Stuff On the Worktable

Here's a quick rundown of my current projects, and a cool thing I figured out for a small work area. Projects first!

This first one is a two-layer dressup sun/royalty crown I made for my kids. It's a big pain to sew, though, because of the fiddly shape of the rays, so I probably won't be making any to sell that are just like this. I'm also planning to make a soft tricorn hat and a pointy hat, but the little guys have to wait for those. The big sewing project (my formal and Laura's formal) is going to eat up a large amount of my time.

The second thing I'm making is a soft toy inspired by the fact that little kids love to pull all the tissues or wipes out of a box. I'm calling a it a "magic tissue box" and the "tissues" are serged random shaped fabric pieces, different on each side They connect with hook-and-loop, so they pull out one after the other, but will tear away for safety, and connect to the bottom of the "box." The box is actually a box bag without a zipper, overlapped to give the illusion of closure.

I'm making one for Mr Giant Baby to replace the cardboard-and-knotted-fabric prototype, and one to test the waters with in my Etsy shop. I had several goals for this:

1. Stimulating patterns and colors, maybe also textures
   
2. Washable, all fabric
   
3. Soft
4. Safe (so no knotted-together pieces of fabric)
5. Portable, so it has a handle, and the "tissues" connect with hook-and-loop so they don't get lost easily

They are still in progress, and I'm still deciding whether I want to add round and square tissues or keep with the random triangles and rectangles I've been using. Also, I have a few threads left to trim..



This is a hint of the colorful pieces for something I am planning to sell, which is a terrycloth teething toy. Mr Giant Baby has already worn his prototype nearly out, but he'll get a new one of these, too.

My goals for this one are:

1. Bright colors and interesting patterns
2. Teethable surfaces (terrycloth)
3. Washable and quickly drying
4. Interesting surfaces
5. Loop for hooking to stroller/carseat

Pictures when I have more than just parts!

Finally, this is my solution to having only one worktable, two machines I need to switch between, and a small work area (so adding another table is impractical). I got this turntable with a TV stand that was Freecycled to us, and since my husband didn't want the turntable it was sitting around useless - until I realized it would fit on my worktable, and it would hold both my machines (which happen to share the same type of pedal/cord). It works fabulously, and all I have to do to switch machines is unplug one, spin and plug in the other. It's really fast if I do my matching thread setup before I start.

And here is the coolest thing, which I figured out recently - I can fit my small cutting mat on the end of the worktable next to the turntable, so I can cut things out without having to move the machines around! Yay for better organization in small spaces.

Blogstalky: Purse Gutz

Well, I delayed to make it more interesting, but it really isn't. I'd be a wallet girl if I didn't need a diaperbag.

ETA: Okay, something that got eaten by blogger while I fought with the editing window in my other browser is that it isn't originally a diaperbag - it's a smallish medium-sized purse with lots o' pockets, as I despise most diaper bags, even the non-fluffy-bunny styles. I had intended to make my own diaper bag, but never got around to it. So I went hunting for one that fit my idea of what I wanted (I'd had the perfect purse-cum-small-diaperbag when FX was little, but gave it away to a friend who needed one), I hunted all over and found it at Target, I think. For 10 bucks. Cheap is good, and even more so if it doesn't fall apart (it's going on 2 years old now).

And it's about 10 x 7 x 8. A little bigger than I wanted, but still quite compact unless I stuff it.
(end added-left-out-part)

This, then, is my purse:

Wait. Mr. Giant Baby decided to "help" by violently shaking me while I snapped the photo. Let's try that again.

Okay, this is my purse. Lots of pockets. The silver zipper pocket is "my zone" and the pockets in front contain my things.

Yes, that includes cigarettes, but honestly, I only smoke one a day, at most, and I never finish them. And I smoke outside. Also, there is the wallet with red flames which my husband bought me so I wouldn't lose it. So, of course, I have, several times. But I did always find it again...


