Wardrobe Wednesday

Just a quick post for Wardrobe Wednesday being held over at Sailor Spy

I'm wearing one of the t-shirts I finished yesterday (fulfilling the handmade requirement), one of my favourite skirts, handmade socks from Noro Silk Mountain Sock yarn, a bought cashmere cardigan and one of my favourite pairs of shoes which I bought years ago from a shoe shop in town.

Excuse the silly curtsey; I was using a self timer and no matter what I did I couldn't get a shot where I didn't look like someone had died; a little silliness was required.

Spinning Wheels

For some unknown reason if you spin you acquire wheels.  I started with an Ashford Traditional wheel, I upgraded it before acquiring a Little Peggy wheel.  Once I had Peggy I sold the Ashford.   Soon after that I ordered and waited for my Little Grace Special which is what I spin on now; once I had her I sold Peggy and have regretted that ever since.
I bought a Wing normandy style wheel for $20 on Trademe about a year ago, but it needs a lot of work so it's not been used.  This weekend I picked up another wheel; a Thompson Double Drive wheel.  I haven't tried her yet, but she's beautiful!   I originally organised it for a friend, but she was offered a Wing upright for half the price which is great for her.   I still went ahead with this wheel since I do need a second working wheel to teach the boys on.    She has 10 bobbins, a lazy kate and also a second whorl for thicker yarns.

Timmy is on the left, on the right is Grace

In other news we have just one quote to happen for the carpet; they come on Sunday.   Waiting on the actual quotes for 2 others, but they've been and measured and at this point we're looking at dark grey berber style loop pile extra heavy duty wool.
We have the final quote for the garage too, now to get things started on getting the money and sorting the concrete pad with EQC; I'll be ringing them tomorrow, wish me luck.

I've been sewing too, I now have 4 new t-shirts

Red with black hearts

Pink with small flowers

White with pink florals

White with aqua lines; can't really see the blue in this shot.  Neck on this is fold-over-elastic

These are the 3 I completed today.

Have got further than this now, sock is past the heel turn, this is now on hold, Ian's mittens are more important.

 I've also finished a vest for George in my knitting

A guitar carry case

I'm linking to Quilt Story, see my party page/sidebar for their button and this is my fabric story for the week.

Today I cut out and sewed a guitar cover for this:

George's guitar

I used the old cover as a template

Very sad cover; it's ripped and the stiff backing is disintegrating.

The fabric is some furnishing fabric that's been in the stash for awhile:

All cut out ready to go

And at the end the guitar had a nice new cover; I think I may have to use bias binding on the inside seams as the overlocking is catching on the strings.

All finished, a little big but pretty good I think.

Our Laundry Room

Our laundry was partway through being stripped of wallpaper when the earthquakes hit.  Like everything else it's waiting for Fletchers/EQC to do their thing before I can finish it off.

 

The wall where everything lives.  We have the 8kg Bosch washer, the 6kg Smeg condensor dryer (I love this beast), the microwave with my dye stuff above it in the box.  Above the washer is paper towels, some chiengora in the plastic bag (that's dog fur), the shoe care kit, vinegar and washing powder.   Left is the sink, with the cat carry cages in front seeing as we no longer have the garage to store them in.

The cat bowls, they're messy eaters; the brown thing in the corner isn't food or a mouse, it's the wooden pull off the blind

Our well worn kitchen stool, and the bucket of homegrown spuds.   Behind is the hot water cupboard.

The medicine/dyeing/cleaning cupboard.  This is one of the next things to be cleaned out.  There's preserves up there that are about 10 years old; more than time they went.

The windowsill where I shouldn't keep the wool wash, dishwashing liquid etc.   Hopefully some of this can go in the cupboard once it's cleaned out.

In knitting news I've less than an inch to go on the back of the vest, then onto the final front.   Hopefully I'll get it finished in the next couple of days.

Also have to make a new cover for George's guitar; the material is on the line drying so it won't shrink when it inevitably needs washing.

Blah

Yesterday was busy, despite the immediate garage drama being over I had a guild meeting in the morning which was I think fairly productive despite some setbacks with the other group we are looking at getting rooms with.   I won't go into that, at least until I know the outcome.  

