Month: August 2012

pastel

Posted on by trish

 

A dress pat­tern! :D

A vari­a­tion of gink­go the square top. Inspired by a dress I saw at Amer­i­can Appar­el, which was half lace and half satin kind of mate­r­i­al. And I thought (as I usu­al­ly do when I see any­thing I like at the stores), “I could make that.”

I’m not a fun per­son to go shop­ping with, that’s for sure. Any­way. On to the pattern!

Here’s the back of it, and a clos­er look at the cro­chet pattern.

 

Below is the writ­ten pat­tern for cro­chet­ing the top part of the dress. I will then explain how to make and attach the skirt part of the dress. Please for­give my lack of pho­tos in that part (>_<)… I tried to draw dia­grams to explain some of the steps, hope they help!

Fin­ished size: bust 32″, waist 26″, length 16″, with a bit of neg­a­tive ease.
To cre­ate larg­er sizes, I’d sug­gest using a heav­ier cot­ton and a larg­er hook, i.e. DK/sport (3.5mm hook); worsted (5mm hook).

For the top, I used:
#10 cot­ton thread
2.5mm hook

For the skirt, I used:
1/2 yard sheer fab­ric
1/2 yard white poly­ester satin
(the amount of fab­ric required may vary; it depends on the size of the top and how full you want your skirt to be. See the Skirt sec­tion below)

 

Top (make 2) 

Stitch pat­tern:
Fan = [dc, 2ch, dc, 2ch, dc] in same space

ch 96

Row 1: ch 3, dc in 4th ch from hook, dc across, turn.

Row 2 (set up row): ch 5, dc in 1st dc, skip next 2 dc, dc in next dc, [skip next 2 dc, fan in next dc, skip next 2 dc, dc in next dc] to end, [dc, ch 2, dc] in turn­ing ch, turn.

Row 3 (pat­tern row 1): ch 3, skip first dc, fan in dc between fans, [dc in 2nd dc of next fan, fan in next dc between fans] to end, dc in 3rd ch of turn­ing ch, turn.

Row 4 (pat­tern row 2): ch 5, ch in 1st dc, dc in 2nd dc of next fan, [fan in next dc between fans, dc in 2nd dc of next fan] to end, [dc, ch 2, dc] in turn­ing ch, turn.

Rows 5–6: work pat­tern rows 1 & 2 once more.

Row 7: work pat­tern row 1.

Row 8 (increase row): ch 3, dc in 1st dc, ch 1, dc in same dc, dc in 2nd dc of next fan, work in pat­tern until turn­ing ch, [dc, ch 1, 2 dc] in turn­ing ch, turn.

Row 9 (increase row): ch 4, dc in next dc, skip next dc, fan in next dc, work in pat­tern to last dc between fans, fan in last dc between fans, dc in 2nd last dc before turn­ing ch, ch 1, dc in turn­ing ch, turn.

Row 10: ch 3, fan in next dc, dc in 2nd dc of next fan, work in pat­tern to 2nd last dc of row, fan in 2nd last dc of row, dc in 3rd ch of turn­ing ch, turn.

Rows 11–16: work pat­tern rows 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, and 1.

Rows 17–19: repeat rows 8–10.

Rows 20–30: work in pat­tern. End with row 2.

Arm­hole shaping:

Row 31: ch 1, sl st in 1st dc, next ch 2 space, next 3 dc, next ch 2 sp, and next dc. ch 3, fan in next dc between fans, work in pat­tern until last fan, dc in 2nd dc of 2nd last fan, leave remain­ing st unworked, turned.

Row 32: ch 3, dc in 2nd dc of 1st fan, work in pat­tern until last fan, dc in 2nd dc of last fan, dc in turn­ing ch, turn.

Row 33: ch 5, dc in 1st dc, dc in 2nd dc of 1st fan, work in pat­tern until last fan, dc in 2nd dc of last fan, [dc, ch 2, dc] in turn­ing ch, turn.

Row 34–36: work pat­tern rows 1, 2, and 1.

