Putting it all Together

So since the last time I posted, a number of things have happened.

1. We moved into the new place and are slowly making an empty apartment into a home (a big shout-out to our Portland friends who are letting us mooch their unwanted furniture!)
2. Mr. Cleaver got some part-time work as adjunct faculty at the community college
3. I got a call for my first job interview, which happens on Monday afternoon and there's a good chance I'll get another interview this week (I know a guy).

It feels good to be in our own place. The neighborhood is great, our landlords are super nice and it's a solid apartment. I'll post some photos once it gets a little more settled. So far I've managed to get a few things on the walls and my sewing machine on my desk, but no clothes out a suitcase. We all have our own priorities.

I went to a new knitting circle on Tuesday, I'll have to give it a few more tries to see if it's a good personality fit or not. It was a really small gathering, so I'm not sure it was representative, but we'll see.

Other than that, knitting's been on the backburner to unpacking, but I did finally take some photos of WIPs to share.

The photo above is the Forecast cardigan. A surprisingly simple knit, with more purling than I'd like, but I really enjoy the pattern. I'm knitting it in Cascade 220 Heather and I am really enjoying this yarn. It's very spriongy!

This scarf I haven't worked on since Chicago, but I thought I'd photograph it too. It's my "Seed-Stitch Self-Striping Striped Scarf." It's not very interesting to knit and I dislike making scarves in general, but I loved the colors and wanted something simple to display them. The blue-green color is particularly special since it's the Edgewater colorway from Lorna's Lace, which is my old Chicago neighborhood. The Purple is called Black Purl. It's just a nubbly scarf, but I like it. I might pull tassles on at the ned, but we'll see, I still have a lot of length to knit.

We don't have internet in the apartment yet, so the posting may still be spotty for a while. But keep your fingers crossed for me tomorrow!

Unemployed, but no longer homeless

So last week, when I said I'd post this week, I forgot to take into account that I'd be living out of a suitcase at the mother-in-law's with dodgy internet and looking for a job and an apartment. But after week here, I've managed to secure a place to live starting September second and have sent out a dozen job applications. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some interviews next week. 

In other words, it's been both slow and crazy/stressful all at the same time. Yay for moving!

But I have had plenty of down time, which means I finally finished my Shock Wave socks that I've been working on for over a month, which considering the relative ease of the pattern, is longer than usual. They turned out very nice though, and since it's about 15 degrees colder here, have come in handy already.

I've also done about 34 rows of my Forecast cardigan since Monday evening, which is fast for me, so it evens out. In between job and home hunting, I did manage to check out a new (to me) yarn shop and bought some more sock yarn, so I'll be set for projects for a little while.

As all my belongings are shoved into two cars, I haven't had an opportunity to do any more sewing, which I miss more than I thought. I'm itching to get out my machine and start stitching, but it'll have to wait until the new place.

That said, I've yet to share the last project I finished just before the move.

It's basically the same shirt as the one from my new favorite outfit, but with a ruffle. But the best things about this shirt are threefold: 

1. I got the material for $2 at a garage sale
2. I actually got the collar stand right
3. I did my first bias tape on the sleeves and a french seam on the insides.

So all in all, it was a great learning shirt. And also fabulously snazzy. Of course, now all my projects will be more fall/winter in nature.

Well, I'm all internet/computer burned out after spending several hours on applications, but I'll be back soon!

SnB Northside

I know I haven't talked (typed?) much about knitting here recently, which isn't to say I haven't been knitting. I have, just due to high humidity and clammy hands, I haven't been knitted as much.

Prior to this year, I was a cold-weather only knitter. But the ladies of SnB Norhtside have made make the habit year-round, if only to share in their company one night a week.

For my first year in Chicago I went to my knitting circle on and off as my theatre scheduled permited, this year was a little more flexible and they had moved the lovely Kopi cafe, which is nice walk from my apartment.

As Mr. Cleaver can attest, Tuesday nights are often a highlight of my week and even if I screw up on a project, I always come home in a good mood.

This past Tuesday was a farewell party at SnB, with three members (myself included) leaving in the upcoming weeks.  I decided to bring along the camera to capture it all before I go away. So I'm just going to let the photos speak for themselves, with a caption or two (and if I misspell anyone's name I'm sorry!) 