I made up one batch of cooked apple to freeze; want to make apple pies this winter, thanks to my MIL I had a big bag of cooking apples; half of them have now been used.   Will have to finish that off this week.

I won an auction for a guitar; George may have an opportunity to learn at school so I asked his grandfather who sent us links to a couple of auctions.    He is now the proud owner of a 3/4 size classical guitar; it came with a bag, but the bag is pretty stuffed.    Thinking of making one, but not quite decided yet.   He had a wee strum on it this morning, he's taken one string out of tune, but it still sounds pretty good.

I've finished one side of the front of George's vest and am partway up the back between the armholes.  I should do more, but I've just crashed and feel a bit icky.  I'm putting it down to the release from immediate garage stress; and maybe that my body knows I'll be following up on garage quotes again tomorrow.   Feeling really tired and slight nausea; I get the latter when tired.   Going to get a bit of work done and see how I feel after that.

Gone, all gone

Today our garage disappeared.   I took some wonderful photo's and some great video, but as all the video has the builders faces at some point I don't feel right posting that.   I've gone hunting through the photo's for those which don't show faces and here they are:

Digging the trench to get the old power cable out and move it to the house.  Everything went through the garage and then to the house.

Taking down the north wall

Almost done!

That's our garage on that truck!

All that's left

So now it's a matter of getting a few more quotes; well, 2 actually.   Waiting on Skyline who are drawing them up and Versatile to actually come and take a look.  No real decisions can be made until those are received.  At that point we have a meeting with the EQC chap and see what figures he's using and make sure they will cover replacement.

Hopefully now I might have time to do some crafting!    I'm 1.75" off dividing for the sleeves for George's vest and it's looking good.  Now, if I could find my 4mm metal tips I'm sure it would be going faster, but they're hiding really well atm.

I'm also going to be doing some more work with this:

This is the second jelly roll of Arnold's Attic which will be turning into our king sized quilt; these are the blocks that I'm going to be making a heap more of:

It's all covered in fluff atm, but that will be cleaned up later; all the blocks are random which I really like.

A couple of things arrived today, I ordered a new cover for my Kindle as the one I'd made wasn't really supportive enough so I ordered an Oberon cover which is embossed leather.   Since I was paying post anyway I got a new hairclip as well and another wee item meant for hair, but I'm going to use it on my shawls instead.

My thistle hair clip; love this though it is hard to get a photo of when you're wearing it.

This is the one that'll be used on my shawls

My Oberon cover; isn't it gorgeous?

I won't be buying anything new for a while, my spending money for the next month went into this, but it was very much worth it!

Of Wardrobe Wednesday and Garages

This months theme is handmade for Wardrobe Wednesday; I didn't know this when I got dressed this morning, but I'm still wearing handmade! 

You've seen this skirt before; it's a tiered skirt I made to replaced my old faithful skirt and I love it!   It's lighter weight fabric than the original,but I'm wearing my handmade bloomers under it so that doesn't matter.   The top is bought, but embellished by me using some velvet iron-ons.



In other news we had a visit yesterday evening from the builder who's demolishing the garage to say he was going to start the next day!    This is one whole day sooner than we'd expected so there was a last minute rush to pull everything out and put it all in the deck until the car can go on the drive again; when we'd finished it looked like this:

Empty aside from a few bits of approved rubbish

The lean-to; empty aside from Thomas's bike.

Now, it looks like this:

Roofing iron gone, garage door gone, very open!

Lean to isn't really a lean-to anymore.

I'm expecting by the end of the day we'll have a skip in the turning bay, no more roof trusses and be all ready for tomorrow with no power all day!   Got hold of the EQC chap today too, he's definitely going to recommend we get paid out according to their formula, so I got him to note down the extra bits he needs to add (door opener, caravan plug etc) and he'll email me with the details.  Once we've got our quotes then he'll meet with us to discuss any difference in plans.   He wasn't interested in our quotes until I advised him that we'd got quotes for replacement as well as the new building we wanted; then it was worth him looking at as it's the same building as he's got a price for.  Apparently it will take a while for that payment to arrive; can't say that surprises me, I'll just have to do a lot of ringing and chasing; not like I'm new to that!

