Top Fives of 2012, Resewlutions for 2013

It took me long enough to get this together, but I'll blame the going-back-to-school doldrums. Last year, I did a wrap up of everything I'd sewn in 2011, but the thought of doing so for 2012 is way too overwhelming. Summary lists sound doable, an image map not so much. Many thanks to Gillian for the idea of making a top fives list instead!

Top Five Creations:

1. I think #1 has to be my dolman sleeve top pattern: the first time I've had a multi-size pattern that other people found useful! And of course, I've made up multiple versions myself, all of which get worn regularly. 
2. My not-a-Renfrew tee pattern: it's been the basis of so many tops and dresses, it's ridiculous.  
3. For most-worn me-made item that's not a top, my bias-cut Spiderman dress wins. It's comfortable, it's geeky, it's fairly subtle as superhero dresses go, and it fits nicely under my favorite cardigan. I also love my Roaring Twenties dress, which is made from the same pattern, but that one is less versatile because it doesn't go with any of my shoes or cardigans. 
4. My one and only pair of me-made pants: that one make gave me so much confidence, but for some reason I haven't tackled pants again. Time to remedy that in 2013!
5. I resolved to make outerwear in 2012, and I finally squeezed it in near the end of the year with my fleece toggle jacket. Like pants, a jacket is one of those things where I didn't know if I'd be able to pull it off in a more-or-less professional-looking manner; I was horribly afraid that it would turn out like a bad home-ec project, but I totally love my jacket and wear it all the time!
6. Okay, I know I was only supposed to choose five, but can I give a shout out to my two complete costumes of 2012? I love my steampunk outfit and hobbit maid outfit and am so proud of myself for making complete ensembles. 
7. It's only the first list, and I'm already breaking the rules -- I want to give a grand prize to my Girl on Fire dress, which was featured in a stylized photo shoot and for which I won a costume contest. Is it silly to give a grand prize to myself?

Top Five Sewing Fails:

1. The springy sheath: at least it died a good death, as it contributed to my hobbit maid costume!
2. The too-successful Peggy dress: still lingering in the closet, unworn. I suppose I should cut off the skirt and make something else out of it, but I just feel so meh about it. I guess I should just admit I'll never get around to it and donate it...
3. This green top: never worn, too ugly to even donate, just ick. At least I spent relatively little time on it and the fabric didn't cost me anything?
4. This 1930s top: unflattering, and I spent quite a bit of time on it and it seems a pity that I used up a fabric I liked on a top that doesn't get worn. 
5. Unfortunately, once I was really honest with myself, this giraffe dress had to be included. There was just too much fabric being gathered into too little elastic, and the heavy polyester made it unsuitable for hot weather. It was well-made enough that I didn't feel bad about donating it, though, so at least it's not taking up space in my closet!

Thankfully, none of my costuming pieces ended up as fails!

Top Five Lessons Learned:

1. Choose the right fabric for the right project: Four of my five fails were due to poor fabric choice, and most of my just middling makes are classified as such due to fabric choice. They still get worn, but they could've been better. Although sewing with bed sheets is a noble endeavour, I think I need to be real with myself and admit that there are some projects where I need to use "real" fabric. 
2. Knit dresses have a much better chance of being worn. Even though I love my fitted bodice woven dresses, it's hard to beat the comfort of stretchy fabrics. 
3. Even though dresses are supposedly complete outfits, they're still unlikely to be worn if they don't go with any of my cardigans. I get cold too easily for sleeveless dresses to be standalone items. With that said, I need to either invest in cropped cardigans, or make less full-skirted dresses, since they look pretty silly with cardigans that end at the hip. 
4. Let's get real here -- I don't wear cotton sundresses in the winter. If I want to be able to wear me-made when it's cold, I need to spend more sewing time on pants and outerwear. 
5. Making costumes is one of the most gratifying uses of my sewing time, even if they only get one outing. When I consider the amount of pure pleasure produced from a finished garment, it's the costumes that have the highest yield. I used to feel guilty about spending time on impractical things, but thanks to Stephanie's insightful spin on costume sewing, I feel much better about this. 

