Blush pink silk dupioni

It’s kind of a funny color. Not really pink, not really peach, not really beige. But it goes well with the tie skirt, the underskirt, and the belt. Behold:



I did a little search on DoA and discovered that a woman I had PM’d a couple of months ago about something else, also does clothing and costume commissions (PamSD). Beautiful work! I’ve PM’d her again, asking for measurements so that I can make a peasant-ish tunic to go with the skirt for the box opening and properly fit the shrug I am knitting around Jessica’s girl bits. If she’s willing to share them, then I can whip up the tunic and finish the skirt before Jessica arrives. And if not [quite understandable, and I wouldn’t be upset], then I will just delay the box opening until I can present her fully-dressed.

Sigh...still no word on my allegedly re-shipped Cuprit.

Back of doll sweater. Still no Cuprit.

I’ve begun working the sleeves and sides on this. Hardly any knitting time yesterday, because I was working on my contribution today’s speed mentoring activity at work.

Nekokoi was going to poke Soom last night to see what is up with my doll. Maybe she’s been sent back to Korea again? Maybe they only hallucinated that they have re-shipped her?

Still. No. Doll.

I vented over on DoA in the Cuprit Waiting Room. (Beware the wrath of a patient woman.)

Still no Cuprit, but knitting progress...

Though I can’t seem to manage a good picture of it. I am nearly done with the back of a shrug for Jessica, adapted from a pattern in Vogue Knitting Holiday 2009. Love this yarn. Love, love, love this yarn. And it’s something that Nekokoi would not be allergic to. Wishing I could just stay home and knit today, after catching up the laundry.

I should not laugh.

I just discovered that on DZ, you can order a hand giving the Universal Gesture. I’ll pass, but I like the one with the peace sign. Useful for making bunny-ears when I have my triplets.

I like Kay’s face, and Ani’s [not dreaming]. Ani also has the virtue of costing a little over half what the other BBs do. She might make a good triplet, if I can order her before they discontinue her sculpt.



Here we have the tweaked skirt, tulle underskirt, and beaded belt for Jessica. I think I will save a big post on the main blog for when she gets here and I do her box-opening. BTW, that lace is more of a taupe than an ecru.

And I think I might cobble together a camisole or bodice from ribbons to go under her sweater until I can make her a proper blouse. I already have one spool of ribbon that goes with the skirt. If I bead the heck out of it, I can probably re-sell it once it’s served its purpose. I’ve PM’d a woman on DoA for some additional measurements so I can make it fit reasonably well. Failing that, I can delay the box-opening pictures and make it when she arrives and have it fit perfectly.

Oh rats! I think I just heard thunder! I need to run out into the yard and do a resin-sealing dance.

About half done...

...with the tweaking of the tulle underskirt that goes with the tie skirt. I will probably finish that today after all the errands are done. Am really hoping to avoid another falling-down at JoAnn’s, but I need to find something suitable for a (modest) peasant blouse, because Jessica is going to be here before we know it, and I’m not sure that I’ll have time to knit her sweater in the next three weeks and not neglect my sister’s present or Secondborn’s.

Still, a nice problem to have. No images because I need to recharge the batteries. Good to know before Cuprit’s box opening!

Last night was a dolly night.

Worked a little on the blog drafts for when Cuprit arrives. Made a belt for Jessica. Cut out a ruffle for the dusty plum tulle underskirt and began to attach it. Tried to make the tracking number work. Spazzed, but only a little.

Another small falling-down at JoAnn’s

I think the taupe lace, which took my breath away when I first spotted it and was the impetus for last weekend’s jaunt, will go at or near the hem of the necktie skirt. It might be a little too heavy to sew directly to the tulle underskirt. [I had to buy it; it was on sale!]



It might get utilized in two or more pieces; I can visualize cutting the curved edge away from the lattice, using the lattice on a jacket or vest, and appliquéing the curved portion directly to the hem of the skirt between tie points. I fitted it by eye last weekend, and visually it would work.