Because I can't do anything the easy way

When I got the the summer dress code at my current job last I could have sworn it was written in 1962.  Along with khakis and polo shirts, acceptable "business casual" wear includes: jumpers and culottes. Jumpers and culottes!

When was the last time anybody wore culottes, or even knew what they were? Now granted my portion of the office is generally casual-casual, because I have no air conditioning and Chicago gets rather hot and humid this time or year, so really I can wear pretty much anything within reason. 

But for those days when I feel like following the code, I could always pull out this jumper I made a few weeks back.

Jumpers always make me feel a little like I'm five. Hence the theme of this particular bunch of photos.  Also, I'm running out of things to do in front of a blank white wall, so I'm up for any suggestions.

This particular project had been sitting on a back burner for about 3 months, largely because I planned to make it out of this beautiful blue linen and I was afraid to cut into it. More to the point though, I wanted to change up the top a bit, and had little-to-no experience with pattern alteration.

The original pattern (McCalls 5577) looked like this:

Yes, I copied the color exactly. Not so creative I know. I loved the skirt of the thing, but the top seemed a little low, even if I was going to wear a shirt under it, and I didn't quite get the v-shaped piece on the upper back. So I pulled out my ruler from my college scenic design class and wrapping paper and started drawing. I added about 2 inches (plus seam allowance) to the top lines of the top piece blending it in with the existing straps and leaving the bottom bit the same so it'd line up as per the original. Then I transferred it to muslin and sewed the top up.

I quickly discovered that I'd need some darts, which I also had no clue how to do and didn't look up how to do until my next project. So I guessed and basted and ripped and guessed and basted until I came up with something that seemed to work. Of course, without the skirt bit attached I wasn't sure how it would all hang, and sure enough when I made the actual jumper I totally had to move the darts and I'm still not sure they're in the right place, but ah well it works.

For the back straps, I took the existing lower straps and lengthened them to about 23". Because of where they fell on the back of the jumper, I eschewed buttonholes and tacked the straps straight unto the dress, as well as securing them to the top of the back of the jumper. 

All in all, it came out fairly well, though definitely not perfect. But to those seeking perfection, I say this:

Crazy Week

Usually I try to post on Tuesday, but I'm a tad late this week and I'm not even going to cover a project I finished last week yet. It's been a crazy week:

----

Monday: We turned in our non-renewal of lease to our landlords, so there's no turning back on the move now (not that I'd want to).

Tuesday: I started cutting out a dress that I needed to finish by today (Sunday) to enter in a competition.

Wednesday: My 25th birthday was filled with beautiful flowers, food, cards, facebook messages and phone calls. Not to mention the cake Mr. Cleaver lovingly made from scratch.

Thursday: Stretched by birthday into a two-day affair with cake for breakfast, donuts with my co-workers and lunch with a friend. Picked up a copy of Alice in Wonderland at the Newberry Library book sale, and Vol II. of a beautifully bound book called Wide Wide World. Did a happy dance at the results of So You Think You Can Dance.

Friday: Spent the afternoon at the American Cheese Society's award ceremony, but sadly, had no cheese. Did some sewing. Watched Road to Perdition (it's really good - and it has Paul Newman, not to mention wonderful cinematography). Ate cake.

Saturday: Had some cake. Sewed a lot. Knitted a tad. Went to two different moving-away parties. Loathed the CTA with the fire of a thousand suns.

Sunday: Sewed some more. Embroidered the dress. Took some pictures. Uploaded them to Burdastyle and hoped I get some votes. Wore my new dress for a walk around Andersonville. Ate the last of the cake.

Did I mention I like cake?

Three Panel Apron: A tutorial

As you may recall I made a promise to a friend/coworker that I'd make me an apron, and that my first attempt didn't work out as well as I'd wished.

Well, week or two ago, I drafted out some more well-thought out plans and came up with this:

And I'm quite pleased with the final results, so I packaged it up and gave it to my coworker - who quite liked it!

