Tenuki Handcrafts

Trio of Folkwear Pattern projects

2012-02-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

I took a break from tiny cobbling and wee couture to make a few items for myself. All Folkwear Patterns, which I love. Either I've become a better seamstress or their instructions are clearer than the first issues, back when most went up to size 16. First up, the English Smock.

It's been a cold (ok, cold for Seattle) winter. I wanted a flannel nightgown, but didn't like the ones I found online. Too grandmotherly. I'm not that old yet. I didn't like any of the modern patterns, so it was over to Folkwear to see what they had. I remembered Beautiful Dreamer, but the only size available now is for children. I could find a used one but it was the old sizing, so I'd have to scale up, also not wanted. I decided 221, English Smock would do nicely. I made the round smock version.

Even though I wasn't in the mood to scale up a pattern, I was in the mood for my first attempt at smocking. The instructions offered two options for smocking: "mock" smocking, which used a lot of elastic or traditional smocking, which involved hand stitching basting rows to be pulled up. I chose the latter and smocked the front and back at the neck opening, top and bottom of the sleeves. I'd say it took me about 30 hours to do all the hand sewing and then to do the smocking stitches on top to hold the gathers in place. I haven't embroidered in a long time either, so I'd say the result is clearly a first attempt.

For the decorate stitches, I used first doubled black buttonhole thread and later, I remembered I had a spool of black cotton thread and that worked much better.

The actual assembly took me about 5 hours. The instructions are clear, the sewing is quite simple. Nearly all of the pieces are rectangles, except the underarm gussets, which are square. My one complaint about Folkwear patterns is the 1/2 inch seam allowance. It's a bit scant to do much finishing, other than French seams. I wanted to wear the silly thing before it got too warm and pinked the seams but it probably would have take the same amount of time to French the seams.

Next up, I really needed a full slip. I have a half slip, but it's too short for the 30s and 50s style dresses currently in my wardrobe. Folkwear 219 is the 1930s Intimacies. I used Bemburg rayon, which is soft and drapey, but a bit too sheer for my taste, but as the first time making this item, I'm happy with how it turned out. I was a little worried during the cutting stage because it was so slippery, but it sewed like a dream. It's also a very quick project. There are 3 pieces, if you finish the top edge with lace: bodice, slip and straps. I cranked this baby out in about 4 hours, including cutting time.

If I was a young slip of a gal, I'd buy some nice silk and wear this as a fancy dress. After I took the photos, I added a small ribbon rose to the front. The pattern comes with authentic detailing, including instructions for ribbon roses and embroidery. Next time, perhaps. I tried a small ribbon rose, but I will need to use bigger ribbon in order to get the hang of the process. I can see making this slip again, in other colors. The pattern includes a camisole, step in and tap pants, which I'll make someday, but I don't need any of those for the vintage wardrobe just yet.

The third item is my second making of the camp shirt, Folkwear 240, Rosie the Riveter. I posted the first version a while ago. This time, I shortened the hem to be more suited to me and re-spaced the 5 buttons. The pattern has a self-facing which speeds up assembly. The instructions are clear and it took me about 6 hours from start to finish.

I had interfacing this time and let me just say, if you're tempted to skip interfacing, don't. Make the extra trip to the fabric store. The collar and button stand are crisper. On the red/brown version, I didn't have any interfacing and excluded it since it was to be my sample. Too bad, because the fabric softened beautifully but so did the collar and button stand. Not even a hard pressing fixed it, so it's now a house shirt. For the second version, I used a black/grey cotton from the quilting section of Joann's. I used some shell buttons recycled from worn out old shirts. I had trouble capturing the shell buttons, but they are quite lovely.

I don't usually like short sleeved shirts but since this sleeve hits just above my elbow, I like it. It's a nice, oversized shirt with deep armholes. It would be a great summer shirt, in a Hawaiian print, would be adorably vintage.

A close up of the fabric

All good patterns with good instructions and good fit. I will definitely make all of these again. In fact, in my facric stack is denim for the Rosie Riveter trousers. I'd also like to knit the sweater that comes with the pattern. Snoods are in my near future.

I've been trying to be good about making a proper muslin test first, but to be honest, I still occasionally use the first project as my test. Particularly with Folkwear patterns, which are consistently good. As for the smocking, I did enjoy it, but would be more likely to smock doll-sized garments.

I've been delaying the Rosie trousers because will involve more fitting and I will very likely change the front from pleats to darts. A proper muslin test is in order. My vintage wardrobe is shaping up nicely!

Happy crafting!

Ethan and Cassie's Snow Day

2012-01-20T18:34:00.000-08:00

Here's a memory from Ethan's sophomore year in high school, with his friend, Cassie, out for a little silliness during winter break.

Snow Night 2012

2012-01-18T22:07:00.000-08:00

The snow on the ground was frozen at 9 pm.

Photo Friday

2012-01-13T19:09:00.001-08:00

Bigger on the Inside, a photo by Tenuki Handcrafts on Flickr.

Finally, my first post of the new tear. Might as well start silly, Hiro checks out The Doctor and the TARDIS.

Photo Friday

2011-12-23T17:53:00.000-08:00

photo by Tenukihandcrafts

Taken at the Seattle Center Fun Forest. At night. Obviously.

Projects!

2011-12-04T16:50:00.000-08:00

I had a break in the action, so to speak, to process and post the photos of a couple of my latest projects.

Possibly I mentioned this a post or two ago, but I decided to buy clothes for work. Sewing for work outfits was just too stressful - there's never enough time to get clothes made in time or for the correct season, it seems. So why fight it? I have formed on a nice basic wardrobe of chinos in black and navy, several blouses, a couple of cardies, a pullover veck sweater, a pair of wool trousers, and a skirt thrown in for good measure. Pretty much gets me gracefully through the work week without looking dressed up or sloppy. My non-work wardrobe will be the eclectic vintage ethnic style I've been after for a longo time.

The Folkwear Pattern Rosie the Riveter Camp Shirt, made from a cotton gingham in red and beige fabric. I took a sewing break when I reached the side seams. I gave up my serger long ago in favor of French seams whenever possible. Unfortunately, Frenchies are not so good on curved seams, like sleeves. I took a break to figure out how I would finish the shoulder seams. I decided on turn under and stitch, which maintains the look of a Frenchie, but easier to do on a curve. Not that anyone but me will see the seams.

It turned out quite nicely, except for one minor detail: it's much too long. But since I only wear it on weekends, I haven't gotten around to chopping some of the bottom off and re-hemming. Too much to do!

Like sewing the other view of the 30s Day Dress, which I will post separately, since I haven't taken any photos of the dress yet.

I'm taking my first on-line class from A is For Artistic, If the Shoe Fits. The classes on this site are designed for doll makers, but several classes are adaptable for my beloved vinyl and resin crew. For example, I've been searching, unsuccessfully, for saddle shoes for bjds. Can't find 'em so I might as well try to make 'em myself. I saw this class and thought, what the hey?

This is a 4 week class. The lessons are delivered in pdf format via the closed yahoo group forum, where we can post questions and photos. The instructor, Diane Keeler, is very responsive to questions and, I might add, she makes adorable vintage style shoes, to go with her vintage styled art dolls.

Week 1 was to sculpt shoe lasts, left and right, to build the shoes upon. The lasts are made from wire and Sculpty clay. I can't recall the last time I sculpted anything, so I did my best and you can see the results. They don't quite match each other, but I decided to plow ahead through the lessons and not get bogged down in the imperfections of coping with several new skills.

Week 2 was to build the fabric portion of the shoes. I have more than enough shoe-dorable fabric in my stash and I used this lovely irregular navy paisley. Cobbling small shoes is a bit of a challenge and I had difficulty both with keeping left and right straight, as well as up and down. But still, I plowed on.

Lesson 3 is to sculpt heels using an air-dry clay. I used a 2 part Apoxy Sculpt because DK recommended it. I'm keeping myself to the concept of learn the basic skills as outlined in the instructions, then improvise later! Here are my shoes at the 24 hour air dry stage. Even with the flaws, I think they are turning out quite cute. I'm even impressed with my heel. I used ultrasuede scraps for the soles. Sadly, this size won't fit any of my dolls, but c'est la vie.

We'll see how they are after the clay dries. I may try another pair of high heels to see if I can improve my technique. I would probably make new lasts and take more care to make them match. As I'm thinking about it, it might be more useful to them to fit my Ellowyne, whose feet are comparable to my Gene Marshall and Tyler Wentworth gals. Handy, isn't it?

Lesson 4 is the one I was waiting for: flat shoes. My fashion girls have high heeled feet, but my bjds are all flat footed, so this was the draw for me. I'm glad I'm enjoying the process so far, because in addition to the saddle shoes, I want to make shoes for Hiro's Blue Boy outfit and I still want to make Ginger the Pinky outfit, complete with shoes.

According to DK's instructions, these are for child's feet, but they are quite close to fitting Rose, whose feet are a bit smaller than Ginger and Hiro. I took more care sculpting these feet, not just because the shoes may fit Rose, but because I want to make sure I can sculpt a relatively close matching pair of feet, since it's important at the upper-making stage.

This pair is a very close match. I took much more time now that I know the Sculpy is pretty forgiving and can be worked for a quite a while. The only not quite match is at the back of the heel curve, but that's a pretty minor issue. All in all, I'm quite happy with the results.

Now, on to the actual cobbling. I have several silk shantung fat quarters in several colors and wanted silk uppers for this pair, just in case they fit Rose. I decided to use a medium violet. It was not so difficult working with silk and the one piece upper is considerably easier to work than the 2 piece high heel version. I made this pair in about 2 hours. I used black pleather for the sole and tried trimming the shoe, as if trimming a curve on a garment. DKs method of stretching and trimming looks nicer. The heels turned out a bit odd but most people won't notice and the flaws don't bother me. They turned out adorable! Best of all, they fit Rose perfectly.

Which segues nicely into what I've done with Rose: I've modded her hand holes to give her more mobility. I've purchased some cute Feeple hands from the DoA marketplace, which aided her hand issue. I very subtly blushed her.

She is my first hybrid bjd. Dollmore Lilis Liv head (a very light normal skintone), a very slim old version Glorydoll body in normal skill and the Feeple hands, also a normal skin. I was trying to blend the three skin tones together. With moderate success, but I will say that the differences in skin tone don't bother me. Not nearly as much as seams. I spent a lot of time sanding Rose's seams. And am not quite done, but oy, what tedious work.

I made the oversized sweater you see here, from instructions at BJD magazine. The fabric was a beloved, but worn out cashmere sweater. I appliqued a shrimp from a pair of sushi socks from my pal Vanessa. Sorry Miss V, but Bill *really* hated the red socks in the laundry, so they are become doll items. I still wear the white pair. She's also wearing the first garment I made for her: these jeans, which I added appliques of some lovely paisley fabrics. The base jeans fabric was recycled from an old pair of my own jeans. And, as you see, the shoes! They fit and are *adorable* if I do say so myself. Now that I know the shoes fit Rose, I've got plans to make her an outfit around the shoes.

Happy crafting!

Photo Friday

2011-11-24T23:59:00.000-08:00

Bright Grass

Photo Friday

2011-11-17T23:59:00.000-08:00

Mountain bloom

Photo Friday

2011-11-11T18:39:00.000-08:00

Hi there, big boy!

Today marks two years since I entered the wonderful world of ball jointed dolls. Hiro was the first bjd to arrive. I chose the B&G brand because, at that time, it was a newer company so their dolls were among the lowest priced bjds. I took quite a lot of time to pick my first bjd. Price was key, but I had to like the face as well. While he is still my least expensive bjd, he cost more than any of my fashion dolls.

Hiro is a B&G Rin in Normal Yellow skin, body version 2 with random eyes, default wig. Ordered from Denver Doll Emporium as a girl. I'd heard the B&G default wigs were kinda awful and it's true. I kept the wig because I liked the dirty blond look. The wig, modified, has become Ethan's default wig.

Jelly Baby?

As much as I liked the sculpt, I wanted a girl so I ordered the Rin sculpt and a girl body, unaware there is a girl version, Rin's twin sister, Natalia.

When I opened the box, I was a little confused by the choice of wig and a robe for a girl. Then there was the surprise that my girl was, in fact, a boy.

The wait time for Hiro was 6 weeks and that seemed like an eternity. I couldn't bring myself to return him for the girl version. I started saving up for the next doll.

Hiro's Beauty Marks

His standard wig is the Monique Pretty Girl in black and his eyes are Glib Alice Blue. I have since learned most companies will try to honor requests for a specific eye color. But when I ordered him, I just wanted to see what would arrive and discover the character as I explored the hobby.

I love shooting Hiro, with his subtle, almost smirky smile. I'm always been charmed by how well he photographs. He conveys a warm serenity. His left hand looks like it's holding a go stone.

Hiro has more clothes than the others, although some items can be worn by the others. I think the best outfit so far is his Blue Boy outfit.

I entered the world of modding with Hiro. I gave him beauty marks, unstrung and restrung him, hot glue sueded him, blushed him, separated his fingers, gave him tabi feet, and touched up one of his eye brows, which got a little chipped.

One of my projects is to blush Rose's Glorydoll body and Feeple hands, so I looked rather closely at Hiro and his blushing recently. My thought was the blushing was too pink and I would adjust that for Rose, but looking at him in the pictures for this post, the blushing still works. As much as I play with him, the blushing still looks good. I'm sure it will have to be re-done at some point, but for now, he's doing just fine. Future mods will involve his rigger wetwear, once I get some Shadowrun research time in.

Meet Hiro

As much as I've loved creating Ethan's face up, I want something special for Hiro, my first bjd. I keep an eye on Dink's Doll's Commission page.

While he's not her typical sculpt, I think he would be so wonderful with one of her face-ups, which are operatic and romantic. Perhaps it's the portrait lighting. I haven't seen a Dink's Dolls face-up in person, but they photographic stunningly.
I've always seen Hiro as one of the New Romantics, with his charming androgeny and flowing black hair.

His character has been developing. Quiet, smart, always on time. Speaks when he has something important to say. Lives with Ginger in a run down studio apartment on Queen Anne. Hiro's day job is dishwasher at Sam's Sushi. When job's come around, he's a rigger, able to drive anything that moves. He spends a lot of time making custom drones.

Hiro & Ethan

Here is Hiro as he is today, sitting with Ethan. I had to compare my lads.

Hiro is more stylized, more anime. Ethan, more realistic. Both are scrawny and could use a sammich or two.

While Ethan's Pure Body is a work of art, I was pleasantly surprised that Hiro's body, while not as elegant or poseable as Ethan's, has nearly as much detail.

Happy birthday, Hiro.

Photo Friday

2011-11-04T08:36:00.001-07:00

pascoshadow_2098, a photo by Tenuki Handcrafts on Flickr.

Here's another Pasco photo, along 4th Street.

Happy Friday!

4th Street Pasco WA

2011-10-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a few days off work to support my mom while she recuperates from knee replacement surgery, which was yesterday. The surgery went well and she's recovering quickly. During one of her naps today, I took a walk down 4th Street, the road her hospital is on, to do some local shooting. Today was a beautiful day: sunny, the clouds were pretty, and it was 65 degrees with a breeze that said cold weather is coming soon.

The shoot was inspired by the atomic locales near the hospital. Here are a few of the photos I took today. I will drop more pics in my Flickr set Adventures in Pasco.

Hospital Still Life, with Orchids. The meals, which are quite good for a hospital, come with an orchid bloom. Two days, two blooms Also on the table, her patient guide, the bed remote, and barf bag.

The Machines that Go Ping! The little yellow tag makes me laugh. Mom's room was a symphony of ICU medical sounds, from the gurgling of the humidifier attached to her oxygen to the persistent chirping of the foot thingy's that massages her feet to keep them from swelling.

Atomic Block. Pasco is one of the Tri-Cities (cities is a pretty ambitious label, if you ask me), home of the Hanford Nuclear Facility. The surprise is that more businesses around here are not atomic. As you can see, this side of the building is the Atomic Laundry with Atomic Foods on the other side and Atomic Gas just beyond that. I went into Atomic Foods in search of snacks but did not stay long because the rank smell of the cheapest, most atomic paint hit me the minute I opened the door. If you squint, you can see the laundry sign reads "ANOGADAS". I have no idea what that means, but I wouldn't be surprised if it means "atomic."

Helpful Sign. Here is the sign that made me happy I packed my camera. What?

Metropoly. It sounds like Engrish to me. And why the Seattle skyline? Seattle is a 5.5 hour drive away. Even odder, the entrance of the building has a different name.

Ground Floor. I like to shoot from different levels. I forgot my little Gorilla tripod and set the camera on the ground for this fall shot. The Pasco's version of the Kwik E Mart and the Lourdes Hospital (where mom is currently recuperating) are in the background.

Tree Bark. I also like using the macro setting to turn nature into abstract forms. It almost looks like a face on the right hand side...

The Last Petal. There were many rose bushes in the Volunteer Park, across the street from the hospital. Many beautiful, recently bloomed. But this one caught my eye, holding onto it's last petal.

Photo Friday

2011-10-22T01:36:00.001-07:00

rose_1810, a photo by Tenuki Handcrafts on Flickr.

Introducing Elyria Rose. My first hybrid doll. Dollmore Lilis Liv White head on a Glorydoll body. Feeple hands, plus some resin modding to improve hand gesturing.

Rose is an elf. And that's all I can tell at this point. She's a character in progress.

Photo Friday

2011-10-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

That's right, it's time for Ethan spam. This time, with all his faces. I finished his 80s face plate (although with a bit too much gloss), his Silent Afternoon (SA) face plate that is a pretty good match with his standard faceplate and took some shots. Enjoy!

Ethan's 80s faceplate

Ethan's Silent Afternoon look

Ethan's Standard Faceplate

Photo Friday

2011-09-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

Photo Friday

2011-09-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Introducing: Bernard Ethan Quatermass. He prefers Ethan. After a nearly 10 month wait, my lovely Dollshe Bernard arrived safely, packed in his ginormous box.

He is the special Pure Body Bernard with OE (open eye) and SA (silent afternoon) head. Plus, of course, the OE head I've been working on for the past year.

His eyes are a lovey hazy green from Glib, with the back taken off, because of that metal cover inside the Dollshe heads.

The wig is Hiro's default B&G wig, which I've trimmed, made smaller and brushed. Dollshes have notoriously wee heads and the Bernard's no exception, coming in at 8", smaller than all my other SD dolls (Elfdoll Soah, B&G Rin, and recently, Dollmore Lilis Liv White), but bigger than my Narae.

I've added a new set to my flickr site and you'll find the latest photos here at Portraits in Resin.

Happy crafting if great, but play with dolls once in a while. It's good for you.

Photo Friday

2011-09-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

Photo Friday

2011-09-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

waterfront_1091, a photo by Tenuki Handcrafts on Flickr.

One of our Travelling Hat Adventures in Seattle

Photo Friday

2011-08-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

Photo Friday

2011-08-19T14:21:00.000-07:00

Ginger and Shen, a photo by Tenuki Handcrafts on Flickr.

from the August Arboretum meet up. Ginger and Shen flirt.

Smiling Ginger

2011-08-17T21:53:00.000-07:00

I love having face options for my dolls. I have a complete set for Ginger with my latest: the Smiling Soah face, recently offered by Elfdoll. As much as I like the Eldfoll faceups, specifically, the Option 2 faceup for the Smiling Soah, I wanted to try my hand at a girly face-up.

I think the Soah is a versatile sculpt. she looks good in various period outfits. My goal for this faceup was to give her a more vintage, Golden Age look, so I can work on 1/3 scale period outfits.

For this faceup, I used Volks ZM pastels and pencils.

After washing, drying and applying the first coat of Volks ZM Finishing spray UV cut, I followed Kevin Aucoin's direction for highlights and shadows.

Next I added brows, lips, and eye liner.

Then I filled in the details with lashes, blush, another lip layer.

Not perfect, but pretty good for a first try and I finished in time to take Ging to our local annual Arboretum meet-up.

One person commented that Ging looked like she was from the 50s, which is all I needed to hear.

Even though I've got projects in the works, I've been bereft of new ideas. But I'm going with this dry spell to work on a couple things: knitting a Drop Stitch top from spring's Cast On.

I'm currently spinning a nifty variegated yarns, very fine singles that I plan to Navajo ply. Depending on the results, the yarn may become socks.

Until we meet again, happy crafting, m'dears!

Photo Friday

2011-08-13T21:58:00.001-07:00

a day late.

Next up: Ginger's Smiling Faceup Project

Photo Friday

2011-08-04T23:32:00.001-07:00

A little early, but this shot was taken using my Android and checking out the macro setting, a new (to me) feature.

Infinity Dress - for dolls

2011-07-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

Silver Identity posted a thread on the Den of Angels Sewing thread, here, if you have a login: Convertible Infinity Dress Tutorial (Easy-for-Beginners!). The original blog post is found, for humans, on Sew Like My Mom's blog, little red infinity dress tutorial. Made from knit fabric, a few simple measurements and simple sewing. I hand sewed two versions for my 16"/17" dolls, using leftover grey knit from Grey Scoop Neck top and a rayon knit skirt from a Burda pattern, which I never made a post for.

