Sunday, September 14, 2014

Moving

I've been having some difficulty with Blogger so I've decided to Move on over to Wordpress.  Come visit me at www.imperfectanalia.com

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Testing....one....two....ugh.

I've been told that people have signed up to follow me and they are not getting updates so I'm trying to fix it.  If you get this let me know.  

Thanks....Imperfectme.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Working from notes I left to myself

The hardest thing about writing a blog is thinking of things to write about. I spend my days hanging out with two toddlers and sometimes have little to no contact with other adults.  My brain is overflowing with things that I end up babbling out to my husband at the end of the day or to the grocery check out lady or the cutie barrista (are they still barristas if they are boys? Does wanting to call them barristos make me old fashioned?).  But people don't really want to read my brain fizz.  So coming up with things to write about that other people will be interested in reading is really the thing. 'Cause lets face it if I didn't want other people to read what I am blogging about I would just write it in the princess diary I keep under the mattress. When a thought strikes me that I think I might have more to say about or might be fun to play around with or just seems important to remember I write it down on something handy...usually paper but denim scraps work too.

So I haven't written in a long time.   Mostly I keep thinking no one is going to be interested in the things I think up to write about.  Yes, self sabotage she is a sneaky beast.

Sometimes the act of typing something out brings on more thoughts...sometimes just delirious weirdness followed by head banging and chocolate binging.
So I thought I would gather up all the random notes I've left myself type some of them out and see what happens.

This is the first one I came across.
(Actual wording of my notes in red... it was really hard not to edit)

The goofy mistakes are the things that say I made this not anyone else
Have you ever noticed how things that are hand made have a quality that is different than things that are machine made or mass produced? Even when the hand made thing is done so well that the hand of the maker is invisible.  There is something subtly different and fundamentally comforting to me about things that are made by hand (This does not in anyway interfere with my love affair with plastic storage boxes).  With most things that are made by hand (yes especially the things I make) the hand of the artist is not invisible and I think that makes them all the more lovable.  It makes them seem more real to me. Slightly uneven stitching or brush strokes in paint say a real person was here and put something of themselves in what you are wearing or looking at.  I have nothing against factory made things or the people who put their sweat into factory made things.  Their job is important and without them many people would not have the things that they need.  But they are part of a human machine that has nothing of the individual in it.  I wear lots of factory made clothes and have lots of factory made things in my house but the things that I truly love and feel like express who I am have some sign of the hand that made them.  Yes I love the functional sameness and easy organization of  clear plastic boxes but those are not the things I am looking for in a hat or a bag or a painting.  I think that the things that I wear and display in my home are kind of a visual description of those things about me that I love the most.  The plastic boxes I keep in the closet.


Monday, June 30, 2014

Opinions are like....

 One of the most interesting things I have ever been called was caustic.  Caustic is one of those great words that invite interpretation.  It means both abrasive and cleansing.  I like it.  I'll take that.

I have opinions and attitudes and snarky comments for just about every situation.  I crack my self up.  But not everyone thinks I'm funny.  Most of us learn to tone down the wise acre shtick as we wander into our 40's and  I have learned to button my lip in most situations.

One of the things that really gets me spouting off and heavy on the sarcasm is parenting BS.  I'm pretty sure that I'm on the right track and anyone who is doing anything I wouldn't do is on the wrong one.  And I babble on the topic with mad abandon.  Especially when it's gonna get a good laugh.  But I do try to keep my opinions to myself when they are not wanted or helpful.

I would like to say something to the whole smug my way is the best way world.  To every "my kid eats kale" mom and "I taught him to read when he was 2" dad.  And maybe more importantly something to say to the family who hasn't slept a full night in two years and the mom who gets called to school three times a week.

PERSONALITY IS A CRAP SHOOT.

When your kid pops out he is who he is and you got nothing to say about it.  It is your job as a parent to teach him how to do things like use a fork and a toilet, how to get along in society.  But whether you got one who sweetly sits at the dinner table and eats all in front of him without being told or you got one who throws food at the wall until you've exhausted your capacity for sending him to the time out chair (or whatever your equivalent is) is not due to anything you did or did not do.  The best thing you can do as a parent is work with what you've got and and attempt to not lose your mind.


