Making Bucket Hats for Archery

I'm having fun with archery and am progressing slowly.

 

(Bare bow @ 30 yards)

But as the weather is turning much nicer, I've been having a problem with the sun shining in my eyes.

I tried to wear sunglasses while shooting, but the pair that I have don't work (the bow string catches the edge of the glasses and they fly off). I also tried wearing a baseball cap, but the bill interferes with my bow draw.

So, I looked online to see if I could figure out how other archers were dealing with this problem. And the answer?

(Image from The Telegraph)

 BUCKET HATS!

The soft brim can be folded back to prevent interference with the drawing of the bow and still keep the sun out of your eyes. Luckily, I can wear hats and still look good, even if the hat is a bit dorky.

Now, a normal person would just buy a bucket hat, but noooo. I decided that it'd be awesome if I made some bucket hats out of my Doctor Who fabrics.

If I was going to look dorky on the range, I was going to get my GEEK ON. I looked online and found several free patterns for bucket hats, and proceeded to make mockups, and then test versions of reversible bucket hats.

There were tweaks to the patterns -- as most patterns I found were for children sizes, so I had to scale up from a child to an adult size. Luckily, head sizes don't need much shaping so it was just a matter of math. I took my scrap fabrics from other projects and made myself a couple of test hats once I had the pattern figured out.

A head form makes things easier when assembling a hat. It's not necessary. I had forgotten about the head form until I started making this hat with the cat fabric, which made assembly so much easier.

The hats are completely reversible. Now, I just have to get the actual Doctor Who fabric sorted. I'll take more in-progress photos for the next round of hats.

Disaster Averted

I had moment of panic when I pulled out a project for some meeting knitting and realized that I broke a needle.

I think it snapped in my briefcase. It was fine the last time I worked on the project yesterday. Luckily, only one broke. I pulled the needles out of the sock, flipped the needles around, and was able to continue knitting. 

Disaster averted, as I thought I'd have to sit for an hour without a project. Later, I will need to pick up a replacement. Or maybe I can find a very small pencil sharpener?

Doctor Who Pajamas

I love doing small sewing projects, especially projects where I get a really cool unique thing that can be used immediately!

In this case, I took the Doctor Who Tardis fabric (cotton flannel) that I got at Joanns....

.... and made myself a pair of PJs

...and a nightshirt

Because I've made these patterns before, making them took a total of 3 hours (1.5 hours over two different nights). Most of the time was serging all of the edges, because cotton flannel tends to fray over time (especially in the wash). The weave that makes flannel soft will cause it also to fray.

Consequently, every edge goes through the serger before seaming together.

My pajama drawer is getting a bit full.....

It's the Little Things: Geek Jewelry

It's the little things that make me happy. The movie, Labryinth, starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, is in my all-time top 10 movies of all time.

I love the puppetry that Jim Hensen's company put into the movie. The door knockers in the movie are funny and memorable.

I recently acquired these adorable earrings from an Etsy seller in Ontario.

Aren't they the most adorable things! I think the artist really captured their facial features. I can't wait to wear them.

Lack of Girls in Merchandise

Remember the other day when I was very happy about the new fabrics at Joanns that I had found? Well, I'm not as happy as I was then. I'm still very happy with the Doctor Who fabric, but it's the Big Hero 6 fabric that's leaving me a little cold.

When I first saw this fabric print, I was pleased as punch and got a yard of it. However, I didn't look at it too closely. When I got it home, I noticed something.....

Do you see it?

There are six heroes in Big Hero 6: Baymax, Hiro, GoGo, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, and Fred. There are only four in the fabric print.

If you're familiar with the movie, you can easily see who is missing....the girls -- Go Go and Honey Lemon. Also, if you look closer, Wasabi's coloration in the print doesn't match his character. He looks more Asian.

 
Yeah. I'm not happy about that. It was my mistake to not really look at the fabric.  Disney has a trend of leaving out females in a lot of their merchandising of movies, and apparently, this isn't an exception for this licensed fabric.

