thereyougothen | Entries tagged with sewing

For some reason today I am happy. I've got that slightly excited feeling that means that something nice is going to happen. Well, we got a new veg box today, with two litres of organic milk [1] and a dozen organic eggs. But that's not it. I think the anxiety has maybe transformed itself into nervous energy... Which isn't a bad thing except at bedtime.

So anyway, I did some more sewing this morning. But first I had to do rather a lot of unsewing. last night I got to the point on the new pair of jeans where I could baste a few seams and try them on. It's a real shame that I had sewn the back pockets on before this stage. The fact that I had sewn them on with two rows of topstitching on the marks supplied by the pattern cutter is either bad luck or stupidity....

I'm trying a pattern for a low rise pair of jeans. I've got this flat tummy, or well, I have this tummy that no longer has the pregnancy induced lower tummy fatness. Admittedly I still have just-being-fat upper tummy fatness. But I digress, lots of trousers fit funnily now becasue there's not so much to hold them up, so I thought it would be clever to try a pair of low rise jeans. This pattern is from the "Burda young fashion" range number 7988. [2] So I should have realised that with "fashion" in the title I might be in trouble. Yes, along with the low rise waist, goes low slung back pockets. You know, the ones that start where your bum actually ends, and end somewhere unflattering, down on the back of your thighs? Ahem.

I unsewed the pockets this morning. And *lifted* them to a hopefully more flattering position.

Erm, it's the unsewing you're supposed to be looking at and commiserating with, not just going "aw, cute kitteh". Try this one instead:

WTF? How'd he get in that one too? Persistent wee shite.

I also need to tell you that topstitching down an outside leg seam on pinstriped fabric is quite the psychedelic experience. Have I mentioned that I've been having dizzy spells? I had to stop and regroup a few times...

[1]Milk here is almost always UHT. We have found one that is just ultra-pastuerised, which is slightly better, but it comes in plastic bags and still, sometimes you get a bag that tastes like reconstituted powdered milk. If this organic stuff is good, it will be worth every peso of the $1600 per litre (yes, that's £1.88 for a litre of milk). It came in jars. With screw on lids, just liek their yogurt does. A verdict will be forthcoming tomorrow.

[2] don't know how long that link will last

I made a shirt. I also made a pair of trousers, forgot about those.

The shirt pics aren't great becasue I took them at dusk in a badly lit room with my cam phone, but whatever!

Mary Queen of Scots is wearing a shirt made from Burda 3212, I think, I cut size 22, but had to adjust the upper arm as usual. Otherwise I did everything as directed on the pattern.

The fabric was bought on my shopping expedition with the UKANDO list members in Linlithgow way back when. The buttons were in my stash, if I remember right, I bought them at East Fortune Sunday Market. I always wanted a little red wagon as a kid. Never got one. So I wanted to get one for my kids. Never managed that either. So, I made me a shirt to make up for it.

Cuff detail (but it's blurry so I@m not sure why I'm bothering...

Oh look, here's the trousers. And see, I fnally used the embroidery machine for something other than school logos!

happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me-ee!

But I'm not going to let myself open the box, until I finish turning this pile of stuff

into a swimsuit. the bottom half is done, just need to do the (rather more complicated) top...

I finished this year's author story sack this afternoon. and then was in such a rush getting out the door to deliver it to nursery school that I forgot to take photos. never mind, i'll get some on thursday, which is when we are having this year's story sack event.

it won't be such a happy event as last year's, sadly, becasue both teachers at cameron house are off sick at moment, and probably won't be back by then.

never mind, the kids will be there, and hopefully the author in question, so it should be fun.

but it means that i am working monday, tuesday an wednesday this week. gets it over with sooner, I guess.

I told the boss today that I will possibly/probably be leaving in October. she took it rather well, all things considered.

still feeling tired, and not enormously cheerful, but maybe that's just me dreading the summer holidays!

i made a crochet wire thing earlier this month, and it didn't work, it was supposed to be a beaded necklace, but wasn't heavy enough. so i thought i might make it into something else. so i think i might use it to embellish a bag. so i needed to buy some white fabric. i went to remnant kings and got almost a metre of sparkly organza for 91p, some bog standard curtain lining, which will be excellent for lining bags for £1. and some white fake linen for less than £2. and a big piece of white lycra for £4. it was priced at £7 something, which was half price, but it was a bit dirty, so I asked, and got it for £4. it will make fantastic knickers, or swimsuit lining, not quite sure what to use it for, it will stay in the stash for a while, I guess.

i want the house to myself to do the sewing though, i can't really work unless i'm on my own. don't want an audience.

never mind, i'm going spinning tomorrow.

i've uploaded a few pictures to flickr today, took ages, the wireless connection we have is so much crap. must try and lean how to fixc it.

and over the course of today, i have eaten 8 chocolates from a thorntons box. ooops.

i've done the first leg on my elijah, he needs to be done by about a week on wednesday.

