The 4T-ish TNG Jacket... halfway there!

Yesterday was full of delicious progress.

I still need to figure out the collar, waistband, liner, and invisible zipper situations, but the skeleton is all here.

For my little captain. 

I had been stuck on the first step. 

Yeah, the FIRST step.  The front chest piece sewn to the front waist piece... in all my practicing on muslin, I could not keep the darn point from puckering.  I guess they make it the first step because it's the most important clean line... if you mess it up, you are cutting new cloth and starting over!  Finally I went on a hunt to see what other people did for cosplay purposes, and I learned about stay-stitching.  I made my seam allowance 1/2", so you sew a line above the point on the red piece just under 1/2", then cut the cloth almost all the way up to that point.  Once that corner is separated into 2 flaps, it's far easier to deal with.

Uhhh... like this:

Stay-stitching experiment.

You can see here that I accidentally put it darn close to the seam!  I did the same for the back point (on the black though, of course), and kept the stay-stitch to about 3/8" which worked just as well but gave me more of a safety zone.  I feel like I should have run into this technique at some point in my last decade of sewing halloween and ren faire costumes. 

After I figured out that step, the rest progressed pretty fast, until it was time to assemble the sleeves to the body.


There has to be a better way.

Attaching the sleeves, sleeve inserts (the black triangles), and body together is just ridiculously hard to do on the sewing machine.  I really messed up the alignment of the left sleeve inserts, but considering that I can't re-do things with this knit material (it leaves "tears" in the knit if I pick out stitches), I'm just leaving it instead of starting from scratch.  I ended up hand-sewing most of the shoulder seams on the right sleeve, and that turned out far better... but still frustratingly far from perfect.  He's only going to wear it for a year or two anyway, and there's only 6 days left until we need the costumes, so I'm trying to let go of the perfectionism.

Speaking of which, my husband could theoretically wear his uniform forever, so I need to get all my mistakes out now!  I'm desperately hoping that my husband's jacket shoulders are easier to assemble due to being much larger... and also due to not having to improvise a pattern. Wish me luck, I start on his today!

Skanty Progress

The sewing machine is hobbling along, and will work with only the regular straight stitch and a slow speed, after I ran some waxed floss through where the upper thread goes on the machine.  Looks like I need to replace the tension disc, but I can't send it in for repair before costumes are needed. 



In any case, some progress has been made!

Halfway sewn.

The skant isn't finished by any means... it still needs a zipper, sleeves, collar, hemming.  Originally I ruined the top 3 pieces due to how stretchy the black cloth is, but I re-cut them and added interfacing to the black, and they were much easier to deal with.

Since my pattern is far more simple than the men's jacket, I'm using it to do the learning of new techniques, and to make sure the sewing machine is going to be reliable now that I've found a "fix" for it.  So much of this is new to me:  sewing with stretchy knits, invisible zippers, stay-stitching, stitch-in-the-ditch, collars, trims, linings. 



It's motivating to see some real progress finally. 

Only 8 days left to finish our costumes... and those are already going to be busy days.  Wish me luck.

If I end up finishing the sewing early, I'm totally doing head-to-toe Trill spots with a brown permanent marker.  Even though I will have to explain them to the doctor the day before Halloween, bwahahaha! 

The last step before sewing: Color decisions and interfacing.

No longer so blue.

Torin has decided that he wants to be red instead of blue.  Good thing I anticipated this last-minute change, and bought a bit of extra cloth for his dad's costume.  Since the muslin practice run went so well, I cut out all the fancy cloth... there is no going back!

The Stiffening.

The red cloth is pretty thick, while the black cloth is noticeably slippery and flimsy in comparison.  After a bit of experimenting, I decided to only put interfacing on the black cloth, so that the 2 colors have a similar stiffness and feel to them.

It really did not use up much interfacing at all!

Black interfacing on black cloth.

Now that the interfacing has been ironed on... WE ARE READY TO SEW!! 


One small snag, though.

My sewing machine decided to malfunction right as I started to test out sewing with the stretchy cloth.  I spent several hours yesterday cleaning and resetting everything, researching, and coming to the conclusion that I likely need to replace the tension wheel for the top thread.  The thread keeps getting stuck at that part (even at zero tension) and skipping stitches and then breaking.

