Two for me

Before getting too stuck into kid stuff, I decided to take a day to make things for me!

First a hoodie for a cover-up after a run or tennis, and then I converted some regular socks into pompom socks!

Here are the socks:

The socks!

I had a bunch of mid-calf athletic socks that I bought last year. I hate mid-calf socks. I only bought them because I was buying a pair of ski boots from someone off kijiji (which is why it never snowed last winter) and forgot to bring socks for trying them on. So no great loss to me if I ended up destroying a pair of socks I didn’t wear anyway. And I happened to have a small length of red pompom trim, about 8” (6 pompoms).

So pompom socks! A favourite from childhood. And practical, because they don’t get eaten by your shoe.

First thing I did was to chop the socks off. I left about an inch of the ribbing that started at the calf, folded over a 1/2” hem, and sewed down using a triple zigzag for stretch. I started sewing about 1/2” to the left of centre back, so when I was reaching the place where I started, I added a length of pompom trim (about 1” long, or 1 pompom) and continued my triple zigzag to attach.

Sock trimmed, hemmed, and with pompom attached

Hem and pompom as seen from the inside

Then, using an upholstery needle and some red cotton yarn from an unfinished knitting project (whoops), I went around the edge of the sock in a deep, somewhat loose blanket stitch. When that was done, I slipped 2.25mm dpns through the loops of handsewing. I picked up and knit these as stitches, working one row of stockinette and two rows of k1p1 rib, before doing a stretchy bind off (yo before each stitch, and then slip the yo over the stitch and off the needle, along with the previous stitch). For this sock I ended up with 52 sts, but I think 48 would have been better.

Here’s a finished sock!

The finished project!

The hoodie:

Hard to see the front pocket, but it’s big! 

I wanted a cocoon-ish kinda feel, so I made it extra long, with a ginormous front pocket and a sort of funnel-neck hood, very shaped.

Started with my standard pyjama top pattern, except added a few inches in width and length, to both the bodice and the sleeves. I added an extra swoop of length to the back, for when I’m wearing it over running tights and want to cover up the rear view.

Longer in the back for coverage

For both the hood and the front pocket, I started by copying from a hoodie of my kid’s, and then basically eyeballing some modifications. For the pocket, I just made it a little bigger, in case I want to put some tennis balls in there. For the hood itself, I cut on the fold instead of having a centre seam, and then fashioned a gusset, so it’s more head-shaped.

Hood down

Hood up

Adding a truly crappy pic of how I altered the hood—black outline is roughly what I traced from the kid’s hoodie, red outline is how I altered it.

Terrible sketch, but you get the idea

I still need to add some drawstrings—I mean they’re not strictly necessary, but I want to. I also made a pair of booty shorts from the scraps, but I’m not posing in those!

Editing to add: I went to Brother WorldSew yesterday to buy some stuff for cosplay and grabbed a few of these cotton bootlaces—thrilled at what a perfect colour match they are! And a perfect length and weight as well.

Drawstrings!

 

what i did on my summer vacation day six: afloat!

on saturday we were threatened with rain, so decided to try to get as much done as possible on the raft before the deluge, and then go in to the fair in the late afternoon after the skies cleared.

there was a lot of hammering to do...

but fortunately i had help! my strong kid is pretty proficient with a hammer.

one of the things on the list for this day was to buy chain for the anchors. i had looked at chain on previous shopping trips, but wondered - how much to get? prices ranged from 69¢ to $2.29 a foot, so if i bought 100 feet of chain, that could add up to a lot of money. so, i measured out 50 feet of rope, brought a ball of yarn with a sinker tied on one end, and swam out to see how deep it was.

holding on to the length of rope (to measure distance) and ball of yarn (to measure depth) was a bit futzy, and i instinctively reached for the ground with my foot.

guess what? i touched bottom.

lake depth 50 feet from shore: about five feet. i don't know why in the world i thought it might be deep enough to require a hundred feet of chain, but i am very glad i measured before buying! i ended up getting two 10-foot lengths - one to connect the anchors, one to loop through it and connect to opposite sides of the raft. this way, the chains stay well under the raft, so no worries about banging one's feet in the water.

then it was off to the fenelon fair to see how we had done, eat mini doughnuts, and send the kid on some rides.

there were ribbons!

the ghostbusters costume won a $25 fabricland gift certficate! just in time for me to start this year's hallowe'en costume!

and, who'da thunk? my sorry little cukes took first place!

helps that no one else entered pickling cucumbers. whew.

we topped the evening off with a final open-fire dinner (sausage and corn), and a trip to the demolition derby. not my usual fare, but we had loads of fun - and the fair at night feels much more exciting!