Neck­line shap­ing — right:

Row 37: work in pat­tern to the 5th fan of the row, dc in 2nd dc of the 5th fan, dc in next dc between fans, turn.

Row 38: ch 3, dc in 2nd dc of 1st fan, work in pat­tern to end.

Row 39: work in pat­tern until last fan, dc in 2nd dc of last fan, dc in turn­ing ch, turn.

Row 40: ch 5, dc in 1st dc, dc in 2nd dc of 1st fan, work in pat­tern to end.

Row 41 — 51: work in pattern.

Row 52: ch 1, sc in 1st dc, [sc in 2 ch sp, sc in next dc, sc in 2 ch sp, sc in dc between fans] until last dc, skip last dc, sc in turn­ing ch, sc in 3rd ch of turn­ing ch. Fas­ten off.

Neck­line shap­ing — left:

Row 37: count­ing from the left edge, attach yarn to the dc between the 5th and 6th fans. 

Row 38: work in pat­tern until last fan, dc in 2nd dc of last fan, dc in turn­ing ch, turn.

Row 39: ch 3, dc in 2nd dc of 1st fan, work in pat­tern to end, turn.

Row 40: work in pat­tern until last fan, dc in 2nd dc of last fan, [dc, ch 2, dc] in turn­ing ch, turn.

Rows 41–51: work in pattern.

Row 52: ch 1, sc in 1st dc, sc in ch 2 sp, [sc in dc between fans, sc in ch 2 sp, sc in dc, sc in ch 2 sp] until turn­ing ch, sc in turn­ing ch. Fas­ten off.

 

Assem­bly

With right sides togeth­er, sew shoul­der and side seams together.

Turn top right side out. Work a round of sc even­ly along neck­line and arm­holes. Gen­er­al­ly, sc in each dc, and sc in each ch 2 sp; when cro­chet­ing into the ends of the row, 2 sc in each row.

Work 1 dc in each dc around the bot­tom edge of the top.

 

Skirt — fab­ric measurement

Cut two rec­tan­gu­lar pieces of fab­ric, one piece for the top lay­er of skirt, one piece for the skirt lining.

Width for both pieces = 1.5 times the cir­cum­fer­ence of the cro­cheted top’s bot­tom edge.

Mea­sure length of the fab­ric as desired for the top lay­er of skirt. Minus 1″ from the length for the skirt lining.

*Add 1/2″ seam allowance to all sides of both pieces of fabric.

Skirt — sewing

For the top lay­er of skirt, with wrong side fac­ing, fold fab­ric in half width-wise, so that the short sides are togeth­er. Sew the short edges togeth­er, so it forms a tube.

Repeat for the skirt lin­ing. Now we have two fab­ric tubes.

With the wrong side fac­ing on both fab­ric tubes, place the top lay­er of skirt inside the skirt lin­ing. Match­ing top edge and using large stitch­es, hand or machine sew the top edges togeth­er. Don’t back stitch. As shown in the dia­gram below: the skirt lin­ing is the short­er tube on the out­side, the top lay­er of skirt is inside out inside the skirt lin­ing, and the orange lines are stitches.

Gath­er the skirt even­ly along the seam just sewed by lin­ing it up with the cro­cheted top, as follows:

With right sides togeth­er, line up the top edge of the skirt with the bot­tom of the cro­cheted top (the cro­cheted top will be upside down inside the skirt tubes). Once the skirt is gath­ered enough so that the top edge of the skirt match­es the bot­tom edge of the cro­cheted top, pin top to skirt along the the first dc row of the cro­chet top. Machine sew along the top of the first dc row. The dia­gram below shows the posi­tion of the top inside the skirt tubes in dot­ted lines, and the orange seam line.

 

Final­ly, hem skirt and skirt lining.

And we’re done! :D

 

Feel free to drop me a note if you have ques­tions or need clarification!

Have an awe­some day!

