Hearts

Psychedelic cat

Shipbuilding

It’s just a rumour that they spread around town.

Is that something in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Tags

2013 year of the buttonhole, buttonhole saga, buttonholes, sewing, vintage

Ming The Merciless meets Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz

Tags

charity shop, collar, comedy store, dress, dresses, dressmaking, improv, red dress, Seventies, sewing, Sunday People, Sunday People 494, theatre, vintage

Men reading fashion magazines, oh what a world it seems we live in…

Tags

Danny Boyle, London 2012, NHS, olympics, opening ceremony, pencil skirt, skirt, v9200, Vogue, vogue 9200

Entirely me-made outfit for the win!

Hey blog, how have you been?
Sorry for the three whole weeks when I have neglected you. I’ll try and be brief (I said try!):
I got my buttonholer attachment for Rufus (the Singer 257), but I haven’t had time to play with it properly. It works, though.
My friend’s wedding was amazing. Loud music, dancing, happy beautiful people being happy and beautiful. I did not wear the purple dress. The fabric I had chosen for the bodice was a perfect colour match, but completely V.I.L.E. to work with. Bulky and slippery and pretty much like sewing with polystirene trays from the chippy.
Instead, I wore my Scarlett O’Hara dress, that I never thought I would wear again. Thoughts of when I met my friend the bride, making peace with myself and picking my battles. It was a wonderful day and just how a wedding should be.

After the whole dress débacle I felt I had lost my sewing mojo, so after a few more UFOs this week I made another Vogue 9200, this time in an African print. This is actually my third one, as there is an unblogged one in a knit that will be a great pajama top one day.
I cannot love this pattern enough, it’s easy and fast and a lovely fit. I worked on it on Sunday and Monday while listening to the new series of “Clearing” (“If you can’t sack people then you shouldn’t be a Dean!” So true it hurts). Loved this top so much that I wore it to work yesterday, unhemmed.

The skirt is the pattern I drafted back in April with a few adjustments that will be transferred to a new block soon. It’s made with a very scruffy scrap of tan-coloured bottom-weight (almost denim-y) fabric I got for less than €2 when I was in Italy. I made this in an evening the last Friday in June, from teatime to bedtime.
The soundtrack was “Love love love like The Beatles”, one of the best radio plays I have heard this year. I never blogged about it but I have worn it quite a lot to work. There is a lot to be said for the instant smartness bestowed by a good pencil skirt.

There is something seriously off with Judy, and it makes me very sad. It doesn’t seem to be picking up the bobbin thread, so every few zig zag stitches there is a missed one, and straight stitch ends up being just long ugly lengths of thread.
I have cleaned, de-fluffed, oiled, checked both tensions, played around with all the screws. No joy.
I will be roommate-less in a week or so, therefore too broke to be able to take her into the shop at least for a while. That’s if I can find someone to give me a lift, since Judy is mounted on a table.
That means Rufus is now my sewing machine.
I realised that as long as I have a zig-zag foot and an old school zipper foot (not the invisible type) I can do most things, and Rufus also has its very own buttonhole attachment! A bit gutted that Rufus is low shank and Judy is high shank, meaning I won’t get a chance to use the rolled hem feet, but good things come to those who wait!

In other news, I loved loved loved the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics.
I got so excited about it that I went over my hourly tweet limit for the first time! So many favourite bits that I can’t list them all, but all in all the underlying knowledge that million of Tory voters were spitting nails around the country was a great feeling. And the music. And James Bond. And people doing a song and dance about FREE HEALTHCARE! HELLO AMERICA DID YOU SEE THAT?
Next Monday is the 10th anniversary of my move to the UK and I wasn’t really feeling it that much, until that opening ceremony reminded me of all the things that make me love my adopted homeland.

I have also started running again (more on that later this week), and marathon training is well and truly back on track.
Work has been really busy, but not particularly offensive, and it should all quieten down a little now with Les Grandes Vacances.

I have also been to the pictures, eaten ice cream, laughed, danced. Life is good.

Sunday round-up: 15.07.2012

Tags

abraham lincoln vampire hunter, dressmaking, gett off, physio, purple, running, sewing

Hope you didn’t get here looking for a running blog today:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|     |      |     |     |     |    |     |   0  |
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Some of the pain from the injury is still there, and spending half of the week with the flu hasn’t exactly helped.
I went to see the physio on Tuesday and he did some strange Ninja move that feels like someone pushing hot rods into my feet, my knees and my hips. Delightful.
Pain aside, it was a useful visit as he took one look at me and pointed out that I overpronate like nobody’s business and I might want to look at different shoes for the marathon.

I am seeing the GP tomorrow to enquire about waiting lists to see someone about biomechanics. In the meantime I am refraining from training in case something else flares up and I am unable to dance at my friend’s wedding on Saturday.
Being unable to dance at her wedding is up there with not showing up, and it’s not going to happen.

This is what I am wearing at the wedding:

Only that’s just the front panel of the skirt, so if I wore it in its current state I would follow in the footsteps of Prince, and I don’t think that style suits me as much as it does him.

In other news, I finally got round to see Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. It’s so terrible that it is actually amazing! Really, go see it. It’s like Snakes on a plane, but better, and that was a tough one to improve on.

There will be days when I don’t know if I can run a marathon. There will be a lifetime knowing that I have.

Tags

inspiration, running

(unknown)

The power to create and a little adventure.

This is no longer anything to do with the Little arrowhead shawl, and instead an adventure in its own right.

I was looking at this today and wondering whether Creativity could be measured in the number of rows before you throw the pattern away, although I always thought of myself as an Unventor rather than a creative person.

Today I have also found the perfect knitting spot. And by that I mean absolutely perfect.

It’s a fabulously comfy club chair in a coffee shop in South Manchester. There is a glass wall behind it and another one to the left, which means the light is brilliant even on a rainy day, and there are obviously coffee and cakes aplenty. I will be taking my knitting to the furniture shop soon in order to test their chairs and find one exactly like that, as I have been wanting club chairs for a while now.

You can’t have everything though, so after my lovely knitting break in the coffee shop I ventured for the first time into one of the few yarn stores that are local to me.

What a disappointment!
The owner was sulky, unhelpful and not even knowledgeable. I turned on the charm, which is easy when you are talking about something you enjoy, and they were having none of it.
I used to work in a shop and you learn very quickly that -apart from a minority of customers who were born miserable- a smile on your side of the counter always gets a smile back from the customer, but this person had yet to discover that.

From now on I will not feel guilty about shopping in the big Department Store, or begrudge shipping charges on eBay, as this woman will never get any business from me.

If she was the last Yarn Store left on the face of the Earth I will give up knitting for birdwatching and spelunking. And I am a claustrophobic who hates birdwatching.

WIP – again!

Tags

knitting

I actually have an FO to show off, although it needs blocking before I can take a picture.

I have also started a sampler (read: Making Up As I Go Along) lace shawl, somewhat inspired by the Thordisarhyrna.
At first I tried to make a Little Arrowhead Shawl and then feeling really bad about frogging that gorgeous Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk DK I was using(*).
So I decided to first try out the pattern using some acrylic/superwash leftovers I had lying around, and then decided -in typical fashion- to stop using the pattern and start making up my own faux-Icelandic one.

(*) Christmas present from the in-laws. I couldn’t possibly buy it myself unless it was reduced to less than half price. And *that* will never happen.