When there's housework to do


"...Your mommy hates housework, your daddy hates housework, I hate housework too.  And when you grow up so will you."   Seriously? What are kids for? 



Monday, May 19, 2014

Why my son does dishes or How to do the dishes (with a dishwasher)

I originally started writing this, not as a blog post but as an actual list of instructions to hand to my 11 year old who can't seem to remember how to do the dishes properly. Despite the fact that I require him to do it 3 nights a week.  Despite the fact that he is constantly getting told how to do it.  Despite the fact that doing the dishes is not that flippin complicated!  Well once I started writing (babbling on and on) about each step I started thinking ok, well, maybe doing dishes is a little bit complicated and I should give the kid a break.  Not that I'm going to stop making him do it...not that I'm going to stop yelling at him and making him do it over when it isn't right but maybe I should stop (in my own head) being annoyed when half the dishes get put away still encrusted with last nights noodle glop.  I even (just for a second) entertained the thought that maybe I was expecting too much of the kid.  He is only 11.  Perhaps taking out the trash once a week, cleaning his room, and doing the dishes three nights a week is a lot to ask of an 11 year old. And on top of it I expect him to do these things to my specifications. Then I read this fabulous thing from Renegade Mama and I snapped back to reality.

A while back I read a completely moronic blog post from a woman who decided that she will never ask her child to do chores because the child can't do them right or fast enough or some such idiocy.  It scares me that, for a minute, I was falling into the he might not be ready/ it's easier to do it myself trap.  NO NO NO NO NO!  It is our job as parents to teach our kids.... EVERYTHING! Not just how to walk and talk and use the toilet.  We have to teach them how to do a job and do it right and to take pride in doing it right.  Some crap doesn't matter.  I don't put the dishes away immediately after they have been washed, I let them drip dry and put them away later.  Some people want the kitchen spotless before they go to bed.  We all have to decide what our personal acceptable levels of filth are.  Much like finding your level of bullshit with or without a partner.  But whatever you decide is your acceptable level of filth you have an obligation to teach your children how to do it.  Whatever it is, washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom, sweeping the floor, growing vegetables, grocery shopping....etc, you have to teach your children how to be grown ups.  That's your job!  So that one day we don't end up old and helpless in a world run by people who don't know how to take care of themselves and are pretty sure someone else should be doing it for them anyway! So here you have it.


How to do the dishes (with a dishwasher):

1.  Don't do anything until you have music going.  Pick the tunes and the medium so that you won't feel the need to mess with it for at least an hour (it probably won't take you that long to do the dishes but you might as well be prepared) If you are a person who can't stand to sit through a commercial on the radio that is not the medium for you.  Remember once you've set it up, no messing with the tunes until you are done.  Get a positive atmosphere going but don't let yourself get distracted.  Dishes suck but if you focus and stay on task you will get it done quickly.

2.  Put away any and all clean dishes that happen to have gotten left in the drying rack or dishwasher.  Some people prefer to dry and put away at the end of the process, personally I'm a let it air dry sort of gal. But if you feel the need to do it right away fine, just move this step to the end of the process.
     2a. When you are putting away clean dishes make sure they are CLEAN nobody likes taking out a plate for their lovingly created, gourmet PB&J only to come face to face with a rock hard chunk of yesterdays oatmeal.  Dirty dishes go back in the sink for a redo, no worries just scrape off the chunk, soak it in some water and back in the dishwasher it goes. (If you can scrape the chunk so that the dish looks clean put it away....who's gonna know?)
     2b.Stack things neatly in the cupboards so that they use the least amount of space.  Small things fit inside big things.  Precariously stacked piles of pans are an angry mom waiting to happen.
     2c. If you don't know where it goes ASK.
     2d. LEARN where everything goes.

