sweet home

Alabama!

Alabama Chanin!

I fulfilled a dream and went to Florence, Alabama for a weekend by myself to a sewing workshop at Alabama Chanin. It was really wonderful, the people were lovely, the inspiration was overwhelming, the beauty was palpable. I have all three Alabama Chanin books and have worked (sporadically) on my dress; still, it was incredible to actually be there and touch real Alabama Chanin-made Alabama Chanin garments. And they are exquisite, really exquisite.

Now I'm home sweet home in Seattle - the best thing about going away.

routine search

That is, the search for routine.

Miss bear has turned five and started school, baby B has returned to toddler group and I now have four whole hours a week (count 'em) alone, to my self, solo.

And there is afternoon nap time all to myself as well, five days a week now. Until school pick-up time, which is right in the middle of nap time.

Routine: we'll get there eventually.

So far I've managed to catch up with a couple of old friends - my Alabama Chanin dress and Tibetan Clouds (un)Beaded Stole. I completed stitching on two more of the large dark blue spirals and finished the eighth repeat on the stole. I'll get there eventually.

fabrika

In Savannah I did manage to pop into Fabrika, partly because that's the sort of thing that I like to check out and partly because it was conveniently located directly on the route between the cathedral where the wedding was held and our hotel.

It's a small shop, blissfully air-conditioned (a blessing even in late September). I have to be honest that I don't remember much about the fabric selection; I rarely buy new fabric and mostly wander around soaking up colours and textures and inspiration.

What I did pick up are these great silicone thimbles, one in each size. That hand-stitching on my alabama dress is hard on my fingertips and somehow the other day I managed to stab myself quite deeply in the pad of my middle finger, enough to draw blood. And that was with the blunt end of the needle - ouch! It is taking some time to get used to sewing with a thimble but if it saves me from further wounds I'll be ever so grateful.

Alas, I didn't make it to Wild Fibre in Savannah, but as a birthday present, when we were in Charleston ...

progress

In defense of myself, I have sporadically been working on my knitted veil in Peruvian wool. Slowly, slowly I am getting there. The six-stitch, four-row repeat again and again and again and ...

And every row painstakingly recorded, so that I don't lose track of where I am, so that I know how much I have to go, so that I can calculate down to the last stitch just what percentage of the way I am through. Which currently stands at (7*36+9+66)/456*2/3 or 47.8 per cent of the way.

And the knitting is not much to look at, just the same endless four rows:

And then there is the gut-wrenching question: can I really ever finish this? And the answer: yes, I'm determined to. Eventually. One day. I hope.

My alabama dress is moving along nicely though. Perhaps it's just easier to pick the stitching up but I have already completed nine of the large black swirls (three to go), three small blue swirls (one small and eight large to go), no small purple swirls as yet (so twelve of those to go). And I need to buy another spool of grey button thread.

process

I have been working on my Alabama Studio Style tank dress with spiral appliqué. There are twelve large black spirals, the same number of blue spirals (most large and a few small), and also of small purple spirals. The plan is to hand stitch around all of them. I'm using a silvery grey craft/button thread, not white as this photo appears.

I'm fascinated by the thought processes associated with an undertaking of this scale, by the stages that my mind assigns to the project as a way of getting through it. There's the initial gung-ho start, the dawn of realisation of just how big a job this is, the slogging through it, the constant progress estimations, the possibility that you might just make it, the oh-my-goodness almost there. And then often the anti-climax of actually finishing. Do you notice anything similar when working on something really big? I'd be curious to hear.

(Ah, needless to say this is a situation that I get myself into regularly - doily quilt, knitted veil ...)

my sewing circle

Ravelry for sewing? I know that there are a couple of sites like this around but mysewingcircle seems to be the one that all the cool kids are using. I'm on there too, user name 'amelia', and I've started an alabama stitching group for discussion and sharing of Alabama Stitch Book and Alabama Studio Style projects. If your a seam-ster/-stress (as opposed to a sewer which just makes me think waste management) you might like to have a look.

And here's something that I've sewn recently:

We're attending a wedding next weekend and little miss bear is very excited as it is her first since she was a baby. This dress is taken from a Japanese pattern book and the fabric is a silk-cotton blend recycled/upcycled from a Sally Smith womens skirt that I once upon a time bought at an op shop in Melbourne just for the fabric. I had to alter the style rather because I didn't have enough fabric to cut the extra flare that the original pattern included. To use up as much fabric as possible I also made it longer.

I left off the front ruching as the fabric is so lovely and I didn't want to break up the print. I also finished the hem with bias tape, again to make the dress longer. Actually, my finished dress didn't end up much like the tunic pictured here at all - the reason that I used this pattern is because it was cut on the bias as was the skirt that I was sewing from.

There wasn't a lot of fabric left over (surprising how much a child's garment can take up from an adult skirt) so I had to make the bias tape from lots of small strips sewn together; came out fine though. No hand finishing on this one except for sewing on the button loop and the button (both from stash).

And that 'decorative' zig-zag stitch? There are no mistakes, just design features (I didn't do a great job of sewing on the bias tape). Same goes for that diagonal seam on the right front shoulder - the fabric went through the overlocker by accident and I couldn't cut the whole piece again so I just had to make do.

