15 posts tagged “kiltmaking”

Last night, after I am sure they had had a couple of small glasses of wine (the rents don't drink as much as they used to, health and all that) the rents called me to congratulate me on my kiltwork.

If you've raised an eyebrow, you were in good company, as I did too. Don't get me wrong, I think I did a damn good job and many have told me and that's all well and good. But having your parents call and tell you how good a job you did, and then akining it to your Master's Degree (?) and then asking you to pick a dinner at a restaruant of your choosing for you and your BF (??) to celebrate (???) is a bit odd.

Yes, the kilt was good. McGuyver has the only kilt I will ever make (at least that's how I feel right now). But there are other fabric (and wood, and house) projects to be had! I just finished a craft bag: purple wool suiting on the outside, white canvas on the inside, nice thick ribbon for straps and it has two removeable pockets. I needed something that could hold quilting, knitting, and embroidery projects. As I expect to be laid up for a few days post-surgery I'm trying to keep sewing projects to a minimum, but I'm kinda stonewalled on the wood projects for a bit.  I can start in on the potting bench but I need help with sawing pieces of wood without cutting my fingers off; I may yet just measure it all out, mark where I need cuts, and take the wood to my dad's house on Sunday. I can't start in on my bathroom project until I find the perfect sink. I have to remind myself that fiscally I'm planning on doing the floors and moldings and glassblock and painting doors and doorknob project next year.

So I'm back to the needle, and looking at birthday and holiday presents. I will not call them Christmas presents because this year I am going to be making cards for Halloween, not Christmas; and presents will be fashioned and distributed between Halloween and New Year's. The small child is getting a hooded cape with utilibelt for his birthday, which he is going to help me design.

But before I get ahead of myself, I am determined to enjoy summer, as it is still here in the Pac Northwest. Now if I can only get the deer to leave my blueberry bush alone!

CC is getting married in 5 days; the kilt is DONE. I put the lining on last night. McGuyver tried it on on Saturday and all I had to do is scootch the buckle straps in a bit and then line it. Yay! I think it looks pretty darn good.

Saturday I helped host the rehearsal dinner -- I had help with the cooking and set up, which rocked -- for 26 people. That's a lot of people :)  I have now learned how to do bacon wrapped scallops (look up the Rachael Ray recipe on food network) and I have officially kicked my creme brulee spectre.

Now I'm sitting here knowing that, once the ring pillow is finished off tonight, I have other projects competing for my time. It doesn't help to have a checklist mentality and an XL spreadsheet that reaches to October of 2010 (yes, really) of projects to do.

In the meantime, work beckons -- in the last 3 working days I have fired someone (unfortunate), hired someone (yay!), and written reviews for my crew. The VP of HR sent me a smirk and said, "welcome to management". Not a bad list of things for my sophmore year.

Goodreads won't take my library DB I have unless I have ISBN numbers, which I suppose I do... if I were willing to go through 2736 books and type them out. Yes, I have that many books (inherited mostly, I've only read about 70% of them) and no, I'm not going to fish out ISBN numbers. I'll just update Goodreads as I read, and update my DB as I add ones to the permanent collection. Also, Google's Picasa and Flickr don't seem to want to keep my preformatted hirearchy of folders (for organization) for my pictures, so those shall remain on my 'pute. The good news is, I FINALLY used the card P-Ade gave me and got all of my pics off of my phone. I'm not going to go retroactively add them to posts -- why bother? -- but I hope this bodes well for future image enhanced posts!

I now weigh less than I did when I started dating GH! Finally. I hate losing weight: it's such a battle of plateaus and dips. I'm trying not to get cocky here. I have about 10 pounds to go and then I'll be at the weight I was when I started dating X, which is my personal best. I was really in shape then but I work out more now; so we shall see how it looks on a post-mommy, mid-30's body.

With the kilt nearly done (all I have left is the lining and I want to do some reinforcing stitching here and there -- but it pressed beautifully! I really recommend that book and I really recommend reading every step 4 times before committing thread to wool), I'm also using the family genetics (engineering) to conceive of a better chicken coop. I've scoured the wiki's, the forums, and the 'blogs; I've got stats on how many perches and how high and how many nests and how large and how often they clean out and how frequently they lay and how much space they need in and out per chicken. The chief pains of keeping chickens seem to be coop clean-out related; I'm going to have a coop that is 3 feet from the ground and will have a floor on hinges, bifold, so when you unlock the unhinged sides, the floor falls away (ostensibly with the chickens in the run, not the coop) and the litter falls to the ground. Or better yet, to a wheelbarrow. I'm also determined to make it from as many recycled or reclaimed things as I can; I've got quite a lot of decent-shape decking leftover and a friend with extra roofing felt. Craigslist is now my favorite haunt -- even once you take out "Missed Connections".

