Knitting + Adorable = Win!

Mochimochi Land is the source of some (most) of my favorite handmade things on the internet, so I am absolutely ecstatic that there's now a book!

Unfortunately, I doubt it'll ever be available in the piss-poor library system in my county, so I might just have to shell out some cash for this one at Barnes and Noble.




 Once I get my hands on it, though, be sure of two things:
1. I'll be the happiest knitter alive!
2. You, dear readers, will be hearing allll about it.

HOW TO Sew a Skirt out of a Yard of Fabric

 So before I get to the main topic of this post, I have a piece of business to take care of first: My giveaway! The winner is Ali of The Drawing Mannequin! She has a cute, fashion-y blog - go check it out!

And if you read this, Ali, email me! I need to get in touch with you to send you your present!

I've had this Alexander Henry fabric with the faces on it for a while now. My mom got me a yard either last Christmas or the Christmas before that and I've been waiting for the perfect project. A couple days ago it hit me - this fabric needed to be a skirt!

So I measured myself a couple times, wrapped the fabric around my hips, then folded it in half and wrapped it around my hips again. I wanted something easy (read: elastic waist, no zipper) and long enough to be worn at the waist or at my hips. Here's what I came up with in order to get the most mileage out of just a yard of fabric.

And note: There are a LOT of pictures in this post. Sorry about the image overkill, but I wanted to be absolutely clear about every step!

What you need: A yard of fabric and enough elastic to go around your waist. That's it! Make sure to get the proper type of elastic to put in a skirt, though. It'll be about 3/4 inches high and have vertical ribs in it so it doesn't roll up. 

Step 1. Cut a strip (about 4 inches) off one of the raw edges (cut selvedge to selvedge).

Now, measure the width of your fabric (selvedge to selvedge) and cut it in half. The easiest way to do this is just to fold the fabric in half, press, and then cut along the fold.

The long edges of these two pieces will be the waist and hem. Put the two rectangles right sides together and sew along the short sides, forming a tube. If your fabric has a conspicuous pattern like mine does, make sure to sew them so that the pattern is facing the same way throughout the skirt. Then, make sure to finish off your seams so they don't unravel. This is very important! A simple zig-zag stitch on the raw edges is perfect!

The next step is the hem. Fold up one of the edges of the tube, press, then fold up again (this makes sure there aren't any raw edges that might unravel later), press again, and sew. Because I generally fail completely at hemming, I always end up taking an inch and a half off the bottom of the skirt. If you have the finesse to make a smaller hem, I congratulate you. I've never figured it out. Because my hem was so wide, I sewed twice around the bottom - once next to the folded edge and again right next to the bottom of the skirt. Just because I think it looks nice.

I'd like to add a note here. I'm pretty lazy, so I try to avoid all unnecessary work. For this reason, I very rarely change the color of my thread. Some people are really particular about their thread matching their fabric, but the way I see it, white matches everything.

Now we're going to work with the waistband for a bit. This is a neat little trick I learned in a dress pattern once, and it really is very useful because it does a good job of hiding raw seams with minimal sewing. The waistband is sort of like wide bias tape. You'll see.

So take the strip you cut out to be your waistband and sew it into a tube. Then fold it in half and press. Then unfold your tube, fold one of the edges down about half an inch and press this down, making sure not to iron over the middle crease.

Okay. Now leave this on your ironing board for a minute and pick up your skirt. If you lay the two tubes next to each other, you'll notice that they're not the same size. We need to gather the top of the skirt before we sew it onto the waistband.

With your sewing machine on its longest stitch setting, sew around the top of the skirt. Don't backstitch at the beginning or end of the seam. Take the ends of the threads and pull on them. This'll make the skirt bunch up. Do this until the skirt is about the size of your waistband, then tie the thread ends so they don't go anywhere. Try to make sure your skirt is pretty evenly gathered.