3. Clear the table.  Take everything into the kitchen and wipe the table off.  Isn't it nice to know one thing is done already.

4. Put away left over food  Whatever is left in serving bowls or pans that is more than a 1/4 cup of food can be someones lunch or midnight snack.  If it made it's way onto a plate but didn't get eaten it's either dog food or compost, deal with it appropriately.

5. Stack.  Your stacking strategy can have an effect on how long the rest of the process takes.  I like to separate things by size on side of the sink so that I can put the smallest things into the dishwasher first and there is room in the sink to rinse everything.  If there are things already in the sink take them out.

6. RINSE  Everything! This might feel like you are washing the dishes before the dishwasher washes the dishes.  Tough.  The dishwasher is a time saving, water saving tool that helps you do the dishes it's not a magical solid chunk of food dissolver.  If you don't rinse first you will end up scraping and soaking the dishes before washing them a second time.  Save yourself the extra work. Use a wash rag to remove the really stuck stuff.  As soon as it's rinsed put it in the dishwasher right away.

7. Load  Loading the dishwasher is a skill you will be honing for years to come. The best way to learn is to play two or three rounds of tetris to get the idea and then do the dishes at least once a day for the rest of your life.  I suggest starting with the smallest things and then washing the big things by hand when you run out of room.  I'm sure everyone has their own style of loading. Whatever your style is, the most important thing is to be sure that the dirtiest part of the implement you are loading faces the spray of water.  Did you hear that? BUSINESS SIDE DOWN!  If the spray of water does not reach the dirty part, the time you spent rinsing will be wasted.

8.  Put detergent in the appropriate places I'll admit to not being totally sure why dishwashers come with two places for detergent but just for good measure I put some in both.  I am a total cheap ass so I make my own dishwasher detergent but I put a bit in each place.  Every fourth or fifth load I put some vinegar in the rinse aid spot.

9. Run the machine  This might seem like an obvious step....but I have gone to empty the dishwasher the morning after it was run only to be faced with a smelly mess.  If you don't turn it on, they don't get clean.

10. Wipe all the surfaces Counters, the stove top, the sink, anything and everything that has something that once might have been food or the makings on it.  This includes the floor, which might require a broom....use your discretion but make it look clean

Yay! you are done.  Great job!  Aren't you proud of how great you made the kitchen look?

P.S.  Take all music playing devices and wet clothing that you removed in the process with you when you leave

Saturday, April 19, 2014

updates and such


If this is not your first time visiting my rodeo you may have noticed that I spend my time in equal parts half assed copying things I find on the internet and trying to reinvent the wheel.  I never feel the need to precisely follow directions and most of the time I'm pretty sure (though most often wrong) that I already know how to do things just by being near them.  Sometimes the things I make come out really cool in a weird new way.  Sometimes they are a total failure.  Most of the time the things I make are good enough...good enough for family gifts or, in the case of food, good enough to put on the table but I won't be getting a tip.

Sometimes I day dream that I will become good enough at making some thing or things that someone might want to pay for them.  But very often the day dreams end with me reminding myself that five years in school and 10 years as a professional photographer took all the fun out of taking pictures.

So the hell with that.

The last week and a half I have been having a little vacation from one of the little ones.  He and his mom went off to Asia.  I miss him terribly but there has been time for me to catch up on some things I've been thinking about doing.

Remember the post There will be cock ups? I pulled that baby out of the closet of crafty delight and unsewed the mess I made while trying to make the machine do the work.  The thing is just too lumpy bumpy.

So I lined it up the way I thought it should go with the lining starting about two inches below the top edge and I spent an entire evening sewing that sucker in by hand.  Which was surprisingly relaxing.  I think I get how women in the past could sit and sew by hand without going insane it gets mesmirizing after a while. Plus I found that doing it by hand I was able to bully the parts into doing what I wanted them to do much more easily.  


Not the prettiest whipstitch (searched for whipstitch video found these gals instead) ever but unless you are looking this close you really can't see it.  
Then I made a pretty pin.  I decided to use a pin instead of a button so it can be taken off and used for decoration other places.  Fun huh?


