What was June for Again?

Making garments is the answer and I'll be making several little things for Miss Bu this month. I've just finished washing and drying the fabric for a couple little jumpers and some shirts. Baby girl is growing and needs new clothes.

That's a lot of potential sewing right there (not counting the other two pieces of fabric not pictured because my undies are hanging up just to the right as well) and these are some darn ambitious goals, but I thrive on ambitious goals. Even if I fall a bit short of my intentions, I can still manage something awesome. DaVinci Disorder*, FTW. And, in addition to this, I'm planning on doing a shirt for the Outfit-a-long and, at some point later in the year, I want to do up a Suffragette costume.

This is the pattern I'm using for the Outfit-a-Long and I'm strongly considering the V-neck short sleeve for its versatility, though I really like the slash-front 3/4 sleeved one, too. Nothing saying I can't make both, but for the purposes of the OAL, the V-neck is the way to go. I'm considering a couple different yarns to use for the knitted portion of these adventures, namely Alisha Goes Around: Walk of Snipes in a gorgeous blue that would be awesome as a lightweight cardigan of some kind. I've also got some Quince & Co.: Finch that I really want to try and that would look really great as a cowl. I'm leaning cardigan in the blue, but I think I might have to go pet my yarn and find a pattern I like. I'm going to do Vitamin D eventually, but I think that's going to be an intentional project during the Hyperborean (basically winter) months.

Anyhow, between the end of the school year and the beginning of summer, I've been busy and have been neglecting the ol' blog, but lots of knitting and other crafting is still going on in the background. In addition to the usual stuff, I'm working on an alternate teaching certification program and doing my best to help both kids be as awesome as they can be (which is pretty darned awesome). The former involves regular, concentrated work, the latter, well, gifted kids are a particular challenge. We just got the little one's IQ score back and the psychologist who showed us the number was nearly speechless. It was a really big number.

See? I'm knitting!

All that aside, I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things and to start posting regularly again. I miss blogging and I miss how it was helping me focus on my crafting life. I'm pretty regular on Instagram as DelphinianJess, so if you miss me here, I'll be over there with a fair amount of regularity.

*Not a real disorder

Embroidery March: Bonus Wrap-up Post!

March has an extra Thursday in it, so I thought I'd look back on this month and see how some of my attitudes and perceptions have changed about embroidery in general and to show you some progress I've made on the various projects for the month.

Freestyle will be my first love as far as embroidery goes. I'm getting better at satin stitch, which I previously hadn't made much use of, and at doing more with fewer colors and stitches, such as with the snowdrops hanky from earlier this month.

I love the freedom of it and the ability to have all the tools of embroidery at my disposal. A++, would go again.

Blackwork is limiting, not only because it's entirely black, but also because it's a counted-stitch method. It's the opposite of my preferred freestyle embroidery, but limiting my toolbox, as it were, allows me to focus on how the weight of the thread and the density of the pattern affects the look of the design. Where freestyle is more like painting, this is pen and ink.

As an extra added bonus, I get to play with repeating geometric designs, for which I have an unnatural fondness.

A++, would go again.


Previously, I thought cross-stitch to be one of the, er... lower forms of embroidery. I sort of have a bias against the creepy large-eyed children and schmoopy sayings that tend to be done up in cross-stitch. Those and the Thomas Kinkade style pictures have never really been the sort of thing I like to do.

My own design based on illustrations from old books? That I can do. I will admit to liking the design process better than the actual stitching, but I like the stitching much more when it's a design that doesn't make me want to barf.
B+, won't ever be my favorite, but I'm enjoying what I'm doing.

Whitework is seriously hard to photograph, but looks pretty bitchin' in person. There's just something about white-on-white that gives me heart palpitations. Because, like blackwork, my embroidery toolbox is much more limited, I can focus on a different element of the whole embroidery picture. In this case, it's the way texture is affected by the structure of the stitch. I suppose this would be more like relief sculpture than anything else because whitework makes use of light and shadow playing off of the three-dimensional stitches. I've opted to go for something more like Mountmellick embroidery first because cutwork makes me feel woozy. When I can manage it without fainting, I'll be able to make use of negative space, too. I'm not there yet, though.
A++, would go again.

