It's Hot Outisde!!! (and inside for that matter)

Ugh. It's hot. Really hot. Okay, so not as hot as the drought from last year, and we have had some rain, but it still feels really hot when your AC doesn't work because  your apartment complex office never replaced the AC before the heat hit like they said they would and therefore now in 100F heat, the AC is going out!!!! But, we are supposed to get a new AC on Monday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Mostly just one outfit to update on tonight. I've been busy working on some other stuff in the last few days around being hot so that I haven't done much work on princess dresses. I haven't updated because it's hot to hold the computer on my lap to be able to type. I could update on my iPad and be much cooler, but I can't post pictures then. :( Boo. I had just a little to finish of Mulan, and she's just almost done now! Well, her matchmaker outfit I mean.

Before I get to Mulan, though, just a couple of other pictures to share quickly. This first one is the start of a new cape, Belle's plain maroon cape. I was going to make it the fur edged one, but as I was looking at the pictures I have from the movies for the fur edged one, I realized it is made entirely different! So I get to design a cape later. :) I want to finish one of the capes with a pattern first though, just so I have a bit of a reference on how to make it work properly.

Here's the movie shot.

And here it is after one row. That's all that is done on it right now, lol. I worked on the next cape more than this one!

And here is why. It's Aurora!!! I've had a request (by the mom :) hehe) to finish up the blue dress for Aurora next. It is on my slate to work on this weekend as I can in low lighting due to the heat in my apartment. Tomorrow may include a trip to somewhere cool for a few hours were I can sit a knit and work on the dress and cape. Here is the movie shot with the cape around her shoulders. I have more pictures of her in the cape that I will be sharing as I make the cape.

And here is just after one row. I started this cape and Belle's maroon cape one morning before a long day at work so I could work on one of them in my two hour break.

And this is the one I chose. Not too much done from the look of it, but it's almost ten rows worth of knitting. Which considering I had to go get lunch on my break too, isn't bad. Pardon the messy background that is my truck.

And now to Mulan. On my other long day at work this past week, I set about finishing her shift. And I did! Here's a picture of her just before I had to go back into work. I cropped my coworker out of the photo since she was gracious enough to hold Mulan up so I could snap a quick picture. From this point, I just needed snaps in the back and to darn in the last tail.

In the last few days, I also set about finishing up the blue shirt for the matchmaker outfit. I finally put sleeves on it, lol. This is just after a couple of rows on the first sleeve.

And the same amount on Jasmine to measure. I tried to measure on Mulan, but since I have the multi-jointed Mulan, it was hard to get an accurate idea of where the sleeve was landing on the doll. Jasmine was close at hand, so she was elected. After just a couple of rows, the sleeve was ready to cast off.

And here it is casted off.

And the other sleeve casted off. (The wonders of photography, no need to wait. lol)

All sewn up and awaiting snaps.

And here is the shift all finished as well.

And finishing photos. These are after I have added snaps. Shift...

Blue shirt... (I love how the fit ended up on the shirt after I put the snaps on. It really pulled in the fabric, especially around the bust and waist).

Pink kimono. Which might be getting one more snap where the two sides overlap to keep them together. I'm going to wait and see how it fits after the wrap is done first.

And here is said wrap. In all it's messiness. Ends everywhere! But that happens with so many color changes. After I took this photo, I darned in all those ends. They were getting in the way. This is just a few rows into the bottom maroon section.

A little bit further and measuring on Mulan. With all the under pieces now having snaps on them, you can see how it is fitting better.

Last increase on the wrap. While it looks like the ends of the circular continue off the edge of the picture, they really don't. The wrap takes up nearly all the circular needle!!! I had to be careful not to loose stitches of the ends to take this last photo.

A close up of the bottom edging where I have started to cast off in small segments. I was trying to get the tapered look of the bottom of the maroon section.

And all casted off and on Mulan! I just have to darn in the tail end and put snaps on it. Because of the tapered look, the snaps will have to go down the side of the wrap, but it shouldn't matter to the fit.

And a new project. This one is for me. A really pretty halter top dress which I am testing for a fellow designer on Ravelry. She has graciously said that I can track my progress on the dress on my blog. I have till July 2 to finish it, which will be just in time to have a really nice dress to go out in for my birthday. I want to find a pretty shrug pattern that I make to go with it. The photos really don't do justice to the beautiful color of the yarn. It's a sparkle navy yarn. Here is my casting on. A crocked mess is what it looks like. The reason. It's on 11 DPNs! The dress (which is started with the skirt) will actually be worked in the round on a circular needle, but I have a problem casting on with that. The reason? I inevitably twist my stitches and have to start over. With a 450+ stitch count at the beginning of this skirt, I didn't want to chance it, and in working the jumper for my niece, I found that if I cast on with DPNs, I am less likely to twist the stitches. It does make for a funny looking picture though.

About halfway through knitting the first row, which is what I use to move the piece to the circular needle. If you can't tell because of the quality of the picture, the circular is the top portion and the DPNs are on the bottom left corner of the picture. The green cone thing is a tip protector to keep my stitches from falling off the other end of the circular while I knit the piece onto the circular. Even though the circular looks nearly full at halfway, all the stitches will fit onto it. It will be just like when I put the skirt of Belle's green dress on to the circular needles, crowded but very workable.

And after the first row and all on the circulars. I'll share another photo later on. I now have about 3 feet of skirt to knit, round and round and round, so it would be rather boring to update as often as I update with the doll dresses.

One last photo. So what do you do when it's hot because your AC isn't working and you don't want to turn on your lights because that would make things hotter but you want to work on your knitting? Why you knit by candle-light of course! Not real candle-light. That would be too hot. But one of those luminary bulbs you find at Christmas. I have two strands of five C4 bulbs (the types that go in the little ceramic houses, nightlights, etc) tacked up on the wall above my bed to use when I want a lower lighting at night to read or just to have on when watching a movie or whatever: one is green lights (the ones off in the picture) that is lower lighting, usually used for watching a movie or when my roommate is coming home late at night and I am going to bed so that there is a little bit of light in my room for her to see by to get upstairs; the other is blue lights, which are brighter and what I use to read. But the blue lights aren't bright enough to craft by unless I am using white yarn (which I currently am not, seeing as I was working on the halter dress). So I took out one blue bulb and put in the candle bulb. It nearly tripled the light! I can put in all five candle bulbs and it's nearly as bright as my bedside lamp (but also just as hot, the candle bulbs actually put out more heat than the other color bulbs). So....crafting by candle-light! LOL.

134 DAYS REMAINING!