Monthly Archives: July 2014

Pressure-prompted is an euphemism for procrastination

My recent MBTI profiling exercise  names me a pressure-prompted J. To be honest, I don’t need an expensive test to tell me that. Case in point, the months of June and July where I was simultaneously excited and nervous about the Singapore Mini Makers Faire and *successfully* convinced myself that not doing anything earlier meant I’d have more time since I *always* produce results under pressure.. The Husband had decided a few months before (May?) to have a booth at the Faire  – much work has  been done on Squirty and Beerbot in the last year and this would be a good chance to give them their moment of glory. It’s possible he also had the noble motive to introduce as many kiddywinks to the wonderful world of engineering as possible in hope of preventing the loss of a generation to the murky worlds of law and finance.

Being a good commercial lawyer, I swiftly negotiated the right to hijack said booth, which resulted in the catchy name of Tinker Tailor. However unlike Owen‘s effusive speech Making requires more than a clever turn of the phrase (insert obligatory reference to blood, sweat, tears and needles here).  I had actually started on my quest with the projects below.

Stripey was my first attempt at a cloud-shaped pillow. I’d seen cute shapes like clouds. mountains and whales on the Interweb a while ago, looked up a few images online first, but none of them matched the picture in my head.   Although it looked good on paper, I learnt that the more acute the angle was, the more difficult it became to sew which resulted in more puckering at the intersection of each scallop. I may have been able to compensate by overstuffing the cushion a bit, but the fabric in question was not very stretchy, which meant the seam was more likely to rip than the fabric stretch,  It was neither an abject failure not a resounding success, but like a mother with her delinquent firstborn, Stripey will always have a special place in my craftroom. Stripes and spots Take #2 involved a little more googling where I found this Liberty tutorial. I’ve loved the Liberty store for as long as I’ve known it, so although the shape was not what I wanted, I was confident that the pattern would work well.  I was right!

I used a cuddly soft fleece for this and have made 3 of these so far but still need to work on my blind hem sewing skills. The nicest one has been gifted to a friend’s beautiful baby A, I hope she finds it as cuddly as I do.

The next project involved breaking out my kanzashi flower maker, one of a number of craft-related items I requested for Christmas. In one of those slow-motion “Ohhhh…” moments, I thought it would enable me to make a flower at a time, as opposed to a single petal at a time..  After a little whinge, I realised it was actually quite an easy and satisfying process and made about half  a dozen. I sewed some of them to make baby headbands and have a few extras I will be using as accents on some of the projects in the pipeline. The centers of the flowers  were the most annoying bit as I do not really have any buttons beyond the spares that come with clothes. I broke out my new hot glue gun and experimented with felt, circles of fabric, and miniature fabric roses.  I think the roses look the best as the 3D effect provides additional interest, but they are also the most time consuming.. I really like my hot glue gun, but I think I need to get better at not leaving sticky tendrils everywhere. I also wasn’t sure if the glued headbands would still be washable – a trait that is crucial in babywear. In any event, the flowers looked sweet, although the whole process of trying to encase elastic really did stretch my patience :) I also made one felt flower using this tutorial, and attached it to a wrist corsage but it’s somewhere amongst the flotsam and jetsam of my craft room

The finished product

The finished product

If one is busy avoiding action, it is useful if one can outsource the execution of certain projects so you can still  claim credit for the design process.  Our auxiliary kitchen work surface ( which is really our primary work surface given the comically large stove top in our rental) was showing signs of wear after 3.5 years of faithful service. It is a discontinued Ikea model so I looked into getting a new piece of butcher block or other worktop as a replacement, but they were all more expensive than the unit itself.  I decided the best option was to wrap it in laminate or some other durable and flexible material – the Fabric Gods were kind and I found the perfect vintage-style  printed vinyl tablecloth.  The Husband agreed so it came home with me. Given my performance in the months of  June and July,  if it had been up to me, the roll of vinyl would probably have sat in a corner until I felt it was the “right” time to tackle the project, despite the fact that it really didn’t require much planning.  Thankfully for us, this was decreed a Boy Job and we’ve been happily using our old-new worktop for the last 2 months.

 

The alignment of the scales was a happy accident

The alignment of the scales was a happy accident

I think it stayed like this for 2 weeks?

I think it stayed like this for 2 weeks?

This has shaped up to be quite a mammoth post, so I’ll leave the details of the Faire for another day!

 

Why is yoga wear so expensive?

Now that I’m back on my yoga 3x a week mission, plus the fact that I’ve just started spin classes, I find that my stinky laundry generation rate is beginning to get a little silly. In addition, since I sometimes skip the shower queues and head home, I try and bring an extra top to change in to and be a gracious commuter hence more laundry. (Hm, I’d probably get more space in the train if I did get on in sweaty gym kit..)

Now I do appreciate that proper sports kit is probably made out of special sweat wicking nano tech green plasmoid fabric, and it does make a difference when you’re already overheated. However,  yoga stuff just seems to be extra fashionably expensive.  US$60 for a top without any built in support?  Although perhaps it’s still too low a price to pay for some dignity (although the saga was 2013 so perhaps QC has improved?).  I don’t need magic fabric when I’m just getting on a train, but I was aiming for the “post-gym semi-fashionably dishevelled” look, rather than the “rolled out of bed and pulled on scrappy clothes for the market” look. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted – something crossed back, drapey, loose and soft to  cope with the post-workout heat. Nevertheless, I consulted google images to see if there was something else more interesting that I thought I could make in a short time.  I did find something I liked, but In the end, I stuck with my original idea for ease of execution.  I  also found some interesting sportswear patterns – I still haven’t tried sewing with patterns yet as the packages always seem so intimidating?  I bought 3 sets in a pattern sale though so I’m committed to the cause now! But I digress.. Poking through my wardrobe revealed a slouchy pink Asos t shirt that was past its prime- perfect candidate for an up cycle. The top already had a wide neckline which gave me space to cross the straps across the back , thereby narrowing the neckline. Does that make sense? This was quite a simple project which involved 5 steps.

  1. Remove sleeves
  2. Mark the drop at the back of the top
  3. Slice the back of the top down to the mark
  4. Take the sides in
  5. Cross the straps at the back and attach to the body of the top

Sleeves off!

I did all this by hand as my sewing machine wasn’t set-up post-surgery yet.  It’s not perfect as I didn’t hem the straps, but no biggie and it’s already survived 2 washes  It’s nice to do one of these no pressure projects – if it fails it was just an old t-shirt anyway and it would gets consigned to the rag bag for wiping surfaces etc.

Conclusion- a soft sleeveless top that’s great to throw over your crop top after your preferred form of exercise.  I’ll  include an after photo in the next post – the Husband is away and I can’t photograph my back :)