quickfire: my stupidity with regard to dogs

There was a woman in the supermarket earlier with a tiny, gorgeous, edibly cute little puppy in a bright red pram. My first clue that said pram didn’t contain a baby was when the checkout lady leaned over and said “Aww, isn’t he cute. Does he bite much?”

(Second clue was when she replied yes to the question “are you scared of them?”, because I am pretty much the only person I know who openly admits to being scared of babies.)

The wee pup was lying on his side, mostly asleep, but still determinedly gnawing on a chew toy that was about the same size as he was. The owner said something to me but I forgot how to words because cute. I have no idea. I don’t even remember walking home. The world was tilt-shifted by my tears of cute.

I am stupid for dogs.

WIP Wednesday: 24/04/13

Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of What’s On The Needles (or sewing machine, or floor if I’m being really untidy)

Spring Shawl:

First up, an item that is no longer on the needles. Heh. I cast off on the shawl yesterday evening, and now just need to wait for an optimal time to get it washed and pinned out for blocking. I’m considering waiting until I can buy some blocking wires because I really want some and this would be the perfect use for them. But, I need to wait until I get paid.

unnecessarily twee spring shawl on Ravelry

Did I mention that I got a job? If not… I GOT A JOB. Trying not to spend my entire pay check in advance but it’s going to be tough. BUY ALL THE YARN AND KNITTING ACCESSORIES OMG *cough* anyway, moving on…

Skirt:

Yeah, this is the same picture as last week. And it doesn’t look any different, although since that picture was taken I’ve completed the fastening and added the lining. I went for snap fasteners and the crappy polyester; while I’d like to be a bit more sophisticated, it’s all just a bit too slapdash for me to go full-on couture. Next time. When I actually measure things properly.

fancified pencil skirt on MSC

No more progress on anything else, but I’m just settling into the new work routine and finding it quite hard to get anything done at home, let alone the knitting. I mean – I’ve started to go on 6am runs because I don’t have the time in the evening. Well. Probably the time, but definitely not the inclination.

NB: if you find out who abducted me and replaced me with someone who goes for runs at 6 in the morning, please punch them in the head. It’s not natural. But at least I get to see lots of dogs being taken for walks. And you’ve got to admit – this is one hell of a running partner.

FTFY Friday: frills-be-gone edition

FTFY = Fixed That For You, as in the popular sacrilegious meme:

Except in this case I take something broken and make it less broken. I think.

So we all have that one item of clothing that makes us irrationally angry. Well, you are probably normal, and thus have that one item of clothing that is not entirely to your tastes so you are mostly ambivalent towards it. I’m just passionate about Good Clothes. Or highly strung. Whatever.

Anyway. This t-shirt makes me angry. It’s made me angry since I bought it. I love the colour, and I love the cool crochet-lace-thing on the front. I don’t particularly like that the fabric has been cut really badly so it twists around and looks like crap if I don’t constantly readjust it. But what I really hate is the stupid frou-frou sleeves.

The sleeves are in a slightly different fabric to the rest of the top. It’s sheer and flimsy, and yet it has the power to stick straight up like a winged helmet for my shoulders. SO stupid. And that pic right there? Taken after an entire day of being crushed by jumpers and/or cardigans. OUTTA CONTROL, MAN. OFF THE CHARTS.

Yesterday night, it all got too much.

There are several ways to fix a crappy sleeve. One would have been to unpick, trim, and reset the sleeve to make it lie a bit more flat. But the fabric has been cut in such a tight curve that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to fashion a new sleeve without a lot of thought and maths.

Option two, then. Gathering. Initially, I thought I might just do it with a row of small running stitches along the edge of the sleeve. But with arms and cardigans and all the other things I throw at my clothes on a daily basis, the risks of the thread snapping and SuperSleeve being up and waving like a deranged Airdancer were just too high.

So I grabbed some shirring elastic. After a quick search to remind myself how to shirr (this tutorial here was particularly helpful), I wound a quick bobbin of elastic, and hoped that the tiny wee spool of thread (which is probably as old as I am, if not older. If my mother reads this post, she should recognise it as I probably pinched it from her ) had enough left on it.

