I feel it coming together

Warning: The following post may result in the theme song from “Fame” playing endlessly in your head for the rest of the day.

We had a dilemma here in the Gren household. Rana and Granota enjoy wearing skirts and dresses. They do not, however, enjoy wearing tights. Once the cooler days start kicking in, there is a lot of wailing about the atrocities of tights and the unfairness of having cold legs whilst wearing skirts. This happens every year. But this year, I made the decision not to entertain the inane Cold Legs vs. Evil Tights debate. Usually, the main complaint is that the girls don’t like how the waistband of the tights compress their bellies (I haven’t told them about control top panty hose yet; they can make that discovery on their own). Rana also gets upset about the toe line that makes funny little squares on the sides of her feet which then bother her in her shoes. So they want to wear skirts and have warm legs, but nothing touching their bellies or feet. It’s almost a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too situation. But there was one solution.

Enter: The legwarmer. And 1982. Hey, we’re gonna live forever.

I chose to use a knitting loom rather than crochet for good stretchiness in the finished product. The yarn I chose was some kind of soft, bulky wool from Michael’s; it’s almost like roving, but it’s washable.

Once you know the circumference of the leg you’re warming, choose the loom that most closely matches that measurement. My girls’ legs are about 10 inches around, so I chose the blue loom. From there, you’re basically making a tube, so there’s not a lot of “pattern” needed (unless you want to get fancy, which I didn’t this time around). I found these instructions which were great for getting me started, especially since I use the round looms so rarely, I couldn’t remember how to cast on.

Enter the Vortex

There’s not a lot to say about the actual process. It’s repetitive and somewhat therapeutic. One thing I did learn the hard way is that finished length does not correspond well to measured length on the loom. Each girl ended up with one legwarmer longer than the other; good thing they’re stretchy (the legwarmers that is — not the girls). So my advice is to count rows, as tedious as that is, rather than to rely on a measuring tape.

A little strategic stretching and ta dah! They’re the same!

The other thing I learned is that the bind off video that is recommended in the above instructions results in a tight, unstretchable cuff. I did a little looking and found this Super Stretchy Bind Off video that worked much better for this project.

Ribbed cuff

I kept waiting for the girls to both wear their legwarmers on the same day to get a good picture, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon. Rana was happy to pose for me, though.

You ain’t seen the best of me yet

Baby, remember my name.

 

Just enough warmth

Sometimes I get cold, even in the summer. The first summer that my family moved back to the Pacific Northwest after my body had acclimated to 90+ days all summer for the previous twelve years was a major shock to my system. These fir trees block out a lot of sunlight. When there is sunlight. I’ve since become re-accustomed to the less-than-summery temperatures we often experience up here. And part of my survival is sweatshirts and jackets. What can I say? I’m a wimp when it comes to cold.

While functional, hoodies aren’t particularly chic. Since I’ve been making all these lightweight summery-type clothes (Take that, clouds!), I needed a way to keep warm without instantly demoting my outfit to “college student” (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. heh But my college career was many years ago and I milked the sweatshirt/flannel pajama bottoms ensemble for all it’s worth back then).

My first thought was a shrug — something to cover my shoulders and a little bit up top, just to add a tiny bit of warmth. I had found a pattern that I liked in one of my crochet magazines and bought yarn for it. First, the yarn.

You got my money once, punks.

It’s a Martha Stewart (Lion Brand) acrylic/wool blend (65%/35%). I liked the aqua color (called “igloo”), which is similar to the yarn pictured in the pattern. I’m easily swayed by suggestion, apparently. I also liked that it is a smooth yarn and, while the weight is listed as a 4, it’s not too thick or bulky. As far as working with it goes… eh, I’d be hard-pressed to buy this again. It tends to be splitty; I found knotted lengths within the skeins and one skein even started with several inches of dirty yarn — like it had been walked on! I was too far along at that point to want to abandon the project or deal with the hassle of returning and finding another skein in the right color lot. Besides, who’s to say the next one wouldn’t have some kind of weird issue, too? Obviously, I cut off the dirty part and forged ahead.