In very basic terms, the dress is made of a circle and three rectangles. The skirt, of course, is the circle; the waist a small rectangle and the straps are 2 long rectangles. The supplies are minimal: pencil, string (for an impromptu compass), tape measure, thread, needle, fabric. I used fabric scraps, but between 1/3 to 1/2 yard of knit fabric would be more than enough for a 16" fashion doll or MSD.

The first version is a solid grey dress, modeled by Maisie and Ellowynne. It also fits Tyler and the Gene Marshall girls.

Once I made the dress the first time, it was simple to make a second one. I had to fix the waistband on the first dress, which was too large and the straps were too wide. The waistband was reduced to just a touch bigger than Ellowynne's waist and the strips are 2" wide. The length is just below the calf on Ell and a tad shorter on Maisie, who is an inch taller.

I was disappointed when I pulled out the red/grey/white fabric to find that not enough to make an entire dress. The second version of the dress uses the grey fabric as the skirt and strips of the rayon knit for the top. The second dress was easier to make. This is modeled by Violet Nights, Violet Waters.

The fun thing about this dress are the long straps, which can be twisted, wrapped, folded, tucked. It is fun to play with the straps, although all of my girls are quite loose and wiggly.

I have always loved the imaginative and sometimes wacky photo shoots in Vogue magazine. I tried to capture some of that silliness with Tyler, who models the version 2 of the dress with the straps wrapped halter style. Tyler hasn't been on a shoot in a while and her knees have loosened considerably since the last shoot. I was surprised she held this pose long enough to take the photo.

Maisie, once again, being silly. Also wrapped halter style but with the straps tied in a different fashion.

Maisie is a bit larger than my fashion dolls so the dress doesn't fit. It took quite a lot of pulling to get the waistband over her hips. After plying the dress off her, I had to reinforce the waistband on both dresses.

I was curious whether or not the dress would work for her or whether I'd have to create one for her. It's back to the fabric stash to find enough knit for version for Maisie and Ginger, but I may want one for myself, too!

Happy crafting!

Photo Friday

2011-07-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

Photo Friday

2011-07-14T23:28:00.000-07:00

I'm a little slow and just noticed that some of my Photo Fridays were missing. Turns out, there is a blogger bug and automatic posting is not working for some folks, including me. Fortunately, I can publish the page, go back and edit the date, so it's almost like it published as planned!

Coffee Top

2011-07-10T16:47:00.000-07:00

Just a quick diversion from Photo Fridays for an intro to my new knitting project. As I explained to a couple of friends today, after spending nearly 300 hours on the two recent marathon projects, Thistle Vest and Bill's Vest, I have spent little time at the spinning wheel.

I've had the knitting bug but I only have small amounts of hand spun yarn on hand at the moment. I have some lovely merino/alpaca roving I'd like for the cardigan sweater pattern included with the Folkwear Rosie the Riveter pattern. Every time I think about spinning it, my mind counts up the hours spinning a solid color 2 ply yarn. The point of the vest projects was to see how I felt about spinning large quantities of yarn. Turns out, I do get bored spinning the same thing over and over again. I no longer feel I should only use my own hand spun yarn for my projects.

A while back, I knit a seed stitch shrug from some lovely Knit Picks CotLin (70% cotton, 30% linen) in the rich color, Coffee. but I wasn't all that thrilled with it. I never made a blog post and I think my dress form got to wear it more than I did. Not that it turned out horribly. I just didn't care. So I frogged it because I'd rather make something I will wear and love than something take up space in a drawer.

According to my rough calculation, I have enough yarn to make the Elongated Stitch Sampler Top from the May-July 2011 issue of Cast On. I'm in the process of knitting the swatch on size 4 US needles. I'm drawn to this project for several reasons: I have the yarn on hand, I haven't knit elongated stitches, and after wearing my Pink Lace Tank yesterday, I realized I wanted another cotton, lacey summer top.

The vest will weigh about 10 ounces, so roughly 25 hours of knitting, excluding the swatch.

Oy, I can't help it now, these project have become about the time involved. Sorta sucks the fun out of it. Hobbies are supposed to be...

Happy crafting!

Photo Friday

2011-06-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

Photo Friday #2

2011-06-24T21:55:00.000-07:00

IMG_3537, a photo by Tenuki Handcrafts on Flickr.

The S&H sugar beet factory silo.

Photo Friday #1

2011-06-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

Here is a the first in a new series that I hope to make weekly, as you might very well guess from the post title. Enjoy!

Random Hobby Updates

2011-05-15T19:41:00.000-07:00

I finished my commission of a scarf for a co-worker - JBs scarf. Black corriedale yarn, fairly thick singles, which I Navajo plied. I've noticed that my navajo plied yarns are more balanced than my singles plied together. Unfortunately, spinning and Navajo plying doesn't seem to be any faster than spinning and plying two sets of singles. Perhaps that will change as my skill at Navajo plying increases.

In sewing news, I picked up Nancy Zieman's Pattern Fitting with Confidence and made my first attempt: Folkwear 219 tap pants. Granted, starting with shorts is not the easiest first attempt, but I needed them for my vintage wardrobe. I wasn't certain Nancy's pivot and slide method would work, but it does. According to Nanc, my Right Size for bottoms is 16, a couple sizes down from the normal buy by your measurement advise. I'll admit that it wasn't easy and it took me 2 attempts to re-draft the pattern, but the second worked. I made 2 pairs this weekend, one black and one white. I'm now quite good at French Seams. I successfully French seamed the crotch. I would not recommend French seaming a curve for a beginner. Stick with those straight French seams until you get the hang of it.

Now that I know Nancy's system works, I'm anxious to try it out on a couple more items. In particular, blouses. I've had my share of trouble with getting armholes right. They're either too tight or in the wrong spot and constrictive.

With the success of by my two large spinning projects, I want to do another for a vintage knit inspired cardigan using my own hand spun yarns. I've got one sample made: 1 ply navy Merino/alpaca and 1 ply Mystery Wool (in off white). It's another huge carding project. The fleece has been washed and picked through. There is 13 ounces, approximately the same amount as Bill's Mystery Fleece, so that's another 20 hours of carding.

I've been changing the looks of my bjds by swapping eyes, changing wigs. I've given Hiro the Raw*Kiss eyes I had intended for Ethan. I wasn't too happy with how the looked on my floating head. I think they look great in Hiro, although I really appreciate the design of Ethan (Dollshe Bernard) and Maisie (Narae) with the face plates that can be removed without going through the whole episode of removing the head to swap the eyes.

Ethan's due for another face-up. I tried using a mix of pastels and acrylics and accidentally wiped some eyebrows. I didn't like the top layers of work anyway, so I don't really mind. However, I had done a pretty good job of highlighting and shading to define his features. And now I have to start all over. Still no word on the shipping date for his body. This will have been such a long wait that I foresee a box opening post.

I swapped Maisie's default brown eyes for more natural-sized blue and they look terrific. You can almost see them here.

I'm not sure what is next on my project list, but there will be posts and pictures.

Happy crafting!

Thistle Pullover V-Neck Vest

2011-04-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

This is the second in a large scale, plan, design, card, spin and knit fiber project. My original plan for the project was to spin a bulky yarn using my Elizabeth Bulky Flyer so I could get to knitting more quickly. I couldn't locate the early in the process shots, but they're there, so I'll add them later. If not here, then in my flickr album for this project.

Front

My sample bulky Thistle yarn became a loooooong scarf. At which point, I remembered how not good I look in bulky knits, briefly alluded to in my Sweaters post.

As it turns out, I didn't have enough roving to make a sweater amount of yarn, so it became a pullover vest out of necessity.

The yarn specs in brief: 1400 yards per pound, six skeins of yarn. Size 6 US needles, knit in the round from the bottom up to the armholes, then I switched to working both the front and back flat and at the same time.

The first cast-on I learned was the long-tail cast on, and it is the one I rely on most often, even though it usually take me 3 tries to get it right. I worked K1 P1 ribbing and then stockinette up to the armhole. I don't happen to like using smaller needles for ribbing, nor for adding 5 or 10% more stitches after the ribbing. I don't feel it looks very flattering on me.

The Back

I used the same pattern as for Bill's Cardigan vest, except, of course, it is a pullover v-neck. My gauge is 4 stitches per inch. This is a more casual garment, since the color striping is irregular.

I placed markers at the side seams and just picked one side to be the front and the other to be the back. Once I reached the armholes, I switched to working the front and back together, flat, or back and forth, if you will.

I can't remember which project was the first time I used this method, but Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' suggests learning to knit truly left-handed as a two color method in "Knitting in the Old Way" book. It happens to work to correct the vast difference in tension between my knits and purls, so I have adopted this method for my regular back and forth knitting. In brief, here's how I do it:

I hold the yarn in my left hand at all times. I work Continental style from right to left and then, without turning the piece, I work from left to right English style as a left-hander knitter.

This works brilliantly for, well, everything. My speed and tension are very close between my left and right hand. There is a negligible difference but it doesn't distort the fabric as much as the standard way of working back and forth. The right side of my work always faces me. I don't lose my place and my tension is good when turning heels with this method.

Start of V-neck

I did have to change where the needle enter the yarn and it looks like I'm working into the back of the stitch, but I'm not. It's just that this method causes the leading edge of the stitches to be at the back of the needle instead of the front. I have not mastered purling as a lefty, but it hasn't been a problem so far.

The yarns don't get twisted around each other because the garment is not spiraling round and round. I put the back yarn in one bag and the front yarn in another.

The front and back end up being the same length. I spent a little time before starting the armholes to write out the directions for the front and back, but honestly, it's wasn't tough to work them at the same time.

I'm very happy the striping has turned out subtle. Horizontal stripes are not my favorite, so while I was spinning, I consciously avoided a repetitious stripe pattern.

This baby is nearly finished. I've almost reached the shoulders and I plan to finish the shoulders with a Kitchener stitch. The three needle bind-off results in a bulky seam, as does sewing it. I use the Kitchener on my Moebii, as well as for socks and it leaves a subtle seam.

Now that I'm looked at my vest through photos, it might look nice enough for work. Bill told me this morning that several of the ski resorts in Washington have extended their season because they keep getting snow. It's almost May and quite chilly at night and in the mornings.

I might get to wear this vest in the next month!

Bill's Mystery Cardigan Vest is Done!

2011-04-10T16:24:00.000-07:00

The pithy recap: this is my first large scale spinning and knitting project that started as a plastic bag full of dirty fleece shorn off some New Zealand sheep. I had no plan for this fleece, which was the packing material for my Ashford Traveller. There are three other posts for this project. The other posts are:

Mystery Wool Project for Bill where I estimate it will take me 107 hours to complete. How did that calculation work out?

Mystery Wool Tribbles tells the tale of 12 hours of carding.

Bill's Mystery Cardigan Vest though not mentioned in the post, I looked at my spinning diary and spent 42 hours spinning and plying. The result was just over 900 yards of 2 ply yarn.

The design for the sweater is a basic v-neck cardigan from the Handy Book of Knitting Patterns. I deviated from Ms. Budd's basic design by working the entire vest in one piece so the only seams would be at the shoulders, as you can see from this photo. I did this to make the most of my hand spun yarn.

I used a provisional cast on, because as mentioned in an earlier post, I planned to do the ribbing in black. The reason for this was I didn't think I would have enough brown yarn to finish the project.

Here's a slightly more sensible view of the vest, which is done, minus the ribbing at the armholes, neck and hem. You may have noticed the stripes. There are three reasons for the stripes and my first lesson in large scale spinning.

Even though my fleece was a natural dark brown, there were variations in the colors, which is due to natural variations in the fleece plus sunlight lightening the outermost layers. I forgot about these factors when I carded my first sample skein. I went a little nutty and carded a large batt.
I knit the sample from the first skein, took the yarn specs and then began the carding process.

Skein #2 was processed in much the same way as Skein #1. At this point, I remember the color variaton and altered my batt carding process and run each batt through the carder one time. Next, I laid out the batts on the floor and organized them from lightest to darkest. Each batt was split in half and matched up with a different colored half-batt. I ran these through the carder a second time.

Scared it will be too small for Bill at this point.

At this stage, I'm beginning to worry about the amount of wastage. The fleece is quite oily, which helps it stick to the carder. It seems like I'm losing a lot more than 10%. By now, I've spent a lot of time with this fleece and it doesn't appear to have been picked through and there were a lot of variable length fibers, including very short (1/4") fibers, which indicates second or third passes with the clippers. This was probably the point where I came up with the idea to spin up some black ribbing so all the brown would be used for the main vest.

For the next large scale solid colored spinning project from a natural colored fleece, I would make a smaller sample skein. Once my calculations were complete, I'd process the project fleece three times through the carder in order to get a better color blend.

And now, the knitting, done on Size 5 US circular needles (my trusty Knit Picks needle set) using the longest cable I own, which is about 50" long. I cast on 200 stitches, using a provisional cast on and worked in stockinette stitch for 9 inches and was on my third skein.

And now I'm worried because I had only 6 skeins! I knit a generous 6" swatch and calculated my numbers 3 times before casting on, but hand spun has different properties. I laid the vest on the kitchen counter and found it was 9 inches too wide.

Nerts.

I recalculated gauge by taking 5 measurements and calculating the average then re-working my stitch numbers. Re-provisionally cast on 176 stitches. For those keeping track at home, that's 88 for the back and 44 each for the left and right sides. I don't like the look of the selvedge stitches and work all the stitches right to the end of each row. Also, the nice thing about the Handy Guide books, is that the shaping calculations are worked out for you. In this case, I only used my cast on number of stitches as my guide for armhole and neck shaping.

To be honest, I'm not sure how to overcome this problem. I made a 6 inch swatch, washed, blocked and then calculated. Maybe next time, I take Elizabeth Zimmerman's advice and make a hat for the swatch.

In terms of time, that was about 16 hours of knitting, frogged in moments. Ok, many moments, but still, frogged more quickly than it was knit.

I started over two Saturdays ago. I'd been feeling crappy the week before, but not bad enough to stay home from work. By Sunday, though, I was clearly sick and, as it turns out, I was home through Thursday. I spent that time knitting the vest and blocked it on Wednesday in the late afternoon. I was a little disturbed that it appeared I picked up too many stitched on the left side, but tried to fix it during the blocking.

As you can see, I finished with brown, rather than black, yarn. Why? Because I had 2 small skeins left at the end. It looked like enough for the ribbing and Bill was fine with the solid brown vest. Bill planned to wear this vest as part of his vintage casual look, with a tweed vest and one of his hats that is brown with black trim. So I suggested the black buttons we've been recycling from his work pants. Black cargo pocket fatigue style pants he's worn for years. I couldn't tell you how many buttons there are other than: a lot.

At this point, the buttons were sewn on and he tried on the vest. It fit fine. It looks rustic, which was planned, and better than I had hoped. But the button band was problematic, as were my choice of button holes. I cannot recommend Sally Melville's method, which is: yarnover, knit 2 together. That's it. It does leave a hole, but an easily stretchable and, frankly, very sloppy hole. Made no less sloppy by the irregularities of hand spun yarn. And, the buttons popped outta their holes.

I'm at about 42 hours of knitting but being sick all week, I didn't keep track.

I definitely picked up too many stitches on the left neck band. Blocking does not solve all problems. And then the problematic buttonholes. I had to remove the buttons, frog the band and start over, this time, counting the stitches picked up. Also, trying a more complicated but, hopefully sturdier, buttonhole.

Neckband version 2. I took measurements of the neck band and estimated the number of stitches to pick up. Better but still the look was scallopy and the buttons might be too far apart. I have just over an ounce of yarn left, so I frog it again, re-work the neck band and make it wider to give Bill a bit more room.

After another total 10 hours on the neckband, it's done, and the buttons sewn on again. The final neck band is 3" wide.

Mystery wool vest, by tenukihandcrafts

However, it's still a wee bit small. I'd say, 1 skein short. The only thing that would fix the problem at this point would be to frog the entire vest and start over and shorten the length by about 4", or a standard length vest, in order to make it wider. Or, go back to the original plan of black ribbing and use all the brown yarn for the body. Still, frogging would be involved and some quick re-calculating.

Bill suggested I just spin new yarn and make a new vest. That's my due in autumn project which will be a lighter brown, knit in seed stitch, which a matching scarf. Bill's not really a knit hat guy.

I checked the measurements from my original plan and they came out very close. The width was right on, the length was 1" longer. It was the same length (12") from shoulder to underarm. The extra inch was below the underarm. I recorded 17" and got 18".

I learned I can design a major spinning/knitting project from scratch and have it turn out as designed. My handspun yarn, although it looks rustic, turned out better than I'd hoped. Even though I didn't record the actual time I spent knitting this vest, I estimate 50 hours.

The total time on this project from dirty fleece to finished vest: 104 hours. There you have it. My first planned out spinning and knitting project. Not perfect, but it did turn out as designed. Even if the design was a bit too small.

Sweaters

2011-04-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

As Bill's Mystery Wool Cardigan Vest nears completion, I wondered, just how many adult sweaters have I knit since 1992? It must only be handful, right? So I started counting.

What sounded like a simple question, turned into a good learning experience. So good, that I plan at least two future posts about the evolution of my hand spun yarns and a review of smaller knits. After the initial post publication, I went back and added links for the sweaters discussed in this blog.

These sweaters are not listed stricly in order, but by vague recollection, since some items were completed before I kept project journals.

1. My very first sweater was the seamless yoke sweater from my first knitting book, the classic "Knitting Without Tears," by the late, great Elizabeth Zimmerman. I can't remember the yarn I used. Sadly, yoke sweaters are not a good look for me and although it fit well enough, it had the effect of broadening my already linebacker-ish shoulders. It went to the Goodwill. I don't have any pictures of this sweater, which is a shame. I'm sure it was blue.

2. Sweater commissioned in black wool, for an acquaintance. I don't remember where the design came from, nor the yarn used. The sleeves were far too long, by about 2 weeks, but he was a trooper, rolled up the sleeves and wore the beast anyway. No pictures of this one, either.

3. Heather brown pleated skirt. I don't recall where I got the pattern nor the yarn. I do remember it was a k4 p1 ribbing. Very comfy, warm and lovely. I have no idea what happened to this beauty.

4. Penny Straker Pullover vest. I found a lovely Scottish yarn in an amythist heather. Possibly Jamieson. I remember the label: white with a blue thistle. Easy to knit. I loved it. Wore it. Lost it. I don't know what happened to it.

5. Penny Straker Cable vest (technically, the Whit Vest). I bought lovely soft natural wool and loved this baby as well. Another lost knit. Yet I still have both patterns. Go figure.

6. My next project was a basic sleeveless shell, half of a summery twin set, from an old issue of Vogue Knitting. I no longer have the issue so I apologize that I am unable to give the designer credit. I made no alterations to the design and used a nice soft cotton, in a lovely teal. It turned out ok, but I didn't love it enough to wear it often and it was donated or possibly frogged.

At this point, I no longer owned any of the sweaters I'd knit, so I probably felt a bit of a failure. I was diverted from knitting sweaters by The Sweater Gap of eight years I was in Mary Kay, before I realized I would rather spend my free time crafting than selling someone else's products. I'd have to check the photo dates, but it's possible I knit #7 and #8 during the Mary Kay years.

7. The Sweater Gap didn't stop me from wanting to knit sweaters, so I bought my Vogue Knittings and Interweave Knits and dreamt a happy knitty dream and found this one. Lace Blouson Tank, Summer 2004 Interweave Knits, design by Kim Dolce. The lace patterns were simple. The yarn a spiffy Cherry Rowan cotton. Very soft. The vine lace pattern at the hem turned out well. Not so much the other lace pattern at the top, which in no way resembles the design. But, I love this tank. It fits well, and I still own it. It's perfect on hot summery days. Finally, a knitting success. Projected posted in August 2006's Pink Lace Tank.

8. The Goa Tank. From the first Stitch n Bitch Book. Knit from a wonderfully soft Egyptian cotton, though I can't remember the brand. A near success. I still own this one, though it's in storage. In fact, digging out pictures reminded me I still have it. The neckline needs a repair, which is why I haven't worn it in years. Another great top for a hot day. You know, for the week of screaming hot weather we get here in the Emerald City.

9. Another knitting success and another favorite. And another design from the first SnB: The Go Anywhere cardigan. This one knit from Rowan's merino/cotton blend. It's soft and a fave, but the cotton, being a short staple fiber, means it became sloppy looking in a despairingly short period of time. Now it's a knock around the house sweater. I'm wearing it right now, in fact. It's lightweight, soft, and just warm enough to chase the chill. I would knit this one again, of course, in my own hand spun yarn.

10. V-neck Cardigan Vest I knit as a gift for my sister using high twist hand spun singles of navy 70% Merino/30% alpaca. I had not progressed to plying yet. This was not a planned use for the singles. In fact, I spun a bunch of it and then sat down to knit the vest and see what happened. No real sampling or calculating. Sheer, blind luck. This is my first use of hand spun for a practical item. The design for this vest was from Ann Budd Handy Book of Patterns for this one. I got the Merino/alpaca roving at the Weaving Works for an insanely low price of $0.90 per ounce. There was a giant wad of it with a note saying it was all that was or ever would be, so I bought the lot. As for the vest, I'll have to ask sis if she's still got it. This is the only pic I have of it. I didn't think to take one when she put it on. Post in January 2007's Navy Hand Spun.

