Knocking Off

Retail 'seasons' are so misleading. We're getting in tons of sandals at work, and it's got me all excited about spring clothing, despite knowing I've got a few months before it's really going to warm up. A brief two days of 50 degree weather also helped to fool me! But we've got snow in the forecast tomorrow, so it's back to reality. Oh well, doesn't stop me from making some new things to tuck away for warmer days.

 I've been seeing in a lot of stores a sort of 'jogger style' jeans, like these:

 Which in theory sounds awesome and comfortable. I decided to see if I liked the look with a pair of old jeans I had which weren't getting much wear.

I just popped an elastic cuff on these 511s. It sort of worked, but the pants are pretty tight and close to the ankle so it wasn't quite the look (not that I won't wear these still)

 

 So attempt #2, I bought a pair of size 42/30 weird acid washed old lady jeans. I recut them to my "loose short" pattern, widening it at the waist a bit. Ripped off the pockets, put new ones on, then an elastic waistband.

 I originally tried to put elastic cuffs on the bottom, but it just wouldn't come out quite right. I think part of the reason is that my calves are pretty large and the elastic gets caught up on it, it doesn't look right. Anyway, I just did a curved hem, a bit like athletic shorts.

So still not quite the look I want, but closer. I think I'm going to have to scout out some yardage, this sort of thing is hard to remake from other clothing because you need to start with a very big garment to squeeze the recut out of. They sort of look like these shorts, which were also on my 'rip off' list, although I think they are knit:

And lastly,

Not exactly an impressive reconstruction, but I did resize that gold lame shirt. Now I have a pretty perfect gold t-shirt. I managed to re-cut the shoulder area so it was less of a boat neck and more of a crew neck. One downside though--the fabric is weirdly warm to wear.

Now I'm back on a Dear Jane kick. Didn't get much done this weekend because it was filled with pro-wrestling, but I have a good schedule this week and my shoulder's bugging me again, so my workouts are cut a bit short, so I should be getting in some good sewing time.

New Computer, New (consistent!!) Posting

Well, hopefully consistent. But definitely more than has been going on-my old Lenovo x120e got a whole glass full of water spilled into it, and refused to even power on. I tried to hold out until my birthday/tax rebate time, but not having a computer at all was pretty awful, and I gave in and treated myself to the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro, which is a big upgrade from my old one. The screen on my x120e was admittedly pretty awful, which made editing photos for this blog a pain. On this one, however, the screen is gorgeous, and having a touch screen has been surprisingly handy.

But enough computer chat. What have I been up to since the death of my old laptop? Quite a bit, although I was not taking photos very consistently, since I had nothing to upload them to. So the picture coverage is a bit spotty.

Like I apparently have no picture of the making of this shirt? And I made this quite a while back, since there's no weight bench in the background of these pictures. In any case-just using my basic longsleeve shirt pattern, with contrast cuffs, collar and placket. Next time around I may slim down the arms on this pattern a tiny bit, but then again, my arms keep growing, so maybe not.

 I found some plastic canvas at the thrift store right before Christmas, so I decided to make some little needlepoint ornaments. I have plenty of crewel yarn hanging around for it. I charted out some portraits of my two cats. I think they came out pretty well, I just wish there was more contrast in the eye area on Barry (the orange and white cat)

And here's the finished ornaments. I must have used different dark green on Wharton's and not noticed. But they came out pretty cute! And went right on my tree.

I've been really interest in combining sports and athletic wear with traditional 'craft' processes lately. I've also been learning crochet a little more fully, so I got it into my head to make crochet shorts. I started sketching, and decided to stick to a simple granny square pattern at first so I could figure out how to shape it into shorts. I still want to do something with more shaped squares eventually.

So I needed a variety of yarns, as cheap as possible, since this is just a test. The cheapest way seemed to be to just buy an old afghan for a few dollars and pull it apart. I don't really need to buy full skeins of worsted acrylic, it's not very nice for much else. Unfortunately, the only before picture of the afghan I took was this crummy instagram. So apologies for that. Take my word for it, it was very ugly. 