Top Five Blogs/Bloggers That Inspire (in no particular order):

1. Tanit-Isis Sews: She was the second blog I ever followed, and it's largely thanks to her that I started my own blog! Taran always has such helpful things to say, and honestly, it's her writing about her daughters that makes me feel like having a SHB isn't the world's worst thing. Also, she remains the only sewing blogger friend that I've dreamt about. Is that creepy or what?
2. Four Square Walls: I'll keep it simple...everything Andrea makes, I want to steal from her. I can't even count the number of times I've said something along the lines of "I never used to like ____, but now that I've seen your version I'm rethinking everything." I probably sound like a broken record to her!
3. The Dreamstress: Leimomi makes me feel like I might actually be able to tackle historical costuming, but she also inspires me not to compromise on accuracy. Of course, nothing I've done so far has been remotely accurate, but she makes me feel like I at least want to try!
4. My Happy Sewing Place: Debi was the one who made me feel like the sewing community really was a community, a place where one could make virtual friends that would encourage and support one another. It doesn't hurt, either, that she's a huge Tolkien fan too!
5. EPBOT: Jen of CakeWrecks fame writes another blog about girliness, geekiness, and goofing off, which are some of my favorite things. She blogs honestly about being a geek girl, books, steampunk, craftiness, etc. Not sewing-related, but still excellent stuff! She's a crusader for the acceptance of geek girls, and she inspires me to reach out to my nerdy students. 

Top Five Goals for the New Year:

1. Not buy new fabric or patterns at least until we move. Meg the Grand's resolution reminds me of how much stash I need to bust, and if I don't want Mr. Cation to be totally exasperated when we move, I need to get cracking. My exceptions: necessary notions in order to complete a project (buttons, zippers, elastic, etc.), and something for a Regency gown. I've got a Jane Austen ball to go to at the end of January, but I legitimately have nothing suitable in my stash. 
2. Make pants! Specifically, at least one pair of jeans, one pair of work trousers, and one other pair. 
3. Participate in the Historical Sew Fortnightly. I've got plenty of modern clothes, minus the pants situation, so I can concentrate of costuming. Besides a Regency gown, I've got dreams of more Downton-esque outfits, something for the Gatsby picnic, a chintz 18th century gown, a Victorian bustle dress, and something appropriate for Dickens Fair. 
4. Sew for Mr. Cation. I want to perfect a button-up shirt pattern, and maybe tackle pants for him? MakeMyPattern has what looks like a good starting place for that. 
5. Continue not buying RTW. I did really well on that in 2012, only buying one pair of pants, one cardigan, one long-sleeved shirt, and two pairs of tights: five pieces, which was my allotment for the year! I'm going to stick with a five RTW piece quota, since that seems to be a reasonable compromise. I don't think I could go with none at all, to be perfectly frank. Maybe that's blasphemy for the hardcore sewists out there, but I guess I'm just not that hardcore!

I actually did decently with my 2012 resolutions. Even though I didn't make the historical costume or bias cut dress I originally had in mind, I think I got close enough to the spirit of the resolutions. And while I didn't clean out my fabric stash, I made a good faith effort on my knit fabric stash!

To wrap up this post, I'll close out with a couple of pictures of my first sewing project for 2013: Squidnetto, made out of the fabric remnants leftover from making Squidney. Squidnetto is only a yard long (as opposed to four yards!) and is a gift for Squidney's owner's girlfriend.

Squidnetto's got the normal stuffed animals eyes and unstuffed tentacles. After the difficulty of trying to turn such narrow tubes, there was no way I was going to try squeezing in stuffing too! The rest of him was much easier to sew, though, since I wasn't trying to wrangle so much fabric. Even though he was only here for a short time, he made good friends out of the cat sprites, and they were sad to see him go. 

Thank you to all of you who had such nice things to say about Squidney...and here I was wondering if I should even bother posting all of his posed photos! 

The Many Adventures of Squidney

I'm starting out 2013 by posting possibly the most epic thing I've ever made, even though it was technically made in 2012. Congratulations to everyone who guessed that I was making a squid!

Everyone, meet Squidney!

A friend of my brother's posted on Facebook that he was looking for someone to make him a giant squid body pillow, similar to this one by Cassandra Nguyen. Hers was priced at $1800, which is pretty extreme. Since he's a friend and also a professional photographer, I agreed to make him a squid in exchange for a portrait session, which I'll probably end up claiming once we move back up to the Bay Area for good. While we made this deal back in October, I wasn't able to work on Squidney until now, since transporting such a large creature from LA wasn't really a viable option.

