skirt!

it's been a little chilly here lately (boooo) but today i decided to wear a skirt anyway!



i made may of last year (and fixed may of this year) from fabric i ordered from runner girl. i am hoping that by this afternoon the weather will be more suited to the clothing!

oh em gee.

so, i'm going to maine this week for the hands & voices leadership conference, and i thought "maybe i'll hit up a few yarn stores on the way there and back." so i got directions thanks to google and headed over to knitmap to see what was on or near my route.

well, wowsers!

they have an awesome new crawl feature where you can create a map with driving directions of all the stores you want to hit. which i obviously did. and no, i probably (definitely) won't have time to hit all of them, but i will definitely hit a few!



meanwhile, i have to start packing, and sorting out what me-made stuff i can pack my suitcase with that will suit the weather - it's going to be on the cool side, looks like. may have to dig out some stuff i packed away for the season! i'm thinking this sweater could definitely make a reappearance:

summer dress weather

it's me-made month!



today i'm wearing an all-time favourite - polkadots and bows! so comfortable and girlish. the dress is lined with the same blue cotton the bows are made of.



i've also been busy with my knitting despite two needle crises - one circ that vanished, and one circ that broke. replaced both at knitomatic last night, where i also picked up some mission falls for $3.50 a ball! i'm sad there will be no more mission falls, but boy was i glad to get some for that price!

so this morning i got my spring dreams dress off the broken needle and onto the new one (knitpicks harmony - have't tried them before, but i'm kind of excited that i can get them at my lys!), while waiting for the bus:



and last night i moved my swooner bed jacket from a too-short circ to a right-sized one. this is my "sweater" for the knitomatic sweater-along:



i will try to be more consistent with posting for the rest of me-made june 2011...

what i want for christmas

whoops! i started this post last week and it somehow got lost in the "drafts" folder... found it because i am home sick today!

this. and more realistically, this book! all about saul bass, the amazing graphic designer who did the credit sequences for so many brilliant films in the 1950s and truly created the aesthetic.

in other news, it's me-made month!



i will confess this morning i completely forgot until i was already on the road. did not sleep well last night is my only excuse. but yesterday i wore my new favourite skirt, a high-waisted half-circle in a floral print!




(note to self: hands too shaky, drink less coffee. or, get a tripod.)

i think the fabric was actually meant to be for upholstery, but the weight means it drapes nicely instead of flying up in the air all of the time. love this skirt! and was easy to make, too. here's a brief diagram of what i did:



n.b. all sides need seam allowance added!

make sense? one quarter-circle is the front of the skirt, the other is the back; the rectangles are for the waistband, one front and one back, and the line down the middle is to show that it's folded in half. first, sew one long side of each waistband to the smaller curved edge of the skirt piece, right sides together. then place the two combined pieces right sides together, lining up the waistband seam. sew the entire side seam (waistband and skirt) on one side, and on the other, sew the side seam only from about 5" from the waistband down to the bottom (to leave room for the zipper). fold the waistband down in half on the inside of the skirt, and sew through all layers "in the ditch" of the waistband seam. insert zipper, hem, and you're done!

i got a little fancy with mine; since it's a fairly wide waistband, i through in a couple of darts like this:



sorry i wish i was better at tutorials!

20000 leagues

20000 leagues under the sea is screening at the tiff bell lightbox this weekend, and it reminded me that i never posted the pics of the final sweater!




i think the model is the best part, natch. wish i could quit my job and just knit movie-themed curling sweaters full time! anyone willing to pay me to do that?

the pain of lace and joy of waffles

ok so last week i alluded to the knitting tragedy which was really a case of my own hubris returning to haunt me.

someone had posted on ravelry about having an extra yo which made a little hole in their work-in-progress, but she'd knit a row of eyelets before she noticed, and how to go back and fix? "tink it back carefully and re-knit the section on dpns," i said. "it's tricky but can be done."

no sooner had i typed it than i realised i had messed up my own project. which is a dress, knit in fingering using the frost flowers lace pattern.



the trick with this pattern is that just when you're used to it, just when you've figured out that it is actually quite straight forward and it is actually just the same 4 rows repeated, you get to the part where the rows stagger, and you can't go by feel anymore, and it's like the key-change in your favourite song when you're singing karaoke and all of a sudden you've missed that crucial note and there's nothing for it but starting over.

at which point, what you really need is coffee. and waffles.



that was almost tragic, too. i'd been wanting waffles for an age, but couldn't find the cord for my fostoria waffle iron, which dates from about the late 1930s at a guess. but guess what? when i found the cord and plugged it in, i discovered that one side wasn't working! it stayed cold to the touch, which made me forget that the working side was hot to the touch, so i burnt my thumb. so, pain and waffles made verrry slowly one at a time.



but still, waffles.



and i did eventually get through tinking and re-knitting 3 rows x 2 full pattern repeats (and a pattern repeat is 34 stitches across!) and i don't think you can tell it happened at all!



waffles

2 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup milk
1 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tbs baking powder
3/4 cup melted butter + more to brush waffle iron

whisk together eggs, sugar, salt, vanilla (i keep wanting to type vanilly). add milk.

sift together flour and baking powder, whisk into batter. whisk in melted butter.

i find a third of a cup of batter fills my waffle iron perfectly, and it takes 2 minutes to bake when the iron is hot. but each is different of course!

mm, bagels

ok here's my favourite from the seven sins series:



warning, the song will get stuck in your head. but it's so good! this is the jamie travis "on greed" "do you like butter on your bagel" short that i promised a couple of weeks ago! airing tonight at 10 pm ET/7 pm PM on bravo! in canada, and obvs online around the world...