Song 1: don’t have this one written up.

Song 2

Song 3

There are hints as to your sets in these, but I can’t put the whole drill sheet book online.

Girls… please try really hard for the next few weeks. It’s all over at the end of October (except for the Christmas parade), then you can complain and laugh all you want. But until then… please work really hard.

We will be having practices after school everyday this week (Wed (9/30) 4-5:30, Thurs (10/1) 4-6:30, and Fri (10/2) 4-5:30). We will also have regular band practice next week (Mon, Tues, and Thurs 4-5:30) and Sectionals Wed (10/7) 4-5:30.

I will not be at any practices, shows or contests from Thurs 10/8 - Mon 10/12. (I will be on my honeymoon!) I will be back Tues 10/13. Please don’t let me get any bad reports from anyone about you guys while I’m gone…

I may go through and edit out the not-so-good pics and dress up the gallery at a later time, but for now, this is it.

Gulf Wars 2009 Picture Gallery

So, I posted pics of what the first batch of Kool-Aid dyeing looked like… I loved it! But, I went back to it (I had 6 huge balls of yarn to play with…) and colored some more. I am done with it, and I think it turned out spectacular, if I do say so myself!

Here’s a recap of what the last batch looked like:

And here’s the second set:

All of it looks so awesome! And after (almost) boiling it for the dyeing, all of the kinks came out and it puffed back up. I had thought that it was a sock weight yarn, but now I see that it was probably due to the tension of being knitted up that it looked so thin. It’s definitely a little bit bigger now that it’s all refreshed… Probably almost a DK/sport weight. And SO soft!!!

I ended up with a LOT of beautiful yarn from this sweater:

I think these will be put on my Etsy shop once I take them to my mother’s house to weigh them on the postal scale. That is, if I can bring myself to part with them! They really are SO wonderful to look at and pet…

I need to find more sweaters like this one… too bad the stupid contents tag was removed from this one!!! It’ll be trial and error to find another one like this! (I’ll write another post later about an “error” I’ve already found on my journey to find sweaters to recycle into gorgeous yarn!)

I’m not going to put all of the instructions for what I did here on my blog. There are so many talented women whose blogs I got directions from, and really, I have nothing to add to their great directions. So, I’m just going to link to the blogs that I followed and show you the pictures I achieved by following them.

First things first, before you even buy a sweater to unravel, you need to know which ones will unravel well and which ones will not. I found a great site about that, and it explains what seams to look for and such. See it here at Neauveau Fiber Arts. (If you really love the sweater and it has bad seams, you could buy it and felt it (if it’s a feltable fiber) and make a purse or something out of it.)

So, now you’ve found sweaters with good seams. Some people with wash the sweaters at this point, but I just waited until the yarn was all apart. I figured I’d have to wash it to get the “kinks” out of the yarn from the knitting, and if you dye it you’re going to (almost) boil it, so it’ll be squeaky clean by the end of the process.

I decided to start with an XXL GAP sweater in an olive green color. I wasn’t in love with the color, but I hoped it would over-dye. The fiber content tag had been removed (grr…) but I did a burn test and determined it was (probably) mostly wool with a little bit of nylon elastic blended in. (for a great chart on how to determine fiber content by burning, check out the fiber burn chart at DitzyPrints.com.)

When I got ready to get down to the business of unraveling the sweater, I found My Virtual Sanity’s blog about recycling sweaters to be the most helpful. It’s VERY detailed and makes you feel like “you can do it”.

I wrapped the yarn as it unraveled around books.

I have since found a small wooden shelf that makes a 1 yd skein… much better. Here’s what I ended up with after using that:

The CDs are in the picture for size reference. I got a LOT of yarn out of this sweater!

Then I decided I wanted to dye this yarn, mostly because I can’t think of a single thing I want to make that would need this much olive green yarn! I went with the Kool-Aid dye method, because it was the cheapest alternative, and I already had the Kool-Aid here at home. I used the directions from two blogs for this: Eunny Knit’s for the self-striping technique and The Piper’s for the basic Kool-Aid dye technique.