Bonus:

I like seed stitch. You could do a whole piece in seeding and it would be like some kind of embroidery version of pointillism.

This piece is giving me fits, though. These shapes between the flower petals and the petals themselves are very uneven. I still haven't decided if I'm just going to roll with it or take it out in a fit of pique. It's having a cool-off period for now.


And so we have come to the end of the first quarter. I'm going to keep working on these (except for the blue thing, which is in time out), but we're going to look at some new stuff in the second quarter as I continue to try to get the da Vinci Disorder under control.

April will be for Quilt Piecing  and I wish it were more alliterative and clever, but hey, whaddya gonna do? We're going to make some quilt blocks is what. I have quilt-based aspirations that need a good swift kick in the pants.

After that, we'll be participating in Me-Made-May, sort of. Not officially. You can do that here. Mostly, I want to do a retrospective to see what I'm actually using of the things I make. It's also an excellent excuse to get caught up on some of the projects I've started in the first quarter. May also tends to be a little wackadoo for us, so I'll need a breather for sure.

Following Me-Made-May in June is the Outfit-a-long, hosted over here by Ms Lladybird. Again, I won't be officially alonging, but I'm going to sew something to wear that I'm actually going to wear, then I'm going to knit something to go with the something I sewed.

See you at Stitches!

Year in Review

 This year has been wild ride and I'm really rather pleased with the amount of making that's happened in a mere 365 days.

I got some big projects done from start to finish. The Sheep of Unknown Provenance was one of my biggest spinning projects to date and I learned a lot about how to process fleece, dye wool, and spin with color.

 Some projects were abandoned entirely and I'm not a hundred percent sure why. It could be that they were too fiddly or that I was distracted by something shiny or that it just wasn't what I wanted to be doing.

 Simple, but well-made seems to make me happy. I loved the challenge of learning new things like matching plaids and incorporating that knowledge into something I could share.

I knit or crocheted over 7,600 yards this year, which is the most I've done since I started keeping track. I couldn't tell you how much I've spun, but I'd wager it's more than I've spun in the past. I feel productive... and warm.

My baby has gone from a toddler...

...to a little girl. (Cue sentimental Mama sobbing).

And my big one...

A beautiful young woman. (Cue more sentimental Mama sobbing).

I've learned a lot, made a lot, been lots of places, worked hard, hung out with friends, and generally have had a lovely time of it. Parts of this year were difficult, but I'm surrounded by a lot of love. 

I've changed my mind and moved toward more compassion and more love. Just when you think there couldn't possibly be more room for that, more room is just there. 

Thank you for making me better.  

In 2016, I look forward to more challenges, more beauty, more making, more love, more focus. I look forward to the new shape of Project Make and to learning more about what I can do and what I can be: Faster, higher, more betterer. 

It's gonna be great. See you in 2016.

P.S. The Etsy shop is open now, if you want to take a look. 

P.P.S. Just a reminder that January will be the Month of Mending for the new and improved Project Make: a year long -along of -alongs.

Fall seems to be creeping in

Sometimes, the FOs are tasty. This is about eight jars of peach nutmeg jelly that I put up this weekend. It's even husband-approved.

I have a mind to do some apple cinnamon jelly as well, but I want to get some apple pie filling done first so that I can have the peels and cores.

Jelly is kind of magical in that I feel like I'm getting something from practically nothing.

The spinning queue is moving along, too. Most of the time, I try to spin while listening to the Cubs play. At this point, I'm 3/4 of the way through the silk. I've got one more not-for-me spinning project to do, then it's on to spinning my own stash again.

I've also been working on some mending this week. When you have a pair of jeans you like, it's really hard to let them go. I'm liking the different sashiko stitch patterns and I feel like I get a sturdier patch this way, since no fabric is lost by cutting away the old fabric for the new. 

