Moving Right Along

Our deck has been finished for two weeks. This weekend, I got all my planters planted, and got some new cushions for my old patio furniture (which we're keeping for a while anyway, even though we got new fancy stuff last week). But! I had good intentions of pseudo live-blogging our deck building, so you'll have to wait for a little while longer for finished pictures.

Hank was very disturbed when the old deck was taken away:


You guys? Seriously. This is dumb. I am not amused.


This is what the foundations of a deck look like. It's a little hard to see, but there are a bunch of concrete footings in there, then landscaping paper and tons of gravel, to minimize under-deck weed growth. The precision with which they laid out that gravel was sort of impressive.


And here's the framing. Pretty cool, right? I really enjoyed watching this get laid out.

Here we have the decking laid out, and the posts for the rails. We sprang for Trex decking - from the Brasilia line, if you are curious - then the white stuff is just heavy-duty PVC. Trex is a PVC & wood composite material that is virtually maintenance-free. You just have to keep it clean. No staining, ever. Love it. We did treated pine for the railings (though the posts are cedar). The vertical surfaces don't get the same wear and tear from the weather as the horizontal surfaces, so you don't have to retreat them as frequently. Plus, painting some railings every two years or so isn't as daunting as the whole deck.

Coming soon: the finished deck!

Me as Modern Art

Niobe had a link to this cool site that will make a faux-Mondrian image of you, based on your answers to several questions.

While I am far from a fan of modern art or design, I really like my Mondrian. We are getting a new deck soon (demo this week!) and I think I might use this as a bit of a guide in choosing my patio furniture.

Ellie the Sock Elephant

I finished my very first sock elephant and I'm happy to say, she no longer looks like an imperial walker. Well, not much anyway. I'm fairly confident in saying that my first elephant is a bigger success than my first monkey. She can even stand up all by herself:


She's got a good face, too.


It took a bit of wrangling to get her trunk to look less like a penis. Seriously. At first, I was sort of afraid to work on it on the train. I mean, the last thing the morning commuters want to see is a weird sock-penis.

She's got a funny little butt, too. What do you think of her tail? I'm not sure what elephant tails really look like. The pattern's helpful suggestion was "make a short roll of material and sew in place." I did sort of a short tube from a scrap, and I tried to sew it on so that it would hang down, not straight out. It ended up sort of halfway in between.



She sits, too. For some reason, I couldn't flip this picture around. It's cute sideways, too.


This weekend I sewed three more rockford red heel animal bodies: a monkey, another elephant and a dachshund. I'm very excited about the dachshund.

Sock Elephant in Progress

I started working on a sock elephant. Thus far, it is going remarkably well, though it currently resembles something from Star Wars.

Imperial Walker:

Imperial Sock Walker:

Part of it is that the legs are a little too long for the body, and part of it is the weird shape of the head. I think i put the mouth on a little too close to the front. I think it might look better totally on the bottom of the head.

At the moment, the trunk is looking like a penis. If I can't figure out a way to fix that, this guy will stay an Imperial Walker. Do you think there is a market for Star Wars memorabilia made from socks? Will George Lucas sue me? I'm following Rockford Red Heel Socks' pattern. It's not like I set out to infringe on someone's copyright.

The pattern is possibly the most poorly-written pattern EVER. It is the original Rockford Red Heel Sock Elephant pattern that comes with every pair of socks (along with their equally difficult to understand monkey pattern).

It seems the Rockford company now exists solely to sell socks for monkeys. This amazon link also shows BLUE socks, which would obviously make awesome elephants. I'd never seen those before. The instructions that are included are, I think, intentionally folksy and poorly written. If I hadn't found a better pattern, I would never have understood how to follow this pattern.

If you want to learn about making sock animals, Stupid Sock Creatures has a myriad of awesome techniques. He claims you can do it without a sewing machine, but I doubt it. It would take a LOT of very careful stitching to make the body pieces tight enough so that stuffing didn't leak out. I love his creations. They are ugly but adorable and really creative.

This is the pattern I followed for my first monkey. It has a lot of pictures, and very clear instructions. You can check out my first attempt here. My second try was vastly improved.

I Want It

Someone should buy this for me. It is awesome. It is a mini filing cabinet for business cards. If you wanted, you could get me just about anything from thinkgeek.com, and I would love it.

