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Keepin' ya in kippahs

2009-10-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

I love my son's preschool. We have 3 kids and we've moved around a bit, so we've seen a few. And of all the many preschools we've had dealings with, this one is far and away the most haimish while still being organized and a "tight ship".

But the one thing they aren't all that good at is keeping track of personal belongings. I sewed a blanket for my daughter's nap-time there. They lost it. I sewed a blanket for my son's nap-time--they lost it. And then one day my son came home without his kippah. It happens to be a special kippah - the one we gave him at his upsherin (1st haircutting). But it's gone, and probably for good. I have to say, I was sad.

My son read my sadness. He decided he didn't want to wear kippot to school any more, in case he lost them. After I got over my mope, I realized this was not the message I wanted to send. But at $15 - $25 a pop, I didn't want to have to buy kippahs for him all the time and this place just doesn't place a high priority on personal belongings. So I went to sew him one.

There is a pattern you can buy for kippahs, but I don't own it and I didn't feel like wasting the time with the mail-order process. (I'm sure it's a good pattern though, it's a good company.) And I saw a few patterns available on the web. So I downloaded the most sensible looking pattern and whipped it up.

The arc of the wedge was all wrong. I wound up with a nice little cap that would maaaaybe fit on the head of an American Girl doll. Feh. So I had to redraft the curve. After a few tries I got a nice fit for an almost-4-year-old's head. And then I decided that since I went this far I might as well draft one for my husband. You can't really just scale up - but after drafting the 1st one I knew where the curve had to be and I got it right in 2 tries, so it wasn't a lot of effort.

These take almost no time to whip up, and barely any fabric. They have a nice curve to them - not too high (dorky) and not too flat (unprofessional looking). The boys now want to match - easy to do! The pattern is on the front page of my website in pdf form and here's a photo of the boys wearing the test kippot below:

So now there's a tested kippah pattern out there for quilting cottons. Have at it, sewing yiddishekeit!

Windsurfing... the blind leading the blind

2009-08-16T01:05:00.000-07:00

I've gone windsurfing at Foster City Lagoon a grand total of 3 times. It is a very inexpensive and safe way to get up and running, er... sailboarding. And once you take their intro class, you can do an all day rental of rig and suit for $20. They're open all year. It's a location with conditions which are about as non-threatening to a newbie as possible. All of which means that you can go practice quite a bit.

But I haven't yet, mostly because it involves getting babysitting which is a lot more than $20, and carving out time. This did not stop me from writing up a Basic Windsurfing Tutorial. On the contrary, I wanted to write it up while I was still a complete sailboarding moron.

First off, I wrote the tutorial mainly for me. My mnemonic ability has taken a beating these last few years. With a few weeks' interval between outings I wind up staring vacantly at the rental board for a few minutes before I can recall what I'm supposed to do. If I write it down I have both the memory enhancement of writing it down along with the ability to re-read it when I need it.

Second, it's so hard to remember what it's like to be new at something, that if I waited until I knew what I was talking about I would no longer remember what were the key ideas I kept forgetting when new.

So anyway, if you're a sailboarder and you somehow ended up here looking at my anemic blog (I'm sorry for you, really I am) I would love it if you would take a gander at the tutorial. Please let me know if I screwed up anything major.

Yakking Green Things

2009-06-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

I'm halfway through The Omnivore's Dilemma. It's a good read and neither dry nor preachy.
Like me, my husband's first career was in academic science. He was a climate researcher (I was a molecular biologist).
I live within a mile of the Pacific ocean. I see plastic bags floating next to the kids playing in the surf. You can't walk on the beach without stepping on someone's cigarette butt or discarded trash.

These are the things that pull me green.

I also live in a part of the country that is staunchly green green green. In some cases, nauseatingly, self-congratulatory, obnoxiously green. In other cases, cute-to-the-point-of-twee green. And in nearly all cases, expensively green. Green is for the wealthy... the well-educated holier-than-thou infinitely-more-chic-than-you elite.

These are the things that make me want to leave ziplock baggies full of compostable dog poop on the lawns of city officials and bicycle-nazis everywhere. So sue me.

Anyway. Thankfully rational thought trumps visceral reaction, and I've been slowly implementing green changes in the way I run my house. Biodegradable detergent, a rag to clean the table instead of paper towels, more diligent recycling... and more. I picked up Sewing Green which is a decent book that covers things found in plenty of other books (Sew and Stow comes to mind) but puts a recycling spin on all of it. This gave me the idea of making sandwich wraps out of PUL (PolyUrethane Laminated fabric) and quilting cotton in order to reduce ziplock bag use. And that got me to thinking about all the other ways in which I use ziplock bags... plastic bags destined for the landfill.

