Janome Pass It On contest. Part 1

The contest.  My pattern.

The background:  I technically know how to sew.  As in, I can thread my machine (a Janome Jem Gold, actually), wind bobbins and make it go.  I can almost make a straight line.  I know what a seam allowance is!  See, when we moved, I went from my "little kid's bed" (it must have been a short full, it was wider than a twin) to my "grown up bed" (a beautiful queen sized bed that I finally have in the new apartment).  And we decided I need an awesome quilt to go with it.  I was in middle school at the time.  So we started to collect fabrics, and my mom looked at patterns.  And some time during high school, my mother got me this traveling sewing machine, so I could work on my quilt, and could take the machine to college with me (and I did!).

My family has a long and proud tradition of unfinished projects.  My mom has various needlecraft things partially finished--lots of different kinds of embroidery, quilting and I don't know what else.  She did make my Halloween costumes for me as a kid, though.  My dad actually got the doll house for my sister put together.  It never got stairs, much less decorated.  The quilt is still not done.

Anyway, I need to actually be able to do something useful with my sewing machine, rather than just look at it.  And I decided that M needs new pj pants.  Pretty desperately.  Then I ran across the aforementioned contest.  So, not knowing any sewers locally (how would you find them anyway?) I went Rav, like any sane knitter would.  And on the Sew Obsessed group, I posted asking if anyone was interested in playing along.  Since I wasn't sure if this technically meets the rules, but I wanted to do it anyway, I figured it wasn't like I was loosing anything by getting someone to help me.  So Beeknitbee said she would help me.  It just so happens she is a phenomenal sewer. 

My Journey:
I washed the fabric.  It shrunk.  Beeknitbee said I should wash it again (this time guarding against fraying by stitching around the edges).  So I did.

 

waiting to be washed again

Then I traced out the pants.  This involved lots of fighting.  I remembered that the hu'band actually has a new pair of pants that fit him infinitely better, but they are made out of sweatshirt material.  And they have very strong elastic at the waistband.  They were rejected as a template, and I ended up having to use the flannel pants, and adjust their size.  

 

 I realized later that I took this picture before I straightened out the pants.  I was testing to see if they would be less finicky than the others.  They were much much better.

I added two inches to all the seams, except the hem.  There I added 8.  This seems like a lot, but the difference between the two pants is four inches.  Plus with the flannel shrinkage, I'm afraid of them continuing to shrink--clearly his UT pants have shrunk quite a bit.  It's not like I'm expecting him to grow any taller!  So, I'll hem them up four inches, and as they shrink, make them longer.  whee!

These are the Florida State pants.  It's a little bit wider than the half inch seam they suggest, but these pants don't like laying flat very much (which is why I rejected them as templates) and so it's not actually that much.

I do have better photo taking skills than this, it just made me laugh, it looking like a classic 'bad unit photo' (I'm an archaeologist, so instead of a skirt and sparkly toenails, normally you would see dirty boots, and a 1 x 1 meter square hole instead of a sewing project).  Anyway, proving to myself that the fabric is in fact long enough for the extra hemming.

Allergies are the devil

I was going to post sooner, I swear.  But massive allergies made me a useless person.  I don't have normal allergies, instead it all drains into my ears and makes me consistently dizzy.  When I'm like that, I can't think or concentrate.

So we get an update by pictures:  the crocheted frisbee.  This has been put on hold.  The lovely folks at Rav have helped me sort out what happened, though, and so as soon as I get some other projects done, I'm going to go back to this one.

I'm working on other things, they just don't have pictures right now.

I also made key lime cookies for the Super Bowl.  They are by Martha Stewart, in her Baking Handbook.  Yes, I love Martha, and I don't care.  These were sublime.  Though, um, apparently if you have heart burn you shouldn't eat too many in one sitting.  I may or may not have eaten six or seven in a row (which seems to constitute 'too many').

 

The one thing I did 'wrong' was that I didn't have confectioners sugar, so I used regular sugar for the glaze.  This gave the glaze a really interesting texture. I figured it would do something like that, but I didn't really care. Next time I make these, I plan on using confectioners, but I'm hoping I can remember about the cool texture of the regular sugar glaze, and find a good application.  I'm thinking it might be neat on cupcakes.

Birthday present!

So clearly I just need to combine the two blogs.  I'm not really sure what I'm accomplishing by keeping them separate. 

Anyway, I realized that I forgot to mention that for my birthday I got a totally kick-bum present from Shannan.  Shanan?  Shanannannanan....  Clearly words aren't functioning for me today.  I'd just go with Shanita, but I'm pretty sure that I run into the 'n' problem there too.  ANYWAY...

Acorn bag of adorableness.  I would Rav-link it so you could see the actual bag in all it's glory, but I'm pretty sure that's not yet a feature to allow non-Ravelers (or Ravelites, as I like to call them, us?, in my head) to see pages.

...that is all

No it's not: SHANNON!  *sigh* better...

So much belated updateness

Photo updates.

Husband's glove.  One day I will get back to working on itl

 

My two random side projects:

the practice doily:

This guy is crazy stiff.  I ironed it out, and it could stand up on its own.  Ridiculous, but would be really good for snowflakes.  It's too bad that I don't know what brand it is (it was a present from a friend's mom who didn't want it anymore)

My skirt:

 

Which pretty much looks like a pile of nothing.  That's more than half complete.  It's going to be really short.  I hope I have enough yarn to lengthen it a little it, and that the lace will stretch after I block it.  That's how lace works, right?  I think that was after I had to tink the row where I accidentally moved on to the next section--where I had to double the number of stitches.  Curses. 

And finally, my present to myself.  It was on sale!  AND I even came home and asked the husband about it (he's my sugar daddy, as he's the one with a 'real job').  That's pretty much all my 'fun money' for the month though.  I'm really excited.  It may be more fun to craft than it is to do archaeology (don't tell anyone I said that!).