Projects in Teeny Florals

Finished a couple of things for Mum a couple of weeks ago. Her old leather key pouch has been falling apart so I offered to make her a new one. Not leather, because I don't have any on hand. Also, I would've needed Dad's leatherworking supplies and tools and we aren't quite ready to go through his stuff; we're all in different countries so it's more a logistic reason than emotional, although there's some of that, too. Instead, I found some delicate* floral fabric in the store that I thought she'd like, and went to work. (*Clarification: the fabric isn't delicate, which would be most unwise for a wallet; it's the floral motif which is, I mean).

It was fun to sew wallets again. It's been a while, and I've missed it. I think if I had to rank sewing projects by favorites, wallets would be at the top of the list (and clothing alterations, say, sitting someway below the subbasement dungeons thereof). As far as wallets go, key pouches are very, very simple to sew, not least because there are very few compartments. This translates to not many layers of material to stitch through and eventually bind around the edges of. 

Installing the key holder hardware was another story, however.

The short version was that I didn't have the right tools, so had to improvise, which wrecked the fabric to the point of having to rip out the center panel of the wallet entirely and make a completely new replacement part. And by some miracle, I did find a way to put in the key holder bit properly this second time around. So: Nightmarish hardware installation, but easy sewing. As with all projects, you win some, you lose some. 

There's a zippered section behind the main compartment for bills. Her original key pouch had it, so I just duplicated the design exactly. Sometimes when we become attached to a bag or wallet and have to replace it, it's nice have an exact copy so we needn't get used to new places for our stuff, right?

Here's the back. Notice that the bottom edge is funky - this is because the outermost layer of wallets must be made slightly longer (wider?) than the inner layers, 

so that when the wallet is closed, with all its contents within, the layers will wrap snugly around and lie flat atop each other.

When I'd finished the key pouch, I thought I'd make a coin purse, too. So extra! And for no reason other than I had hardware just sitting in the stash, and I hadn't used it since making my friend a cow purse 13 years ago. 

And now I'm all warmed up, and feel like I want to make a whole bunch of actual wallets. Maybe I'll put some in the shop, too, in time for summer. Will keep you posted!

Hope everyone's been enjoying spring in whichever parts of the world are experiencing it right now. Minnesota has been a bit tardy with its warm days. We had snow last week, and people were saying Enough Already Go Away, which is shockingly disagreeable for a people who are supposed to be smugly stoic in the face of hypothermia. But this weekend is teasing temps in the 70s so we think we might be able to revert to Minnesota Nice again and not snap at our neighbors and endure things till summer finally does kick in. Virtual hugs to all!

Scarf

Very pleased (and relieved) to report that I've finally finished a proper crochet project! This is a scarf I started last summer when I'd grown a little bored of my washcloths.

Because it was so compact, it became my Portable Crochet Project - the one I took to doctor's appointments and swim meets and car rides en route to big family get-togethers. It even accompanied me to and from Singapore last month, and was a lovely distraction while transiting in interim airports (finagling a crochet hook on board the plane is a story for another day, though).

Can't remember the name of the yarn I used, only that it was very splitty, like embroidery floss. Many times I wanted to hurl the thing across the room because I'd miss a strand and have to frog large bits. Or when I'd brought the wrong hook out with me (the Susan Bates hook is much better for this yarn) and everything would slip or catch at random, like manipulating vermicelli with nicked chopsticks. Other times, I could serenely work row after row without a mishap. So much depended on my mood, the hook, the time of day, and who knew what other factors. 

The stitch I used is the Primrose Stitch. I discovered it while making washcloths, and decided it was so pretty that it should be featured en masse on clothing. One zillion mind-numbingly similar rows later, it occurred to me that maybe I would've done better to have introduced some variety in the design. 

So yes, there is no pattern for this scarf. I made it up. Even the color choices were somewhat random. This yarn was on sale, and it felt silky, drapey and non-acrylicky, so I picked three colors I thought wouldn't be obnoxious on their own, or together. 

And then I started knotting away. Had no idea what standard scarf size I should aim for, so I found a store-bought scarf in the house, wrapped it around my neck, declared it suitable, and made it my goal to approximate its dimensions. When I thought I'd gotten a third-way into the finished length, I switched colors. 

Sometime after the first thirty-somethingth row, my brain must've checked out and I began adding stitches. I only realized this much later, after which came the awful moment when one has to decide whether to just keep moving forward or - in the name of human decency and being able to sleep at night - to frog everything and start anew from that point onward. I chose the former. As long as the sides were straight, I rationalized, it was all good. Besides, where is the fun in always erasing the evidence of one's learning? This way, I'll always be able to revisit that exact spot where the count first went off and I accidentally merged two primroses into one (reframing: I did an increase! Never mind if unintended!) and made a new shape with my yarn knots. And it wasn't a catastrophe. This is how we cure perfectionism: one uncorrected blemish at a time, given a new name like Variety and Nonconformity and Hey It Could Well Be A Hitherto Undiscovered Stitch. 

