Fixing a Hole

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Originally uploaded by lothruin

As per the title of a Beatles tune off Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, I was fixing a hole. I bought a lovely little micro-jersey dress for my daughter off the Target clearance rack. I didn't look it over carefully enough, and the first time she wore it, I realized it had a cut on the skirt. Rather than try to mend the tear to be as invisible as possible (nearly impossible in the middle front of a piece of flowing black micro-jersey) I mended the hole by making it bigger. I found some green micro-jersey in a similar fiber content and matching thread, and used a little bit of reverse applique to hide the tear in plain sight. It turned out well. I didn't have the kind of problems I anticipated with the jersey. I only got one little pucker where I tried to use a reverse lock to end my line of stitching, which in retrospect was a total rookie mistake. (Although, in fairness, I'm basically a rookie.) Kit loves it, and my MIL was impressed with my domestic skills and thrifty sensibilities.

Jaywalker 2.0.5

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Originally uploaded by lothruin

On the 4th of July I was in Indianapolis visiting with my husband's (large) family. It rained all day. The 65 people for whom multiple canopies were set up outside spent most of the afternoon and evening in the house, which is large, but not that large. I calmed my overtaxed (over-smiled, over-meaningless-chattered) nerves by working on my sock. As you can see, right before dinner it was looking pretty good, although I was getting strange looks from Cory's mostly straight-laced family. After knitting a fair bit during the car ride home, I am proud to say I'm only a few rows away from having one completed sock. My daughter stayed behind in Indianapolis with her grandma and grandpa, so I anticipate many pleasurable evenings of uninterupted knitting during the couple of weeks while she's gone. I might even have a finished pair of Jaywalkers by the end of July!

Working-Class Italian

The Fruit Seller by Campi
Originally uploaded by lothruin

So, the Scottish Party is this weekend. Faire season is coming up (in fact, it starts next weekend!). And both my bodices are too big. I can wear them, but they'll require supportive undergarments, and bra straps sort of detract from the look. So what is a girl to do? Well, I have a good friend who is an amazing seamstress (and thus far has made both my bodices, and has a couple more in the works) but anyone reading this is likely to know that I am a DIY kinda girl. Even if I only do it once, I wanna do it.

So, observe the painting detail. That is The Fruit Seller, by Vincenzo Campi. She is a working-class Italian from around 1580. Her dress has a front lacing closure and two back ones, and it is a dress, not a bodice and skirt. However. I have four yards of burgundy twill out of which I intended to make a skirt to match one of the bodices Fay will someday make me, that is orange faux suede and red/orange plaid. If I make a skirt and a bodice out of red twill, I can use the skirt with my other garb, but also wear it as though it is part of a dress with my Italian bodice.

Here's the thing, though. I'm not a seamstress, really. At least, I think I'm not. I don't do it often. But I'm jumping in head first on this one. I already drafted a pattern for the bodice. I have a couple of adjustments to make, and I need some plain muslin, for the mockup (which will turn into the interfacing of the bodice) and for the ruffed blouse. It actually looks decent, which surprised me.

Now is left only to decide what color to make the detailing on the bodice front and back, what color to make the apron, and whether I want to try doing fancy insertion stitches and picot edging on any of it. Probably not by faire season. But I'm crossing my fingers that at least by the James Arthur Vineyard ren fest on May 16th, I'll have the ensemble finished. We'll see. I'm excited. I am probably completely out of my skull to even try this so haphazardly, but a girl has to get started sometime, right?

GOMM2, Revenge of the Needle Nook

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Originally uploaded by lothruin

Yes, in my last post not only did I promise to post the sock yarn I bought, but I also referred to a lovely yarn store as "the name of which I don't recall" and upon remembering the name, failed completely to edit the post to include it. This is so naughty of me.

In the first place, I never did post a picture of the yarn. That is a cardinal sin. I'm repenting though. (Must be said, the colors of the yarn in this pic are a little off, and it might possibly be because the color of the hat in which they were photographed competed with the color of green in the yarn. It was better than the alternatives, though.)

In the second place, the Neede Nook, which is the no-longer-nameless other yarn store, does not deserve such shabby treatment. It really was a lovely store, and the selection was excellent. Now, as I said in my last post, it wasn't exactly my kind of atmosphere. I'm kind of a punk-rock knitter and for personality, I'd go with Sheepish. But they're just starting to build up their inventory, and so their selection is not nearly as good as Needle Nook's. Overall, though, I enjoyed them both thoroughly. (How can one not enjoy being surrounded by shelves and shelves of gorgeous yarn, after all?)

Georgia On My Mind

Over the weekend, I visited my sister in Atlanta. This was my first visit to Georgia, and it rained the entire time. But it was still very pretty, and we had a lot of fun. In relation to crafting, we visited a little yarn store up the street from where Jen lives, called Sheepish. The shop was really darling in a kind of funky way, and the sales person was very nice. I'd love to go back some time. I managed to walk away with only $1 worth of vintage pattern books.

We visited another shop as well, the name of which I don't recall. It was much more a standard yarn store, inhabited by a small group of chatty older women. Not as much my kind of atmosphere, but their yarn selection was wonderful!

I did buy two balls of a sock yarn that I'll have to edit in when I get home. It's beautiful. Drool worthy colors, really!

That was really the only crafty stuff we did, unless you count drinking wine (arguably an important part of crafting) or facilitating a fashion makeover.

Jaywalkers 2.0

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Originally uploaded by lothruin

So, the Jaywalker socks I was knitting in the lucious Cherry Tree Hill Supersock merino are too small for me. I tried them on after getting the heel gusset finished on sock one, and it was a no go. So, rather than frog all that, I'll finish them and either my mother or my sister will be a sock-pair richer.

However, I'd like to own a pair of my own hand-knit socks before anyone else does, so before leaving for Atlanta to visit my sister, I had my other hank of Cherry Tree Hill (Sockittome, not Supersock) wound into a ball, and started it two size bigger. This is what it looks like so far. It's knitting up beautifully, although I'm going to say right here and now that I far prefer the 100% merino Supersock to the Sockittome blend. I don't think its fiber content so much as twist. The Supersock is a lovely high twist.