Now pin the raw edge of your waistband to the gathered edge of your skirt (right sides together!) and sew them together.

Back on your ironing board, fold down the middle crease again. The folded edge of the waistband should cover (or come close to covering) the seam you just sewed.

Now sew this down. You can sew from either the front or the back side. I sewed from the outside of the waistband, trusting that it'd catch the folded-down edge, for the simple reason that what the outside of the skirt looks like matters more than the inside. I wanted a nice, clean line along my waistband.

When you're sewing this seam, DO NOT sew all the way around. Leave about two inches between the start and finish. You need this opening to thread your elastic through.

Now find your piece of elastic and cut it to three or so inches smaller than your waist. This is important! At first I cut it to be just the size of my waist, but then it was too big when I put it on so I had to rip out my seam and shorten the elastic.

Pin a safety pin to the end of your elastic and use this to thread it through your waistband. Overlap the two ends of the elastic about an inch and sew them together. Make sure the elastic isn't twisted as you put it through the waistband.

Now finish sewing your waistband shut and voila! Your skirt is ready to wear!

Note: Sorry I look like such a hobbit in these two pictures. My sister doesn't know how to take pictures that don't make me look like a midget.

If you make any skirts like this, please let me know! I'm excited to see how they turn out!

A Stashbuster Scarf

My problem: I love movies. I'm on a quest to watch the IMDB's top 250, and to finish the top 25 by the end of the summer. (Only 9 more to go!!!!) BUT. I'm fidgety. I don't have the attention span to sit still for two hours or so and watch a movie. I need something for my hands to do while my brain is concentrating on my computer screen.

My solution: Knitting! I wanted something REALLY easy, so I started a big chunky scarf. Any monkey could knit it - hold a couple strands of yarn together and knit garter stitch on size 35 needles. I would've finished it while I was watching 12 Angry Men just now, but I ran out of one of the yarns I was using and I need to find something similar to replace it.

PS. I can't believe it took me almost the entire movie to realize that Juror #2 is Piglet!

Suitcase Project: Before

I got this nice old leather suitcase last summer at a yard sale. I fell in love with the shape and the fun, vintage feel of it. The only problem - the smell. This thing smells mustier than your great-grandpa's 50-year-old collection of crossword puzzles. Something had to be done.

So, after spending some time last summer trying to wash it and make it stink a little less, I failed and shoved it in the back of my closet to think about some other day.

That day, my friends, is today. I'm just about finished cleaning my room, and I pulled the suitcase out of my closet just to see what it's been up to this past year. Well, it still smells like old feet. But this time I'm determined to defeat the stank!

I just took it outside and determined that the lining fabric makes up most, if not all, of the smell, so I just ripped it all out and tossed some baking soda inside the shell to hopefully soak up the odors.

I plan on checking on it tomorrow and reevaluating the situation. Eventually, I plan on lining the inside with some fun fabric and maybe decoupaging the outside. The leather's very pretty, but it has some scratches and paint marks I'd like to cover up

How to Shoot at Someone Who Outdrew You

I found some sheet music of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen (although I think what I found was the Rufus Wainwright version - the one on the Shrek soundtrack) and my sister has been learning it. It's so pleasant to be sitting in my room on the internet or whatever, and hear that lovely song coming up from downstairs. It's a very welcome change from her usual repertoire (Green Day, Green Day, and more Green Day!)

I was going to blog later tonight, but at the moment I'm waiting for my boyfriend to finish dinner with his family so we can go see Get Him To The Greek. So, my thoughts on the movie will have to wait until tomorrow, but I figured now was as good a time as any to share today's outfit.

I've been wanting to wear this jacket for a while, and since it's not too hot today I figured I'd go for it. Also, the movie theater is usually pretty chilly, so I always dress to keep warm. :)

Thinking about, almost everything in this outfit was free. The only thing I actually bought was the shirt. My grandmother gave me the shoes because they didn't have enough support for her feet, the jacket came from rehashclothes.com, and my necklace belonged to my great-grandmother before she died. And I made the skirt. The fabric is white with lots of lines of sheet music on it.