 

 

 

yay giveaway! :D

Posted on by trish

I thought I’d share a few of the paint­ings I cre­at­ed in my square-a-day project (see back­ground sto­ry here), to cel­e­brate the fact that I actu­al­ly com­plet­ed it, and to thank every­one one for trav­el­ing with me and encour­ag­ing me on this jour­ney of redis­cov­er­ing the joy of paint! :D

Before I explain the details of the give­away (first ever! :D) Here’s anoth­er look at all the squares I have, paint­ed between July 6 and August 4 (you can click on it to see a larg­er image).

 

I’m giv­ing away four sets of three paint­ings. I tried to group them by themes.

 

Day at the farm

 

Origa­mi

 

Curi­ous naturalist

 

Abstrac­tion­ist

 

Each is rough­ly 4″ x 4″, acrylic paint on canvas.

I think they’d look nice framed indi­vid­u­al­ly in small­er frames, or togeth­er in a long frame like this one. Or, a cou­ple of vis­i­tors have sug­gest­ed that they can be sewn onto bags or oth­er sewing projects, like patch­es :D I think that’s awe­some idea, as long as the item on which they are sewn won’t need to be washed very much. I’ve ironed them to fix the colours, so I think it would be okay to spray them with some water and wipe them clean. 

If you’d like to give some of my paint­ings a good home, please leave a com­ment on this post. Four names will be drawn ran­dom­ly a week from now, on Sun­day, August 19 at mid­night (EST). The four peo­ple will be con­tact­ed by email the fol­low­ing morn­ing :D

Edit: I real­ized that I for­got to clar­i­fy one thing: the ran­dom­ize draw mech­a­nism will draw four names, the first name being drawn will receive Day at the Farm, the sec­ond name will receive Origa­mi, the third name will receive Curi­ous Nat­u­ral­ist, and the fourth name will receive Abstractionist. Basi­cal­ly, the order that the names are drawn will coin­cide with the order that the paint­ing sets are list­ed. Sor­ry that I for­got to make that clear earlier!  

Thank you so much for vis­it­ing, and for all of your kind words and support!

Have a great week, every­one! :D

 

 

 

square-a-day: the last leg!

Posted on by trish

Day 25, portal.

 

Day 26, hope floats.

 

Day 27, leg­end of the shrim­panzee — half shrimp, half chimp, all sea mon­ster! “rawr, get out of my lagoon!” *bats at rocks* Inspired by these awe­some paint­ings.

 

Day 28, sea­weed nest and pearls of wisdom.

 

Day 29, shrooms. Was writ­ing a guest post that day and I men­tioned mush­rooms at the foot of a tree.

 

Day 30, over a field of pop­pies. I paint­ed this at my par­ents’, as I was spend­ing the week­end there. I brought my most used brush­es and used the paints from my sis­ter’s old paint-by-num­ber kit. 

Hur­ray! Project com­plete! :D

 

Here’s how they look alto­geth­er. I’ve been hang­ing one up every­day on a string, like a bunting. (Please excuse the clut­tered back­ground. Our apart­ment comes with a mir­ror-cov­ered wall and we put all sorts of posters on it.) You can click on the pho­to to see a larg­er image.

 

Kind of hard to believe that I actu­al­ly stuck with it, paint­ed a square a day for 30 days. It was a lot of fun. Often I just paint­ed what­ev­er came to mind but some­times it offered such a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to work through the thoughts and feel­ings that were both­er­ing me.

Also, I did­n’t men­tioned that all of the paint­ings, except the 30th one, were done with dol­lar store paint! Not the great­est qual­i­ty, but does a good job actually. 

I’m going to have to take bet­ter pic­tures of them. The Insta­gram ones are fun but some of the colours and details don’t show up very well. And then I’m going to have a first ever gen­uine mud­pie give­away! :D To thank every­one for trav­el­ling with me on this jour­ney of redis­cov­er­ing the joy of paint­ing. Still have to fig­ure out the logis­tics of it, but will post details soon! 

I’ll def­i­nite­ly do this again, maybe a square a week or some­thing. But for now I’m going to fin­ish the pat­tern I’ve been work­ing on (eeep!) and a mys­tery project! With mys­tery posts! Stay tuned! :D

 

Wish­ing you a fun-filled day!