Part of my old job was to deep-clean, re-align, and repair a variety of microscopes.  It's so frustrating to not be able to do the same for just a "simple" sewing machine.

The practice run: TNG Jacket

Things are moving along!

I finally finished the pattern, cut out all the bits (besides the collar and waistband) in some really cheap muslin, and pinned them together to see how it'd work.  Seems to fit the kid perfectly!

YESSSSSSS!

This fuzzy photo shows you the main parts of the outer shell (minus one sleeve).  I think the hardest part is going to be sewing that point in the center front, it's so tricky to pin it smooth!  Of course, that is literally the first step to sew in the directions.

It's getting real now.

Wish me luck!

Almost finished with the patterns.

I really hope the next phase goes more quickly!

Between the vacation and playdates and beer-brewing and the usual life obligations, I haven't gotten very far on my Star Trek uniforms project.  Editing my pattern between 2 sizes and my husband's between 3 has taken a lot of time. 

Today I worked on creating my son's shirt uniform pattern from "scratch," and managed to get it all done besides the sleeves and collar.  I'm definitely going to do a full muslin mock-up of his to practice with, but am 90% sure I won't need to do so for the other costumes.   



Look at that cute chest piece!  

Add caption

I'm really looking forward to getting to actually cut cloth and sew!  Perhaps tomorrow...

Happy October, the best of all months!

Chomp chomp chomp...

I absolutely LOVE having a holiday wreath prepared ahead of the holiday, so that we can enjoy them for a full month.  I've only made 2... one for October/Halloween, and one for November/Thanksgiving.  Both of them are in this same style made with a wire wreath and tulle, and are pretty easy to iron for a few minutes before plopping them out on the door. 

I guess next year's goal is to make 10 more holiday-appropriate wreaths!

23 Tribbles

The kid's birthday is coming up, and he has declared that the theme should be Star Trek.

Tribbles might make a great party favor for the kids!  And so, yet another trekkie sewing project has begun.

Gutted and skinned tribbles.

Fall Colors

We went on vacation to the mountains, to see the beginning bloom of fall colors for the autumn equinox. 

On the way up, the aspens were beginning to turn yellow... on the way back, they were significantly yellow with an orange blush!  It was wonderful to literally watch the color change over 4 days.  I collected several leaves to preserve.


The glycerin method.

1 part glycerin, 2 parts water, 1 week.  It's supposed to keep most of the color, and leave the leaves supple and permanently preserved.  I'm hoping to be able to use them for fall decorations. 

Here's a photo, so I can compare colors in a week!

Aspen leaves in glycerin.

GISH part 3, Item #134, Forest Bathing

Taking "forest bathing" literally.

The last GISH item I tackled was to take a photo of "shinrin-yoku," the Japanese art of forest bathing.  It required a real tub, filled with leaves and pine needles, in a clearing in a forest.

My parents just so happened to have this fantastic claw-foot tub on their property, already in a clearing in their oak forest, and we only had to move it about 15-20 feet to get the perfect background.  They took about 60 pictures combined!

You get more points in the scavenger hunt for things that are cool, funny, weird, or aesthetically pleasing.  After much consultation with my GISH group, we decided the skull was vital, and settled on this pose: 

Forest bathing with my buddy

Just the facts.

I've been asked how much I photoshopped this:  not at all.  Editing is against the GISH rules... it wasn't needed anyhow, because my dad is an awesome photographer!

The light was eerily dim because California was on fire, and smoke was blocking the sun.  At least the smoke was very high in the air, so it wasn't affecting our lungs much at the time. 

The pine needles, pine cones, and birch/ribbon headdress came from my house, while my brother donated the found deer skull, and we all shoveled leaves onto giant beach towels to lug over to the tub.

It was a LOT of leaves, enough that I almost could not move underneath them.  It was a weighted, heated blanket that smelled of sun-baked decomposing oak and sent me into a near-meditative state.  It was so deeply relaxing that I didn't even feel awkward doing a nude photo shoot!