I found two hat patterns that worked pretty good. This one which I think needs some adjusting.  I made two and sent one to my friend Sheri cause who doesn't love to get a random hat in the mail?


And This one which I copied out of a how to make hats book I got from the library

 
An old angry birds tshirt got sacrificed.  It's reversible with stripes on the inside.  I drew the shape for the pieces on to newspaper and used that for the pattern.  It's a bit too pointy and it was supposed to fit the big boy but I forgot to calculate in the seam allowance so the little boy gets it.  

I also revisited the Kale chips.  This time I just sprinkled a little salt on them from the salt shaker right before I put them in the oven.  I had to dare my son and his friends to try them but once they did they all said they were good.  Truth be told my kid ate a few, another kid only ate the one I dared him to eat but the third kid chowed the rest of the plate.  I wonder if his mom knows.  

I've been trying out some frugal and/or green cleaning (not necesarily both).  I did take pictures and thought about writing about it but I just couldn't make it interesting even to myself.  If you are interested in how I cleaned my drip pans here are some things I tried.  And just so you know...not one of these methods worked without scrubbing and not one of them got rid of all the gunk even after all the scrubbing.

My little vacation is almost over. My plan for the weekend is to try making my own laundry detergent.  
This is what I hope to try wish me luck!



Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Snack hunt.

I am a snacky-snack-snackerson-snaaaaaaaackaholic. Potato chips and candy bars oh you are my lovelies. Of course, like everyone else, I want to be healthy but come on! I want some sweet and salty joy in my life!

I'm a big girl now and I have learned to control myself....a bit.  I allow myself a weekly candy bar.  I still have an occasional ugly week where control is just not possible. But for the most part every single evening I chow down on a few handfuls of sesame sticks and dried cranberries.  Yep.  Hippy snacks. I am guilty.  I am constantly on the hunt for something new and interesting (and at least sort of healthy) to fill the little hole in my life that was once filled by cool ranch doritos. (If you say Sun Chips, I'll have to kill you)

The first time my nutty health food friends suggested kale chips I think I snorted.  Loud.  I'm a pretty recent convert to kale.  It took way too many choked down bitter kale salads before I tried cooking it, but cooking it changed everything.   Now I cook it in just about anything, but making it into chips? Uh, really? I've tried a good number of types of vegetable chips and they never quite do it unless they are mostly potato (white potato. sweet potato isn't the same and doesn't count).  I love these but they're just potato chips with some other veggies mixed in for color.  Yes, potatoes are vegetables but lets face it they are the candy of vegetables.

So I decided I was going to hunt down some kale chips and give them a try.  My short term memory is on again off again so the first time I went looking for them I came home with two kinds of kelp chips instead of kale. 

 Kelp chips smell and taste like fish. 
and
No amount of sugar or spice is going to cover it up.  




Second try.  I brought home these.

Superfoods? Hmmm.  It's weird, when you first bite into them, they are surprisingly good. But, just as you are about to reach for the second bite of your new favorite snack, you are hit with the most unbelievable chemical after taste.  I did not eat a second one.  My son spit his out.  

I had pretty much written off kale chips as just one more hippy food lunacy.  Then my son's friend told me that he really likes them.  Turns out he's never had the horror in a green bag that I thought was a kale chip.  He said his dad makes them and they are awesome.  Now, I know I can trust chip advice from a 9 year old, but I was still skeptical.  

Next stop: The Google Thing.  

Turns out kale chip recipes are all over the internet like top ten funniest cat videos.  Of course none of them agree on how to do it...but they do all agree on one thing: It's really freakin' easy.  

And it is!   I read about 10 different recipes, all slightly different, then I just sort of went to it.  

My kale was a bit limp but I didn't think that would matter since I was planning on dehydrating it anyway.  
Ain't it purty

One of the recipes suggested using a salad spinner after washing the kale to get rid of as much water as possible.  People really own salad spinners? 

