April 30, 2012

Sewing, sewing, sewing

Lately my focus seems to have completely shifted from knitting to sewing. And you know what? I'm totally cool with that! Summer is coming, and I need some new clothes. So does Mr. Social. However, the past few weeks have found me sewing for my shop. (people seem to really like my Doctor Who bags!)

This past weekend, I set myself a ridiculous goal of sewing 7 bags and knitting a hat. And I could have totally done it too, if I hadn't had to leave the house for most of the day on Sunday. What I managed to finish is 3 bags, half a hat, and the beginnings of a 2nd sock.



I'm really hoping to fit in some sewing for me this week. I have a bunch of fabric that is just calling out to me, begging to become something fabulous!




April 26, 2012

Nerdy Nails - Shiny!

I think it's safe to say that I love Nerd Lacquer nail polish. When I bought the various varnishes, I got a set of three Firefly inspired colours. You've already seen me sport "Gorramit", so this week I thought I'd try out "Shiny". It's such a lovely cool blue with silver sparkles.


These polishes are surprisingly long wearing. I thought that the sparkles in them would actually cause them to chip faster, but the last one lasted almost 2 weeks, without the first signs of wear appearing until over a week had passed. This is pretty impressive, as I usually start showing signs of wear in my manicure after a day or two, as I do a lot of typing, sewing, pinning, etc. I'm impressed!

April 25, 2012

WIP Wednesday - April 25, 2012

My intention for this week was to give you all a sneak peak of what's on my sewing table. But me being forgetful, I forgot to take a pic last night. So instead, I give you an almost sock.


This socks is either 3 or 8 rows from being finished. I haven't quite decided how wide I want the ribbing section to be yet, and I figure I'll go with my gut once I get there.

These are destined to be socks for Mr. Social. He will be getting at least 12 pairs of knit socks from me this year, and this is pair #2. You'll notice that the colours used for him are very different than the colours I would use for socks for myself. He likes more earthy colours, while I go for the super insane, bright, and crazy colours for socks. Although, from time to time I do knit him socks that take him out of his comfort zone.

I should get knitting, I'm already behind pace by 2 pairs to be on track for 12 pairs of socks for the year... Wish me luck!

Check out more WIPs at Tami's Amis

April 24, 2012

Liebster Love

The past week has been an absolute flurry of knitting, spinning, sewing, and lamenting the lack of progress of my Fashion on the Ration year (all my recent crafting has been for my shop or other people). I haven't had much time to post, and have been pretty bummed about that.

Then, Rachel-Lou of Made with Whimsy came along to award me a Liebster Blog Award!!! Thanks so much Rachel-Lou!

What is the Liebster Blog Award you ask? Well, here's the down-low:

This award is to show your love for your favourite small blogs, with less than 200 followers. The rules are as follows:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog
2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you
3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog
4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed (see below)
5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog


Without further ado, here are my 5 Liebster winners:


Ayenforcraft - Jessica has a cute and quirky sense of style (I love your green glasses dress!!!) and some mad knitting skills. For real.

Butterflies and Hurricanes - Beatrice's vintage style is to die for! Her 50s style dresses are totally amazing.

Smashworks - Ashley designs clothing, shoes, costumes and so much more! She is a seriously talented lady.

Hanso and Bananas - Di posts awesome crafts and cat pictures. What more could one ask for?

Dapper Duds - Cynthia makes beautiful clothing and posts the most amazing photos and tutorials. Her beautiful striped dress, a la Mondo from Project Runway, is absolutely stunning.

Thanks again Rachel-Lou for the award! You've rekindled the fire to get some sewing for me done, so hopefully I'll have my first Fashion on the Ration update soon :)

April 20, 2012

FO Friday - April 20, 2012

As previously hinted, I've been working on a Godzilla bag. And what a bag it is! I made it with a heavy black denim, it's self lined, and has a couple of nifty pockets, one on the back (with velcro closures) and another on the inside, with a zipper closure. AND, I made an adjustable strap for the first time ever!!! I'm pretty proud of myself right about now. So, enough with the chatter, I'll just show you the pics :)




What do you think?

April 14, 2012

Tea with Sally

I had a very rough week. It was one of those weeks where everything that could go wrong, did. So I was feeling pretty down in the dumps. When I came home on Friday and checked the mail, I found a wonderful surprise waiting for me! I received a package from the lovely Sally, containing some Earl Grey Supreme, the cutest tea strainer I've ever seen, and a short note. It was exactly what I needed to perk me up :)

How did you know that Earl Grey is my favourite?


So, Sally, cheers to you on all of your amazing achievements as well! You are a very inspiring woman! And thank you so much for the warm hug from afar :)

April 13, 2012

FO Friday - April 13, 2012

I've done it! I've finally finished Mr. Social's Diamond Gansey socks! He seems pretty pleased with them, as he actually commented on the design of them and pet them for a bit before he put them on for the finished photos.



I have a feeling that I'll be knitting these again in other colours for him before long.

April 11, 2012

More Nerdy Nail Polish

This week I'm sporting another of the fabulous nail polishes I got from Nerd Lacquer. This time around I opted for a Firefly inspired colour, and painted my nails with "Gorramit". I'm not usually partial to yellow, but somehow this feels fitting for the time of year, being spring and all.

I absolutely LOVE the red glitter in this one!

April 10, 2012

Sewing for Mr. Social - An Introduction

Meet Mr. Social.