Come on...girls LOVE female super heroes and strong female characters in movies. We want to buy these things! It's not just boys who love superheroes. We have purchasing power and the income to make our own decisions. Help us to make you bigger profits!

It's not really that hard, is it?

Geek Network Activate!

There are times when  my social network provides some most excellent geek information that I need to immediate act upon.

In this case, my friends posted about the Doctor Who fabrics at Joanns Fabric store. There's a Joann's Fabric store that is a 3-minute walk from work. Guess who went shopping?

They had several different cotton fabrics -- the Tardis, the exploding Tardis (ala Van Gough) and Daleks.

And a flannel fabric, from which I shall be sporting new pajamas soon!

Normally, you can only get Doctor Who fabrics via Spoonflower, which makes custom fabrics. The price for yardage is not cheap. However, these are much more affordable, and they were on sale @ 40% off.

Plus, they also had some Big Hero 6 fabrics too! I love me some Baymax.

 

I might have picked up a yard or two, here and there.... I already have plans and am sketching out ideas.

Stitches West 2015

Stitches West is the weekend immediately following GallifreyOne, which didn't give me much time to catch my breath in between weekends.

I went off with friends, and it was a fun time. We saw a ton of geeky and nerdy knits! I met a fellow knitter from the Who Knits? forum on Ravelry, and she had made this Doctor Who themed shawl

And one of the vendors showcased everyone's favorite Joker with their new colorway.

And who can resist a bit of Harry Potter?

I got a chance to wear my Eagle Twist shawl, which got a ton of compliments. Everyone loved the cable down the middle of the back. Then on Sunday, I wore my St. Brigid sweater...and again got a lot of compliments on it. At least one person recognized the pattern; she had knit it herself.

Nothing like showing off your hard work at Stitches!

Of course, I picked up a few things at Stitches that were just too pretty to pass up. A lovely orifice hook for my wheel. I love the shape and it fits in my hand well.

A fair trade basket. It's larger at the bottom than at the top. It carried everything I bought at Stitches. I tried very hard not to fill it up.

And of course, there was the yarn.

I stopped at Miss Babs booth where I picked up a Wowza and Yummy skeins (along with two mini skeins).  I also picked up a sweater's worth of Madeline Tosh at Webs. There was also a new vendor called "Yarns on the House" whose yarn base was absolutely lovely (80% Superwash Merino, 10% Cashmere, 10% Nylon). They had nearly sold out by Friday, but I picked up a skein to play with at my leisure while they restocked.

I hope ya'll had a good time at Stitches.

GallifreyOne: Convention Report!

This past weekend was the Doctor Who convention, GallifreyOne, located at the LAX Marriott hotel in Los Angeles. This convention is spectacularly fun, and a great place for cosplayers, costumers, and crafters to really show off their work.

There was a lot of different skill levels. There was some pre-made / purchased costumes, and a lot of hand crafted ones. There were costumers of all ages.

I was glad to see many parents getting their children started early in the cosplay world.

 

7 month old twins dressed as Amy Pond & River Song.
I LOVE their hair

Or you can get them even younger with this customized Dalek stroller!

There were costumes everywhere. One of the panels for the day was "Iron Costumer", which is a take of "Iron Chef". There were two teams of costumers (Team Omega and Team Rassilon). They were given sewing machines, a motley of different fabric, and 45 minutes to build a costume around the following theme:

Romana has regenerated. The President of Gallifrey needs a new outfit 

The costumes they came up with were pretty spectacular. Each team divided up into "Props" and "Sewing". There were extremely inventive! The gentleman's staff are whiteboard markers that are attached to each other then covered with foil.

We had costumers ranging from beginner to full-fledged prosthetic masters.

 

Dream Crab anyone?

And what's nifty is that there are a lot of fiber artists at GallifreyOne as there are many knitted costume pieces in the very show itself! This young lady had her own take on the 7th Doctor, played by Sylvester McCoy.

 

Her underbust corset is duplicate stitched. 