Which brings me to: IT'S NOT 'ROT' IRON, PEOPLE. It's wrought. As in Wrought Iron. As in the iron was wrought; iron itself can't rot. Why oh why do these people not use a dictionary?

But before I get all up with my bad chicken self, I need to manifest dinner and dessert for 28 people this Saturday. I hear a Costco trip... 

I'm disenchanted with MS Money and so I've bit the bullet (ow!) and started tracking my accounts on Yodlee. Bonus points that they track my house value via Zillow (alas, not with my home improvements, the most recent of which is a seriously asskicking deck). I saw my net worth and it didn't scare me, which is refreshing.

It occurs to me that most of the stuff I use a computer for has come to the point where my 'stuff' actually resides on servers, elsewhere. I haven't yet started a flickr account but it's around the corner, I assure you. I think the only remaining information I have stashed on my computer of any real worth to me is the schematics for the house (including electrical diagrams) and my library DB, which I need to gut and start over anyway. Perchance I can exploit GoodReads for the latter. And possibly GoogleDocs and Spreadsheets for the former.

I'm also getting back on track with being a Very Good Girl. The last two weeks found me not watching the diet, buying lunch and coffee, etc. Today I drank work coffee and brought my lunch, and my weight has not gone up (and looks like it's starting the slide down again). This is good because tomorrow I'm getting fitted for my bridesmaids' dress.

Oh, the Kilt you say? (no you didn't, but please let me brag): the top tab is on, the entirety is pressed, and all that is left is the knicknacks: sporran loops (about 30 minutes), belts and buckles (about 45 minutes), and lining (about an hour -- perfect teeny small stitches). In return for the cost of the fabric and my time I'm getting free labor on the aforementioned asskicking deck, and I think the projects are more similar than either of us could've thought:

• We had both experience in the base skills (sewing, carpentry) but hadn't actually done one before
• It required a lot more work than we both thought
• It required a healthy dose of perfectionism and attention to detail
• The product will last a lifetime
• It turned out much more awesome than we'd imagined

I am, however, trimming some things from my 2-year project list. First and foremost, I am axeing the veggie garden. I will rely on my friends who garden and exchange them for chicken eggs and/or herbs (which I will and do grow) and/or seamstress work. I'm also killing the autumn quilt project I was going to head into next in favor of a birthday present for GH, which means I get to work on my hand-sewing skills some more (embroidering dragonflys!).

The 'rents have begun the move-in process for their house... I may have my craft room by my birthday!!!

Today, I have one dev out sick and another out on leave and another on vacation. I think I'll just crawl under my desk and hope nobody notices.

I had the best of intentions of getting up early this morning and getting in, getting a lot done and leaving early to go see cars play physics. Alas, I stayed up until about 1am and got in at 10am (at least I worked out) and the list of my to-dos has increased proportionately with the people who are out today.

One thing that irks me, though, is that a couple of those to-dos shouldn't have had to be done. Essentially, data was provided over a week ago and *now* people are looking at it. I can't parse out how the data was formed so I can't answer questions on it, so I am left to run it from scratch. That means right this very instant I am running 3 server-bloodying queries, each munging through about 10 million rows of data. Good thing I have people out so I can use their bandwidth.

Tonight I have the SC and we shall go do something fun, given the weather, I think. Then tomorrow he goes to his father's house -- I traded a Saturday for a Friday, which means I get to go to Eddie Izzard and X gets to go to his guys night out -- so I can go play in "the City".

I also got a lot more done on the Kilt, in fact it looks like a Kilt now. I will say this: if you undertake to make a kilt, be very practiced in catch stitching, runner stitching, and tailor stitching. Or if you're not, you will be.

Finally, I have an XLS spreadsheet that now goes out to 2010 of house and craft projects. When I get my craft room (I think I'll have a painting party just for that occasion) I will print it out on HUGE PAPER and put it on my HUGE BULLETIN BOARD and take a lot of satisfaction from crossing things off and done.