He's a grumpy old man, witty, a "dirty-tree-hugging-hippie" (his words, not mine), a lover of all things beer, "dashing and devilishly handsome" (also his words), and an all around nice guy. He's also pretty set in his ways when it comes to how he dresses.


Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the way Mr. Social dresses. He dresses for comfort, as well as ease of wear and care. And he wears green. A lot. I'd hazard a guess that about 80% of his clothing is green.

When I met Mr. Social, he had these crazy shorts that seemed to be his favourite (he wore them quite a bit in the nice weather months), that I had a lot of objections to. They were awkwardly short (they hit about 2" above his knee, so that when he sat down they turned into short-shorts), and GASP, had front pleats. Basically, they were old man shorts. (I may call him an old man all the time, but he's far from it)

One day, tired of frequently having to face this crime against fashion, I volunteered to make Mr. Social a new pair of shorts, on the condition that if he liked them, he'd get rid of those hideous shorts of his. Much to my delight he agreed! And guess what? I succeeded in making him his new favourite pair of shorts, and we banished the old ones to the rag bin (I would not allow him to inflict them on anyone else by sending them to Goodwill... that would have been a fashion crime of Chernobyl proportions).



Of course, all good things must come to an end. Those shorts have become "in the house only" shorts due to a cooking incident one night that involved the spilling of oil and permanent staining. Sad face.

Now that warm weather is upon us, it's time to whip up a few pairs of replacement shorts for him. I've already started work on the first pair, and will post about them as soon as they're finished and photographed.

April 9, 2012

Another crazy week ahead

Last week was busy! I got 2 bags finished, spun a yarn, almost finished a pair of shorts for Mr. Social (they just need to be hemmed), almost finished knitting some socks (also for Mr. Social) and a whole bunch more! Phew! I showed off a couple things in Friday's post, but here's another finished bag and a sneak peak at the next one ;)


So, am I on track? Let's see...


Plans for April:
1) Finish Diamond Gansey socks for Mr. Social  - Almost done!!
2) Sew a bunch of bags - 2 done, 3rd almost complete
3) Make the skully dress
4) Pick another pair of socks to knit for Mr. Social - pattern picked, yarn wound and ready to go
5) Make shorts for Mr. Social - Almost done!
6) Spin a bunch of things - 1 complete (so far)
7) PROJECT ANDI - Go to the gym at least 3 times a week. - On track


Not too shabby a start to the month, if I may say so myself.

What's planned for this week? Well, I'll be finishing the Godzilla bag shown above, the Diamond Gansey socks and a baby sweater. I will also be blocking 2 projects that were finished a few weeks ago, and cutting out 2 more bags. If all goes well, I'll have the bags finished next weekend. Social life? Maybe not this week...


April 6, 2012

FO Friday - April 6, 2012

This week wasn't as productive as I'd like, mainly due to the fact that Trudy (my sewing machine) was giving me some attitude for a couple days. But she and I have ironed out our differences and she's working just as she should now.

First up, fresh off the wheel is a yarn I spun for a super secret swap partner. The fibre goddess over at Nerd Girl Yarns dreamed up the colourway "Toads Die" based on the series Grimm, and I just couldn't resist the brightness of it!

Photo borrowed from Nerd Girl Yarns

I spun this as "Art Yarn Lite", as the people involved in the swap seem to be wary of art yarns, having never used them before. This was spun thick and thin (mostly with the thick parts in the red, but I did add some in the green as well) and plied up to get super fat chunks throughout the yarn. I'll have to think of a pattern to send along with the yarn, so my swapette gets an idea of what to do with it. I hope she likes it!




On the sewing front, I finished up one of the bags I was working on, and it's now on its way to Australia. I'm really excited that something I made will be used and worn there, I haven't even had the chance to travel Down Under myself yet! I didn't take a lot of pics before I packed it up, but I did get these:



Have a great weekend everyone!

April 4, 2012

WIP Wednesday - April 4, 2012

I've got a few things on the go right now, some knitting, and finally, some sewing! I'm so happy to be back at the sewing machine again! So this week's WIP Wednesday will be a little different. I'll be showing off not one, but three WIPs! YOU'RE WELCOME

First up, the knitting. I have yet another sweater for a teacup human on the needles. I seriously can't get enough of knitting these things! They go so fast!


Next up, I've been working on two sewing projects at once. While they are very similar, they do have differences in the details. As I'm sewing them at the same time, sometimes there's some forgetfulness on my part regarding the differences between the two, so there's been some ripping out and re-sewing the last few days. But all in all, things are moving along nicely.


One of these geeky items will be off to live in Australia! HOW COOL IS THAT???

Don't forget to check out Tami's Amis to see what everyone else is up to :)

April 2, 2012

Plans for April and Weekly Update

I think I may be back in the groove again. I've managed to finish a bunch of stuff and am inspired to work on so much more! Here's a couple of the yarns I spun up recently. All my knitting still needs to be blocked, so no pics yet.


Plans for April:
1) Finish Diamond Gansey socks for Mr. Social (that's right, still not finished)
2) Sew a bunch of bags
3) Make the skully dress
4) Pick another pair of socks to knit for Mr. Social
5) Make shorts for Mr. Social
6) Spin a bunch of things
7) PROJECT ANDI - Go to the gym at least 3 times a week. YOU CAN DO THIS!

That list seems simple enough. Let's see if I can get through it and not get sidetracked by SHINY NEW PROJECTS!

Here's a super fun music video for your amusement