My test hanks came out a bit more saturated than the final yarn, but I can’t pinpoint why (too many variables: microwave vs. stovetop, Mixade vs. Kool-Aid, pre-soaking vs. not, ratio of water:mix packets… It’s ok, I love the final results!)

Test Hanks:

Final skein drying:

Final skein with test hanks and one skein of the original:

Close-up of the final product:

I’m really pleased with the final results, and let me tell you that washing/(almost) boiling/dyeing sweater yarn really brings it back to life!!!

Here is what this pattern makes:

This pattern has not been tested and was typed up from furious little scribbles in my notebook as I was making this hat, so please let me know if you find errors!

Please excuse the pictures… I look ridiculously horrible because it was 2 in the morning! I was just so happy to have this hat DONE that I squealed and made my BF take pics right away!

Alright… First, what happened:
I wanted to make the Divine Hat, but I didn’t have any yarn in the weight it called for (worsted; well, I have RHSS, but yuck… no itchies so close to my forehead!), so I decided to try it with a skein of Bernat Natural Blends Alpaca. It’s a “bulky” weight yarn, so I figured I’d just cut down on the number of “ribs” and it would work out. Then, I began following the pattern, and promptly forgot to reduce the number of dc’s in the first round… and kept on going, following the pattern as written. Then, just to make things a bigger “mess”, I mis-read the pattern and ended up doubling the “ribs” on one round, and since the “ribs” are starting points for increases, the hat grew exponentially! Fast forward a few more rounds, and I realize that the hat I am making would only fit someone with a Shrek sized head!!! I did NOT want to frog that many rounds (mostly because this yarn is so damn splitty that it was a pain to work with, I didn’t want to have to work it all again). So… Here is what I did to “save” the project:

With MC (in bulky, with K hook to begin and then I hook to finish), work the pattern as it is written through round 3.

Round 4 - fpdc the fpdc’s AND the dc’s in the previous round. Put 1 dc after each fpdc in this round. (her pattern called for only fpdc in the fpdc’s, NOT the dc’s)
(so, the last round was fpdc in fpdc, dc in sp, fpdc in fpdc, dc in sp. This round is fpdc in fpdc, dc in sp, fpdc in dc, dc in sp)
This will double the amount of “ribs” around the hat.

Round 5 - fpdc in fpdc, 2 dc in next sp around (same as her pattern, only twice the amount of fpdc’s (15X2=30), so twice the amount of 2dc’s (30) as well).
Round 6 - fpdc in fpdc, 2 dc in next sp around (30 fpdc’s, 30 2dc’s).
Round 7 - fpdc in fpdc, 3 dc in next sp around (30 fpdc’s, 30 3dc’s).
Round 8 - fpdc in fpdc, 3 dc in next sp around (30 fpdc’s, 30 3dc’s).

(It will look like a GIANT mushroom top at this point, don’t worry, it’s right for what I’m about to do with it.)

Round 9 - switch to accent color (without cutting the MC yarn, just let it hang where it is), (make the switch after you slip to first stitch in round, but before you ch up for the next round to keep colors together), then work round 9 as previous round was worked. (fpdc in fpdc, 3 dc in next sp around (30 fpdc’s, 30 3dc’s) Cut yarn, leaving an 8-10 inch tail for sewing in next step.

After you work round 9, count 17 ribs around (or how ever many it takes to sit atop your head) and pinch rib #1 and rib #17 together, wrong sides touching.

Use the tail of the accent color clipped in the previous round to sew through the 2 ribs, stitching them together securely. Weave any remaining tail into the accent color round.

Round 10 - Pick back up MC and chain 2 from outside the accent color round (for the next round). Work the round as the previous 3 rounds WITHOUT going past the join you just made (basically, leave it where it is, so that ribs 1-17 make up the “hat part” and the rest of the ribs just stick out of the back (I’ll call this the “flap part”). fpdc in fpdc, 3 dc in next sp around “hat part”.

Round 11- fpdc in fpdc, 3 dc in next sp around “hat part”.