With other kinds of mending, the patch tends to pull on the old fabric in such a way that often results in even more holes, so you get caught in an endless spiral of patching or you just give up on the garment altogether. Because sashiko patches are quilted to the old fabric, there's no significant pulling at stress points like corners. The whole patch moves with the rest of the fabric. 

Next up is some embroidery for some of the smaller/more difficult holes on the side seam.

I've been wearing my plaid shirt this week, especially in the cooler early hours of the morning and, as Bu has also observed, it is so comfy. This is a sewing win.

And I did manage to get a picture of Iris in her natural habitat. The other pictures are a bit more flaily, but I thought this one was nice (garbage can notwithstanding).

Another DaVinci Disorder* flare.

I'm happy to report a finished object this week. That's 356 yards (326m) of Cascade 220 in a lovely coral with the compelling color name 7830. This is a variation on the BFF cowl by Ysolda Teague and tiny owl knits. I did the first link as written, but the second link is one of my own devising. There's a tight cable braid up the middle, flanked by... I forget what the stitch is called. It's a 1x1 rib that shifts over one stitch every two rows.  The border is the same as in the first link, three stitches of ribbing: purl, knit, purl on the right side, followed by three stitches of stockinette that curls over for a nice rounded edge. It's already been delivered to the BFF in question and I'm just waiting on my link to really finish the whole shebang. That would be a not-so-subtle hint if said BFF hadn't been working on a sweater for her darling and delightful youngest child, but now that it's finished (it's really awesome work, BTW)...

Where my link at, woman?

I will wait patiently. No rush. When you get to it, you know.

I also finished a stack of small project bags. They're about sock-sized, I think, and I'm rather pleased with them. All they need is a little bit of ribbon to close them up and they'll be completely finished.

I love that the plaids are matched on the side, but my favorite part is the liner and the shirt pocket inside.

I'm not sure why that tickles me so, but it does.

These were made for Project Make as a companion piece to the plaid shirt that I made for the Outfit-a-long, where I learned to match plaids and when not to bother (such as with the shirt pockets).

I also finished plying some merino? from a sheep named Sophia that was dyed for me many moons ago. It's about 145 yards of two ply about fingering weight or so, Z-spun and S-plied, as is my custom.  So that's three FOs from three different crafts this week. Golly. Unless some miracle occurs in the next day, I've got a little over a thousand meters to go in Stash Dash to reach 3k. I'm not going to "win," but I'm pleased with the finishing I've done anyway.

It's been a busy week of crafting. I even started to cut my t-shirt, but then realized I wanted to do some alterations and needed a little help.

I've started and nearly finished a ballband dishrag out of Mason Dixon Knitting. This one is the inverse of the one I did before, which has now faded so that the colors are about indistinguishable.

One end of the Leto is about done and it's been getting some love as my travel project. These two have been my most active projects and were the ones I took to the Yarnspinner's Bee at our local library. I regret not getting a picture because these ladies were pretty great. Other than the announcement on the library's website, there's no actual presence on the web. They're not on Ravelry at all, which is a darn shame, because I think they'd get a kick out of all the free patterns available there. Ms. Nancy made some adorable pirate-themed stuffies from fleece, Ms. Vera does some amazing beadwork, Ms. Lorna who directs Children's Literature there is content to make simple scarves, and Ms. Cara is the quiet one. They all had about forty years on me, but I don't think I've laughed so hard in a month. I'll be going again, for sure.

And here you go, Mom. Phoebe hugging my elbow:

*DaVinci Disorder is not a real disease. My sister and I made it up to describe our crafting polygamy. 

En Pointe

I made those feet. She made them be awesome.

