New beverage holders are in the shop!
The “Sprout” one turned out OK, but it could’ve been better. When there is a shadow, it is hard to read the “Sprout”. I am in total love with the rest of them.
Archive for February, 2009
Think Spring Batch of Coozies
Thursday, February 26th, 2009oscar dress: Vogue 8379
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009Here’s the finished product. I bought the pattern because it looks very much like a Diane Von Furstenburg wrap dress without the $300 price tag.
Looks like I’m going to have to buy one dress and modify this pattern to fit that one. For Vogue 8379, it seems as though the people who write patterns were not aware waistlines dropped to the hip many years ago. Almost all of my clothes have a hip waistline, or I have a few dresses that have a bust waistline (empire waist is the technical term).
I’ll model this dress soon, but I need some work before that. Wearing clothes with a low waistline makes you forget about your lower stomach and how painfully high waist jeans fit and how the addition of a zipper and snap closure to that part of the body adds pounds to your look. There is a sort of laziness that comes from it too. That part of the stomach becomes unencumbered, and even naturally starts sticking out. Wow. I really think I was holding my breath through most of the late 80s/early 90s.
My dress form does not have this problem. She is super busty and holds most of her weight on her hips. She also has purple skin and white hair.
As always click to enlarge!
Again, improvements for this dress include adding 3-4 inches to the torso to get that dropped waistline look, or so at least the tie goes over the part my stomach that sticks out the most. Also, next time, if there is a next time, I’m getting a lighter fusible interfacing. The lining of the wrap feels like cardboard. Finally, this project was my first time double stitching! I’ve heard a serger or overlock machine eliminate that. Some of my seams look AWESOME, some not so much.
Now to what I liked about the dress. The collar and the open cuffs were very simple to make and adds so much more finishing and feel to the dress. The tie closure is really easy to make, better than dealing with buttons or zippers for me at this point.
More pictures soon. Tomorrow: new batch of coozies!
Adam Peterson does Shoptalk at Hendrix
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009Ty and I have only just recovered from Adam’s visit. Everyone who visits us seems to get a different slice of Arkansas, even though we take them to many of the same places to see many of the same people.
I went to go pick up Adam at the airport, only to find out his plane had to return to Memphis. He covers this story much better than I can at his blog, Stock Photography Museum. Ty had to return to Little Rock later that night, because Northwest Airlines made sure Adam got there by bus.
The next day, I took Adam out to the local favorite place to eat, Stoby’s. Our mutual friend Dave told us that it was rated top breakfast in Esquire Magazine. The only magazine accolades we noticed was Best Dessert from Women’s Inc. Magazine.
After eating entirely too much cheese dip, we joined Tyrone at Hendrix for a tour, followed by Adam’s reading and shop talk.
Later that night we attended the Word Garden reading series, where Adam Peterson served as celebrity judge for the creativity quiz. These awesome cupcakes were the prize:
The tops were covered with smashed Oreos as soil, and rolled Starburst candies as carrots, turnips, cabbages and peas.
We finished the photo part of Adam’s trip with a visit to Lake Conway.
Tyrone and I really like having visitors and setting them up on one of our couches, inflatable mattress, or futon. If you come and visit us we will feed you BBQ, 70s beer, and fresh fruit. We especially enjoyed having Adam down because he reminded us of the cool people and things in Arkansas that surround us daily.
I’ve got enough other craft projects going on now that this blog will go back to being crafty tomorrow.
oscar night!
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009Every year, I either go to an Oscar party, or I sew clothing all day while watching the red carpet. This year I finished my dress a little early. Pictures on that tomorrow.
We just had a visitor down for a wild weekend, and we’re only just recovering. My recovery involved breathing in the morning air, seeing the first of the year’s dandelions, and worm hunting. My neighbor said I should take pictures because worm hunting would be the most blog worthy endeavor. I wasn’t going to touch my camera with dirty pictures.
I needed some worms for my compost pile. The coffee grounds don’t convert to soil alone. The pile is on a cement slab, so the pile could not be populated with worms naturally.