The pictures turned out basically exactly how I had imagined them days before the shoot.  There are so, so many outtakes... some funny, some serious.  If you want to see more, lemme know.



I think the day affected my psyche.

The experience of being weighted down under fragrant oak leaves... it made me dream of this scene every night for 6 weeks straight.  Except the deer was living and standing to the left, and in the place of the deer skull was a floating 4" ball of fire.  It becomes dusk, and the deer and I wander around the forest while I hold the ball of fire to light the way. 

Any dream interpreters out there who want to chime in with your insight? 



I should write a bunch more about forest bathing.

The super short version is that my husband recently had me listen to a podcast about forest bathing and terpenes (specifically alpha-pinene and limonene), and how Japanese hinoki cypress terpenes affect the human body, and it led me down a rabbit hole of research.

From my "tree-hugging hippie scientist" point of view, forest bathing seems like the perfect blend of magic and science!  I've ordered some of the proper terpene-rich essential oils, and will update later about my forest terpene experiments, but I'm hoping to at least partially replicate that invigorating-yet-serene sensation that lingers after camping in the woods. 



I think I'll do GISH again!

I'm so glad that I joined a GISH team this year... thanks to the leader for inviting me!  It happened on the tail end of an incredibly stressful and grief-filled month, so I didn't think I'd have the energy to participate at all, but luckily I was with a very chill group who didn't care that I only did 3 items off the scavenger hunt list.  It ended up being so refreshing to do stuff that I never would have done otherwise.

GISH part 2, Item #155: Spice Girl

The second GISH task I chose smelled pretty nice!  Uh, until I added the dill at the end. 



You could say I'm a spice lady.

One of the items for the scavenger hunt was to make a Spice Girl(s) portrait out of spices.  Herbs are kind of my thing, and I have had a slight Mountain Rose Herbs addiction in the past.  My spice cabinet is packed to the brim with quart mason jars of fragrant goodies... a kitchen witch's paradise! 

I chose Ginger Spice, particularly because I had a lot of powdered ginger for skin color and dried ginger for hair.  The most time-consuming part was just picking out the right pose and drawing it on a canvas board.

Drawing of a classic and busty Ginger Spice pose.

It took a while to get the technique down.

I tried out a few different methods, and doing a "paint by number" sort of thing with glue was the only one that really worked.  Ginger does NOT just mix with other spices easily, it clings to the paintbrush in ever-growing chunks and causes lots of problems, as I discovered on my first try without glue: 

Ginger and beet don't mix well on the page.

The solution was to make a few blends of different skin/shadow colors with ginger, cinnamon, and beet powders.  I glued all the powders in place before moving on to the chunkier spices.  The glue permanently darkened everything a bit, particularly the beet powder in the skin blends and lips... it turned out quite different than I had expected, but still close enough to work!

Spicy progress. 

This was the final shot, it looked best under the sunroom lights at night:

The finished Ginger Spice portrait.

Afterward I put about a dozen layers of spray matte mod podge on it, which worked pretty well to preserve it, though the spices blew around a bit and darkened even more.  Overall, I was pretty happy with how this turned out.  It's been years since I drew or painted anything to completion! 


Spices used:

1. Ginger powder:  skin
2. Cinnamon powder:  skin, eyebrows
3. Beet powder:  skin, lips
4. Orange peel:  hair 
5. Ginger dried chunks: hair
6. Roasted chicory root:  hair
7. Chipotle powder:  hair
8. Chili flakes:  hair
9. Poppy seeds:  eyes
10. Sesame seeds:  eyes
11. Sea salt:  reflection in eyes
12. Chia seeds:  eyelashes, eyeshadow
13. Turbinado sugar:  necklace (hard to tell in photos, but with the glue it retained a sparkly crystalline texture that does look like jewelry)
14. Smoked paprika:  dress
15. Black Hawaiian salt:  pupils, cleavage
16. Winter savory:  background
17. Dill:  background

All things must come to an end.

Today, I've weaned down to just 1oz of coffee.  That means it's my last day!

So long, friend.

Coffee in a teeny 2oz moscow mule cup.