I used my overlocker/serger on most of the seams so hopefully there will be no fraying after washing. Impeccable finish is very important to me and I was put off home sewing for many years by the fact that I didn't have an overlocker and I just couldn't bear those raw edges. Funnily, nowadays I actually find those overlocked edges tacky; they are redolent of commercially produced garments rather than hand made. When using a weave, I actually much prefer French seams like I was doing on the (admittedly, yet-to-be-finished) tunique francaise; there is clearly so much more effort in them, the hand of the maker is somehow more present.

whorls

I have finished placing, cutting and pinning the spirals on my alabama dress. I have even done a little bit of stitching. There are a lot of pins though so it is unfortunately not a very portable project. And heavy too! All that cotton adds up.

spirals

As much as I keep saying that I would like to show more in-progress shots of what I am working on, I am aware that I just keep pulling finished items out of nowhere. Like this:

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Yummy Scrummy Cupcake, available free!
Size: the regular size; there's also a pattern for mini cupcakes.
Yarn: Tahki Cotton Classic in shades 'white' and 'cotton candy' and just two rows of Grignasco Bambi in shade 416.
Needles: 4mm.
Start to finish: 28 August to 30 August 2010; this is part of the reason that it is only now making an appearance in its finished state - it all happened so quickly.
Stash/recycle content: all from stash - hooray.
Comments: Hmm, looks a bit more like an iced dumpling than a cupcake. I should have knit on much smaller needles in order to tighten the gauge and achieve a firmer finished object. The top is decorated with three of the sparkly buttons that I have also previously used on the red vintage baby booties. Stuffing comes from a cushion from the thrift store that didn't survive the wash very well.
Verdict: Could have been better but still cute, and for a wonderful cause. This cupcake is destined to be part of the Knit for Life fundraising display in the window of The Yellowleaf Cupcake Co. in the Belltown neighbourhood of Seattle - "Working with one of Seattle's most inspirational knitting groups, we will donate $1.00 of every regular price "PINK SNOWBALL" cupcake to Knit For Life. Helping to make every hospital visit a "stitch" easier! One Cupcake, One Stitch, One Smile...Knit For Life!" Sweet.

So, in an attempt to remedy all this - my other current knitting as I continue to recover from Daybreak (which I think should be renamed 'Crack at Dawn') has been a very pleasant, meditative stocking stitch number - 'A Little Ruffle'. I am not yet up to the ruffle. The yarn is recycled from a 92 per cent wool 8 percent cashmere zip-front sweater that I bought at Goodwill, that Tim wore for a while and then left sitting around for too long so I unravelled it. That's the way things go here.

And my current addiction - sewing knit fabrics, particularly working on projects from Alabama Studio Style. This may become an obsession. The cotton knits are so nice to work with and I'm fascinated by all of the possibilities that the book allows. I have sewn up the tank dress using fabric from a very simple (boring) black t-shirt dress that I bought at Goodwill and some black t-shirts because I needed more fabric to complete the length of the skirt - photos of that later - and am pondering how to go about the embellishment. A word first though about showing projects underway - it's scary. What if it doesn't work out? What if I don't finish it (ha ha, that wouldn't be a first)? What if I can't achieve the thing that I have in mind and that gets revealed to the world? All the usual angst about making things really and perhaps a good way to confront them.

It's also a lack of confidence about my creative abilities. I have, ahem, rather high standards and expectations and a lot of what I do along the way I don't deem to be very good or at least good enough. Like drawings and sketches and so forth. So, without any further ado, here is what I have in mind:

I have the black dress done - good start. Now I'm thinking about how to do the spiral appliques. What I have in mind is three tiers of spirals - from hem upwards in black, purple and blue - in diminishing size and with diminishing coverage in silver. Not sure how to do the silver yet - I have tried some silver fabric spray paint but wasn't happy with the effect. I have also tried just drawing onto the fabric with a metallic Sharpie. And I did a test run spiral:

The silver Sharpie, unfortunately, looks very flat in this photo (whereas the spray paint that I tried had too much 'glimmer') but this little project showed me something - the circle distorts once it is cut into a spiral shape as does the gradation of the silver shading. So I think that the silver, if any, has to go on after the spirals have been applied to the dress. Good - off to cut out spirals.

ask and ...

... sometimes you receive an answer! I emailed the Alabama Chanin company last night with my querulous sleeve query and got a prompt response from Natalie Chanin herself - there will be sleeves in their next book which is due out Spring 2012. Hooray!

But my shoulders might get cold during the winters between then and now so I have taken matters into my own sewing hands. This morning I cut out and sewed the basic tank top from Alabama Studio Style. I used some cotton knit yardage that I bought a while ago - these garments take up a lot of fabric and there wasn't enough in the purple top that I had hoped to 'upcycle'. I cut the pieces out using a rotary cutter - so easy! Using the cutter you don't have to handle the fabric so there's no slipping around under the pattern pieces. I did use my overlocker for the sewing which I think was a good choice for the first effort because I was able to alter the seams very subtly to get a good fit.

Then I went to my old t-shirt stash and cut a sleeves off a few of them. I'm going to pin the sleeves into the tank top and see if any of them fit well. If one does then I hope to be able to use the sleeve as a template. Think and sometimes you can receive inspiration!