 

Pre­vi­ous square-a-day posts:
First post
Update 1
Update 2
Update 3 

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

Posted on by trish

Adding jel­lo pow­der to cook­ie dough, bril­liant! Recipe from I Heart Nap Time. 

 

Aren’t these the clever­est? Not sure where the orig­i­nal post was though. Spot­ted on Pin­ter­est.

 

Very styl­ish shirt skirt by Ninth & Bird.

 

The cutest Christ­mas stock­ings, pat­tern from Le monde de Sucrette.

 

Going to give this a try. Tie a tur­ban style head­band by Straw­ber­ry Koi.

 

Looks so cozy. Maybe I can mod­i­fy the pat­tern to make it fit me. Cro­chet jack­et from Drops Design.

 

Beach day! Sew a sim­ple dress, from Martha Stew­art Liv­ing.

 

Intrigu­ing! Made by melt­ing translu­cent pony beads in the oven. Looks like it would make nice neck­lace pen­dants. From The Art­ful Par­ent.

 

Love the swirly colours in these votive hold­ers. From Creme de la Craft.

 

This is so awe­some! I won­der where I can find small bot­tles like this… From Tran­sient Expres­sion.

 

A very very cute nee­dle thread­er, by Wild Olive.

 

Have a great start to the week, every­one! :D

 

 

guest blogging :D

Posted on by trish

This is the first time I’m guest blog­ging so this is very excit­ing — so grate­ful to be invit­ed by awe­some cro­cheter Sue to write a post for her cro­chet blog, where I’ve shared a bit of my sto­ry of craft­ing and blog­ging. Please vis­it when you have a moment!

Sue has many won­der­ful pat­terns and cre­ations on her blog, like these awe­some pandas! 

 

Hap­py week­end! :D

shop update! :D

Posted on by trish

I think I brought new things to the shop last week and I for­got to post about it!

I made anoth­er cac­tus. Because my friend, who is also the shop own­er, said that they’re eye-catch­ing :D

Cac­tus is also inspired by Kimya Daw­son’s Tree Hug­ger. 

Fruity marsh­mal­low line-up! (they’re magnets)

Mike stopped by the shop today and said the marsh­mal­lows have already been sold, woohoo! 

Hap­py sushi and oth­er treats! (Also mag­nets. Right now the oth­er treat is the dumpling, but I plan on adding more treats.)

I made these a while ago. Bob­by pins with fab­ric cov­ered but­tons. I made them with­out a fab­ric but­ton tool, because I don’t have one. 

This is what my cub­by looked like…

 

And it is inevitable that one would use the mon­ey earned from one’s hand­made things to buy hand­made things by oth­er arti­sans… Pret­ty hair clip, eh? Made by my cub­by neigh­bour :D

 

Have a fab­u­lous week­end, everyone!

 

 

 

square-a-day update

Posted on by trish

Day 19, a quick study of Kat Sue the felt­ed cat hailed from Fel­pa Felt, Mex­i­co. Pos­si­bly my favourite square yet!

 

Day 20, octo­pus in the distance.

 

Day 21, con­tem­plat­ing good­bye. Deal­ing with some dif­fi­cult things these days, glad to have a way of express­ing it.

 

Day 22, lis­ten­ing. For direc­tions, I guess.

 

Day 23, not alone. An exper­i­ment with freez­er paper sten­cil­ing, then real­ize that freez­er paper and wax paper are not the same. But I only had wax paper, and don’t know where to get freez­er paper. Had mild suc­cess on this square piece of can­vas, so tried it on a t‑shirt any­way, on a larg­er scale, but failed miserably :(

 

Day 24, duck glar­ing at peo­ple tak­ing pho­tos. I admit that I’m one of those peo­ple. Inspired by recent trips to city parks and Mo Willem’s pigeon series. 

 

More on the square-a-day project:
First post
First update
Sec­ond update 

 

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