Anyway, very pleased with the outcome.

This is the victory moment, right after I cut the yarn off following the last stitch. Wound it around my neck to take this selfie. Not sure if my expression is elation or profound relief. Or a little of both, plus Where Exactly Should I Look Where Is The Camera.

Slightly related, the photos in this and recent posts were taken with my phone. Quite obviously different, as you may have noticed. We're transitioning between photo softwares and I haven't yet relearned how to access the photos on the Good Camera, let alone prep them for sharing online. I miss my camera photos! 

That moment when you realize you can read a crochet pattern

Made a Moomin for my friend Eunice, the one who used to love cows, but is now infatuated with these. Used this free pattern, which is excellent (except for one mathematical error in one of the instructions, which a person could work around quite easily).

Still, there were some moments of panic midway. For example,

What the pattern said: these are legs

What I couldn't unsee: string bikini

and

What the pattern said: this is the thing's torso

What my children said: Oh, you made Among Us!

A bit disheartening, but it worked out in the end.

It was astounding, that moment when I realized that I was actually reading a crochet pattern and not having a nervous breakdown. It reminded me of a time decades ago when I was trying to teach myself some obscure Uni-level Math in order to pass a Physics class. All my other classmates had learned the correct advanced Math in high school and I hadn't because I'd opted for all the Science labs instead, thinking I would become a doctor instead of an engineery-Physics person. So I'd suffered through months and months of terrifying calculus and matrices and vectors and other such nonsense and my classmates were nodding calmly and I was just about ready to drop out of school and one day, while I was poring over my notes on my own between classes, suddenly something clicked and horrific concepts like divergence and curl of vectors and differentials thereof* somehow made sense and I wanted to stand on the table and shout Eureka but one doesn't engage in such histrionics in the middle of all the other Science people who are extraordinarily serious and proper, so I didn't. 

But I always remembered that feeling because it was so utterly life-changing. And this week, I had that feeling again while reading this crochet pattern - what read like code just seconds earlier suddenly morphing into English and 3D shapes in my brain. Whoa.

That said, I'm sad to report that I'm not enjoying amigurumi as much as I thought I would. The tinyness of it doesn't excite me. And I hate my miniscule hook, which feels like a toothpick. Also, counting stitches while increasing/decreasing is unbelievably stressful when they're that small. But maybe I haven't met the right project yet - and maybe I should gravitate toward giant amigurumi items instead? 

I've also been crocheting baskets. With fat yarn. Much better. Will share pics soon.

*Have forgotten what these mean now years later, of course.

Chickens (and a Pattern Revamp)

Here's a funny story.

Last month, I needed to sew a concert gown for Emily. I will tell you more about that in a separate post but I'll say here that it had slightly ambitious sleeves so I took some time to work out how to construct them. 

"Ah," you're saying, "that's a euphemism for 'she procrastinated'."

Hangs head.

In her defence, they were fiddly sleeves.

But yes, procrastinate she did. 

First, she made a chicken. 

Her small nephew was turning two, and she rationalized that all small children needed a chicken, so she resolved to make him one. Plus chicks, because obviously all stuffed animals have to have offspring to make any sense at all.

Then, because it had been twelve years since she'd last made chickens, she had to print out her Chicken Pattern for the templates and to have her memory aided by the instructions therein.

Then, when the chicken was made, she realized she was now a much better pattern-writer than she was twelve years ago and, having now beheld all the ways in which that 2010 Chicken Pattern could use a tune-up, entertained the idea of revising it.

Then, for the purpose of re-photographing and testing out the construction process for the rewrite, she made two more chickens. And six more chicks (see earlier logic re: adult animals and offspring).

And then wrote the second edition of the Chicken Pattern.

After which she remembered, as if waking from a fevered dream, that she was supposed to be sewing a dress, and hurriedly measured the child in question and drafted a sloper. And went panic-shopping for fabric, returning with (as if to overcompensate) enough fabric for two dresses and several muslins.

Then left her common sense at the door and, in the name of "testing out the sloper" and "getting the old brain warmed up for the Real Thing", proceeded to sew an entire Other Dress (with its associated muslins). That's right - an entire second gown that the child didn't actually need. 

Then, in the strange hollow silence immediately befalling (you know the kind that often greets one in the aftermath of having eaten an entire quart of ice cream all by oneself and in a moment of belated clarity wonders why one thought it seemed like a good idea at the time), she realized she had run out of ways to procrastinate further.