11. It's around this time that I enter my Sally Melville phase. I believe I tackled this one first: The Not Your Mother's Suit Jacket. This baby used 2 strands of bulky yarn held together. Really. True, it worked up very quickly, but it looked horrible on me. The design is more suitable to the waif-like. Bulky yarns are just not for me. I wore it a couple of times, but it was heavy and awkward. I eventually frogged it and used the yarns for a variety of smaller projects.

12. I followed up with the Best Friend Jacket Knit in one insanely large piece, origami style from side to side. A fun, if very heavy at the end, project to knit. Knit from black Knit Picks bulky wool/alpaca blend. Since it's black, the bulky stitches are lost. Oh, so soft. I wore this one quite a lot. However, this beast was knit, as mentioned side to side....in garter stitch. Which stretches width-wise, my friends. If knit from top to bottom this variable would not be much of a problem. However, knit side to side, this beastie grew and grew and grew. Oh, and the piling. Oy. The pilling. As with the Go Anywhere Cardigan, it became un-wearable at work. And looking pretty sad at home, as it slowly grew into a ginormous black blob. Not unlike the the plastic chair that ate the toy company executive in that episode of Doctor Who....but I digress. I set this one aside for a long time and then decided to felt it. Into the washing machine it went and came out looking a lot like Sally's Assymetical vest..with sleeves, of course. I haven't had the heart to cut the sleeves off yet. Excluding the sleeves, it's now a reasonably sized jacket/vest. Discussed in March 27, 2007 post, Best Friend Jacket.

13. V-neck Pullover. As much as I liked Sally Melville's enthusiasm for knitting and bought the Knit, Purl, and Color books, the designs just weren't going to work for me. This is another of the Ann Budd classics, this one from the companion - Handy Book of Sweater Patterns. Seriousy, these two books are handy. The yarn is a wool from Knit Picks. All of the yarns I've purchased from KP have pilled terribly. However, I love this sweater and own it to this day. Even though the armpit area has felted into a solid fabric. Sigh. Discussed in February 20, 2007 post Arctic Pool V Neck.

It's around this time I get the bug to spin my own yarn for sweaters and have even reached the plying stage. However, I have the capacity to generate only small quantities of yarn. The time factor remains an issue, so I make one more sweater using commerical yarns.

14. Two-toned Square Neck Pullover. I'd been hearing about Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top Down and it was finally reprinted and I picked up a copy. This is the result. It's not great. It was too short and the sleeves, well kinda weird. Fine as a casual sweater, but I didn't love it. So I felted it and part of it has been a wonderful tea cozy. The rest is waiting to be transformed into felt art.

15. Bill's Mystery Wool Cardigan Vest.
Not quite finished, this is the latest large knit project. From sheared fleece to rustic vest. I planned the heck outta this one. There will be one last post in the series so I don't want to go on too much, but even though I have to re-do the neck band a third time, my goal to spin the yarn for my sweaters is rekindled. First post in the series was on October 7, 2010, Mystery Wool Project.

16. Thistle Pullover V-neck. I a few inches away from the armhole. I'm knitting this in the round until the armholes. No pictures yet. It's going to be a quirkly colorway but I love the way the yarn turned out. More to come on this project. Also in October, the first post on this project, Fine Thistle Yarn.

I want to go back to an Elizabeth Zimmerman project or two, even though her instruction are more wordy and less numbery, I think I'm ready, plus I can grab the Handy books, if I get lost. The Classic Raglan Crew Pullover (maybe worked as a cardigan) from Knitting Without Tears and the Polo from The Knitter's Almanac have always been appealing. I've wanted a pair of Art Socks since I first laid eyes on them.

There you have it. The point of this exercise. I've knit 15 1/2 sweaters in 19 years and there are 5 of those sweaters still in use, that I know of. What have I learned in 19 years of sweater knitting?

One of the reasons I started this blog was to prove to that I finish the projects that I start. Even if I excluded my non-knitting hobbies, I'd feel pretty good about an average of completing one sweater per year.

I'm giving up the Melville books. Even with the beautiful photos and the lovely designs, they just aren't for me. I have made one successful knit: the Shape It Scarf, which is a genius design. Ok, two...I also knit a doll sized version of the Best Friend Jacket as a sample before I embarked on the full size version.

The Ann Budd Handy Books are the two best basic book of designs I've purchased. I still conceptualize the design, find the yarn and work the gauge but I go back to these books because all the shaping calculations have been worked out for me. You could say it's... handy.

Bill's Vest taught me that I can do the calculations and my hands can make it.

I've learned I have knit a lot of sweaters since I picked up knitting all those years ago. A surprising number, in fact. Knowing this encourages me to continue knitting sweaters. Furthermore, with a bit more planning, I can knit sweaters with my own hand spun yarns.

Next time, Bill's Vest.........I hope!

Happy crafting!

Ginger O'Soah

2011-03-16T22:32:00.000-07:00

Ginger is an Elfdoll Soah, normal skin, large bust.

I like incorporating the sculpt name. As for the O in O'Soah, I had in mind the naming convention from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

I fell in love with her sculpt when I was reading and absorbing the BJD Obyrarium and waiting for Hiro to arrive. She's very pretty, but no longer being made. Which means I had to buy her used. Fine with me as I like buying things secondhand, but I expected a long wait and started saving.

I bought Ginger second hand just over a year ago from a very nice gal in Virginia on the Den of Angels Marketplace. About 6 months after Hiro. Not such a long wait after all.

However, a freak winter snowpocalypse attacked the eastern seaboard just as our transaction concluded and shipping was delayed several weeks.

I'm Ginger's third owner. She was made in 2005, has little, if any yellowing, is in great condition with her original Elfdoll face-up. I know this because I found the original owner from a Soah thread on the Den, and she kindly provided me with Ginger's origin.

I named her Ginger because she was going to be a redhead. Ginger, however, had other plans and demanded the lovely purple wig you see in the photos. It suits her quite well, so I can't complain.

Elfdoll offers reminiscence heads, but either they haven't offered any or did and I didn't have the cash when they were available. I have one rule for my dolls - I save up and pay for them with cash. Which means another wait for either a new or secondhand head.

Right now, I've got 3, almost 4, bjds now and have entered a new phase with my dolls: buying alternate heads. I got interested in the alternate concept several months ago, after I purchased Ethan's head and was saving up for his body. I've previously mentioned the special November Pure Body offer, in The Many Faces of Ethan and in Ethan3.0, he comes with an alternate head, Silent Afternoon, with his eyes nearly closed, at least as far as I can tell from the photos on the Dollshe site. There is a long, undetermined wait in store for Ethan's alternate head and body. So even though Ethan is my first doll purchased with an alternate head, Ginger was the first to actually get one.

You never know when an opportunity, such as a company lottery, marketplace find or special offer will appear. So I've been saving with no particular goal in mind.

The Den Marketplace comes to the rescue again. This time, it's a Special Soah Reminisce Head from December 2009. Since these types of chances don't come up very often, and the head is special and was part of a special edition Soah. The faceup is beautiful and very close to Ginger's open eye face.

I will have to look in daylight, but either Ginger's old body has yellowed, evenly, or the resin color is just a bit different since they were made 3 years apart.

Ginger looks so serene, Hiro is enchanted.

Yes, they are on a Tauntan sleeping bag.

I can see the possibilities of having alternate heads for my crew. B&G, the company that makes Hiro, does not offer alternate heads, not yet anyway. And then there's Bimong, who created Maisie. He offers an astounding 9 alternate heads for the 41 cm sized Narae.

Au Revoir, My Little Etsy Shop

2011-03-02T23:48:00.000-08:00

I admit to dreaming someday of selling my handcrafted wares full-time and quitting my current, salaried, full-time job. To that end, I opened an Etsy shop in October 2007. My plan was to see how much an on-line shop increased my sales. I have operated Tenuki Handcrafts by making the items I chose. No stranger to data, I track certain data for my l'il shop. What do my numbers say? Where do my sales come from? The purpose of today's post is to take stock of those numbers.

Since opening my shop, I sought and followed advice offered by fellow experienced Etsians: spend time on the forums, join teams, buy from other artists, improve photos and descriptions, tag properly and adequately, open multiple web shops, offer a lot of product, and participate in craft fairs. I did all of these things, with little success in on-line sales.

I've explored my adventures in pricing in That Demon Pricing, Blues Time Test Part 1, Blues Time Test Part 2. I won't rehash too much other than to say that I severely under-priced my products so I adjusted my pricing structure and types of products I offer. Using my own handspun, I offer the similar products that other knitters and spinners offer: smaller items, sometimes in bulky yarns, that work up quickly and allow sellers to offer more products. My unique hand spun yarns work against me in that my price point is higher than most.

Eighty-seven percent of my sales come from commissions and craft fairs. I have no data on why this is so, but I hypothesize it has to do with being able to feel the products before they buy.

Etsy charges posting fees, reposting fees, and commissions on sales. I have calculated the profits made from my few shop sales went to cover those fees to Etsy and Paypal for all the products I've ever offered in my Etsy shop. Net result? Zero profit earned from my Etsy sales.

Taking all these factors under consideration, I have to ask what good is an on-line shop doing for me? The answer, not much, so I will sell my products in the venues most profitable for me: commissions and craft fairs.

Bill's Mystery Cardigan Vest

2011-03-01T20:15:00.000-08:00

More hours of spinning, plying, washing, weighing and calculating. I've got about 900 yards of sport weight yarn. By my calculations, it is just enough to make Bill's Cardigan Vest.

I still have more spinning to do: the vest ribbing will be trimmed in black wool 2-ply sport weight hand spun. I don't yet have the roving, but it amounts to about another 400 yards, with leftovers for a commissioned scarf.

I knit a generous swatch by casting on 25 stitches on size 5 US needles and working stockinette stitch. I washed and blocked the swatch and my gauge is 4 stitches per inch. I used Ann Budd's Handy Book of Patterns as a general guide for the design.

I am going to knit this cardigan vest with only 2 seams at the shoulders. I cast on 200 stitches and in two days, have managed a whopping 4 inches. I've got a long way to go, but am very excited to see how my first large scale spinning and knitting project.

I'll take pictures as I go and post the results, hopefully soon. But clearly, I didn't get this done by Valentine's Day 2011. I'm not setting another deadline for this project and perhaps I'll just plow ahead and get it done.

Happy crafting!

Gene's Dresses

2011-02-19T00:46:00.000-08:00

I may have previously mentioned that I loved Gene Marshall the first time I saw her, back in the late 90s. In fact, it was in a Vogue Patterns magazine that I first saw her. I could never find her in shops. Now that I'm able to find Gene and friends, Mel Odem has decided to retire the line. Fortunately, there are plenty of dolls and outfits out there to buy.

I'm a bit of an odd doll collector, in that I care more about getting the doll and am less interested in the outfits. I want to create the outfits myself whenever possible. That said, the Gene fashions I've bought are well made and quite cleverly constructed. Plus that whole Golden Era sensibility is so alluring to me.

Several issues of the now defunct Haute Doll magazine offered vintage style dresses to fit Gene Marshall and Company. All designs are by Randall Craig and are, from left to right: Zita in Basic Sheath Dress with gathered waist; Madra in Basic Sheath Dress with Scoop Neck, Gene in Basic Sheath Dress with High Neck, Gene in 50's Style Shirt Dress with Full Skirt, Violet in Basic Sheath Dress with Scoop Neck and Ivy wearing Gene's Cotton Frock, with crinoline.

Although I love to recycle clothes for my doll clothes, I picked some fat quarters for these dresses, starting with the Paris novelty print I found at Pacific Fabrics in Bellevue. That led to finding and buying a little pile of fat quarters.

It turns out that a fat quarter is more than enough fabric for nearly all of the dresses. I'm not sure it's enough for the Summer Frock, but it might be, if the underskirt is make from another fabric.

And now, the stars of this post.

My first Gene Marshall, purchased at my first Puyallup Doll Show in March 2009, nude, for $40 buck, plus another $15 or so for a pair of cut zip boots, so she wouldn't be completely nude. Well, she was wearing a plastic bag. The other info for this doll are her markings, 1995 Ashton Drake, her number, though web searching has yielded nothing. She's a blonde and had her hair net intact. I took the net off, Gene had a braid wrapped around her head. There have been a couple of Gene's from the period with that hair style. I'm guessing it's Gold Sensation, but as much for the fab outfit, which I may have to buy, just because it's that awesome.

Next is Ultimately Madra Lord, purchased from Still Plays With Dolls. My first dressed doll, if you can call her that. Madra is wearing, uh, her pink unmentionables: bra, panties, hose, pink shoes, jewelry, and, what else? A fluffly white fur stole. I don't quite get this one, but hey, Madra's a ginger with green eyes, so who cares? Odd as it sounds, I like my dolls to wear undergarments. Guess it's that "always wear clean underwear" advice from childhood.

My next purchase, from the Puyallup Doll Show in 2010, is Glammed Up Ivy Jordan. Another nude doll, but I picked up an outfits at this show, all from the Bearzabout booth: the top, pants, shoes and jewelry from Madra's Golden Riviera set. As I said earlier, the outfits are pretty awesome. Ivy is my only girl who's managed to keep her hair in it's net. For now. I'll probably take it down at some point because I have to know. Besides, she's not really glammed up in a summer frock, is she?

Next up, I really wanted a Violet Waters, but it wasn't until I found Violet Nights at Gigi's Dolls & Bears, that I knew I found my gal. An Ashton Drake doll. Violet's wearing a beautiful nightgown outfit, in what else? Violet. Robe, shoes, jewelry and a trunk to hold it all. Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with Violet: she's quite stiff and her forearms are clearly a different color from the rest of her body. Her hair has been washed.

And now, my grail doll of the line: Silouette of the 30s Zita Charles. Dressed doll purchased from, oh I forget where. I searched and search and searched for her. Zita is so beautiful, with her violet eyes. She had the most hard hair. I really disliked it and put off trying to clean it unti I realized that if I ruin it, I'd get her a wig. It took all day, lots of shampoo and still, it's a bit stiff.

My latest acquisition is another Gene, I couldn't resist this purchase, which was a pile of nude Genes in a box at the Puyuallup Doll Fair last October. There were 2 redheaded Genes in the box, and at $20 a piece, I bought one for me and one for Kim and bought us both outfits, the one Kim chose, I forget. My outfit was Town & Country with dress, jacket, fur beret and muff, plus shoes. I don't know exactly which Gene this is, but she is an Ashton Drake era, and could be Red Venus.

In the end, it doesn't matter which Genes I have, I love them all, with they're pretty little faces and Golden Era sensibitility. Now, they need shoes, hats, purses, and maybe even a wrap or two. And more fab outfits.

Happy crafting!

Inspired by The Blue Boy

2011-02-18T19:15:00.000-08:00

Way back in the Stone Ages, when I was in college, I minored in Art History. The classes were taught by one Dr. Fitzgerald, who taught art history using what I call The Blipvert Method. He'd show many hundreds of slides during the allotted hour, rattling off the title, artist, some random, related fact. The only other thing I remember clearly about his classes was the day he brought grubs to class. One for everyone. Tastes like chicken. It was either during the African art history or the Pacific & Oceanic Art.

Now distracted by the math of images seen...let's say I took 10 art history classes and saw 300 slides per class, 4 days a week, for 12 weeks. That's 12,000 total images. Give or take.

I'm amazed I didn't explode.

The point of this trip down memory lane is Gainsborough's "The Blue Boy" has simmered in my mind for a very long time. Of course, until I looked at the photo today, I remembered mostly blue, frock coat, breeches, and that look on the boy's face. Looking at it today, I perceive his look a bit smirky, haughty, though smiling, a bit contemptuous.

One of the rationalization for my dolls is the opportunity to practice pattern drafting on a small scale. This allows me to work faster than I can at the human scale, but also at a lesser cost. If I discard a garment or part of one, the cost is small.

For about 10 seconds, I considered using the instructions on photocopy scaling commercial patterns for doll clothes, which you can find here, if you're interested: Enlarging a Commerical Pattern from Instruction Sheet. But frankly, there's just as much measuring and fiddling I decided to draft the pieces myself. I know what all the pieces are supposed to look like and, really, Hiro won't complain if the armscye's too tight.

The frock coat was inspired by the Folkwear Country Frock Coat. The big shirt was inspired by the Folkwear Missouri River Man's Shirt. I've made both of these garments human sized, so I'm familiar with them. The vest and breeches were designed by me.

I made a muslin test, made a few adjustments then made the piece out of a recycled Bill shirt of blue herringbone. The muslin test of the shirt became the actual shirt.

The vest, coat and breeches were made from on of Bill's old button down shirts, a super soft, blue herringbone. The buttons were from one of my own old blouses, lovely shell buttons. The lace and ribbon were added to cover seams.

I need to find a pair of black buckle shoes and make a hat for this outfit.

According to the Wikipedia entry, The Blue Boy is often shown with Thomas Lawrence's "Pinkie." I have added it to the list as an outfit for Ginger. In meantime, here's my Blue Boy. It was a beautiful day today and Hiro was in fine photographic form, so I took a bunch of photos, which can be found at my Flickr site.

Once I get all the accessories, I might even go nuts and paint backgrounds similar to the respective paintings. Both of which would look for future photo shoots.

Happy Crafting.

The Many Faces of Ethan

2011-02-13T00:26:00.000-08:00

February 12, 2011. I got a bug to try to re-capture Ethan's first faceup. I reviewed various faceup advice on the Den of Angles, thanks to Leechy's Natural Faceup instructions, which are terrific. Also, one of the airbrush faceup instructions in the Obyrarium. I don't have an airbrush, but the artist, whose name escapes me at this moment, remarked that they work three layers of the first blushing, from lightest to darkest.

Ethan's Fresh skin tone definitely looks best with red undertones, not yellow, even though his wig is a dirty blonde. So, I mixed my pastels and this time, counted out how many scrapes I took of the particular colors. I stuck mainly with three colors: white, a dusty rose and a red undertoned medium brown. Mixed in various proportions, more brown for the blushing and his eyes, and more dusty rose for his lips. But I wanted the blends to work together.

For the blushing, I blended three increasingly darker versions of the blush color. Worked from light to dark and blushed his ears, eyes, nose, chin, forehead. With each color change, I moved inward from the edges, trying to create more depth to his features, bring out his features a bit more. I was extra careful to watch for stray finger prints and hairs and changed gloves after handling the pastels. I had one stray mark this time, which I was unable to remove with my eraser, so it became the birth mark under his left brow.

The materials for these faceups are ZM pastels from Volks, white pastel is a Rembrandt, watercolor and chalk pencils.

I like this softer version of Ethan. Even though I've said it before, I think I'll keep this one until his body arrives, which will be around mid-March, according to the Dollshe website. Look at that face - that boy needs a body!

January 6, 2011. I can already tell, after 2 nights of playing, that I could post every other day with the continuing saga of Ethan's face-ups. Rather than add new posts, I will add photos to this one, with the most current face at the top of the post. Ethan is a Dollshe Bernard. Someday, he'll have a body.


01.06.2011: New Wave

Tonight's faceup was inspired by a comment from Bill after I trimmed the wig Ethan is wearing in all these photos. He said Ethan looked like someone from Duran Duran. Well, my friends, I love the old days of post-punk/New Wave, so why not try it out?

This one is my favorite so far. I might even leave it for a few days until the flaws begin to taunt me.

I have sprayed only the base coat of ZM Finishing Powder Spray UV Cut. The faceup with pastels: blushing, eyes, lips, brows. I used the pastels wet which adheres better to his face Turns out, it's easy to take an eraser wipe away the previous faceup. A quick burst with the canned air, and it's ready for a new look. The eraser doesn't seem to be disrupting the base coat.


01.05.2011 Sort of Natural Look

The next faceup is describe in detail in Ethan 3.0. Again done with pastels. It's a more natural look. Not bad, but there are issues.

If you would like to see what I consider the Gold Standard of Faceups, follow the link to Dink's Dolls and bask in the glory that is Cheryl Ausin's artistry.

While I'm a big fan, and hope to commission her for a faceup, I am seeking my own faceup style, which I think beginning to emerge as I work on Ethan's lovely face. There's also the matter of developing the painting skills. Ethan's head is fairly small, probably 3 inches wide by 4 inches tall.

11.23.2010 Bedraggled #2

Number 3 is better than Number 2, which was in the vein of Ethan's former days of drug addiction and death.

Number 2 is a tired Ethan. There were issues. Like his eyebrows, which you can't see in this photo are much too high, so he looked quite surprised. Some bits of lint got trapped in the layers of ZM Finishing Spray, which turned into that beauty mark near his nose. On his left cheek, there was another bit of lint and a dark pastel smudge.

