Wow so much has happened since I last posted. Or perhaps it just feels that way.
I did finish the stillborn gown before going on holiday. It looks wonderful. I can't wait to get a few more done and donate them. The camera is charging when its down I'll post a picture.
I'm going to start making some training pants for SqueekMoo. So I've done some cloth diapering shopping. I was able to get a set of snap pliers off eBay for $19 with shipping. It probably would have been cheaper to do a bundle deal of snaps and pliers, but I haven't picked out fabric yet so I didn't want to limit my fabric with snap color choice issues.
I'm going to be rearranging the crafting area soon, so there may be a lag in craftiness. I want to have a more efficient work area.
The to do list for the week is said rearranging, but I'm hoping to work on some charity quilting and smocking.
28 July 2010
10 July 2010
Late night chilling
There were many things last year I wrote off as being pregnant. Nope it's simply a matter of me. I think my body perfers that I sleep from 3 am to 10 am. Alas the world prefers you not to. With a toddler who needs to get out and about thing, starting the day at 10 isn't good. However as of late I've been making it work.
This said SqueekMoo goes to bed around 8 to 9 pm. It can take as little as five minuets to an hour and half for him to fall asleep. I sit in his bed till he falls asleep, bad habit to teach him, but it works. MacMac goes to bed around the same time, espect on the weekends when he sometimes stays up with me. Alas not tonight.
I got in another round of Wii Fit. I hope I can turn that into a good habit. I'm shooting for twenty minuets of exercise, which requires about thirty minuets of using the Wii Fit. I hope over time i go thirty minuets.
After that I got in another row of smocking. It was a start at the center row to make sure the design ended up center. The first pass went quickly, but the second pass is working from the center leftwards. I've been doing these type of passes with my left hand, and as a righty its has been really slow goings. Half way through this tedious round, I thought of something brilliant. I turned the gown upside down and worked it with my right hand. Tension might be a tad off but I was no longer slowed down by using my non-dominate hand.
I decided to catch up on the blogs I follow. Alas most haven't had any updates, or the few that have been the posts weren't thrilling. However my favorite blog has been acting weird, and so tonights read was WONDERFUL. For some reason i hadn't been able to read any of the updates since March, but today it updated itself and I had pages full of wonderful entries to read. To be honest I actually haven't read the entire blog yet. I really want to.
The site I'm talking about is: http://sew.ciety.net/ it documents the costuming education of a young lady in Britain. She entries are very in depth with a wealth of information.
I think I'll read another page of entries and smock another row before heading to bed.
This said SqueekMoo goes to bed around 8 to 9 pm. It can take as little as five minuets to an hour and half for him to fall asleep. I sit in his bed till he falls asleep, bad habit to teach him, but it works. MacMac goes to bed around the same time, espect on the weekends when he sometimes stays up with me. Alas not tonight.
I got in another round of Wii Fit. I hope I can turn that into a good habit. I'm shooting for twenty minuets of exercise, which requires about thirty minuets of using the Wii Fit. I hope over time i go thirty minuets.
After that I got in another row of smocking. It was a start at the center row to make sure the design ended up center. The first pass went quickly, but the second pass is working from the center leftwards. I've been doing these type of passes with my left hand, and as a righty its has been really slow goings. Half way through this tedious round, I thought of something brilliant. I turned the gown upside down and worked it with my right hand. Tension might be a tad off but I was no longer slowed down by using my non-dominate hand.
I decided to catch up on the blogs I follow. Alas most haven't had any updates, or the few that have been the posts weren't thrilling. However my favorite blog has been acting weird, and so tonights read was WONDERFUL. For some reason i hadn't been able to read any of the updates since March, but today it updated itself and I had pages full of wonderful entries to read. To be honest I actually haven't read the entire blog yet. I really want to.
The site I'm talking about is: http://sew.ciety.net/ it documents the costuming education of a young lady in Britain. She entries are very in depth with a wealth of information.
I think I'll read another page of entries and smock another row before heading to bed.
08 July 2010
Tangled threads
Got a fair amount of smocking prep work done last night. I serged and pleated two newborn, one preemie, and one extra tiny stillborn gown.
Well didn't quite get the second newborn sized gown pleated. SqueekMoo woke up a second time. The first time he cried and iw as able to walk in and put him back to bed with no troubles. The second time he waltzed right into our room without a word dragging his pillows behind him and was so sweet I just had to stop what I was working on and go to bed with him. It was also four in the morning.
Haven't had a chance to go finishing pleating that one gown though. DH decided to let SqueekMoo play with my pleater. He was kind enough to take out the needles, but let SqueekMoo terrorize the thread. sigh.