Round 12 - switch to smaller hook, sc in every stitch around “hat part”. Clip MC yarn with 8-10 inch tail, use it to go around the join again (I worked a little round and round stitch with a tapestry needle all the way up to the “hole” underneath the “flap part”, and a few extra rounds around the top to secure that join a bit better.)

Round 13 - Join accent color in any sc on the “hat part”. sc in every stitch around “hat part”.

Round 14 - do “ribbing” as in her pattern (fpdc in first stitch, bpdc in next around) on the “hat part”.

Round 15 - continue “ribbing” as in her pattern (fpdc in fpdc, bpdc in bpdc around).

You can do another round or two of ribbing if you prefer a longer hat. Personally, I hate longer hats. This one falls right where I want it to (just covering the top of my ears and not too much of my forehead).

The hole you created with the join is perfect for slipping a pony tail or bun through. I have 4 feet of hair, and I hate smooshing it with a hat (that’s one reason I rarely wear “tobogan/watch/toque/whatever you call it” style hats. This is an awesome solution to that problem!

Ravelry

I haven’t been crocheting long, but I’m finding it exceedingly easy for me. (Knitting is a whole other story… That just results in hopelessly knotted yarn…)

Just wanted to give a happy hello to anyone who stumbles onto my website from Ravelry. If I can help you with anything (sewing, camping, and banners (for Ravelry) come to mind as things I might could assist you with) don’t hesitate to ask me. Just email or PM me, either on this site or Ravelry.

Happy Crafting!

For anyone who is interested, my fiance and I just returned from Missouri, where we were for an awesome SCA event called Lilies War. We took lots of pictures, and they are up on the net now to share with everyone.

Here is the write-up from my fiance’s blog:

Here is the link to the Lilies War XXII (2008) Pictures.

They are set up in a shopping cart system. Feel free to browse them all you want, though. I have found that selecting “slideshow” and looking through them that way is the easiest way. They are NOT, (despite our best efforts), in any particular order, (especially the Waterbearer’s Tourney, which inexplicably got spread all about), so take a look at all of them. We have many battle scenes, as well as some of courts, classes and fireworks. LOTS of pictures taken…

You can order prints of any of the shots we have through the shopping cart, too. We offer standard photos as 4X6, 5X7 and 8X10. The 8X10 is also offered as a mounted canvas print (makes it look kind of like an “old world” painting). Also, you can have your photos put on a coffee mug or mouse pad. Can you imagine the look on your co-workers face when they ask “Who’s that guy in the armor on your mouse pad?” and you say, “Me!”

It does ask for an email address. This is to mark photos as “favorites” and to make your own “favorites gallery”. You can uncheck the check box at the bottom of that page to “opt-out”, but you shouldn’t get any emails anyhow, either way… We’re the only ones who can send out emails from there, and we don’t even get to see the email list, just a “send message to all subscribers” link. As soon as we delete the gallery (probably in about 90 days or so) the list, with your email address, disappears. The only email we may send out is a short one just before we delete the gallery, just to let people know it’s going away.

Please enjoy the photos, and come back here and leave us comments about them. And remember, any money we make off of these photos goes to fund our return to Lilies next year, and more picture galleries!

Thanks!
Marcus Teague (or Rum Dave) and Genevieve L’Olivier
(mka Dave and Mandie)

This is a close up of the fabric. (click for larger image)

I realize it’s a bit see-through… That’s fine because it will have a lining that is thicker satin, so it won’t be see-through when finished.

Here’s the back of the bottom part.

It’s a bit puckery, but that is because my dress form is my size, and Ashley is much smaller. The puckers will come out when it is fitted to Ashley’s body. Also, the top of this part will have to be cut down into a “V” (see concept pics in the first post), so that will remove a lot of the puckers, too.

And this is the front of the bottom.

You can see here that I haven’t finished the front closed, because I wanted to get some curves into the hips, but with Ashley’s measurements being smaller than me and my dress form, I had to leave a little bit open in the front. I’ll sew it shut Sunday morning so that when Ashley comes for her fitting, we can slide it onto her and fix the curves to fit her exactly.

