Blegh.

Ok, well so it's been 10 days since I've last posted, and I have no finished things to show. I went to San Diego last weekend with most of my college roommates + a few extras, and it was super super fun. Justin made this fabulous collage of us:

Flanthrower kindly tagged me to list seven random things about myself and then tag seven other people. I LOVE that she tagged me (I love these things!) but I hate tagging people. Except family members. I feel less bad about that. So I'll comply with the first half. Sorry, I'm a big fat dead end!

1. I LOVE eating with spoons. Even more than eating for sporks.

2. I was once asked if I was Indian when I was in band camp in Illinois. Thinking back, I'm not sure if they meant Native American or Asian Indian. I was also asked if I was Mongolian in high school. I'm Chinese.

3. When I was younger, I used to dream of being a grocery store check out person. To the point that I learned how to efficiently use the number pad using Mavis Beacon Typing.

4. I have been craving Spaghetti for the last month. But I am just too lazy to pick up ingredients at the grocery store.

5. I do not like deviating from the rules. I will follow sewing patterns exactly, minus skill level (reading the directions before I start, of course), and same applies to cooking. Unfortunately, experimenting by coloring out of the lines does not come naturally to me.

6. I don't like hats because they make my forehead itch.

7. I think I have 10 pairs of flip flops. I really only use 1 or 2 pairs, but I can't bear to throw the rest away. They've been so good to me!

And Kristine, you're tagged. Haha.

And here is a link to links for skirt and dresses from thimble's site (great site! This is where I first saw the pattern for the blue hat for thing 1/thing 2), some of them look fabulous. I was going to give up on skirt #3, but Dacia Ray's skirt tutorial looks so easy and fun (and perfect for what I was looking for) that I may just sneak it in tonight! We shall see....

Full Circle Skirt

So this is my "Full Circle" skirt. It started out as a circle skirt. You know, you cut a circle and a little hole in the middle, add a waistband and you're done. Well, since I used this great stretch knit fabric, the hole, while smaller than my waist, would stretch and fall to the floor. Not really the look I was going for. Instead of giving up, I cut a slit to make a half circle wrap. I mean, it stretched so in theory it was good for a wrap. I added on super long ties (my new thing right now is kimono-obi wrap inspired things, like this wrap from Boden) and tried it on. No luck. Have you ever had those wrap skirts that didn't wrap all the way from hip to hip and you feel like you're just flashing everyone just a little too much leg? Yup. After that, I decided that it could be a nice apron. It looks sort of similar to the Amy Butler project from this month... but after I tied the ties, I noticed that the two sides of the back slit were meeting. Well duh. It started out as a circle. So I sewed up that seam.

And if you got through all that rambling, here's what happened. Circle Skirt -> Half Circle Wrap Skirt -> Apron -> Circle Skirt. Luckily the super long ties I made now keep the skirt from falling to my knees. Considering all the trouble I went through for this simple skirt (I didn't even hem the bottom!), I'm pretty happy with it. Oh, and this wasn't the skirt I was planning on making for skirt #2. I found the fabric and loved it and just decided to make a skirt for fun. So hopefully one more skirt is on the way!

One last thing, please ignore the awkward placement of my arms in the photo.. I was trying to hold my hair so when I twirled around it wouldn't hit me in the face... I never know what to do with my arms!

A little tease...

I've finished my Amy Butler In Stitches Sew Along project. This month was the apron, and the theme was an "in action" shot. I have an idea of what I want to take a photo doing.. but it will have to be another week if I end up doing it. So we'll see. Until then, here's this photo. Of course I have a photo of the front-side, but where's the fun in that? :p

Skirt #1 for Skirt Month complete!

Here is the completed skirt I promised to show. Overall I think it's just ok. I have an idea for my next skirt that I'm super excited about. No more of this drawstring nonsense. I don't think I'm a fan of the ginormous hole that you step into and then cinch up. Plus then you have to neatly distribute the gathers. Too much work. I'd rather put in a zipper or something. Anyway, I drafted my own pattern using Sew What! Skirts.

A (too bright) close up of the fabrics. The whale fabric is from my stash. Love it, but I can never find a good use for it.

In other exciting news, my first sampler subscription came! Here are some of my favorites... I will eventually add notes to flickr on what they are. LOVE the iron on octopus.

That's a Wrap!

So I have been almost obsessively looking for a wrap dress, and thankfully, the pattern makers seem to think that they are in fashion now. The left most one (Vogue 8379) gave me the most problems. I went to two Joann's (patterns for $3.99) over the weekend and they were all sold out. Today, I went to Hancocks (75% sale) and I thought it was sold out, but after a little rifling, I found it! I was so happy!

However, I think I am going to make the dress on the very right first. That's Vogue 8229. Except I think I am going to do it sans ruffle. I saw these on Assorted Notions' website, and she made 3 absolutely gorgeous versions.

Oh, those of you with sharp eyes will notice that Skirt #1 for skirt month is now 100% complete. That's right. I cut out the fabric and sewed the entire thing together in one night. I think it took me a couple hours. Plus I deviated from the pattern and added a stripe to the bottom, so that was different. I've never done curved piecing before. Anyway, photos tomorrow.