Paddy McPolish

When I first started making monkeys, McPolish instantly said "I want one!" I figured her 30th birthday was as good excuse as any. When I saw these beer socks, I knew I had found a good match. Meet Paddy:

Paddy, like many of my monkeys, has an endearingly crooked smile. His arms also seem to hook at a jaunty angle. This guy is ready to bust out a jig at a moment's notice.

My only complaint is on the corner of his face - I couldn't get that little corner of felt to lie flat, so matter what I did. You can only sew felt so many times before it starts falling apart, so I had to let it go. But it bugs me a tad.

A close up, from his good side:

Happy Birthday, Molly!

Poetry in Real Life

When I was working on my master's degree, I took a class in teaching poetry. Though I personally dislike poetry, I really loved this class. I think I liked it because I have never really gotten poetry. Little limericks are funny, but unless it rhymes and is clever, what's the point? Wouldn't it be easier to just say what you mean?

Forcing myself to figure out what it means, and finding a way to explain that to others made me appreciate poetry a little more.

One of the wonderful forms of poetry that I didn't know about before I took this class was the villanelle. From Wikipedia:

A villanelle is a poetic form which entered English-language poetry in the 1800s from the imitation of French models.[1] A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain. [2]

That sounds complex and doesn't make any sense, right? Well, one of the very clever people in my class found this comic strip, which explains it in a lovely entertaining way. (It's by Cat and Girl, which is lovely and entertaining. Sometimes the link seems to go to a random page. So, I'm trying to put the strip in here. If you can't read it, go to Cat & Girl's archives and search for "sandwich" I believe it is called "sandwich are cheap.")

This is all a long way of saying that it warmed the cockles of my English Lit heart to hear that someone at Planet Money wrote a villanelle about the economy. Awesome.

Canine Coat: Hank is a Frat Boy

I have always wanted to know how to sew. My mom used to make her own clothes in high school, and I always thought that was such a cool idea. She tried to teach me once, and I made a truly horrific red t-shirt. It didn't fit well, it was a woven fabric, not a knit, and it was hard. So, it wasn't until I inherited my aunt's sewing machine that I decided to try and teach myself. Of course, the sewing machine I inherited had not been touched in over 20 years, and the repair shop said it was hopeless. They let me trade it in for some money off another machine, and I got a refurbished Pfaff. It isn't as high-end as the Pfaff I gave them, but it worked, which was a big plus.

I had a book on how to make curtains and I made these little cafe curtains for the kitchen. Then I went out and bought a bolt of fabric to make drapes for the dining room (which is really not a separate room, but it is where the table is). I still have not made those drapes. I have a table now, which will make it easier, but the table isn't as long as the drapes will be, and I'm more than a little worried that it's just too much fabric.


Thinking I needed to know more basics I bought a book: S.E.W: Sew Everything Workshop by Diana Rupp. It's a pretty good basics guide and has a couple of quick projects to get you started. For Christmas this year, I got Sew U: Home Stretch by Wendy Mullin which is about sewing with knits. It is interesting, but not nearly as good. For one thing, she constantly refers to her first book. Instead of explaining something she'll say "for more on X, check out my first book." It's a little annoying.

But! This weekend, I took a project from SEW - a doggie coat - and used some of the advice in the Home Stretch to make a coat for Hank out of one of my husband's old sweatshirts. He was going to throw it away anyway, and I worry about Hank getting too cold on our walks. Generally, I think dogs do not need clothing, especially dogs the size of Hank. However, the high this coming Wednesday is supposed to be around 9, and that is cold.

So, here's the coat.
The coat goes over his shoulders and attaches under his collar with a snap. I added a fake button to the front there, because the back of the snap is kind of ugly. There's another strap that goes under his belly and snaps on the other side. For that, I took a portion of the sleeve. So, for the snap I just sliced open the cuff and attached it so you can't see it on the outside. The sleeve is a little floppy, but the fit seems to be ok.

The pattern in the book actually tells you to make your own pattern. Rupp has a little dog, so she lists what measurements to take and how to make a pattern. I don't have pattern paper, but I did have a big roll of paper from when we were painting the house, and that worked pretty well. I just gave Hank a little piece of cheese whenever I needed a measurement, and he was happy to help. Here he is, modeling:


Hank is not used to flash photography. He blinked. You can see that I over compensated for him moving a little during measurements. The front overlaps a little too much and hangs down a touch. On the sleeve/strap, I left a little too much room and it flops away from his body. Hank doesn't seem to mind. Possibly because he has never worn clothes before.

