Adventures in Sewing Machines
My parents are good, kind individuals. They got me a sewing machine for Christmas. I picked out the
Brother Ex-660... and by picked out, I mean bought the only sewing machine Costco had.
Y'all, Costco is a genius store. This sewing machine is awesome. Mainly, it's computerized. No foot petal! Just hit a button and it goes! Adjust speed using a slidy thing! This is the best thing ever!
So, I broke my shiny! new! plaything! out of its packaging and got to work. First up was an old pair of jeans that I turned into a skirt using
this pattern. See?
I was originally going to hem the bottom, but now I'm not sure... I kinda like the rough edge. Thoughts?
I was also working on a cute print skirt. I'd cut it out, sewed everything, tried it on and realized that I was ready to start dealing with interfacing things. But first I had to cut open and press the darts and then press the side seams.
Yeah. I thought I was snipping the dart. Guess not. I'd pulled out the iron and the ironing board and everythingn (a rare occasion, let me tell you). There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I figured I'd just do the interfacing, then I realized I was missing the 1/4" seam allowance and didn't actually own
press cloth. So, yeah. I put everything away and took out the cookie dough.
Mmm... cookie dough.
Jaywalking...
So, on New Year's Day, I finished my father's Christmas present:
Y'all, it was the first time I have ever,
EVER gotten a knitted gift in late (excluding never ending afghans). But I realized around 11pm on Christmas eve, I would have to bite the bullet and wrap my one and a half socks and mention that it was a "gift in progress." Luckily, I have a very sweet, tolerant father who's willing to put up with such shenanigans for socks. I managed to finish the socks about 6 hours before I left California for the wilds of Washington DC and left them blocking in my room.
So, yes,
Jaywalkers. Quite a nice pattern, though the calves ended up being ridiculously tight, probably because I'm a tight knitter. Because I am not an insane person, I scaled down the socks to 68 stitches on size 3 needles (size 1s? Are you kidding? I'm sorry, I don't knit with toothpicks), which worked just fine. I used
Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Amish, a gift from
an old Secret Pal exchange. Oh yes, I de-stashed a bit. Anyway, the colors aren't to my taste, but my dad claims to love them and wears them to keep his footsies warm at night.
Next on stitch-witch... I got myself a sewing machine! Woo! Go crazynuts!
I... buh... wah?
So, when did
knitting.about.com reorganize and why did no one tell me? More importantly, why did it lose so many patterns? Now, I can understand losing yet another shapeless sweater that was unflattering and listed in 5 other places, but the
Mistake Rib socks that I so enjoyed and looked to revisit? Or how about my
never-ending afghan pattern? People, I never print these things out because it's on the internet! It's ALWAYS THERE. So now I have one year old, extremely battered print out to work with. Luckily, I'm just down to borders at this point, but the borders NEVER END.