10.26.2010 First Face Up

In version 2, his lashes and brows were drawn with a watercolor pencil. The coloring on versions 1 and 2 were more of a redhead. I love the gingers, but there is another beautiful ginger Bernard, which glorious long red hair.

Ethan version 1.0. My first face up. Ever. Wearing the wig before it was trimmed and fitted a little better to his head, also new skills for me. His coloring is more like that of a ginger. Plenty of issues: mismatched brows, odd lips, although I like the color.

Happy crafting!

Corespun, Navajo Plied, Spec Testing

2011-01-26T23:24:00.000-08:00

Now that my spinning has become more or less regular and settled into a nice fine singles weight, I feel ready to branch out in new spinning techniques and test the results I get from the two methods of yarn spec-ing.

First up, Core Spinning, which involves literally wrapping a single with prepared fibers by laying the fibers across the single. The core single can be completely hidden by the wrapping or allowed to show through, as the spinner desires. I found this technique tricky. As always, I relied on one of my books to 'splain it. It would probably be a lot easier if someone was sitting near and teaching me. But I've been a trial and error kind of gal.

The core was teal Corriedale/wool, spun on my Elizabeth, standard flyer, large whorl, fine single. For wrapping, I used the Blossom roving, which is 100% wool, space dyed from a local source. I was so focused on working the wrapping technique that I core spun in the same direction, which, as you can see in the photo, results in a super overtwisted yarn. The yarn was washed and snapped.
Once dry, I took the specs: 800 yards per pound and 12.5 wraps per inch. The sample was knit on size 10 US needles and 20 cast on stitches. I worked a few rows of K1, P1 ribbing, that that you can tell, and then stockinette stitch. The swatch measures 6" wide, best guess, and the gauge is 3.3 stitches per inch. By all measures, that's a bulky yarn. I want to make more corespun samples. I think I will like the resulting funky yarn once I get the technique down. My obstacle of the moment is taking the time to spin the core yarn.

Long on my list of techniques has been Navajo plying, which, in essence, takes a single and plies it in a series of loops. One benefit of this technique is that it keeps colors distinct. The resulting yarn is a three-ply. It was a lot of fun, once I got the hang of it. I can see myself getting quite fast at this technique.

The logical starting point was my previously spun bulky Thistle singles. It was quick work indeed. The washed yarn weighed in at 500 yards per pound and 10 wraps per inch. The sample was knit on size 9 US needles. Cast on 12 stiches, work k1, p1 rib, then stockinette. The swatch measured 4" wide by 6 1/4" long. Gauge is 3 stitches per inch. A very bulky yarn.

The fibers for this red/purple yarns were hand carded into rolags and spun on my drop spindle during the December craft fairs. Mostly Correidale, with some Blossom and Knox Farm Fibers thrown in to break up the solid colors. My original plan for this yarn was small items, but I struck upon the idea of Navajo plying to test that color distinction theory.

The yarn was washed to set the twist. Yarns specs were taken after it was dry. This yarn weighed in at 750 yards per pound, 12 wraps per inch. I knit the sample on size 5 US needles, cast on 20 stitches, worked k1, p1 ribbing then stockinette. The finished swatch measures 6" wide, 4 1/2" long and the gauge is 3.3 stitches per inch. Another bulky yarn.

Now I was on a roll and had to do another, this one teal Corriedale and a bit of grey mohair. I handcarded these into rolags. Half became the corespun core yarn. The other half, this Navajo test. After spinning and washing, this yarn measures 15 wraps per inch, 1000 yards per pound. I used size 5 US needles, cast on 20. Worked k1, p1 rib and just for laughs, increased 4 stitches evenly across then worked stockinette. The finished swatched measures 6" wide by 5 1/2" long and the gauge is 4 stitches per inch. A worsted yarn.

As for testing the yarn specs, a recent Spin Off article discussed the variability of results for wraps per inch yarns. To compare my results, I used the Twisted Sisters yarn weight table, which is specifically for hand spun yarns, which I have manually merged onto Ann Budd's Handy Knitter's Reference Card.

It didn't take long to see yards per pound was more accurate than wraps per inch. By why? Before conducting these tests, I packed as many wraps as possible. The resulting WPI didn't match the yards per pound, making gauge difficult, at best.

After working the samples and measuring the swatched, I re-took the wraps per inch and made sure the wraps were touching but not crowded and my new WPI was closer in yarn weight to the yards per pound.

I am happy to have added two new spinning techniques and am looking forward to creating new yarns in the near future...but after finishing Bill's vest.

Happy crafting!

Mystery Wool....tribbles?

2011-01-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

It's time for a project update to Bill's Mystery Wool Vest. You may recall this was raw fleece, as in shorn off the New Zealand Mystery sheep from whence it came. I washed it shortly after it arrived and slowly processed it for a sport weight 2 ply yarn for Bill's wool hand knit vest. And now, the latest news...

I forgot I have a flick carder. When I decided it was time for concerted effort to get this Mystery Wool processed, I suddenly remembered it and tried it. Brilliant! The flick carder fluffed up the fibers, helped me see which were too short to card, pick out the pilly bits, twigs, and other vegetable matter. Truly, it made the carding easier.

The first photo shows nearly all the stages of this wool: batts that have made a single pass through the drum carder (at the right edge of the photo), the twice-carded 'nests,' two bobbins of singles on my kate (and on the window sill), and finished skeins of yarn from the first two bobbins of singles.

The carding is complete. It took me about 12 hours of carding. Not bad, I guessed 16 hours in the previous post. Oh, the seemingly endless carding. You know, it wouldn't be so bad, but the work must be done slowly, else too much fiber is wasted. It's a practice in mindful patience. You can't rush and you can't space out - you have to watch the crank speed and monitor how the fiber is feeding. And when you look away, that fiber inevitably creeps away from the center of the drum to be entangled on the drum and becomes useless.

This was a natural, undyed fleece from a brown sheep with wide color variety. I tried to bring the color to a common-ish ground by running the fiber through one pass into a pile of 8 batts. I split the batts in half, divided up the piles into a spectrum of light to dark. Then paired up a dark and light half batt. Each pair was run through the carder a second time. Two passes were surprisingly effective and yielded a nice middle brown.

I got as far as spinning one of the newly carded batts and just needed to step away from my spinning wheel. Even though this wool has been scoured, three times, as I recall, run through the drum carder twice, it is still very sticky. Any benefit my hands get from the copious lanolin is counteracted by the hand sanatizer I keep nearby to cut the grease.

Once all the batts were done, I left my little nest of batts on the table, under the window, in my craft room. Bill went to the craft room this weekend looking for envelopes (that's where they live) and I heard him laugh. I thought it had to do with the envelopes not being in the location I told him.

Oh no. We've been watching "Star Trek - The Original Series" lately and when he saw the batts, he thought they were Tribbles.

Now that all the fiber is processed, I have to make the concerted effort to spin all these tribbles.

Ethan 3.0

2011-01-05T23:53:00.001-08:00

Ethan 3.0, originally uploaded by Tenuki Handcrafts.

This is my third face-up attempt on Ethan, my Dollshe Bernard.

Ethan's faceup #3 was done with pastels from Volks. I used them wet for the lips, lashes and brows. I haven't sealed it because, well, it's not good enough to keep.

I like the color scheme, for his eyes. I like his brows. His lips are too pink and, up close, not full enough, and his lashes are just...not good. I need a finer brush for lashes. I still like Ethan with the painted lashes rather than gluing in upper lashes.

My original plan for Ethan, when I thought I was getting the Rhythmos body, which is lanky was a backstory where he overcame a drug addiction due to the death of a close friend. The first two face-ups had more of a tired, bedraggled look, which fit his story.

I was lucky enough to have the cash in hand to take advantage of the Dollshe Pure Body Event last month. I have a long wait ahead of me, which is fine, as I now have time to work on his face.

The Pure Body is, well, glorious (check it out: Pure Body Event). Beautifully defined muscles yet lean. The body of a fit young man. I can't give him a bedraggled look now, which seems inconsistent for his body. Now I'm going for a different look - more fit, but keeping his back story. Further along in his recovery by the time his body arrives.

Ethan's wig was Hiro's defaut wig, which I trimmed, thinking of David Bowie as the Goblin King in Labyrinth. Bill's comment was Ethan looked very Duran Duran. Well, you probably get where this is going.

The bonus: Dollshe is including an SA head with the Pure Body. That's Silent Afternoon, or, a face with closed eyes. This is a very happy bonus but another face-up to figure out.

I don't know how many tries it will take to get a look I like. Hopefully, I'll get the face I want by the time his body arrives.

Happy crafting!

Bonfit Project - Basic Top 1

2011-01-01T17:25:00.000-08:00

I've been sewing since I took my first and only sewing class in 1976, when I was in 7th grade, from Mrs. Agner, whom my dad, a West Point grad, called a drill sargant after meeting her one time at the junior high parent-teacher meeting.

In all that time, I haven't taken any other sewing, fitting or pattern drafting classes. Relying instead on commercial patterns, some experimentation, and a bit of luck. About 15 years ago, I grew tired of relying on commercial patterns and purchased the complete Bonfit Patterner system with the goal of designing and sewing my wardrobe.

The system came with a pants sloper, skirt sloper, and three bodice slopers (small, medium and large). Once again, luck played a part and eventually in frustration, I set it aside to peruse other projects.

The two somewhat recent factors encouraged me to try again: my success with improvised doll clothing patterns and the Fedora Lounge. A number of the Lounge Ladies sew their vintage wardrobe, either from vintage patterns or based on vintage designs. People share their projects, vintage patterns, and offer pattern reviews. I searched for Bonfit on The Lounge and found that among those who use a system, the general preference is for the Lutterloh system, which has been around since 1936....and yes, their vintage designs can be found.

I posted a query about other Bonfit users, and received only 1 reply, but it was someone who was curious about both Bonfit and Lutterloh systems, but had tried neither. I continued the search beyond The Lounge and found four reviews of the Bonfit system elsewhere on the interwebs, links are in this post: Black Pencil Skirt. The other folks seemed to have more experience drafting patterns, so it looks like I can offer a beginner's perspective.

I don't feel I can chuck the Bonfit without giving it a serious effort, so I will work through several of the projects came with the system using muslin. The instructions booklets consist of: bodice instructions; skirt instructions; pants instructions; basic sewing guide, which as sample garments, general sewing assembling instructions, and basic fabric information; and the Fashion Concepts booklet, which covers different styles of clothing and how to select flattering designs for different body types.

The first Bonfit bodice project is The Basic Top. Measurements in hand, I read through the directions and drafted the top. It features a boat neck opening, 'cut on' sleeves (attached to the body, as opposed to separate sleeves). I like a loose fitting garment, so I gave myself plenty of space at the bust.

The bodice arrangement used for this project has no darts and gently flares out, in a-line fashion, from the bust line to the hip line. It would be useful for very casual designs, such as tee-shirts and sweatshirts. Incidentally, there are two other lower bodice pieces, one with bust darts and the other with fish eye darts.

The interesting thing about this system is that waist line ease is determined by the built-in ease, plus whatever bust ease is added. In other words, I set my comfy bust measurement, then measured the waist to see how much ease I'd have at the waistline.

No instructions are given on how to increase waistline ease, should it be needed. Fortunately, I had enough ease for both my waist and hip measurements, without modifications. The neck and sleeves are finished with bias binding. I used random leftover store bought bias tape.

I omitted the slit in the center back with a button closure. That didn't make a lot of sense to me since this is a boat neck design, which has enough space to get over my head. I added 1/4" seam allowances to the neck and sleeve hems for the bias binding; 5/8" seam allowance for the side seams; 1 5/8" for the hem.

Problem 1. During the drafting, the instructions have you draft the front, then the back. Then you go back to the front and edit the neckline to draw the design details, in this case, the boat neck, then edit the back neckline to match. I went directly to drafting the boat neck on the front but neglected to do so on the back and when the shoulders didn't match up, I had to re-trace my steps and re-draft the back neckline, which I corrected on both the pattern and the sample.

A possible related problem occurred at the hem, with the front slightly longer than the back, I suppose from redrafting the back neck on the fly, rather than redrafting with the sloper and re-cutting the back. I trimmed the hem before pressing and sewing it.

Other than that, assembly went smoothly. It probably took me 2 hours of sewing, fiddling, ironing and fitting it as I went. The side seams and hem were left unfinished.

Overall, it's not very flattering but the point was to make a sample garment that fits, which it does. I don't see making another top like this, but I did get a sense of what to watch for when I make the next item, the basic blouse.

Problem 2. There is help or troubleshotting for fitting problems that came with the Bonfit. I'm paraphrasing, but the fitting instructions consist of: draft the pattern, cut out the muslin, sew it up. If it doesn't fit, figure out what to change and draft a new pattern, cut out a new muslin and try again.

Uh, thanks?

If I have a fitting problem with the Bonfit, I will have to consult one of my other sewing books to figure out how to solve the problem before I can redraft the pattern. That's annoying. I would have found a fitting solutions booklet more useful than the Fashion Concepts book.

My guess at this stage is I will need to make the following items: basic blouse, a-line skirt (having successfully made a pencil skirt), trousers, dress, jacket. Hopefully, at the end of this experiment, I will be able to successfully use the Bonfit system to design my own vintage-inspired wardrobe. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Happy crafting and happy new year!

That Demon Pricing

2010-12-29T17:15:00.000-08:00

Spinning and knitting are time consuming activities, so how do I go about setting a fair price for my work affordable to both myself and my customers? I have spent quite a lot of time over the past three years discussing the matter with others, mainly in the Etsy forums.

I drafted this particular post three months ago and forgot about it until I merged my blogs. I thought about deleting it but as I read it, I spent a great deal of time on this subject and decided to publish it in the hopes it will be helpful to someone else. The main change made to the original draft was to provide a price example for each of the methods I tried using one of my favorite items to make: a 4 ounce scarf.

While I currently consider my fiber creations as a hobby because I have a full-time job, I started this pricing adventure to determine if I can take my hobby to a business that replaces my current income.

One final note on my pricing: I felt I could not charge an hourly rate commisserate with my skill. All of the pricing methods used an hourly rate of $10, while low (minimum wage in Washington when I started this project), but the reason I chose this amount will become apparent by the end of the post.

Method 1. The first method I tried is the one most used by the Etsy jewelry artists: cost of materials times 3. The wool roving I typically buy is $1.90 per ounce. For my 4 ounce scarf, the rounded up price using this method is $23 ($1.90/ounce x 4 ounces) x 3. A place to start, although it seems low considering it takes me nearly a week's worth of effort to design, prepare fibers, spin, ply, and knit that scarf. At this point, I threw out this method, looked at other knitters prices for similar items, and adjust my prices accordingly. The 4 Ounce Scarf has a revised price of $50.

Method 2. I really wanted a formula to apply to my work so that if someone asked, I had a good answer. This time, I approached the pricing from a different angle, inspired by my former experience as a direct sales consultant: figure out how much I want to make (my annual salary since it's going to be the new full-time), break it down by week and divide by the average price of items in my shop to determine how many products I'd have to make.

To simplify the math for this example, I want to sell $52,000 of product every year or sales of $1000 every week. With an average price of $50 per item, I would have to make and sell 20 4 Ounce Scarves every week. Given it takes me nearly a week to create a single scarf, it does not seem physically possible to make this scheme work. This method requires generating 80 ounces of spinning and knitting each week.

In the meantime, I did a test to figure out how much time it actually takes to spin and knit a specified amount of fiber. Compare the real time by the amount of time I thought it took. The result is the Blues Time Test. Six hours of work for 1 ounce of yarn, the swatch measured 12 inch by 13 inch swatch of stockinette stitch. That's 24 hours of spinning, plying and knitting for the 4 Ounce Scarf.

In a 40 hour week, I can generate 6 ounces of yarn per week. At this point, it is not possible for me to make Method 2 work, unless I make some serious changes. Again, not the focus of this post. Besides, I still want a reasonable pricing formula. Method 2 is not a pricing formula as much as a sales projection.

Method 3. Using the Blues Time Test, I know it takes me 6 hours to spin, ply and knit 1 ounce of sportweight yarn. I repeated the test for fine and bulky yarns and created a spreadsheet.

This pricing formula is the (cost of the fiber X total ounces) times (time spent creating the yarn x total ounces) + (cost of the fiber X total ounces) times (time spent knitt the piece x total ounces).

The price Four Ounce Scarf in sport weight yarn is $192 wholesale, or, if you will, the amount it costs me to make this item (my time and materials only). I have not taken into account any profit, rent (if I had to pay for my studio space), utilities, commissions, posting fees, shipping and handling fees. At this point, I had to decide what profit level I was comfortable applying. I factored in shipping, handling, posting and reposting fees (5 reposts), and Etsy commission, and 15% was the most I felt comfortable with. The sample 4 Ounce Scarf retail price is $220.

Next time: who knows? All blogs are one. Anything could happen.

Happy crafting, my lovlies!

Happy holidays!

2010-12-25T22:59:00.000-08:00

Night Shot of Bill at the Pier

We have been host to The Hat, the Fedora Lounge Traveling Hat. Since last my previous post was out of date, I wanted a little something to tide you over until the next, well thought out post.

Something to do with goals, I expect.

This shot was taken with my night time setting, at one of the piers in Downtown Seattle.

Happy holidays and a joyous new year!

Seattle Underground Sunday

2010-12-20T23:12:00.000-08:00

The Underground Tour Building

December is nearing and end and with it, the close of this blog. You may wonder why make another post when this blog will officially merge with http://tenukihandcrafts.blogspot.com/ but it's another chance to remind you to follow me there.

Also, I didn't want to leave up my last post about craft fairs in the past, so this post is going to include some local color, if you will.

Bill & I are the current host for The Fedora Lounge Travelling Hat, aka The Hat, an Akbura fedora (of some kind, oh, dear, you know the Lounge Men are cringing....sorry gents....)

At any rate, we're taking this opportunity to play tourist in Seattle and try out my Rebel. Yesterday, we went to Pioneer Square and went on the Seattle Underground Tour, a brief visit to the Pike Place Market, hung out at the Waterfront, dinner at Ivar's Acres of Clams and back home.

Rusty Gate

There will be more photos than space in the journal that accompanies The Hat, so the complete series is posted on my flickr site: The Travelling Hat Takes Seattle

Our tourist activity started with the Seattle Underground Tour. It's fun and historical. There is a lot of old timey refuse down there, piled in corners and stewn about. Here are two examples. Most of photos include The Hat and are posted...that's right, in my flickr set.

Big Gear

It's been a blast playing tourist. I highly recommend it. Just wearing a camera around your neck has the effect of causing people to be super friendly. Nearly everywhere we went, people offered to take photos of the two of us.

As much as I wish you happy crafting, take an afternoon to get out of the house and tour around your home town.

Last Minute Hand Made Holiday Shopping in Seattle

2010-12-15T21:44:00.000-08:00

Time to do that last minute holiday shopping at the 3rd Annual Kooterville Bizarre Bazaar is this Saturday!

Saturday December 18th from 11am-3pm in the Gym at the Greenlake Community Center, 7201 E Green Lake Drive N.

Avoid the mall this holiday season! Do all of your shopping at the Bizarre
Bazaar! We'll have affordable handcrafted jewelry, knits, soaps, art,
clothes, foods and uniquely bizarre wares for your holiday shopping
pleasure. Plus refreshments, a holiday DJ and even a craft table for the
kiddies!

Admission is free!

Driving Directions

We'll see you there!

The 3rd Annual Kooterville Bizarre Bazaar is this Saturday!

2010-12-15T21:42:00.000-08:00

Seven Things

2010-12-13T22:30:00.000-08:00

Tonight's task was to catch up on my electronic reading. Go through my blog subscription list and google reader, but oh my stars! My subscription list has gotten so long that it's daunting to read the latest posts from the over 100 subscriptions. My revised task for tonight: go to the blogs, read the new posts, read a couple old posts and keep or unsubscribe. I have to say, it's tough to choose, as there are an amazing array of talented folks out in the blogosphere.

But my honeys, it's a full time job to read blogs! I've spent this evening whittling down my list and sharing the choicest bits. Then I hit one of my fave new blogs, entitled, My Life Under the Bus (ok, how could I not love this blog?): A Little Slice of Life. I liked her post and decided to play along. Here are 7 things about me. I guess dad is on my mind today. Here's a photo of mom and dad, from 2004. That's Mt. Adams in the background.

1. I still have dreams about the apartment building we lived in Chicago, from 1972-76: 850 West Eastwood. Oh, yes, and I remember the address, though not our apartment number, although I believe we lived on the 16th floor. I google earthed it and it looks just same. Weird, huh?

2. I walked to school, which was Brenneman Elementary School, a half mile away from home.

3. Dad took me to see "Jaws" when it came out in 1975. It's only been in the past, oh decade, that I would volunteer to go into open water. Yes, it's a movie. Yes, great whites are salt water sharks. But I was 11 and this movie scared the crap outta me, rubber shark and all.

4. I did a lot of walking as a kid. When we lived in Cleveland, I went to George Washington Elementary school, a couple blocks away, which was good, because I would have been 7-8 years old.

