A Little Yarn and A Lot of Needles

Well, good news. I thought I wasn't going to have much time to craft this weekend, but I actually found some time today. When my Latin homework took way less time this morning to finish than I figured it would, I thought I deserved some crafting time. :) Didn't finish anything, but I got work done, and that's what counts. The pictures are grouped by outfit and not necessarily in the order which I worked on them.

I really need to get this cape finished. It's like the second piece that I started and I still haven't gotten past the shoulders. Maybe it's because watching the dresses come together is more exciting than watching what is basically the same as a swatch come together.

I tried to model it on a doll after working on it some. Not the easiest thing to do with the hood not being sew together. Here I just folded back the hood, so it looks like a really thick collar. Rapunzel got to model it because she was the closest doll at hand that didn't have a project on her. But once I finish it, like the other outfits, it will be modeled on Belle with the appropriate blue jumper outfit underneath.

I spent some more time working on Mulan's shift. I'm determined to get it finished pretty quickly because like the cape, it's not very exciting to work on. My kitty was laying on the bed next to me while I was working and she kept sniffing at the doll. So I put Mulan on her like a horse. She just laid there and purred!!!! Silly kitten.

Okay, so here's some working photos, once again with the green background. I did a slide show with the pictures on my computer, and it's pretty cool to have the solid background on it and watch the piece coming together. This first picture is last night after I updated. Just a little bit more work done on it. No, it doesn't have a fifth DPN in it. Okay, well, it does, but that's the working DPN. I took the picture right before I went to bed and I just didn't want to deal with putting the working DPN up in the notebook that I had already put up. So I just worked part way through one DPN and left the working DPN in the dress.

Okay, these next two pictures are to show the stitching. It's bugging me, but to an untrained knitter's eye, it probably doesn't even look that different. The second picture shows it better if I have any crafters actually looking at these pictures. My stockinette stitch has a different texture when I go into working in the round!!! I have defined ridges in my stockinette stitch in the round where as I don't when I'm working in rows (which is the bodice part). It's probably just because I knit in the back loop instead of the front loop, but it's just bugging me. Not that the pieces look bad because of it, it's just a nit-picky thing to me.

I worked a little more on it this morning. The shift is now getting long enough that I had to make a "seat" for Mulan under the blanket! Her hands are actually holding on to the first DPN in this picture and the shift reaches to just below her hips.

And a little bit futher. Not too much further and I'm going to have to figure out how to make the doll stand work on the bed because the needles don't sit real well with the doll at the length it is. It is about halfway to her legs at this point. I have about 15 cm more to work before it will be finished. While that sounds like a lot, it really isn't too bad. The piece works fairly quickly with 5 cm taking about 30 minutes. So a couple more hours of work on it should produce a finished product.

As promised in my last post, I worked on the green dress some last night. It's getting heavy to work on, with 12 DPNs in the skirt and 2 working DPNs (1 actual working DPN and 1 to create the Make 1s). I made a plan last night to go get a size 3 circular today to finish up the skirt because it is just too heavy working with that many larger DPNs.

Same amount of progress just on Belle. Even the doll looks strained under all those DPNs.

Well, this morning, I had to dig in my little plastic container that I keep all my various hooks and needles and sewing notions in for some thread to fix a hole in a shirt and guess what I found. I had a size 3 circular needle already!!! Yippee!!! So after fixing the hole, I took the green dress and worked a row, pulling the DPNs out and transferring it to the circular needle (and man did that take some patience - not the easiest thing dealing with the weight of the DPNs and the long end of the circular needle). The dress looks funny on the circular, but the last ten or so rows should be a lot easier to work now.

Just a picture of all the DPNs that were in the dress. That's a lot of DPNs for a dress. (and all that is going through my head at that statement is "That's a lot of heel for a guy" - Kitty Soft Paws Puss in Boots)

And this is just how many stitches I am dealing with on the end of this skirt. The stitches are bunched together on the tubing of the circular and this is how much working room I have on the ends of the needle; although working on the circular did turn out to be a lot easier than dealing with the weight of the DPNs.

The dress is starting to look like a Southern Bell dress on the circular needle. Which gives me an idea for Pocahontas' ball gown, but that's another story. This dress will hang straight after it is finished. It is just the stiffness on the end rows from the circular that makes the skirt billow.

And on Belle. It looks so much more natural now on the circular than it did on the DPNs, even with the gathers here and there from the stitches being bunched together on the circular.

This is the same amount worked as above, I just pulled the front of the skirt flat against Belle's legs to show how long it was.

162 DAYS REMAINING!!!!!

A Little This, A Little That

School. May. Break....

Yeah right!!!! Okay, I have officially hit I am ready to be done with school! I really want to be done and I still have a full year - three semesters - left. Ugh. Maybe if it weren't for all the papers, it would be okay. I'm just tired of assignments. Period. Just one more year, just one more year, just one more year....