If I weren’t such a lazy crafter, I would probably have pinned (possibly even tacked) the two layers together, and carefully marked out my shirring line. However, I am, so I just ironed it kinda flat and called it done. I decided to put my elastic just inside the finished edge of the top layer; that would keep the two layers together, and hopefully give it enough body to make the sleeve sit down and shut up.

And this is how it turned out. It’s still a little frou, but the elastic does seem to be having the desired effect. Since it has some give, I’m less likely to destroy it when I derp into my clothes in the morning. And even if it does loosen over time, the weight of the elastic will be enough to bring it mostly under control.

Now I can turn the full weight of my rage on the poorly-cut fabric. SEAM Y U AT FRONT. SEAM STAAAHP etc.

WIP Wednesday: 17/04/13

Definitely need a better naming scheme for WIP Wednesday.

Anyway, welcome to this nth edition of WIP Wednesday.

Still mainly three projects keeping me going through these delicious Spring days.

Spring Shawl:

This is getting there. At last. I’m on to the outer edging now so whargarbl excitement. Probably five more rows, then cast-off and blocking. Might finally invest in some blocking wires as I’ve been wanting to do for ages.

unnecessarily twee spring shawl on Ravelry

Orange cardigan:

Getting there as well. Probably needs a couple more inches on the sleeves, then I can do the rib detail. Then I can see how much yarn I have left, finish the lower edge rib, then pick up the button band. You might think this is unnecessarily complicated; well, it probably is. This is what happens when you buy yarn in totally random quantities and don’t do any calculations before you decide on a design.

oxide cardigan on Ravelry

Skirt:

And even this is going quite well. It’s all in one piece, I’ve added waist facing (I did the best understitching of my life on that waistband, I’m super-proud), and now I need to do the fastening, hem the bottom, and probably add a lining because it sticks to tights like you wouldn’t believe. Not sure whether to use the icky polyester lining I originally bought for it or to splash out on something a bit fancier. My heart is drawn to silk but I’m not sure. Decision for another day.

fancified pencil skirt on MSC

And there we go. A goodly amount of progress over the last couple of weeks. Now imagine what I could do if I hadn’t lost entire days to rubbernecking internet drama.

accidental daytrip: Brighton edition

I was extremely hyperactive after an interview the other day, to the point that the thought of a four-minute train ride sounded like too much sitting down. So I decided to burn off some of that adrenaline by going for wander through the town.

I first came to Brighton about 20-odd years ago. I was nine or ten, it was a sunny day, I had a camera with 110 film and an inability to stay still long enough to get a clear photo.

This time round, it was a bit less sunny, and I was armed with an iPhone and the power of Instagram to cover up for the fact that I still can’t hold a camera still.

I trotted past the Royal Pavilion, becoming very confused about what was the front or back because the gardens have changed a bit since I was last there.

I then followed the signs yelling SEAFRONT THIS WAY (trying valiantly to direct people to pedestrian crossings, I can only imagine the chaos in summer) and the scent of greasy snacks. Voilà. One pier. Seagulls everywhere, children crying because parents won’t let them have sweets/paddle/pet seagulls/whatever. A classic British seaside scene.

I wandered the length of the pier, battered by the salty breeze, assaulted by seagulls, piped music, and the smells of a hundred varieties of fast food. I’d already had lunch but by the end of it, I could no longer resist.

Worst. Coffee. Ever. But oh, so right. I sat on the beach for a bit, decompressing after the interview, becoming at one with the ground and the sea. By which I mean, probably sat in some dead sea critter and got bitten by any number of sand-dwelling insects. But it was pretty relaxing, nonetheless.

Duly relaxed and full of grease, I continued to wander back towards Hove, tipping my non-existent hat to the West Pier as it looms sadly in the water. Fans of Harry Lloyd (I get a surprising amount of traffic from people searching ‘harry lloyd naked’. Hi guys! Sorry to disappoint.) may recognise this as backdrop to The Fear.