5. Back to Chicago, I loved to ride the L with dad downtown for some speedwalking then a leisurely stroll throgh Crocks and Brentanos. I love bookstores to this day.

6. I got dad's art books after he died. I spent a couple of teary afternoons going through all 13 of the letter-size boxes. Remembering most of those books from childhood.

7. My one regret was that I didn't pursue a fine arts degree in college. But with all of dad's books, I can study art from now until I die. Drawing will figure prominantly in 2011's goals.

My Upcoming Craft Fairs

2010-11-30T13:06:00.001-08:00

For those of you in the Seattle area in need of handcrafted gifts, I am participating at two local holiday craft fairs. At my table you will find hand spun yarns, small hand knit/crocheted items for human and dollies, and jewelry in a wide range of price points. Both fairs feature a wide variety of gifts made by many talented local artists. You're sure to find something for everyone on your list.

First up is the Winter Craft Fair & Raffle, December 3rd at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, sponsored by the FHCRC Employee Advisory Committee. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance Patient Family Services Fund. The fair will be located in room M1-A303-307 of the Arnold Building on the Fred Hutch campus. There over 45 vendors and a wide variety of hand crafted goodness, refreshments, a raffle, and a wrapping table.

The Third Annual Bizarre Bazaar, December 18th at the Greenlake Community Center. We're in the gym this year so there will be plenty of room to visit all the tables. I will be sharing my table with my dear friend, Kim Boyer and her beautiful hand made cards.

Craft fairs are a great place to educate folks on the art of spinning yarn. I will spinning with my Ashford drop spindle using prepared roving. I'll also bring along the hand knit sample from the Blues Time Test. Also on hand will be one of my spokes dolls, wearing a completely hand made outfit.

Stop by, say hi, and have yourself a hand made holiday season.

Happy crafting!

Snow Day Spin Day

2010-11-24T21:44:00.001-08:00

I used my snow day to spin wool. I carded, spun and plied another bobbin of Thistle yarn, a sample skein of 50% baby camel\50% silk 2 ply yarn, and tried a sample bobbin of corespun yarn.

The Thistle yarn is for a pullover vest for me. The camel\silk yarn is to submit for the Fall 2010 camelid challenge. The corespun yarn was to get in at least one new spinning technique by year's end.

I washed the skeins. I'll write a post with the yarn specs as soon as I download and process the photos.

For a short break, I took .a few pics of BEQ in his cap not enjoying the snow day. Still no body, but I'll order it soon.

My first priorty is to prepare for the Hutch Craft Fair a week from Friday. I'll try to get a shot of this year's offerings.

Happy Thanksgiving and happy crafting!

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Blog-speriment - The Next Stage

2010-11-24T18:35:00.000-08:00

I've been in a mulling over my crafty life and direction I want to take my craftiness recently. I came to some decisions about how to focus my precious and limited commodity: time.

I made a firm resolution to wait until the new year to enact the changes, however, I want to give you, my dear followers, a head's up. In January 2011, I will consolidate this blog under the Tenuki Handcrafts flag.

All of my posts will live in one handy location and I will simplify my virtual personality. The merging of the blogs will be easy, but it is unclear whether or not you, my lovely followers, will transfer over. I would be ever so happy if you were to follow me there.

Hiro examines Ginger's face

After the short-lived Blog-speriment1 and Blog-speriment 2, I was fairly happy with two blogs - one for my shop-related posts and the other for my personal projects. Partly responsible for the change of mind was a recent Google search for "crafty wench," which I ran just for laughs, thinking how many could the be?

Turns out, quite a few, but here's a sampling: The Crafty Wench is a web shop of baby items; Crafty Wench has multiple wench personalities; this Crafty Wench, who possibly has a blog/shop arrangement; yet another Crafty Wench with a whole line of funky monkeys; and still more crafty wenches, many with craft-related shops. My previous blog post turned up on page 2 of the search results, which was somewhat disheartening given how regularly I post.

While those other crafty wenches serve up fine crafty goodness, I see no reason to muddle virtual identities and shop brands by being yet another crafty wench in the search engine of life.

Mixiphorically speaking.

In the privacy of my own home, I plan to be a Crafty Wench until someone pries a craft tool that maims out of my cold, dead hands, such as the prickly drum carder you see over Hiro's shoulder.

There is more to the Blog-speriment story, but it will have to wait for future posts. In case I don't say it enough, thank you for reading.

Happy Thanksgiving and happy crafting!

Snow Day

2010-11-22T21:36:00.000-08:00

November 2010 has been the strangest month of weather. We had a couple days of 70 degrees. Today, it's been 32 and snowing. Here is one pic I took today as I was leaving work. I admit to wanting a snow day tomorrow so I can take the dolls out for a few wintry shots.

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Hand Dyed Beret

2010-11-17T22:26:00.000-08:00

The skein on the left is 80% wool 20% mohair hand dyed roving purchased from Knox Farm Fibers. I bought a 6 ounce batt and split it up because it was so pretty I wanted to try different ways to express the range of reds and yellows present in the roving. One section was spun and plied right outta the bag. The second section was set aside for an unspecified random project and the third was carded with some alpaca, from a local farm and sold at the Weaving Works, in a natural fawn color.

The skein on the right was from that never-ending 1 pound bag of hand dyed roving purchased at the Seattle Weaver's Guild sale two years ago. I lightly carded, spun and plied it.

Both yarns were spun and plied on my Elizabeth wheel, using the large whorl (the standard Elizabeth flyer) and resulted in my current default 17 wpi, 1900 yards per pound, 2 ply lace/sport weight yarn. After plying, the yarn was washed in hot water with a blob of Doctor Bronner's, snapped and hung to dry/set the twist.

Once dry, I spent a lot of time admiring these skeins. They turned out so well I decided to knit myself a beret with a spiral decrease crown. I used size 4 US needles and worked away on it, using my wraps per inch measurement as my rough gauge.

I know, what you're thinking: what no gauge swatch!? That way lies madness!

And sure, it looked big and floppy while I was knitting, but it's a beret, they always look that way until you block them. I forged ahead, enthralled by my beautiful yarn. Cast off and immediately stuck the floppy beret on my head.

And it fell over my eyes. It was much, much too big.

Sigh.

I tried a super hot wash...why?

Because, that's why!

No, it didn't change the size at all. But I had to know.

It sat on the shelf all sad and not being worn. I wasn't keen to frog it, as it's an almost woolen style yarn and well, I just hate frogging.

The first time I heard from Judith from Knox Farm Fiber was shortly after I posted my Really the Blues yarn on my Etsy shop. She asked if my yarn felted, which led to many conversations and her comment that her own wool does not felt. It's just a feature of her particular sheep.

As you might guess, I decided to test Judith's assertion because my beret was more or less 30% bigger than my head. What was the worst that could happen? It could half felt? Can something half felt? Was there enough non-Knox Farm wool and alpaca in the yarns to cause it to felt?

BEQ 2.0

2010-11-17T00:31:00.000-08:00

I had to wipe and re-do BEQ's faceup. This one turned out better, yet brows plague me. I also trimmed his wig and topped his cranium with one of my own creations. I'm still saving for his body. Happy crafting!

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Mobile blogging

2010-11-17T00:15:00.000-08:00

I(3/3) rafting!

Well, that was interesting....I received my new phone and tried a mobile blog post and the above line is all that posted...here is the text that came before...

With my new phone, an Android, I've been quite the iZombie lately. I thought I'd put technology to work to best advantage and more frequent blog posts. When I manage to put the phone down, I've been using small bits of my handspun yarn to crochet flowers and leaves for charming lapel pins. I have two upcoming holiday craft shows: the annual Hutch Holiday Craft Fair on December 3rd and the Third Annual Bizzarre Bazaar on December 18. Details in future posts.

I'm sure I'll try another post in a couple days just to figure this thing out...yay technology!

Happy crafting!

2010-11-17T00:14:00.001-08:00

(1/3) With my new phone, an Android, I've been quite the iZombie lately. I thought I'd use technology to best advanage (and more frequent posts).

When I man

2010-11-17T00:14:00.000-08:00

(2/3) age to put the phone down, I've been crocheting flower pins for two upcoming holiday craft fairs.

I'll post the fair details in the next post.

Happy c

My First Faceup

2010-10-29T22:51:00.000-07:00

beq_0782
Originally uploaded by Tenuki Handcrafts

Hi there! This post is about my latest dolleh project, as you might guess from the title, my first faceup. Felling all empowered after http://musings-of-a-crafty-wench.blogspot.com/2010/09/hiros-mods-complete-doll-nudity.html, and desparately wanting a Dollshe, after seeing several articles about, mostly Dink's Doll's faceups in recent issues of Haute Doll magazine. I saved up and entered, partially, the 70cm doll world.

The victim is a Dollshe Bernard in Fresh skin tone. I love his face, which strikes me as just a touch sorrowful. I ordered just his blank head, with aesthe service from the newly launched Dollshe Craft website. I may feel empowered to paint a face, but not so much with the sanding. He's just too beautiful to botch up finishing. Service was super fast and his head arrived quickly. I had trouble choosing specific eyes, so it took a bit longer to get his eyes than his head.

Anywho, for this project, I used Volks pastels, Stabilo pastels, and watercolor pencils, and sealed the whole shooin' match with ZM powder finish uv cut. I followed step by step faceup instructions from a Natural with Gothic additions post by Leechy on the Den of Angles. I spent about 3-4 hours on this project.

The basic idea behind this faceup is a lad, Bernard Ethan Quatermass, a former addict on the road to recovery. You may call him BEQ. He's meant to look sleep deprived. I had several inspirations in mind, including David Bowie, particularly the Goblin King and I was listening to quite a bit of D'espairs Ray, a pretty awesome J-metal band, but my usual shoegazer blend of Morcheeba, Supreme Beings of Leisure, and Massive Attack, but only the forlorn songs. You know, to get in a sad place.

While my previous resin pals have some background, BEQ has quite a story, which has been coming to me ever since I ordered his wee cranium. You'll find on-going BEQ shenanigan here: http://tenukihandcrafts.deviantart.com/

I have to mention his eyes, which are hand made acrylic by Raw*Kiss in the color Nova and I think they are stunning. The photos don't do his eyes justice.

While I've posted BEQ for critques on both the Den and Resin+, it is now the rainy season in Seattle, which makes faceup work difficult. And, of course, you are welcome to comment here. I am collecting comments and will decide what to do with a second faceup at some undetermined point in the future. I'm going to live with his look for the time being. I've nearly saved up for his body, so I don't feel I can make any further decisions about his faceup until I've got a whole fella to view.

I am quite aware of the flaws of his faceup. I knew them while I working on him and I see them each time I look at him. However, I wanted to get through the first time. Honestly, I expected this to turn out much suckier than it has. His look is growing on me, like every song by Big Audio Dynamite.

I am not so concerned symmetry. None of us humans,except Denzel, have symmetrical faces. We're all just a little off and that's what gives us character.

Not that I'm rationalizing about having to wait probably 6 months to redo his faceup. Ok, maybe a little. I do think BEQ's better in person than in photos, but, again, I need a body and some photostories to put the whole of BEQ into context.

Yeah.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Next time, who knows? I'm all over the place, with 2 craft fairs coming up, crocheting small items with my handspun yarn, and thinking up outfits for the resin crew, who are all overdue for updating their wardrobes.

Happy Crafting, everyone!

Fine Thistle Yarn - the Verdict

2010-10-14T13:41:00.000-07:00

In my previous post, I mentioned I would prefer a finer yarn for the garment I intend to make for myself. My original idea for this garment was for a season changing topper, so I wanted a slightly denser than normal fabric. I have knit, washed, and measured the sample and run the numbers. Here they are, for your reading pleasure.

This is a 2 ply yarn, spun and plied on my Ashford Elizabeth wheel. The fiber contents are: 85% wool and 15% mohair. Primarily hand dyed yarn, though I have no dye information on the New Zealand gift wool. The fiber was prepared into rolags via hand cards and spun into fine singles, plied and washed to set the twist.

The yarn weighed in at 18 wraps per inch, 1400 yards per pound, which is a sport weight yarn. According to the Twisted Sisters, a sport weight yarn knit on size 4-6 US needles will yield 5/6 stitches per inch. I got 4.5 stitches per inch, knitting back and forth, left and right handed, as is my preferred style for non-circular knitting. As mentioned previously, for me, this method eliminates the wide tension variance between my knit stitch and purl stitches.

Hoping for a denser fabric, I chose to knit with size 4 US needles and 0.4 ounces of the fine Thistle Yarn. Cast on 23 stitches and knit k1, p1 ribbing for 1 1/4 inches, then worked in stockinette stitch until the yarn was used up. It took 1.5 hours to knit the sample. The sample size was 5 1/2 inches by 9 1/4" I got 4.5 stitches per inch.

I consulted Ann Budd's Handy Guide to Yarn Requirements, which I've modified by adding the Twisted Sisters table of hand spun yarns and their gauge and weight equivalents.

For a vest in the size I want and for my gauge, I will need 845 yards/9.6 ounces of this yarn. It will take me 24 hours to spin and 20 hours to knit, for a total of 44 hours to complete the project.

For a basic sweater, I would need 1670 yards/19.1 ounces of yarn. It will take 48 hours to spin and 61 hours to knit, for a total of 109 hours. If you check the last post, I hypothesized that roughly the same numbers for my sweater as Bills Mystery Yarn vest.

Given that I already have a 109 hour project, already spun nearly 600 yards of this yarn, there other projects in the queue, and I can always use another partial layer, I'm going to knit the pullover vest version.

One blog comment was about my methodical information. I began blogging to record the completion of projects, but over time it has become an invaluable resource for pricing the products in my shop; determining which projects I can reasonably take on; a tool to demonstrate how much time goes into these handmade works; and, hopefully, helpful to my fellows spinners.

My last thoughts on this project are that I found I had enough yarn to work an alternate stitch in this swatch. I have a preference for knitting certain stitches, but sometimes it's nice to mix it up a bit and learn a new stitch. You don't really know how it will look until you work the stitch with that particular yarn. For future projects, I will purchase an additional 20% fiber in order to spin and knit enough yarn for a larger sample and multiple stitch patterns, a minimum of a half an ounce, but an ounce would be a good safe amount.

I'll add a photo of the sample to this post in the next couple of days.

Bulky Thistle Scarf

2010-10-11T13:42:00.000-07:00

This scarf is the result of my first test of Thistle 3.0 Yarn Ok, I've spun so many variations, I lost track of which version I'm really on.

The point is, this scarf is knit from the first intentionally bulky two ply yarn I've spun. Not like the bulky single ply yarns of my early spinning days, not so long ago.

This yarn is comprised of several rovings: the "Blossom" hand dyed fleece, the roving brought back from New Zealand by Teri and the purple/green wool & mohair blend from Knox Farm Fibers.

The stripes were achieved in the rolags. I wanted a free-form color scheme, so I simply made rolags until I was done and had an even number. I spun and plied this yarn on my Elizabeth wheel using the largest setting on the Jumbo Flyer. It probably took me at most 2 hours to spin and ply this single skein of yarn.

Washed it to set the twist and check the dye was fast. Then the yarn sat around until I figured out what to make of it. I knit a swatch and realized bulky fabric does not look so good on me, so I decided to spin and knit a finer version of the yarn.

The main issue I'm having with my spinning, aside from that demon time, is boredom. I've mentioned previously that I find it boring to spin the same yarn over and over again. I'm learning there is a discipline to spinning, if I want to spin a larger quantity of yarn for a specific project.

Thank goodness I live in the 21st Century, where I'm not required to spin, knit, and weave all of the fabric for my garments. I'd be wearing only a scarf and a hat.

This version of the Thistle yarn is for a sweater for me, although a sweater may be too ambitious, given the calculations I arrived at for Bill's Mystery Wool Sweater. One hundred and seven hours to spin and knit a sweater for Bill. Granted, he's a wee bit larger than me, however, I will need roughly the same amount of yarn for a sweater for me as a vest for him.

I love this colorway because it is fun to spin and knit. As fun as it is, and as much as I need to inject some discipline into my spinning, the next step is to calculate yarn specs for the finer version of yarn and make the garment calculations.

Mystery Wool Project for Bill

2010-10-07T23:19:00.000-07:00

My used Ashford Traveller wheel was purchased from a woman in New Zealand, home of Ashford wheels. Included with the wheel was some mystery wool: a white fleece, dark brown fleece and a small bag of what looks like angora. She never replied to my query about the fleeces, so I'll never know exactly what they are.

I didn't know when I'd get to spinning the yarn and had no purpose for the fleeces. However, lanolin will go rancid, so as soon as the weather permitted, I washed the fleeces. They sat on the shelf for about 2 years before a plan came to me.

This post is about the yarn I'm spinning for a sweater vest for Bill from the dark brown fleece. He gave me a picture of the vest he wanted - a basic button down vest, with black trim. The inspiration came from the movie, "Call Me Bruce." One of the characters was wearing a button down knit vest with a Stetson.

The brown mystery wool is raw fleece, which requires carding prior to spinning. I'll take a short detour to tell you about Pam, the woman who taught me to spin. Pam like to spin in the grease, which meant no washing. We did drum card the fleece first. What a dusty mess. I recommend washing first. I'm not sure it's possible to spin without carding. Washed fleece is just a gnarly wad of wool.

I wanted to make a sample skein first, so I carded as much as I could stand. I find carding to be the most boring of the spinning tasks. Even with my drum carder, it takes time. I spent 2.5 hours carding and the result was 6 batts, which is about 1.5 ounces. One bobbin's worth, as it turns out.

There is nearly a pound of fleece to card, less 10% for waste. When I opened the box, I found the fleece was neither cleaned nor picked over.

I might go so far as to say that it wasn't skirted, except I'm not completely sure what that means and I'm just too lazy at this moment, to google it. So if you know, feel free to 'splain it, k?

I'm thinking not skirted because there is a fair amount of very short bits of fleect that just won't card - these are less than an inch long, which, I would guess, the person shearing the sheep took another pass over the critter.

With 16 ounces of fleece, let's say 2 hours per ounce to card, and it's going to take 32 hours of carding. This is a manual drum carder, which means I can't do anything else while I'm carding. It's also worth mentioning that carding cannot be done quickly, otherwise, more fiber is lost to waste.

The singles spun quite finely and it seemed to take forever to fill two bobbins. In fact, it takes me 2.5 hours to spin/ply 1 ounce of lace weight yarn. I ended up with 3.1 ounces of 2 ply yarn at 24 wraps per inch and 1700 yards per pound. Total time to spin and ply the first two bobbins: 7.75 hours.

Good thing Bill wants a black border, because I estimate that I will need 2000 yards of laceweight yarn for his vest. The black with be placed along the neckline, waistband and armholes.

I make that 40 hours to spin the brown fleece, plus another 5 to spin and ply the black border yarn. It's also about 40 hours of knitting.

This project is going to take me about 107 hours to complete. Now that my sample skein is complete, washed, and spec'd, I've started the carding. I've decided that I will work through all the carding. It will give me the opportunity to check the time at each stage of the project.

Happy crafting.

Hiro's Mods Complete (doll nudity)

2010-09-05T16:43:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention the tools needed for this project: pastels, colored pencils, needle nose pliers, two hemostats, Mr Super Clear, latex gloves, a mask, exacto knife, brushes. And a lot of patience.

After a good night's rest and a couple cups of coffee, I took a look at Hiro's pieces. The blush is quite subtle, but that is what I wanted. I took photos all through this process since I take a lot of dolleh photos, I wanted to see the blush both in person and on film...virtual film...whatever.

This first photos shows the completion of the blush and preparation for the restringing. With my Rebel lens cap in the shot for scale. It was unintentional, possibly unconscious. I realized when I was writing yesterday's post, I did not include a scale reference in the shots.

See that piece to the left of Hiro? That fits inside between his upper and lower torso, but that is jumping ahead a bit, so I'll come back to that piece a bit later.

Jack Horkheimer, The Star Hustler, died on Friday. I've watched Star Hustler for, well, I can't say how many years and I'll miss Jack. In his honor, I added beauty marks to Hiro's upper torso in the shape of the Little Dipper.

The blushing is not perfect but Hiro and I are going to live with it for a while. Take photos and see what, if anything, should change. I took a look at Maisie's blush to sort of compare. I saw I had missed blushing his hips on the front, the nipples weren't quite right and neither was his back.

I didn't want to re-do the back so instead, I tried softening the parts I didn't like. For comparision shots from yesterday's post, here is Hiro, restrung, front and back.

Restringing and KIPS. In theory, the KIPS seemed like a good idea. I think I inadvertantly ordered MSD sized KIPS because these just didn't quite fit. But that's the least of the problem. The main issue is that they didn't stay in place. So, as I worked on re-assembling Hiro, the KIPS slipped out of joint. Somewhat annoying, to be sure, but the only way to remove them is the disassemble Hiro.

Reassembling starts with the arms. Run the arm loop through the left side, through the torso, then through the right arm. The main purpose of the Hiro Mod Weekend was to re-string him. Even with the loops a bit looser, this is a wrestling prospect.

