be sewing for Spring, but this is hardly inspiring. I think that is one reason flowers are so welcome on Valentines Day. It really is a time when we need to soak up the colors and scents of opalescent petals. I recently brought some hyacinth bulbs out of a dark, cold basement closet where I had been "forcing" them. ( I always have hated that term.)  Within days, they began turning from yellow to green, and then they unfolded into fragrant bloom.

Happy Valentine's Day!  A tiny bit of Spring in the Winter. 

Maybe if I spend more time staring it this I will know what to sew for Spring.  How do the rest of you prepare for yourself for Spring? Seed Catalogs? Fashion Magazines?  Daydreams?

And, just because I know you can't think about anything else, a reader over at Pattern Review tipped me off to the origins of the Evil Woman.

             Evil Woman                        Charlotte Rampling

Now you can stop obessing about that and move on to other things.

An Unusual Christmas Day

 

To be honest, I didn't think that touring a sapphire mine on Christmas Day sounded very appealing. In fact, as we descended into the pitch dark mine shaft in a growling, diesel fume-belching, dirt-hauling machine, I panicked. Looking back, I saw the entrance and light get smaller and farther away and said, "I need to get out."

I figured I could just walk back out and wait in the light for everyone else to get out. Luckily, one of my cousins and an old-timer miner, Lou, got out with me and basically forced me to walk in. So we let the machine go ahead and then walked on in with just some flashlights to push back the black. At first, all I noticed was that we were going hundreds of feet underground into a damp, dark, dirty, dank, silent hole in the earth. You know that sort of sinking feeling of going into whatever black hole it is that you are looking down? That's sort of what I felt like. And then the miner started pointing out the vein that holds the sapphires.

There were whole caves lined with crystals.

And, just think, if it were not for our flashlights, this

would just be total darkness. Lou showed me some big carboard boxes hidden behind a crystal dome and told me that he had enough explosives there to blow up a small sized city. That made me smile.

The smell of the earth was actually clean and fresh. And there was a snow white, fluffy fungus that looked so delicate growing on the mine shaft floor.

A whole underground world right there under me feet—like an inverted reality. I have been through these mountains so many times before, but never imagined all this existing underneath my feet—and it is actually incredibly beautiful.

In a way, it's a lot how this year has been.  Sometimes, looking down into the darkness, I have thought just get me out of here. But then, you go on, someone takes your arm points out something, you look a little more closely and think, Hey, this is beautiful too.

And then walking out, the light is so bright. (That's my handsome husband.) 

I think we might have a new family tradition. Thanks Lou, you were a great guide.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

 

Baby Doll wishes you Happy Holidays

I have been feeling a bit grinchy this Christmas Season, so yesterday I decided the best antidote would be to make a little something special for my youngest niece--who is really a baby and too young for a doll. I think she liked it though, because she held it and tried to chew the head up!

Most directions for these Waldorf-style dolls are really complex, but I just made the head and then made a bunting body from a cashmere sweater, and a hood from the sweater's cuff so that it would be safer for the baby and less complex to finish. Now I see this which is even simpler.

I swaddled her up in an old pattern piece, and wrapped it in a cloth bag, so the project was very eco too.

I had forgotton how exciting it is to embroider the face in the head. Suddenly, a lump of fabric seems animated.

My eldest son says he doesn't remember his doll, which he named "Sweet Baby" and enjoyed giving astronaut training to. He/She/it?  had to have two hair transplants from all the excessive force of re-entering earth's orbit and now safely rests in an chest in the attic. I will be interested to see what sort of experiences this dolly will have.

Hey, everybody, Have Happy Holidays (HHH) o.k.?

Sigrid

How to make a Last Minute Neck Warmer

If you are anything like me, you are looking at your Christmas list and panicking right now. Here is one present you can make very quickly, perhaps even with fabric left over from the last project you made for yourself. I made this with an old skirt and some nice lining fabric. You could even use an old T-shirt for the inside.

This is similar to Zoe's cowl, except made from a woven fabric with a soft lining. I cleverly designed it so the inside is larger than the outside, so that only softness touches the tender neck.

You need two pieces of fabric. Cut an inner soft rectangle 24" by 9" (61x23cm)and an outer fabric 24" by 8" (61x20cm). Basically this is the formula for the heights: Inside = outside+ (seam allowance x 2). This makes a rather fitted neckwarmer that easily slips over your head, yet tucks easliy under a coat. You can easily adapt the sizes to be wider for a looser look.

Place the two pieces right sides together,

Remove the kitty, if one appears,

pin and sew the long sides together. The inside will not lie flat.

Now push one half of the tube in side the other so that right sides are together and pin so that the seams are exactly aligned outside to outside and inside to inside.

Using a 1/2" (1.5cm) seam allowance, start sewing on the inside, around the outside and back to the inside leaving about 3" (8cm) open on the lining.

This will look wrong, but when you turn it right side out it will rearrange itself into the correct shape. Now you can either slip stitch the lining shut. or simple fold the seam allowance inside and topstich it close.

Here's another view:

And here is an interesting version with buttonholes:

Yes, It is cashmere and it has that swanky chain, but it costs 225.00.

By the way, I think you could use something manly and maybe get a guy to wear this too. It's worth a try anyway.