hemming and hawing

I've had two pairs of pants that have had fallen hems for quite a while, one for an embarrassingly long time that I tried and failed to fix with hem tape. Turns out hem tape doesn't work great on slightly stretchy trousers.

One of the things keeping me from fixing the pants, aside from sheer laziness about it, was that I've never used a blind hem stitch before. Turns out it's awfully simple, but I was thrown for a loop by comparing every set of instructions I could find to what I saw on the intact hem of my pants. The stitches didn't seem to look quite the same, so I was pretty sure I just wasn't understanding something. Rather than jump in and ruin perfectly good pants, I stalled and they languished.

Last week one night after work I decided I should be more useful than watching Mr. Selfridge on Netflix for hours (ahem) and got out my sewing machine and iron. I sat and stared at the hem of my pants for a while comparing the stitching I could see to the internet all the while feeling perplexed until I found this post informing me there WAS indeed another type of blind hem stitch - the industrial blind hem stitch. This stitch is performed on a fundamentally different sewing machine than a home machine, so there was no way I was going to be able to replicate it. The light bulb moment! I still can't wrap my head around how that machine creates the stitch I was seeing, but what mattered was that life could move on to the conventional blind hem stitch.

Confusion out of the way, I felt ok jumping right in and winging it on my more casual gray pants. The first pass I didn't quite catch the hem all the way around so I went a little less conservative the second go-round. As a result, the stitches aren't quite as 'blind' as I would like, but I figure the slight differences in the two hems probably don't matter as much to someone who isn't nose-to-hem with it on the ironing board. If anyone is staring at my ankles that closely, we have a problem.

The hem on the second pair went quite smoothly and after a few touches up with the iron to put the creases back, it's like I've got two new pairs of pants! And I can even wear flats with one of them. A productive hour spent. Now I don't have to feel guilty about my TV binging….

Sapphire Diamonds, finished

Finally! It's taken me some time to finish this up, and it turned out looking so nice. In looking for some missing paper pieces in Palo Alto last weekend (which, coincidentally I found tonight tucked away in the Sac studio…) I serendipitously found the zipper I had bought to finish this off.

Armed with my finishing notion, I tried out a zipper installation along the bottom seam of this pillow. This is a new skill to add to the technique I used to finish my last pillow, setting it in the middle of the back. I'm still not great with zipper installs -- somehow I never can maneuver around the head all that well, but practice makes perfect. I fudged one section at the end by hand stitching and it turned out looking just fine.

It got stuffed, zipped, and fluffed and I'm quite pleased! I recycled an old outdoor throw pillow from Restoration Hardware that is probably a little bit smaller than the cover. I usually like really tight fits for pillows in my covers, but I have to admit the little bit of slouch I ended up with is just right.

The studio is filling up with lovely handmades!

at the end of my rope

I mean that in the literal sense, not the figurative one. Though, ask me in a couple weeks and I might have a different opinion! What I refer to in this case is the fact that I'm mid-sweater, mid-stripe even, and have run out of navy yarn. Oh no! I'm not sure at this point if I have more in my stash at home that I wasn't carrying around with me or if I have to go out and get another skein. The irony of a knitter trying to 'use up leftovers' is that likely more than half the time it leads to the purchase of more yarn. Sigh. At least I don't think I'll have issues with dye lot since these are just Caron acrylics. (hope?)

I don't normally take that many pictures of myself to post here, but I wanted to catalog for myself how long the piece is so far and to do a reality check from neck to arm and from arm to waist. I note that the sweater is just about at my waist --- I'm all leg --- so I only have a few more stripes left. Yay! I just did the first waist increase in the last coral section and it calls for 3 more, one in each of the next stripes, so I may just do those and leave it at that. I think that should bring the length down to around my hips. 

I want the trim to be predominantly navy, so I certainly can't get away with just a little bit of yarn but I'm sure a whole new skein will be far more than enough. Grumble.

Sapphire diamonds

This pillow top is one of my favorite projects I've done recently. This was another project I started back in October in anticipation of moving to Sacramento so I could have something handmade in the new digs. The blues were my first new fabric purchases in a while and I really love the combination of navy and ice blue. 

At this point, the top got folded up and set aside for a bit. I wasn't sure how I wanted to quilt it, and didn't end up bringing all the 'stuff' up with me I needed to finish the pillow, anyway. The same weekend this April that I finished my other pillow, I mustered the effort to quilt this one. 