It took me two attempts, two websites and the BJD Orbyrarium to figure out how to re-assemble Hiro's torso. The Obyrarium suggested threading the string through the neck and holding in place with a hemostat. I could not attach his legs this way. So, I went back to the Den of Angels and checked out two websites. One site had a different style doll, so it wasn't very helpful to me. The next site, huonokuva, showed a restringing on a doll with that little internal torso piece. This person attached the legs first and then pulled the string through the torso.

Oh, brilliant! This worked much better and, in fact, that pesky little inner torso piece fit in Hiro just like it did on huonokuva's doll, acting like a cap between the lower body and upper body. I suspect this is method is used by B&G to assemble Body Style #2. They offer a Style #3 with double jointed elbows and knees.

I had a bit more trouble getting enough grip on the final stage of getting the elastic through his neck and pulling it up enough to insert the S hook that attaches Hiro's head to his body.

Hiro's head stared at me while I held onto his body. Head. Body. Head. Body.

At first, I thought I lacked the grip strength to pull the elastic up. But I wasn't ready to give up for the next 6 hours until Bill got back from today's go tournament to provide the muscle.

Then it dawned on me: try the latex gloves. Maybe I just need a better grip on the string. Voila! Head attached to body.

Hiro and I were so pleased that I stood him on the table and took these photos, the first actual pics of Hiro reassemled.

I staged the photos on the table after taking these when I thought of them as companion shots to yesterday's post.

I have to say for a project that took nearly two days, this has been great fun.

My goal for this year is to work on learning new techniques. While I had originally intended this goal primarily in relation to spinning, it has come to pass for sewing and bjds.

I took a couple more shots of the new Hiro, this time, with pants.

Hiro lounging in the sun:

Hiro and the girls:

I Fall To Pieces

2010-09-05T01:18:00.000-07:00

My plan for this Labor Day Weekend: try my hand at some real modifications to Hiro: restring, which means taking him apart. He's too tightly strung so that his limbs snap toward the center. All my previous attempts to improve posing failed - hot glue sueding, wiring, trying to stretch his strings. I took a look at this string, but it can't be loosened there just isn't enought string, so I bought a new one.

Restringing means completely disassembling Hiro, so I thought I would take this opportunity to try a few modifications. I feel bonded quite well to my resin pals, so the mods are more about increasing my enjoyment of this hobby and making them more my own. Hiro is the least expensive of my bjds, so I felt he is the best guinea pig for my first attempt at what I consider 'real' modifications.

Separating Fingers/Toes. In searching through the modifications section of Den of Angels for advice on blushing with pastels, I found a thread about separating fingers. It has always bugged me that Hiro has connected fingers. On his right hand, his pinky and ring finger are attached. On his left hand, his index and middle fingers are attached, with the index finger slightly under the middle finger. I call it his "go hand" because it looks like the way one holds their stone when playing go.

One of the costumes in the queue for Hiro is and I didn't want to makea Sai costume, from Hikaru no Go. I'd like to make real tabi socks not fake tabis, so I started my day of mods with his toes. An exacto knife, fine grit sand paper, a lot of patience, and about 45 minutes to separate one big toe from the other toes on one foot. About 30 minutes to separate the fingers on each hand. I think they all turned out quite good. The left hand was tough, but I think it turned out pretty well.

After finishing the digit separation, I took a deep breathe and disassembled Hiro. When I slipped his foot s hook off the elastic and his body fell apart, I had a moment of panic. Fear that I'd broken my boy. I cleared my head, found my reference book, the BJD Obyrarium, and started the next stage of modifications.

Body blushing. Maisie is blushed and I think part of her photographic charm has to do with her blushing. I used pastels, Mr. Super Clear, and two brushes, one fine and one about 3/4" wide. I have to say, blushing is fairly simple. His body is basically ready for shadows and I mainly inserted blush into the grooves.

I did one layer of MSC, one layer of blush although really, I probably did two layers as I worked the color on each part and another layer of MSC. No photos, yet. It's quite late as I'm writing this post and I'd like a fresh look in the morning before I decide whether or not to do another layer of blush or just put my boy back together. It took me three hours to blush, which included time spent prepping the pastels.

KIPS. I bought a package of Volks KIPS disks, the silicone disks rather than hot glue sueding.

I should be able to finish this project tomorrow, get more photos and post the results.

Happy crafting!

Applying a Contrast Trim

2010-08-26T12:29:00.000-07:00

In the last post on the New Look 6774 dress, I briefly explained the contrast trim. In this post, I'll explain the techniques in detail. As I had not applied contrast trim before, a quick google search lead me here to a free pillowcase pattern with contrast trim.

I didn't have a pattern in mind, or fabric and browsed the store. Once I found the fabrics I liked, I looked for a pattern. Pattern companies don't make 'house dresses' any more but the style is about simple lines, comfort, and usually made of cotton so it can be worn for those pesky household chores then tossed in the wash. Of course, back in the day, a lady wouldn't be caught dead wearing her house dress outside of the house. Sadly, we live in the slobtastic 21st Century...oh, right, this post is about trim, not a sad exploration of the complete lack of style in modern society...

I didn't want to open the pattern package at the store to measure the pieces and calculate the amount of contract fabric needed. I purchased 2 yards for the contrast, which seemed reasonable if cutting the trim on the bias was required. Leftovers will be used for baby quilts and doll clothes.

The contrast fabric is 100% cotton, was pre-washed, in burgundy. The fashion fabric, also pre-washed cotton is an Asian style print. Both fabrics were 45" wide.

Examining the pattern pieces, all pieces except the shoulder straps have straight lines. I decided to forego the bias trim and cut the trim 10 strips, width-wise, 1" wide by 45" long. I used all but one strip for the dress, so if I wanted to make another dress of this style, 1/3 of yard of contrast would suffice.

The contrast trim dress bodice, midriff and shoulder straps were lined and I chose to use self-fabric for the lining. For this post, I used fabric scraps and treat the samples as the dress was constructed.

I pressed the strips and applied them, as needed, to each garment piece. My iron was set to cotton with the steam on.Press the strip in half, length-wise.

To apply the trim, place the strip on the right side of the fabric, with the folded edge of the trim facing away from the seam edge. The stitching line for this trim application is 1/8" inside the seam line. In my project, I lined the fabric at 1/2" and set the fold of the trim under the left side of the presser foot.

Stitching slowly, I held the trim with my left hand, watched that the garment edge stayed near the 1/2" mark and guided the trim to stay under the presser foot.

The lining is attached to the main fabric, using a 5/8" seam. The trim is sandwiched between the garment and lining.

The item is pressed as it comes off the machine, with right sides together.

As I processed my photos, I am mortified at how dirty my ironing board cover is. And baffled as to how it can get so filthy, given that ironing is the only thing that happens there.

The pieces are opened and with right side facing down, the seam is pressed open.

Yes, I'm going to remove my ironing board cover and throw it in the wash as soon as this post is published!

Also, I wash my garments after they're finished. Not because of the ironing board issue, just to make sure it's clean before wearing.

Lastly, the wrong sides are put together and the piece is pressed again, working slowly enough to tug the garment/lining away from the contrast trim and steamed in place, but quickly enough to not burn the digits.

For the pockets of the dress, I took my Clover bias tape maker #12 (which requires 1" wide strips, handy!), made a diagonal cut at one end in order to facilitate the fabric through the tape maker.

A US 1 knitting needle helped coax the fabric through. I laid the strip along the length of my ironing board. Inserted the tape maker on the right and work to the left. I held the unfolded strip firmly with my left hand and used the nose of my iron to push the tape maker to the left.

At this point, the tape can be used as 1/2" single fold tape. I folded the tape in half and pressed again, for 1/4" double fold bias tape.

I hemmed the top of the pocket as indicated in the directions, then sandwiched the top of the pocket between the folds of the bias tape and stitched. If 1/4" is too cumbersome, you could use it as single fold, though I would probably run two rows of stitching in order to make sure the tape is secure.

Give contrast trim a try. If you're a beginning sewer, look at the line drawings on the back of the pattern envelope, which will act as a guide to where to apply the trim. For the first try, look for straight lines, which will make application easy.

Happy crafting!

House Dress - New Look 6774

2010-08-25T22:54:00.001-07:00

newlookhouseishdress_0384, originally uploaded by Tenuki Handcrafts.

There is a thread on the Fedora Lounge where the gals show off their craft projects. One of the Lounge Ladies commented on my post about the 30s Day Dress and my complaint about the lines of the dress vanishing into the print. She suggested adding contrast trim to enhance the lines. Within a couple of days, she posted two lovely house dresses, with beautifully executed contrast trim.

How have I managed 46 years on the planet without one?

Wonder no more! Here's is my first ever house dress. It's New Look pattern 6774. The pattern features different bodice style and skirt lengths, I chose the short dress with the cross over bodice, excluded the ruffle on the shoulders, kept the pockets.

The fabric is 100% cotton from the Pacific Fabric Outlet on 4th Ave South. It was in their quilting area with the other few shelves of Asian themed fabric. This one is tiny crysanthemums of yellow, pink, green on a burgundy background. For the contrast trim, I picked up cotton fabric in burgundy. A lot of interfacing was required, for the straps, bodice and midriff. Turns out, I didn't have enough. The fabric is quite stiff, even after washing, so I chose to exclude it.

For once, I pre-washed my fabric. Either fabrics or finishes are better now. I didn't have any trouble with managing this fabric through any of the stages of construction.

The sewing was straightforward. I could not quite follow the instructions since I was adding the contrast trim. The trim was 1 inch wide strips, cut width-wise.

For the pocket trim, I used my Clover bias maker #12 to make bias tape, which I sewed to the top edge.

I chose to self-fabric line the bodice and midriff. That caused some confusion with the trim. But nothing that couldn't be fixed.

I had a couple of issues with the trim. For one thing, I get a bit dyslexic and had some trouble with the bodice, so there's trim on the inside of one side. Also, I flipped one of the strips and had to add trim after assembly, when I noticed the absence of trim on that side.

The instructions were a bit odd in places. Specifically when adding the skirt to the bodice/midriff. Once assembled, the instructions say to baste the raw edge (bottom) of the midriff). I would, instead, sandwich the skirt between the right side and the lining, enclosing the raw edges. Since I didn't think of that during construction, I took a strip of burgundy and ran it through the Clover and enclosed the raw edge with bias tape.

I had a lot of fun with this project. The underarms may need a bit of a tuck, but it's certainly not noticeable when I'm wearing the dress, which is comfortable.

If I were to leave out the trim, this dress would probably take 3 hours to make from cutting to wearing. With the trim, it took me, oh, about 12 hours. Well worth the effort. I like the way the trim enhances the lines of the dress. I'm inspired to do more house dress research and include house dress on my Bonfit test list.

Happy crafting!

Ballerina Maisie

2010-08-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

I'm having a lot more fun making doll outfits than I expected. Today's post is about a Degas-inspired ballerina outfit for Maisie. The inspiration started with her new Monique Gold J Rock wig in blonde/pink. Maisie's factory default face-up is fairly pink, as is the body blushing by the previous owner.

I knew I had a fair amount of pink in my dollie fabric stash. I pulled it all out and chose the pink and gold silk sari fabric, that had once been the linking of a gold evening bag. I had to supplement with a trip to the fabric store for the pink tulle, ribbon and roses.

The bodice is the Gracefairie pattern in the final issue of Haute Doll magazine, designed specifically for slim MSDs. It is assembled by hand. The only machine stitching is the top stitching. I made the lining first from muslin in order to check the fit.

After assembling the main fabric, trimming, and pressing, I saw the hand stitching peeking through. The ribbon was machine stitched over the seams and covers the hand stitching completely. It still look a bit blah, so I hand tacked the tiny pink ribbon rose at the center front.

It looked a bit odd without straps, so I added the ribbon. I was going to try ruching tulle and attaching it to the ribbon, but it was too frustrating so I kept is simple.

For the back, I used pink eyelets, left over supplies from my rubber stamping days. I threaded a ribbon through. For the skirt, I improvised. One of the thrift store finds was a small, pink plaid jacket with dark pink satin ruffles at the sleeve and hem. The perfect length for the under skirt. I made it long enough to gather.

I purchased two types of pink tulle, a darker rose color and a lighter pink with glitter. I made the next skirt later from the rose tulle, a bit longer, gathered to fit the base later. With the glitter tulle, I make it even wider, gathered and put the three layers together and basted. So far, so good.

Then I added a waistband to hold all the layers together. Unfortunately, during the waistband stage, the rose tulle layer got caught in the waistband. I didn't try to rip the seam and try to fix it, figuring the tulle would just shred. So, I cut off the rose tulle layer.

The pink glitter layer look nice, but the dark tulle peeked out of the bottom of the waistband. A row of ribbon flowers to cover it. and voila! Adorable ballet outfit.

Then it was time for pictures. Maisie is a great little poser, so the first
pose had to be after the Degas sculpture and then there was no stopping the photos.

Thanks for reading and looking. I'm not sure what will be the subject of the next post, as I'm getting through a lot of projects this week.

Happy Crafting!

Make & Mend

2010-08-24T15:29:00.000-07:00

I had three items on my mend pile, which I think counts as chores, rather than a fun new project. It's chores before fun at the Thompson house. I don't have photos for anything of, but frankly, mending is not *that* interesting.

Bill purchased The Zephyr from Duluth Trading. Unlined, no shoulder pads. No offense, DT, but it's a bit boring and looks a bit like a lab coat. Bill wasn't wearing it and one day during one of our 'should it stay or should it go?' fashion shows, where we try clothes on and decide: keep, mend, donate or toss. Tim Gunn would be so proud.

Bill dons the Zephyr and it looks so sloppy. I get an idea and run upstairs and pin together a makeshift shoulder pad from pieces of quilt batting. Back down and pin it in place. I just made one so we could see the difference. It made a big difference, so I made shoulder pads and shoulder pad covers, tacked them in place. The other fix on this jacket was to remove the odd little cuff on the sleeves and simply hem it.

Next up was to fix the Black Pencil Skirt. The waistband was too loose, so I removed the waistband, added two darts in the front, reattached the waistband. My only other complaint about the skirt is the poochiness at the front, but I think it's the fabric, not the fit. Even after washing, this particular twill is a bit stiff and odd. I don't think it had any lyrcra in it after all. Once again, I have to remember not to buy Joann's cotton twill for clothing. I'm sure it would be fine for a craft project, possibly doll clothes, which is what will become of the skirt and Hollywood pattern jacket once they wear out.

I added the dart to the front skirt pattern for future reference and then did something smart: to calculate how much yardage I'd need for future skirts. I keep my own drafted patterns in gallon zipper bags, with the details of the design written on the bag. This time, I included the yardage requirements and notions on the bag.

My final mend item is a pair of trousers I purchased up about 6 months ago. When I purchased them, they were a teeny bit tight, so I let them hang in the closet. Three months ago, I joined Weight Watchers at work. I recently put them on thinking, great! They'll fit. Oh, no, they're too baggy. So much so, I wore them to work twice and then tossed them onto the mend pile.

Quite a while ago, I picked a book entitled, Altering Women's Ready to Wear, by Mary Roehr. I purused it for tips and techniques. I put the trousers on, stood in front of the mirror and grabbed fabric to see where the alteration needs to happen. When I pulled at the center back seam, the fit improved so I read that section of Mary's book, took the pants and pins and stood in front of the living room mirror pinning trying, re-pinning, trying until they looked right. Then upstairs to measure and rip seams. I needed to remove 1.5 inches (3/4" on either side of the center back) and tapering down to 1/2" at the bottom of the crotch seam.

The waistband on these trousers happen to have a center back seam...nifty! I removed the waistband to just beyond the back welt pockets. Did a baste and fit and the back looked a little odd so I extended my revised seam into the curve of the crotch seam, retried and they look good. I stitched the seam twice for strength. Now they fit so well, it's a shame I'll lose more weight and they'll have to become doll clothes. I'll use them as the basis for the Bonfit pants experiment.

It is a little tricky to altered ready-made clothes because the clothes remain assembled, with the exception of the area being altered. It gets a touch annoying at times to fuss with the garment while at the machine. However, the results have been so successful, I feel that between the mending projects and doll clothes, my sewing skills have jumped up a notch. I am hopeful it will translate into better fit during construction. With my goal of making my wardrobe, it's nice to be able to alter so that when I reach my goal weight, I will have arrived thriftily and with newfound alterations skills.

Now I can return to the other sewing projects, which include another vintage-ish dress and doll outfits, with pictures.

Happy crafting!

Ode to My First Digital SLR

2010-08-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

Maisie with her new wig using the macro setting

Today's post is about photography.

I have been using a Canon Powershot S50 for about seven years. It's been a great introduction to digital photography. Although it delivers a now tiny 4 megapixels, it is a great point and shoot camera.
However, it has recently developed a jam problem. The lens door open but the lens itself gets stuck. It happens occassionally and is a pain, but it nothing too horrible.

Photo by Heather Coughlin, using my camera

The first time it happened, I looked at the digital SLRs and couldn't justify a new one. I've thought about picking up Canon's latest incarnation of the powershot, which has is a prosumer model that looks like an SLR but has a fixed lens. Again, price was the issue. I asked advice of the Seattle Go Center's resident photograph, Brian Allen, who suggested a digital SLR might be more than I want for my purposes. I have plugged along with my Powershot with the intention to save up for the latest version of the Powershot. What I have wanted is a Canon Rebel since they were introduced. Again, the price was more than I felt I could bear.

Between a recent trip to Victoria (complete with lens jam) and Bill signing us up for the Fedora Lounge Traveling Hat project, he suggested it was time I got that new camera and sent me off to the Costco website to see if they had something I like.

Glamour shot of Ivy Jordan, cropped and desaturated

Of course, I already knew they carried the Rebel and the price had come way down, so I looked at the models Costco offered and read reviews. I chose the Canon Rebel T1i, with 15 megapixesl and a 18-55 mm lens. In the middle of the price range, with the best reviews and on sale.

I had two complaints about my Powershot: firstly, the macro was ok for most purposes but it was touchy and hard to photograph jewelry for my shop.
Secondly, the color was not quite true, particularly in the blue - purple range.

The first photo in this post is a macro shot of Maisie, my 43 cm Classic Narae. Note her adorable freckles.

Hiro contemplates the creek at Haney Meadow

The last photo shows her purple cap (leftover handspun merino-silk 2 ply yarn) worn over her lavendar hair, wearing a blue hand sewn turtleneck/skirt ensemble.

I am so impressed with the photos I get with the Rebel.

I have yet to open the manual because, having used the powershot all these years, I know all but one button on my Rebel. It must not be vital to shooting because I haven't cracked the manual open to find out what it does.

All the photos in this post use the automatic settings and the only lens I have, the 18-55 mm that came with the kit. I like the auto settings so much I have used the manual settings only once. It's set to the highest level resolution (which I don't know off the top if my head, but the files are minimum 5 megs) so I can crop and scale.

All in all, I'm very happy with my new camera. Expect to see more photo stories in the future.

Happy crafting!

Black Pencil Skirt

2010-08-02T00:02:00.000-07:00

The vintage wardrobe sewing continues, with a bit of a twist. I bought a Bonfit Patterner, well a long time ago. I saw the ad in Vogue Patterns and thought I'd try it out. I bought the complete kit: bodice, skirt and pants patterners, with all the 'extra' books on fashion design concepts and sample outfits to make.

I've had mixed luck with this system. Skirts have worked out, but really, skirts aren't that complicated. I've been less successful with blouses and pants.

I originally bought this system before Google or internet bloggery, so I would take it out once in a while, make something and either love it or hate it and then stick it on the shelf. Over the past few years, I would search for Bonfit Patterners and see if anyone blogged about their garments turned out. My recent search delivered a few results, which I'll include here.

I've found two comments on Pattern Review, both by Sandyjo from 2006, who made a skirt and pair of pants and loved it.

Sewingplum had an informative post about her experience. There were two good bits of advice has to do with cup size and the fact that the Bonfit Patterner is designed for a b cup. Fortunately, that's my cup size. The other is that she compared the fit of the Bonfit to the McCalls fitting pattern.

Dale at Home Works, in 2006, made a basic top with cut on sleeves and a fitted blouse. She's taken pattern drafting courses and could work out her sleeve problems using her other class methods. She made two attempts at a fitted blouse and liked neither.

I like Sewingplum's idea of using another pattern and because I've had hit and miss results with this Bonfit Patterner, I thought I'd use a Burda pattern as my basis. I've made several garments from my subscription to the Burda magazine. I like the overall fit of Burda garments. My main complaint with the Burda patterns is the chaos of the pattern sheets, which are color coded but I find it hard to follow the patterns.

I'll take a moment to digress and explain my vintage wardrobe plan. I'm not fixed on a single point in time for my garments. I like the 30s, 40s, 50s and even early 60s, primarily the British fashions from Danger Man, which were done by a London fashion house. Thankfully, the wonderful ladies of the Fedora Lounge offer much advice and resources for putting together a vintage wardrobe. In the 50s thread, one of the recommended staples is a pencil skirt.