I reduced my consumption by 2oz every 2-3 days, and didn't get any withdrawal symptoms... so much easier than cutting it in half every day.  I will miss it, but after a second bout of braces*, I am starting my year of wearing a retainer, so no coffee stains allowed.


*(The first retainer attempt gave me a gap between my front teeth that had to be corrected!  Omigods, I just want to be done having to wear braces/retainers 22 hours a day.)

GISH part 1, Item #35, Sock Octopus Hat

In August I participated in GISH!

GISH is short for Greatest International Scavenger Hunt, and it's focused on charity and "taking a break from normalcy."

Basically, they give you a list of (silly/weird/fun/helpful) tasks to complete, and you get points for each one you do.  Your team earns points together, and the winner gets a vacation trip.  The selection of introvert tasks was fairly slim compared to previous years, and I only managed to do 3 items off the huge list... but I let my perfectionism loose and spent a lot of time on each one. 



The Zone

I have had a terribly hard time getting into The Zone, that artistic mental space where time doesn't exist and inspiration and talent flow, since before my son was born.  So it's been probably 4 years!  I watch him full time, and he doesn't nap, and he breaks me out of The Zone whenever he notices that I'm about to enter it. 

The whole week was a practice of dipping in and out of The Zone nonstop, and practice to see how long Torin could tolerate not being the center of attention.  It was good for both of us, and I am finding that I now have an increased ease at entering The Zone, and am far less frustrated when I'm forced out of it by toddler distraction.  I completed more artistic things in that one GISH week than I've done in the last year! 



The first item:  Tentacly Warmth

When I saw the task that was essentially to make a sock monkey hat that was a different animal, I immediately knew that this one was for me!  I've wanted to crochet a giant octopus hat for a while, so this was the perfect opportunity. 

Sock Octopus Hat makes me long for aquatic things.

This hat cracks me up!  It was cobbled together from a few free Ravelry patterns, plus some intuitive crocheting.  It's the first time I've ever used intuition to crochet extra details.  I'm still working on writing out the pattern so that I can hopefully replicate it.

It was also insanely time-consuming to make, and left my hands aching for weeks afterward because I pushed them too hard... I've had almost a dozen requests for it, so I must disappoint everyone who wants one for this christmas.



Next year, I hope to do GISH again. 

My plan is to NOT do a crochet item, because even though it was fun to make, it took up most of my free time for the week!  I technically didn't even finish the back 2 tentacles of the hat until afterward (shhhh).  

The Skanting Nears

Fabric matching still feels so delicious.

The ponte colors match this pattern rather well too!  This pattern has a more dark blue, while the official one is more teal... this cloth color (despite the name "teal") is pretty much equally between them.

I kinda feel sorry for the guy, he has NO PIPS.

So ready!

All the cloth has been washed and dried, so I'm ready to start cutting out my skant pattern pieces.

In Sept/Oct, I always mark the calendar at the exact point when the autumn spark is suddenly in the air... but for today, the Trekkie spark is definitely in the air.  Yeah, it's gonna go on the calendar. 

Speaking of the calendar... happy belated Star Trek Day!  Sept 8, 1966 was the first time that Star Trek aired on TV.  

Skant Tracing

I'll never cut up an original pattern again.  

Since these patterns were on the pricey side, and I have fantasies about making lots of uniforms (trekkie flash mob, anyone?), I ordered some "medical pattern paper" from Amazon to trace out the patterns.  It's perfect! 

So far I have only used the tracing paper on the skant, but it kept me from destroying the original patterns in my attempt to blend between the M and XL sizes. 



It's my first time altering a pattern.

From my measurements vs the pieces, I figured out that I needed to make the M --> XL transition over about a 7-inch area right below the waist line (which is helpfully marked on the Simplicity pattern).

Papery skant.

I pinned together some of the skant pattern pieces and tried it on... and it fits perfectly!  I tried it on over my shorter dress that fits best, and it basically fits the same for both length and curve-hugging.  I was going to mock it up in muslin first, but since the fabric is pretty stretchy, I'm 90% confident that I won't need to.

Matching Fabric for Command and Science

My lesson in fabric. 

The official patterns call for wool gabardine.  There are a few problems with that... namely, I can't find it anywhere local in the right colors, and the pattern says it's dry clean only.

