Practical Makes

Practical projects and crafts

Month: July 2016

Summer Thunderstorms

July 30, 2016 /

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Our storms finally arrived and things have cooled off a bit, or as much as they’re gong to with the humidity…. Luckily my fabric arrived yesterday so I can start working on some new tiny person compatible sun dresses.  The fabric is from Cotton + Steel and it has awesome pretty selvages.  Usually the selvage is boring so these are pretty neat.  They’re even three completely different colors which for me is an accomplishment.  I’m usually tempted to default to just dark blues since those always work.  Of course I forgot I’ll need thread so maybe I’ll visit the JoAnn’s briefly today.

That’ll be an extra adventure since I will have to match coral and green which are tough.  Matching blues is usually reasonable, but corals and greens are really tough…  We’ll see how that goes.  Maybe I can get some lining fabric while I’m there.  That would be good.  I’d like to sort through my button collection too so I can decide if I need to get some.  At the moment though my experiment with vacuum storage bags is sort of taking over my sewing room…

Waiting for the weather to break

July 28, 2016 /

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Still no luck with rain for us. They said the heat wave would end early if we got a good storm, but no such luck. Still, there should be a change in the weather pattern today which will finally give us our thunderstorm. And after that it will be cooler.  I hope so, I’m looking forward to taking little Patrick for walks again (it’s been too hot for him during the heatwave, and going for a walk at 2 AM would be a bit too weird).  I also hope to walk down to the farmer’s market Saturday morning.  It’d be nice to have a short break and if I get cucumbers I can make fridge pickles.  We can only have those in summer (when there are good cucumbers) and they’re amazing so I’d really like to make some.  That and cucumber sandwiches since those are also really good.

My dress fabric should also arrive tomorrow so I’ll get to start those.  I have my pattern pieces already to go, so hopefully the fabric arrives on time!  I’m looking forward to those.  I still need to pick out buttons, but that’ll be easiest to do when the fabric gets here.  I have a bunch in my collection (yay thrift store button hordes!) so I want to see if I have any promising ones in there.  Otherwise there’s always JoAnn’s or G-Street.

My other sewing project is drafting a new A-line skirt pattern.  I found the tutorials I used last time so I just need to do some math and take some measurements.  I need front and back pieces with darts (darts are the hard part for drafting…) and a waistband (which is weirdly hard to get to look right).  Maybe I’ll try doing that today.  Once I’ve got a pattern again I’m going to do a trial version, probably with the surplus trouser fabric I have.  I hate sewing trousers and it’s a good color for work clothes.  It’d make a good skirt for wearing on Fridays.  I’ll just have to make Patrick a new shirt to make up for borrowing some of his trouser fabric.  On the upside I’m much better at making shirts than trousers!  I also need to go get some lining fabric.  The JoAnn’s has Bemberg Rayon lining which is probably what I’ll use.  This will be my other independent trip out of the house.  Little Patrick isn’t quite ready for the mall yet, but I don’t have to go far so this should be a good way to get out of the house for a little while.

In terms of knitting I’m still making slow progress on my hat.  But hey, the little bits of progress accumulate over time.

Regarding my other mini-projects, the exercise bike is set up now (yay for Patrick assembling large objects from the Internet!).  So I’m making progress on getting good at biking again.  The exercise bike is a recumbent bike, which makes getting started again a lot easier!  (and I can read and bike much more easily!)

Heatwave Knitting

July 25, 2016 /

There’s something about summer that makes me want to come up with knitting projects (and watch Predator 2 and Yakuza, which are the best heatwave movies). Maybe it’s because the summer edition of the knitting magazine always has awesome patterns, maybe it’s because I can take my projects out on the porch and enjoy nice weather (in the mornings before it gets hot!) or maybe it’s because somehow the AC always makes things feel more arctic than real winter does.

I suppose the fact that summer has actual sunshine (unlike winter around here, which is grey, damp and cloudy) makes me want to make lots of awesome plans.