He barely fit into the backseat as it was. 

Summary:
Fabric: Four yards of 60" red non-pilling fleece, 2 yards of 45" spotted flannel, scraps of white and black fleece, all from Joann's
Notions: Is poly-fiber fill really a notion? If so, I used almost twelve pounds of it.
Techniques: For such an impressively large project, it really required nothing more than basic sewing skills...most of it was straight lines on my machine (even if things got really unwieldy once the tentacles were stuffed and attached); the only hand-sewing involved was the eyes and closing up the underside once all the stuffing was in. Stuffing the tentacles was actually the hardest part, but a long wooden dowel helps a lot. While I ended up free-handing the pattern pieces while cutting, I did find this tutorial helpful for visualizing things. My final squid is obviously a lot bigger than hers, though.
Hours: About twenty, all done over this last weekend.
Will you make it again? Unlikely! At least not at this size. Unless, of course, someone else wants to pay me to make one.
Total cost: Less than $60...$20 for the fleece, $10 for the flannel, $25 for stuffing, plus thread...not bad, considering the size of it!
Final thoughts: This was my very first commission that wasn't for Elaine, so I was actually pretty nervous making Squidney, especially since he turned out bigger than expected! When I finished him, my whole family came downstairs for the grand reveal, and I think everyone was pretty floored by how incredibly large he is. My dad said that Squidney belongs in a museum, and Emily wanted to keep him, but I'm just glad that his new owner loves him. I'm also so grateful for getting the chance to make a giant squid...it's one of those things you never think to do, but it's incredibly gratifying to finish such an immense project. It also definitely made for a memorable end to 2012, sewing-wise!

Emily suggested that this photo be titled "A Farewell to Arms."

Before we let Squidney go, Emily and I did a series of ridiculous squid tableaux for our own entertainment, because how often does one have a giant squid around for photo ops?

Squidney started life as a studious young squid, always reading and taking advantage of his multiple arms for maximum technology usage. He realized, though, that it was important to exercise his body as well as his mind. 

He graduated and moved out on his own, much to his parents' dismay. Unfortunately, the bad economy meant that he had to try to make a living busking on the street.

Eventually, things picked up and he was able to pick up a series of odd jobs. Squidney tried his hand at being a sushi chef, a snake wrangler, and a cowboy (cowsquid?).

Eventually, Squidney matured (as evidenced by his mustache) and discovered his true calling: evil mastermind (as evidenced by the eyepatch and several creepy black pets)! This finally brought in enough money that he was able to go shopping to his heart's content. 

Okay, so that's a story with a dubious moral, but boy was it fun coming up with props to pose Squidney with!

Bye, Squidney! It was lovely having you, and I hope you enjoy your new life!

I still intend to do a proper 2012 wrap-up, but I figured I needed to show off my last project of the year first. Happy new year, everyone!

A Quick Update!

The cone of shame. The shaved belly of shame. Sigh.

He just climbed into my lap and started hugging my thigh.
Also, now you know what my pajamas look like. 

Thank you all so much for your kind words for Walnut! I'm busy with an end of the year commission, but I wanted to take a quick moment to tell you all how grateful I am that he has so many well-wishers all over the world. The surgery went smoothly and Walnut was grouchy and klutzy post-anesthesia, but quickly returned to his affectionate self; in fact, he's been more affectionate and snuggly than ever.

He'll get his stitches out in a week, but in the meantime he either has to wear a cone to stop him from licking the incision site, or we have to supervise him constantly. Maybe we're weak-willed cat parents, but it makes us so sad to see him crashing into everything and struggling to eat with the cone on, so I've been doing lots of cat watching instead of sewing, blogging, or grading papers. Well, there's been a little bit of sewing...here's a preview:

Have Yourself a Mordor Little Christmas?

I really didn't intend for there to be any more Tolkien-related posts this year, but when the creative juices flow, well, you just have to run with it, right? Last year, Emily and I "built" a pathetic little Christmas tree; this year we decided to dream big and build Barad-dur. We used a few boxes from Costco, an IKEA Rutbo lamp, several yards of black butcher paper, and quite a bit of tape. As with most of our crafts, my mom was dubious when we began, but conceded that the final product wasn't half bad. I'll let you judge our work for yourselves, geeky readers:

Left: before decoration. Right: all decked out with tinsel, lights, ornaments, and presents!