Yes, they do! Turns out you can spin your salad to the tune of 160 bucks if you really feel the need.  That's some serious cabbage! (I crack myself up)

I used a couple paper towels, worked just fine.  I could probably have used some cloth napkins....ok next time.

I figured first time around I better keep it simple.  Olive oil and salt.  A tablespoon of oil for all that kale didn't really seem like enough but when I started mixing it around it went pretty far.  A teaspoon of salt seemed like way too much so I only used half.  

Some recipes suggested using PAM.  There is something freaky wrong about about foodish stuff in a spray can (that doesn't mean I haven't been known to down a whole can of whipped cream straight in to my mouth).  This web site suggests a DIY solution  which sounds a whole lot better than serving up my veggies slathered in propellant.  I'm all for quick and easy and if it's healthy too, bonus! But cooking oil in a can just seems....icky.  

Have you heard about the Olive Oil Conspiracy?  Ugh.  I found this wordy thing that tells you pretty much everything you need to know if you want to only get good olive oil.  Here is my truth about olive oil: That shit is expensive! Yes it tastes better.  Yes it's healthier.  But the cheap shit isn't killing me and mostly it tastes fine.  So I bought this:


Which looks an unnatural color of green in the spoon 

But Tom over at the truth in olive oil blog says don't pay attention to the color. So I won't.

I stirred in the oil sprinkled on my 1/2 teaspoon of salt (still seems like alot) and laid it out on some parchment paper.  I love parchment paper! Thank you mouthy Martha for bringing this wonderful stuff to my life.  Most stuff won't stick to it.  And the stuff that does stick you just peel the paper away from the food like edible stickers.  

Popped it in the oven at 300F The temperature is a major point of disagreement in the recipes as is the length of time required to make them the right texture.  So I picked a lowish temp and started checking on them after about 5 minutes.  At 15 minutes they looked like this


It cooled off really quickly and was nicely crispy.  So I pulled them all out, peeled them off the parchment and started eating.....I inhaled 5 or six before the salt really hit me.  Too much too much too much I knew it was too much.  I'm definitely going to try this again! Before being overwhelmed with the salt they were light and crispy and wonderfully chip like.  Don't get me wrong they are not potato chips and you won't be dunking them into a bowl of onion dip, they just won't hold up.  But, they are tasty enough and easy enough to make that this might just get to be a staple around our house.  


Yay for Kale chips!







Monday, March 24, 2014

Starring Me as The Little Match Girl

I often have ideas that just don't work.  Something that I find really hard to do is let go of the thing once I see that it's not working (piles of unfinished projects residing in the closet of crafty delight are testament to this issue).  But stepping away from it for a while (some times years...sh.) and coming back from a new angle can make all the difference (maybe, kinda, sorta, sometimes).

When my sister was here she had come up with this crazy idea for a hooded scarf.  


We worked on it quite a bit.  We had lots of silly fun, then abandoned the project when all the work we put into it looked as though we hadn't done anything at all.  This week Something different started developing in my brain and I spent some time looking at pictures of hooded scarves on the google thing.  I realized that where we were going wrong was in trying to keep any semblance of the old sweater in tact.  There was too much fabric in all the wrong ways.  So With that in mind I pulled out the green sweater you see my husband modeling in the picture above and went at it with the scissors.  

The reason Sis and Husband are wearing different failures is because we liked the green sweater better and didn't want to ruin it by using it for our test run.  This was a good call.  But when I started digging in the closet of crafty delight for the hooded scarf project revisited the only one left was the green one so I decided to forgo the test run and sacrifice it on the alter of hope and good ideas.  So I got my scissors out and showed no fear!



I cut the sweater into it's obvious parts then refolded the body part so that when I cut it into the hood shape the pattern would be centered on my head.

That picture doesn't really show you anything does it.
I cut open the tube that was the body of the sweater so I had one big rectangle folded in half and inside out. I pinned right down the back so that I had a piece closed on two sides at right angles to each other.  Wow.  Did that make any sense at all?  When I stuck it on my head it looked like just what it was: a folded rectangle stuck on my head.

