Keeping Warm

Even with the cooler nights, the garden is still producing.

It's nice to have our own vegetables, especially as soup and stew weather approaches.

The first big news after the cooler weather hit was that we needed a new furnace, which we learned when we had the old one serviced. It is likely leaking carbon monoxide, although we have detectors, and they haven't gone off. It will cost a lot, unfortunately, but the good news is we can add air conditioning with the new unit, which will help if the fire season coincides with hot weather. We were lucky this year with the weather (although 2020 pretty much has sucked as years go).

The new doll I mentioned last week showed up a day early, on Tuesday. The outer box was a little squished, but the special box inside was fine.

I opened the outer box outside, tipped the contents onto the settee on the front porch and then went inside and washed my hands. Then I was able to handle the contents without worrying that the delivery person or anyone else touching the outside of the box might have had the virus. We brought the box inside after a couple of days, so I can use it to store the factory box in.

The name of the doll is "Lotta," but she will be getting a new one in this week's story. She arrived wearing a long-sleeved jersey and denim overalls, pink slip-on laced shoes, and a headband.

I think her face is very sweet. Her tag had the number 0256, which I have saved along with her box. She will need some pajamas, but in the meantime, she has an oversized T-shirt to "sleep" in, if she needs to sleep in a story. A cardigan I had made for Jolena that turned out to be too small worked for her and some jeans belonging to Emil that shrunk in the laundry worked with the cuffs turned up, although the pants are a bit big in the waist. I can fix that.

I thought she appeared to be shaped like the Happy Kidz, although they are a lot bigger. I took her measurements and discovered that they were pretty much 80% of the bigger dolls, so I ran off a couple of Happy Kidz patterns reducing the size to 80%. Then used them I drafted new patterns, reestablishing the 1/4" seam allowance, which had shrunk a bit.

I wanted something to go with her pink shoes. (She brought an extra pair of shoes with her, but they are also pink.) I used some fabric Daphne picked out for my Christmas present a couple of years ago. It was very easy to get a dress out of a fat quarter for this size doll.

It turned out to be a perfect fit, so it will be easy to make other things for her, just reducing the pattern to 80%. I do that using the printer.

She needed some spare casual clothes, so I made her some capri-length leggings using some dark navy stretch fabric I had left over from making things for the bigger dolls. (She brought the teddy bear with her, too, and the teddy bear brought a friend along––a white one of his kind.)

Now I'm working on a new version of my Everyday Play doll dress. It's a little harder to figure out, because I'm using the same knitting gauge or tension, the same yarn and the same needles, but reducing all the stitches and rows to 80%. I have to fudge here and there, because 80% yields a lot of partial stitches and rows, and then there are the increases, etc., to figure out, but I think it will work out well. I should have that to show next week. All the match is good for my brain. The yarn has a little pink in it, to go with her other pair of shoes, the sparkly ones.

I have been using the same technique to rework patterns for American Girl dolls to fit the Happy Kidz. I print the pattern at 90% and then lengthen the sleeves, pants legs and skirts. The Goetz Doll Lovers group on Ravelry is having a JAL (Join Along) to make Halloween costumes for dolls. I used Matilda's Closet Graduation Ensemble pattern for this costume for Veronika. I used plain black quilter's cotton. 

Here's a closeup:

I plan to make one of the dolls over into a pumpkin.

Of course, I'm still writing letters urging people to vote. I hope to mail 500 of them this coming  Saturday, but I still have a lot to do to reach my goal. I hope to have a photo for you for next week's blog. Nationwide, we were at 12.5M letters by Saturday. 

In other news, a single copy of my book should arrive at the end of this week. It has been shipped. If everything looks OK, I will print up 100 copies for local people and family members, and others will be able to buy it from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Perhaps it will find its way into your local bookstore.

What's on my needles: The remake of the Everyday Play doll dress, which is very popular on Ravelry. This new pattern will fit the Little Kidz dolls. The Which Came First Shawl still needs blocking. The dish cloths are finished, although I expect too be making more.

What's on my sewing machine: Waiting for more costumes.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. More progress this week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Big News, which is the first part of the new doll's introduction.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: I've been listening to music while working on the letters, but for sewing and knitting, I'm listening to Elsewhere by Dean Koontz.

What's in my wine glass: Primi Soli Sangiovese. Great with my homemade lasagne.