After some research on Star Trek cosplay, the next best option seems to be ponte.  It's thick, which is the most important part, and a bit stretchy... reminds me of the material that my grandmas would wear for pants.  The jacket/pant costumes call for fusible stabilizer on everything, so they won't be very stretchy, but the skant is required to have at least 25% stretch.

Rumor has it that polyester spandex interlock (aka double knit) or matte jersey will also work.  They are both a "step down" in quality/thickness, but I saw a really awesome gold uniform in the interlock.  I saw the same gold interlock at Joann, but it looked like it was already starting to pill up.  The skant pattern says that heavyweight lycra and lycra blends are also good options.



Color wins the day.

Really, the choice was forced on me, because ponte was the only fabric I could find at Joann with colors that matched well enough.

Red and blue were "cabernet" and "teal" in "stretch refined ponte" at 2 yards each, and very pricy.  I picked a plain ponte for black because it was less than half the cost and I needed 6 at least yards for all 3 uniforms.  This means I can wash the uniforms on "delicate" or "hand wash," and hang to dry. 

I also picked up a bunch of muslin to do a trial run for the jacket, because it is pretty complicated and needs a nicely trim fit... I don't want to ruin the expensive fabric!  I may also do a muslin trial run of the skant, because my top is size M while my hips are XL, and I've never had to blend sizes in one garment like that before.

To Boldly Go!

It's September, so it's time to get serious about sewing Halloween costumes.

I spent about 2 months asking Torin what he wanted to be for Halloween... showed him pictures of kids in costumes, gave him plenty of ideas.  We need to do something besides Jedi!  He always responded either "I want to be just Torin" or "I want to be nothing." 

That is, until one day in August, he said he wanted to be Star Trek!  We had been watching the original series, which is currently the only series I haven't seen.  Over the next few weeks he waffled between a gold uniform (Kirk) and blue (Spock) and red (Picard), and I showed him allllll the Star Trek costumes... but he finally settled on what he wanted. 


Torin's official requests were:

• Torin:  Blue (TNG style)
• Daddy:  Red (TNG style... and yes, I have heard all the redshirt jokes already)
• Mommy:  Purple (Deanna Troi's horrible bodysuit with the V-shaped belt)

I've been fantasizing about making Star Trek costumes for forever, but wanted to wait until I had finished losing weight so I wouldn't be too fat for the costumes.  But when your 3-year-old says he wants to dress up, you gotta grab the opportunity! 

My compromise (because I am NOT wearing a spandex bodysuit) was to go for the blue skant.  Troi did wear it in the first episode, and if I it's cold I can still wear black leggings underneath... technically the skant + pants combo was a maternity uniform.  I found a pattern from Simplicity.

For the men, I found two-piece TNG patterns on the official Roddenberry website.  I didn't want to do jumpsuits... Torin wouldn't have any room to grow, and it would be pretty annoying to have to fully undress to use the restroom. 


I'm going to learn a lot about sewing in the next month.

After looking at the patterns, it appears that this one is going to be the most complicated and possibly the most expensive costume piece I have ever sewn!  It is a thing of terrifying beauty... which will get worked up in muslin first so I don't ruin the fancy cloth.

I can literally feel the nerdiness in every cell.

Here's to exploration and the expansion of boundaries!

Clearing the Cobwebs

Today I spent about an hour poking around with a flashlight and a branch off the old plum tree, collecting all the tiny cobwebs in and around the house (plus 5 occupied webs, sorry daddy long legs!).  It's weird how stuff like that can go unseen for months at a time. 

Cobwebs on the tapered tip of a plum branch.

It feels like I'm starting to clear out the dusty webs of life, too.  The last several months have not been good.  A quick summary is that I was very sick for a few months, then had a series of experiences that left me with a variety of inconvenient ailments, including a lovely stress-induced ulcer and PTSD.  It isn't over, and it's impossible to talk about.  But I'm finally recovering, and EMDR therapy is awesome.  I feel like I may be a slightly different person at the end of all of this, and I can't tell if that's good or bad.

At least, I'll be a person with fewer cobwebs. 

Enticing the hummingbirds

I finally, FINALLY found a hummingbird feeder design that works for me.