And sewed the dress.

And it didn't take nearly as long as making three chickens, nine chicks, re-photodocumenting and rewriting a sewing pattern, and making another dress.

So. How's your sanity been holding up this winter?

Mooooooooving forward now, I have two bits of news to share.

One is that I have indeed revised my Chicken Pattern. I should probably disclaim that I don't think the original 2010 version was a disaster - I was quite easily able to make a chicken (or three) from those instructions, after all. But it was written 12 years ago and I approach sewing instruction much more methodically now than I did back then. 

I don't know if it's even a thing - pattern designers returning to old patterns to revise and release new editions of them, I mean - but it seemed irresponsible not to incorporate improvements when they were now obvious to me, and pass those on to you guys. The construction sequence and methods are still essentially the same but I reworded some instructions which sounded awkward, added more photos and annotations, and redrew all the templates so they were more effectively spaced out on the page. 

If you bought a Chicken Pattern in the past and would like the new version, send me an email with

• your name 
• the email address you used to buy it, if you can remember it, and
• the year you bought it, if you can remember it,

and I'll send you a link to download the new one for free. I can't promise that I'll respond to your email right away, especially if I receive many requests, but give me a couple weeks or so, and I should be able to have a new link for you.

Second, I now have two sets of chicken-and-chicks to send to new homes! You can find them in my Etsy store here. 

I don't think I've ever had a chicken in my Etsy store before - my children inherited all the prototypes and samples I'd made when I first wrote the pattern. Snuggling and cuddling aside, I imagine they'll be good fun for classrooms and preschool rooms and anywhere that kids want to set up a pretend farm or co-op, and just in time for spring, too.

Each set comes with a hen 

which lays eggs,

and three chicks.

Each chick fits in one of these plastic eggs (also included).

You might notice that the eggs are a bit festive-looking; my apologies if you were hoping for more realistic or at least solid colors. These are what I was able to obtain at this time of the year, and I thought I'd include them with your purchase so you could start playing with the chicken and chicks right away. I'm pretty sure that in a couple of months, the stores will be full of easter eggs and you can replace these with ones more to your liking.    

Go to my Etsy store here to buy the chicken & chicks,

and go to my pattern shop or pattern page on my blog to buy the revised Chicken Pattern.

Homecoming

Happy new year, friends!

I hope these early months of 2022 have been good, especially after coming out of the year we did. Did 2021 feel like a rollercoaster to you, too? It certainly started out in the valley for us and many other families with school-age kids who did school online. Later in the year as things got better, the overall sense was that of life being somewhat restored to us. We're thankful for that, and for so many other blessings and gifts, and I know this may not have been the case for everyone. 

We were busy, also, in spite of what the long stretches between blog posts might have indicated. Healthwise, we were well, but we were navigating new things. In the fall, the kids started the school year in-person, and that took some adjusting, too, particularly after so much remote learning in the year before. It's funny that even normal isn't quite that, after long enough of abnormal. 

What have I been busy with? Well, for one, over the last four months, I sewed garments. Again, quasi-normal, if you guys remember the mad race when my kids were little, to clothe them in summer wear before they hit each subsequent growth spurt. And there were the tween years when homemade was awkward for them because bodies were changing and no one was really sure what felt or looked good. I sewed just their Halloween costumes then, and tried to stay in the moment for as long as I could, knowing that even that phase had an expiration date not too far down the road. Then came the transition through middle school, and Narnian and Barbie princesses faded in the shadow of pop stars, online communities, wry humor and satire. The kids got together with friends to invent Halloween disguises and quirky book club costumes with a glue gun and a bit of magic known as Improvisation. I poked my nose in to check on them every now and then, but they assured me they'd got things covered. Mostly.

And my sewing machine, that manic workhorse faithfully churning out garment after garment of all shapes and sizes for over a decade, exhaled. I settled into a new creative chillness: stuffed toys, the occasional face mask, maybe mending a rip in someone's leggings.

Then: high school. 

I'll say this before we get to the details: so much of life is a cycle. Apparently, with teenagedom - especially later teenagedom - comes a reinvention of one's fashion sense, and I found myself once again in the fabric stores among the sheers and lace and satins (there's an entire aisle dedicated to cosplay fabrics, I've learned). The children - not quite children anymore - have now got important places to be, places with dress codes, specifically. Cocktail dresses for school dances and all-black floorlengths for fancy concerts, for instance. A decade ago my sewing room floor was a riot of polar fleece (to stave off hypothermia) and upholstery accents (to look medieval) and everything was swirly swishy semi-circular skirts with underlays and overlays; now it's chiffon and bridal satin and bust darts (bust darts! Where have the years gone?) and clean lines and You Can't Let Me Look Hideous, OK, Mom?! It's been a whirlwind, this return to what-once-was-and-yet-is-utterly-new. Normal after a hiatus is usually anything but. A recurring theme, it seems.