The rest of this is just-because. The bits of passementerie at the top are for a belt. What looks like a caramel blur of lace is more a rich milk-chocolate shade. It will go somewhere, eventually.



And, we’re on shipping again for Cuprit, woohoo!

At the end of the [Cuprit] tunnel?

Could that be something other than the headlight of an oncoming train?

I have the Cuprit bag in the trunk, with her clothing. As I posted on DoA, I am cautiously optimistic. I will save the *squee*ing until we are opening her box.

Deep. Cleansing. Breath.

Third payment on Beyla is due to Nekokoi this weekend! And we have a stake activity on Friday night. If I drive in, I will run by your work on my way home; if I ride the train, I will bring it by your place early-ish on Saturday morning so that you can deposit it while your bank is open.

Rorek, I’ve connected with your friend J!

I messaged her on Facebook and told her how to find me on DoA. She seems very nice, and she’s definitely a gifted milliner. I’m so glad that you linked to her pictures! Once my budget recovers from Jessica and Beyla, I am going to want to commission a hat to go with the tie skirt and the retro sweater I’m still swatching.

Brief U2 moment: a wisp of melody in the back of my head, and the words And I still haven’t [knit] what I’m [swatching] for...

I need to make up my mind and knit something, because Iplehouse has confirmed that Jessica is ready to ship, and they now know when I will be making that last payment. She will be paid off in two and a half weeks, possibly here in three. And I want to put her in a sweater that is both modest and well-fitting.

I am hoping that Cuprit [finally!!!] arrives before Jessica, because we have had so much dolly drama, and I don’t want her arrival to be anticlimactic. She’s magnificent, and she deserves a royal welcome.

Clarification from Iplehouse :)

There has been a flurry of postings back and forth on their Q&A board, but today I received confirmation that (1) they cannot add the optional hands to the order per se, because that order is already done; (2) they have made the optional hands, so I am not to worry; and (3) Jessica will be shipped with her optional hands and the other goodies in my initial order. I have told them when I will make my final payment via PayPal.

God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world, and Pippa passes. [Thank you, Robert Browning!]

In other dolly news, I saw a photograph of hats by Rorek’s friend and messaged her on Facebook. She wrote back, and I gave her my contact information on DoA.

OK, this is the part where I do my impression of a responsible adult and finish getting ready for work.

Optional hands, revisited

I am still learning the ways of this new world. I posted to the Q&A at Iplehouse, asking them to add the optional hands to my order and bill me for the difference.

Wrong-o! They politely canceled my order, and I only found out on Wednesday. I am having log-in issues on their site. I can log in to post on the Q&A board, but not on the ordering page. It does not recognize my username, nor my password.

So I sent them the money on PayPal before going to bed last night, and I noted in the comment section that this was for the optional hands and not simply another payment on my initial order, and I included the order number and the parts number.

And then I went back to my original order [which I can access] and revised my shipping address slightly. This morning I also revised my Wednesday response to their cancellation and made a new post referencing the earlier string, since the original was buried on page 11. Both posts include my corrected shipping address. I want my Jessica here, not orbiting Pluto in tandem with my Cuprit!

I hope I have all the bases covered now. I also hope that I am in time to have them pour her optional hands in the same batch as the rest of her body, because I pay her off three weeks from today, so they might be working on her now.

*squee!* Was that a discreet-enough squee for a middle-aged woman?

Still swatching, with not much to show for it.

Ace of Cakes is wonderfully entertaining, but not conducive to producing miles and miles of knitting. I keep looking up and getting engrossed in cakely drama. Can this cake be saved? dunh dunh dunh...

I think the one where they used all the fake [model] cakes for target practice is my favorite one so far.

I’ll give Nekokoi my third payment on Beyla a week from tomorrow; Jessica will be paid off two weeks after that [and probably here to celebrate Thanksgiving]. Unless there is a big surprise with the utility bills, I should have most or all of the money saved for Arie by the end of the year. When I’m ready to order her, I’ll check with y’all to see if you or C. or Wotan want to do a group order with me. Arie and Beyla might be getting here around the same time next year. Four dolls. Boggles the mind.