We did get to rescue a couple of bits from the actual structure too, I wasn't expecting that.  FIL will be getting a new light for his workbench (old really, but new to him) and he'll likely get the spare tubes we have as well.  We also got 4 bits of roofing iron so we can roof the kids playhut properly too.  They'll like that once it's done.    We still need some more treated ply to finish it, but once we have that it'll be pretty quick to do; just have to wait till we can get rid of the old washing machine as that's being stored in there.  Come May that'll go though.

Garage is almost cleared

All the stuff stored in the rafters is down, 3 trips to the dump are done and a couple more to do to the storage unit.   Probably at least one more to the dump as well.
Have contacted a metal salvage yard and am waiting to hear from them, another bunch of stuff is being picked up by the same chap who picked up the last load of appliances and this morning some kids stuff went via Freecycle.  Only 2 more days before work starts and it's looking like we might get there in time!

I am going to have to have a word with Star though, she keeps interrupting me with birds she's caught.   You'd think by now she'd have learned that if she brings them inside she loses them.   2nd sparrow in 2 days just as I was typing this, and we had a mouse on the rainiest day.

And a book arrives

I'm still waiting for the latest Interweave Knits to arrive; hoping it gets here tomorrow but a couple of days ago another book arrived so I thought I'd show it to you.

The book is A Handknit Romance, it's lovely but I'm not sure if it's me.  I'm going to have to think about it for a while.

There's a mix of different items in there; a couple of beaded bags which are beautiful, but I've got nowhere I'd use them.

There's a third bag that's not beaded; it's a chevron stitch, also not me.  The photo in Rav isn't a close up though so I won't link it here.

There are a few cardigan/jacket options as well so I'll do a quick overview

Wrapover cardigan; a fairly classic style which might work for me, but I don't love it.

Lace Shrug.  I quite like this, but I'm not sure about that wee ding at the back of the armhole.  There are other shrug patterns out there I prefer though so it won't be queued.

Fitted Jacket.  I love the back, but I'm not sure about the fit of the front; hard to tell the way she's standing though.  Not something I'd knit as it won't fit in with my lifestyle.

Next we have one skirt

Lovely drape, this would go with anything.  This is the item that makes me want to keep the book.

Tops; there are quite a few of these, many are very lacy and would be nice for summer or evening wear; though you'll need to wear something under them unless you want to show your assets a lot.

This looks like 1920's to me, no real shape to it so it wouldn't suit me.

Lace-edged camisole.   This is really cute and would make a lovely piece of lingerie.  Not sure how well it sits at the back; could maybe have done with a better block before the photography

Lace Blouse.  I love the front of this, but the back is really loose which I don't like so much.   I think I'd have to re-engineer the back if I made it.  You can also see the lace gloves in the picture; these are something I'd love to make and I don't think I'd need to make any changes to them.

Cotton Camisole.  This is cute and would be lovely in summer, would even work in my wardrobe for summer.

Beaded top and mittens.  This is elegant and drapey.   I think the mitts need to be pulled up higher, they remind me of stockings that are falling down at the moment.

Then there are the dresses; both of these seem to be based on 1920's styles.   Neither would suit me, my figure is a bit too curvy.

Lurex dress.   Don't like this one at all, I think it's the sleeves

Flapper Dress.  This is slightly better, but still not me.

Then finally we have the accessories not already in the above photo's.   There's a pair of stockings in 4-ply which to me seems a little heavy for stockings of the era concerned; laceweight would work better.   Another pair of very pretty gloves, a couple of crochet necklaces I like one of them, but not the other.  There's also a lace scarf, a set of lavender hearts which I'll never knit.

I suspect that after I knit the skirt and the gloves then I may well end up selling this book; I don't generally keep books that I only want to knit a couple of things from.   It'll be a while before I get onto the skirt so it has time to persuade me otherwise.

I bought this book, my opinions are my own and all the photo's came from the Ravelry site which uses photo's originally from the book.  I received nothing for reviewing the book.