I've recently gotten into posting stuff on BurdaStyle (sorta like Ravelry, but for sewers), and someone wanted to know how I made this apron. It's easy enough, so I thought I'd oblige with a simple tutorial. (Note: I only took pictures of the first half of the process so this is largely text-based)

You'll need the following:

Two fabrics, with thread to match each, as well as 10" to 20" of trim (or more depending on how you want to fancy it up).

All seams are ½ inch.

Cut list:

Main Color (in my case, the blue)

• one 21"x19" large front panel
• one 11"x19" small front panel
• one 27"x7"  waistband

Contrasting Color (in my case, the yellow)

• one 11"x13" pocket
• one 11"x19" small front panel
• two 23"x4"  ties

Press all pieces

1. With matching thread, make a ½" hem the top of the pocket.

2. Add any trim to front of pocket.

3. Pin pocket to matching apron panel with back of pocket on front of panel and baste pocket on. Press.

4. Prep ties. Hem three sides of each tie, folding over one end to a 45° angle, if preferred - if you do this make sure you make a left and a right facing strap)

5. Baste two lines of stitches inside the seam allowance along the un-hemmed side of each tie. Gather slightly.

 6. Change to main color thread.

 7. With right sides facing, stitch pocket panel to the right hand side of the large front panel. Press and finish seam.

 8.  With right sides facing, stitch the smaller main color panel to the other side of the pocket panel. Press and finish seam.

9. Hem the bottom and sides of apron body. 

10. Baste two lines of stitches along the top of the apron within the seam allowance, this will be used to gather the top of the apron.

11. Take the waistband piece and fold in half. Press.

12.  On the back half and sides of the waistband, press in seam allowance.

13. With right sides facing, place the apron body on the front half of the waist band (if you want a little extra length, you can place it shy of the fold). Adjust gathers so apron fits to waistband.

14. Sew together apron body and waistband front together. Fold waistband over the apron body and press. 

15. Slip stitch the back half of the waistband down. Do not sew the sides closed.

16. Insert tie into the opening in the waistband, with the front of the strap facing the same direction as the front of the apron. Adjust gathering to fit. Stitch opening closed, thus attaching the tie. Repeat for other side.

17. Give your apron a final press and you're done! Give to a friend or enjoy for yourself!

Please note that all patterns and tutorials are for personal use only and should not be distributed or produced for sale without the written consent of the author.

My New Favorite Outfit

I am excited:

Why am I excited? Because I made this entire outfit myself.

Remember back in the day when I said I have this dream of hand-making my entire wardrobe? Well, I just got one new favorite outfit closer.

Seriously, I love this outfit, like the time between washings is too long and I find myself sneaking the shirt out of the laundry basket in the morning before shamefully slipping it back in, because it does, in fact need to be washed.

I made the shorts right when ye olde camera died a few weeks back, and the shirt shortly following that. 

These are my first pants/shorts I've ever made ever (as in I skipped that whole making a drawstring pajama pants step). The pattern is Ruby from burdastyle. 

The great thing about the pattern is that is was free, the bad thing was that I had to print out and tape the pattern together.

Also, not always the clearest instructions. I couldn't figure out one part in particular, so my front welt pocket, well, sucks. I kinda knew if would going in and briefly considered leaving it off, but I decided I wanted to challenge myself. 

I know they're wrinkly, I took the picture after wearing them. Same with the shirt below.

The shorts are pretty basic - a lightweight blue woven material I got one sale, which I really like, but does stretch out after a few wears and needs to go through the dryer to regain its shape. I made the pocket out of some yellow gingham for a bit of fun and as not great-looking as the pocket is, it is a great place to hold my lens cap. My favorite bit though, is the buttons.

I think buttons are such a great way to add flair to something, and I think that without the button on these shorts (not to mention the teal ones on the shorts) I wouldn't like either of these pieces quite as much.

Shirt is pretty basic. The body of the shirt was from the pattern included in Sew U, the sleeves were made following the cap sleeve tutorial (just not gathered) on Wikstenmade. I was a pretty quick sew, though I am still having some trouble with the collar stand/band. If anybody has some hints for that, I'd love to hear em.

So the collars a bit funky, and some of the inside seams didn't finish as nicely as I'd like, but I still really like this shirt and plan to make a number more of them, as soon as I finish some of the other projects I have cut out, and then I'll have a new even favoriter outfit. ;)

p.s. -later this week, an apron tutorial!