The pattern. Well, the pattern ended up consisting of block motifs joined together. If you know anything about me, you know I hate weaving in loose ends. Look, it’s one thing on a blanket, but on a garment? I’m pretty good at hiding those suckers, but there’s always a couple that will work loose eventually. I didn’t like the idea of sporting little fuzzy ends sticking out. Plus, there was the weaving to start with. So I nixed that pattern and went to my fallback — Crochet Pattern Central.  I looked at all the shrugs, shawls, ponchos and capes. Some of them I looked at twice. I finally landed on Anke Spilker’s “Knock Knock Knock Penny.” I have no idea what the name is about, but I liked the look of the little poncho. It had enough coverage to offer warmth, but enough open stitching to keep things airy.

Fans and summer go together!

As you can see in the pictures, it is basically a series of fans, which really aren’t that difficult to execute, but look fancy. And, while the pattern isn’t difficult, I did find it a bit of slow going because the first 15 rounds are all slightly different, so I couldn’t get into that yarnworker’s zen-like rhythm (full disclosure: I can never spell “rhythm” correctly on the first try). Rounds 16-26 repeat previous rounds, but I only went to about Round 22 or 23 because I was running out of yarn and time (this was one of the projects I wanted to get done before my trip back East). I like the finished length, so it doesn’t bother me that it is a little shorter than how the pattern was written. If I fold my arms across my chest, the poncho is long enough to cover them for a quick warm-up. And, just like I had hoped, it’s warm without being too warm for a cool summer day.

I’m not the only one who likes it! She has commissioned me to make one for her, too.

Toga! Toga! Toga!

Tell you what, after making this dress, I think the Greeks were on to something. Soft, roomy, comfy, stylishly wrinkled, togas have got it all! Seriously, if we all just had togas in multiple colors, we’d be set for life.

(Ok, for the nitpickers and fact checkers among us, yes, I am fully and completely aware that the Greek garment was not called a “toga,” but a “chiton.” But nobody talks about “chitons” and half of those who do, probably don’t know how to pronounce it anyways.)

The main difference between this dress and togas is that this is sewn and not just an artfully draped piece of fabric. But the sewing was super easy. Because it is so simple, I was able to put in some nice French seams. This thin cotton lawn is perfect for that treatment.

Now, the girl on the pattern cover seems to have a much more pleated dress than I do.

I don’t know how that happens. Also, she is so fashion forward that she doesn’t even need the little fabric tie to cinch it in. I liked that look. I cannot pull off that look. I realized that, without the fabric tie, I basically just made a purple version of my nightgown. Really, the differences between the two are negligible. Negligible, I said, not negligee.

You may notice that the hem is not straight across — it actually dips a bit lower in the front and back than it does on the sides. The pattern drawing for view A makes it look straight across which is what I wanted because I’m not a big fan of asymmetry (sorry, views B & C). I suppose it’s alright because, in the end, it is symmetrical, just not how I expected.

I wonder what this would look like in a slightly heavier fabric. I may never bother finding out because this is a fabric monster. But hey, if I could add fall/winter/spring togas to this summery one, my wardrobe would be set for the year!

And once again I am fascinated by the incredible pallor of my skin. I live up close to myself so it never really registered. Oh sure, I knew I had pale skin, but man, I am white. Just living up to my name, I guess (Jennifer: Welsh form of Guinevere means “white, soft, smooth.”). And, I suppose given my ancestry, coloring, and the forest background, I’m more akin to some kind of Celtic fairy in this dress than I am to any Greek goddesses. I’ll take that.

And don’t call me Shirrley

A few weeks ago, I bought a skirt at the mall. Shirred waist, nice and swishy, and a print to rival my Jungle blouse. It’s so comfortable, but the print limits what I can wear with it. I needed a skirt just like it, but in a solid color. While I was doing my fabric shopping on Mother’s Day, I made a note to myself to check out their pre-shirred fabrics to make myself a skirt. But Holy Sticker Shock, Batman! $25/yard?! Madness. I decided then and there to do it myself.

Just a little bit of research online to confirm what I needed to know about shirring. No need to reinvent the wheel — check out this site for a good, detailed tutorial if you are interested in trying it yourself!

I got my solid fabric — a black linen-cotton blend that felt nice and had a decent drape. And I got my elastic thread, one in white and one in black. Before embarking on the real thing,  I made a test scrap to see how much shrinkage I could count on once I started sewing. I cut a 12″ length of scrap fabric, hand-wound the elastic thread into the bobbin, set my stitch length at 3 and left my tension at 3. With the first line of stitching, you can see that it didn’t shrink up all that much. Not to worry; that’s what all the tutorials said would happen. It’s the subsequent lines that will really gather up the fabric. Seven lines of stitching shrunk my 12″ piece of fabric almost by half. That’s what I needed to know. I could count on approximately 50% shrinkage.