This was a chance for a quick sewing project that used fabric I had in my stash (black cotton twill leftover from the Hollywood Patterns suit jacket project) and I could try out the Bonfit skirt patterner.

However, I find the accompanying books not very helpful so I didn't refer to them. I used a Burda pencil skirt pattern for the sizing. I didn't care for the styling of the skirt, which had two pieces for the back and three vents. I wanted a simple pencil skirt, with the front cut on the fold and a kick pleat in the back.

Drafting the pattern was easy enough. I didn't bother to use the Bonfit numbers and simply fit the skirt to the Burda skirt. Once the patterner was set, I traced around the patterner for the front, traced the darts, added a 5/8" seam allowance. I did the same for the back but added a 2" wide and 8" long kick pleat at the hem of the back.

Cut out the muslin and sewed it up. The first thing I remembered was that the darts are in an odd place. They are very close to the center front. But, for this test, I am trying to use the patterner as designed. I've never taken a pattern drafting class, which is why I purchased the Bonfit in the first place: it's a sloper.

The muslin fit pretty well. The waistband was a tad loose, but I am on the Weight Watchers and regular workout path, so there's going to be on-going fitting issues for several months to come. But that's another post - altering existing clothing.

I cut out my fashion fabric and got to sewing. Darts made and pressed. French seams for the sides. In fact, I thought I made my French seams too wide. I sewed the 3/8" seam, trimmed it to 1/4", turned, pressed, and sewed another 3/8" seam.

I got the skirt made and tried it on. It's too loose. There is an odd puckering at the front that wasn't on the muslin. Before I ripped the silly thing apart, I'm going to launder the skirt and try it on again, with a slip. I'll post a follow-up to the post-laundry fitting.

Happy crafting!

Update 8/24/10 - I finally got around to fine-tuning the fit of this skirt by adding two front darts, which removed a total of 3/4". Since the skirt was finished, I treated as a ready-to-wear alteration. Removed the waistband, drafted and sewed the darts, pressed, re-attached the waistband and voila! Pefect fit.

30s Day Dress is Done

2010-07-31T17:43:00.000-07:00

Today I completed the Folkwear 30s Day Dress by hemming it and adding 4 irridescent shell buttons.

I was a bit worried the print was too large, but it's about right. Even with the fab new camera, the fabric is too dark to see the dress details. That would be my only complaint about the project. You can't see the flutter collar detail nor the pockets, which, by the way are adorable and turned out well!

I set my hair in pin curls last night, somewhat in haste, for they turned out a tad frizzy. I was short on time for doing much more than adding a bit of hair wax and combing it out. Donned some make-up, though as I reviewed the day's photos, it doesn't look like much more than lipstick. I'm wearing what would be a night time look for me.

The dress fits well, is comfortable and, both Bill and I think, look good on me. I'm looking forward to adding more dresses and skirts and more vintage to my wardrobe.

As for the Folkwear instructions, they are clear and easy to follow and I expect to make this dress again. I might even consider making view A, which has a peplum detail. I think View A would be very nice in a navy polka dot fabric.

Blog Refinement

2010-07-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

My blog-speriment is coming to an end. While it was nice to have everything in one blog, it just didn't meet my criteria of organization. Having tested for a while and reviewed how my blogs look, I'm going to keep Musings of a Crafty Wench for all creative projects that are for fun.

To put it another way, this Tenuki Handcrafts blog will be to discuss products for sale in my shop, commissions, and featured artists.

There will be some cross-posts while I sort out the posts and blog-related links.

One notable blog addition: labels. You will now be able to search for posts by labels, such as knitting.

Happy crafting and thanks for reading.

Return of the Crafty Wench

2010-07-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't been so happy with my blog-speriment, so I'm going to keep both blogs. Crafty Wench will continue to chronicle my crafting adventures. Tenuki Handcrafts will be for my Etsy shop related posts.

I was happy to learn about the Label feature on Blogger and have re-labeled my posts so now you can find my posts by topic, for example, all the spinning posts.

Trying new things is good, but it's also important to return to what works best.

Happy crafting!

Teri and Jeff's Baby Quilt

2010-07-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

Our friends Teri and Jeff just welcomed Kaylee into the 'verse. For the baby shower at work, I went with my standard baby gift: a quilt.

I like the idea of making quilts, but there is so much figuring involved for large quilts. I like making a small, baby-sized quilts.

The first photo shows the quilt squares laid out on the floor.

A little googling for a good baby quilt size and someone suggested 3' wide by 4' wide. It's not too big for the crib but big enough to be useful for several years.

I went through my fabric stash and pulled out all the cottons I have. The blue fabrics are leftovers from the Japanese hippari jacket. The cats and the yellow daisies were fabrics that I liked when I found but didn't have a plan for.

I knew about how big I wanted the quilt squares and once I decided on a size, and factored in seam allowances, I had 9 squares wide and 11 squares long. Once all the fabrics were chosen, I cut and counted the squares. My kitchen counter was just smaller than the quilt, so I couldn't lay it out there. I tried laying the squares on the floor, but it's too hard on my knees. What to do? I wanted two things: to use all the squares and to arrange them in a pleasing manner. The best way to do this, with the programs on my computer, was to use Open Office calc - a spreadsheet application. I'll post an update with some screen shots.

I took photos of each of the squares. Opened a new spreadsheet and pasted each of the photos into it. Made a key with three columns: the total squares cut, the number used, and the number remaining. Adjusted the size of the rows and columns into squares so that I could paste the photo into a single cell next to the numbers.

Here the top is assembled

It's tough to see, but the layers are stitched together

Here is the top stitching. I selected one of the decorative stitches.

Folkwear 30s Day Dress - Almost Done

2010-07-15T23:17:00.000-07:00

I simply ran out of time tonight and could not quite finish my Folkwear Pattern 30s Day Dress. The dress is assembled, I've tried it on and it looks super cute with my brown Dansko Bliss shoes and my saddles.

Ok, I was so excited to take shots of the dress, that I didn't level this one. Here is the back view. I was a tad worried about the gathering at the hip near the zipper. This gal's got a lotta junk in the trunk. While I don't mind drawing attention to my caboose, it needs to be flattering. And this bit of gather is nice.

No troubles with the zipper installation, although it has been quite a while since I installed a 22 inch zipper. I thought it would never end!

A few tasks remain. The buttons need to be sewn on. I had a set of 4 white irridescent shell buttons that I think will look nice. If they turn out garish, I have some very subdued plain brown buttons that will probably disappear into the dress.

The facing needs to be tacked down. You may recall from the first post that I was out of interfacing when I cut the dress out and I substituted pattern tracing material, which is similar to interfacing, but, it turns out, is quite rhustly, like there's paper sewn in. Not sure how that's going to turn out after the first washing.

It needs to be hemmed. Possibly, I need to tack the pocket flounce. As mentioned previously, this fabric was heavier than I realized. This dress would do very well with a silk or a lighter rayon. Possibly a very soft cotton.

It will be a few days before I can finish the dress and take the final shots. I'll try to get some natural light for the final photos. I might even post one with me in the dress. 'Zounds!

Hollywood Patterns 1169

2010-07-12T21:27:00.000-07:00

I picked up a couple of vintage patterns from New Vintage Lady. The pattern was in pretty good condition, considereing it's 70 years old. If you haven't seen an old school vintage sewing pattern, here's a tip: there is no printing on the pattern tissue. Just die cut markings. The instructions are brief. After all, practically every woman on the planet knew how to sew in the early 20th Century, right?

The first thing I did, after marveling at the die cut pattern tissue, was transfer each piece on pattern tracing material. I really like the suit but had enough fabric for either the jacket or skirt. An impulse buy quite a while ago was a white cotton-linen blend with blue embroidered flowers. I never had a plan for this material and it wasn't until I picked up this pattern, I found a use for it, other than a nifty SD dollie dress, which is a whole other post, my friend.

Anywhoozle, I decided I'm not a white jacket kind of gal, so a summery-skirt would be welcome. Nothing unusual about the layout and cutting of pieces. All the seams are straight, so I frenched all the seams.

In fact, there's nothing really exciting to tell, other than, what a cute skirt! I really didn't read the instructions because it's a basic skirt. Skirts back in the day had more pieces than modern skirts. I suspect this is due to either: the width of fabric available back in the day or just a more efficient use of the fabric.

I used black twill fabric to make the jacket. I was about 1/4 yard short of being able to make the full skirt suit. I do have just enough twill left over to make a pencil skirt. A classic addition to a vintage wardrobe, unfortunately, it's not the best style for me. I'm holding on to the fabric for a little while, as I've been working out and watching those calories.

At any rate, I finished the jacket, although I haven't snapped a photo of the final version. Here is a shot of the back of the jacket, minus the sleeves.

Once I got the sleeves in, I did have a bit of an issue with restricted shoulder movement. I have broad shoulders and long arms with almost no torso.

I tried the jacket on this weekent, and my weight loss to date was noticiable with more room the sleeves, but no additional movement in the shoulders. Even if I lost 50 pounds, this jacket may not fit me.

I have not had to make major pattern alterations and have had limited success with drafting my own patterns.

For the time being, I won't need to worry about drafting and alterations because I happened upon the Vogue pattern site during a huge sale and picked up everything I'll need to complete 7 nights of vintage styled outfits for the 2011 Noir City Film Festival in Seattle.

Next time, I hope to finish the 30s Day Dress and post a photo and comments on that project.

Happy Crafting!

Vintage Dress #1, Update #1

2010-07-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

30sdaydress_0351, originally uploaded by Tenuki Handcrafts.

Last night I began work on my Folkwear 30s Day Dress. It's been quite a long time since I sewed a dress for myself and its the second item for my vintage wardrobe. Oops! Lookie there, I forgot to post about the Hollywood patterns project. "Would a sincere sorry do?"

Any-who, 30s Day Dress. I'm making View B because I don't think View, with the peplum, would be flattering. At least not in this fabric, which is a bit heavier than I recalled.

The fabric is 100% rayon, which I love sewing. It generally behaves well during the sewing and pressing and has that beautiful drape. I picked up both the fabric and the Folkwear Pattern at the Pacific Fabrics Outlet store on 4th Avenue South in Seattle.

The photo shows my progress: the front has a simple pleat, the back has a dart at the waist. The sleeves were a lot of fun. I thought I had a narrow hem foot for my machine. Turns out I don't, so I did the old stand by, turn a 1/4 inch seam and press then turn another 1/4", press and sew.

The sleeves are basted in but I wanted to get a photo and post before I plow on. Which is now.

Happy crafting!

Vintage Dress #1

2010-06-18T17:28:00.000-07:00

Photo_061810_003.jpg, originally uploaded by Tenuki Handcrafts.

The first Vintage Dress in Anne's Great Vintage Wardrobe Experiment Is the Folkwear Pattern 30s Day Dress.

The fabric, as you can see, is brown with a fruit and veg theme, which felt vintage to me. 100% rayon. I didn't have a quarter handy to show scale, so I used a go stone, which is approximately the size of a quarter.

I'm making View B, with the same fabric for collar and sleeves. The layout, cutting and marking went well, if a little odd. As you can see, the dress is billowy and some of the pattern pieces are large. The fabric is 45 inches wide and I ended up cutting three sections of fabric in order to fit the patterns pieces on the fabric.

Once in the loft, I realized I hadn't finished the black twill 40s Hollywood pattern jacket. There is was on my dress form. Well, a girl needs closure, so I sent this afternoon finishing the jacket. Buttons are all that remain. That's a post for another day.

I'll start the Day dress, hopefully by Sunday. Tomorrow's a busy day. Possibly, I can talk Bill into a side trip to the fabric store. I need buttons and a 26 inch zipper for the Day dress, buttons for the black jacket, and interfacing.

I think the dress will look adorable with my saddle shoes.

Happy crafting!

Reflections

2010-06-15T13:22:00.001-07:00

If you've been following my Crafty Wench blog, you'll find all the old posts have moved here. It was well past time to consolidate my endeavors under the Tenuki Handcrafts banner, so to speak.

When I started blogging four and a half years ago, I wasn't sure where it would take me. My intention was to document my craft projects.

In the time that has passed, I have set up an Etsy shop, set up and closed two other on-line shops, added new hobbies and dropped others. I have found nifty blogs to follow, places to shop, and sites to visit. I've joined and left Etsy teams. I've even changed jobs.

I continue to make jewelry and cards, but no longer offer these items in my shop in favor of giving them as gifts to family and friends.

I renewed acquaintances with some past loves: dolls, vintage, and sewing.

You've no doubt noticed the growing doll collection. I find that I love to both shoot and sew for them. Both activities tie back to my theater days...can dioramas be far behind? Future posts will show off my wee friends.

I have found that, with some persistence on my part and taking a spinning class, that I both enjoy and am good at spinning yarn. That spinning wheel purchased nearly 20 years ago no longer sits around collecting dust.

The Noir City Film Festival came to Seattle four years ago and with it a renewed interest in vintage fashion, that along with doll clothes, has seriously revived my love of sewing.

For future projects, both personal and for my shop, I'm going to focus on smaller pieces, new techniques, and vintage inspirations.

I'm also looking into organizing the posts by categories rather chronologically, but that involves a bit more HTML coding wrangling than I've had time to sit down and enjoy. I'd also like to move from one of the blogger templates to my own design, but again, time and coding ability are my limiting factors. These are still in mind mind to do so look for those changes in the future.

As for the photos in this post, I just wanted to share some of my favorite shots.

Happy crafting!

2010-06-14T23:24:00.000-07:00

My first blog post was on March 25, 2006. A rambly start to my intent of recording my craft projects. Anecdotally, I felt I was good at starting projects, but possibly not so good at finishing them. Blogging, it seemed, would keep me on task.

Crafty Wench because that was my partner's nickname for me.

As I continued to post, I found I complete a lot of projects. More than some, less than others. Enough that I felt encouraged to open my Etsy shop. Someone else on Etsy snagged the Crafty Wench shop name (and she makes chain mail goodness), so I had to find something else. For some reason still unclear to me, I didn't get around to checking to see if I could get Tenuki Handcrafts as a blog name until about a month ago.

I've transferred all my posts from Crafty Wench to Tenuki Handcrafts. All future posts will be at the Tenuki blog. I'll keep this blog up for a while, but for fresh posts, please follow me at http://tenukihandcrafts.blogspot.com/.

Amidala and Blythe...Twins?

2010-05-29T17:48:00.000-07:00

Photo_052910_001.jpg
Originally uploaded by Tenuki Handcrafts
I am waiting for a new little friend, Pinafore Purple Blythe. While I'm waiting for my new girl's arrival, I decided to sew a cute little dress for her. I found the pattern at xoxoblythe.com. The fabric, you may recall, was a Goodwill purchase, bias cut dress.

The first attempt was Gene's Sheath Dress, which came out quite kittywampus. This time, I trued one of the edges in order to find either the lengthwise or cross wise grain.

Cut the wee little pattern out and hand sew this adorable wee dress. I improvised the collar and cuffs from the pattern by substituting the contrast trim from the original dress.

It took me about 2 hours to hand sew the dress and I wanted to see it on a doll. I thought Amidala, also a Kenner doll, might fit.

The photo shows the Blythe All Spruced Up dress from the website with Amidala modelling my variation. I've pinned the back of the dress until my girl arrives so I can add the snaps.

I think it turned out pretty well and hand sewing was not so bad. It would have been very difficult to sew it on my machine. The seam where the sleeves attach to the body is about one inch long. The seams are 1/4 inch. Not a ton of space to work with.

I can't wait for my girl to show up to see if Amidala and Blythe are the same body size. A dollie dress up date in the their future!

Happy crafting, wenches!

June 1 Dollie Update. First, apologies to the dollie clothing designers. Today I corrected the dress credits.

Blythe arrived! She's super adorable but slimmer than Amidala. They are close, but Amidala is a wee bit larger with longer arms and legs.

Here's a pic with Blythe wearing the red floral dress. The print is the perfect dollie dress scale. As you can see, the sleeves are too long, but I did alter the pattern and used Amidala as my model.

The nice thing about Blythe is that all of her clothes have to close in the back due to her huge, cute melon. This gives a lot of leeway for fitting after the fact.

Another recent dress, just finished tonight. Another free pattern, this one design by http://www.puchicollective.com/.

It turned out quite well. I think she needs a little purse, maybe a headband, something. I love her expression, which mostly says to me, *sigh* yes I have a big head. I know. Get over it.

Lorre's Tam

2010-05-20T21:38:00.001-07:00

Quite a while ago, I promised to write a post about a hat I was making a hat for a friend.

It's only taken me four months get here, which is pretty good, given how long it took me to make this little beauty.

It began at the 2009 Film Noir Festival. Lorre & Marc were in town and attended one of the movies with us. It was winter in Seattle and we all had hats. Lorre left hers at the theater but didn't realize it until we were a few blocks away. We offered to go back but she didn't want to because it was just you know, one of those, store bought hats.

Well, you know, I just can't let a friend wear a store bought hat when hand knit one is much better! So, I asked Lorre what colors she would like in this theoretical hand knit hat: earth tones. The idea brewed for quite a while. I thought, if I'm going to make this hat, it has to be so awesome that she won't leave it in a theater. Looking through my roving stash, I found the following items: a green/brown 70% Merino/30% silk; a light tan 70% Merino/30% alpaca; a dark brown 70% Merino/30% alpaca, grey mohair and almost white cashgora (50% cashmere/50% angora).

I took out my hand carders and played around with layering each of these onto a carder and blending. I tend to blend three passes, unless I'm trying to create a completely new color. Not the case here. I wanted striping. I have tried carefully weighing out my fiber and then carefully adding it to the hand cards. The fact is, I like each rolag and batt to be a little different. I prefer to improvise as I go, which results in slightly different colored rolags.

Once I carded about 2 ounces of fiber, I layed out the rolags into a spectrum of color. I split the group into two batches, since this is a two ply yarn and then randomly picked up each rolag for spinning.

As can be seen in the first photo, the yarn was spun on my Elizabeth wheel and on the large flyer whorl. Actually, I don't think the singles on my wheel are this yarn, but I really liked the photo. I believe the singles shown are from my fine Thistle 3.0, currently in progress.

In preparing for this post, I found my yarn specs card. The name of this particular yarn is: Lorre's Woodland Realm Two Ply Yarn. With the improvised color blending, I would say it took 6 hours to prepare and spin this particular yarn.

After spinning, plying, and washing to set the twist, here are my yarn specs: 17 wraps per inch, 1400 yards per pound, 1.75 ounces and approximately 150 yards. This is a lace/sport weight yarn suitable for size 3 US needles.

I used size 7 needles because that's the size I like for hats. I find it not too chunky but not too fine that it takes so long to knit. I'm still finding my way through the forest of knitting with hand spun yarns. It's very different from commerical yarn. It's heavier, my yarns are still somewhat uneven, and it has a mind of it's own.

The project now takes a turn for the woe. I knit a swatch, took the gauge, which was 6 stitches per inch. I made my size calculations and cast on and knit. This was going to be a basic fold up edge watch cap (which was similar to the hat Lorre lost). When the hat was large enough to get a good sense of size, it was clearly too big. I took new gauge measurements. Recalculated my cast on. Started over. This time, I thought I would try the Easy Upside Down hat from the first edition of Homespun Handknit. Why change hats? At the time, it made sense in my brain to try to a different style, maybe that would help.

Again, too big. WTF?! So, I frogged it again. The yarn, it turns out, is not at all springy. It could be due to any of the non-wool fibers, but the point is, it just was not as forgiving as 100% wool. I got the same gauge measurment but decided to cut 30% of the cast on stitches and try the Classic Mohair Tam pattern from the Homespun book.

Tams are a lot of fun to knit. They start off so reasonable and like any other hat and then they explode only to decrease. Then the fun of blocking. I did not have a plate large enough to fit inside without distorting the shape, so I blocked it flat moving into place as best I could. Finally, a hat that worked out. I like the swirl decrease and the subtle striping. The fabric is very soft.

I didn't keep track of the time, but I will guess it took me 30 hours to knit (ok it was: knit, frog, knit, frog, knit). Well worth the effort. I learned I need to experiment with the non-wool fibers and explore the world of color knitting in tams. I have a lot of small amounts of handspun yarn on hand and tams are a good canvas for color knitting.

May Featured Etsy Blogger

2010-05-20T13:33:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to this month's featured EtsyBlogger: Handmade by Sandi. Her shop features over a hundred selections of crocheted items, sewn items and jewelry. This post features but a handful of goodies from Sandi's shop, so please visit her at http://HandmadeBySandi.etsy.

I'm in a bit of a hat mode lately. Here are two of my favorite hats from Sandi's shop: crocheted hat with flower. Besides being blue, my favorite color, and adorable and I do love my berets. I want to cuddle up to the Crocheted Beret.

Have I confessed to being a bagaholic? Sandi offers some hand painted tote bags. She has a few with flowers, which are beautiful, but I love her Horse Tote.

May is Sandi's birthday month and she is having a BIG special - 50% everything in the shop.