The problem with sewing your own ziplock bags is that for food safety sake, you need to get them very clean between uses. While it's true you can wash and dry PUL on hot repeatedly without problems, it is still a hazard to leave crumbs and moisture in corners of bags. I thought about making 3 sides out of velcro to eliminate corners, but frankly, I thought that would suck. Sewing velcro on things just barely makes it into the "good" column in my list of super powers - that stuff borders on evil in so very many circumstances. And then I had the lightbulb moment - why does a bag need to have corners at all? The sandwich bag companies make them rectangular to maximize use of material, but I don't need to do that. So there it is - I drafted an oval bag shape - no corners for crumbs. E=mc^2 it isn't, but hey, it's free.

It's a fairly small bag. I'm finding all these reusables are pretty bulky to put in a kid's lunchbox, and you're not using these for sandwiches (wraps are much better for that purpose). It holds a reasonable serving of berries or crackers or cookies or whatever. If you want it bigger, print it out at 125% or more.

You can get 2 bags out of a fat quarter of PUL (PolyUrethaneLaminated fabric - used extensively for cloth diapering and hospital settings - tolerated even by most people with chemical sensitivities), a fat quarter of quilting fabric, 4" of velcro and less than a half yard of binding. You can make it without the binding - just sew lining to exterior most of the way around the "mouth" RST, flip and edge stitch the flipping-hole closed - but I like the look of binding better. Anyway, it's a minimal investment of time and materials.

Half Bass Bag, Part 1

2009-03-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling needy and unfulfilled, so I'm designing something for myself. I want it to be germane to me and my valid feelings, so I'm calling it the Half Bass Bag. Once it's drafted and tested I'll put up the pattern as a "free but please make a charitable donation" item on my website because, y'know, this is how most people with advanced degrees from ivy league institutions Make The World A Better Place.

Onward.

If it's going to be a Half Bass Bag, it behooves me to make sure the "half bass" part is accurate. (For the record, I was bummed that I could not find any donkey fabric.) I have Robert Kaufman's fish fabric from the "Sports Club" line, but not being a fisherwoman myself, I am not certain which of the fish are bass species. I know there are a large variety of bass and many aren't even closely related to each other. My closest experience with bass involves them being already gutted, scaled and usually pre-filleted. I wouldn't know a live one if it bit me in the... bass.

Here's a photo of the fabric. I've put a pin through what I think are the most likely suspects based on a Google Image search. If there are any fishing folks out there who can confirm my picks or direct me to a correct fish on the fabric, I would be ever so grateful. Here's what I'm working with, and thanks in advance:

Blueberry breakthrough

2009-03-09T18:13:00.001-07:00

For years I have avoided making blueberry hamentashen because blueberry jam tends to boil and run at oven temp. The jam goes all over the cookie sheet and pours onto the bottom of the oven, leaving a big mess and a bunch of empty hamentaschen at the end.

I was in the grocery store looking for fillings for this year's batch, and my eye fell on pie filling. Aha! Pie filling is meant to be put at high heat... and presumably it's made up so that it stays where you put it. So blueberry pie filling went in the basket, and blueberry pie filling went in the hamentashen. I guessed right... pie filling works very well:

Finally, after all these years I can make blueberry hamentashen with wild abandon. I even updated my recipe in the online archive.

Be happy, indeed!

Hag sameach, everyone.

Pick-a-poodle

2009-03-02T10:42:00.000-08:00

I am making 3 poodle skirts. Two are for my daughters, one is for my friend's daughter/daughter's friend. My youngest and the friend both wanted pink skirts. My youngest was quite specific: she wanted a black poodle with a black sequin leash:

So I need to decide on a combo for the friend. For reference, my older daughter has a turquoise skirt with a pink poodle and opalescent pink leash. I have 3 options for the friend. The first is to duplicate exactly what my youngest has. The merit is that it's high contrast and easily visible. The downside is that variation is fun.

The second option is to change the leash to matte silver:

The upside - the matte silver is seriously cool in person (doesn't photograph accurately). It looks very good with the matte silver embroidery around the applique. It's still pretty high contrast and easily visible from a distance. The downside is that at first glance it doesn't seem noticeably different than DD2's version.

