hello pineapples

This is why I'm not good at delegating

The husband meant well and I appreciated the effort (it was late, he hates messy things like glue), but this is what happened to some of the tags for the sale:



glued together. oops. I'd be better off if I didn't leave it until the night before.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Saturday, September 12, 2009 0 comments  

filed under: craft fair, craft mishaps

New Plush WIP: Creepy or Cute?

I finally got around to working on a plush toy I've been planning.

Inspired by the monsters sewn by Blythe (a local artist I admire), I felted an old Gap cardigan (that I bought second hand, years ago) with the intention of turning into a toy. The sweater sat around for ages as I collected my thoughts and safety eyes and noses. I started thinking that it would make an interesting bear. Why a bear? I have no idea. Teddy bears have never really been my thing. Despite that, I took the plunge this morning and here my results:

1. pattern made from tracing Ikea PS Brum bear on newspaper:



2. He was a bit too bit too big, so I had to cut down the pattern:



3. Attempted sewing lots of rounded edges, which is still a bit of a challenge for me, and ended up with this guy:



Compared to the pattern's "muse":



And his head shot:



His eyes are crooked and a bit bigger than I'd like (I only have 18mm eyes on hand) and I haven't decided if I should embroider on a mouth or not. What I haven't taken a picture of is that you can see the thread at his seams. Overall, he's either cute or he's a weird craft mishap. I think I need to get back to the drawing board before I can introduce this dude to the world of craft fairs.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 2 comments  

filed under: craft mishaps, felt, plush, sewing, wip

Lessons in Knitting: or Why Gauge is Important

Way back in March, I posted a free pattern for a french press cozy. The finished product is meant to look like this:



The pattern looked easy enough, so I set about knitting one for the french press that the Mister was keeping in his office at school. I don't usually make coffee with the french press, so I hadn't bothered to see how the cozy worked until this morning.




oops.



I quickly threw the buttons on this morning, so they're looking mismatched and haphazard, but they are the least of my worries.



Oh Elizabeth Zimmerman! How right you were. The chapter on gauge is required reading (I still haven't read it). I've never been one for gauge, but it's a math thing. I honestly believe I have dyscalculia (math dyslexia), so anything that involves math is not my friend. This is probably why my first (and only) sweater was a bit of a disaster (it was HUGE!).

Although, to be fair, the french press was in the office at school and I wasn't able to check my knitting against it. I might actually be right on gauge, but that doesn't help if his french press is smaller than the model used for the original pattern.

Ah well. I'll just have to frog it a bit.

xoxo.
Pineapples.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Monday, July 14, 2008 0 comments  

filed under: craft mishaps, frogging, knit

Adventures in Sewing: Tragedy and Triumph

Boo melting socks! Seriously. Who knew socks could melt?

What the heck am I talking about?

I'm talking about this:



That is a melted sock. I was sewing monkeys on the machine and thought it would be easier to iron the sock first (the edges curled up). Instead of making my life easier, it made things so much worse. What you see there is my attempt to remedy the situation without having to ditch the sock altogether. I folded it over - which will make for much shorter legs - in order to hide the holes. The monkey will still have a crunchy leg and I may still have to do some creative embroidering to cover some wee holes, but there is hope that I will save this monkey.

On the bright side: I sewed two monkeys on the sewing machine! I'm using my pal J.Lau's Brother LS-1217, which seems to have much better tension when it comes to stretchy fabric.

Before I sign off for the day and get back to my work, here's a picture of the gnome meeting Henry at WWKIP day:



They look pretty good together.

And finally, a trailer for the documentary 'Beautiful Losers', which I found via Love, Me:



It's not about the Leonard Cohen book, but about DIY, graffiti, music and a group of artists. It looks like it might be awesome. I'm hoping it'll come to Halifax; with luck, for the film fest. If not, I'm sure Video Difference will bring it in some day.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Thursday, June 19, 2008 1 comments  

filed under: craft mishaps, sewing machines, sock monkeys, socks, wwkip