On to the real stuff! First, I cut two panels of fabric 34″ wide on the crosswise grain. Why? Because I am lazy. I wanted to use the finished selvage  edge at the top of the skirt. And there was no one to tell me not to, so that’s what I did. The fabric was 50″ wide selvage to selvage and, astonishing as it may be, my legs are not 50″ long, so the selvage on the bottom edge didn’t help me any. I ended up putting in 15 rows of shirring, 1/4″ apart at the top of each panel and those 34″ shrunk down to 15″. Mission accomplished!

My mall-bought skirt is swishy because it has extra fabric sewn in at the sides below the shirring. I didn’t buy that much fabric for my black skirt. It was going to hang pretty much straight down which didn’t seem like a lot of fun. But you know what was fun? Shirring. So I shirred some vertical lines at four points around the skirt and then scrunched up the fabric and tied it with ribbons. Is it weird or is it cool? I don’t know. It’s unique at any rate.

I wore it on Sunday and discovered a few things:

• I could probably stand to tighten up the sides right at my waist (basically over the shirred part); the skirt had a tendency to slip just a little bit. I’d prefer not to have any wardrobe malfunctions.
• This skirt is not good to wear around little jumpy dogs whose paws get caught in the folds.
• Nor is it good for crawling on the floor to change diapers.
• Neither does it fare well when trying to rise from micro-fiber upholstered chairs.
• If I wear a clingy shirt, the top “ruffle” shows through, creating weird lumps; I ended up folding down the top about halfway so that I wouldn’t have a ripply ring around my mid-section.

All those things taken into account, I think I’ll fare a bit better next time. And it really was comfortable, too.

Dress = Done

Last week turned out a little differently than I had planned. After posting on Wednesday, my French class was canceled just as I was about to walk out the door. Too bad, but that did mean a whole day to sew that I hadn’t been banking on! I was able to finish my shirt dress and Granota’s Cuddle Muffin jumper that evening.

For my dress I used McCall’s 4769. Pretty basic style, not much that really stands out. It would probably be great in a novelty print, but for this incarnation I chose a pale blue cotton/linen blend. This way I’ve got a blank canvas that I can spruce up with accessories to change up the look. I don’t currently have much in the way of accessories, but I do have a couple of silk scarves and a couple belts that I can use. And, hopefully without the distraction of pattern or color or unique features on the dress itself, I can get a little more creative about the kinds of accessories I can add to my wardrobe in the future. Future being: when we manage to get Mr. Gren a better job than ringing up plants and patio bricks.

We can always hope.

M4769

The other side of the lapel went together with about the same amount of fiddling as the first side, but at least this time I knew that, as ugly as it is on the inside, it turns out well on the outside. Just as miraculously, my machine didn’t jam up a single time while doing the buttonholes. That may be a first! At the waistline, there is a hook and eye to keep things together so that belts or sashes won’t get hung up on a button.

Went with the blue leopard print scarf this time.

I like those McCall’s guys. These are funny guys. They told me to “hem skirt by hand.” Bwhahahahahaa! Yeah, right. I barely got through hand-tacking the collar and facing down without wanting to kick a puppy. Good thing we don’t have a puppy. Besides, why hand-sew a hem when you can blind stitch it! That’s what I’m talking about. My first attempt several years ago at using the blind stitch on my machine resulted in a less-than-blind hem. I get better with every one I do. I can’t claim that this one is perfect, but a person is going to have to get pretty close to my knees to see the few stitches that managed to peek out.

Konik’s about the right height to examine my hem. Fortunately, he has no idea what he’s looking for.

Oh! And did I mention pockets? That’s always fun in a dress. The fabric was light enough that I went ahead and used it for the pockets, too, instead of a lining fabric.

