CHICKPEA SEWING STUDIO

Kindle talk, BSR experiments.

Thomas is giving me an e-reader for Christmas, which one was the problem, or I was the problem being pathologically disabled when it comes to making any purchasing decision. After a lot of research and comparing this I what I found: You must look at the screens side by side to realize that the kindle screen is very good while the Sony screen is very poor. I think that the touch function makes the glass thick and therefore cloudy. Furthermore the touch screen is no Iphone, you really have to go at it. It is true that the software on the Kindle was created by cavemen but it works and for now that might be good enough.

I took the Kindle Thomas ordered for a test drive, actually transferring and reading a book on it. The little buttons on the side make it so easy to turn pages that I would not want to lift my other hand and touch the screen, I am one more level of lazy now. At best Buy we compared the two products with a couple of other customers and when I told one woman that she could read Midnight Sun on it she got a semi crazed look in her eyes which would be pretty entertaining expect for my corresponding ear to ear grin and nods.

But Christmas is regrettably next week so I had to give it back. To calm a bout of terrible separation anxiety, I made a cozy cover for the "thing" last night. This was a perfect opportunity to try embroidering with the Bernina Stitch Regulator ( In case your new here, I have the good luck to contribute to The Sewing republic and in exchange I get to sew on a fab Bernina Aurora complete with an automated quilting foot called BSR).

Here are my findings as a list, they could be equally useful if you are using a traditional quilting/darning foot. The BSR made this project so much fun I am looking around for more things to scribble on.

1. Draw your motif well, with a purple pen. Don't get ahead of yourself or it will disappear before you get there.

2. The larger the motif/letters, the easier it will be to sew over.

3. Use the clear foot attachment on the BSR to improve visibility.

4. If you have a choice, go with the foot pedal, not the on/off button. For many machines the foot pedal is all there is, but in this case it's a good thing. I liked having this type of control with very small loops.

5. Using the same color in the bobbin would be a good idea. I should have followed my own advice. You might also want to loosen the tension a bit.

6. I went over each letter about four times, but not individually. Rather go over a group of letter all at once. It helps, trust me! For example, above in the word "lecture", you might want to sew the l and the e together.

7. Use quilting gloves, even if you think you don't need them, you do!

8. Finally the more contrast you have between the base fabric and the thread the harder it gets to hide mistakes.

There is at least one tutorial for a Kindle case out there, but I wasn't in the mood for the flap. I wanted something very simple with a tighter closure. Admittedly mine is not as feminine and in the end I haven't tried it on, but if enough of you want to know more I will whip up something after the Holidays.

Cold Accessories

Ready at the first sign of a snotcicle ? I know I am. There is no better time to sew some tissue holders than when stuck home with a cold. This is what they look like:

The Zzzz fabric is from the newer sock monkey collection from Moda. For the back I used the same dots as the strap. I made another with the handle on the long side to hang in Finn's room. Unfortunately the location was too close to the crib as I came to realize when I found a kleenex disaster on the floor. It's cute though, little cars from Liberty of London.

The idea for those holders came from a new Japanese craft book I found in SF (ISBN4-396-41092-1). They looked so usufull/easy, yet I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to make the numbers fit. The numbers beeing the only things I understand usually. I had to improvise. One piece of advice if you make them: They have to be wider than you think to hold a good quantity of tissues, much much wider.

I keep ours hanging in the kitchen on a cabinet handle, but I think a door handle would be even better if the strap is long enough.

In the mood for sharing.

I rarely talk about things here, stuff to buy or covet. But today I am in the mood and I thought I might as well share with you a few of the items  and ideas that have caught my eyes and crossed my mind. I do like it in magazines when they have holiday gift lists or 100 favorite things to burn money on. Even though most prices are so stratospheric they are rather hilarious, such as let's say $500 sandals.

The first is actually free. It's a pattern I tried out for origami fabric flowers from Primerose Corner. I made my own out of vintage kimono silk. The piece was probably the size of a fat eighth and still had the tag attached after years of sitting on a shelf. I needed every last piece of it, that must prove it was meant to be: a fabric flower.