I was going to hold off smocking the gown for my trip, but I couldn't resist. i'd be so much more productive if I kept a steady stream of preped gowns on hand. But I don't so I don't finishing nearly as many as i could. Bad me.
But I did get three row of smocking on a newborn sized gowns. the rows are much much more longer than the tiny extra smalls that i had worked on last.
I did goof when i was pleating the ones I did last night. I cut the pleater thread way too short. It doable but not the best method. I'll have to remember next time not the short change the threads.
Talking about smocking. I picked up a book from the library recently. The book itself wasn't too terribly interesting, however there was a picture of a dress done up with a hint of smocking that I really liked. I showed it to MacMac and he said it was a very me sort of thing. So I looked into it and found there is a pattern for it! It's called Mother and Daughter jumper by Contessa.
Well didn't quite get the second newborn sized gown pleated. SqueekMoo woke up a second time. The first time he cried and iw as able to walk in and put him back to bed with no troubles. The second time he waltzed right into our room without a word dragging his pillows behind him and was so sweet I just had to stop what I was working on and go to bed with him. It was also four in the morning.
Haven't had a chance to go finishing pleating that one gown though. DH decided to let SqueekMoo play with my pleater. He was kind enough to take out the needles, but let SqueekMoo terrorize the thread. sigh.
I was going to hold off smocking the gown for my trip, but I couldn't resist. i'd be so much more productive if I kept a steady stream of preped gowns on hand. But I don't so I don't finishing nearly as many as i could. Bad me.
But I did get three row of smocking on a newborn sized gowns. the rows are much much more longer than the tiny extra smalls that i had worked on last.
I did goof when i was pleating the ones I did last night. I cut the pleater thread way too short. It doable but not the best method. I'll have to remember next time not the short change the threads.
Talking about smocking. I picked up a book from the library recently. The book itself wasn't too terribly interesting, however there was a picture of a dress done up with a hint of smocking that I really liked. I showed it to MacMac and he said it was a very me sort of thing. So I looked into it and found there is a pattern for it! It's called Mother and Daughter jumper by Contessa.
03 July 2010
Coming Soon
Planning a historical garb has started. What I want for an end product will take a great deal of Frankensteining a good many patterns.
This weekend I hope to start reshaping my dress form into something that's shaped like me. Then I'm going to come up with some way to toggle the form from a pregnant me to a normal me and back again in a quick manner.
Then its sewing time. My list of patterns I'm going to work from are:
This weekend I hope to start reshaping my dress form into something that's shaped like me. Then I'm going to come up with some way to toggle the form from a pregnant me to a normal me and back again in a quick manner.
Then its sewing time. My list of patterns I'm going to work from are:
- Simplicity 4052- regency era undergarments
- The Elegant Lady's Closet by Sensibility
- Past Patterns 705
- Koshka the cat's 1830 corset pattern
SqueekMoo's WordBook
I mentioned earlier that I was working on a word book for SqueekMoo. I'm going to now describe what this actually entails.
As a wedding present my dad gave me a Epson PictureMate Dash and with the refill pack to go with. I've haven't used it to its fullest potential because the greatest thing about digital pictures is you haven't have to actually have to have hard copies.
SqueekMoo however is a sponge. He'd adsorbing information at an enormous rate. I decided to help increase his vocabulary by making him a word book. The trick is to get words in there before he actually learns them. I think its fine that some words I know he knows before I even work on them, but it does help enforce the concept of "Hey Mommy is showing me what these things are called."
We are also going on a trip to see some relatives soon and I think it would be divine if SqueekMoo could say people's names or at least come close. So I've included pictures of relatives.
So take for example the word Clementine. SqueekMoo knows these as clemes. I took a picture of a handful or them, plus a peeled one.
In PhotoShop I have made a template. Since the pictures print 4x6 I made an image that's 4x6 with a dpi of 300. I then made a layer that's an inch tall at the bottom. And another layer that's 5 inches tall at the top.
I then use the text tool set at 30 pt Lucida Console with the word "CLEMENTINES." Place it on the one inch bar and center align both vertically and horizontally with the bar.
I next copy and past the picture of the clementines onto a new layer. move the layer to be on top of the five inch layer, right click and select create clipping mask. Then its CTL + T and I fiddle with the size of the clementine picture till i have it centered the way i like it.
I then save a copy .psd file. For printing I save a .jpg fill in its original dpi. and since SqueekMoo really likes it when we use the Wii, I save a 90pdi .jpg version to load on to the Wii photo slideshow.
here's what the 90 pdi version of Clementine looks like:
I've taken pictures of his body parts (hands, feet), clothing items (socks, shirts), foods, things at the playground, pictures of relatives, pictures of his favorite stuff animals, things around the house (his potty, his bed), etc.
