What I've Been Doing Besides Knitting...

1. Cooking and baking for a surprise picnic in the park on Friday! I made vegan potato salad, fried tofu, fried chicken for Nature Boy (yuck!!!) and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies for desert, packed it up in our picnic basket, grabbed Wee and Nature Boy and headed outdoors. I have to say it was a lot of work so I don't know when I will go all-out with it again like that. Maybe some peanut butter sandwiches next time...

2. Gardening. Weeding, watering, transplanting. Blisters, poison ivy, back pain. I love every minute of it though!

3. Daily walks with the Wee.

4. Reading. This is a library book and I love it and hate it. Does anyone else have this relationship with Martha? I love the idea of it and reading it. I hate the front photo (gag me!! Who looks like that when they are sewing? Whose space looks like that as they are sewing?). I hate some of the wording (like anytime she uses the word "must"). I love the detail but hate the fussiness. I'm not sure I will make anything from it but it's fun to look at when I am in the middle of a nursing session. Wonder what you'd say about that, Martha?

I also scored this one from Half Price Books for $3! I've wanted it for years so this is particularly satisfying to me. It's on my bedside table in case I get into bed and don't fall asleep in 3 seconds flat...which is now never...

5. Sewing. Oh my where to start? The tragedy first.


Here lies the Flapper Camisole. So I sewed the shell together and then added binding from the top of one bust around the back and to the top point of the other bust. Before adding more binding around the front V section, I thought, hmm, maybe I should stop and try this one on? I did and it was skin tight. Completely unwearable. It hangs on the chair, mocking me as we speak. So Twinkle Sews went right on back to the library. I made the size 12 shirt, which normally would fit me and be a bit larger too. The next size up would be a 16. To me that would be crazy big (or at least I would hope so). I might try and sew the fabric strips onto another shirt, either one I just wing free handed or cheat and find a pre-made top at the thrift store. On top of the other 500 million billion things I aim to do and make...

I DID go up to the master bedroom of the estate, find a shirt in my closet that I never wear and transformed it into something wearable. This chick here was my inspiration; apparently she finds dresses at thrift shops and changes them into cuteness (shirts, skirts, dresses and coats, to name a few). Here is before:

The problem areas: weird "Hi I'm so corporate" tie along neckline that is not fun when trying to nurse a baby in public and sleeves that are much too tight. In fact, the button on one was missing as I must have popped it off while flexing my python arms. I mean, my arms are not the smallest but they are not so massively built that a sleeve shouldn't fit...

Here is AFTER:

So flex-able! I cut off the neck-tie deal and then cut off most of the sleeve, sewing close to the raw edge.

I think I might wear it now. I think I might try this sort of thing again with some other things I'm not wearing as it was more successful than the whole pattern thing...

Last, I also whipped up this little makeup bag. I lined the inside with clear vinyl layered over the lining fabric. My current makeup bag is really yucky inside, it's lined with a nylon you would think could be wiped clean but the spots are there to stay. I recently bought some awesomely vegan AND cheap (the two never meet this way) makeup by eyes.lips.face or e.l.f. At my local fricking drug store! I can't tell you the last time I bought makeup at the drug store...circa pre-vegan way way back...

Since I haven't shown what the new print from Strawberry Luna looked like post-framing (frame made by Nature Boy), here it is. The cuteness of it all kills me. I'm sure it won't be long before Wee One wants to paint his room black and hang up posters of bands and such so I'm glad I have this one pic. So when cute is no longer good, I can still go there.

I suppose I should now try and talk about knitting. Since this blog is named Knitsburgh and all. Well, there is not much to say here. I swatched for the Every Way Wrap but did so in stockinette instead of moss, so I swatched a second time. I'm not on gauge but close enough, especially for a wrap. I figure the most important dimension will be the length, not width, so I can make row adjustments easily enough as I go. At least with knitting, I feel like I know what I am doing. I have confidence. I can take comfort here and lick my sewing-project wounds.