It's very relaxing hand work, but the silk really makes it tricky.

The second item I stumbled upon by chance, On the Macy's web page. I can't post any picture but I urge you to check them out for yourself. I have bought a similar basket from Ten Thousand Villages and it's been very durable and useful.

The next item is likely to be on the 100-great-useless-stuff-you-really-need list. A Tiffany Key pendant:

or two... A girl can dream!

I also want to recommend a book, a very dear book. I started listening to it on cds again and wonder why I waited so long to enjoy it again. It's called Never Let me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I just found out that Keira Knightley will star in a movie adaptation they filmed this year. This book is not light reading and at the same time it's easy to read. It's a keeper.

 

The last idea is something to eat. I tried to make goat cheese croquettes last night, in France you buy them already prepared in the Deli section. They were delicious so here is the recipe:

A log of goat cheese, sectioned in 8 pieces and rolled into balls.

Panko bread crumbs.

one egg, beaten and seasonned with salt and pepper.

Flatten the balls slighly and dip them in egg batter before rolling them in the bread crumbs. Place the croquettes in a few tablespoons of hot oil and saute until golden on each sides.

Serve warm, on top of lettuce leaves, with a vinaigrettes and maybe a with pomegranate kernels.

Can't let go of my Petit Bateau

I am not too sentimental when it comes to keeping things for posterity, my happiest days seem to be spent chucking things. But a few of Finn's outfits I can't let go of, usually Petit Bateau pajamas. Still, they take valuable dresser space and we can't have that.

Yesterday I took action and transformed the tiniest pj into a t-shirt :

All it took was cutting the fabric as low as I could and hemming it up first with a strait stitch and then with a zigzag. I really hope it will fit him at the shoulders, it would please me enormously to see him wearing these stripes again. Even if his dad calls him his little prisoner when Finn wears them.

Sewing Again

It's been a long time since I felt the urge to sew, as knitting seemed to have taken over. But I knew it would be back again, the ideas nudging me when I least expect it. It did happen today, while rummaging through my bloated fabric stash. I know I need to deal with it and I am trying to figure out a way to do so. I am set on making kits that can be used with my students, I might even get a little of the money I spent back, although that is beside the point when I contemplate the overflow. I just can't see what I have when it's buried in all that stuff. Picking up a yard of blue bamboo sweater knit, I started something for The Sewing Republic. Here is a sneak peek!

Blue

Here it is, the first serious dye job to ever come out of my kitchen. When I look at it it makes my eyelashes flutter in delight (squeal!).
I must say, I am a little surprised it turned out just like I had dreamed. From now on it's probably just going to go downhill.

If you are thinking to start dyeing your own yarn here are a few words of caution from a complete beginner:

It's very expensive, the start-up costs are. I will not tabulate how much money was spent just to produce the skein above but you could probably feed your family a few weeks on that. If you eat a lot of carbs that is.

It's very messy. You need to be armed and prepared, and then masked too. Dying just one skein at a time doesn't make sense when you realize the time it takes to set up and take down all that plastic covering everything in sight.

The world of dying is very secretive, unless you have a trusted friend to hold you hand, forget finding good tips online... I have such a friend and still the yarn doesn't dye itself!

You need a ball winder and possibly a swift too. I don't have a swift and there is a lot of swearing going on in my head lately.

I bought all my base yarns and acid dyes from Knit Picks. This skein is called Bare wool/silk.

That is all for the words of caution/wisdom. Consider yourselves warned!

That said I copied the above mentioned friend and bought this adorable download-able book. It's called whimsical little knits 2 by Isolda and it's precious. I think I might want to dye some skeins just for it...

The sewing machine came out too, as there is a quilt from work that need to be started/finished. I know that I mentioned it here before ( In and Out by Blue Underground Studio) but I am too ashamed to look back for my post on the subject.

 

Liberteeeee!

