dolin bliss

What a lucky girl I am!

Surprise I am finally back!  Whew, it has been a whirlwind the past year and a half.  No need to bore you with all the details.  So let's get down to why I am so lucky...

I can finally mention this lovely book!!!  It has been a long time coming.  I had the honor of helping Jennifer Paganelli of Sis Boom write, illustrate and create the patterns for this beauty.  Jennifer is such an inspiring person and I was so honored that we got to work together.  We have never met face to face, and were put into contact with each other via Chronicle Books (they must have known), how great we would get along.  The book is available for pre-order and will be released at the end of April.  

More book info to come and maybe some catch up posts, on what I have been up to.

Finished Mikey Embroidery!

A little reminder of what this looked like before it was finished.  Not such a great picture of the work in progress and photo it came from, but you get the idea.

I realized after a couple of years of being a work in progress, having a previous blog post about it AND being featured in a Craft video... That I should post a finished image of my Mikey embroidery I made for my sweet and very patient husband.  I finished this up quite a few months ago and it just kept slipping my mind to post it.   So here it is:

- I wanted most of the focus to be on Mikey, so he is really detailed and the rest of the embroidery is more simple.  Then, I framed it with 2 different fabrics and put a hanging sleeve on the back, so it can be hung up on the wall.  

Matthew was very happy to finally have the finished object.  

Monday, I delivered a very special wedding dress and cocktail hat to the fabulous Miss Frances, but you will have to wait until next week to see that finished project.  We are going to their wedding reception Sunday evening and can't wait to see her all gussied up in her green dress.  

Humble beginnings to fun summer top!

I know, I know... I haven't posted in ages.  I won't bore you with any excuses and get right into the fun stuff.  I have been crafting and will share what I have been up to in upcoming posts.  The first thing I wanted to share with you is this fun summer top I made from an old pillowcase that I bought for a buck.  I followed Betz White's tutorial on the Craft blog.  The only thing that I did differently was add more of the shirred stitching.  I totally recommend this project!  It was easy and done in a couple of hours.  Some great summer almost instant gratification.

- Here is what I started with, a vintage pillowcase with a sassy floral print.

- Ta-da!  A great summer top for those hot days, which we have been having a lot of here in San Jose.

- Here is a close up of the shirring and strap.

- I even put in bra strap holders on the under side of the straps.  I hate having to adjust visible bra straps all the time.

Check out this tutorial on Craft and try it out.  You don't need an old pillowcase to do it, either, you can use any piece of fabric that is large enough.  

I also wanted to give a big ol' THANK YOU to the ladies at StyleSubstanceSoul!  They were kind enough to feature my Refashioned Crochet Embellished Tank on their site, here.  

New Tutorial is Up on the Craft Blog!

Things are happening behind the scenes here in my studio.  Sometimes it is stuff I can't talk about while I am working on it, sometimes it is stuff that has taken me forever and a day to actually finish (so embarrassed) and then there are those ongoing projects that I just wish I could snap my fingers and be done with them.  

I recently wrote a fun tutorial for Craft on how to refashion old or ill fitting tee shirts, into this tank top:

The tutorial went up onto their site today, so check it out when you have a chance.  It is a pretty quick project, some basic sewing and crochet skills are necessary.  

Remember this post from way back in October, about starting the Stitch Diva's Hourglass Jacket?  Well, it is finally finished!  Geez, took me long enough.  I love it.  I did need to rejigger a few things, but I am happy with the end result.  

Oops, I just realized I forgot to button one button, before taking the picture.  Typical.

Another, sort of ongoing thing I have been working on has been reorganizing the studio.  It has been a challenge, since I also still need to work here, but it is coming along!  I hope to post some before and after shots soon.  I know I always like to see where people create, especially when they have small work spaces.  My studio is not huge, it is only 9' 6" x 8' 6" and I have a lot of crafting crapola.  Don't get me wrong... I know I am lucky to have a room devoted to just me and my work, but I still can't fit all of it in here.  I have been able to bring more of my stash out from the basement, which has triggered some new ideas.  My next project for the studio is to make fabric valances (is that what they are called), to hide my rolling window shades when they are up.  I will keep you posted.