The third option is to change the leash to matte silver and the poodle to white:

The upside - very obviously different than the others. There would be 3 different colors of poodle for each of the 3 girls. The girl's complexion is very fair and really is at her best advantage when wearing light colors. See above about how cool the matte silver looks in person. Downside - much lower contrast. (Still obviously a poodle skirt.)

I am planning to make crinolines for the girls. I am hoping that by making the skirts stand away from the body a bit the details of the sequins and appliques will be more visible. But I won't know until it's all complete.

Anyway, if you have an opinion about which combo I should do for my friend's daughter please post in the comments.

Kickin' some pirate booty

2009-02-27T14:30:00.000-08:00

I'm running behind, ba-dum dum ching!

Well anyway, I have reached a milestone in the Purim sewing marathon. I have done all the necessary machine sewing on the jacket. Yay me! And I'm thinking it looks pretty good:

I know I would have wanted one when I was a kid, and I wasn't even a pirate girl. I could sew a back belt with 2 buttons on it - it would look very good I think. If I have time I will. But other than that I only have hand sewing to do... but that's a lot. There are like a gazillion buttons on this thing. I need to tack down the points on the trim which may actually take less time than I think. (I hope.) And I need to slip stitch the lining armscye closed. (And ideally re-do the other one because it wasn't as nice as I'd like, but that ain't gonna happen.)

But anyway, avast ye mateys and behold my mini-pirate jacket, or I'll make ye walk the plank!

March Madness, Purim Style

2009-02-23T14:38:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess I'm switching this over to be my personal blog since my journalspace blog bit the dust along with their entire system. The fact that it's taken me this long to come to this conclusion ought to tell you about how regularly I blog. I have no aspirations to become the next blogging sensation, so I really only write when it suits me. Which ain't often evidently.

But I'm twittering my annual purim costume frenzy, and I figure that I might like to see progress photos somewhere down the pike. This is the stuff I would cover on my old blog - a blow by blow for my sewing and other projects... personal note-taking for next time. (You never know when you might need a pirate costume again in another size.)

On tap for this year is one totally over-the-top pirate costume and 3 poodle skirts (hopefully with crinolines). I'm knocking back me a ferocious pirate right now, and I'd say I'm about 1/2 way through the process if you count pattern/notion/fabric acquisitions. So I have some blogging catch-up to do.

I'm using McCall's out of print pattern 4626 for a Cap'n Hook style pirate. (While the Johnny Depp 3-days-of-stubble version of piratehood is unequivocally attractive, I get squeamish thinking of tapping that for my 3 yr. old son. Actually, at any age... Oedipus ain't all he's cracked up to be.)

I had the linings (black acetate and gold acetate) left over from another project. I bought a beautiful cream and metallic gold jacquard on eBay for the vest. I also had bought a red velvet - wasn't thinking. It's stretch. I did go ahead and cut it out, but decided it was too much hassle to interface all that. So I serged it up to check the size (huge) and let my 8 year old daughter have it. She's going to sew patches to it. She's so kewl.

So I went to Joanns to get some cotton velveteen as a replacement. Oy have they gone downhill. There was a hole in the fabric about 6 inches in from the end and the cutting table woman asked if I wanted her to measure after that. Um, yes... I don't want to come short, especially on napped fabric that's only 45" wide. She groaned. (Sorry lady - why should I accept a meaningful defect in full-price fabric?) So instead of starting the ruler after the hole, Miss Crankypants actually ripped off the 6" of fabric while implying that I was only saying I wanted her to start after so I could get the extra 6" for free. What a waste. And how offensive. Not sure why in this job market they need to hire the bottom of the barrel. I've been on the fence for years about Joann - another nail in the coffin that day.

I eBayed the trim (after exhausting all my known brick and mortar and internet storefronts) and traced off the pattern. The measurements indicated size XS, but just barely. I looked at the pattern and the size difference between the 2 children's sizes is enormous. I traced the XS off, but made the vest first, just in case (much less work than the jacket). It fits... barely. So I traced off the next size up for the jacket, which is fully 1.5" longer in the sleeve and easily 4" longer in the body of the coat. I took up both by 1.5" inches right off the bat, and needed to nearly double that for the sleeve length based on my mock-up. I'm hoping the jacket is a bit wide - due to the cuff/lace set-up I could get a few years' worth of wear out of this if it works out right.

At this point, I've cut it all out, interfaced everything but the back button band, applied as much trim as possible up to this point and assembled the exterior body of the coat and collar. I shot a quick photo on the model just to see if this is going to fly. So far, so good.