As a wedding present my dad gave me a Epson PictureMate Dash and with the refill pack to go with. I've haven't used it to its fullest potential because the greatest thing about digital pictures is you haven't have to actually have to have hard copies.
SqueekMoo however is a sponge. He'd adsorbing information at an enormous rate. I decided to help increase his vocabulary by making him a word book. The trick is to get words in there before he actually learns them. I think its fine that some words I know he knows before I even work on them, but it does help enforce the concept of "Hey Mommy is showing me what these things are called."
We are also going on a trip to see some relatives soon and I think it would be divine if SqueekMoo could say people's names or at least come close. So I've included pictures of relatives.
So take for example the word Clementine. SqueekMoo knows these as clemes. I took a picture of a handful or them, plus a peeled one.
In PhotoShop I have made a template. Since the pictures print 4x6 I made an image that's 4x6 with a dpi of 300. I then made a layer that's an inch tall at the bottom. And another layer that's 5 inches tall at the top.
I then use the text tool set at 30 pt Lucida Console with the word "CLEMENTINES." Place it on the one inch bar and center align both vertically and horizontally with the bar.
I next copy and past the picture of the clementines onto a new layer. move the layer to be on top of the five inch layer, right click and select create clipping mask. Then its CTL + T and I fiddle with the size of the clementine picture till i have it centered the way i like it.
I then save a copy .psd file. For printing I save a .jpg fill in its original dpi. and since SqueekMoo really likes it when we use the Wii, I save a 90pdi .jpg version to load on to the Wii photo slideshow.
here's what the 90 pdi version of Clementine looks like:
02 July 2010
Workwoman's Guide - 1840
Google books is a wonderful resource. The ability to look at some really old books, that if you bought would set you back a great deal. Instead one gets to poke at these gems for free.
Tonight I've been looking at this wonderful book.
This is what it has to say about nursing stays:
"It is essential to open the front of nursing stays, so as to give the mother the greastest ease while feeding her infant; for this purpose, care should be takent hat no stay-bones or hard buttons should come in contact with the child's face: the two or three best modes of opening them are the following:
Leave open that side of the bosom gore which is next to the shoulder-strap, to the depth of a full nail and a hal; (a nail as described as 2 1/4 inches); neatly bind the side of the gore, and after back stitching the opposite side, sew on ver firmly two buttons, on at the top and the other lower down. To the gore is attached two loops, by which it can be buttoned or unbuttoned at pleasure.(See Fig. 24)
Another mode is that of leaving open the outer sides of those gores nearest the steel or middle of stays
these sides, and the parts with which they accord, have oylet-holes worked down them, exactly opposite to each other. Through each oylet-hole in the gore, pass a bobbin of about two nails and a quarter long, which is fastened at one end firmly to the wrong side of the corresponding hole, and pulled through. By this arrangement all ends of the bobbins lace up the whole gore. The bobbins are sewed together at the ends, forming a loop to attach it to a button on each site of the steel. (see figure 23, A B)
These bobbins should be carefully cut and joined ao as to pull the gores properly in their places. When it is unbuttoned the whole front lets down comfortable. It is advisable to sew a little fold or oblong piece to the stay on the inside, which forms a flap to lie between the shift and the opening, as a guard from cold."
Tonight I've been looking at this wonderful book.
This is what it has to say about nursing stays:
"It is essential to open the front of nursing stays, so as to give the mother the greastest ease while feeding her infant; for this purpose, care should be takent hat no stay-bones or hard buttons should come in contact with the child's face: the two or three best modes of opening them are the following:
Leave open that side of the bosom gore which is next to the shoulder-strap, to the depth of a full nail and a hal; (a nail as described as 2 1/4 inches); neatly bind the side of the gore, and after back stitching the opposite side, sew on ver firmly two buttons, on at the top and the other lower down. To the gore is attached two loops, by which it can be buttoned or unbuttoned at pleasure.(See Fig. 24)
Another mode is that of leaving open the outer sides of those gores nearest the steel or middle of stays
these sides, and the parts with which they accord, have oylet-holes worked down them, exactly opposite to each other. Through each oylet-hole in the gore, pass a bobbin of about two nails and a quarter long, which is fastened at one end firmly to the wrong side of the corresponding hole, and pulled through. By this arrangement all ends of the bobbins lace up the whole gore. The bobbins are sewed together at the ends, forming a loop to attach it to a button on each site of the steel. (see figure 23, A B)
These bobbins should be carefully cut and joined ao as to pull the gores properly in their places. When it is unbuttoned the whole front lets down comfortable. It is advisable to sew a little fold or oblong piece to the stay on the inside, which forms a flap to lie between the shift and the opening, as a guard from cold."
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