what i did on my summer vacation day five: fair entry day

friday morning is always the busiest of our cottage week - getting entries ready for the fair!

i didn't have quite as many as usual, but didn't have time to spend finishing any needlework at the cottage with a raft to build. also i was sad to see that my squirrel pattern did not include any instructions at all for the tail! that's the second time that's happened to me with cottage knitting, grr.

anyway, i did have a fairly hefty bag of stuff to take in: a ghostbusters costume, my scissors shirt (yay len's mill for giving me another snippet of the fabric!) maple leaf forever cardigan, linen middy pullover, double-leaf saroyan scarf, end of year leaf cloth, pyjamas...

and some cookies, and brownies, and (not great) jams, and really awful cucumbers:

(those aren't the world's worst cucumbers; i left the world's worst cucumbers on the vine, because they looked more like avocados.)

then it was back for lunch. having a big roast chicken for dinner on the first night was a very strategic decision; the rest of the week, lunch was salad with various leftover veg (peas and beets, here) and then topped with chicken breast. lots of protein and nutrients for the carpenter.

speaking of, frame all done! all that's left is to flip it upright into the water, nail on the top boards, and then float it out 50 feet where we'll anchor it.

what i did on my summer vacation day three: movie time!

we usually make a trip up to the highland cinemas in kinmount to see a movie during our cottage week, and this year we saw pixels.

this was the kid's choice, clearly.

and the kid enjoyed it.

the grownups, on the other hand, thought the crude language and endless sexism was a bit off-putting, especially in a kids' film.

the plot was incredibly predictable. the special effects were fun (turning everything into pixels makes cg easy!) and the kid was happy to see giant pac man. but adam sandler is getting a bit old to pull off this kind of juvenile stuff. and i am so very very bored with the trite "ugly guy gets hot chick" thing. blecch. no thank you.

feh. i have many annoyed opinions on the hero genre, which this falls into. generally, the hero does absolutely nothing but sit around picking his nose or lurking in his lair until the world is almost about to end, and then he swoops in at the last possible moment and everyone thinks he is so very amazing, although in fact he (and it's pretty much always a he, isn't it) is a lazy slob until he rouses himself in the nick of time, and no doubt goes back to being a lazy slob after the credits roll. is it any wonder we have a generation of permanent adolescents, no doubt waiting for an asteroid hit so they can show off their mad skillz? stay in your basements, heroes. the rest of us are busy doing the real work of keeping the world from going to hell in a handbasket.

okay, off soapbox now!

peter dinklage was great as a badass with a badass mullet (and andrew bambridge, playing his childhood self, was also pretty amazing), and i wish we'd seen more of jane krakowski as the first lady. the others were just phoning it in for the most part, playing the version of their own selves that they usually play.

in other news, i got more cement, and did some work with a handsaw cutting a cedar 4x4 into short lengths to brace the corners of the raft frame.

and, i got started baking the best chocolate chip cookies. or at least starting the dough, which wants to rest in the fridge overnight or up to three days.

there are many steps to this recipe, but just the typical ingredients.

knitting mojo: lost and found

off work for two weeks and knit nothing! could not think, let alone follow a pattern. sigh.

today i came home early for a rest, but couldn't sleep (hello, coffee). so, i thought i'd whip through a quick project to get my knitting mojo back

so far so good: one mitten down, one to go!

pattern to follow, i swear.

ghostbusters costume: done!

just realised i never posted pics of the completed ghostbusters costume! it nearly killed me, but the kid was thrilled, yay. he asked his teacher to call him peter venkman at school.

ghostbusters costume: the proton pack

i never thought i'd get it done!

actually, i didn't entirely get it done. the proton pack is not yet a functional backpack; it did however work as a prop last night.

recovering from surgery meant i was too tired and dopey to work on this for the better part of two weeks! yikes. so i had a bit of a race to the finish line yesterday, which left me pooped. was in bed at 8 o'clock! but the kid was happy, and that's the point.

i wasn't able to get the led lights i wanted, so i had to find another way. i also needed some sort of interfacing stuff to give it a bit of body and a bit of padding. and, i had initially imagined knitting i-cord for the various tubes, but there was no time (and i didn't like the idea of soggy wool in the rain) so i thought coloured shoelaces might work as an alternative. so i went to the dollar store in search of inspiration.

lo and behold!

