Sunday, May 29, 2011

Pleats, pants and my iPad2

It was a beautiful day in Nashville and I found myself sitting in Ugly Muggs coffee shop working on my most recent knitting project. Then inspiration struck and I decided that something needed to be sewn. I immediately went out to the van and looked through my (very small) collection of fabrics and scraps.

I came across about a quarter of a yard of chartreuse satin and a pair of base layer pants that Johnny had worn a fairly sizable hole through.




I grabbed the chartreuse and my ever present box of strait pins and returned to our table in the coffee shop for some serious brainstorming. Almost immediately I started playing around with the idea of pleats.

Ever since I was little I've had an attraction to pleats. It started with a sewing competition called Make It Yourself With Wool. If you entered you automatically received a few yards of lovely Pendleton wool and the year before I had chosen a plaid with reds, beige and blues. As a nine year old the only thing I could think of to sew with plaid wool was a kilt. So a kilt it would be. I remember sewing a panel of pleats into the front of my kilt and tearing it out a number of times until I got all of the plaids to line up perfectly. It took forever! But In the end I had a spectacular pleat panel! I was beyond elated and later nearly cried when the judge asked incredulously how much my mom had sewn, not believing that a person my age could sew such perfectly matched pleats. Humph....

As I started the pleats for this project I didn't have anything fancy like a measuring table or a pleating board so I used my mini membership cards on my key chain to make even folds. Haha hey, you've got to use what you have.


When we got to our hotel later I sewed the pleats into place and started playing with garment construction ideas. I had the option of using a nice floral linen or the pants with the holes and opted for the pants, they are super soft and the fabric drapes nicely!


I put the satin aside for a minute and cut the pants apart into usable pieces.

Next I sewed a long triangular panel into the back of the shirt sandwiched between two pieces of black fabric. I had seen a girl riding her bike once with a similar panel in her shirt and had been waiting to try it out. I also cut out a deep armhole and high neckline into the back.


After I finished the back I sewed the front in a kind of strange order. First I sewed on a black panel to make up the lower front of the shirt. Then I attached the pleated panel to the top of that piece unto which I then added straps. Finally I cut out and attatched two triangular pieces to attach the top of the sides to the back


The next day I was taking my sewing machine and a pile of other things out to the van. It was pouring rain and I was trying not to get drenched but in the rush my pin box fell in the parking lot and pins flew everywhere. Fail! I proceeded to put my stuff in the car, dreading picking up all of the pins in the rain. Suddenly a rare flash of brilliance hit me. I grabbed my iPad 2, pulled off the case and ran back to the pins. I used the magnetic sides of the iPad and the case to sweep over the area where the pins fell and watched in happy amazement as all the pins attached themselves the the magnet! Success! Bummer part was Johnny wasn't even around to witness my superior problem solving skills, however I took great joy in smugly relating the story to him a few minutes later.

I finished the tank off by turning under the edges and neckline to create a finished look.

I ended up with an entirely unique, slightly dressy tank to be worn alone or layered.






Happy Memorial Day!

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Dreary weather inspires thoughts of Christmas

It seems that it has been a while since I have posted anything. I hope you didn't think I had quit altogether. On the contrary, The truth is I had started so many new and exciting projects that I just didn't finish anything for a while. But finally yesterday I finished a little something called "endpaper mitts"!

We are back on the East coast and after lots of rain in April I expected lots of sunny days filled with May flowers! I started altering my wardrobe for summer and designing all manner of knit lace projects suited for warmer weather. However, the weather has been slightly less than obliging.

For the past few weeks it has felt much more like we're heading into fall than into summer. It has been raining, cold and all I've really wanted to eat is nice hot soup. I'm sure it hasn't helped that we are near the coast in some of the Northernmost states. Nothing like spring in New England to ruin my summer planning. The nice thing is since it feels like fall I've been in the mood to start making this year's Christmas presents! I am under the opinion that if its cold outside it should be almost Christmastime and it should most definitely be Christmas when there is snow on the ground! I know you're thinking "Seriously Lacie, Christmas presents in May?" but alas, I may or may not have started on some exciting Christmas goodies!

As I mentioned earlier the April showers only brought more rain instead of flowers this May so I thought it fitting to make something cozy but still a bit dainty. With this in mind I found a pattern by Eunny Jang called Endpaper Mitts. I had been wanting to make them for quite a while and thought the cooler weather afforded a wonderful opportunity to do so! They were my first color work project (knitting with two or more colors at once) so I ended up pulling the first one out a number of times before I figured it out. As you'll notice there are a series of little blue and black diamonds. After I figured out how I was supposed to read the color chart in the pattern they were actually quite simple! What a rewarding little set!




Sitting inside, reading a good book while it rains outside will only be made better with my hands snuggled inside these comfy little mitts, thank you God for a little taste of fall before we jump into summer!


Saturday, May 7, 2011

A year in pictures

The school year is starting to wind down so I figured I'd celebrate with a year in pictures! Over the past year we have taken a LOT of pictures. Somewhere in the realm of 6,800. Yeah. Wow.

Part of the reason for the crazy amount of pictures is because we regularly take pictures of our food. However, we have also been to 33 states so we've had a ton of interesting things to take pictures of!

Thanks to the awesome deals at snapfish.com I scored one hundred free prints! The problem is choosing which hundred to print and consequently to put in my scrapbook. I managed to pick some of my favorites to help tell the story of our year on the road.

Being on the road hasn't really deterred my scrapbooking efforts. Sooo I figured I'd share a few of my latest pages for you to see! Enjoy!