Am I the only one who was up until all hours sewing a Halloween costume? Please tell me I'm not.

First thing out of Spud's mouth this morning when he woke up wasn't, "Good morning, Mom!" it was, "Did you finish my costume?" *sigh* I do kind of feel bad that he didn't have the costume sitting there staring at him for days before Halloween, and he didn't get the chance to BEG me to try it on just ONE MORE TIME and such...but he was pretty psyched about it when he did try it on this morning.

I DID, in fact, finish! And it came out great, if I do say so myself. He wanted to be a flashy ninja (bottom right, black and silver), and it was my first time really working with this weird woven silver fabric. It wasn't as hard to use as I'd expected, but it does ravel quite a bit.

And I confess, I wasn't extremely careful with it, so it's not my proudest project. But when he tried it on this morning, it looked great! I forgot to put the gusset part in the hood (WHOOPS) but it still fits. For some reason, I didn't have NEARLY enough silver fabric, so he got no boot covers (he didn't mind), and the elastic on the mask is too long (easy to shorten, though).

Another Halloween costume down, with MINIMAL DRAMA! Hooray!

Posted by Kerri at 09:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"I pledge to buy handmade this holiday season, and request that others do the same for me."

That's the mantra of BuyHandmade.org, supported by a consortium including Etsy, Craftster, Craft: Magazine, and others, calling themselves the "Handmade Consortium". If you feel moved to do so, head over to the web site, and pledge to shop handmade this holiday season! Here's their call to arms:

"The ascendancy of chain store culture and global manufacturing has left people all dressing, furnishing, and decorating alike. The connection between producer and consumer has been lost. Buying handmade helps them reconnect. We created the pledge as a call to action for consumers to be conscious of how they spend their money this holiday season. We want people, whenever possible, to support independent creators and shop outside the big boxes."

I love it. The reason I took up sewing more than ten years ago now is because I truly believed that if uneducated preteen children in Communist countries could sew my clothes, *I* could probably figure out how to do it, too -- and maybe keep those children from having to. I'm up for the pledge, are you?

Posted by Kerri at 09:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, isn't that funny? I opened an Etsy shop, and people bought stuff! Not only that, I've gotten a wholesale order, and so I'm cranking out twelve bags, three each of four designs. YIPES that's a lot of work!

Just before the order, though, I bought a knitting pattern! It said it was for beginners, and said if I could yarn over, knit two together, and do a stockinette stitch, I could make this pattern. Well, I can do all those things! So I spent six bucks on this fabulous slipper pattern, without having the opportunity to read through it (it was an e-pattern PDF). Well, wouldn't you know? I got the pattern, and it made NO SENSE. I mean none. I couldn't even tell which yarn was the MC (main color), or which yarn to start with. I wrote back to the pattern creator, and while sympathetic, she wasn't particularly helpful.

So I gave the pattern to my mother. Which made me feel a lot better -- because she said it was a terribly poorly written pattern. It was not my fault. WHEW. She even had trouble following it, and she's the most amazing knitter I've ever met. (Not just because she's my mom -- but because she's just really good.) The good news is, she's going to make me a pair of slippers from the pattern. In fact, she's got one almost done. (Then I distracted her with a SuperMarioBros scarf pattern from Craftster -- I guess my son's scarf is now more important than my chilly toes.) ;-)

So, when will people who write patterns stop writing them in such a way that it's like a CONTEST to see if you can actually figure it out? I mean, it's a PATTERN, people. Not a PUZZLE.

Posted by Kerri at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)