Iris gets her pointe shoes this Saturday. This is a big deal for a dancer, like getting your wand before you go to your first year at Hogwarts. The shoes and the dancer's feet have  to be just exactly right for each other or disaster follows. She could be injured or worse-- expelled!*  At any rate, I'm proud of how hard she's worked to get to the place where she has the opportunity to work even harder. Here are some Australian dancers explaining this a little better than I can:

The best way I know how to express my joy for her is with knitwear, so a pair of rainbow socks seemed like just the thing. The socks pictured above are called Beautiful Feet and it's Lara Neel's Fork in the Road socks, toe up version of my own devising, in Knit Picks Felici: Rainbow and Studio Avenue Six Self Striping sock yarn: 2 light blue, 2 dark blue (discontinued).

I made some headway on the second link to the BFF cowl as well and I seem to be hitting my stride. The first part of the cabling is a little wonky and I'm going to leave it because I'm a little wonky and my BFF knows it.

Leto, on the other hand is stuck in the black hole of being made out of lace weight and longer than is strictly necessary, but I love the drape of a finely knit fabric and, frankly, kind of want to have a big wide chunk of that border pattern. It's a process knit, anyway, and not a product knit. Its lesson is patience and persistence.

 The black alpaca got a little bit of attention this week, too, and finally got carded and spun a little. Tour de Fleece wasn't going to happen this year, but I'm glad to move the fiber queue up a little.

In ballet, to be en pointe is representative of skill, persistence, dedication, and strength. Taking point in the military means to be up front (where the danger is). Being on point in other contexts could mean to be at the forefront of an issue or to be someone who exhibits competence and style.

Sometimes I feel like I'm running to stand still, but I've had a good week. I feel on point/en pointe myself, and you can take any of those meanings you like except for the one where I'm literally standing on my toes.

Because that's really Iris' thing.

I only do it to reach things on tall shelves.

Which, frankly, is kind of often.

This is this year's Colors of Fall Outfit-a-long all finished. One plaid casual men's shirt from stash flannel and one Trillian by Martina Behm in Silky B Cashmere in a navy sparkle, bringing my Stash Dash total meterage up to 1,462, about halfway to the 3k line. I deviated from the official OAL patterns, but I'm going to get a lot of wear out of both of these, so that's a definite win. I feel competent, in front of things, skillful, and maybe even a little stylish.

Iris is definitely all of those things and more. I'm proud of her. Good job, kiddo.**

*no one is getting expelled. Chill, Hermione.
** I also realize that the only picture of Iris in this post is the one of her feet. She's elusive and difficult to photograph, like Bigfoot, but more graceful and with better eyeshadow. She's certainly less hairy. I'm also very proud of Bu, who is full of so much potential energy and deserves much more than a footnote.

Busy times

It's actually too warm for flannel shirt shenanigan, but I'll be ready when it finally cools down. I ended up using a men's/boy's shirt pattern and initially cut it much too large. Thanks to my experience with the boys' dance shirts, though, I was able to cut it down to a more sensible size. Miss Lladybird's tutorial helped me match the plaids and last week's buttonhole video helped me make neater, more even buttonholes. The next shirt will fit a little better, but for kicking around in cool weather, this one is just right. Successfully matching plaids is pretty darn satisfying and I can totally see me doing up another one in the future.

Pattern, fabric, buttons, and thread came from stash, so all I had to buy was interfacing for this one. If I were to do it again, I'd get a woven plaid instead of a print, but the whole project only cost a couple of bucks (and a ridiculous amount of labor).

So that's one half of the Colors of Fall Outfit-a-long all done and ready to wear. The knitting on Trillian is done, but it still needs a wash and a block. I'll try to get some shots of both together next week. It's done enough for Stash Dash, though, so that puts me at 1245m and still moseying along.

I'm doing up some project bags in this same fabric, which will go into the Project Make bin as representative of the aforementioned plaid-matching shenanigans. The next bit of sewing after that will be a t-shirt for me out of some discount jersey. I'm picking through my neglected projects and I've worked on Leto a little bit this week, but I think the next thing will be the BFF cowl. Aside from the purse socks, I'm pretty sure that's the closest project to done, so far as yardage goes. That means I've checked off three of this month's goals:

1. Finish the plaid shirt
2. Finish Trillian
3. Find a neglected project and begin working on it before month's end
4. Sew a t-shirt for myself
5. Card the rest of the black alpaca and finish spinning it

I'm also studying for the GRE again and getting Miss Fluffalo ready to start high school, so it's busy times at the House.