The top has a yoke with some embroidery on it that reminds me of the mexican shirts that are white with rainbow embroidery, except this is all the same color. I'm quite happy with this outfit!

Also, earlier today I had somewhat of an adventure into the world of 3D plush making. I made (or attempted to make) an elephant. Considering that I had no pattern and not much experience, I think he turned out pretty well. He's made out of an old sweater that got accidentally felted.

And the cat was being a giant lump as I was taking these pictures, as usual.

Update: We're going to see the movie tomorrow because if we go before noon it's only five dollars. So we're going to make a day of it. Which means I got all cute today for nothing! I haven't even been out of the house, except to drive around for a bit. And now I have to think of ANOTHER cute outfit tomorrow. This fashion thing is hard work!

I think I'll watch American Psycho tonight, maybe.

Yesterday my sister bought home a piano from Goodwill.

I just have no idea how to play it. She's pretty good, though. (Especially considering the fact that she's thirteen!) It's nice to just sit here and listen to the music going on in the living room. 

Inspired by the lovely Annebeth (or, the Styling Dutchman), I wore a maxi dress yesterday! I have two and they are so gorgeous but I rarely ever wear them. They seem impractical and I never know what shoes to wear. Well, yesterday, Annebeth wore a maxi dress and it was so cute I just had to play copycat. With it, I wore some tan sandals (although you can't see them in the pictures) and a gold bracelet, both of which came from rehashclothes.com, which is one of my favorite websites in the world. Here are some pictures, although they are rather uninteresting and do not flatter me. I need to practice taking charming pictures.

Oh, and I wore it to a block party I went to with my boyfriend, and got several compliments! Hooray!

The boyfriend's sister graduated from high school yesterday, so I made her a correspondence kit as a present. It includes an address book, postcards, envelopes and labels, all handmade, of course! (Except the labels...)

 

AND! I got a bunch of business cards in the mail yesterday! Such an eventful day!

His EYES are GIANT POMPOMS!

Here's a teaser for the delightful little monster I made yesterday. Like I said, his eyes are made out of pompoms, which was a stroke of genius on my part, in my humble opinion. The whole process was quite an adventure; I cut a general shape out of the back of an old t-shirt and went from there. He reminds me of a plaque monster hidden between your teeth. (But in a good way - he's misunderstood, just looking for love, it's not his fault you don't floss...)

Today and yesterday have been so very productive. Literally. Yesterday I made a plushie, and today I made recycled paper, which is one of my absolute favorite things to do. There's also freshly baked honey wheat bread in the house, though my mother is to thank for that, not I.

Oh, and another thing! The most exciting thing of all! Last night I babysat the two coolest kids. They're daughters of one of my professors - 9 and 10 years old. While the younger one was reading her comic books, the older (named Flannery!) picked out a movie to watch.

You will never guess what movie she picked.

Go ahead and guess.

Oh, I'll just tell you. This kid, who's in fifth grade, picks out Casablanca! And then when it first starts Peter Lorre reminds her of another movie, so we end up watching some movie from the 40s called The Mask of Dimitrios. The conversation centered around how "they just don't make movies as good these days" and "what's wrong with black and white?"

She is my hero.

I watched Julie and Julia over lunch today - will probably blog about it later.

Simple Furoshiki Bag

I saw this post over at annekata, and decided it was just what I needed to carry my stuff out in today. Her bag is really cute, but the way it's made you can't rummage around in it that easily. So I played around with a vintage scarf I got a while back at a yard sale, and came up with this:

It's not the greatest picture (it's me fixing something on my sister's Wall-O-Green Day) but you get the picture. It's surprisingly roomy.

Rosie and The Swan

I watched two hours of America's Next Top Model today. 'Twas fabuleux.