I’m thinking about a couple potential projects, a knitting project and some sewing projects. For the knitting, I think I want to try making myself a pair of convertible mittens with gloves inside.  I have a nice range of fingerless gloves and a couple pairs of mittens, but I’d like to have a pair for the coldest weather.  I would want the inside to have fingers like gloves (though not covering the fingertips) under colorwork convertible mittens.  I think that would cover the bases well and still make it easy to extract my train pass.  I like the franken mittens pattern on Ravelry, but I’m not super thrilled with the pattern for the colorwork. Maybe I can use the overall mitten pattern and come up with my own colorwork pattern?  I also really want to knit a shawl, but I’m only making very slow progress on my hat, so I’m pretty sure sticking to the hat is the better plan (especially since I really want a warm fuzzy hat when it gets cold again!).  And given my rate of progress by the time I finish the hat it will be cold weather.  And I’d really like to knit a small hat and some baby mittens for little Patrick before it gets too cold.  So maybe I should aim for a hat, convertible mittens and a little hat and baby mittens by the end of the year.  I will have time for shawls later.  After all they don’t really wear out and they don’t have fit issues so there’s no rush.

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For sewing I’d like to do those sooner.  I want to sew three new Hawthorn dresses.  They button up the front so those will work well with needing access for little Patrick, and I’ve sewn them before so they should go together well.  I will need to trace new pattern pieces given size changes, but once I’ve done that I can do all three at once assembly-line-style.  I think they’ll be fun dresses, I have one piece of fabric I picked out, and two Patrick picked out.  (I decided to get both since one was on clearance for really cheap, so yay three dresses!)  I also plan to alter these to add pockets, with of course, a button hole for the insulin pump.  It will be nice to have something pretty to wear that is comfortable and fits well.  It’s been difficult needing to buy clothes, I’m looking forward to making my own again.

Speaking of clothes, the other thing I need to do is sew myself some skirts for work.  At least those are easy to sew.  Trying to buy them is egregiously terrible since apparently the only thing people want to buy is pencil skirts or trousers.  Lets just say pencil skirts don’t suit my shape (I am not and never have been a square, if they don’t go in at the waist, they fall down, even at this  point they need to go in at certain spots to fit).  And trousers are ok, and I can find some that fit if I put a lot of time in but they generally look terrible and are really uncomfortable.  Also, skirts are much more flexible for DC weather.  They’re like wearing shorts in summer and in winter I can wear fuzzy tights and they’re way warmer than pants then.  So yeah, buying skirts is a no-go so I need to make some new ones.  I have some nice wool I was given as a gift, I just need to get some fabric for the lining and then sew them up.  I have a month though to do it.

Other than those projects, the garden survives, it’s still making some peppers and tomatoes which is nice.  We’ve also got lots of herbs which is very useful.  The slow cooker also remains useful, Patrick made awesome pulled pork.  It’s really nice producing a lot of food that can easily be turned into lunches or dinners when we need them during the week.  It’s also nice for the budget.

Speaking of food, we’ve agreed to wait on canning this year since we want to move and things are busy.  I will probably miss that the way I missed clothes I made myself, but it’s probably a good idea.  And I’ll get to can lots of things next year.  And I have plenty of things to keep me busy right now anyway…

On we go

July 6, 2016 /

So my projects are making progress in various ways. I’ve made progress on my knitting, the garden (luckily!) is making progress with little intervention and I’ve gotten to try some new cooking adventures out too.

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Ta Da!  Actual knitting progress!  Knitting (while not very fast) has been very useful with my new sleep schedule.  It’s a lot harder to space out and start to fall asleep if your hands are busy.  And since I’m into the cable pattern now, it’s really obvious if I’m not focused enough!  I want to start my Beatnik sweater too, but I think I’m going to stick to finishing my hat first.  For one, this gives me the chance to get used to knitting again after a few months off; and for another I want my hat back!  I don’t really need a fuzzy hat in July, but if I don’t stick with it, I won’t have one when it starts to get cold again so there are good reasons for sticking with it.  Speaking of hats, maybe I should make a hat as a Christmas present for my brother-in-law this year.  He likes to critique the hat I made him a few years ago…which in my defense was an early knitting project…giving him a newer fancier one would require him to up his game in terms of critiques, which would be fun.  We’ll see though since I don’t think I’ll be doing any projects quickly this year.  If not this year, maybe next year.