And since we are talking about stuck....a note about pins and trying things on.  Pins are an important tool when you are sewing.  They will help you do all kinds of things that fabric would refuse to do without them. But make no mistake about it THE PINS ARE OUT TO GET YOU.  Given the slightest opportunity they will attack.  Do not even entertain the thought that you will try something on with the pins on the inside.  Not for a second! Not even if you know full well that the pins will be a good foot away from your body.  They will seize the moment and hurt you in your most tender parts.  Pin cushions are a necessity! Those little plastic boxes your pins come in when you buy them are so cute...remove the pins (carefully) and use them for your earrings or something. Those pins have been sitting in the box for months on the craft store shelf waiting for you to open the lid on their escape plan.  Get them all into the pin cushion fast and then never turn your back. As soon as you aren't looking they head for the floor and from there they're going after your husband and that is never pretty.

Yes.  I tried the hood on with the pins on the inside and, yes, even though they were at least three inches away from my head they attacked.  So, sorry no picture of me with a rectangle on my head.

It became clear that a hood has a shape all it's own so I took the hood off my rain jacket and used it to figure out what that shape should really be.


At first I thought I would want the ribbed part to stick out in front of my face a bit but after checking out what I looked like in the rain coat hood I decided to cut pretty close to the size of the original.

I look so unhappy 



I pinned around the original hood, sewed a straight stitch along the line and cut away the excess.  Notice I didn't cut around the curve at the bottom.  A mistake that will be rectified later.  
I REMOVED ALL THE PINS! Then I tried it on again


I still don't look very happy.  But the hood is better.  It's a bit long but I know I'm going to want that extra length to attach the scarf part to.  



There's too much fabric in the back....worry about that later.  On to the scarf part!



I knew that the sleeves wouldn't be long enough to make the whole scarf but it was a good place to start so I cut them open and cut out the seam then pinned them to the hood.  


PINS ON THE OUTSIDE!

The full cut open sleeve is just too much 



I trimmed the sleeves down to a more reasonable scarf width. While I was at it I dissected the parts of the sweater I wasn't already using.  I cut everything away from the seams and ended up with a bunch of odd shaped pieces which I also trimmed,


then sewed all the little bits together into two roughly equal sized scarf halves.

TANGENT:  I love upcycling! I love seeing all the weird and wonderful things that people come up with to make from stuff that came before.  As with all things there are fashions and styles and such, ways that things get made.  One thing that I pretty much always hate, is the seam on the outside thing.  I will say that I have seen a few items on which it was done so well that I had to admit to liking it on those particular things but for the most part...ugh.  I absolutely love this But I think you can see where, if done by an amateur like me, it could go oh so wrong.  My solution to this is to run two rows of zigzag stitches over the edges of two overlapped pieces.  I'm not convinced this is the best solution but I want it to lay flat and this is the best I've come up with so far.

My best Emperor Palpatine impression

Scarf pieces pinned on.  See all that extra fabric on the back of my neck.  Appearantly there is a reason hoods are shaped the way they are.  


Pin and trim to make room for....the place where my neck and back come together....is there a word for that? 

testing....a bit better.  Time to attach the scarf pieces


Finished.  Aren't I a cute little match girl.  

I mailed it to my sister.  I'll post pictures if she sends one.  

Update: here she is!



Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The Ray Bradbury Poncho Skirt.

I love sewing.  Sometimes I just sit at the machine and sew pieces together and see what happens.  I don't have a lot of skills.  I'm learning things.  I took a three hour class once that was so totally worth it.  Mostly I just figure it out as I go.

I got inspired by this thing from the Dangerous Minds web site that floated across my Facebook newsfeed the other day. I have always liked Ray Bradbury. If you haven't read anything by him it's totally worth it.  Here's a list pick one.  The quote that really got to me was:

 "Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things"  

With that in mind, my newly made dress dummy (still haven't named her) hanging in my closet begging to be used, and a pile of sweaters left from the pweater project I just did this:



But, Angie, it's another stupid skirt what the hell did you need the dress dummy for? 