Not keeping track terribly well since I've last blogged. Too many weird positives and negatives in the last few days and my algebraic algorithms are all atwitter. I'm going to say things are positive in my area right now, but some of my dearest are going through rough times.

A dear friend's daughter got bit by their dog (accident!) (no it wasn't a pit bull), which as a parent has to be the most brutal thing to go through. They are doing amazingly well and their daughter is healing very well -- Evergreen hospital in Totem Lake apparently has a pediatric plastic surgeon on staff and did wonders, as day to day the wound appears to be healing faster and faster.

Another dear friend's parents announced they are divorcing. Completely out of the blue, and not terribly well understood, it's left him wondering how and what and why. I attended to this as a 7 year old: my life was easy then, I didn't have to "perform" at work or attend to other adult responsibilities, and most of the mental intricacies of the situation were not within my understanding (ignorance can indeed be bliss). How do you counsel an adult through his parents' divorce? My heart and hopes are with him. And his parents, they're good people. It's harsh when this happens and you don't know what to say.

I had a candidate who flew well through phone interviews and tanked on the in-person, my 5th head remains open. I am trying not to get discouraged. I have learned as a manager that you hold out for the best, and if that means the best isn't graduating for oh, say, a year, then so be it. It's easier to hold out for a rock star than to settle and pay that price.

My 'rents closed on their new house, but unfortunately the junk they have to contend with (MRSA infections, cat pee everywhere) means they aren't moving their stuff until nearly my birthday. Craft room will have to wait, but I'd rather they got the house to their liking before they move.

The kilt is going really well, I've steeked the pleats (that's where you cut away the excess and then sew it closed so it won't fray) and then reinforced them (so they won't spread with wear). Next up is some more reinforcing with canvas. I went to Jo-Ann's today (my local fabric stores are gone, I have to go 20 minutes away to get fabric now) and they were having an incredible sale. I have yet another project on my list for when the kilt is done; I'm thinking that I'm one of those people who needs an impossible length of things to do for me to be happy. I suppose it's better than being one of those who invents drama, but I'm not sure.

And that's the catch up for recent days. I'll be doing a second post today, for a special occasion.

On my table (the lounge-table, not to be confused with the coffee, end, side, dinner, or desk tables) there was a "Dallas is awesome" type magazine with a very shiny picture of Jessica Simpson talking about how Dallas has its own color of blonde.

Boy howdy.

Actually, I shouldn't say that. I went to the Nasher Art Museum and saw Picassos, I stayed in the same hotel Queen Elizabeth II stayed in, there were many tall buildings with presumably many amenities. I had a lovely time showing off my brains in front of nearly 600 people. So yay for me.

But I am so very done with Dallas. I am home now, after a slight respite in Cap Hill, I am home with my mommy (who was dogsitting) and the SC. I have unpacked the kilt (pleats finished), set up laundry, showered, changed into comfies, and did my required bitching and moaning.

Travelling for work is not like travelling for fun -- I missed my home, my boy, my dogs, my man, my friends. I had my every base need accounted for except human company, and I wasn't willing to settle for the sort of interim company that appears (usually alcohol induced) at these sorts of things.

It's been a while since I posted on my kilt project, but it's going swimmingly. I am six pleats away from pleat completion, which is a big deal - 80% of the time you spend on a kilt is spent measuring, placing, pinning, remeasuring, repinning, sewing, remeasuring, unpinning a single pleat. When I first started it took me about 25 minutes to do one pleat (I am not even joking) and it's down to about 15 now. For those of you looking into making a kilt, I recommend multiplying the number of pleats by 20 for how many minutes you can reasonably expect to work on that section.

Also, I highly recommend the Art of Kiltmaking again, as the base guide for this, with the following notes:

• After you have accordion-folded your kilt fabric (before you start sewing anything), put the whole shebang on a bath towel -- fold up the towel for easy transport (because you're likely to find that, for example, your kitchen table is much nicer to work on than your sewing table) and it protects the fabric from light, dog fur, etc.
• Once you've calculated your pleat gradient (e.g., x millimeters at the waist and y at the hip) create a guide out of cardboard or plastic so you can help your measuring and pinning process.
• Check the back end of every pleat as you go to make sure you're enveloping the same amount of fabric each time -- you'd be surprised how often you catch yourself folding up 2 lengths instead of 1.
• Horizontal pinning works better than vertical
• When pleating with tartan, have the pleated part pinned about 1 or 2 threads off from the next length of fabric -- with the top (pleating) part a little lower. By the time you start stitching, your stitches will pull the pleated fabric up and everything will align perfectly (no ladders!)
• Measure your pleats as you go as an aggregate -- e.g., if you're haflway done with your pleats, then 1/2 of the hip measurement for the back should equal where you are. Metric is easier :)

