Step Into My Thimble

A tailor’s ham, that is. Talk about getting your darts and other shaping to press very nicely! I’m so glad my mom gave me this a few years ago. If you sew a lot of garments it is a wise investment indeed. (I also have a sleeve-ham [it might have another name] and a sleeve board, like a mini ironing board.)

The ham came in quite handy over this weekend while I made myself a summer dress. I bought the fabric (an Indian cotton plaid in blue, green, pink and black) about two years ago at a bolt-end sale; about seven yards, total, but it had flaws here and there. Then last summer I picked an actual pattern. I haven’t sewn from a pattern since I took clothing construction classes in college! Yeah–12 years ago!

I chose Simplicity 7205, and I decided to do view C.

Here are pictures of the first try-on, from Saturday afternoon. I had some natural light but it makes the fabric look lighter than it really is.

Front view

Back view (Note pins at sides where I had to adjust the fit.)

Between yesterday afternoon and this morning, Rodney and I went out for a wild night of tater tots and karaoke with Carolyn. I was nowhere near top form (and actually, my karaoke top form is pretty crappy anyway), but by the time I got to “Who Can It Be Now” I was starting to feel it a little. Then the hipster doofus crowd edged us out and eventually we went home…

Today I added straps, rick rack, a self-facing in the bodice, and the hem. And voila, the dress, she is done!

Don’t talk to me about the plaid matching. I got the center fronts to line up, but beyond that it was really hard because of the way I had to cut out the pieces. The fabric flaws made it impossible to cut them out just right.

More pictures and stuff below…
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I’m in a little blogging rut. I’ve just been knitting on the shawl and nothing else…and you’ve already seen what that looks like.

We were in Michigan this weekend and my mom gave me some things she picked up at a gigantic rummage sale: about ten steel crochet hooks in the most impossibly tiny sizes, some plastic pom-pom makers, this thing called the Knit-Fixer that looks like a miniature latch-hook, and a really great vintage sleeve board for sewing. I should have taken a picture of all that. She said that all the yarn was crap (though I would have liked to have seen it myself), and that my sister-in-law claimed all the knitting needles.

This sale, by the way, is organized by my dad’s parents at their gigantic retirement center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They use an entire empty JCPenney department store and do this once a year to raise money. When you’re living in a retirement center, well, a lot of people die and their stuff has to go somewhere…

Also, I was thinking about one thing that bothered me a little about going home this weekend. Apparently one of my long-time favorite restaurants there, T.E. Murch’s, has gone out of business. Their reason? The low-carb fad. Murch’s had a great bakery, but their main focus was more on salads and sandwiches than on the baked goods. I find it really sad. Has this low-carb thing really wreaked as much havoc on the dining world as my parents claim? Diets come and go, but it’s pretty serious to drive a 25-year-old family business to the ground. And they say that most of the good local bagel places and bakeries are really feeling the burn too. Those are my favorite things! No!!!!

Look at all the shawl progress!

Just a few days ago, it was less than half this size. I’m only on the second ball of KSH out of seven, so I think I’ll have more than enough.

Other things are growing around our house too.

This is basil, along one side of the pot. The other side has rosemary, which is taking its time coming up. Obviously this will be much more basil than we’ll ever need so anybody from KIP, in a month or two I might be bringing you a present!

This pot has nasturtiums, as well as Chinese lantern flowers which haven’t sprouted yet. I really love nasturtiums. You can eat them! Here‘s some more info. Chinese lanterns look like this.

I don’t do too much cat-gushing on this site, but this little moment caught on film made me jealous of him.

Just in case that pose doesn’t quite make sense, here he is from the side.

I think there’s a nice cross-draft there that he enjoys on the warmer spring days. If past and future incarnations do occur, I sure would like to come back as a cat someday…

P.S. Note the two tiny white dots on his paw (in side view). Cute!

I crocheted a flower pin last night. It’s a zinnia from this pattern and I just sewed a safety pin on the back. It’s a little gift for a friend in Sweden. The whole flower is about 2 1/2″ across.

I think it might need to be wet and shaped better, or maybe even starched a bit to make the petals not look so bunchy.

Also, because I know you want to know, here’s what’s up with the shawl lately:

I know it’s not a ton of progress. I haven’t put enough time into it, but I will. I calculated that it takes me about one hour to do 1 1/2 inches, so if this is really going to be the full 70 inches long, I have about 40 hours to go. That includes a little extra time for the rows with cables in them, but does not include any ripping out that I might have to do. At least ripping out on mostly 2×2 ribbing is easy…if it was real lace stitches it would be much more terrifying to consider.

And in the Sad News department: This week Rodney’s brother’s best friend died. I never knew him but it has their family all mixed up. RIP Brian…