Symphony No 5 in C Minor (Chickadee)

2009

8 x 8 inches

Spoonflower, my favorite digital fabric printing company, is having a competition.  The rules were pretty simple - design a fabric with fish, and using just 4 specific colors.  “Paisley Fish” above is my entry.  Voting started this morning and you have until Tuesday to choose your favorites.

Go vote!

Of course I want you to vote for my design, but even if you don’t, it is a lot of fun to look at all the entries and how many different things that people came up with.

Saturday was the book launch party at Crafty Planet for One Yard Wonders.  It was crazy busy and several people had me sign their book.  What a trip!  I had a good time chatting and meeting the other contributors.  (Hi ladies!)  The book is really popular.  The publicist told me it was #1 on Amazon’s sewing book section last week.  Crafty Planet sold out and I am pretty sure we are sold out at the Textile Center right now.

Sunday was a Steely Dan concert.  I went because Andy is a fan and although I don’t know their music very well, I like it.  The sad part is that their sound mix was a bit off and all we could hear was the bass and the brass.  All of the middle range was really muddled, which meant I couldn’t understand a single word anyone was singing.  This isn’t a disaster, but being one of the only people in the audience who didn’t know all the words to anything, it made for a less than stellar experience.

We are having a lot of fun with the halloween photo.  Thanks for all the comments!  For the costume geeks out there, I thought I would talk a little about how I made mine.

The fabric is polyester faux suede.  It had the advantage of being a little bit warm (it is MN after all).  I wanted double knit, but it didn’t come in the color I wanted, so this was better.

I started with Simplicity 4675.  The original uniforms had dolman sleeves and strange curved seams.  I am not that in to authenticity.

I wanted a basic princess seam because I knew that would look nice and
fit well.  This pattern had a princess seam and a pleated skirt, so it was a good basic place to start.

What did I change?

- added long sleeves.  The photos from the series always show them “bracelet length” aka just a bit too short.

- Instead of two large pleats like the pattern called for I just made one and lined it up with the seam from the top.  Faux wrap skirt.

- Shortened the skirt.  Also not so authentic as mine is too long.  Original Series length is not really appropriate to wear to work.  And I did wear it to work.

- For the back, I just extended the top down and made the top and skirt all one piece.

- Neckline.  I made the pattern neckline to start, tried it on, drew in the new neckline with a disappearing ink marker and cut the new shape.

- Collar.  A 4 inch wide piece of the same fabric in black, folded over twice. added gold ric-rac and an insignia made with a scrap of gold satin and some zig-zag stitching

(For anyone who noticed that this post was here and then disappeared and then here again, my darling hubby accidentally deleted my first post.)

My laptop bag has a dog applique that you can add on.  Rather than trace and enlarge the pattern from the book, I made it easy for you.  Click on the graphic above and download a printable version of my little daschund with bonus costumes!  You can put him on other things too!  Make a weiner dog t-shirt!  When I was making the sample project for the book, I had this great fabric with airplanes on it to use for the sample.  I kept thinking of Snoopy and the Red Baron and really I wanted to give the dog some aviator sunglasses.  Now you can!

Because of the CPSIA, I have put the regular puppet making on hold.  CPSIA is a new law that required lead testing in children’s toys.  Great idea, however the way the law is written now, there are materials that are exempt from testing and there are materials that have to be tested.  Everything for my puppets is exempt, except the little black eyes.  The test to get certified lead free is about $300 and the really frustrating part is that there is no “component testing”, so I can’t test just the eyes but the whole puppet.  And it can’t just be one representative puppet, but every style I make.  So, I have just chosen to put the puppets on hiatus.  They are constantly revising and updating the law and I am hoping that it will work out so that it makes sense for me to do puppets again.

So, I have been making new things!  These little bears are all exempt materials.  They are made from fulled wool, have embroidered faces and they come with a patchwork quilt and fluffy pillow (not shown). The bears are about 6 inches tall.

I am going to do a variation on these for my etsy shop using some lovely wool cashmere blend fabric in bright colors.  Those will be the “Artist Bears”.

Faithful Hound Ornaments.  Wool felt.  I machine stitched the ones for the sale - this guy was a prototype.  They have embroidered eyes, a bead nose, a tiny ribbon collar and tag.  I made 4 colors - caramel, brown, black and grey with black spots.  I will post more pictures of them, they are adorable.

Our workshop was based on the Weavers Guild’s “Try It” classes.  You show up, a very kind volunteer has “dressed the loom” (aka warped it) for you and you get to just sit down and weave.  What a deal.  These were warped with Harrisville Shetland wool.  There is a whole wall of it in the Guild in gorgeous colors.  We had a few minutes of instruction, a demo and then chose a loom. Mine was set up with stripes of blue-violet, raspberry pink and two shades of green.  The weft yarn was a heathery purple.

The warp threads were set up at 10 per inch and our goal was to weave 10 weft threads per inch, to make a balanced weave.  That meant that your woven piece should look like a windowscreen.

Believe it or not, that was actually easier than it looks.  So we wove and wove.  I think I worked on my scarf for about 3 hours.  I chatted a lot while I was doing it.  When I took it off the loom it felt like burlap.  Yeah, I know.  Yuck.  But never fear, I saw finished samples and they were totally amazing.  Why the burlap feel?  The yarn is full of lanolin and it makes it feel kind of yucky and scratchy.  I suspect it makes it easier to weave with because there’s not a lot of fuzz to get caught on the other threads as you go.  So then I took my scarf home and gave it a bath.

Warm soapy water.  Squishing and scrunching.  Within half a minute the yarn is already softer.  The goal now is to “full” it.  Letting the fibers shrink a little and fluff up to fill in those holes you left when you wove it.  Why make holes and then fill them up?  Why not just weave it tightly?  The answer is drape.  If you pack it tightly together, your scarf is like a board when you get done.  The looser weave lets it be soft and drapey.  Mine started out about 8 inches by 75 inches.  It’s now 6 1/2 by about 66 inches.

Out of the bath, roll it in a towel and squeeze out the extra water.  Then I spread it out on the guest room bed and brushed it.  I used a nylon nail brush.  Brushing the surface fluffs the fibers up even more.

The bottom part of this has been brushed, the folded over part not yet.  See the ugly orange yarn?  That’s the fringe.  We wove about a dozen rows of that from an acrylic yarn that doesn’t shrink.  After brushing everything, then we unravel those fringe ends.

The last few rows of the wool yarn (before the ugly orange stuff) is a little extra tight, to make a stable edge before the fringe.

Finally, I stretch it all out to dry.

Go to Becka’s Spoonflower Profile and you can see the 6 designs I have available.  Order a swatch or even several yards to use for your projects.

• I have 2 designs inspired by 1930’s quilt fabrics.  Myrtle is my favorite.  The colors are warm and cheery.
• Two are based on my Animal Outlines embroidery designs (which you can find in my etsy shop.)  You could coordinate a hand embroidered t-shirt with a pair of pants all with a wild west theme!  How cool would that be?
• The oboe print is for Andy.
• The fishes are because, well just because I always have to have fishes.
• More on the way soon.