If all of the above were not enough, Sandi has a supplies shop that features fabrics, blank tees and cross stitch kits:http:///sandists.etsy.com

I admit I need a seaside vacation and could not help but be drawn to Shells & Sand. I was sad to see there is only one yard of this beauty: Delicate Flowers because I think it would make a supercute 30s style day dress. This cutey pie caught my eye, possibly my resin crew needs a quilt for lounging: Teddy Bears!

http://www.sandists.com/Wordpress Sandi's current blog post is a Sneak Peek at her current felting projects. I particularly like this fuzzy vessel.

If you haven't already done so, please take a moment to go visit Sandi's shops and blog and wish her a happy belated birthday and congratulations for being this months' featured artist.

Tyler's Linen Sheath and Mohair Bolero

2010-05-06T22:32:00.000-07:00

Poor Tyler. The first 16" dress I made was in black fabric and had no instructions, so I assembled it as I would a full-sized dress. It didn't work out so well. She'd been wearing that badly made dress for so long, I decided it was time to make her a nice dress.

The fabric is brown linen cotton blend, repurposed from a skirt I had sewed for myself, which never quite fit properly.

That skirt was one reason I got on the test muslin train. Even choosing the correct size didn't fit properly...always make a test. But I digress.

I got the dress pattern from the Doll Reader magazine. I lined with muslin because I hadn't worn the skirt very much, which in turn meant it wasn't washed but once or twice. Dye does transfer to dolls, which is why I'm recycling old clothes but is also why I have begun to line my doll clothes with muslin. I have to protect my vinyl and resin friends.

If I may take a moment to wax poetic about this particular Tyler. I purchased her last year from Tonner Direct. She is an Ultra Basic Tyler. For her 10th Anniversary, Tonner released a new face scupt, just after I purchased my girl. The new face is nice enough, but I think my UB Tyler has more character. She always takes a good picture, even when the photographer is a bit goofy with the light source.

The repurposed skirt was a-line, so in order to find the straight of grain, I cut a tiny slit in the hem and ripped. Instant grainline. It may seem like a waste of fabric, but the next dress on the list is for Gene because her cute little red dress was made from a repurposed bias-cut dress and her wee dress never looked right. That misalignment of grain is magnified when taking close-up photos.

I cut the dress and lining and assembled it. The bust doesn't fit quite right and I added neckline darts. You can see the close up of the darts in the first photo. The pattern was specifically labelled for Tyler, but if face sculpts change over time, I would guess that possibly older versions of Tyler have different measurements.

The bolero is from a small orange beaded mohair sweater. The pattern for the bolero is from Hazel McMahon's doll pattern book. The patterns in Hazel's book are not to scale, but I was too lazy to walk down the hill to the Kinkos to photocopy/scale the patterns, i just made a rough sketch on my trusty grid paper.

I cut the bolero out from the cuff of one sleeve. The sewing of it was pretty simple except for the beads. One or two beads squirted out from under the presser foot. I'm glad I wear glasses!

I got her outfit assembled and thought the dress was boring and pulled out some cute little square beads and sewed them to the neckline of the dress.

One of my complaints about magazine doll dress patterns is that they don't show the back of the dress. You may know by now that I'm not good with instructions. I prefer to work it out for myself. Tough to do when one you can't see the back of a garment. So, here it is, the back of Tyler's little brown dress.

You can see the lining peeping out. A good pressing might fix it or it might just succeed in burning my fingers. Also, the back neck area did not fit so well. While this dress did not turn out perfectly, I did learn more about dress-making for dollies. I think the fabric may be a little too stiff for a 16" fashion doll, though I think it would be all right for an SD sized bjd.

I will keep working on my pattern drafting skills and modify the sloper I have for Gene into one that will fit Tyler. Tyler deserves a well-fitting dress. She is a fashion designer by trade, after all

Happy crafting!

My Favorite Material

2010-05-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first post of the new blog for my Etsy and Etsyblogger team related posts. I was inspired by April's featured Etsyblogger, MagdaleneJewels to add this blog.

By way of quick explanation, I love participating on the team and it's a logical team to be a part of, given this is the 4th year of blogging and third year of my shop. That said, the post topics have been out of line with the focus of my craftwench blog, which is to journal my various craft projects.

This month's blog carnival topic is Favorite Materials. It should come as no surprise to you, if you visited either my shop or other blog, when I say: I love wool.

This first photo is mystery wool, all the way from New Zealand. It was packed with my Ashford Traveller spinning wheel. The seller did not tell me the breed of the sheep. Hence the mystery.

I would wear wool year round, if it were possible. But it's not practical, even in Seattle. So I get my wool fix by spinning, knitting, and sewing it.

Spinning wool. It is the easiest of fibers to spin, making it the idea fiber for beginners. It's a joy to spin. Each breed has different characteristics, so even if the ease of spinning remains, some yarns are springy, some are not coarse, some are soft and fluffy. Wool takes to dye and although I don't dye roving or yarn myself, I love working with hand dyed roving. Blending it with undyed fibers, seeing the different stripe pattern.

Knitting wool. Again, the most forgiving fiber and recommended as suitable for beginners. There are many weights of wool yarns that range from soft enough to wear next to the skin and those are best suited to outwear.

The second photo is my neopolitan ice cream expressed in wool. The top ball of yarn is a dark Coopworth 2 ply, The bottom left ball is a wool/alpaca/mohair blend and the bottom right is a New Zealand wool.

Sewing wool. As with knitting and spinning, wool is fairly easy to sew. It doesn't slip around like silk and rayon. It comes in woven and knit fabrics. And if that weren't enough, most wool can be wet and dry felted.

This third photo is a seed stitch knit fabric from 0.9 ounces of 100% hand spun 2 ply yarn. It was a test and is documented in all it's glory two posts, which you'll find here: Time Test 1 and Time Test 2

Hey Baby, What's Your Sign?

2010-04-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

This month's EtsyBlogger's Blog Carnival post is: Tell us your birthday and what astrological sign you are. Do you ever read/follow your horoscope? My birthday is May 1st.

May Day, the day when people used to run around and give out wee flower bouquets.

As pondered by Offred in Margaret Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale," m'aidez, or more properly venez m'aider, which means, please come and help me. The origin of the distress call mayday, mayday, mayday! You know, from WWII movies and such.

International Workers Day, or as my partner Bill likes to call it: International Booze Up and Riot Day. For some reason, the workers of the world are revolting. They choose this particular day to riot. Some years, I choose to think like Firefly's Jayne and pretend they're rioting just for me. Perhaps, the workers chose this day because it's two things at once: Mayday! It's a riot AND a distress call. I'd like to think the workers are just that organized.

My astrological sign is Taurus. The bull. As described at All About Taurus, we are "Patient and reliable,warmhearted and loving, persistent and determined, placid and security loving. On the dark side....jealous and possessive, resentful and inflexible,self-indulgent and greedy."

Isn't everyone?

One of my guilty pleasures is Vogue magazine. Of course, I like the spring and fall issues for the biggest and best of haute couture. I have sporadically picked up the May issue because they used to have a monthly horoscope, with a nice long horoscope for the month. That reminds me, it's time to pick up Vogue and see what to look forward to over the next year.

Complating my horoscope reminds me of a favorite Big Audio Dynamite song from "Tighten Up Vol 88" entitled, "Mr. Walker Said" Had BAD made a video for this song, I'd post the you tube link, however, if it exists, it's not there. Instead, enjoy the lyrics, which sums up my feelings on the horoscope issue.

Hey girl I know you well
I know when you were born
Walker say we`re heaven made
Cause I`m a Capricorn

The sun the moon and stars
Predict what lies ahead
So Mr. Walker said

So every move I make
He says is prordained
Just when I think I`m free
He says I`m bound in chains

But when the night is clear
Signs are easy found
My feet are on the ground

Some people read the stars
For answers yet unknown
Some people read the stars
I think I`ll write my own
So Mr. Walker said

Some look in Tarot cards
And others cups of tea
This modern voodoo spaceman
Looks in the Galaxy
And everything he sees
Is beamed in from the med
So Mr. Walker said

Do I do what I`m supposed to do
Or what my fate spells out for me
Do I do what I`m supposed to do
Or is it in my destiny

He looks into the sky
And like a book it`s read
So Mr. Walker said

Some people read the stars
For answers yet unknown
Some people read the stars
I think I`ll write my own
So Mr. Walker said

April Featured Etsyblogger

2010-04-20T12:49:00.001-07:00

April's Featured Etsyblogger is Pam at MagdaleneKnits. At the time of this post, her shop features primarily baby items, both knit and crocheted. Pam also makes scarves and neck-warmers from hand dyed, hand spun yarns from other Etsians. Everything in Pam's shop is adorable and with a baby shower for a friend in May...I'll attempt to stay focused long enough to write this post ;-)

It must be the wee-ness of baby things that makes me all warm and squishy inside. Here are three of my favorite items from Pam's knit shop. The baby items are knit from acrylic and nylon yarns so they are easy to clean for mom and dad. The lamb was part of a crochet challenge: Crocheted Baby Lamb. This crib garland is super cute! My third favorite item are these sage mocassins.

Pam has a separate shop for her Swarovski-based jewelry creations: Magdalenejewels., where you will find an assortment of neck, wrist and ear adornments to choose from. And a lovely series of wedding jewelry. Everything in Pam's jewelry shop is lovely. Here are my favorites. The very pretty Holly Necklace, a beautiful combination of pears and green crystals. I'm not usually a fan of yellow, but her jonquil floral pendant makes me so happy. Being on a vintage kick lately, this lovely vintage fillagree ring caught my eye.

Pam has not one but two blogs is at: http://magdalenejewelsblogs.blogspot.com. My favorite feature is Wordless Wednesday that is a lot of fun. The first blog is primarily where Pam posts her Etsyblogger entries, which I have to say is a great idea. The second blog is Magdelene Jewels which is where she posts, well, everything else, including the recent entry about The Orphan Act, which I had not heard but will have to investigate and follow the links Pam provides, as it has to do with artist rights for images, blog posts, etc.

When she's not managing two Etsy shops, two blogs, an Artfire store (whew!) she works as a costume designer, make-up artist and some times even actor in her local community theater. I hope you take a moment to visit Pam's site and enjoy her handiwork.

Gene's Paisley Scarf Outfit

2010-04-03T19:45:00.000-07:00

My basic plan for doll clothes is to use thrift shop clothes. A lucky trip to the Goodwill netted me a tan and black houndstooth pant suit; a bright orange, beaded angora sweater; a pink tweed jacket, a pair of blue cotton capris with a wacky snakeskin print and a red sheath bias dress with tiny rose bud print. All for about $20.

The first two 16" doll dresses I made, a black sheath with white seam binding from Doll Reader (designed to fit Tyler) and a red very tight sheath from one of the recent Haute Doll projects for Gene, turned out not so good.

The black dress was made from some black cotton I had in my stash. While the dress fits Tyler, there were no instructions for sewing, so I punted. Turns out, doll clothes sew together a little differently than human clothes. It would have been a lot easier, in hindsight, if I'd cut two sets and self-lined the dress. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I finished the neck and armholes with the only seam tape I had, ecru, though was out of cream thread. I applied the bindings by hand with black thread. It all looked ok, not great, until I took photos. Up close to the doll, the garment flaws grow bigger.

As for Gene's dress, I cut apart the red bias dress and tried as best I could to lay the pattern out on the straight of grain. The dress assembled fine and fits very well but the fabric did not follow the grainline and rides up in small but odd ways. One of my non-sewing friends examined the dress and commented on the oddness.

So, two of my girls need new outfits. I thought I'd start with Gene. I picked up a silk paisley scarf on Etsy for $10. In fact, here it is:

It's a lovely enough scarf, 17 inches square, but I find I don't like square scarves as much as long, rectangular scarves. Plus I have a couple of favorites that tend to get more wear than the rest.

I checked the scale to see how it would look and decided, not bad, though you don't get to see much of the print, I really liked this pic of Gene:

The design of halter and full skirt came from Hazel McMahon's book, "Period and Contemporary Patterns for Fashion Dolls," which very handily has different designs to fit Gene and Tyler.

To compare Gene and Tyler's measurments are, I took Gene's red sheath and put it on Tyler. Or rather, tried. Tyler is slimmer through the hips but broader through the shoulders than Gene. I couldn't close the dress on Tyler. And Gene swims in the black sheath dress.

The downside to Hazel's book is that the patterns are not to scale and she suggests photocopy scaling them. Which is all fine, but it's a stormy day and I didn't want to go out in the rain.

However, I do have a Gene sloper pattern that I purchased from Don McCunn's site. The pdf file comes with two versions of the sloper, with and without seam allowances and very detailed instructions for using the slopers. I used Hazel's patterns from the book as a guide and Don's sloper to draft the patterns for the halter top and the skirt yoke onto grid pattern material. I use the pellon stuff rather than paper, mainly because I can go to a fabric store and buy an entire bolt.

But I digress. So, I drafted the patterns, cut out muslin tests, with the intention of using the muslin test as the lining. The halter was a bit of a challenge and I'm a novice with a French curve, but some fiddling later and it was done. It probably took me an hour to draft and test the halter and skirt yoke patterns. Everything fit well with no alterations, which is a testament to Don's sloper. I measured out a skirt of 10" wide by 17" long and used the scarf's hem as the skirt hem. As for the halter and the skirt yoke, I looked for places in the design that would result in a nice placement of the designs. There is also a small, floral-esque border and I thought that would look good for th border of the halter and the top of the yoke. Gene's a slip of a girl, so horizontal lines are not a problem for her figure.

The silk was a bit of a chore to work with at this scale but I pressed as I went and it was all pretty easy. I tried the pieces on as I went and noticed the halter was a little odd and realized I forgot to add the armhole darts. A bit of quick pinning and two teeny darts later, a well-fitting halter top arrived.

As for the skirt, Hazel's design was pleated. But that seemed tedious, so I gathered. Let me tell you, pleating would have been easier. It's simple enough to gather the material, but with a 1/4" seam, it's a bit tricky to catch all the gathered fabric without some of it slipping to the right side. Fortunately, I had my sewing machine pedal set to slow. Normally, I find that annoying, as I like to sew rapidly, on human-sized garments. However, I've already found the slow speed far more suitable to doll clothes sewing.

I found that my supply of hooks and eyes are large and not so suitable to doll clothes, which is why the shot of the outfit is from the front only:

I do want to, at some point, get a shot of the center back seam. In the shot of the outfit, you can see that the bottom edge is beige. And you may remember that I used the entire width of the scarf for the skirt, so the center back seam had two beige edges. For the back, I sewed the skirt up the back to the yoke. When I turned the skirt right side out, I found I had perfectly matched the center back seam and none of the beige border showed. That was a lucky bit of sewing because, this fabric was very, very slippery.

Oh, yes, the muslin lining. Didn't work at all for the halter top. I did, however, use the muslin for the yoke of the skirt so that I could catch the gathered edge of the skirt between the yoke pieces. I had a bit of trouble keeping the yoke clear when I attached the skirt to the yoke, but it was easily corrected.

Here is a tighter shot of the halter top:

I had to take the girls out for a shoot, having recently acquired Ivy Jordan at last month's doll show. Even though Glammed Up Ivy was just a nude doll, I couldn't resist an outfit for her, so I picked up half of Madra's Golden Riviera outfit, with gold sandels, the adorable jewelry and the sunglasses that you can't quite see in the photo.

As for Madra, she is wearing a dress I made from another of the Haute Doll Gene project from last year. That's Ultimately Madra, by the way. The dress and underskirt turned out quite well, so I will take photos, including the back. One of my complaints with doll clothes is that you rarely get to see the back. I don't know about you, but when the sewing instructions are sparse, I need to see all the way around the outfit in order to make some semi-educated guesses about construction.

March 2010 EtsyBloggers Featured Shop

2010-03-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

I admit to a touch of envy to folks with enough space to hand dye yarn. I've been wanting to dye my own fibers since I purchased my hand carders and began experimenting with card-blended fibers for spinning. But I simply don't have the space to conduct dye experiments. I've even managed to avoid taking a dye class at Weaving Works because I sense that I will love it too much. This is why I keep my eye out for hand dyed fibers...

And what, you may be asking, does this rambling have to do with this month's Etsyblogger team featured shop?

This month's featured is DizzyDragonflies. A knitter turned dyer, DizzyDragonflies features primarily hand dyed yarns, from Kool-Aid and Jacquard dyes. I love the colorways that Vicki chooses and I'm curious what they look like knit up.

My favorite skeins are Tropical Waters and A Little Bad for the Girl.

Vicki, since you're a spinner as well as a knitter, if you haven't tried it yet, I encourage you to try your hand at dyeing roving. The colorways in your skeins are beautiful. I think if you applied that method of dying to roving, you would be amazed at the variations you can get from spinning your hand dyed roving.

While I am woefully behind on my own projects, I might buy a skein or two as a gift for my knitting friends.

Part II: Blues Time Test Two Ply Yarn

2010-03-09T00:38:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I've lied to you, my friends. Several posts ago, I promised a post about a hat I made for a friend. But I mailed it last Saturday and I'd like her to at least receive it before I post about the details. Hence the delay. Aside from knowing it's a hat, she has no idea what it looks like, unless she happens to read my blog and saw that post with the teaser photo. From this post forward, no more 'next times.' Stop by and find out what's next time.

This entry is part 2 and the end of the story about my One Ounce Yarn Test, first post being the Blues Test, Part 1. The short recap: I wanted to record how long it takes me to prep, spin, ply, and knit 1 ounce of 2 ply yarn using 50% New Zealand wool in blue and 50% blue faced Leicester in natural/undyed (nearly white). The result was it took me 2.25 hours to go from prep to 2 ply skein.

One side comment about the fibers - they were well-prepared roving purchased my local weaving store. Well prepared meaning commerically scoured, dyed (for the blue) and carded into lovely batts, er sliver... I apologize to the spinners as I'm afraid I use the terms roving, sliver, and batts interchangeably.

I washed the yarn to set the twist and check dye-fastness in hot water with a nice dollop of unscented dishwashing soap. Unscented because I happen to like smell of wet wool and because I was too lazy to walk downstairs for the bottle of Dr. Bronners. I followed the wash with two hot water soak/rinse (no dunking or swishing, just fill sink soak skein, hold skein & drain the sink, then repeat). The dye is fast.

Once my skein was dry, I took the yarn specs: 0.95 total ounces, approximately 98 yards, 1650 yards per pound and 20 wraps per inch, a lace weight. Half ounce more than the previous post, but my scale needed a battery and that may account for the diffence.

This is only my second 2 ply yarn to come in at lace weight, post washing. The knitting commenced on size 4 needles because I didn't feel up to working with smaller needles and I wanted to see what it would look like. Cast on 40 stitches, provisional cast on.

BTW, if you haven't tried a provisional cast on, 'cuz the directions seemed inexplicable (of course, that could just have been me) here's a tip: it's actually a long tail cast on using two yarns. Holding the yarns in your left hand, the waste yarn is hooked around your thumb and the working yarn around your index finger. Work the long tail cast on as usual, and Bob's your uncle!

But I digress. I worked in my favorite stitch, seed, until the yarn ran out, or nearly so. There's a wee bit left, as you can just see in the photo. The fabric (pre-wash) is somewhat lacey and is quite fluid. It took 3.5 hours to knit.

I washed the piece as I had the skein, squeezed out the water, blocked, measured. 12.5 inches/40 stitches wide by 13.5 inces/86 rows long. For a gauge of approximately 3 stitches by 6 rows. This test took a total of 5.75 hours to take 1 ounces of roving to a knit swatch.

Now you may be thinking, well, that's just great, but...um, lady, so what?

So this, my friend: now that you have all this information, put it to use for a pretend project: determine the yardage and time needed to make a basic v-neck pullover in a size 44 chest. According to the Knitter's Handy Guide to Yarn Requirements, by Ann Budd, you'll need 933 yards of yarn at the guage of 3 stitches per inch. The sample skein came in at 98 yards, which means 9.5 ounces (933 total yards/98 yarn yards) of finished 2 ply yarn, is 57% of the 1650 yards per pound or, the finished sweater will weigh just over 9 ounces.

I asked an experienced spinner how she figured out how much fleece to buy and her answer was to weigh a similar item (in design and construction) and add 10% for luck. Turns out, she had a good way to guestimate, but I wanted to test her theory for myself.

Accounting for extra for luck and 10 ounces of roving are needed for this example project. In my fiber-hood, New Zealand wool goes for $1.25 an ounce and BFL goes for $1.60 an ounce. Five ounces of each, for a rounded up total of $17 of prepared roving.

We lucked out with a simple multiplier of 10 (1 ounce for the sample, 10 ounces for the sweater). For the spinning, 2.25 sample hours becomes 22.50 sweater hours. For the knitting, 3.5 sample hours becomes 35 sweater hours.

There you have it. In a mere 55.50 hours and replicating this particular yarn, I can card, spin, ply and knit myself a basic v-neck pullover.

Furthermore, you now know why there are no hand spun, hand knit sweaters for sale in my shop. I would have to price this example sweater at $600 for what amounts to $10/hour plus materials. Just for giggles, if I wanted the v neck in cashmere, the roving would cost $170, plus $550 for labor.

Happy crafting!