And then I can start saving for Bonnie Hopezs and a Puki or twelve. [Those little chubby faces and elfie-ears and crazy wigs!]

One possibly Ugly Duckling, to go!

I’m willing to show it here, but not yet on the main blog. This, obviously, is the back. I love the color shifts. And the side panels look awkward, now that there are sleeves.



The front is a little more presentable. A little.



I’m wondering if I ripped the sleeves back and did a double-decrease, at least for a bit, rather than only decreasing the side panel to down to nothing, if the shaping would be more graceful. It would certainly be interesting, and I would be able to make the sleeves longer, because they would taper twice as fast. I have a puff of yarn a little bigger than a golf ball leftover.

‘Tis a puzzlement.

I cast on four stitches to knit a belt or sash, knitted about four rows, and frogged it. Then I tried I-cord, because I liked it so well on the teal sweater. But the teal sweater is made from smooth yarn, and Noro is notoriously bumpy. It just looked amateurish, so I frogged that as well.

Optional hands for Jessica!

They might be useful for pointing the finger at the triplets [when I have them, and they have gotten into mischief]. I saw the hands when I updated Iplehouse about my payment yesterday and have added them to my order.

Nekokoi, I looked on DoD’s website [not improved in the slightest, IMHO] for the default outfits featured in their event. Libra’s romper is cute, but for me it is not $45.00’s worth of adorable. I think I looked at all the default outfits, even the ones that are much too large to fit Arie, and none of them spoke to me. But thank you for the heads-up. I’m glad I looked.

I got the hem on the tie skirt about halfway redone yesterday. And I finished it after waking up far too early this morning. Picture on the main blog. Next logical step is to make the tulle underskirt, but I will save the cutting-out for after I have caught up on my sleep.

Third payment on Jessica.

[I love PayPal!] $605 out of $784; now to update Iplehouse and my signature on DoA. Jessica should be home around the end of November, if they continue to ship with such blinding speed.

And next payday little Ms. Beyla will also be 75% mine, though I don’t expect to see her before V-Day at the earliest.

I need to hurry up and finish the Noro sweater so I can start playing with the Hempathy.

Skirting the Issue

I finished the waistband casing for the skirt yesterday. On the drive home from work, as I was pondering how to clean-finish the upper edge of the hem facing, I remembered a product I once bought from Clotilde’s catalogue: Seams Great. It is a bias-cut sheer nylon tricot that is wonderful for putting a Hong Kong Finish on one’s seam allowance.

I went to Clotilde’s website, and apparently Dritz is no longer making Seams Great in multiple colors. I drove to JoAnn’s intending to buy half a yard or so of tricot and cut a mess of bias strips, but apparently they no longer carry nylon tricot. So I bought a package of Seams Great in white and the remaining spool of narrow (1/4”) double-faced satin ribbon in dusty plum.



I spent five or ten minutes meticulously taping together the pattern sections from the tie skirt into two larger sections. I will trace around them, later, onto a fresh sheet of paper for future reference. And I may very well shorten these pieces and use them to cut out the upper portion of the tulle underskirt.



In the meantime, I’ve sorted through snippets of silk leftover from cutting out the skirt, thrown away (!) the pieces too small to use, secured the remnants in two sandwich bags for short-term storage, and put the bags into the bin which holds miscellaneous sewing stuff in my studio.

In my studio. Where they belong. [I know!!!]

The inevitable tidying-up as a project winds down, has begun. I put away all embroidery floss but the one strand needed to stitch the casing closed once I’ve inserted the elastic. Also the snaps leftover from the plaid skirt for Cuprit. In doing so, I noticed a small clear box had one of those click-erasers in it. I noticed this because I had just put away another one in the living room.

So I opened up that box to get it out and discovered the sheath which is supposed to hold my Ginghers shears when they are not in use, and the chatelaine for my tiny scissors; it has needed a new jump ring for at least two years (done). And a t@mp°n, which I gleefully threw away because I will never, ever need another one. And a half-used package of hooks and eyes, which are now residing with the snaps.