Things are actually looking pretty good in the garden.  There’s plenty of lettuce and radishes out there and there’s a bunch of beans that should get picked.  Also, the mystery squash hasn’t been killed off yet by squash vine borers!  It even looks like we’re going to get tomatoes this year and the peppers have recovered pretty well from the insanely cold/wet May we had.  I haven’t checked the cucumbers recently, but they were alive and trying to make cucumbers last time I looked, so I consider that doing well.  The potatoes look a little sad, but that’s because they’d like to be watered more, and well, there’s a lot to do right now.  Still, all things considered I think it’s doing petty well.  And since the goal was “whatever we get, if anything, is awesome” I consider things a success so far!

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The new cooking adventure is our shiny new crock pot.  Our old crock pot which was an older one from family no longer maintains high enough temperatures (which is a problem!) so it was time to get a new one.  After a lot of research we picked this one since it’s bigger (6 qts!) it’s oval (yay meat cooking!) and it’s programmable (not burning the house down!).  As for why we’re interested, the hope is that with the crock pot we can prepare a meal early in the day when we have a little more time and then there’s no rushing around in the evening when we’re tired and trying to get things done so we can get as much sleep as possible.  The other idea is making a nice big meal that produces lots of useful leftovers and doesn’t generate a lot of dirty dishes to deal with.  And since the lid and stoneware insert go in the dishwasher… there are some definite benefits.

So last night was it’s maiden voyage/cooking attempt.  I think it did well, everything fit in there, it cooked it well, the timer worked, it was easy to clean, etc.  Our first attempt was a nice simple pot roast (I was tempted to do the fancy recipe, but since this was our first try with this crock pot and since things are busy I went with the straightforward one).  I think next week I’ll try the beef and dumplings recipe I have.

So, all in all, that’s a nice bit of progress on my projects I think!

Summer Crafting

July 2, 2016 /

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My list of planned crafts is probably going to be shorter than last year.  After all, I’m starting half way through the year!  So this makes sense.  Also, given that we’re probably going to be moving at some point in the next year the smart choice for craft projects is going to be to use up what I have already in terms of materials.  I may make a few exceptions to that, certain changes to my physique mean I have no sun dresses that fit right now so enough fabric to make two dresses might need to be purchased unless I find some in the bins somewhere, but for the most part I’m going to do my best to stick to what I’ve got since I’d rather move completed projects than move lots of stashed supplies.

Almost all of my supplies are stored in plastic bins from Costco (so they all match, hurray!) with most of it being fabric, but there’s also yarn too.  For the most part my craft plans fall into two categories, knitting and sewing.  Knitting is easy, I have a couple of bins of yarn right now (I think 2.5 bins?) and the highest volume yarn is the yarn I got for sweaters.  So the best thing to do is probably going to be to work on knitting sweaters.

Knitting

Beatnik Sweater

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The first project I want to make is the Beatnik sweater.  I got the same yarn used in the pattern (same as the above picture) and I actually started knitting this several years ago.  Unfortunately it was my first time knitting a sweater in a really long time and my first time ever trying to knit something with a chart.  Needless to say this was a bad idea.  So I’ve ripped out my first attempt, and now is probably a good time to try again.  Also it’s a mostly cotton yarn so that will be nicer to work with during summer.  And since I’ve already got the pattern and yarn, it’s a no cost project, yay!

Rook Sweater

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The second project I want to do is the Rook sweater.  This is another one I’ve tried knitting before.  I want to use some Wool of the Andes Tweed I have in a really dark grey with light grey and white flecks.  Last time I tried I could not get gauge no matter what I did.  It always seems to me that I can only get gauge to match vertically or horizontally, but not both.  If I can’t get it to work this time I think I’ll try to calculate any changes to the pattern I might need and try to use my yarn anyway.  Luckily despite the challenges, I already have the yarn and pattern, so this one won’t cost anything either.

