Pincushion Dolls and Living History Garb

This Victorian kick has been a lot of fun.  Besides contra dancing, Leon has a high-wheeled bicycle, called a penny-farthing, that we like to take to living history events. Recently we have started adding hand-crank sewing machine demonstrations to our living history endeavors. Some folks may focus on Renaissance period, or Civil War or Colonial or Mountain Man. We are finding ourselves happy with the Gay 90s.

I have a black and white gingham prairie outfit that works when Leon wears his cowboy hat and stresses our farm roots. Recently I have finished an 1890s walking skirt and mutton-chop sleeve blouse that suits the penny-farthing better. It was for this I made the Victorian corset. I have patterns for more garb, such as a Gay 90s split bicycle skirt.

Honestly, I don't know if I enjoy doing the stuff as much as I enjoy making the garb!

But all this sewing reminded me of the pincushion my Mom had when I was a girl. It had a china half-doll sitting in a pincushion that formed her skirt. That pincushion fascinated me. (After the doll broke, it was never the same. [sigh]). So... you can find anything on the Internet, can't you?

I found several inexpensive ceramic half-doll bodies on Etsy. I ordered a few and have been making dolls. I have already planned who will get one, but gee! Which will I keep for myself? As it turned out I gave them all away and ordered a fifth half-doll that will be my pincushion. She is a French court doll rather like the pink and blue one with all the lace. Hm... What fabric should I use for her skirt?  I wonder. Could a skirt be knitted?


Two of these dolls are technically sewing baskets rather than pincushion dolls because their skirts have extra pockets and loops to hold notions. I made them from a Simplicity pattern that I have had for years. (Simplicity 7105) Sure glad I kept that pattern. It is no longer in print.

Corset Making Class

My girls, Jennifer and Lala and I have had a great weekend learning to make Victorian corsets from Marti McCartney. Each of us has a different reason for wanting a corset. Jen has always got a sore back. I am doing more and more re-enacting and need the right foundation for my garb. Lala is a beginning seamstress. Each new technique she learns adds to her skill.

I started with the hand crank Singer 99K. I thought it would be a hoot to say I made my Victorian corset on a Victorian machine (1919 or so, but hey, that was very late Victorian, right?)  I didn't use it very long before granddaughter Lala took it away from me. She didn't like the speed the electric machine had. She wanted the control she could get with the hand crank.  It wasn't nearly as intimidating to a beginning seamstress. Who am I to complain? She sat quietly in her corner, cranking away and like the turtle and the hare, she plodded along and got more done manually than her Mom did with an electric machine.

 In Jen's defense, she is making the most complex corset. We started this class knowing that Jen was about to have gastric bypass surgery. How could she create a corset that would shrink with her?  Marti pondered and decided that Jen needed a maternity corset that she could tighten as she got smaller. Inventing this has been a challenge for Marti. She says teaching the three of us has been the longest class, the most fun class, and the most challenging class she has ever taught. (We are taking more time to get it done because we chatter, laugh, sing, and tell stories, but we are always sewing, too.)

 I got a head start on my corset because Marti had a partially finished one that someone had commissioned but was not able to finish. It fit me, so I picked up in the middle and went from there. Here I am at a fitting. Look at that. I am getting a waist!
 I really like the embroidery embellishment that was put on at the end. Some of it is functional. There must be stitching over each stay to keep it flat. Now that stitching can be plain and white, or a lady can get fancy with her needle. Marti showed me some decorations in one of her books. I copied some onto my corset and then started playing. The "ribbons" on the cups are actually satin stitching.
Now all I have to do is adapt my Victorian garb to work with the new foundation wear. Who knows, I might corset under the Renaissance Faire garb, too.

Why do I Blog Less?

You would think that now that I'm retired, I'd be blogging left, right and sideways. Instead, the blogging has dried to barely a trickle.  I've been pondering this. Why? What is different?

Well, EVERYTHING is different. My life doesn't have the routines that it had when I was working. There is very little sitting down after supper and surfing the Net. Now I have Internet on the cell phone; on the tablet; on the laptop. I can check e-mail everywhere. Anywhere. Because it is so easy, I use the laptop less and zip in and out on the Android things.

If I am not on the laptop, there is no inclination to pop open the blog and post an entry. For the blog I want a REAL keyboard. And time. And access to my photos.

The real culprit, however, is that big time waster: Facebook. If you drop a sentence to your friends that you spent the day in the garden, it has been said. The Inner Writer has expressed herself. Why sit down and compose a few paragraphs on the topic?

Now that I know this, I hope I will skip Facebook and post more often. There are interesting things going on around the Old Home Place. I should record them.

Grrr...Where did the Photos Go?