This is shaping up SO pretty!!!

A few weeks ago, this awesome chick named Ashley called me and asked if I could fix up her mother’s wedding dress so that she could wear it for her wedding in August. I LOVE doing this sort of thing, so I told her that I’d love to help her out, and she brought the dress over to my studio for me to see what we were working with and to discuss where she wanted to go with this thing.

Here is the dress as it was when she brought it to me:
(click pics for enlarged images)

It is a pretty dress, and would have been the talk of the town beautiful when her mother wore it in the early 80s. But, it’s pretty dated for a modern wedding. Ashley wanted to wear her mother’s dress, but wanted it to reflect her personal style, too. So… We talked about what she wanted. I was concerned because what she wanted was SO different than what we were starting with, and I didn’t know how much “destruction” of the dress she was willing to go for. But, she told me on that first day “Tear it up!” Her main focus was the fabric and “spirit” of her mother’s dress, not the original construction. She showed me some gorgeous dresses in a bridal magazine (I’ll scan a few of those in soon, too.) and told me what elements of those she really liked.

Basically, she wanted:

• a halter style neckline in the back, with an open back
• the front neckline to stay basically the same
• the sleeves removed (to be a sleeveless halter)
• the train to stay very similar, but detachable
• a sheath style mid-section
• a “mermaid” style bottom to the skirt

This was going to take some major finagling! But, I can see, especially now that I have de-constructed the original gown, that this is totally going to work out really well. The only problem I am seeing now is that with the back of the dress cut out, there may not be enough support in the front chest area (like there was with the original full back in place). So, I am going to try and come up with a spaghetti strap solution that Ashley will approve of (I hope… That’s the best I can come up with for this one right now…) Here are my concept illustrations for the gown when it is finished. (Kind of crude, but they are really just mock-ups so I can let Ashley see what I am trying to do with her dress.) (Also, the colors (beige and gray) in these illustrations are just to enhance the details; all of the colors of the lace and stripes match (well, are identical, “white-on-white”) in real life)

(click pics for enlarged images)

So far, I have separated the train from the bodice and front piece of the skirt, and separated the bodice from the skirt front and back. I have also removed the sleeves and an inner tulle lining that was falling apart (this is the only piece of the original that I will not be using at all, it was really beyond repair). The front part of the original skirt will become the front piece of the lower mermaid skirt of the new dress, to bring the styling elements of the old dress into the new dress. I will make bias piping of the white-on-white striped (new) fabric and use it throughout the dress to bring the new and old elements together.

I have made the sheath skirt and the mermaid bottom skirt of the striped fabric (the stripes are really faint, very “white-on-white” and barely there), and will be doing a test fitting on Ashley this Sunday. Once I have made that fit her and I am sure she approves of the design, I should be able to get it finished pretty quickly after that. I may need to do one more test fitting just before I finish off the seams and hems (I’m a big fan of professionally closed seams and hems, they look and feel better, but they are pretty “final”, so I’ll need to make sure they don’t need to be changed for fitting).

I’ll try to do a few more updates as I go along. If you don’t hear from me soon, message me on this post and remind me to give an update!!!

~~~~~Old post:~~~~~
I have tried several different designs in the last couple of days, and I think this is the one I’m going to stick with. I like the thimble and the safety pins. It was a huge pain in the rear to get them to look right, but I’m pretty happy with it. I still have to fix one thing: if you are viewing this page with Internet Explorer, chances are the search box above is not sitting inside the blue box it is supposed to be in. I’ll find a work-around for it soon, though.

What do you guys think?

(Incidentally, I personally recommend that you switch to Firefox or one of the other browsers other than Internet Explorer. This is nothing against you… It’s just that most other browsers are trying to meet the coding standards, so that all browsers work the same. Microsoft refuses to do this with their browsers. IE 7 is better than IE 6, but Firefox is MUCH better. On average, it takes me about 2 extra hours for every site I code to make it work for all the other browsers AND Internet Explorer… this is silly…) For more information, check out www.savethedevelopers.com.