Mystery Light Blue Cardigan

 

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The purpose of this one is to use up the light blue Wool of the Andes yarn I have.  I’ve considered several possible patterns for this one, but its hard to figure out what would be best.  I really like sweaters, but a cardigan is probably more useful at the moment.  There’s also the dilemma of using a pattern I already own vs finding the perfect one.  A sweater/cardigan takes a long time to make so finding a perfect pattern is a good idea, but at the same time I have a bunch of patterns (free, from my magazine subscription, from books, etc.) and actually using the ones I’ve got makes me happy.  Currently I’m leaning towards Prairie Fire, but doing another Peabody sweater, a MacGowan  or a Jean sweater or a Two Trees cardigan also sound like decent ideas.  A Prairie Fire or Peabody sweater would probably work best with the color though.

Socks and Hats

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These are projects I’ve already started, one pair of socks for me, one pair as a Christmas present for Grandpa Patrick and a replacement yellow hat (replacing the one that was lost sometime in January).  They’re smaller projects so I figure I’ll probably work on these when I’m on the train.

Sewing

Then there’s sewing, which is harder…  Some stuff is obvious, since the goal is to use up some of my fabric stockpile before we move.  I have 1 pair of pants cut out for Patrick and fabric for at least 3 more.  If only sewing pants wasn’t annoying (welt pockets are pretty much the worst, even if I get them right the darn things start to fray right away).  I also need to alter my summer dresses, which won’t use up much fabric, just some small pieces to make gussets, but it will mean having dresses I can wear this summer (and boy am I ever glad I like shirt dresses, since they’re the only ones that are ‘functional’ at the moment).

The other stuff I have a lot of is small pieces of patterned cotton fabric and shirting.  The shirting is easy, more shirts for me and Patrick (yay shirts!).  Luckily unlike pants, sewing shirts is awesome.  The patterned fabric is best suited for household crafts and things for little Patrick.  Luckily making things for little Patrick should be fun (and useful!) and household crafts (ie potholders, pillow covers, etc) are usually fun and relaxing.  I have patterns for rompers, onsies, overalls, shirts and pants for little Patrick, so I’ll probably try out some of those.  I think I’ll probably be making some adjustments to the patterns.  For example, why in the world would you put the snaps in the back for a romper?  When you lay the baby down to change them they’re laying on the snaps!  So yeah, some changes will be needed.

Oh, and I’ll be making myself some work clothes too.  Definitely skirts since I think I’m probably going to need to adjust my sizing there, at least for a little while longer (luckily this is a simple self drafted A-line skirt pattern, so that’s easy enough to adjust).  I have some very nice wool I received as a gift so I’ll make some for that fabric.  And I have some other bottom weight fabric of various kinds that I can pick out one or two types to make the first versions of the updated pattern (never test a new/adjusted pattern on beautiful wool fabric!).

I might make some shirts for work too, it depends on how well those do or don’t fit in a couple months.  Depending on what fabric I have I’d also like to make both me and Patrick some casual shirts too.  We’ll see.  For Patrick (little and regular sized) I’m going to use up some of my knit fabric to make T-shirts and things.  Those go quickly and are useful.  I really wish there was more good quality knit fabric though.  Maybe I’ll try some from Nancy’s Notions.  So far JoAnn’s has been pretty terrible for knit fabric and Fabric.com has been a mix.

There’s lots of other stuff I’d like to try:

  • Luggage!
  • A new bag/purse (my poor green one is developing holes despite years of being awesome)
  • Dresses for me
  • Curtains (can’t do this until we move though)
  • Cute household things (fun but not practical and will take time and not use much fabric)
  • etc.

But those have to wait until later.

Miscellaneous Other Projects

There are of course many other things I’d like to do.  I want to improve in terms of physical fitness and bike more.  I want to finish fixing up the knitting machine and get better at using it.  I want to write again and make my own knitting patterns. I want to go to museums and places downtown with Patrick and take little Patrick on walks to the park.  I want to get farther with relearning to play the piano…  There are lots of things to do that should be fun.

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