new project, old pattern

My mother bought this pattern for me over the weekend, and now it is at the top of my To Do list. This is Simplicity 1799, from 1956, a "teen age one-piece dress with detachable collar and sleeve trim". This is such a lovely pattern, and somehow, it being for a teenager originally makes it even better. I love the details--an extra collar to put over the self collar, the bow on the red view, and so much more.

I'll be making a test version of this one, mainly because of all the darts at the waist. I want this to fit, and I want to be able to breathe in it!

new book + new apron

My new favourite craft book is A Is for Apron, which I found at B&N a few weeks ago. My mother collects aprons, so as soon as I saw this on the shelf, I knew it was coming home with me. This really is a great book--wonderful patterns and lovely fabrics in the photos. Really, it's an inspiring book.


This is the Deep Pockets apron, which I decided to try the other day. It was a quick make, though I spent far too long dealing with the bias tape. Woe, bias tape, you're so useful and so evil all at the same time. I plan to make several more aprons, so hopefully the narrow bias tape will be less of a problem each time.

A full shot of the apron, on a vintage quilt. The pink bias tape looks neon bright, but that's mainly the camera's fault. There's some pink in the pocket fabric, and in person, the colors all work much better together.

All in all, great book, yay! I think my only issue with it is that the pattern pieces have to be enlarged, and since there's only one measurement on each one, I can't sit down and recreate it based on provided measurements like I can some of my goth-loli pattens from Japanese magazines. I copied some of the pages and took them to Staples though, and they were able to easily enlarge the patterns to full size, for a decent price. And really, it is easier to just cut that out instead of making sure I'm measuring everything right.

Recent Finish: Baby Blanket

Close-up of a recent finish--a basic baby blanket that I've taken over the duty of crocheting for all the new babies in the family, and for the babies of friends of the family. It's a basic shell pattern, but it's a vintage pattern, I think from the 60's. My grandmother used to use it, and now I'm using the same pattern.

This one has 2 white stripes, so that it doesn't get mixed up with his older brother's blanket.

I should probably get started on a new one, but it's more fun when I know who exactly I'm making it for.

this is a photo

This post exists just so I can test out posting photos here, and seeing if I need to edit the photos first. Enjoy!

For reasons I don't really understand, threadless decided to have some of their shirts on sale for $5 on April Fool's. I couldn't resist, and ended up with 4 new shirts, even though I just planned to buy the damn scientists shirt to replace my older one, which accidentally got bleached at some point. I first bought a shirt from threadless to get that shirt, so I guess it's come full circle that I started buying from them again just to get the same shirt again.

hello hello

Another month, another location for this blog. As much as I like simplicity of tumblr, it's just not quite enough for what I want right now. I still <3 it though, so I think I'll end up using one of my extra domains to just have a photoblog + randomness thing there.

But for a more serious site, like what I want this craft blog to be, I need something more, so here I am.

Anyways, since this is a new, new start, let me explain again: Why three hours later?

Three hours later comes from getting lost in a craft or a new project or whatever, and then looking up and realizing that you've lost all track of time and suddenly it is two or three or more hours later. Sometimes it's because everything has gone wrong, other times (hopefully most times) it's cause everything is working out just right.

Anyways, there's something wonderful about a project that absorbs all your attention so much that time doesn't even matter.