Autumn Zebra

This is part one of a two part post, but unlike other series of posts, this one might actually get past the first one, because the item in question is nearly finished, and I like it even if everyone else will probably think it's ridiculous. Currently, I am using the word "smock" to designate any garments of a particular basic type. One of the very common forms that clothing has taken, through time and in various parts of the world, is this "smock". For the basic pattern, the front and back are made of rectangles (with a shoulder seam or one continuous piece of fabric), obviously with some kind of hole for the head, triangular pieces are added at the sides to widen it, and rectangular pieces for sleeves. Underarm gussets may or may not be added, and additional triangles might be added to the centre front and centre back to widen it further. Variations can be made by having tapered sleeves, or sleeves that start rectangle and change to tapering around the elbow. T...

Some time ago, was Gwri's birthday. We were going to Christchurch to see his parents around his birthday, and they were coming to Dunedin after that, so we thought we should have the birthday dinner when they were here -I think that's how it went. But, I think one should always do something on your actual birthday, so I bought a giant muffin and lit a big red candle for his "actual birthday" birthday cake, and we had tea with the teapot and milk jug and everything. There isn't a really good photo cos it was kind of dark, so I can't really post one. Then, when his parents were here, we had a proper birthday dinner. I made crowns for everyone to wear out of some of my favourite fabrics. They're like paper hats from Christmas crackers, but made of fabric. They're all lined, interfaced, and machine sewn except for the join at the back which is hand-whip-stitched closed. Everyone had the option to keep their crown, and some people did. The one at the front...

Well, we are now past the winter solstice and midwinter two-times-over as both celebrations have occurred - the dance party in the bush kind of one, and the parade and fireworks in town kind of one. It's a bizarre kind of celebration because although it does start getting lighter again, it also tends to get colder and winter proper tends to occur after the solstice. Maybe it works differently in the Northern Hemisphere somehow, or maybe it is fairly irrelevant in our world of electric lighting, and before that was around the increasing light made everybody significantly more chirpy even though it was more cold. Some pictures of the "leftovers" of the party in the bush event, which occurred closer to the solstice itself. No description of the events, merely what is leftover, the only remainder aside from memories. Our masks: Spent glow bracelets in the dark:

I don't know why I call this the Russian Steppe Dress, I just do. I don't think it has anything to do with Russians or anything. I made it a while ago. I got the linen off trademe, and it had a nice weight to it, somewhat heavy, and has a nice natural colour, with the embroidery and black band along one edge, and it seemed peasanty, and the heavy nature of the linen made me think of wearing it in somewhat colder places. I had to do a dirndl type skirt (rectangle made into cylinder and gathered at the top, although I pleated it) in order to have the hem of the skirt straight so as to use the border as it was. I used the length of the fabric for the skirt, cutting it lengthwise to use some for the sleeves and bodice. I made my own block for a dartless bodice. I obviously wanted to get the whole dress out of the same fabric, but was designing the dress after getting the fabric and although I thought I could fit it all on, it didn't quite fit and so the back is a different line...

Last weekend they took down a stationary crane that had been working on a building for the last year. This meant of course that they needed another big crane to do so. I stood around in the cold for one hour in order to take these pictures, so you'd better appreciate them! (interesting note: from my observations, I can tell you that crane dismantling spectatorship is an activity practised equally by men and women) These first pics make our city look like it might be bigger, grittier and more generally city-like than it actually is. Note that it was actually about 11AM when I took these, not, say, dawn or dusk or any time that is supposed to be particularly dark. This is the crane doing all the work. Handily it has written on it that it has a 72m main boom, so there you go. It also says it has 32m HYD tilt - but I don't know what that bit means... So the boom of the stationary crane is being supported by the truck-crane, and this guy and his colleague appeared to be using a gia...

Since Christmas was about 6 months ago now, I thought maybe I should get round to posting something about it. I made lots of presents for people. I made my brother a hoodie, but like everything I make it turned out way too big; it was supposed to be over-sized, but it ended up huge. I haven't seen him wear it :( I pretty much copied the pattern from one of G's hoodies, just took the measurements and made the pattern. We made a zip-front hoodie in the industrial sewing class I made, so I know the general idea how to make one, and I copied the little triangle of ribbing from the commercial one - I quite like that feature, it adds stretch at the neck so you don't damage that section messing with the hood etc. I'm pretty sure I used tape on the shoulder seams, and maybe the hood-neck seam, to stop stretching . How to use tape on shoulder seams: get some non-stretchy woven tape and cut to correct shoulder seam length. Pin it to/lay it on (as per your normal sewing practise) ...

We eat a lot of strange food. I had this realisation a couple of weeks ago, when I suddenly saw our meal from an outside perspective. Along with making a lot of recipes from outside our culture, I also make a lot of stuff up. Here's a random side dish I made a while ago - chop parsnip into chip-sized pieces, and "sweet bread" (eg. this was raisin and malt loaf) into stamp or domino sized pieces and fry in butter, adding sesame seeds and a sprinkling of salt part way through. I pretty much like anything related to bread or fried/roasted food, so this is all good. With oil instead of butter, it would be healthy. If your definition of healthy includes a bit of butter now and then, then it's healthy already. I like taking pictures of the stuff I cook, because it is another interesting creative exercise of planning and putting things together, so I might post some more interesting recipes. Also, if you can afford it, you should get a titanium non-stick frying pan like...

Part 1 of this skirt is here . I actually finished this ages ago but didn't post it. This is the kind of skirt that strangers comment on. Since it doesn't look that awesome in the photos, I assume it looks a lot better when it's on, probably when moving. The orange fabric is quite thin and light, so it doesn't end up weighing too much. People, adults and children, seem to find it worrying that it drags on the ground when I go down stairs or slopes, but I mainly only mind when I'm trying to go up and I keep stepping on it, and it's hard to hold up because even if you hold it up in one or two places, there is still enough skirt to get in the way down by one's feet. Finished skirt, with one side tucked into waist-band: Both sides held up: Small details - the skirt is hemmed by sewing a strip of fabric onto the hem-edge, folding it to the back and sewing it down and then sewing a wiggly line around too, for decoration and to hold the strip in place and...