We did our family Christmas pictures by the "tree," the way you're supposed to.

We couldn't get a picture where Walnut looked normal. 

And just to top it off, Emily and I made a crango (cranberry-mango) cheesecake for Christmas dessert:

With the help of some judiciously placed mini chocolate chips...

Yup, that's just the way we roll. It was quite tasty and I'm sure I could spin it somehow to say Christmas is about the triumph of light over dark (we destroyed the eye of Sauron by eating it!), but I'll just leave it at this: I hope you all were able to eat good food and enjoy being creative, and that you had as lovely a time with your dear ones as I did. Oh, and totally independently of our dessert choice:

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned...For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever." 

Isaiah 9:2, 6-7

I actually intended to post this before Christmas, not after, but Walnut had other ideas. Our darling fur baby decided that Christmas Eve was a good time to start peeing blood; a panicked trip to the vet revealed that he has a couple of bladder stones. He's going to have surgery to remove them tomorrow, so if you think of him he could use your prayers and good wishes for a smooth procedure and quick recovery!

Poor guy has no idea what's coming to him. 

Christmas Cat Sweater Finale

And now, to close out Put A Cat on It! week, is there anything that screams winter holidays! more than a red sweater with black velvet accents?

I originally wanted to have each of my cat pieces this week utilize a different technique (I've used fusible web applique with machine stitching, fabric marker, and applique with hand-stitching), but I couldn't keep it up. In the end, machine-stitching an applique is just so much easier and faster, especially when a shape is this large and simple. Stitching the tiny cat applique was tricky because of all the tiny points of "fur" on the silhouette, but this cartoonish cat shape was a breeze to do.

I traced this shape onto 1/3 yard of black velour, then pinned it to the front and stitched around the edge with the machine. I didn't want to fuse the whole thing since I was afraid it would ruin the lovely soft drape of the sweater, so it's slightly saggy in the middle. If you want to make your own large cat sweater, download the file here!

This sweater is another one of my mom's cast-offs; it's a lovely soft cashmere that unfortunately had a large stain on the front and a couple of moth holes on the cuffs. I did my best to patch up the holes and covered up the stain with a black velour cat. I also found the original turtleneck to be chokingly tight, so I cut off that ribbed portion, folded over the edge, and stitched it down. I love it when sweaters show just a little bit of collarbone, even if it's impractical for winter weather. Also, to add just a little bit more Christmas feel (because black velvet bow = festive?), I added a back cutout and a ribbon.

Unfortunately, I fail at tying the ribbon such that the velvet side stays facing out.

Close-up of my dubious ribbon attachment. I cut a slit down the back after hemming the neckline. After I attached the ribbon, I cut out the rest of the keyhole and turned and stitched that down. My original inspiration for the back cutout and ribbon came from this pin. 

When I modeled the finished sweater for my brother, he looked dubious and pronounced that well, it wasn't actually that ugly. I think he thought that it was meant to be an Ugly Christmas Sweater that failed at being ugly, and not a Wearing It Seriously In Real Life Christmas Sweater. Ah well. Boys.

I actually considered sewing on a little gold bell onto the cat, but decided that would be overkill. 

Well, I hope you all enjoyed seeing so many cats on things! I've had tons of fun trying to think of different ways to put cats on my clothes; I've been limited not by ideas, but by how many plain tops that I could find for cattifying. Thanks for all the lovely comments you've left affirming your love of cat fashion and cats in general! Walnut appreciates the love. Kind of. I mean, as much as cats can really appreciate that kind of thing.

Walnut really, really, really did not appreciate being woken up from his nap to take pictures. I mean, look at his face!

Come on, Walnut, Christmas is the time for peace and goodwill! 

How about leaving me to nap in peace, you be-cat-sweatered freak?

Look at how much hair he left on my black cat. 

*shrugs* Life with cats...what can you say? 

3D Cat Eyes Sweater

This slightly creepy, but also all-kinds-of-cool cat sweater by Pretty Snake has been sitting in my Pinterest inspiration folder for ages, and I finally got around to making my own, slightly more subdued version of it. This sweater was in my mom's donation pile, and I'm pretty sure it's right out of the eighties; it's all oversized and shapeless and had the most awkward sleeve cap/armscye combination ever, but it's also wool and quite warm. I figured it was a pretty good blank slate for a refashion, as it pretty much involved no cost to me. I already had a scrap of black jersey, plus some nice green cat eyes from my shopping excursion with Debi, so I quickly sketched out and cut up a cat face and got to stitching. I used a hand applique stitch that made the edges of the jersey scrap all puckery, which actually helped to make it look more irregular and fur-like.