Hello Again and a Refashioned Cashmere Sweater

OMG!  Has it been almost two months since I have posted?  Where has the time gone and what have I been up to?  Geez!  I don't have much of an excuse, but I have been concentrating a bit more on some freelance work.  

I have always wanted to be the one that keeps a journal religiously, and can look back years later at all my oh so interesting entries.  But I have never been good at it and the entries end up feeling way to self conscience and not at all interesting.  I guess that is kind of how I have started to feel about my blog.  Don't get me wrong, I love blogs!  But sometimes I feel like I don't have much to say and don't want to bore you.  I need to change my way of thinking about it all and just blog and create things to blog about.  So here goes!

On that note, I do have something to share, that was quick, easy and fun.  On a recent thrift store outing I found this great pink cashmere sweater for $5!  BUT, it was a tad to small, bummer!  I held onto it while I finished my shopping, not sure if I should put it back or buy it (I also was holding the exact same sweater in a pale turquoise, that I am kicking myself for putting back).  I decided to buy it and figure out what to do with it later.  I brought it home, washed it and set about figuring out what to do with it.  

Since it was a tad small, I thought, why not make it into a open loose cardigan.  So I carefully removed the ribbing at the neck.  Just so you know most sweaters (especially ones made from nicer fibers like merino wool, alpaca and cashmere) are fully fashioned.  Well, what the heck does that mean?  You ask.  A fully fashioned sweater means that all the pieces used to make it up are knit to shape (unlike, a tee shirt which is cut to the shape you want), then those pieces are linked together (which is like sewing them together).  Anyhow, this means you can carefully take apart most sweaters without the pieces coming unraveled.  Just a little tidbit for you to know.  Sorry for the tangent.  I removed the rib around the neck and cut a straight line up the center front.

Since I cut the center front of the sweater, I needed to finish off the edges somehow, otherwise the garment would start to unravel.  I had this vintage fabric with pink flowers, that went with the sweater.  So I cut a couple of bias strips to make binding, to finish off the front edges.  

Now what to do about the neck and closure of this cardigan... How about a great shawl collar that become the ties to close this puppy up.  

Here is a close-up of the shawl collar.  It is basically a wide bias band folded over, then I sandwiched the neckline of the sweater between the two layers of the shawl.

WOOHOO!  A great new cardigan to bring welcome Spring in.

Costumes and other random things...

I have had a side project that I have been working on since February and yesterday I handed off the almost completed costumes...  I haven't posted about these, because I wanted to wait until I could post a picture of the girls in their costumes.  My friend Natatie put me into contact with one of her friends George, who wanted two costumes made for his daughters (who are both too cute).  He sent me these images:

Link from Legend of Zelda-

Nausciaa-

And here are the girls in their costumes:

I am still not finished with the Nausicaa helmet, I will be working on that today.  Here we are doing the last helmet fitting yesterday.

I also just stumbled upon a Flickr group that is so much fun to look at and get inspiration from, the Moleskinerie.  Here is one of my favorites from that group, I love the colors she uses.  Check this group out there are some amazing artists doing incredible things with their Moleskin notebooks.  

FINISHED OBJECT FINALLY!!!

Seems like it has been forever, since I have actually finished a project... And here it is:

I based this turtleneck/hood/poncho thingy off of this pattern from The Thrifty Knitter's blog.  I used 2 skeins of Colinette Prism yarn in color-way #7 (on the yarn label it says color-way #7, but on their website the closest color I could find was the turquoise combo).  I did make some changes to the pattern, I got the same gauge, but when i followed the pattern the neck opening was way too small.  I think my yarn just didn't have the same amount of stretch, since it is a wool wrapped with cotton yarn and not a stretchier wool yarn.  Instead of casting on 36 stitches I casted on 54 stitches.  Then where you start to increase I ended up doing 8 sets of increases.  It fits me well and is oh so cozy!