In the spirit of using what I have that truly should be used, I decided to make somethings 'Liberty'. I am going back to Paris in a month and a half and it wouldn't be right to buy more if I still had all my pieces untouched, would it? Plus I need the pick me up, no need to say more I am sure.

I ordered the webbing and belt buckle from Etsy, this seller has them as well as key fob hardware. I had enough left over from the width of the fabric to make a fob in fact, bonus!

 

What I like about those buckle is three fold. They come with a tip cover, which means they look truly finished on each end. Unlike the D-ring belts they don't need to be covered with fabric on each side, they need only one good side. And finally they can hold up a pair of over-sized Boyfriend Jeans (that is what my well meaning girlfriend Julie calls them when they are too big for me) with no slipping at all.

This fabric would look so good as a camera strap... I wish I could find hardware for that.

4 Baby Boy Belts...

I made a belt for Finn today, that is I made four belts, almost identical but different in areas that matter most.
The first one was meant to close with a plastic strap-snap. It looked very manly but had an obvious draw back: it can't be adjusted and fits only one rotund belly at one moment in time. Still, I was petty pleased with myself and decided that fit is only a minor draw back. Plus I paid handsomely for that (stupid) snap.

 

Well if fit was minor, the fact that the snap can't pass through the belt loops is major. No matter how hard I tried, it wasn't working, so I unpicked and went back to the store for some D-rings (1").

Soon after, Little Belt was born. And little it was, too little in fact to be tied easily around Finn's waist without wrestling and tears. Hint #1 make it large enough to ease the tying.

The other detail that bugged me was the white showing ( as shown on top above). I spent all that time covering the exterior but it's ruined by the "left-over".
Belt #3 was going to be partially reversible, I flipped the fabric over and covered a third of the belt's wrong side. The Large Belt was born, and you guesses it, it turned out way to large, with too much flopping left over. But I was on something and Belt #4, the Good One, is the culmination of much learning. Through all this stumbling in the dark I learned a thing or two, here they are for you if you are still reading this:

I covered the belts using the approximate method described in the free Key Fob pattern. The webbing, to accommodate for a small waist is 1" wide. I cut the pieced fabric strips 1.75" and folded them through the middle, as in the Key Fob pattern. I skipped the fusible web this time, but it would have helped, no doubt.
To create the reversible bit of the belt, which is the opposite side from the D-rings, I discovered that the best thing to do is to sew along each sides to the end of the webbing once, and only after that step to turn the remainder of the fabric strip, pin it and sew all over again over the stitch line you created. Just remember to turn the raw end of the strip under by about 1/2" to clean it up.

Et voila! again you can get a valuable lesson from all my mistakes, which this time could be summarized as:
Don't waste your good Holiday Weekend on some pointless projects, although these would look great in Red White and Blue, Hum....

Handmade Zakka, bleu blanche

Maybe a month or two ago, Karin sent me this book. It's very cute because all the projects have a little crookedness to them. I went for a bag that looked very French to me, like a besace or musette...

I finished it on Wednesday (the tracing, deciphering, and execution was intense) and could have posted about it sooner, but no, I was on some kind of photography strike. Lazy trigger finger symptom.
This bag is going to Germany ASAP, to cheer up a friend there, she is taller than I am and the long handle should be perfect. It's the kind of bag people should wear while riding a bike ( the book suggest so much and I agree), and they ride lots of those in Germany.

 

Button detail:

Progress on the dress front....

The muslin for the dress is done! I finished it with haste, and some frustration due to the haste, this morning.
It fits over my head and chest (barely) without a zipper. For that I am truly grateful. The dress is a good one I think for a petite person such as me. The pictures taken by my tall husband make me look even shorter, sigh. Here is one with Friend Uli, that wants none of it. I admit it's not the best view for the garment itself, but you have to take my word for it (it fits well), because this cat is just so cute!

 

I ordered Silk Dupioni today, ouch, in this color approximately. Making a muslin for this was the best way to go, even though I need very few adjustments, I feel more confident when it comes to the final product.