11.30.08
Posted in Make at 3:48 pm by Erin
I’ve always wanted a jacket with elbow patches–the kind that professors are purported to wear (although I’ve never actually seen one wearing them). I decided to use leftover cashmere from my hat project to make my own patches.
Professor Sweater
skill level: intermediate. Beginner if using non-stretchy fabric (corduroy, for instance).
time: 1 1/2-2 hours
materials: 2 sweaters, cardstock or scrap paper, scissors, marker, pins, iron, spray starch (optional), needle and thread (preferably embroidery thread).
1. Lay out what remains of your sweater on a hard, even surface. Use a large-ish expanse of the fabric–enough to accommodate two of your ovals. I used the back of the sweater. Don’t use the arms, as you’ll be using those for project #3. Smooth out any wrinkles in the fabric.
2. On cardstock or scrap paper, sketch an oval shape to the dimensions that you desire for your patches. You could use a template if you’re a symmetrically-challenged artist. Draw a larger oval around your first oval–make it approximately 1/2 an inch larger all around.
3. Cut out your larger oval, and position it on the sweater remnants.
4. Using a marker, gently draw a dotted line around the oval template. Be careful not to pull on the sweater. Repeat once.
5. Using sharp scissors, carefully cut out each oval. Check to ensure that they are the same size.
6. Generally, there’s a “right” side and a “wrong” side for fabric. In knits, the “right” side usually looks like a series of v shapes with a vertical orientation, and the “wrong” side like horizontally-oriented dashed lines.
If you care about matching up the sides of the ovals to the sides of the sweater upon which you will be sewing, mentally note which side is which now. Place oval (“right” side down) on an ironing board. Fold in fabric approximately 1/2 an inch around the perimeter, and iron gently. I held the folded fabric, a little at a time, and laid the tip of the iron close to my finger, working my way around the oval. You could also notch the fabric to reduce bulk, although I didn’t and it was fine. Don’t pull on the fabric with the iron, just lay it down and hold for a second or two. If it’s not a perfect oval, don’t worry about it too much–it can be fixed as you sew. If they’re really wonky, though, try to re-shape the oval in the weird spots and iron again (spray starch may help to create a crisper line). When you’re happy with the shape, flip them over and press them for a second with the iron.
7. Take another sweater (or jacket, or whatever you want to adorn with your new patches). Figure out where you want to place the patches, and pin in place. You may want to carefully try on the garment to check your placement. I went a little overboard with the pins, placing them every 1/2 an inch or so around the ovals.
8. You might be able to machine-sew these in place, but given the stretch of the knits and the placement, I opted to hand-stitch them. I used two strands of embroidery floss (the strands being the individual threads, not the grouping of six that form the floss), carefully sewing about 1/8 of an inch inside the edge of the oval. Any small imperfections in your shape can be fixed as you sew, by carefully rolling the edge of the oval in or out as needed. Remove the pins as you approach them while sewing. As always, be careful not to stretch anything while sewing. If any pin marks remain, a quick press with an iron should remove them.
9. Tie off the loose ends, and admire your new sweater in the mirror.
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11.25.08
Posted in Make at 10:59 pm by Erin
Every once in a while, I’ll be standing in a store, fingering some mass-produced item and it occurs to me, “Hey! You’re crafty! Why don’t you just make that thing that you want?” It’s always a little funny to me that this doesn’t neccessarily immediately occur to me, despite a lifetime of Making Things. I think it says a lot about the conditioned impulse towards consumerism, but that’s another post…
So I needed a hat. My beloved cashmere sweater had a tear in the neckline, so I decided to sacrifice it. What resulted was no less than 4 independent items. Today I present to you:
The Little Edie Hat
skill level: beginner
time: 30 minutes-1 hour
materials needed: 1 sweater, scissors (or a rotary cutter and mat), marker, ruler, thread and needle, seam ripper (optional–helpful if there are tags from the sweater to remove), and brooch (optional).
1. Lay your sweater down on a hard, flat surface. Smooth out any wrinkles.
2. Measure up eleven inches from the bottom of the sweater. Use a marker to lightly draw a dotted line across the width of the sweater (uniformly eleven inches from the bottom).
3. Use sharp scissors (or a rotary cutter, if you have one) to cut along the dotted line, being careful not to pull the sweater as you go. Cut just inside of the line, so that no ink shows up on the fabric.
4. You should have a tube of fabric eleven inches high. This will become your hat. Save the rest of that sweater!
5. Mark how wide you want your hat to be. I noticed that by folding my tube in two, I had the perfect width, plus extra warmth from two layers of cashmere. (If you are not so lucky, you’ll just have to cut up one side of the tube. Wrap that around your head, and pinch the edge of the fabric where it overlaps on your head. Add an extra inch in width, cut off the excess material, and stitch it up. Presto).
Back to the doubled-up hat:
6. Turn tube inside-out, so that the side seams are visible. Align those side seams so that one rests on top of the other. You can use a machine to sew along the seams, just make sure to use a stitch made for knits. I opted to use an embroidery stitch and hand-sew up the seams with embroidery floss, for turbo strength.Tie off each end of thread.