Moving right along

This week's post is a little late, due to some extra adulting that happened yesterday. With luck, patience, fortitude, and persistence, I will be moving to the next stage in my professional career. That process is going to be a job in and of itself, but there could be very good things at the end of it.

It's not every day I treat you to a picture of my armpit, but I thought I'd share the results of my plaid-matching shenanigans. I gotta tell you, seeing it line up like that is pretty darn satisfying. Unfortunately, the other side wasn't nearly as tidy, but it turned out pretty well, all things considered. I still have buttonholes, buttons, and a bottom hem to go, which shouldn't take too long if I can ever get some quality time with my sewing machine.

Knitting is boring this week. I made it to the 400 yard mark on my Trillian, but have a whole other two hundred yards to go. It's going to be huge, squashy, warm, and wonderful. I can't wait to wear it.

This week's technique is buttonholes. There are several ways to do buttonholes and you do them by hand or fancy it up a bit and bind them with fabric. For the most part, though, and for a casual shirt like this one, I generally use the buttonhole setting on my sewing machine.

When you cut the buttonhole open, you can place a straight pin at the end so that you don't push your seam ripper through the stitches. I also use embroidery scissors to cut the holes open because I feel like I can be very precise with them and the pin trick would still work.

That's it this week. I'm hoping that by this time next week, I'll have a finished shirt to show you.

Rainbow-themed Jubilance

This week has been a pretty darn productive one and, looking back on June, I'd have to say I'm pretty happy with the way things are going. 

Thematically appropriate mug choice for this week.

I just want to knit and sew rainbows all over the place, but I have a shirt and a shawl to make for OAL shenanigans and will not be distracted from my goal. You will be mine, plaid flannel shirt, Oh yes, you will be mine.

Cutting continues at a slow pace and, wouldn't you know it, I didn't have enough interfacing. It's always the interfacing. I think I have some, but "some" always turns out to be maybe a quarter of a yard if you were to line up all the scraggly little pieces into a sort of rectangular shape, between which no actual pattern pieces will fit. 

It's fine. I bought more. 

I also came home with three new patterns because McCall's were on sale: 6613 is to replace the one I'm currently cutting, 6964 is for... because t-shirts, and 7141 is for my sweet otaku Fluffalo. 

I do still have some rainbow socks on the needles for the aforementioned Fluffalo, though, and that satisfies my need for rainbow-themed jubilance pretty well. They're my purse knitting, though, so aren't seeing much action. 

What is seeing a lot of action, though, is Trillian by Martina Behm. It's the second half of the OAL and my morning knitting. I'm well into the 2nd of three balls of yarn now and knitting with laser focus. I want to be done and I'd like to step up the pace on the Stash Amble/Mosey (aka Stash Dash for those doing more finishing than I). 

I did finish Die grünen, Easy Ribbed Legwarmers by  Carol Wells:

And those ended up being over 300 yards of old stash. I really love them, even though they're about the simplest thing you could knit, and I'm hoping to get quite a bit of wear out of them in the cold months. 

Then there was jam:

The observant among you will notice that my floors are really clean. Generally, while I wait for the jars to cool, I use the water from the canner to mop the floors. Most of these jams will be retained for us to have through the year, but some will end up given away at some point. There's still jelly to be made in the fall, so I'm sure there will be plenty to share. I'm toying with the idea of selling a few jars, but I haven't decided. What I may do is offer a few jars at the end of 2015 as part of the culmination of Project Make, but at this point I'm just thinking out loud.

This week's technique is processing jars of jam for safe storage. The best resource is the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning and I'm a big fan of federally funded science that results in the common good, but I'll also outline my method here as simply as possible. 