Last October, Jenna needed a homecoming dress. As always, my first instinct is to hit the stores. Sewing is a hugely romantic notion, but people often forget the precarious quest for fabric in the particular shade of a particular color, the ten thousand muslins, the last-minute hem-job executed in the wee hours just before sunrise because we'd underestimated (again) how long garment-making actually takes.  I love handmade, but sometimes store-bought can look really good from this side of the throat plate.

Anyway, we trawled the internet, Jenna and I. I didn't even know what a "homecoming dress" should be, having myself never attended a homecoming anything, because we there's no such thing in Singapore. Had to deduce from what we found on 'customwear' sites what the rules were: not as fancy as prom, but nicer than what you'd wear to church on Christmas Day was my eventual interpretation. 

The prices, though! For so little actual fabric! It was unbelievable.  As I scrolled past tinydress after tinydress, in all their 57 color options, all that registered was the non-zero probability that alterations would have to be made even if we'd ordered one in Jenna's exact physical dimensions. After waiting 4-6 weeks for it to arrive, at that.  

I surrendered. Handmade it was, then.

This was our inspiration piece, by the way.

In keeping with her meticulous appreciation of the nuance in color, Jenna expounded at length the exact shade of darkish-reddish-wine-ish-not-purplish-ness she preferred. Naturally, it didn't exist in the fabric types we needed, but we did our best.

The lace overlay made me feel somewhat nostalgic - how many princess costumes had I made which looked like this? 

And yes, there's a mask to match, because it was required. A sign of the times, if ever there was one.

And I loved it. The outcome, the process, and especially reacquainting myself with drafting and turning numbers into three-dimensional drape on an actual person. On homecoming night, I took photos alongside the other parents and drove Jenna and her friends to dinner before the dance - two traditions that were also utterly new to me. What fun to see the smiles and excitement and goofy camaraderie. What a gift that they were able to have this, at the end of a bizarre, uncertain year. How wonderful to see hope and joy and mirth and celebrate precious friendship. 

May you have see the same with the ones you love this new year! 

Halloween 2021

Thought I'd share what the kids wore on Halloween. The oldest no longer dresses up to go Trick-or-Treating, and prefers instead to hand out candy at the door, welcoming the neighborhood kids and admiring their costumes. It's so much fun to see the tiny princesses and puppies and dinosaurs and superheroes and bioluminescent sea creatures come toddling up the walkway, with their parents a prudent arm's length behind, smiling proudly. We love the handmade costumes especially - and I'm always doubly impressed when these handmade wonders are also toasty warm. It brings up memories of sewing for my own kids, when I was inordinately obsessed with protecting them from hypothermia. There was always the danger of the additional insulation compromising the overall aesthetic of the final product, with everyone possibly looking like the Michelin Man instead of a princess, or fairy, or whatever fantasy creature they'd hoped to be. 

In recent years, my two younger girls have been making costumes for themselves and a neighbor with whom they do the candy circuit as a themed group. They know they're a little overage, and they assure me it's more about the dressing up with a friend than the snagging of sweets. On my part, I am well aware that their Trick-or-Treating days are numbered, and I marvel at how those years of manic October sewing, when my sewing room would be a disaster zone of satin and organza and fleece and sequins, and which I was convinced were never-ending, were so fleeting in hindsight. Friends who have Little Ones, I tell you now as an Old Parent: take photos. Take lots of photos, and enjoy the mania. For one, it's acutely temporary. For another, it's good practice for when those same Little Ones are Teenagers and Young Adults and Soon-To-Be-Marrieds. Those outfits are going to require higher-stakes work, and you'll be glad for the dry runs that were the Halloween costumes of yore.

Anyway, this past Halloween, two of my girls were frogs. They tell me that these particular outfits, which Kate designed and made, are more interpretative than literal. There are hats (which we bought online so as to save time instead of sewing them from scratch like we did the year before) to which Kate added puffy eyes and facial features; T-shirts with a subtle black-felt fly glued on, and tutus, which we made together.

Here they are, just before heading out on their rounds. 

Interestingly, their hats turned out to be versatile beyond just Halloween. Some days after, during a swim meet, the athletes who were not on the roster for the day dressed up as Disney princesses in support of their teammates. Jenna turned up with her frog hat as her only piece of costumewear and when asked whom she was impersonating, she replied, "Tiana - as a frog". Hee!