Slightly more cheerful image; I love the little beach huts. Love them. Even on as dingy day as this was, they really brighten up the seafront.

And that’s basically it.

You know what’s completely awesome about this whole series of pictures? I live here. This is no longer a once a year bundle everyone in the car and hope to bob it doesn’t rain gamble. I could do it every day, if I wanted.

Except for the coffee, because that was truly disgusting.

BONUS FIND

Most of my old photographs are currently lost; whether they’re in an attic somewhere or if I chucked them away in the name of progress, I have no idea. Somehow, three photos of that first trip to Brighton survived and ended up in my iPhoto library.

The entrance to the Pavilion:

The other side of the Pavilion:

And the pier, still at this point called ‘Palace Pier’:

I know for a fact that there were at least a dozen blurry pictures of starlings, seagulls, and other people’s pet dogs. We should probably be grateful that those have been mislaid.

Book review: Quantum

Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fascinating story of the development of and controversies within quantum physics. Nicely grounded in the scientific and political context, and it’s always fun to hear about scientists bitching at each other (and salacious details of their personal lives; I’m looking at you, Schrödinger.)

Also, great diagrams, and beautiful explanation of the Actual Science. A number of the things I learned during the quantum physics module of my A-level suddenly made much more sense. Only 13 years too late.

Extremely dense, though, and could have done with some pruning. It felt a bit like every single detail of every single incident was being included (and quoted), which occasionally made it difficult to follow. Digressions into mostly relevant stories weren’t introduced clearly, so I got terribly confused in one section which tripped into the future for Einstein’s and then Bohr’s death without really explaining the context (that they respected and admired each other, regardless of their scientific differences).

However, definitely worth the read. I’ll be scouring the bibliography for interesting directions to go.

PS not enough cats in boxes. LMFTFY.

View all my reviews

FO Friday: Empty Binbags Swirling in the Breeze

As promised, here is a nice finished object post.

Last year, I set about making myself a dress for my birthday, a Butterick B5210. It came together really quickly, but I somehow managed to get the size – of a loose, easy-fitting dress – completely wrong. I could barely get it over my backside, and if I had managed to squeeze it on, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to sit down in it.

So in the grand tradition of my crafting, it got stuffed in a ‘WIP’ bag and ignored for the best part of a year.

Last week, I felt brave, and launched the rescue mission.

I had just enough of the fabric left to cut new body pieces, but no more than the tiniest scraps of the contrast colour. I painstakingly unpicked it all, ironed it flat, and took heart in the knowledge that I would be able to fix some of the mistakes I made first time around.

For a start, the zip is a bit better; I’d overlapped the edges and placed it too high so there was a lumpy bit at the top where I’d had to fold the top over. Now, it’s just a bit wonkily sewn… and I placed it too low. But one quick hook and eye at the neckline and it’s fine.

I’d also done a pretty bad job of the corners of the neckline; but look at that now. Look how crisp that corner is. Turns out that a single stitch in the wrong place is enough to stop that corner turning under nicely, and make it lumpy and crap. Attention to detail. I appear to have some now.

My pleats are also much better. I’d never done pleats before, and I guess I was a bit slapdash in transferring the pattern markings. This time I got out an orange pencil and drew the things on in pedantic detail. They are now the same length and pointing in the correct direction, which I consider to be a win.

I did have to do a bit of a hack job to fix the lower contrast trim; I’d cut it when the skirt was two inches slimmer, so of course, there was a big old gap in the side and no more material to cut a new one. So I cut a 2-inch strip from the scraps, and sewed that in, reasoning that if anyone got close enough to my hemline to comment on it, they’d be right in position for a knee to the face.

Another problem is that the fabric appears to be woven from the purest solidified static electricity. I’m going to need some sort of lining, or a separate slip. Or to fit myself with an earth wire. Shuffling my feet could be fatal.

But; it goes on, it looks pretty cute with a belt, and it was actually a really quick sew when I wasn’t botching bits all over the place. Maybe I can wear it for my birthday this year.