After waiting for 1) adequate sunshine for picture taking, and 2) the purchase of new white pillow cases (as the old "white" pillow cases were definitely showing their vanilla-colored age), at last, here is a picture of my new duvet cover in action:

Just so you all know, Monkey King will probably kill me for posting that picture. The lengths I go to for a laugh.

That's not all I've been sewing, however. This morning, in a fit of "green guilt," I sat down and bammed out a reusable Clorox mop pad. YOU'RE WELCOME, EARTH. Not just because it is so much cheaper than buying those $10 boxes of one-use pads all the time. That had noooooothing to do with it.

For the benefit of other cheap eco-concious sewers, I've prepared a photo tutorial of how I did this. This is my 1st one, so it's not a beauty by any means, though it is plenty functional and can be done in under an hour. And did I mention cheaper than a trip to Target (because you know that you SO do not just leave with one box of anything) and good for the Earth? I'm still trying to figure out how to wean myself off of the bottles of Clorox floor solution, but one green, thrifty step at a time.

Take out a clean mop pad and trace the outline onto the wrong side of your fabric (pre-shrunk cotton fabric, that is). These lines will be good for guiding your seam stitching too. I pre planned that, it did not happen by accident at all. (I'm lying.)

Cut around your outline, giving yourself about 1/2 inch of extra fabric. Also cut out a piece of cotton batting the same size as the "pad" part of the Clorox version.

You're going to sew the pad in the middle of one of the pieces.

Layer your pieces with the 2 "right" sides of the fabric facing each other.

Now pin your pieces together, leaving one end open. Sew all around, using the pencil marks as your guide.

When you're done with the sewing around (leaving your one end open!), snip the corners to reduce bulk.

Turn your work inside out, and poke the corners so they stick out better. Iron your work, and on that open end, turn the raw edges in and iron them flat. I forgot to take a picture of this step, but you're going to sew these together from the right side and you don't want that ugly frayed edge showing.

Here is where I quilted the piece to reduce the fabric shifting around. The stitches didn't show up so good, so I used my vast Photoshop skills to put these squiggly lines in to represent where I sewed.

Voila!

Um...Extra voila!

Why yes, I regularly mop my carpet. What, that's weird?

Did I tell you I'm going to Paris next Wednesday? I'm really excited, it's my first trip to anywhere in Europe at all, and I'll be there for 11 days. SWEET.

I look forward to being embarrassed by my lack of French language skills (but I got plenty of frenching experience, I'm sure that counts for something) and eating lots of crepes and cheese and snails and being drunk all the time and spending the entire contents of my savings account.

So, basically a Friday night at my house, but in a foreign country.

Eastern Market

Dinner

Knitting (Rowan Action)

Tonight, I sew a duvet cover!

The hat pattern from my last post is finally ready! I wasted a lot of time thinking up a name before I realized that there could only have been one name for it, really, so it is named after Guinan. Here is why:

Yeah, I don't really intend to wear it this way, but if other people do, I promise not to judge them to their faces. Otherwise I think it's pretty cute (when worn like a normal person and not Whoopi), and it's dead easy to execute.

Here it is, looking like a cookie:

So, that's done but it's not all. Remember this?

Well, now it has THIS!

Yep, I sewed a liner up in this mother. I am very proud of this, because I had no idea what I was doing when I slapped it together. Oh, and it is slapped indeed. I'll have to remember to post up a status report after a day of carting around my normal purse contents. You know, makeup, wallet, three bottles of water and ten pounds of pennies. Oh, and my car keys. I machine sewed the liner itself and then hand sewed (hence the crapness) it into the bag.

This concludes the craft portion of this post. Coming up: dork portion.

Now see, Washington DC is famous for its cherry blossoms. Every year citizens look forward to the beauty of the flowering trees and the cultural education of the accompanying Cherry Blossom Festival. It is very Japanese and thus cool.

But there is a wild fringe element. These few look forward to dressing up like the only Japanese subject they care about: anime characters. (And maybe having Kanji tattoos. Or more likely just T-shirts written in Japanese.)

That big one totally wants to cut me with his cardboard sword.

Seriously, though one out of every four attendees was dressed like the specimens above, or in really badly tied and styled kimono (complete with inappropriate makeup & hair chopsticks).

Which is fine, for as long as you make me laugh (at you), you are redeemed. But do you have to inflict this on the animals? Won't somebody think of the animals?!

Multiple things, actually, but this is the nicest looking and thus fit for the blog:

The seams are really messed up (I think the fabric was too thick in places or something), but I love it all the same. MK was REALLY impressed with the finished item. And then he got a gleam in his eye and told me to start selling them. I declined. Fabric cost + 4 hours of my time = a million dollars per bag. But then, I'd only have to sell one bag...

I used the Tote Bag pattern from Lotta Jansdotter's book, Simple Sewing. I bought the fabric at G Street, it's patterned corduroy and some cotton canvas I found as a remnant. Okay, so this happened when I started knitting so I shouldn't be surprised that it happened with sewing, but I got huge sticker shock while shopping for fabric. Luckily, I am very flexible when it comes to buying crafty items (I know, it's a gift), and was able to come out of a faint long enough to purchase several yards of stuff. That corduroy? $30 frickin' dollars a yard (Note: I totes did not buy a full yard)! Suddenly, a $150 sheet set feels like a bargain.

I've been knitting lots of stuff too. Behold, one Endpaper Mitt:

Just one, I'm not happy with the Rowan Scottish Tweed 4-ply and it's thick and thin consistency, so I'll try this pattern again later with a smoother, more regular yarn. Nice colors, though. I took a free fair isle class at the Capitol Hill Stitch DC, and now I'm a fair isle maniac.

I also knit a hat (pattern coming soon), a robot, and sewed a pillow case and a reusable Swiffer thing. Man, I'm really tired.