Arranged according to their position in the purse are:

1. from side pocket one: A bottle of Little Noses cold/allergy drops; A bottle of Infant Tylenol Dye-Free; a tube of baby Orajel (it is a diaper bag! I swear!)
   
2. from silver-zipper pocket: Pens mixed with some penlike makeup (eyeliner, mascara, coverup); checkbook; crumpled piece of paper; a penny; a large paperclip; Makeup (liquid, powder, lipstick, eyeshadow); an expansion pack for Chez Geek
3. from side pocket two: hand sanitizer (diaper bag!); a selection of emergency tampons.
4. My wallet, which has lots of cards, a bunch of receipts, a small pen, and one dollar, just in case.

Next we have the contents of the inside and back pockets, minus the stinky diapers and wet bag, because those go straight into the diaper can when we get home. We have:

1. Several random pieces of paper. I have no idea whose phone numbers those are. I think this came from my husband's pocket, actually.
2. A pale yellow plastic fork-spoon-sporky thing
3. The sewing pattern for Laura's dress.
   
4. Two fortune cookie fortunes.
5. Three velcro tiedowns (seriously, these belong in every diaperbag).
6. baby wipes (diaperbag!)

Going Fabric Shopping Today

...because I'm a nut and I volunteered to make a gown for my friend Laura, since we're both curvy and weird to fit. It's just plain better to make it from scratch if you have to have that much fitting done, I say. 

I am taking Mr GiantBaby along, because Husband is exhausted (they do that to you regularly in the Marines, apparently), and he doesn't need 2 rambunctious kids running him over all day without backup. This means that all the stuff has to go with me too - stroller (no baby carrier, since he's HUGE and I'm already uncomfortable), cloth diapering stuff, feeding utensils (he's VERY into spoons), cup, juice, bag with toys...

And then there's what I need to bring - My swatches, since Laura and I are trying not to be clashy (we'll be hanging out all night while the men BS and drink, so we decided not to be clashy or matchy), the patterns, The Girly Stuff Survival Kit. Yeah, it's the Eve of That Week, and my uterus feels like it's warming up for a marathon. Ouch. 

Blogstalkers: I'm making my Purse Guts post after I get back, because it's much more interesting after a day out. It's all boring now, what with me having cleaned it day before yesterday. 

Also expect a "what I'm up to lately" post, since I've got the photos taken. I was just too lazy to write about them.

Why I shouldn't spend too much time online

Why? Well, besides the obvious equation that (time on the Internet) = (time not spent creating things), it also often means I find cool things to add to my ever expanding to-do list. Like making a biscornu embroidered with 15th century German counted-thread work.

The last time I tried this I was inspired to work it in miniature scale and I did exactly one motif.

Somebody smack me.

An observation

...or five. I got another slow row done on Bobby while waiting for the patient orientation, and tried (more fool me!) to keep going this evening. However, it didn't go as planned.

It's difficult to keep even tension when a toddler is fighting you for your needles. We won't even talk about when he grabbed the yarn.

Again, it is possible, but difficult and error-prone, to knit with your arms over your head. However, it's useless when knitting with circular needles that have a long cable. Ask me how I know.

It also makes your hands tingle if you do it too long.

Finally, I'm very happy I can pick up and re-work dropped stitches as I go. I had a bunch during the wrestling match(es).

Time for bed.

Really, it's knitting related!

Today, I go in to the Naval Hospital to go through the monthly patient orientation for tubal ligation patients. As you can imagine, I'm thrilled I'm on the list. I've been wanting a tubal since the birth of my second child, most recently mentioned here as Giant Baby of yarn destroying (and knitting unraveling) fame. I love my kids, but I know when I'm outnumbered, and I swear that it's only a matter of time before you read about them duct taping me to the wall and running off in my car.

But - my need-to-fidget, ADD body is looking toward an hour or two of boring presentations and Q&A with, well, dread. How will I hold still? Will the medical staff get angry that I'm so fidgety? How many other women will be there (well, you know, men just don't have this procedure)?