the silver thing? is a windshield sunshade to keep your car cool. just the right sort of lightweight foam to use as padding, and shiny enough to make the reflective red things on the circle part at the bottom of the proton pack (pardon the high-tech language). the skipping rope was a sub for shoelaces - i got three so i could cut a variety of coloured sections out. it was pretty easy to remove the handles at the end at take out the filling to make it easier to work with, and more "tube-like."

then i cut out the four circles from the silver stuff - slightly smaller than the black cover circles - and painted them with red nail polish.

the "danger" label is embroidered felt.

here are a bunch of the bits all assembled together:

and finally stitched up!

for the gun part, which was a little sad-looking as i ran out of time, i took a vaccuum hose my brother-in-law found on garbage night, spray-painted it black, and pulled it through the bottom between the layers of fabric. i had to loop it around to take up the extra length (seemed easier than trying to cut it) and whip stitched it in place.

voila!

ghostbusters costume: elbow pads and belt

well i got all these pots ready and scheduled over the weekend, but this one was unfinished. i figured i'd have had time to finish the items & photogrpah them by now.

but!

instead, i was in hospital for a few days with appendicitis. booo.

i did manage to finish the elbow pads in the er waiting room, actually, but haven't photographed them (and am not entirely sure where they are... trunk of the car maybe?)

anyway my starting point was a size massive polo shirt in a shade of grey i thought would work:

i cut the pieces out from the back of the shirt and sleeves. amazing how much shirt is left! i even used some of it for stuffing the elbow pads.

the good news is, the saturday morning event that kiddo was going to wear it to? cancelled. and sunday morning is probably cancelled, too, only because i can't drive while looped. so, the deadline has returned to hallowe'en proper.

three cheers for extra time!

ghostbusters costume: proton pack! part 1

step one is the plans. i started by looking at a lot of pictures of proton packs, as well as some plans from gbfans. i printed out one of their pdfs, and scribbled a few notes on it for clarity (because i am not accustomed to looking at proton pack plans, and i couldn't tell what was what).

then i said to myself, how can i make this a functional backpack? what's crucial? what can be changed, but still leave it looking like a proton pack?

and then i drew up some more plans.

it's basically a sewing pattern at this point. or, an idea for one.

next, i took my basic pattern and traced/sketched on what it might look like if i "decorated" it like a proton pack, basically adding the remaining elements as appliques.

the heavy outline shows "structural" seams. the lighter outlines indicate embellishments.

then, i got my materials. i had bought a metre of black poly twill for this, but in my closet i had the piece de resistance: a broken backpack.

the thing about kids and backpacks is, kids are small. backpacks are big. i've seen kids who practically need to walk tiptoe to keep their backpacks off the ground. so when the kiddo was starting jk, tg got him an appropriately kid-sized backpack.

except, you couldn't fit much of anything inside. it was stuffed to the gills and beyond, and it wasn't long before it was torn and all the zippers broken. unusable.

but, the straps will work for me nicely. lots of usable stuff here. the inner pocket for example; will be easy to transfer that straight over.

so, i dismantled it.

there are lots of useful bits and bobs on this thing, including the main fabric itself - it's sort of rubberized, i guess to make it waterproofish, but the rubbery side is kind of neat. i decided to use both sides of the fabric in the embellishments, just to have a variety of textures.

then the fun part.

using my sketches as a guide, i started placing and cutting shapes and stuff, moving bits around to get a feel for how it all will look.

i think it's gonna look awesome.

i've got some ideas in store for the cables and whatnot, too. i just wish the led spoke lights i planned to use for the back round thing weren't sold out! major sighs.

ghostbusters costume: the hose connector thing

after much futzing about and rooting through old stuff (i have too much stuff!) i came across a couple of pieces of "elephant skin" lino for doing linocut prints. i bought this stuff ten years ago or possibly more. maybe someday, i will do the linocuts. meanwhile, it's a great colour and carvable. so, i decided to see what i could do to fashion a hose connector thing out of it.

that's one of these, the bit that connects the hose to the left thigh of the flightsuit.

i had some aquarium hose, and a thing that it fit onto, to use as a starting point.

i cut the thing-it-fit-onto - some sort of aquarium filter piece thing (again, we have too much stuff!) down to size, leaving the "flare" so i could securely attach it into the hose connector thing.

since the lino is not terribly thick, i had to glue bits together to get tomething close to what i wanted. the leg hose connector itself is made of stacked rings, glued together with some all-purpose adhesive i found in my toolbox.

i glued together the two large base pieces and the two smaller nozzle pieces separately, so i could mess around with the fit of everything, and also to make it easier to sand the edges, which were pretty uneven.

i clamped the whole lot together while the glue dried.

then, slip the hose through, and voila! ready to be sewn onto the leg of the flightsuit.