Subtitle: How I usually get in my own way by Week 2 of anything...
So here we are at Week 2. Here's something you should know about me. I'm a great starter. I love the beginning of a project. Purchasing the fabric or yarn and conjuring up what it's going to become is my favorite part. The unblemished beginning holds such promise for myself and what I'm making. By the time I finish whichever project I am starting, I will be six feet tall and willowy (never mind that I'm 5'8" and at 38, I think that may be as tall as I'm getting. And the willowy part? Not unless something is removed surgically - like my affinity for all things sugary. But I digress.) So I begin. And start to put things together. I take joy in the sewing of a lovely seam, or the perfectly aligned topstitching, or the slightly misaligned topstitching that means that a person made this, not a machine. Then I try it on. And I am not suddenly willowy. Which I knew that I wasn't. But being faced with it again is discouraging. So I don't fix things, I just wad them up and move onto something else. So finishing becomes a problem. But it isn't really the finishing, it is the acknowledgement that this body of mine, which can and does do amazing things on a daily basis, doesn't actually look like I think it does in my head. So my head needs a shake. Which is part of what I'm trying to do this winter - give my head a shake and appreciate the rest of me.
So what is the significance of Week 2? This was the week that I was supposed to start sewing for myself, having made a hat last week. And I spent all week getting in my own way so that I didn't have to get down to the sewing room and tidy up and get started sewing again. I made up a whole bunch of excuses, the upshot of which is that I didn't sew anything for myself this week. I did do some sewing, and a lot of knitting, but I didn't sew anything for me. While I am technically within the boundaries of the challenge I set myself, I am not moving forward. So that is what the goal will be for this week. Moving forward.
What did I do this week while I was avoiding dealing with my self? A great deal actually. Let's have a look.
Project: Shawl for a Friend
Pattern :Garnstudio 94-32
Yarn: 2.5 skeins of Misti Pima Cotton and Silk in a lovely periwinkle color that refuses to be photographed in our winter light.
My friend called me to tell me that her sister-in-law, whom I don't know but feel that I do, has to have a mastectomy. She wanted to rush to her sister-in-law's side and help her deal with things (as we all do in times of crisis for those we love) but circumstances meant that she couldn't. So she put together a box of treats to help get through the next few weeks (one of my favorite things to do, by the way) and I offered to make a shawl. We decided on the yarn choice over the phone, a happy colour and very soft being the main prerequisites, and I cast on Thursday night, and cast off late Sunday. In between times I got to watch a lot of Bravo on Sunday, when I was knitting the border and thinking that there was no way that I was going to make this deadline. But I did make it, and it went off in the mail on Tuesday. This particular pattern is started from the bottom of the triangle and worked to the top, but I don't like doing that, so I didn't. I started at the top center and worked out from there, doing the standard YO increase down the center back and at the edges. That meant that I would be able to knit the border onto the live stitches along the outside edge, instead of having to sew it on after the fact, which they direct you to do in the pattern. This made the whole thing much less inclined to swearing when I cast off the last stitch. Always a good thing, but especially at 11:00 on a Sunday night.
As for sewing, this weekend my boy went off to Scout camp to spend his days cross-country skiing and generally being a boy in the company of other boys. One of the only crimps in this plan is that the temperature here is very warm, so all the snow is melting. Too warm for ski pants (which he won't wear anyway) and too wet for jeans (his leg covering of choice in all but the most dire circumstances). So I proposed a Pant System. A couple of pairs of fleece pants and a pair of water-resistant overpants that can be put on when skiing. Most kids would just wear snow pants, but this man-child of mine has never liked them as they are very bulky and usually too warm (winter vacations in Saskatchewan are the only exception we have run across in the last few years. -20 will do that to you). So here they are:
Project: Man-Child Snow Pants
Pattern: Burda WOF Kids Fashion E 600 Pattern 618
Fabrics: Grey weatherproof fabric for outer layer, Navy and black polar fleece for the inner layers.
I chose this pattern because of the interesting side seams. They wrap around towards the front, making things look a little more interesting than your average elastic-waist pant. The man-child is strangely shaped right now, having a 30" waist and some killer ab muscles, but a 27" chest, and only a 37" outseam. So finding pants that he doesn't swim in is an interesting trick. I cut out a 158 cm basic pattern, eliminating all the jean-style details except the back yoke (he has a nicely rounded bum, but don't tell him I said so). Then I cut them out of the outer fabric using 0.5" seam allowances and the fleece using 0.25" seam allowances. I then sewed everything up using 0.25" seams, giving the outer layer a little more room than the fleece. I made the waistband on the fleece pants a little shorter than the the outer layer, so that the outer layer would come up overtop of the inner layer, cutting down on snow penetration. Elastic in the hemline of one set of pants, and then they all were done. Below are some pictures of the details of all, and you can click to embiggen if you are interested.
So that is what has happened this week. Hopefully next week will be more in line with what I started this whole project out to be.
Comments