I ain’t afraid of no crease

A lot of people shy away from linen because of its notorious tendency to wrinkle. What can I say, I’m a sucker for punishment. No, not really; it’s just that I love natural fibers. Besides, anyone who hasn’t worn linen is missing out. I wore this dress to church today with a navy blue belt and navy blue crocheted-by-me beret. I looked pretty sassy if I do say so myself. You’ll just have to take my word for it because Mr. Gren had to work today and couldn’t take a picture to document it for posterity. The dress passed the wearability test — it was comfortable and, despite sitting in the car for 40 minutes round trip and sitting in the church pew for another 90 minutes, the dress wasn’t too horribly wrinkled. I changed out of it when I got home because I had to start a fire and I would have been oh-so-sad if I’d gotten soot on my new pale blue dress. Soot is an unfortunate accessory of life in a cabin, but I can at least try to limit it to jeans.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

You may have noticed that there was no French Friday last week (Hi, Mom). They used to be my most-viewed posts, but lately they were getting really low numbers. I have to admit that I was getting a little burnt out spending two or three hours on a post that only 12 people look at (Hi, Gma). So, do me a favor, peeps, if you like French Fridays, will you let me know? And if there are things you’d like to hear about my experiences in France, let me know that, too! Thanks. Carry on.

Welcome to the Jungle

We’ve been on a little Guns n’ Roses kick around here lately since Granota decided to start styling herself like Axl Rose (without any previous knowledge of his existence). Now she likes to rock out to various GNR hits and we’ve all had an endless medley playing in our brains. There are worse things.

Ok, so Axl didn’t wear pink ballerina slippers on his black t-shirts.

Last week, I began working on the second of my spring/summer blouses. The fabric is a rayon challis print (possibly my favorite fabric to work with and wear!). Granota commented that I was going to look like a zebra. I pointed at the foliage on the print and said I’d look like a zebra walking in the jungle. I don’t know what zebras are doing in the jungle (you’re gonna DIIIIIE!), but I love how colorful it all is. And really, this is going out on a limb for me. {gasp} Red? And orange? Good thing there’s a heavy dose of teal to balance it all out for me.

The pattern I used is McCall’s 6563. Basically a t-shirt with a drapey front neckline treatment. It consists of two whole pieces. As I was pulling them out I thought, this is either going to be genius or a major mess.

With just two pieces, there’s not a lot of tricky construction. The drapey front is just an extended portion of the front neckline that falls inward. Easy. This style was also a little bit of a departure from anything I’ve worn, but that’s ok because my style — as it were — definitely needs an infusion of visual interest.

All in all, I think I like this top. I made it in a medium based on my measurements, but really, I think I could take it down to small. I ended up cutting off two inches from the hem (not to mention the mullet hem in the back) because it hit me in a weird place. Also, the armholes come down a little farther than I would prefer. I wore a camisole under it today and that made me feel safer.

So here I am, a zebra in the jungle.

(And, as an added bonus, the white eyelet skirt that I made a couple years ago after seeing one in the mall that I liked. Mr. Gren was trying to convince me to twirl, but the deck is insanely slippery and I really didn’t want to end up on my ne-ne-ne-ne knees, knees!)

No peasants were burninated in the sewing of this blouse

I made a shirt. It was boring. I put stuff on it. Now I like it. Suffering from writer’s block a bit.

As excited as I was to sew it, it’s not that exciting a story to tell. It’s kind of plain, like the shirt. So I’ll spruce it up, too.

Last week after my pattern binge, I could barely sleep from excitement. So the next morning I set right to work making a peasant blouse out of navy broadcloth from my stash. It was plain, so I crocheted some lace trim for the hem and sleeves.

But even that isn’t all that riveting to read. How about this.

Lo, this past seven-night in the wake of the procurement of multitudinous patterns, repose eluded me. The new day dawned and I commenced fabrication posthaste on an esne’s tunic, availing myself of indigo stuffs. Being too ordinary, I further adorned the frock with hand-worked ornamentation.

But why should I have all the fun? Sewing MadLibs!

Once upon a _______ (noun), JenGren ________ (verb) _________ (quantity) new sewing patterns. She was so ________ (adj) that she could not ________ (verb). The next day, she ________ (verb) a new _________ (clothing) from _________ (color) fabric. But, it was ___________ (adj), so she ________ (verb) _________ (noun) to it. Now it is _________ (adj).

Have at it! Make my story amusing, entertaining, thrilling, exhilarating! You can write your version in the comments (just keep it clean!). And hopefully the oatmeal mush in my head will be a little more witty on Wednesday.

And for anyone curious about the burnination of peasants: Trogdor the Burninator

Eet’s a sweater!

Do any of you quote movie lines with your significant others? For me, I think I can trace it back to my college roommates and “What About Bob?” (still my favorite movie). Then I married a man who loves movies. I had to start watching all his old ’80s comedies just to know what the heck he was talking about. We’ve got our go-to favorites and have discovered that, between “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” we could probably never have an original conversation again; they’ve got quotes for everything! Another one we like is “Three Amigos” which provided the title of today’s post. It’s great for any gift-giving situation.

