Still crazy after all these years

~ Liz A ~ 26 Comments

Yep, I’m still here, all indications to the contrary. And have I mentioned that Paul Simon (he of the song Still Crazy …) has moved into our one-time hometown of Wimberley? I guess he heard we were no longer there 😉

Anyway, I’m overdue for some catching up.

First, the smock project did get completed, but I can’t say how I feel about actually wearing it …

Front
Back, which I prefer

It was intended to be open in front, but the smocking insisted on curling the edges, so I ended up making a pullover. Maybe I’ll warm up to it as the weather cools down.

I also did a quickie project to replace my two shoulder bags made during an India Flint workshop …

Instead of patching, I did a whole cloth construction using that wonderful ikat I bought from FabScrap …

It’s lined with the same cloth, so it will be reversible when it starts to show wear.

As for my absence, let’s just say there’s been a lot of grandkiddo time filling our days in Missouri while the boys’ mom and dad were on a business trip in Maui …

Time went by so fast that we didn’t even get to Ellbee’s for ice cream … so the next trip we’ll have to do a two-fer.

A tale of two stories (and a new note about Comments)

~ Liz A ~ 32 Comments

Update: I’m not sure what’s going on with WordPress, but commenting has begun to assign “Anonymous” to some, but not all commenters. Hopefully, the addition of a Name/Email box will help … if not, please let me know by email: lizackert@gmail.com

Having decided to lengthen the sleeves of my smock with patchwork, I set about gathering possible candidates … then serendipitously found some patched strips made for the table cloth cloth project I began last year …

And wouldn’t you know it? The patchwork strips were the perfect length.

So I drew a thread out of each sleeve, said a prayer to the cloth gods, and cut the sleeves in half …

Things moved pretty fast and furious after that, and ended happily with sleeves that were a far better length …

But wait, there’s more.

Some time back, Dee Mallon mentioned that she was starting a new writing group. Having very much admired posts where Dee shared her writing to prompts, it didn’t take but a New York minute for me to send an email asking to be included. And today was the first of ten sessions to come.

Under Dee’s careful guidance we were able to respond to three prompts in two hours. The first one flew off my pen, but the second baffled me. Until I looked across the room at my stitching chair and grabbed on to one word in the prompt …

Scraps

She gathered the pieces around her … rusts and reds, corals and golds. There was a time when she could have named each one: this from a much-loved dress, that from a faraway friend. But there were so many now, the scraps had lost their meanings.

Taking scissors in hand she clipped the edge of a rusty orange linen shot with the colors of a high-desert sky, took hold of one edge, and pulled. The fabric resisting, she clipped another inch, pulling harder, forcing the tear, the cloth releasing a shriek of protest as the linen finally parted.

One after the other she tore them, each cloth yielding strip after strip of forgotten story.

Threading her needle, she set to creating a new meaning for them. A community of cloth.

If at first you don’t succeed …

~ Liz A ~ 19 Comments

Ironically, I decided to document my process of making the cuffs on my smock. Ironic because the first two iterations didn’t go well at all.

I started with the original deep cuff …

which turned out to be too bulky along the edge of the smocking and too thin along the folded end. So I tried making a smaller cuff …

but that turned out so lumpy that I didn’t even bother to take a final picture. In the end, I simply hemmed the existing edge with no cuff at all …

which looks fine, but now the sleeves are a good two inches shorter than they otherwise would have been … and I hate short sleeves! (I know, I know … that last picture looks like the perfect length, but I’m holding the sleeve off my shoulder … so, no … it’s too short).

While pondering what to do about the too-short sleeves, I decided to start a completely new project with a remnant of cotton ikat from FabScrap …

Wanting to use every bit, I decided to try a zero-waste pattern. So I did some reading …

and decided not to risk my first try on the “good stuff,” choosing instead to practice on some plain white cotton cloth that I had on hand. Then I upped the ante by trying to fashion a reversible top. I hemmed all the rectangular pattern pieces with a combination running/back stitch (the infamous Texas Two-Step) and am in the process of whipping everything together …

One side …
and the other

all done with Deb Lacativa’s wicked-good threads to keep things interesting.

And while so doing, my mind came up with the perfect solution to my smock problem: I’ll cut the sleeves in two, hem the edges, and insert bands of patchwork. Ha! That should do the trick.

Now if I can just figure out how to finish the smock plackets. Hmmmm …