So I'll be bringing my knitting/small fidgety projects bag, which is this old shoulder-tote bookbag I got at Bookpeople in Austin when I lived there. I actually have two, but one is beige instead of lavendar, and it's missing. I'll probably have Bobby and the Scarf (which is now over 2 feet long! I know I've mentioned somewhere that I'm positively the slowest knitter ever) stuffed in there, with those charts and some graph paper , and a pencil, and maybe some spare yarn and needles. That's a lot of stuff, and my small projects are all in these little repurposed vinyl bags (ugly, but practical).

Also, I finally squeezed the money out of my budget to buy a Monkey Bag, which I await with barely contained greed. Too bad I have to wait, but I can take consolation from the fact that it'll go with me on procedure day.

Yarnival!

Go read Yarnival! this month. I'm in it, but There Is So Much More, and it is all better than my little venty entry.

Blogstalkers! The Navelgazing Post, or, it's all about me.

In honor of the reanimation of Knitty Coffeeshop Blogstalking, I've redecorated. However, I took the easy way out, and just used a template, so expect it to change again when I get around to it. Maybe I'll just spend some time trying on templates. I dunno.

Anyway - we're supposed to be self-centered this week. I'm awful at that (see! That's about me!). Personally, I think I'm boring, while the things I do, the places I've been, and the people around me, are interesting.

Here's an example of the boring, the normal, the unremarkable:

I'm 37. I have 2 kids. I'm averagely pudgy and averagely tall. I have averagely large feet. I have 3 sisters and 2 brothers, and three stepparents. I wear glasses. I drive an old, third-hand minivan. I had three years of college, and left to work without my degree.

The Interesting:

I grew up in California. I'm from Berkeley/North Oakland, with moves to Santa Cruz, Monterey, Mendocino, San Jose, San Diego, out of state to Texas, Oregon, and Illinois, and out of the country to Ireland (in early childhood). I've lived everywhere from very urban environments to very rural environments - places I had to carry mace, and places I had to feed horses and care for sheep. I like to tell people I was raised by a pack of wild intellectuals in the woods, which is close to the truth.

I've been doing fiber arts in some form since early childhood. So long, in fact, that I don't really know when I learned to spin. I know it was after 1973, because Susan Druding says that's when she sold my mom her wheel. I know I've been weaving since I was six or so, as I used to have a tapestry I made hanging in my room. I also don't remember when I learned crochet, but I remember my first attempt to learn to knit. It was AWFUL - my mother decided we would learn together, and we didn't. The resulting scarf was very 1970's, acid green, big "deliberate" holes, gauge problems, etc. I hated it, I hated knitting, and I never wanted to do it again. My mother hated the scarf so much she gave it away, and I remember being angry that she gave it away, because it was so hard won I did not want to part with it. Well, at least Nadia liked it, which is more than the horrid thing deserved.

I sew, and I sew all kinds of things. This week I designed a bra pattern for 1-way stretch denim I had lying around, and it is so comfortable. I'm also making my dress for the Marine Corps ball (in November), and I recently had fun doing brainless sewing for my living room (see the previous entry). I can drape, flat-pattern, and estimate yardage in my head. All for a hobby.

Professionally, I've been a bookshop clerk, a warehouse worker (I was so slim and strong, if only it had paid better), an administrative assistant, a graphic designer, a security guard (really), an illustrator, a web designer, a theatrical costume designer, a telephone operator, and a bridal dressmaker's assistant. I've also worked in restaurants, from being an assistant dessert chef at a 4-star gourmet place to managing a pizza parlor near a university.