 

 And a few days later, it became these! The making was pretty simple. Four granny squares to start, then join the front and back halfway down, then made a crotch gusset (may not be necessary if you don't have thick legs/butt like me) then join on the sides.

 Then round and around each leg, and around the waist.

 The is the back view, in the middle back I used treble instead of double crochet, to sort of create a 'yoke' also to accommodate my butt. Honestly, though, it's still a little short in the back, next time I might also add a short row of double crochet just there as well.

And the front. It's lined with a pair of old bike shorts. I carefully tacked it in by hand with lots of separate small tacks so the stretchiness is preserved. There is probably an easier/better way to do this though I imagine a machine zig zag or serger stitch would not look very good.

 I also wondered, "Is it possible to cross stitch on spandex, or would it constrict the four-way stretch too much?" Then I figured, if the cross stitching was done with the fabric stretched the same amount as it would be on the body, it should work. I picked out a simple pattern from an old book I have.

 I had found at the thrift store a while back a cross stitch kit with 'waste canvas.' The idea is you stitch through the canvas and fabric, then 'pull' or unravel the canvas out from underneath. No picture, but I stretched the shorts over some cardboard, and basted the waste canvas onto it. Then stitched through both and pulled the canvas away. 

 When the shorts are unstretched, the stitching does look a little puckered and odd.

 But, once they are on, it looks much more normal. We'll have to wait and see what happens when I wash them though.

I tried to find a bigger piece of waste canvas, and was having a hard time finding any. It turns out that the world has moved on to water soluble canvas! And thank goodness because pulling the waste canvas was a giant pain. No plans for this yet, but I sure I'll think of something.

Last thing for now, I've been making up a neat shirt with some medallion/border print material I found. I was planning on making it long sleeve, but I lost the fussy-cut cuffs, and don't have enough to cut more, so I think it's doomed to short sleeves.

Stretching Out

Ohhhh boy did I wait too long to update. Get ready for a lot of pictures! I think getting a smartphone has been detrimental to the blog's updating schedule because I get too focused on twitter/tumblr/instagram and forget that I'm not also posting updates here. Hopefully now that the novelty is wearing off I'll do better. 

So, when last we left the pile of old bathing suits, I had made a few nine-patches. A bunch more followed--in fact way too many, I have a lot left over now! Here I'm lying them out and taking a look at sashing. I wasn't sure about the sashing initially, but I'm glad I went with it. Now I needed a pattern!

These ridiculous shorts came from the thrift store, and I've loved them for working out and running, Tracing them out was a pain with the elastic waist, but I managed to stretch them out and tape them to the floor to do it. 

My latest thrift store run netted me this thick cotton plaid and this leopard spandex. I decided to use the leopard as a test run for my shorts pattern before messing around with my ninepatches. 

It came out quite well! I used another scrap of Hawaiian print bathing suit for the waist band, because why not? It was, like the original shorts, a little high-waisted, so I cut the waist down a bit on the pattern. 

Ok, ok, I know they look a little weird and wrinkled like this, just wait, they stretch out and look much better down the page when I put them on! But can I just say I'm tickled pink that the patterns match up pretty nicely? I wasn't even really hoping for that, but the patches were just about the perfect size to meet in sashing in the center seams.

Back. Next time around though, I will make them slightly longer so I get a full block on top, and the sashing forms the waist band. 

And they are actually reversible! There are so many seams from the patchwork, they definitely needed to be lined, or else they'd be really uncomfortable. I don't have access to a coverstitcher (on my short list of things to save up for) so I had to improvise with finishing techniques, and  full lining worked out well. 

See? Once on, all (well, most) of the weird wrinkling/rippling goes away! Hoping with more practice on a serger I'll get smoother seams.  And they are actually quite comfortable, a little thicker than normal shorts, but they still stretch just as well, and feel very sturdy. 

For laughs I decided to use the rest of the floral material to see if I could work out a singlet pattern. I just sort of stuck a tank top shape on top of the shorts pattern, I think next time around I'll add a side seam so I can get some more coverage around the arm/neck hole. I didn't really bother finishing this, it was a just a tester, so ignore all the nasty edges. 

Ridiculous. 

In non-spandex news:

Took a regular XL thrift store sweatshirt, re-cut it to my size. 