It doesn't drip and leave spots all over the deck (and attract ants), even in the wind!  It is easy to clean because there are no corners deep inside a bottle.  There's even a built-in ant moat.  Rain fills the moat, but doesn't dilute the nectar.  The only thing it's missing is... a hummingbird. 

I know we're just coming out of the "atmospheric river" and all the birds have been hiding... but we're on day 4 without any visitors.  Hurry up, little birds!

February's Habits Review

My habit-tracking showed 2 different halves to the month!


The first 14 days vs the second 14 days:

• Social events:  12 vs 3
• Driving:  5.5 hours vs 40 minutes
• Days of doing at least 4 big chores:  9 vs 3
• Hikes:  3 vs 0
• Crochet days:  0 vs 11
• Reading days:  3 vs 7

It's so obvious what happened.  I socialized/traveled so much that I burned myself out and got sick (ah, the curse of an Aspie).  I hurt my SI joint hiking a third of the way into the month, and had to recover the rest of the time, and chores that involved bending were super painful, so I spent more time on the couch with an ice pack and a book or crochet hook.

The good news is that I made large strides on the hardest crochet project and committed the entire pattern to memory.  I've never seen a huge 1-pound skein deflate itself like that... so satisfying!  It didn't move from its spot on couch for a whole week.

Deflated skein.

Other wins!


These things both improved greatly and stayed consistent the whole month:

• Weightlifting
• Cardio
• Meditation

Another win is that I'm on an 12-day streak of crochet, which shows a lot of moderation on my part... I didn't let myself overdo it.



The only thing that was disappointing for the month was weight loss.  


I stuck to the deficit, only lost 3lbs, and gained up to 1.5lbs of muscle (if my scale is accurate).  First I lost 15lbs over 5 weeks, and then only 3lbs over the next 5 weeks... it's a little frustrating to see such a lack of progress.

Somewhere in there, if my calculations are correct, are about 4 pounds of water weight that are hanging on.  This tends to happen when you suddenly start exercising again (increased blood volume), and when you start weightlifting (muscle soreness = inflammation = water retained).  I should be past my 2nd milestone by now.

There has been some progress, the kind you can't really measure.  This month clothes are suddenly fitting differently (shirts drape, and I'm stepping on pants that hang lower), 4 people have noticed, and my collar bones and deltoids have popped out to say hello. 




March's Habits Plan.


I'm pretty much going to continue the same plan as February's, but attempt more moderation with socializing and shorter hikes. 

I switched out Aquariums (since I no longer need the daily algaecide, thanks Siamese Algae Eater!) for Budget, because I've taken a few months of detailed grocery data and am going to come up with a formal food budget.  My family's new probably-life-long diet is pretty protein/veggie-heavy and therefore not cheap.  There are some things that surprised me with the last 2 months' research... for example, Costco's boxed liquid egg whites are a cheaper protein source than whole eggs or protein powder, so there is no reason to skimp on the egg white omelets.  Anyway, hacking the grocery budget should be fun. 
 
As for my only "failure" for the month, I'm leaving the plan the same.  As tempting as it would be to quit the exercise just to see the number plummet, I want the muscle more.  I could cut salt, but man, garlic salt and lunch meat make food satisfying enough to stick to the plan.  And so, I just wait out the plateau from hell, trust the deficit, and hope for that glorious water-weight whoosh.  Sometime in March, I should be able to share that 2nd milestone with you!

February's Year-Long Projects Review

Here's the updated chart! 


I changed from X marks to J and F, so it's easier to distinguish which month each task was completed.

(click to see full size)

In summary, 

I finished 16 project pieces out of the 20 expected.  Since I did 5 extra in January, I'm basically perfectly on track now. 

It seems that I still want to focus on one project at a time... half a year's worth of the red project was completed.  But I did branch out with some mead-making!  I just made the whole year's worth of batches at once, and it was a HUGE event.  Speaking of which, I think I need to rack the carboys today. 

I also really need to find that crochet hook for the green project... it's to the point that I should probably just buy a new one!  Next month's goals:  branch out a bit more, and get started on that glaringly empty green project.