Center Stitch
Embroidery Close-Up
*Public Service Announcement* When you’re in a craft store, you may eye the cheap thread–maybe Coats and Clark brand. I once did this myself. However, after splurging on Gutermann thread, I will never look back. If you compare the strength of the two, Gutermann is much, much stronger. If any stress will be placed on whatever you’re sewing, I would opt for the latter brand. I don’t work for them or anything–Coats and Clark just really sucks. *End of Public Service Announcement*
7. This part’s a little tricky to explain–it’s like origami. You have a tube, bisected by a line sewn down the middle. Take one of those sections, and fold over the other tube, inverting along the way.
8. You’ve got yourself a hat! You can sew up one end, but I’ve found that my hat keeps me quite toasty without it. I’m on the lookout for a brooch to perfect the Little Edie hat…
All done!
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11.09.08
Posted in Look, Make, Shop at 1:20 pm by Erin
I attended Pittsburgh’s Handmade Arcade yesterday, which is always a fun mixture of art demonstrations, lovely handmade crafts, and yummy baked goods. I was mostly eyeing the practical items–wallets and notebooks, for instance–but I ended up buying a photograph by Jennifer Howison. She turns little wooden finger puppets into a large cast of characters with paint, then photographs them. I had a hard time choosing just one, but settled on the one with whose characters I felt a certain resonance. 
See the figure on the far right, the one that looks a little out of place next to the others? That’s me. I mean that in a quirky, good way, not a sobbing-in-a-psychiatrist’s-office kind of way.
Artists Image Resource was there, too, screenprinting postcards and huge copies of the front-page news on the morning that Obama’s election was announced for free! If you’re in Pittsburgh, they have open studio sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 7 p.m. until 11 p.m. I haven’t been there yet, but they’re a non-profit, artist-run organization that is commited to educational programs. Sweet.
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11.05.08
Posted in Look at 6:23 pm by Erin
One of the greatest things about my day job is its proximity to some world-class amenities. I can actually take a stroll through a Victorian botanical garden, art museum, natural history museum, or park on my lunch break, as each is located mere yards away from my office. So it was that I happened upon the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Studio Arts Faculty Exhibition.
One of my favorite pieces–”Twist, Tie, Multiply: Hands in Action,” by JoAnna Commandros and Anna Divinsky–incorporates shibori, a Japanese textile art that involves molding and dyeing fabric. In this instance, beans, pebbles, and marbles are tied inside swaths of fabric and dyes are brushed on. Once the dyes have dried, the objects are removed, but the fabric retains their shapes. What results is a undulating, anthropomorphic shapes that suggest (magnified) microorganisms or some kind of undiscovered vegetation.
Their artists’ statement cites Wonderkammern, or Cabinets of Curiosities as an inspiration, which just multiplies my affection. In fact, I think I’ll start working on my own contemporary take on Wonderkammern…
The exhibit is open through November 21st, 2008. You can also try your hand at shibori for the next two Mondays, from 3-4 p.m. Gallery hours: 10-4, M-F. Frick Fine Arts Building, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
412-648-2423
Materials: wood, fiber, acrylic paint, wire.
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11.02.08
Posted in Make at 12:53 pm by Erin
Halloween is my favorite day of the year. For one thing, it encourages creativity in its participants. For another, it’s interesting to see how masks and makeup encourage a kind of disassociation, wherein people take on different personas. I’ve read theories on the carnivale tradition, stating that this opportunity to act as rulers keeps people relatively pacified for the remainder of the year. Halloween night seems similarly ripe for people to vent the confines that they may feel in their day-to-day life. Also, there’s candy.
This year, I made a vampire pinata, pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes, and delicious spiced cider. I whittled down my list of 30+ costume ideas and settled on a living Sylvia Ji painting. Here are the results:
The makeup took a couple of hours, with the bulk of that spent trying to perfect the white base. I used metallic eyeshadow powders, mixed with a fixing agent for the colors. Scared the crap out of a few people on the bus…
The cupcakes were a hit, too. Here’s the recipe:
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes, with Cinnamon Icing from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.
Makes 12 cupcakes.
Ingredients:
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup oil
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners [or just grease with a tiny bit of oil].
2. In a medium bowl, stir together pumpkin, oil, sugar, soy milk, and vanilla. Sift in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Stir together with a fork–don’t use a handheld mixer, as it will make the batter gummy. Once well-combined, fold in the chocolate chips.
3. Fill liners two-thirds full. Bake for 22 to 24 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool fully before icing.
Cinnamon Icing
Ingredients:
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons margarine, melted
1 tablespoon soy milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Place sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add the margarine, soy milk, and vanilla and stir with a fork until smooth. Keep at room temperature until ready to use. The mixture should look opaque and homey brown. If it’s glistening a lot or looks too liquid, add a little extra confectioners’ sugar.
Once cupcakes are cooled completely, pipe icing on.
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