She initially did Intarsia for her gloves, 

and opted to duplicate stitch for her underbust

There were many variations of the 4th Doctor's scarf running around. I wore my gloves on a couple of days and received a lot of compliments.

In addition to one-person costumes, there were a lot of group costumes as well.

And for those not doing group costumes, there were plenty of meet-ups for cosplayers doing a specific costume. For example, there was a Missy Meetup as well as a Companion Meetup. It was a good way to meet other cosplayers who love the same characters you do.

The number of cosplayers is pretty large at Gallifrey. The masquerade alone had 40 entries! I'm already starting to plan my own set of costumes for GallifreyOne next year. I hope to see you there.

My Opus Medius -- Finishing my Aran Sweater.

Remember the St. Brigid sweater by Alice Starmore that I started nearly two years ago? Well, this past weekend, despite, many trials and tribulations, I finally finished it! (kinda sorta).

This cardigan has become somewhat of a opus magnus for me. (Okay, maybe not quite opus magnus, more like opus medius....) Nothing about it was overly complicated, but, it did take a lot of work and effort to finish. It is definitely one of those things on my knitting bucket list that I can now cross off -- completing an Aran sweater!

But, before I could cross it off, I still had some finishing work that needed to be completed over the weekend. And I was very determined to finish this cardigan!

First, I had to do surgery on the sleeves that were much too long for me. My Viking had helped me determine where the sleeve needed to end.  I cut nearly four inches off, and then proceeded to tink back several rows.

Then carefully seamed the sleeve band onto the sleeve.

This process took nearly two entire weeknight evenings to complete. After work, I would eat dinner, then sit down and work on a sleeve. The cutting of the sleeve was quick. The tinking back to the appropriate location took a while to finish. And I had to carefully graft the band onto the sleeve.

At this point, the cardigan looked pretty darn good....or so I thought. When the weekend rolled around, I hoped to have the cardigan fully completed and wearable after the weekend. At one point during the weekend, I wasn't sure I was going to live up to that early expectation!

The nearly finished cardigan...or so I thought

The second thing I did was all of the necessary finishing work, including:

• Putting an edging treatment on the sides of the cardigan to keep it from rolling and to add a zipper later.
• Reinforcing the seams (shoulder, side, and neck) with a single crochet. (For how's and why's, see this article by Tech Knitter or this old blog post by the Yarn Harlot).
• Adding grosgrain ribbon down the length of the saddle shoulder.
• Adding grosgrain ribbon along the edges of the cardigan.
• Adding a backing ribbon on the sleeve cuffs and collar.

I used Nancy Wiseman's book, "The Knitters Book of Finishing Techniques" to help guide me.

It was a lot of extra work, but the extra finishing work that I put into this sweater helped take it to the next level. I actually finished one side first (all the seam reinforcements, etc), and wore the garment for my Viking. He told me he could see a difference in the finishing work, and pointed to the correct side that I just completed.

Finishing Work Details

Edging Treatment: For the edging treatment, I was undecided between an icord edging or using a crochet edging. There are pros & cons to both, and the hive-mind of Facebook suggested using icord. I took my original swatch for this sweater and tried both things, and found I could get the look of an icord using a crochet hook with a lot less hassle. I completed both sides.

Sleeve Band Facing: At my local sewing store, I found a pretty ribbon (width= 2 inches/5cm) that I wanted to use as a neckband and facing to the sleeves. The ribbon has very little give so would act like grosgrain.

Sleeve cuff band

Attack of the Sweater

At this point, I tried it on, and saw my first big issue. If you look at the photo of the finished cardigan above, you'll notice something about the collar. It's TOO BIG. I tried to fix it....using darts, taking it in at the back of the collar, but to no avail. The collar band was simply too big by nearly 10 inches, and I was going to have to completely undo a lot of the work that took me a few hours to complete.

Why 10 inches? Because I measured the length of the seamed body and came up with a number (26 inches). However, where I wanted it to sit only required 17.5 inches of collar......