I have geeky hobbies - I'm in the SCA, and I have done historic reenactments, museum volunteering (costumed interpreter, collections processing, docent). I like to play computer games (though I hardly ever get to anymore - I used to be really good at Quake.), and tabletop RPGs. I read a lot - everything from mysteries (I prefer historical ones where the authors have done lots of research that only other people like me would care about, of course), to horror, to fantasy, to hard research materials. I've been known to read encyclopedias for fun. I recreate medieval wire jewelry, collect beads (and sometimes use them), and cook stuff. I used to (before kids) work as a convention volunteer staffer for as many as three conventions a year, mostly science fiction. It's like herding cats, and that's just dealing with the important people :)






Um, I also used to be cool (sort of). I had a mohawk, and I have a tattoo on my scalp, of a knotwork roundel from the Book of Lindesfarne. Once, when I was a phone bank volunteer for KTEH in San Jose, the actor who plays Lister on Red Dwarf scared the crap out of me by sneaking up to take a photo of it. I managed to get a picture with him for that :) He is, by far, one of my favorites of all the "famous" people I've ever met (and I've met a lot of them).




See? it's the things around me that are interesting (even my hair is more interesting than me), not me. But I guess I clean up okay :)

Interior Decoration, Budget Style

When we moved, we had to store our livingroom furniture (two heirloom ironwood tables - too heavy; a large l-shaped sectional - too big; a steel and glass display cabinet - too heavy and too big; and a restaurant shelving entertainment center - didn't want to disassemble it), so we had nothing for the living room when we got here, except some pillows, some boxes, and some blankets.

We had planned to get some replacement furniture from Ikea, but they were out of all the cushions the day we went, so we didn't get any of it. And we ended up spending the money budgeted for that living room on other things in ensuing weeks. While the rest of our house was furnished, the living room sat empty and forlorn. Nothing but an area rug, boxes, sad and battered pillows, blankets and a big tv. It looked like a 'first apartment' story when you walked in the door, without the motorcycle on the carpet.

Later, I freecycled a loveseat, chair, and ottoman, which were originally white/yellow damask but had become ugly, dirty, ... and smelly. Cleaning was ... ineffective. We covered them with the blankets and used lots of Febreze for a couple of weeks. I got 20 yards of navy blue brushed microfiber, imprinted with a tiger-stripe pattern (invisible unless looked at closely) for a dollar a yard at Valdemart, which, when combined with my staplegun, worked just dandy to do a quick and dirty re-upholstery job on the used furniture.

At some point, we figured out the tv would fit nicely on top of Chris's footlocker. It looked okay for awhile (interestingly, this living room was still iffy enough that the only images I have are focused on my kids). We also got a torchiere from Valdemart and some wire grid shelves from Tarjay. It began to come together. The boxes began to leave the room.

Then, I freecycled a nicer, but still used, (and green) comfy chair and had to work that in, too. The same week, I ran by Ikea and bought 20 yards of end-of-season fabric (4 different, semi-coordinating fabrics). I love the end of season fabric. I made new covers for my pillows and even made drapes. I made a throw for the sofa, and I have enough left over to make all kinds of other stuff.

Then, later the same week,I discovered that the nearby daycare center was tossing lots of old, school quality, furniture (I'm guessing they got a grant to replace their old stuff), so I asked, got permission (crucial when dumpster scoring nice stuff!), and picked up three low storage shelves and a kids' workbench. The low shelves became a sofa table, a television stand, and the base for a wall unit also made up of a small chest of drawers and some of the grid shelving.

Here we have the curtains,

and some art I made to fill the large, empty wall.

So, now we have a living room full of furniture and I think we have spent 60 bucks. there's still a large box draped with extra fabric pretending to be an end table between the two chairs, but the rest are gone.

I want to do a really pretty, magazine style shot, but that requires a lack of cookies on the floor and good light. Maybe tomorrow.

I'm on etsy

See the sidebar for the link. Right now it's just cloth diapers, but that was a good place to start. People have been bugging me for years to sell my CDing stuff, but I couldn't keep up with my own kids and sew for sale before now.



Expect better photography in the future - it's hard to get a good shot at night!