I used a big piece of an old flat sheet that I've been using in projects here and there to back the quilted pillow top. The quilting is simple, just outlining the diamonds inside the background stars. This way the nested diamonds pop visually and dimensionally. 

All that's left now is to put a back on, and stuff it with a pillow. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to do an envelope closure or a zipper. I'm leaning towards zipper now that I've improvised my way through the process on the last pillow. It seems like it will be more 'finished' if I do, too. So close!

in the middle of it all

Quite literally in the middle of April, the ides so to speak, and in the midst of the legislative season, this got done.

I started this a hilariously long time ago, 6 months or so. Much to my surprise I haven't had the luxury of time to sew during this fellowship. (I can't decide if that's sarcastic or not.) I will admit, part of the reason was that I hadn't brought my iron up with me and I just couldn't see finger pressing all the seams I needed to get this done. I have since bought a lovely NEW iron and finished this in an afternoon. 

I was originally thinking of hand quilting to outline each of the navy stars, but settled on quilting a grid in orange thread instead. I'm glad I did because it ended up adding a bit of a 3D optical illusion to the stars that I like very much. I set my machine on the longest stitch it would let me do, so it ends up looking like unusually tidy hand quilting, anyway. 

I even conquered my reticence to install zippers! This orange zipper simply pops on the back, and much to Dave's relief means the pillow is actually DONE. (I may or may not have had other pillows to sew closed that stayed that way for …. a while.) It's living happily on my bed/couch now. Score one for Sacramento sewing!

progress!

I have to say, now that the office is all nice and pretty/organized/awesome I'm super jealous that Dave gets to work in it whenever he wants and not me! Alas. Still, it was pretty neat to walk into it last weekend. The kitty has of course managed to make a habit of hanging out on the windowsill above my desk. But I expected that. Predictable kitty. At least I know he's keeping an eye on my desk for me.

I took the train down last weekend, which meant lots of time for knitting! Sometime in the last couple weeks I made it through the ribbed yoke section of Split Rotation, managed to bend my mind through splitting off the front sections and the arms, and am now on the much breezier stockinette part of the body. I should have written down how I dealt with sectioning the stitches at the arm holes, but oops. I'm sure it will come out fine, but don't know if I could do it again the same way!

Two and a half hours on the train gave me a few inches of stockinette. This sweater is knit so the purl side is the 'right side' and there is a single knit stitch centered under the arms each row that makes a faux side seam. I kept forgetting that little guy when I was working the wrong side -- the purl is buried in the fabric while the knit on the other side is much easier to read going across. Luckily, I've become quite adept at fixing stitches in the row below my active row without too much trouble. It's harder on a bumpy train, but nonetheless I've got my little faux seams all neat and tidy.

It's looking a little funky on the needles, as half-finished projects do. Blocking will do wonders, I hope. But before that I've got quite a few stripes ahead of me! There's a little bit of shaping in the body section but mostly it's a sea of stockinette from here on out. After that I have to edge the armholes and add button bands to the front. That's a lot of stitches to pick up. Let's focus on step one for now.

weekend warriors

My weekends have been full. Full of errands, horses, friends, husband, cat, and … home improvement. Last weekend Dave and I decided to rip off the proverbial bandaid and finish up our office in Palo Alto. We've gotten rid of almost every piece of furniture in there (except the awesome couch, which is now in our living room), painted, got desks and chairs, and thoughtfully placed artwork. There was just one last task: detail on the wall. 

We decided when we conceptualized the room that we really wanted some striking painted detail on the wall in a deep turquoise color ("Realm" by Behr, if you're curious) to complement a beautiful vase we got for our wedding. So we settled on a herringbone pattern. 

It took some time to decide where to put it, how wide to make the stripes etc. In the end it was all about improvising something that looked 'about right'. 

You can see my highly technical improvisation method here. Yes, that's tape in my hair.

Once I decided about how big to make things and what angle to use, I got out my trusty quilting ruler to help me along the way. It was a loooot of tape, four hands, and quite a bit of patience, but we got it all taped out in an hour or so.

And I even got to painting it that evening! The first coat went on with me feeling like the Karate Kid: paint the house, paint the fence.

My arms were pretty sore for the second coat the next day, but I'd say the results are worth it. We are both excited to have a space to work in that provides mental space and simplicity but is also reflective of our somewhat quirky personalities.