I spent the Entire Day in Training. That's how it felt. From 8:30 to about 4pm, I attended Princples of Leadership. I learned how to motivate. I learned how to include. I learned how to collaborate. I also had to ignore everything else I had to do.

Thanks to the modeling clay they provide as a stress reliever I learned how to sculpt calla lillies and roses. This is useful because I intend to make a Bridal Shower cake soon and wanted to get my technique down. I got many compliments on the output so yay for that.

Speaking of which: the Kilt is going well. It's just the part of it that doesn't engender itself to updates. "I did pleats 14-17 last night", for example, doesn't say much. There are 33 pleats. Expect them to be done in another week or so. It takes about 20 minutes, start to finish, to properly measure, pin, and sew one pleat, because of the tapering. So -- yeah, not exciting in terms of blogsphere, but eminently satisfying. You will be happy to learn that said pleats 14-17 were done to a mix of Disturbed (Land of Confusion), the Flobots (Handlebars, and Rise), New Order (Regret), and Soundgarden (Spoonman, The Day I Tried to Live). I also learned that beeswax is a tricky thing: excellent when used sparingly, annoying (and will knot your thread like dreadlocks in a summertime afro) when you use too much. Also, it takes 20 minutes per pleat when you, I don't know, completely unstitch one because it wasn't good enough (yes, I did. That would be the fourth. But you do this with other things-- quilts, etc. I remember one time I was making a blouse and pretty much tore it apart because I didn't think it was 'finished' enough...)

I am so proud of myself, though. I said no to spending money on something that I wanted, but didn't want enough to give up other things. There was a ticket available for Corteo, the new Seattle Cirque show, and it was the foo-foo VIP cool seats version, and it was, $200. Man, I thought a while about that. $200 is bank, to be sure, but it's Cirque and it would be with GH and one life to live and all that. But I said no, because that $200 is either destined for Vegas or Mexico. TravelGrrl needs her smack. What I really need is to just get off my now narrowing ass and win the lottery. But it doesn't seem to be happening. Ergo, the self-analysis and restraint.

That coughing sound you hear (to the restraint) is some of my dearest friends. Who know me better.

Saturday found me at Pike's Place market, where I attempted to introduce GH to doughnuts (the line got increasingly larger, ala the Fibonacci Series) and succeeded in introducing him to Delaurentis. Delaurentis has a whole aisle of things that will kill me (pickled almonds?) but also carries my family's proscuitto (from Parma!) so they are wonderful and perfect, of course. I now have a new stash of saffron for spanish rice.

A twelve minute discussion, followed as a tennis match by the nice young man in the veggie stall, produced a dinnertime vegetable decision (broccoli). A four second conversation with the fishmonger produced a dinnertime meat (crab). Seven minutes and one adorable small girlchild and ponderance of chocolate fettuccini worth of wait led us to sundried tomato and basil pasta. All of it was cooked up at GH's house and I had 2nds, in spite of my "diet".

(My diet also suffered at the hands of chocolate chip cookies -- homemade by GH -- and a severe case of SpMS -- sortaPMS** -- which led me to wine).

This morning at 9am I was in a minivan (not mine) (no I don't own one, if you see my hands on the steering wheel of one I have either been blackmailed or am dead) on the way to the 2008 Sewing Expo, where I resolved not to buy anything. Not anything, you hear? I am going to be good.

Ten swatches of authentic kimono fabric, a box of glass head pins, a strand of freshwater pearls, and 1 yard of grey and red woven 100% worsted wool (skirt material, to be made late in the summer for fall debut) later, I had completely foobered that resolution as well.

And yet I'm strangely content.

**sortaPMS is when you're like me and thanks to modern chemical engineering you don't actually have an M at all, but then your body feels cheated so it manufactures all of your lovely stress into one day's worth of stress (like, say, your employee who is making the same mistakes in month 4 that she was making on day 4, etc.) Sigh!