We don’t get ABC because of this darned digital cable conversion. I’ll be watching the show with a friend and taking over some projects to work on. She’s pretty crafty so we may have our own episode of Project Runway with drinks going on in front of her television.
promo tyrone mojo
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009Facebook has enabled me to renew links with old friends. Since my husband stays away from online communities, I sometimes have to fill up the space he leaves on the web.
Last week a friend posted a picture of Tyrone, and a bunch of his high school classmates responded. They ask the same things my old friends ask when they meet me, “Where can I read his work?”
Tyrone’s had a lot of short stories published all over the place, but if you are only going to buy one, I suggest buying this one: Tartt’s First Fiction: Volume Three.
I’ve heard him read the story, “Liar’s Lullaby” several times and I believe it is one of his most compelling published works to date. Many of my favorite movies, like Rushmore and Amelie, have little montages and lists that move the story along. When Tyrone first read this piece, I could see the little itemized touches paint a montage in my head while moving the story along.
replayground goes amazon
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009Here’s a fun post to break up all of the writing posts. One of my favorite craft/recycling sites, Replayground, has kits available via amazon.com.
This recycled trivet is the coolest thing they have. All you have to do is drink 8 bottles of wine and keep track of the corks. How hard is that? Everyone is getting one of these for Christmas! Don’t worry relatives, you’ll forget about it by then.
They’ve got a really cool kit that will convert your old magazines into recycled stationery. If you’re more creative, you could just make your own with opaque computer labels, but it probably wouldn’t look as cool as this kit.
My Untimely Death Author Visits Conway
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009Tyrone’s been doing a number of interesting things with creative writing at Hendrix. There was already a healthy slam poetry scene, and that spirit has been grafted off campus to involve a student reading event. The last reading at Somethings Brewing brought in over 70 people. We keep getting to the reading earlier and earlier, and there are always less chairs than before.
The student magazine has just closed submissions, so that moves Hendrix on to the next creative writing event: workshop talks. Tyrone is bringing in our friend Adam Peterson who has written a piece entitled My Untimely Death.
Wow, two short prose book posts in a row. Even though this is mostly a craft blog, I consider writing a book of prose poetry and getting it published a display of extreme craftiness. You should read some of Adam Peterson’s craftiness at La Petitzine.
A Sky That Is Never The Same by S.C. Hahn
Monday, February 16th, 2009We received a really cool book in the mail last week from Sweden. My cousin Steven is a writer out there, and he’s got a new book of prose poems.
Being the wife of a prose poem writer, I know what a prose poem is, but not exactly how to explain it to other people. This can be especially hard for me to explain to people outside of the community of writers. My cousin Steven takes care of this in the opening few prose poems. There is even a shout out to Otoe County! I really enjoyed reading it.
Here are some links to works by S.C. Hahn:
Cortland Review
Stray Dog Press
A Sky That Is Never The Same: Alternate Covers
Little Red Dress: Vogue 8379
Thursday, February 12th, 2009I’m almost finished with a wrap dress from the Vogue 8379 pattern. I used some red jersey, and my double stitching skills pretty much suck.
Vogue sizing has always been a little weird, but it is because their sizes have not been deflated over the years like regular clothing. This also means everything is cut with a high waist. Style-wise, it appears the trends are pushing back to the higher waist, no matter what Jessica Simpson tries to do to remind us it is a bad trend.
If I make another dress, I will definitely add 3-4 inches to the torso length above the ties.
Have a bunch of end trimming to do. I really like hiding ends better with knitting or crochet. Sewing just seems so permanent and I’ve spent too much time ripping seams for this project. I’ve got the hem to sew and that should be about it.
grilling in the dark
Thursday, February 12th, 2009It is warm in Arkansas, downright springlike. Warm weather means grilling weather. The problem with grilling in February is that it is dark by dinnertime.
This past October, the Catskill Mountains experienced a few electricity outages. My in-laws were in the dark and the cold for a week. That influenced their holiday gift giving this year. Tyrone and I received LED headlamps! Sometimes we use them to walk down the unlit, unpaved walking paths of Conway at night. Ty uses his to read outside at night for a few minutes before bed.
This has got to be my favorite use:
Headlamp sneeze!