GOOD QUESTION!

I didn't plan on it becoming a skirt but plans don't always make the best results.  At least not mine.

I still really want a poncho.  Look at these.  Aren't they fun? Sure I could follow someones tutorial like I usually (sort of) do but they look so simple, I think I should be able to just figure it out.  HAHAHA! remember this thing? 

Ok forget that thing...if you can

To get started I plopped an old sweater that I was never going to wear again on the dummy (Esmirelda?).  


I figured a poncho is mostly a sweater with no sleeves so I cut open the seam that runs up the side and down the sleeve.

Then I folded it it and just sort of started randomly cutting.  (Don't think, just do)


Here is what it looks like back on the dummy (Loqueetia?)


And here it is all spread out.  


These are the sweater pieces left from the pweater project. They don't exactly match but there is no thinking allowed here just doing!


I grabbed a piece and  pinned it to the back of the cut up sweater.  When I flipped it over, it looked like this. 

It has potential....but I like curves so I did a bit of clipping 


That looked pretty interesting so I grabbed another sweater piece...


Oops Holes!  Nothing a few random polka dots won't fix.  


A couple of tips for working with sweaters:  Set your machine tension on 1.  I don't know enough about sewing machines to know why this works it just does.  Do some experimenting, you will see. Also, if you want things to match up, pin the crap out of them.  There are times when I want randomness and when I do I don't pin at all I just put things together and let it happen. For this I really wanted things to stay where I put them.  The feed dogs (yes they're really called that) are the grabby things under the presser foot that move the material through the machine.  They have a tendency to pull at sweater material and stretch it in ways that are hard to predict.  If you use lots of pins (I'm talking like one per inch) your sweaters will stay better.  

With two pieces and some polka dots I figured I should probably start some stitching...mostly cause I ran out of pins.  

And my machine decided to throw a hissy fit.  Clunking noises every time I tried to sew and huge wads of thread stuck underneath that I had to excavate with scissors taking care not to put  (more) holes in my fabric.  With the fabric out of the way I opened her up and... you know all that fuzz that gets in the dryer lint collector when you wash sweaters that happens in the sewing machine too.  ACK! 


Time to pull out the manual and the cute little screw driver and brush that came with my machine, take the little bugger apart and give her a good cleaning.  Now that I'm thinking about it, it might be a good idea to try blowing it out with some canned air, wish I had some.  

....20 minutes later...

Who was the sadist who invented this infernal machine? (Oh.  It was these guys.  I love the internet)


This thing has a Chinese puzzle box somewhere in it's ancestry. I know it it's only two pieces but if you don't fit them in exactly right, they just don't go.

I finally got it all back together and zig zagged all that  I had pinned.  I put it back on the dummy (Louise?) and it looks pretty good.  


Well, it's a work in progress.  At this point I sort of lost myself in the pinning and the sewing and the sewing and the pinning.  I forgot all about the pictures.  So skipping ahead a bit.  I had zig zagged sweater pieces all the way around and popped it back on the dummy (Loretta?) and just eyeballing it I cut around the bottom to make it all even.  (One bonus to working with sweaters, knits don't unravel!)


Yeah....this thing is um....a little weird.  Better try it on.  


Ah ha ha ha ha hahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This just screams skirt to me.  I had to pull it down and see what it looked like.  

Guess I'm sewin' up some arm holes.  While I was at it I added some elastic at the waist.  I didn't do any cutting I just flipped down the neck hole and sewed over the lumps.  


TADA!!!



Hmmmm.  I might actually try doing this again with my intent on it being a skirt but I will definitely be paying more attention to the colors and patterns that I put together.  As well as the weight and texture of the material.  The pink sweater was way lighter that the rest of the pieces so it sort of feels like I'm wearing a giant bell.  In spite of my willingness to post photos of myself wearing this in the internet (where horrifying things live on and on and on and on...) I will not be wearing this out of the house.  Poncho Fail.  So much for not thinking.  Thanks a lot Ray.