Finished Object Friday - 6-24-2011

Well, thanks to a crazy work schedule that had me running all over NYC, I actually have a LOT of FO cause I always get tons done on the train and bus. :) However, I'm also in a hurry, so I'm gonna try to pack a lot in to a short time in this post. Warning in advance, loads of pictures ahoy!

Spinning
This is the only one of these projects I actually finished last week, but I was too busy last Friday to get it up. I finished the spinning for my Nerd Wars dissertation - 600 yards of fingering weight.

Long-ish story short, I'm really happy with out it turned out.


Come on, Let's Pimp My Ride!
I guess I should note that all of but one of this weeks FO is for Nerd Wars. :) Anyway, my team decided to do a team unity project, the theme of which was "Pimp My Ride!" This made sense since our team is actually named after a car (Impala). For my car, I decided to make a steering wheel cover and a set of fuzzy dice.


I was pretty happy with how it turned out, but after the road trip I took on Wednesday night (9 hours of driving) I've seen a few deficiencies and will have to secure the cover to the wheel a bit better when I get home. :)

I decided to embroider the sides of the fuzzy dice with various symbols of importance in the Supernatural world. Specifically, one is covered with anti-angel symbols and the other with anti-demon symbols.

I'm very happy with how they turned out.

I thought that the fuzzy dice would be really distracting when I drive, to the extent that I might have to take them down, but as it turned out I hardly noticed them at all (though they were slightly problematic when we hit the crazy rain storms and I had to really concentrate on driving).

Bleeding Heart Lace
I finished all 12 yards of the lace I was making!


I also blocked about 2 yards of it before deciding it was just too time consuming and not worth it. The top heart is unblocked, the bottom blocked. I'd never blocked anything before, so I'm glad I got to learn how to do this!


The lace was made for my regency-style dress.

Dress!

This is the dress for my crazy (literally) character in the LARP I'm playing at Origins Gaming Convention tonight. I sewed it all together, then I stained it with tea to make it look gross and beat up.


I can't tell if it really shows, though. I have to wear this dress tonight, and if I get the time I'll be ripping it up and destroying it a bunch more between now and then, and hopefully sewing on the trim (but if I don't get the time, life will go on and I'll use the trim for something else.

And finally, last but not least...

Baby Hats for Charity!
There's always a charity challenge in Nerd Wars, and this time it's making things for babies! I had really crazy days on Monday and Tuesday of this week, so I set myself a mini-challenge: Using random scraps I stuffed in my purse, make as many baby hats in two days as I can. However many I finish, I'll donate to a local hospital. Turns out in two days and about 10 hours on various forms of public transit, I can make 9 baby hats!
True story: I started to make the red and yellow hat just cause I liked the colors, then it dawned on me that it was Gryffindor colors, and that I had the scraps necessary to make hats in all the other house colors, too, so I just went ahead and did so. :)

And that's "all." Busy, busy week!! :)

Check out the beautiful work that others have done over on Tami's Ami and Other Creations and Wisdom Begins in Wonder!

Work in Progress Wednesday - 5/4/2011

I'm back! Last week, when Wednesday came, I realized that I'd accomplished basically nothing, so there wasn't much to say. I guess that happens some weeks. :) This week, I did a little bit better...anyway, today is super-lazy picture day, because I'm up too early, still tired from a long and busy weekend, and have a day of running around that's going to take me to four out of five boroughs. So this is gonna be a fast WIP Wednesday. :)

Crochet Zoauve Jacket
This would be done if I had enough materials! As it is, I tried to finish anyway, using dark blue as a fringe, and I HATE the dark blue. I had done a bunch more of it, but I hated it so much that I frogged it. Now I just have to finish the frogging (around the arms), get my hands on just a little bit more of the right stuff, and finish. This might or might not happen by next week (but won't happen by Friday). :)

Still, this gives an idea of what I'm dealing with - sides attached, sleeves done and on, now there's just that blue to take out and re-do. All in all, I'm pretty happy with it. I'm still in shocked amazement about how much I had to improvise from the original pattern (reminder: I'm making this jacket from a pattern published in Godey's Lady Book in 1862). I mean, I tried to do the sleeves the way the instructions said - and the instructions were very clear about row count, increasing and decreasing - except that the instructions made virtually no sense when actually applied. What they were calling the "top" would have gone around my arm like three times. And if it was not the top - if it was the length - then it was too narrow, so that didn't help. I think that was probably what it was, cause I've got chubby arms, but either way, I had done 2/3rds of a sleeve that way when I realized it was never going to work, so I frogged the whole thing and started over my own way. Since I'm going to have to buy more materials anyway, I'll probably make the sleeves longer.

Gokk!
I introduced my Gokk amigurumi here, with a follow up here. However, I haven't really gotten anything done on him since late March. He's been sitting on my coffee table, the yarn to finish him sitting next to me, staring at me forlornly (or wish he could stare at me forlornly, since he doesn't have a face yet, either!). Last night, I FINALLY started working on him again.

No, it's not much progress (I had to frog a first attempt) but it's progress, dammit! And I have like 6 hours on various trains today, and I'll be bringing him with me, and hopefully he'll be done (and I can continue my San Francisco Gokk travelogue with a NYC one. ;) )

Spinning
So, I bought this bag of fiber.

There's a lb. in there, and it was only 20 bucks. I've been waiting and waiting to use it while I finished other projects and other fiber. Finally, I've started! First, my spinning friend got me started on her spinning wheel!! No pics of that, but it was fun to finally start to learn (there will be pics in the future, just not now.) But I ended up stupidly opting to NOT borrow her wheel, and I wanted to spin, so I ended up going back to the drop spindle.

Unfortunately, the section that shows doesn't really demonstrate how nifty it looks when the black gets mixed in. Oh well!

Sewing!
Last weekend, I was at a wedding in Louisville. Helping the bride out with making stuff meant that I ended up at Joann's, and ending up at Joann's meant that I left with patterns! Specifically, these two:


I'm currently thinking I'm going to make both. The first (Regency style) I have to make for a LARP I'm NPCing for over the summer (ha, how's that for strange abbreviations? that's a Live Action Roleplaying game that I'll be playing a non-player character in...) - but the costume I have to make, while I will use this pattern, is going to look...er...different. As to the other, that'll just be for fun, and I'm thinking I'll try to get it done by Gencon (first weekend of August). :) This is probably optimistic of me...but I'll get at least some sewing done, for the first time since Halloween.

Anyway, this weekend is Maryland Sheep and Wool, which means YAY fiber-y goodness!! I've never been before (despite invitations - I could never make it) but now that I'm spinning also I think I'll get more out of it. I'm super excited! I'll be on the lookout for pretty wool to finish my jacket, and I'm DEFINITELY going to be buying some awesome colorways to spin. Also, cheese. There's apparently an entire room dedicated to cheese, and omg I'm so there. :)

Want to see what other folks are making this week? Of course you do! Head on over to Tami's Amis and Other Creations and see all the posts this WIP Wednesday!