Today is not a gift-giving situation, but it does involve an actual sweater! Just in time for the warmest day of the year so far. Woo hoo, timing! To my credit, it was cold three weeks ago when I started this. The pattern was (mostly) the “flirty ruffles top” from the January 2009 issue of Crochet! Magazine. I used Caron Simply Soft in Pagoda. I like the sheen, but it does look like it might have a tendency to pill, so I’m going to have to be careful with the sweater.

Now, you may notice that there aren’t any ruffles on this so-called ruffles top. On the original pattern, the front hemline came up to a point just below the bust and it was this edge that was lined with ruffles. I didn’t like the way it came up like that because that would force me to have to wear something underneath to cover up all that midriff. Truth be told, I’ll probably end up wearing a camisole under it anyways because there’s nothing worse in life (to me) than being cold. But I’d like to at least maintain the option of having just a sweater on its own. Besides that, I thought that cut-out part looked stupid.

I have a waist!

In order to keep it from being just a big crocheted rectangle, I did a little bit of shaping through the waist by changing hook size. The majority of the sweater is worked with an I hook. I worked a panel through the middle on both the front and the back where I went down to H for about 5 rows and then to G, back up to H and then back to I. I can definitely feel a difference in wearing it. Along the bottom hem, I just made a simple 5 dc fan around.

I’ll be the first to admit that, without the ruffly inverted V, this is a pretty basic sweater. And you know what? I’m ok with that. Until now, all I had was one extremely basic gray J. Crew sweater that I bought at the thrift store with the intention of felting down to make something else (can’t even remember what that was). Eventually I got cold and just started wearing it. Another warm addition to my wardrobe was a must, hence this basic teal sweater. Teal is prettier than gray, anyways. Obviously this make isn’t going to see a lot of wear until the fall, but at least I’ll be ready.

With that done, it’s time to start busting my fabric stash for more season-appropriate garments. Should be some good stuff coming up soon in that department! Not to mention my new pajamas for the sew-along are due on Saturday. “Sew, (not so) very old one! Sew like the wind!” (How’s that for a great quote! Anybody else got some good ones? Bonus points if they’re craft-related).

 

 

 

French Friday #38: Ruby slippers

In preparation for our move to France in 2003, I did a little clothes shopping to class up my wardrobe. Even though France is no longer the world power it used to be and some would argue that Paris is not even the fashion capital of the world anymore, there’s no denying that the concept of French style still holds a certain cachet. And, let’s face it, everyday American style post-1964 is awfully sloppy. The last thing I wanted to do was look like an American tourist for three years. It’s that whole “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” The Parisians appreciate some effort, too.

If you’ve read French Friday #33, you’ll remember that all those new clothes didn’t show up for six weeks, so I did look like an American tourist for awhile. But once I had the opportunity to begin dressing “more French,” I noticed that something was off. I had missed a key component that I hadn’t even been aware of before. French women, regardless of age or formality of dress, have an affinity for red shoes. Powder blue was a close second. It didn’t matter what color the rest of the outfit was, in Paris, red shoes go with anything. At first, I thought it was kind of funny, but I began to warm to the idea of the red shoe. Why not have a little fun? Why not tell the world, “I am so confident in the rest of my look, that I can put on these red shoes and not even care.” Sounded good to me. Not having the occasion to wear pumps that often at that time in my life, I opted for the red sneaker, which was perfectly acceptable.

Ok, so this is in Spain, but goes to show I wore them everywhere.
On top of a fortress with Baby Rana in Valencia.

I wore those sneakers into the ground. By the time I threw them away several years later, there was no tread left on the soles, the red was scuffed off the toes, and the soles were peeling off from the shoes themselves. It was kind of sad to let them go. By that time, we were back in the States where white sneakers reign supreme and most women would never consider wearing something as attention-getting as red shoes. After all, if you don’t do it right, you could be flirting with “street walker” rather than “fashionista.” Nevertheless, I made a little vow to myself to always own at least one pair of red shoes from then on. Just another way to keep a little bit of France with me.

My current red shoes (wearing them right now!) which are comfy and look fun, but don't bother buying a pair -- they're falling apart after just a few months. Lame. Looks like I'm in the market for another pair of red shoes!