Then, I traced a quilted pattern onto tracing paper, and basted it onto the sweatshirt, with a backing fabric behind it. I then quilted it directly through the tracing paper. The tracing paper then gets torn away as I finished. 

Finished quilting on the inside, you can see the back fabric here. Sadly, I didn't take an pictures of this process, but I then ran thick yarn through the 'channels' I'd quilted to create a raised quilting. This, if I'm remembering correctly is sometimes called Italian or Corded Quilting. 

Closeup on the quilting. 

Then, of course, I sewed the sleeves and body back together! One of my favorite 'wearable' pieces I've made lately. I've already worn it a few time this week, it's perfect weather for it right now. 

And this is just in it's beginning stages, but a new shirt is coming together! Finally cutting into this paisley/plaid fabric. 

Chain Quilting

Posting has been slowed because I was back on a slow grind again. I kept putting off hand quilting my Irish Chain quilt, but it's getting warmer out, and I need a light weight blanket for my bed, so I had to really buckle down.

I had to get it *usable* if not finished so I got all the diagonals quilted, and did the circles in the center of each gray block, then did the binding. I'll do the motifs in the center of each circle as I get the chance, but at least I can put it on my bed now and get rid of the heavy comforter.

It's very big, which is good, my boyfriend is very tall, and it needs to cover both of us!

Drawing out the center wreath motif. 

My very sophisticated templates--the top of a cookie container and a piece of posterboard. 

I did manage to get one motif quilted, just to see how it looks. I'll keep plugging away at them! I realized you can't really see the binding in any of these shots, but I just pulled the backing around to the front.  

In other updates, did a few more Dear Jane blocks, they always cheer me up. F-8 through F-13. Nearly halfway through the main blocks. At this rate it should be finished in, oh, 2016 or so. 

And a super quick project, I've begun jogging a bit and needed something to hold my iPod, so I made a little  arm band. In making this, I measured around my bicep--11 inches now! It was about 9" when I started working out, so hurray for that. I've also nearly got abs--nice to see positive results. 

Work it Out!

So the Randomly Selected Winner of my 200th post give away was Lety R-Z, whose adorable needlefelted creations you should absolutely go check out! Congrats to you, and for everyone else, well, I love to get rid of all the junk in my sewing room, so don't be surprised if I do another contest soon!

Not really crafting related, but he's just so cute I had to share. We got another kitty (two is it, I swear) because we were feeling bad about leaving Barry home alone so much, he's a very active, playful cat, and he got lonely. So meet Wharton, his new pal. Wharton is *huge* and he looks like some kind of wild cat, but he's very lazy and docile and sweet (unlike Barry) Poor guy's missing half of an ear too. Both cats were originally street kitties, taken in by PAWS and fostered by our neighbor. After a rocky start, they are beginning to get along really well. 

Okay, on to craft stuff.

So, as I may have mentioned in the previous post that I've begun to get serious about working out again. And while I love my Phillies shorts, I needed another pair or two so I don't have to constantly wash them. And I'm cheap, so making them was the best solution. 

Patterning them out was a little challenging because of the elastic waist band. I ended up pinning it all stretched out to my ironing board and tracing from there. I did two variations, one with the side contrast detail, and one without. For the first pair I decided to go simple. 

I used the weird poly crepe that I posted about last time, and it was actually a great choice. Sewed up super quick and is actually really comfy and cool (I get hot very easily) It probably only took about 2 hours from start to finish. I'll definitely be making more, might get fancy and put some piping on the next ones. 

With my new New Balance Minimus sneakers (which are awesome and comfy by the way, we just got them in the store and I had to get them right away) I'm well on my way to having the most obnoxious work out gear ever. With my increased interest in sports wear, and my tax return check already arrived, I'm starting to get an itch to buy a serger and coverstitcher. I hate serger use on wovens (lazy!!) so I never really wanted one, but if I'm going to start working with knits and stretch, that's a whole different story. I'm in research mode right now. 

Speaking of knits, another thrift store purchase is this lovely 4-way stretch knit. It's that sort of cotton-spandex that they made leggings out of in the 80's. Not quite sure yet what it's destined to become.