Can't Say It Wasn't Memorable

Okay, so this weekend was so chock-full of wonderfullness, that I'm going to have to break it down into several posts over the next couple of days. We'll do it chronologically, starting with Thursday.

July 3 :

Mr. Cleaver's birthday.

The day dawned and I did NOT want to get out of bed, I was so groggy that I was the worst wife ever and forgot to say Happy Birthday to Mr.Cleaver - who after about 10 minutes decided to jog my memory. Oops!That said, as embarrassed as I was, this ended up low on the totem pole of things to go wrong that day.

As I headed off to work, Mr. Cleaver was hunkering down to watch Wimbleton on the laptop, only to discover that our internet wasn't worked, only to call our service provider and discover that the phone wasn't working wither (same company). Mr. Cleaver is probably the first to admit that he's not the world's most techno-savvy guy, and was quickly frustrated, especially when it looked like neither phone nor DSL would be repaired for a few days.

Fortunately, I was able to come home a little early from work, due to a co-worker's going-away party. So I stopped at the grocery store and picked up some ingredients for the birthday cake and the manliest looking flowers I could find for my guy.

Well, the flowers perked him up and so did my present. We also decided to go to our favorite fancy restaurant to dinner, so things were looking up. I started working on the cake, and frosting so it could cool while we were out to eat.

The cake fell a little in the center, but otherwise, seemed to be fine. We walked up the street to the restaurant only to find it boarded up and smelling of smoke. Yes, our favorite restaurant had burned down. At this point, really, we just had to laugh. And eat Chinese, which was nearby and also very good.

When we got home the internet seemed to be momentarily working and we discovered that the restaurant had caught fire in May and didn't look to be re-opening anytime soon.

I set to assembling the cake and it seemed - well -dry. I did a quick check of the reviews on epicurious and discovered I had forgotten to include 1 cup of water.

[wp_caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="How Many Candles?"][/wp_caption]

Well, this was just perfect. Again, we could do nothing but laugh, and despite the dryness, enjoy the cake. I can't say anything about the cake itself, having not made it right, but Mr.Cleaver and I both think the frosting is to die for, so it came out all right. (It also didn't stop us from finishing off the whole thing by the end of the weekend - fresh raspberries help cover a multitude of sins).

In the eveing we headed down to the lakefront to try and see if we could catch any of the City of Chicago fireworks (they always do them on the 3rd, more on that in the next post).

Not exactly what I would have wished for my husband's birthday, but you can't say it wasn't memorable.

My New Go-To Chocolate Frosting from Nana Edie's Devil's Food Cake

• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Bring sugar and cream to a boil in a heavy saucepan, stirring constantly, and simmer 10 minutes. Remove from heat and add chocolate, butter, and vanilla, stirring until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally. Chill frosting, stirring frequently, until thickened and spreadable.

I can't post pictures of my own...

So my new camera has arrived, but unfortunately, the memory card was shipped separately, so it is for now unusable and I am at the mercy of the United States Postal Service - hopefully it'll get here by the end of the week and then my blog can have new photos again!

Speaking of photos, I would encourage those of my readers with an interest in photography to sign up for the "Scent of Water" photo-swap. I have participated in the first two rounds and have received lovely photos like this one:

from SleepyNeko for the "Simplicity" swap.

and this one:

from ferry girl for the  "Reflections" swap.

This round's theme is "In Motion," suggested by yours truly! (So I'll have to come up with something good).

To see some more of the talent in these swaps, check out our flickr group, where you can also find instructions for joining the swap - and don't procrastinate - sign-ups close on July 7th!

If you have any questions about the swap or have decided to sign-up, let me know!

Camera Down!

So I finished both of those projects I teased in my last post and then in the midst of photographing them, the image sensor in my camera died. So it's shipping off to Canon tonight for a possibly free repair and I'll get it back in 7-10 business days after arrival at the Canon repair place. Until then I'm pretty much working camera-less, except for the one on my laptop.

However, the US Goverment did decided to send me a little check, with which I may be purchasing a digital SLR...