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Sew Sunday: Sewing with Knits
So, rather than make ANY progress at all on the linen pants I started last week I enrolled in and immediately started watching the Craftsy class “Sewing with Knits” with Meg McElwee:
Now I am so super excited to make the first project, a hoodie, that I went out and picked up some awesome lightweight fleece jersey, found by total luck at JoAnn’s! Yay!
Now…the downside…So…I was SO excited to print and put together the pattern that I shall we put it nicely and say ‘botched’ it all? I first printed the pattern PDF…and I had left the printer settings to print double-sided :/ *face palm*. Ok, no big deal right? I’ll just print every other page and everything will be just fine. Well, I printed every other page…from a different program…they printed at a slightly different proportion than the other pages. So halfway into taping together the pattern I realize every other page doesn’t quite line up.
Oh, and did I mention that I had run out of ink while printed every other page a second time? Yea, so starting over with the printing is not an option. At least not until the ink I ordered arrives, and of course I feel like I can’t possibly wait two days! I already assembled the pattern, the point of no return!! Or something… Ok, so my plan? split the difference and extrapolate when tracing the pattern pieces to tracing paper for cutting. Will I compound the mistakes already made? Maybe!
Join me next Sunday when I may have an answer, and hopefully also a hoodie!
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Sew Sunday: Linen Pants
I started these pants a couple of days ago because I planned to wear them to my birthday party yesterday, but as you can see they are no wearable. I drafted the pattern starting from the shorts pattern in “One Yard Wonders”, then adjusted the length and bottom opening based on the measurements of my favorite wide leg pants (made of black jersey).
So far so…ok? The leg opening is PERFECT, but the length of the inseam doesn’t allow any hemming on the bottom. This all was found out after sewing the inseam and crotch to try on, so I had to frog the crotch, my plan now is to raise it by using the template to cut again, on the same pieces. Thankfully the sides have tons of extra material (I was going to do an elastic casing for the waist so that would all be gathered up)…But this time I think measure more than twice…and cut just the once more…I hope!
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Watercolor Wednesday
Maybe my favorite Watercolor Wednesday so far, in the book it’s called “Making Marks with One or Many”. The large color spots are made by layering the same color, painted with brushes diminishing in size, one on top of the other. The small black marks are made with a single fine brush. This project took a little bit longer than some others because I had to wait for the paint to dry at least a bit between all the color layers, but since I was working with several colors I was able to minimize down time between them. Overall, really meditative and simple to do and the result is still mesmerizing to me, I can’t believe I made that painting!
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Watercolor Wednesday
Watercolor Wednesday project 4: dripping, spattering, blowing!
I went ahead and used primary colors for this…not sure why now because I’ve never really been a fan of the primary colors look, but I do think it serves to illustrate how the techniques cause color mixing. I think by far my favorite of these techniques is blowing, but the others surely have their uses as well.
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sh*t crafters say
I love Whimseybox!
and…I bought the gold scissors from them…makes blogging SO much better!
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Sew Sunday
Ok, no actual sewing took place today but I made sewing progress by reading the June/July issue of Threads. This was my first time buying the mag, and I it did seem more technical than other sewing magazines I’ve picked up before. At the same time a lot of the info was accessible and actually really helpful. I will consider getting a subscription as my sewing journey continues.
It was a lovely day…eventually…in Monterey so I got to peruse my magazine while getting some sun in the yard, of course with Mr. Cody running around.
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city day
It might be lame but every so often I LOVE to enjoy my city as a tourist. The weather was perfect today and here’s how my day went down:
- From downtown took the historic rail to the Ferry Building
- Cappuccino at Blue Bottle, enjoyed outside with a view of the Bay Bridge
- Checked out Book Passage, not sure how long this book store has been in the building because I’d never been in it before. It was delightful I bought “The Artist’s Eye” and a Moleskine for my dad
- Bought a ring, pictured above, at the Art Market on my way back to the cable car
- Read my new book in front of the waterfall at Yerba Buena Gardens
- Off to Japantown where I got lunch, did mandatory shopping at Daiso, and got some pens also for my dad (his birthday’s coming up and it’s conveniently close to Father’s Day)
et voila! That’s how you enjoy a summer day in SF.
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Watercolor Wednesday
This week’s watercolor technique: dabbing!
This was a really fun one, though you have to work very quickly with some of it, once the paint dries nothing will happen. These are the ones that turned out the best, clockwise from the top left: paper towel, bubble wrap and cotton yarn, bubble wrap, cotton thread and fingers.
I also tried dabbing with toilet paper and makeup wedge sponges but those did not turn out to my liking as much as these. Oh! The most important factor here? Use cotton thread or yarn, other materials, particularly synthetics, will not absorb water/paint and will not make marks.
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Sew Sunday
My favorite Sew Sunday yet! The lining of this bag (about a year old now) was some thin woven thing that had been ripping for a many a month. I tore it out and relined it with some indoor/outdoor fabric I had lying around. The lining is just a simple folded rectangle, sewn up the sides and hemmed before attaching right under the zipper. I absolutely LOVE the result, and it was easy…maybe I can do this sewing thing after all.
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Watercolor Wednesday
Watercolor wednesday exercise two: wet on dry. The project is to start with neutral mixes of colors, making adjacent squares and rectangles, starting in the middle of the page. Once that layer is dry you make more vibrant mixes of colors and overlay them, still making square and rectangle shapes. I actually did not strictly follow the directions and used much more vibrant colors than prescribed in both layers, but the gist is the same. The purpose is to see how overlaying layers on dry layers can be another way of creating color mixes rather than always mixing on the palette.
I took my painting out of the house this week. Got breakfast at Java Beach at the Zoo, then parked by the water and rolled down the windows. Listened to the surf and spread out my supplies in the car and got to work. Before I knew it I had been at for an hour an a half!