Note the pirate chest that must accompany the model on the photo shoot. And on Sesame Street watching benders. And to lunch. And to the bathroom... And... And...

Updated iPod case pattern with sync cable slot!

2007-10-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

I've had the idea for absolutely ages, but real life precluded my taking a stab at trying out my design. Today I managed to squeeze out an iPod case that includes a slot for the sync cable. This means you don't need to remove the iPod from it's case to charge it or to hook it up to a car playback device. Yay! Sadly, my demo model isn't my prettiest work, but if I wait around for that... well, technology will pass me by, I'm betting.

It turns out it's pretty easy to modify the pattern to include a cable slot. In fact, no new pieces are necessary. It is only necessary to treat one pattern piece slightly differently. Oh, and you need a narrow foot, like a zipper foot or a (my favorite) straight stitch foot. So let's cut to the chase.

How to create an iPod case with a sync cable slot

Cut out all pieces as directed.
Go ahead and sew the loop velcro spot to the back, but ignore the instructions regarding the bottom band.
Instead, sew the band into a tube RST, finger press the seam open (over a pencil or your pinky) and turn right side out. You should now have a tube.
Using the seam as your marker. pin the tube to the back so that the seam line is 1/4" inch from the bottom edge. See first photo for an example of a tube pinned into proper position.
Using a narrow foot (either zipper or straight stitch - I prefer the latter) sew just barely off that seam, parallel to it, down the inside of the tube. You will have to hold the top of the tube out of the way with either hemostats or a bodkin, and you won't get very far, even so! That's okay. a 1/2" or 3/4" is fine. See below photo for a shot of this (crazy) seam in progress.
Repeat this short seam on the other side of the tube. When you flip the case exterior piece over, it should look like the photo below. (Hopefully with neater stitching!)
Now that the tube is secured to the bottom of the case exterior. Press it flat so that the seam forms one edge.
From now on, treat that bottom band as you would have treated it in the original pattern, making absolutely certain that you do not catch that free center section of it when you "kiss" the padded interior to the exterior and sew around the perimeter.
Continue on with the pattern as written.

And that's it! You need to strike that happy medium where you have enough of an opening that the charging port slides in easily, but not such a gap that the iPod can slip out the bottom. Thankfully there's considerable room for play with regard to this. You'll notice that you do have to undo the velcro to charge the iPod, but I personally like having that tab close up the gap when not in use.

I need to make an addendum to the pattern to include this new technique. I will say that it's a little more fiddly this way, but I really dislike taking my iPod out of its case every time I want to listen to it in the car or grab the latest podcast, so I am very happy to make the extra effort.

I hope folks enjoy this new feature.

Thank You

2007-05-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to post a thank you here for all of those folks who contributed to NBTF to make our goal of raising $500. So here it is:

THANK YOU!!!

I have to say that I am thoroughly impressed at the amount of money we were able to raise in a short time. I hope that people will continue to contribute to NBTF. Every day, more people are diagnosed with brain tumors, more people need support, more research is needed. This is one of those causes that is unambiguously good.

Now that we have made that goal, I am thinking of raising it to $750. I put in a query to NBTF to see if they would leave the Team Samara page up indefinitely so that I could just continue to direct contributions that way, but I have not yet heard back. I will post when I do.

Oy! Another blog.

2007-05-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

Feh. I know. Everyone and his uncle has a blog. There are zillions of words that are being typed into cyberspace... forgetable, regretable words. And I am contributing to the morass. In fact, I already have a personal sewing blog... a fact which is of absolutely no consequence because nobody on earth ever reads that blog. Not even Mr. Yak. It is chock full of my weird little sewing projects, but because I am naturally a paranoid person, I do not put anything in it that would potentially a) identify me and mine or b) be considered remotely incindiary.

But a blog does not need to be a diary.

In this case the blog will serve as an announcement board for when I update the pattern, change philanthropic efforts or meet goals. And I am also hoping to get some feedback on the pattern via the blog as well. I don't intend for it to be something that is updated unless there is a specific need. So you've been warned.

You might be wondering why I would change philanthropic efforts. And if you aren't, I will tell you why anyway. I am pretty sure that the NBTF/First-giving site that I've been using will be pulling the Team Samara website down in a month or so. They do these walks every year, and they remove the old teams in preparation for next year's event. I will have to find some other related charity to feature when this opportunity goes away.

Suggestions are welcome.

Anyway, welcome to... Yet. Another. pleonastiK. Blog.