Isn't amazing how it only takes 20 minutes to undo about 2.5 hours worth of work?!? Ugh...I was kicking myself while I ripped out the edging and remove the collar. My Viking was nice enough to help me figure out how much of the collar to rip out. I put the sweater on myself, where I wanted it to sit, then he took the collar and marked where it should end. The collar was SIX inches too big.

I pinned the sweater on my dress dummy, Esmerelda (or maybe Harley? Or Morticia? I have still yet to decide....), where I wanted it to sit as the finished garment, and pinned the collar to it. There was some easing that needed to occur, but it wasn't too bad.

Afterwards, I seamed the collar onto the body with the aforementioned easing. I added seam reinforcement to the back of the neck, and then added the crochet pseudo icord back.

Neck Band Facing: With the neck finally completed (and sitting correctly), I added the grosgrain ribbon and neck facing. The grosgrain and crochet seam reinforcement would help keep the saddle shoulders from slipping and stay where they should when I wear the cardigan.

Grosgrain down the side saddle (along with seam reinforcement)

The ribbon would add additional structure to the collar and keep it from flopping over.

Neck band with the edging grosgrain pinned to a tailor's ham

It's looking pretty darn sharp! I really like the splash of color that the ribbon gives.

Now, I just need to find an appropriate length zipper in a matching color. My local sewing supply store didn't have them in the correct length of a matching or similar color. Nor did any of the other colors work. :-(

I love these cables!

As a costumer, I know how much finishing work can make or break your costume.
I'm really pleased with how much the finishing work helped pull the cardigan together....even if it took two days to finish all of the finishing work! For a sweater that took nearly two years to complete, what's an extra two days?

I might wear it as is, until I find a zipper of the right color / length. I'm extremely happy with it.

Could this be one of my opus magnus? I'm not sure yet. I'll let you know when I work on something far more complicated.

Phoenix Wing Shawl

My Phoenix Wing shawl (pattern: Eagle Twist) is FINALLY done. It only took about 3 months to knit, and most of that time was over the holidays. I worked on it a lot over the past few weeks to ensure that I got it done in time for Stitches West!

The pattern is fairly easy. I particularly like the cabled spine. However, there are a lot of short rows, which I didn't realize when I got the pattern; I hate short rows. But, I made the shawl anyways.

The pattern called for sport weight yarn, but I ended up using fingering weight -- Dreams in Color Smooshy with Cashmere. Consequently, I added one more short row section (with 6 short rows) to the shawl to give it more height & width, as I was afraid it was going to be more of a shawlette.

Boy, was I wrong. The rows kept taking longer and longer to finish. I actually worried that I would run out of yarn. My bind-off took at least an hour to complete. But, it felt GOOD to do do the last stitch on the bind off.

I was left with 10 grams of red and 14 grams of the gold yarn. While not cutting it "super close", it was getting down to the wire!

Of course, I found a problem once I washed it and laid it out to block. I had to tink back a couple of times on the bind-off to ensure a consistent tension, and apparently, during one of the tinks, a stitch had dropped.

DROPPED STITCH!!

I had a wet shawl that was already pinned to the blocking boards. I wasn't about to rip back and redo it. So after I had a small minor heart attack, I came up with a viable solution. I used a crochet hook to bring the dropped stitch back to where it should have been, then used some waste yarn from the skein and seamed it into the shawl. You can barely tell it's there.

Out of curiosity, I measured the wingspan of my Phoenix Shawl. I obviously didn't need to worry about length, as the wingspan is 82 inches!!!! The heigh is only 18 inches, but it's completely lovely to wear.

Because we're doing a Potter Craft-a-Long on the podcast, I'm dubbing this shawl as part of that CAL, since 

• a) it's Gryffindor colors, which apparently, is the House to which I belong
• b) I had already called this shawl, "Phoenix Wing", which ties into Fawkes (Dumbledore's Phoenix companion)
• c) Because I can :-)

I love the cabled "spine".

And, it wraps around me several times over. I can even tie it in the back to make a sontag, although, the back isn't quite long enough to be a full sontag.

So many ways to wear it.

I love it! And with a touch of cashmere, what's not to love?