It appears that about 90% of my blog photos have gone MIA. I deleted my Picasa account because I was tired of every stupid thing I might snap with my phone camera (the steering wheel and one foot; that poster I was going to remember to tell my daughter about; the one where my finger was over the lens, EVERYTHING!) was being posted to Picasa. This was in spite of me turning off all of automatic settings I could find. I had visions of all sorts of things I didn't want to see the light of day winging through the ether for Tom, Dick, and Harry to enjoy. So, I deleted my Picasa account. All of it.

What I did not realize was that my blog photos lived in Picasa. Now they too are gone forever.

Not exactly forever. Most of those files are stored elsewhere on my computer or a CD archive disc. Slowly I am reconstructing the evidence. This will not be an overnight restore because I have multiple blogs and some of them have many, many posts. (There is a reason this knitting blog has had over 9000 views-- so far.)

In the meantime, dear reader, please accept my apologies.

So Who Cares About Gauge?

You have a new yarn. You have a pattern. You are hot to get started on the project, but the first thing the instructions bore you with is a discussion of GAUGE. Arrgh. Do we have to mess with this stuff? 

Yes. Gauge is probably the most important part of knitting or crochet, just as ease is important when you are sewing fabric. If you create a dress using woven cotton fabric using a pattern designed for a stretchy knit, it will fit your full, curvy figure like something intended for a prepubescent male. If you don't test the gauge of your knitting, your finished product won't be the size you want either.  

Check out the three pairs of socks shown in the first picture. They are all done by the same knitter (me!) using the same basic pattern (64 stitches around, toe-up, two-at-a-time knitting.) The only differences are in decoration. The red pair has a different lace pattern than the yellow and blue striped pair. I haven't gotten to the embellishment for the green pair yet. Still -- they look like they are for Mama Bear, Papa Bear, and Baby Bear. What happened?

Gauge happened. The red socks were knit with a beautiful hand spun, hand dyed yarn that was very fine. The card suggested I use size 2 needles, but I found that size 0 fit the yarn better. It took forever to make these socks, but they fit beautifully. The hand of the yarn is elegant. I enjoy wearing them and enjoy the feel of them on my feet. $25.00 for one skein of sock yarn, ah! but my feet are in heaven!

Moving to the yellow and blue striped socks, I felt like I had been set free. The ball band said that it was Size 1, Superfine yarn and it recommended that I knit with 2.75 mm needles which are the small Size 2 needles. I wanted a tighter knit, so I used 2.50 mm, the larger Size 1 needles. Larger needles, somewhat thicker yarn: the socks will still fit a woman comfortably, but they are less delicate than the dainty red yarn. The upside of this yarn is that it is machine washable and dryable. My friend who is getting them will not have to baby these handmade socks.

Yellow and blue striped socks are done. On to the next pair. Again, the ball band says that this is Size 1, Superfine yarn, but it feels nearly twice as thick as the yellow yarn. Compared with the red yarn, it feels like worsted weight (Size 4). The ball band recommended Size 3 needles. Ugh. Heavy yarn, but huge needles for knitting socks. I opted for 2.75 mm needles which are the small Size 2 needles. I am glad I did.  These socks are HUGE. I had intended to make them for a woman, but will now make them longer and give them to a man. (Ah, the joys of toe-up knitting. You can adapt as you go.)

When you go back to the first picture you can see that a lot of things are going on here. In spite of all of the yarns being "superfine," they are not identical. They require different needle sizes to work with their yarn thicknesses. Because the yarn is of different sizes and the needles are of different sizes, the socks come out different sizes. If I were trying to get all three pairs to be identical to the yellow and blue striped socks, I would need to use larger needles with the red yarn and much smaller needles with the green yarn. The red yarn would come out very open, even lacy, and might not be as comfortable. The green yarn would be extremely tightly knit and would be a dense, warm sock.

Socks are pretty forgiving. As long as you can get them on your feet, and they cover the arch and fit the heel, the rest is okay. Not all patterns are this easy. If you are making a sweater that needs to fit closely around the bust or to drape nicely around the hips the yarn and the stitches need to be where the designer intended them to be in the row where the designer intended them. You will save yourself a lot of heartaches, frogging, and words that would make my late husband the Sailor blush if you create a test swatch in the beginning and determine that your needles will create the fabric you intend to make. If you are concerned that the size needle you need to create the proper gauge doesn't work well with the yarn (as in the red socks), consider using that yarn for a different pattern and find a different yarn for the pattern at hand.

Finally finished!

It's finished! It's finished!

I started making the crocheted version of Lion Brand Flattering Jacket #668 about 1999 or 2000. I worked on it one winter and finished the back and right side. When it came time to do the left side the directions basically said "do the right side in reverse" and I couldn't get my mind wrapped around reversing the shaping of collar and armhole simultaneously. I threw the sweater down, tossed it in a box and sometime later unraveled it and turned it into a blanket for my grandson.