Before: large, nondescript, and shapeless with an odd, pulling shoulder/armscye/sleeve. After: fitted, unique sweater with an odd, staring cat face. I'm pretty sure that's miles better. 

You can see here how my stitches made the edges all puckery and irregular. And in case you wanted to see what it looked like on the wrong side, there you go -- I used wire cutters to cut off some of the peg on the back of the eyes, then sanded down the edges with a nail file. I had to arrange the cat so that the eye pegs would jut into the gap caused by my insignificant cleavage. Also, the label was in Russian, strangely enough. Elaine translated it for me and said it appears to be wool tricot. 

Should you want to make your own, you can download this drawing and stitching diagram here.

I'm pretty excited about this sweater, as it's just bizarre enough to suit me without being too over the top. Plus, that cat's wide eyes totally remind me of Walnut's. Unfortunately, he was in no mood for a photo shoot, so we had to settle for the other family cats.

I love how the cat on my sweater just looks like it's shocked to see Fenxi. Incidentally, for those of you who were wondering, Fenxi's not an outdoor cat, but he does love going outside whenever the door is open and he can sneak out. This has led to some panic attacks, but thankfully he's never wandered far, nor has he ever been unaccounted for for more than 24 hours. He's microchipped, too, so that's also helpful for our peace of mind.  

Gummy was camped out in his usual spot on top of the kitchen cabinets, so we tried to get him in the pictures too. Fenxi did not want to share the spotlight, even though my sister tried to force him into the picture. 

Speaking of family cats, did I mention that we're back in the city for the next couple of weeks? Any Bay Area sewasauruses want to hang out? Or is it too scary to meet up with somebody who will wear their crazy cat lady status on their sleeve? Errr, chest?

I promise I'm not an axe murderer!

Cat Face Sweatshirt

I came across this sweatshirt on Pinterest a while ago and pinned it, thinking it would be pretty easy to replicate with a fabric marker. I was on the lookout for a decent sweatshirt while thrifting, but just couldn't find one that I liked. When I was doing laundry the other day, though, I realized that I already had a sweatshirt I could use! I made this seafoam-colored sweatshirt when I was testing out my Dolman Sleeve Top, but don't wear it much because let's face it, it's just a plain sweatshirt (albeit in a great color). Perfect candidate for Put a Cat on It!

I didn't want mine to be a carbon copy of the Opening Ceremony cat face, so I pulled up a picture of Walnut and sketched a line drawing of his most prominent features: his eyes, nose, disapproving mouth, whiskers, and eyebrowskers (if that last one isn't a real word, it really should be. I'm going to enter it into my Microsoft Word dictionary so that it doesn't get red squiggly lines under it anymore, and then it will be official). I re-drew the face onto a piece of tissue paper, then used a pin to prick tiny holes all along the lines. This way, when I drew over the lines with the fabric marker, they would leave a faint connect-the-dot map on the fabric so that I would know where to color.

Drawn on a scrap of tissue paper, then taped to the sweatshirt (don't forget to insert a piece of cardboard inside the sweatshirt to keep the ink from seeping through to the back side!) and pricked with a pin. Oops, my pinhead is the same sea-foam color as the sweatshirt!

Trace over the lines with fabric marker several times so that it bleeds through. 

When you remove the tissue paper, there should be a faint line to trace. I kept my tissue paper taped down until I was sure that I could see all the lines. 

The finished sweatshirt! I used a Tee Juice Fine Point Fabric Art Marker, purchased at Staples; both this and my previous project involving this marker held up just fine in the wash, no fading or anything!

After I heat-set the the drawing, I tried on the sweatshirt and couldn't stop grinning at how silly Walnut's facial expression looks! I know they say cats don't really do facial expressions (almost all of the faces look the same!), but I'm pretty sure my guy is communicating at least as much disapproval as a rabbit.

If you want to make your own Walnut face sweatshirt, either the lazy way (with a fabric marker) or the real way (with embroidery thread), you can download the line drawing here.