He did a good job on the next pose.

So sassy. You can't see really well in this picture, but I took the collar off the sweatshirt and reattached it after I cut out the coat shape. That was a little annoying, but it lent a more finished look, I think.

Again, I wanted positive associations with this coat, so as I measured where the strap would be and tested the pattern on him (I made a mock coat out of an old sheet first), I kept giving him little pieces of cheese. I did that as he tried it on for the first time and then let him outside. He loves the backyard.
He does not, however love the snow, which is currently about chest-deep on him. He didn't go far or stay out long, but I think he likes his new coat.

Carl, for my nephew

I made this monkey for my nephew and named him Carl. He just seemed like a Carl to me. The socks are by Little Mismatched, which I thought would be cool, but I'm not 100% sure that I like. I like the idea of the crazy colors and combos, but I'm not sure if I like the end product as much as more traditional socks. Good colors are important, but I think this many colors and patterns might detract from the monkey itself.

My nephew is about 2 1/2, and kind of a bruiser (I'm sure he'll follow in his dad's athletic footsteps), so Carl was double-reinforced everywhere. I found out later that two of the monkeys I made for a co-worker split at seams (though, apparently not too terribly, her daughter has a Dora band-aid on the monkey's tail and kind of likes it that way. Once the band-aid falls off, she'll bring it in to be fixed). So, since then I've been double-stitching all the seams AND all the attachment points. I mean, they're handmade, so if you beat them to hell, they will fall apart, but I try to make them strong enough to hold up to the everyday abuse that a kid would put them through.

I hear my nephew likes his monkey, which reminds him of his Aunt. The last time I saw him, my sister was telling me how he talks about his Aunt Cassie, who lives in Chicago. I love that, because I don't get to see him as often as I like.


You can also see in that picture the little Monkey Sleeping Bag that I made and embroidered. It looks terrible, but I've never embroidered words before, so I thinks it's ok. My nephew can't read yet, anyway. I also sent him "monkey care" instructions, which I'll post here, soon. Just the basics on how to care for the monkeys.

A little close-up of Carl with my elephant tea pot. You can see his smile is a little crooked, but I think that adds to his charm.

A better close-up shot. Carl is the first monkey that I did eyebrows on the felt - Gene has eyebrows, but not the felt half-moon. Carl's half-moon is kind of tiny, but I like it.

I always embroider my initials on my monkey's butts. For my nephew, I put them on a felt heart.

Interestingly, I have recently been putting my initials to the right of the tail, but for the first several that I made, I put them on the left. I think those on the left were turning out better than the ones I'm doing now. Maybe I will switch back.

Monkeys!

First, there was Harry:Harry is not a pretty monkey, but he is loved. I tried, but I knew the first time around wouldn't be the best.
Next came Gene:

Who knew the second try would turn out so well? I got hooked. The following is my little monkey brood, all together for possibly the last time.
From left to right, in order of creation: Harry, Gene (gift for a friend having a baby), siblings Martha and Eddie (gift for a friend having twins), [Not pictured: Hanes, made from boy-sized socks. He's a white and silver sweatsock monkey, and mid-sized. Hanes was almost immediately adopted by the lovely wife of a friend of mine who saw Gene and felt a deep need for a monkey of her own) and the newest edition, little Pete.
Pete is pretty much the cutest thing ever. I stole - I mean, was inspired by an etsy shop of monkeys, which I didn't bookmark. I will find it and link to it. Anyway, I saw some monkeys on etsy with little felt half-moons for the eye area and the idea stuck with me. I would have kept to buttons except that Gene's adoptive family took me up on my offer to replace his button eyes with embroidered ones. Since I've never embroidered anything before, I decided to test it out on little Petey here. Pete was also a test to see if I could successfully handle baby socks.

Pete is, quite possibly, the most successful test of anything, ever, and I think I will keep him for myself for all time. He's got my first all-embroidered face, which I think turned out rather well. He's also got my first attempt at some new limb-attachment techniques, which I learned from a book I just got called Stupid Sock Creatures.

I haven't made any Stupid Creatures yet, but I plan on it soon. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

And, in case you're wondering, Gene's cosmetic surgery went off rather well. The button eyes give much more personality than my limited embroidery skills, so I had to add eyebrows to Gene. Please don't say anything about his scar, he's very sensitive about it.