• Before you start, sanitize your jars on "Heat Dry" in the dishwasher or in boiling water for about five minutes
• Make the jam or jelly, put the jam in the jars with about 1/4" head space (the gap of air between the jam and the lid).
• Heat lids in warm water, not boiling, five to ten minutes, until the plastic seal is soft. Use new lids. They're a couple bucks for a dozen, which is a bargain for food safety.
• Carefully wipe the rim of the jar clean as clean can be
• Place a lid on each jar and secure with a metal ring
• The metal ring should be secure so that the lid stays on and in place
• But not so tight that air cannot escape
• Submerge jars in boiling water that covers at least an inch to two inches of the jar for seven minutes
• Remove from the boiling water, you'll want a jar-grabber thingy, and let them cool until you hear a POP! from every jar. 
• The jars that don't POP! can be re-processed in boiling water or refrigerated and eaten right away. 

Looking back, I like what I'm seeing. I feel good about the things I'm making and because I want to continue this trend, I'm going to be bold and set some goals for this month:

1. Finish the plaid shirt
2. Finish Trillian
3. Find a neglected project and begin working on it before month's end
4. Sew a t-shirt for myself
5. Card the rest of the black alpaca and finish spinning it

Those are completely doable goals, I think. It's okay if I don't get all of that done before the month's out, but I'm so focused on the few things I am doing that I think I can get much of this short list done.

Because of magic

So, that happened. 

Last week we went to Cocoa Beach for a couple days and then to Disney for another four days mainly for dance-related shenanigans. Do you see that smile on my face? That's the real deal and I'm smiling like this in all of the photos I'm in because I am genuinely having a blast. Frankly, I'd forgotten what it felt like to be relaxed and have a nice time. Even when we did the Showcase of Bathrooms with the little bit, we were having a good time. Aside from a few unfortunate potty-training-related difficulties, it was one of our best vacations. 

The best part? Everyone was super nice and not only because it was their job. I saw buckets and buckets of genuine compassion, playfulness, kindness, joy, and general awesomeness. Even guests were uncommonly kind to one another because... of... magic. That's all I can come up with.

I also left my tablet at home for the entire trip, which means my brain got a rest, too, but it also means that I'm short on pictures this week, so here's a gratuitous photo of the Fluffalo hoarding kale chips.

I actually got quite a bit of knitting done this past week, though almost no knitting happened during our four days at Disney. Much of what happened was during the 12+ hour drive. I got about 1 1/4 of Fluffalo's socks done, minus heels, on the way down and I managed about 2 1/2 feet of Trillian on the way back. I'm almost done with the legwarmers, too. It's amazing what you can accomplish if you spend hours doing nothing but sitting and knitting. It's like magic. 

Now that I've started Trillian, the Outfit-a-Long is gaining momentum. I'm focusing this week on getting my shirt cut out and working on my shirt-making skills, including matching plaids. I'm mostly reading and watching videos about matching plaids right now because the fabric is still in the wash, but Miss Lladybird's tutorial looks like it hits the OCD/lazybutt balance just right. So that's this week's technique. (Woo!) I'll let you know how it goes. Right this second, though, I have to go put the fabric in the dryer.

Ummm... because mint

And speaking of being thorough, I just skimmed through my monograph on little (mostly) brown South American butterflies and remembered just how flippin' thorough I can be. I've spent some time away from it while Professor worked on the edits to send it to a journal and I wanted to look through it one more time before sending it out in the world. I'm proud of my work and I hope it will serve to help other scientists learn about these beauties for a very long time. Even as long as it is and as thorough as I was, it's not complete and never will be. It's taken nearly two hundred years to understand even as much as I do about this group and I know I'm only scratching the surface. Anyway, I'll let you know how that goes, too. I'm not sure what the timeline is for publication for this particular journal is, but it shouldn't be too long. 

So, did you miss me? How has your June been going? Did you have a Happy Solstice?