What's my tip of the week: I like to use a little scrap of fabric to sew onto when I finish a seam, but sometimes seams for doll clothes start and end inside the garment, like hems. When possible, I sew into the seam allowance to start the seam, sew the seam and then use the seam allowance to sew out again, often back onto the same scrap of fabric I started with. When you make a right-angle turn before ending a seam, you don't really need to backstitch. It's nice and secure. I have done this with quilting as well.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

There's No Place Like Home...Wherever That Is

Shortly after we left Oregon, DDIL2 took photos of the Kaleidoscope quilt.

What a joy to see it photographed with the quilting showing up so well!

After leaving Bend, we stopped overnight in Winnemucca, at the KOA, where we could count on having hookups so we could clean our little home and an off-leash enclosure for the pups, so Dusty could run.

I finished the snood, lace collar and mitts for the steampunk costume (more on that later), so with no knitting to do, I CO the French Back-to-school Cardigan for Matty (Johan's birthday present), who has arrived in Oregon as of this writing. It's a quick project, and I've done it a few times before. Carter is my model.

It took a couple of days, because I was busy cleaning the fifth wheel, then the house bathrooms and kitchen, as I awaited the appointed time to take the trailer back to its storage spot.

DH wanted more of the Tofu Chocolate Pudding I took on the trip.

It's so easy. Just put in the blender: 1 pkg silken tofu, 3/4 C cocoa powder, 1/4 C honey and 1/3 C milk (dairy or nondairy, skim OK). Blend until smooth and pour either into individual cups or a refrigerator container and chill at least 15 minutes. It will keep several days.

I also made some French bread. It's funny how not cooking for a couple of weeks can make me want to cook. I had to try out the olive oil and fig vinegar we bought at the last place we did wine-tasting.

I had made a bean/vegetable stew to go with the French bread. Gotta love slow-cookers when it's hot.

OK, finally to the steampunk costume for Mandy. (It will go on to Daphne's dolls at Christmas. Hope she likes steampunk.)

Mandy was glad to get some use out of her hat.

Mandy (a.k.a. Amanda Katherine von Götz, PhD) is in her lab, preparing for a lecture at the Royal Society of Engineers. Goggles are a must when working in the lab, to protect your eyes from chemicals and accidental dangerous projectiles. Even that test tube could explode at any moment.

Mandy found out that SCUBA masks could be made with your vision prescription built in, so she had her lab goggles made that way. That saves eye strain.

At the meeting, she will explain her discovery of a chemical reaction that will create steam without harming the environment or resorting to petrochemicals, because that’s what steampunk is all about. She says. She also says girls can be anything they want to be when they grow up.

She likes the human-size cork board in her lab, because she can find her notes easily.

Mandy had to go on vacation with us so she would be available for fittings. She's a great traveler. I never once heard her ask if we were there yet.

Details for the petticoat, corset, Braemar jacket and goggles are in the project notes on Ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/PeggyStuart/three-steps-2. Everything else was improvised.

I think I need to go take a nap/

What's on my needles: Finished the the steampunk costume and a cardigan for Matty.

What's on my Featherweight: Put away for now.

What's on my loom: Still waiting, but dreaming about new digs. Like this maybe?

What's on my wheel: Stanzi also still waiting.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Jodi Taylor’s A Symphony of Echoes again, with DH as we traveled. Then started Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas. I'm listening to Fortune's Food: Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms by Mercedes Lackey. Sounds interesting so far. On the Kindle app, still reading Undeniable by Laura Stapleton.

What's in my wine glass: Kirkland Cabernet Souvignon 2015 vintage…ooooh! Now how did we get that? Utah Costco can’t sell “liquor.” (But is wine really “liquor?”)

What's my tip of the week: It’s easy to cook presoaked beans in the slow cooker, but at higher elevations it can take a lot longer than expected. Add some kombu seawead to the slow cooker (about 2-3 inches), and it will go faster. At any elevation.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.

It’s a Whirl

Last weekend’s Spin Along resulted in some interesting yarn:

The roving (fiber) was AlohaBlu’s Targhee "Saturated Spring,” 2 oz. The result is more or less DK-worsted. I got 108 yds, Navajo-plied to show off the colors. I used a Kromski Sonata wheel equipped with WooLee Winder.

Here’s what the singles looked like. I used long-draw or modified long-draw drafting method:

I'll post another photo after it's washed.

We’ve had a “new addition” to the doll family. This is Gabi:

She's the Tonner "My Imagination" Starter Redhead.