The jewelry-making supplies are put away, although I did pull out the small strand of amber-colored glass leaves and put them with the buttonhole twist to serve as inspiration. And to spur me to search more diligently for my tatting shuttle.

I cut out the hem facings while the tub filled, and they [along with the Seams Great] are in my work bag, ready for me to head out the door. I think it’s going to be a terrific day.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s ribbon.

But if you ask her nicely, she just might give it to you. My friend the receptionist had a length of ribbon, maybe a yard long and knotted into a loop, over by the scanner. It was leftover from a baby shower and had been there for a week or two: the palest rose, sheer, about a quarter of an inch wide, with a miniature plastic pacifier dangling from it. I kept thinking how nicely that ribbon would go with the necktie skirt, and I kept forgetting to ask her if she had a use for it.

But yesterday afternoon, when I went up to cover her break, I asked. And I received. Sometimes it really is that easy.

What have we here?

That funny-looking shape is the first side panel on the Noro sweater, which may or may not end up as a kimono or haori jacket. I picked up stitches along the fuchsia side, cast on 20 for the underarm edge, picked up stitches down the plum side, and used a combination of decreases and short rows to work in toward the center of the panel and have the bottom edge narrower than the top. I used a three needle bind-off down what would be the side seam, and once this has been steam-blocked I think it will be pretty amazing. At this writing, I have the second panel cast on and am knitting it slowly, writing down the instructions as I go.

The black band of garter stitch which you see through the armscye and along one edge of the sweater, is the neckband.

No sewing, to speak of, all weekend. But lots of happy knitting, both people-scale and doll scale.

New yarn, successfully resisted!

But noted for future reference. Elsebeth Lavolds Hempathy, a marled yarn where one strand is pale dusty rose and the other is pale caramel. It will knit up much like that brown and cream flecked sweater of mine, only more subtle. Vaguely tweedish. And it is just that much lighter than the lighter of the two ties which I cannibalized for the tie skirt. The name of the color is #23 Fauve [translation: tawny, but I always thought of tawny as more golden, and this is very rosy; I guess this is fauve in the sense that jade the fashion color bears no resemblance to jade the stone].

It looks like a light fingering weight, so it might be perfect for an Aran sweater or a gansey. The recommended gauge is 5.5 sts/inch, which puts it in sport yarn territory; I think I can force the gauge downward. It’s 41% cotton, 34% hemp, and 25% modal, so it may be no fun at all to knit. But I think I will pick up a ball or two next time I’m in the shop and cast on and see what happens.

I find it interesting in the box-opening photo shoots when people apologize for using flash. No capice. You know me; the great outdoors is lovely to behold but best beheld, behind plate glass windows, and with air conditioning.

Nothing worth photographing, quite yet.

Three out of fourteen seams embellished on the silk necktie skirt. Wishing I could just stay home from work today and play with needle and thread. Sometimes the need to eat and sleep and earn a living is such a hindrance to what I laughingly and lovingly call real life.

Tulle time!

From left to right: pale butter yellow, pale celadon, smoky plum, and a rich cocoa brown. The trim is for a jacket [or something] to go with the skirt. Even though it looks like a true pink with that aqua, it is a slightly dusty pink, and it is several tones lighter than the lighter silk in the necktie skirt. It’s as if the Trim Factory Fairy woke up one morning and said, “Oh goodness, there is a woman in Texas who will want to make a jacket for a BJD to go with a skirt she will whip up from two silk neckties. I must please her!”

Thank you, Trim Factory Fairy. Thank you.

The yellow thread and tulle are for a yellow tie with teddy bears on it, which will become a dress or skirt for Beyla.

I have hauled all of my DMC and Anchor floss out of the studio and onto the coffee table. Barring the unexpected, I will gleefully stitch away tonight. At this point I’m not sure if the tulle underskirt will be plum or brown; both look great against the skirt. I suppose I could make one of each?