In 2009 I picked up some lovely Montera llama/wool yarn. It was just the color I wanted for this sweater coat, so I tried again. This time I would do the knit version of the pattern, #753.

My first winter's efforts got lost in a closet over a couple of summers. When I brought it back out I had to rippit back to square one and start over. I got the back and both front sections finished last winter. This fall I declared I would get the sweater finished so I could wear it all winter. All my sock knitting paid off! I found an extra long circular needle in the proper size to knit the sleeves and did them two at a time. Yep. The are exactly the same shape and length.

Oh, yes, I still found the instructions less than helpful for the left side of the front, but I started studying it and realized that there is no back or front to the fabric. I could make 2 right sides and just turn one over to become the left side when I sewed the sweater together. That's what I did. No stress. No trauma.  It would have been nice to have had a drawing of how the facings worked around the front and neck of the sweater. The directions essentially said, "Sew it together" and left you to your own devices. My first attempt didn't work at all so I pretty much said, "I don't care what they want, this is the way I think it should go." Everything came out looking like a sweater. I'm happy.

I finished the sweater on November 17, just in time to wear as the days get cooler and the house gets a bit chilly.  However, a year or more of construction time in a house full of cats and dogs meant the yarn was full of hair that never saw a llama. I know it isn't good to machine wash and dry wool. It will shrink and/or felt. On the other hand, as large as this sweater is, I would never get it washed properly by hand. I crossed my fingers, gritted my teeth and put it in the front-load washer on cold wash/gentle cycle and prayed that it wouldn't become a Barbie sweater. When it came out of the washer I placed it on towels on the kitchen table and allowed it to dry for a day before putting it back on Groomhilda, the dressmaker's mannequin, for final shaping.

It did shrink, and it felted a bit, but I'm glad it did. Had it not shrank it would be WAY to large for me. As is, the pockets fall just below my fingertips. The felting makes it warmer, but it is still an attractive sweater. Shaping the 90% dry sweater around Groomhilda allowed me to tug it into my shape.

Now if I could just find that shawl pin I bought a few years ago, I could even pull it shut in front and close it.

For more history on this sweater coat, see Lion Brand Flattering  Knit Jacket, Mom's White Sweater and Hurricane Carla posted May 20, 2009 in this blog.

http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/khs-flatteringJacket.html

Our First Quilt

Lala and Jen cutting the fabric

 Lala's 14th birthday is March 16. Jen found a pattern for a quilt that she knew Lala would love, but the question was how could we make it without Lala knowing it would be hers? (Never mind that none of us had ever made quilt before. We can read, can't we?) Jen acquired a mysterious buyer for a quilt on her Etsy Store. This buyer had a teen-aged daughter who would get the quilt, so, of course, Lala was our expert on what a teen would like.

Lala selected the fabric as well as its layout

Jen had her help select the fabric. When it was cut, Lala (who has a great eye for color) was the one to place the strips before I pieced them for the top. She was also intimately involved in every stage of the quilt making, from the cutting of the fabric to putting the final quilt together. All along, she thought she was helping Mom prepare the quilt for a sale.

A serger is the way to quilt

 My serger was a Godsend for this project. I was the seamstress while Jen engineered the pattern and the cutting. I sat up in my living room and serged like crazy!

This became quite a project.  Even though Jen and Lala live across town with her boyfriend, they spent several overnights here while we had marathon quilting days. We roped the boyfriend into figuring out how to put together the quilting frame that my folks had stashed in the garage loft. None of us had any clue how the thing should look when finished. There were no pictures or boxes, just a bunch of boards with no screws. Neither Jen nor I could help Steve because we were doing our parts of quilt making. He surfed the Internet for photos of quilt frames, scratched his head a lot, and stood to the challenge. I salute you, Steve Barnes! You did a great job reconstructing the quilting frame.

The last week was planned to be leisurely. Put the border around the top, add the applique and tie the quilt as a comforter. Yeah. Right. You know how that goes. Life is what happens after you make other plans. I wasn't available much of the week at all. My car died and was cooling it's wheels in a parking lot in Burlington. I was scrambling to either fix it or replace it. Jen and Lala were on their own with the quilt and Jen had never run my serger.

Lala's friends rescued the day by tying the comforter

It came down to Lala's birthday. The quilt was together, but not tied. Lala's friends came at noon for a birthday party. Jen gathered the girls in a back room and told them our secret and our problem. Abby, Sabrina and Angela were troopers! The girls put a DVD in the player, turned the TV toward the quilting frame and had at it. By the time the movie was over, the comforter was tied. Girls, you rock!

It's mine!

The official birthday supper was at HuHot in Topeka. Sabrina and Angela were able to go with us. You can't believe Lala's face when Jen handed her the quilt! "No, this isn't mine. It's for that chick on Etsy..." was the first thing she said. Her mother had to assure her it was hers and made with love by family and friends. Lala just grabbed it and hugged it.