There are a few slight differences, though, from other 18" dolls. I measured her, and this is what I got: 

chest, 10 5/8” 

waist, 10” 

hips, 11” 

thigh, 5 3/4” 

calf, 5 1/8” 

upper arm, 5 1/2” 

full body around shoulders, 13 3/4” 

arm length from shoulder, 5 1/2” 

inseam, 6” 

head (about where a hat would rest), 12” 

height: 18” (without shoes)

She can wear most clothes made for other 18" play dolls, such as American Girl. She will be the foundation for a new set of fashions to be set aside for the next doll to give Miss Daphne. (I'm trying to spread them apart a bit.)

Gabi has an all-vinyl body, not a soft body, like the Madame Alexander doll, Dolly, and the American Girl dolls that are so popular. However, like the American Girl dolls, Gabi has a wig. (Dolly has rooted hair.) Also possibly important, her eyes don’t close, so she needs a sleep mask to get any sleep. I found a sleep mask pattern on Karen, Mom of Three’s Craft blog, July 16, 2012.

Gabi makes a great Little "Red" Riding Hood. Here she is with the wolf pup she met on the way to Grandmother’s house:

I finished the “Time for Tea” dress, started last month, for her.

Here’s the Ravelry Project Page. The pattern can be found here. The yarn is Stroll Tweed "Bare" I had dyed with KoolAid.

Here’s the back:

A slip underneath the skirt gives it some flair.

I had some issues worth discussing. First of all, someone on Ravelry observed that hand-dyed yarn sometimes left color that was hard to remove from doll bodies. Remembering that KoolAid can dye protein (animal) fibers but not cotton or acrylic, I conducted a test using the bottom of the foot on each doll. The “dye’ applied to each foot didn’t leave a mark on either. I will be vigilant, however, when using commercially hand-dyed yarns for either doll.

Another issue was the blocking. I thought I could just wash the dress and hang it to dry, because it’s so small, but it stretched, making it too long and too big in the neck (Superwash wool will stretch) and very limp. I wet it down again and dried it using the hair dryer, with the skirt spread out in a circle, which worked better than putting it in the dryer, because I could choose the shape. With the slip underneath it was just right.

Dolly hasn’t been neglected. I managed to get some lycra on Thursday after Vintage Stitchers and on Friday sewed the leotard for Dolly’s ballet costume.

The leotard (actually the swimsuit from Best Doll Clothes Book by Joan Hinds) can be used for practice sessions and classes at the barre, as well as for the foundation of her performance costume, sort of a Mardi Gras style costume.

The embellishments to the costume are made with Patons Twister in “Fruit Loops.” A three-stitch I-cord goes around each armhole and the neck. The one at the waist has the addition of 12” sections of the same yarn attached at more or less equal intervals with a single crochet stitch, allowing equal tails to hang down over the skirt, which is made from three equal 7” strips across the width of fabric, gathered. The net is attached to a ribbon and tied at the waist. The I-cord is separate, so it can all come off for practice.

At Vintage Stitchers almost everyone was sewing binding on quilts you have seen before, but Barbara had this one you haven’t seen since June of 2014, and certainly not quilted yet then.

The blocks come together in the middle of each dark shape. Templates were used, but the curves are gentle, and piecing was done easily by machine. Many of the fabrics are by Kaffe Fassett.

We’ve had some nice, sunny days. It won’t last, though, so we got out with the pups for a hike in the snow. No snowshoes needed, because the trail was nicely packed down.

What's on my needles:  Striped dress for Dolly. The Trickle Socks, waiting.

What's on my Featherweight: Still doll socks, tights and undies. Will start on Regency outfit for Dolly soon.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished From a High Tower by Mercedes Lackey. Great story, narrator was fine except for pronunciation of German words. Now listening to The Watcher by Jo Robertson, a crime novel, another Audible “Deal of the Day.” Still reading A View to Die For by Richard Houston on the Kindle app.

What's in my wine glass: Crane Lake Malbec, a staple at our house.

What's my tip of the week: It’s easy to make gathers in fabric without any special equipment. Make two parallel rows of basting stitches along the edge where you want the gathers to be. Pull the bobbin threads from each end and adjust the gathers so they are evenly distributed along the edge and the piece is the width you want it to be. Then you can tie the bobbin threads together or wrap them around a pin at each end. If the basting stitches show below the seam after you have sewn the gathered material to the bodice, sash or whatever other piece you’re using, it is easy to remove. In fact, it’s easier to keep the gathers even if you allow one row of basting to show below the seam.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.