speaking of a week on Wednesday, the parent council thing i was going to has been cancelled, so i will be able to go to knitting, two weeks in a row, hooray!

i have much more to say, but i have had 3 glasses of wine, and as a result, i need my bed more than i need to update LJ!

but i have remembered today that i really do enjoy my children. no more no less, i just enjoy them.

the sewing machine still works then. and there are no strange crackling noises coming from the plug socket on the side.

i knew i could trust him. actually, Bill doesn't have a tendency to take on things he doesn't think he can fix, he's perfectly happy to say take it to the repair shop. but luckily, this time he has saved us a fair bit, i suspect the repair should would have replaced the whole *sealed* PSU instead of taking it apart and applying solder to the two bits that needed it. anyone care to take a guess at what *that* would have cost?

must get back to work and earn some money. i'm starting to feel the need.

Bill, with the help of his glamourous assistant, Nicholas, is taking my Designer 1 apart.

I have had to leave the room

ETA: after much gritted teeth noises (due to presence of soon *two* boys) he got all the acrews out. after they had gone to bed, he SOLDERED something. in my super duper conputeriesed sewing machine. eek. well, he took the power supply out and soldered a bit of it. he says it works now. i'll let you know in the morning.

so the destash has begun. i went through all the yarn yesterday. it was teh scary. i did not know i had that much (yes, of course i'm lying). and yes, there was indeed stuff in there that i had forgotten all about. it will be fun when someday i come across the stash in a location which i have forgotten all about. i'm sure it exists. the cat very annoyingly just walked across my keyboard. why does she *do* things like that?

it is most definitely Spring, i have proof. i was in the dining room and looked out the window to sunshine and thought it would be a good day to hang out some washing. then i came into the living room to see that it is raining in the front garden. welcome to springtime in Edinburgh.

i have ironed this morning. i don't think i can stretch the nurses' prohibition of ironing any longer. but on the vague chance that i might be allowed to go back to work at some point, i have now a few shirts and a couple pairs of trousers that are ready to wear.

shame i don't particularly like any of the trousers. soon, soon i will have the energy to make some.

Barbara now wants sewing and knitting machine lessons. this is good. becasue really, i'm not finding myself very inspiring at the moment, so doing some stuff for her will be good. although hopefully it will be more a case of her doing for herself with some help from me.

what else? oh yes, back to the destash.... i have photographed it all, but did it yesterday when the light was awful. and i didn't make a lot of effort either. so even the stuff that is nice (which is probably one of the lots) won't make much on ebay. never mind. i have managed to upload them all to flickr. today i have to weigh them and work out postage. tomorrow i must start to list them on ebay. on the off chance that anyone is interested in anything, they're tagged "destash" on flickr, here i had to upgrade to a pro acct on flickr. i think that is the fault of ravelry.

i think i might go and do some story sack sewing now, to put off the weighing and describing chore a bit longer. it's been ages since i ebayed anything. i think i have forgotten how.

Barbara is baking an apple cake today.

( so, this is tired, is it? )

I have finished my first "proper" handbag. Designed from scratch at
Katherine Emtage's class at Leith Academy.

You can see her stuff at http://www.kattysbags.com

I'm quite happy with it. I even embellished it. I find myself
getting quite into embellishing things all of a sudden. Nothing is
complete without a flower or a frill.

I don't have pictures of any other bags I've made - I've done two machine
knit, and quite a few crochet ones, just never kept the bags. I see
more bags in my future.

When i finish sewing wedding clothes. I need a whip cracking I
think.

the sun has finally come out. yesterday's washing which is still on the line may be dry by this evening.

i have got the lining into the jacket. urgh. now i have to figure out how to do the hem and sleeves. double urgh. i kow that i have bagged the lining on a jacket before, and I'm sure I did the sleeves as well, but it was probably 15 years ago, and I can't remeber now. and this one has a vent, i don't know what to do with the vent. aargh.

which all means that i have given up for the day.

i also can't find my chibi needles so no more sewing up on the wrap top either. up to about row 25 on sleeve two now, i do think that i actually will be wearing it this summer. as long as summer lasts longer than this afternoon.

bought a whole huge pile of stuff for Nico's party. and some tray things for the we4didng party - these have some sort of well where you can put ice packs. i'm thinking these are teh business for the sushi. it's worth getting married just to have a party with lots of sushi.

but i still have a whole pile of shit still to get for Nico's party. and i need a donkey, and some tails. i don't draw. Bill will be doing this, I think.

the wedding rsvp's have been pretty slow. we currnetly are execting somewhere between 60 and 100 adults. tons of kids. but who counting. they will all eat mini sausages and run around yelling, so they're dealt with.

I've had replies from 9 out of 23 from Nico's class. this is for his party, not the wedding thing.

we have a band for the wedding. this shold be fun. we had a band for TT's christenign party too. must keep our standards up.

must go get my boys. and find the knitting. 2 hours of waiting around this afternoon followed by knitting at Chai this evening, so i think progress will be made.