Whoops, I just hit the publish button and realized I forgot to talk about the earrings in the above photos. They're from sulu-design, and I LOVE them!! The blue is lighter than I was expecting, which is great, because I was nervous that they would be too dark. Isn't it nice when things work out like that?

3 down, so many more to go....

What's this? Finished objects? I finally finished 3 objects today... And here they are. This first one is my Duro dress, which was way last year, but I finally finished it. I used Simplicity 4072, and was so excited to have it done that I haven't even cut off the threads yet. I am waaaay shorter than the model on front of the pattern, because her skirt part only went to her knees, and mine go about 3-4 inches past my knees. It still looks ok, but I definitely have to wear heels with this dress. It's so nice to finally have this done, I think I started back when they were popular, so probably fall of last year?

On a side note, I am so bad with the timer function. But I did have fun trying to get a twirly shot!! Click on the photo to see a couple more shots of the dress.

Next up is one of Chris' Christmas presents. He got a Wii last year, and wanted a case since I made him bring it back and forth to his house and my house. He designed the case after Link's green tunic. Finally finished this one up too!!

Lastly, we have what I have been calling a "Crochet Bottom Lunch Bag". I saw Anna's beautiful lunch bag way back in June of last year, and decided I wanted to make one too. So here is my version.

And Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there. Here is a shot of the girls in my family in one of those rare times that everyone has their eyes open and is actually looking at the camera...

Rippling along.... slowly....

Ripple Blanket Progress
Originally uploaded by lydigann.

So here is the progress on my ripple blanket. It's almost getting too hot to work on it, so I figure I should get in some more stripes before I put it away for the season. The colors are brighter and less bold. The flash did funny things to it.

But this post isn't about showing off the beauty of my ripple blanket! No, no my friends, it's to calculate how much more I need to do! So for this blanket, I cast on 243 stitches, and it's about 60 inches. I'm aiming for a blanket that's 60 x 75, since I like those nice numbers. I'm not really sure what standard size is for blankets anyway. According to Denyse Schmidt Quilts and the Modern Quilting Workshop, a twin size quilt is 64 x 87. Lets see, cross multiply, and I guess my blanket should end up being 81.5 inches. Ok fine, lets do 80. 60 x 80. Like a nice 3x4 digital camera photograph.

Ok, if we're aiming for 60 x 80, and I have 22 inches done (23 stripes since there are 2 half stripes there), I am 27.5% done. Hey not bad! Sorry for boring you with my thought process.. unfortunately, this is how I usually think... Only 60-ish stripes to go!!

EDIT: Ok, bad/good news. I re-measured the width, and it's 64 inches. So I guess I'll go for standard size twin and make it 64 x 87. Which means I am only 25% done, and I have 65 inches (or 68 stripes) left to do....

Joel Dewberry

I was looking at buzzville and her travels to the Quilt Market in Salt Lake City when I noticed she posted about Joel Dewberry. I had never heard of him before, but apparently he's a new designer for Westminster Fabrics. I think I have found another line of fabrics that I'm in love with! Image above is from his site. There isn't much there right now, but I'm super excited for his line to be released!

On a side note, I changed my blog template so I can post standard medium size images straight from flickr. HURRAY!

Ugh.

So of course the one pattern that I try to make in the Sew What! Skirts book had an error in it. I tried to make the half circle wrap skirt, and it says divide by 6 instead of divide by 3. So in order to fix it, the skirt would have been WAY shorter than intended. Plus it flares out strangely. I ended up putting it aside. I'll figure out what to do with it later. Check out this discussion if you are planning on making the same skirt...

On a happier note, today Chris and I went with one of Chris' co-workers to Bunnyfest. People brought their bunnies to a park (on leashes!) to play. They were all cute and it really makes me miss having a pet...

Doll Quilt Received!

May 2, 2007
Originally uploaded by lydigann.

I got my doll quilt from the doll quilt swap today! Thank you so much Beth! I love it! I love the wonkiness that has been showing up in lots of quilts lately, but I haven't had the courage to stray from straight lines. This is Beth's first quilt, and she did such a great job. She was even nice enough to include a hanging sleeve if I wanted to attach one (now why didn't I think of that?).

If you haven't already, you should check out the rest of the doll quilts here, they're all turning out super cute!

Skirt Month!

Happy May everyone! Ok, can I just say how excited I am that it's Skirt Month? I recently found Sew Mama Sew's blog and was pleasantly surprised to see that they have Free Fabric Fridays! And a super cool flickr group where you can win a $25 gift certificate to the Sew Mama Sew store (which is super cool and I just bought some stuff from). But the kicker was skirt month!

It's genius! I just got Lotta Jansdotter's book and Sew What! Skirts for my birthday from my wonderful sister and her husband, so I'm all set. I may even have enough fabric in my stash for all of this...

So I think everyone should celebrate skirt month and make a skirt. Here is a link to the post and here is a link to the new flickr group just for skirt month. I'm going to set a goal of at least 2 skirts this month. In fact, I'm so sure about this that I'm going to add them to my progress bars right now!!

(Ok, I realize that I sound like an advertisement for Sew Mama Sew, but really, Kristin has no idea who I am. I am just a fan of the store and all her genius free ways to keep me going back. Oh, and I'm super jealous of my cousin... I told her about the blog and she won last friday's free fabric friday! I've never won....)