This weekend all of the remaining of my school work for this semester is due, and I have to work Saturday night, so, sadly, I don't know how much crafting is going to get done this weekend, which makes me doubly sad because I had planned on spending all day Sunday working on stuff for the dress project...and a couple of other things too, but those are secret, no pictures or discussion, shhhhh. Well, I got one of the two major papers due this weekend out of the way today. Maybe I can get the other one and all the little stuff I have to do for my third class out of the way tomorrow around work so that I can still make Sunday a craft day. Well, I can wish that anyway, probably won't happen. And I haven't updated in two days either, which I'm sure is making some of you anxious for this post (yeah, you know who you are ;) ). Well, I have to say that I haven't gotten much crafting done in the past two days either, but I have gotten some photography done. :) I have final pictures for Belle's fur jacket outfit and Jasmine's red pants. I got another piece started too, though I didn't get much done on that last night before going to bed. I haven't done any crafting yet today because my paper I was writing today (due at midnight) took way longer than I thought it was going to. I do plan on crafting a little bit tonight, but I knew that a blog update would be looked for and since I was on my computer having just emailed off my paper and getting caught up on my Ravelry groups, I thought I would get a blog update done as well. :)

So final pictures first. I'm just going to post them with no comment. I  hope they look enough like the movie pictures. :)

Since I finally figured out how to get studio lighting in the area where I was taking my pictures and Belle had her blue jumper outfit on underneath her fur jacket outfit, I took a new picture of that outfit with the better lighting, though I didn't pull out the apron to get another picture with the apron on her.

It was Christmas yesterday!!!!! My package from my sister came in! And to my surprise, Tiana was brand new!!!! She didn't know either, so it was a really nice surpise for both of us. Tiana has since been de-boxed and disrobed and is awaiting modeling duties.

New piece. This one is for Mulan. I won't really call it an outfit, because it is her shift that goes under all of her dress kimonos. If I have time I am going to make her one for each of the kimonos, but to start off with, I am just going to make one. I'll see what time allows. Here you can see it in pictures from the matchmaker sequence in the movie.

Middle picture, left side is the top of the shift.

Here it is under the light blue shirt she wears when going from the bathers to the make-up people. The blue shirt is next on the make list for her. Get the small stuff out of the way while I am waiting on the colors I need for her kimonos to be free.

Inspired by a suggestion for an artist coworker, I'm going to do all the pictures of this piece in "one" location so you can really compair them at the end. Okay, so one location is a little hard for me, so I'm using the same background, in this case a forest green blanket. Originally I thought I had a pattern I was going to follow for this piece other than the straps because the pattern didn't have any and I was going to work the pattern backwards in order to work the piece from top down (rather than bottom up like the pattern was written), but as it turns out, that pattern wasn't going to work. So, I'm winging it. I figure a shift has to be easier than Aurora's peasant dress.

Here I have just started on it. I have cast on and made the straps while working on a DPN.

Shortly after, though, I transfered it to my circular, which is much easier to work bodices on. This is just two rows later from the picture above.

And just a little bit further. I have made a decrease to account for the shaping of the bottom of the bodice on the doll.

And just almost at bodice length. I'm just about ready to do the increase for the waist and place it on the DPNs and work in rounds to create the seamless skirt.

Same work amount as above, just measuring it on Mulan. I'm hoping this doll will work okay as a model. She is the totally posable doll which Mattel created when they did the gymnist Barbie's to celebrate the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. I'm worried she won't work on the doll stand. We'll see.

After the picture above, I put it on to the DPNs and worked two more rows, adding in the increase, before starting to work it in rounds. Here is the piece put back on Mulan for safe keeping. While I'm worried how this doll will work on the doll stand, she sure does pose in a sitting position for a picture well.

With the fur jacket outfit finished and off my second Belle doll (I got another one in that big lot of dolls my sister help me get), I am able to put another dress on Belle. I moved the green dress over to Belle as it is the next dress most likely to be finished. I'm only about 15 rows off of finishing the skirt then it's just creating the sleeves. This is actually the dress I am going to work on tonight after posting this update.

While I was transfering dresses to other dolls, I took Aurora's peasant dress off the craft model doll I had it on and placed it on my second Aurora doll. All I can say is WOW!....

Another picture of my doll holding bookcase. I  need more room. LOL. All but Belle's pink dress (which is just nearly hidden in the picture) are now on representative dolls of the correct princess. You can also see Esmarelda hanging out with them. It was easier to keep the hair I have worked on relatively tangle-free with her in the doll stand rather than just laying somewhere.

Mulan seems to stand in the doll stand pretty well, and where she is in the picture is where she has been for over 24 hours with no shifting in the stand. So I think she is going to work out.

163 DAYS REMAINING!!!!

Egyptology Pants

Well, all around I consider today a productive day in crafting. I got not one, but two outfits completed! Well, okay, 1.99999999% outfits completed. One needs a snap, lol.

Belle

Now that I have the elastic for the sleeves, I was able to finish Belle's coat for her winter outfit. Only took about 15 minutes to complete the coat (if you don't count the probably 20 minutes I spent fighting with the fur to get the sleeves turned right side out...note to self, next time, put the elastic in, turn it right side out, then  put the fur on).

Here's me putting the elastic in the first sleeve. The jacket is turned inside out and modeled by Jasmine (naturally, right? Actually, I didn't want to have to try to keep putting the jacket on over all of Belle's clothes and neither did I want to undress Belle just to have to put everything back on her for pictures. Jasmine was close by because I was working on her pants as well and her little tube top fit easily under the jacket without being in the way of the sleeves). What looks like a white string on her left hand (as you are looking at the picture) is actually the elastic. I didn't know they made string elastic that wasn't made for jewelry making.

The coat still turned inside out and on Jasmine, but both sleeves have elastic in them, just underneath the fur, so that the fur hides the sight of the elastic on the outside of the coat.

And after much hassel getting the fur on the sleeves to go through the tightened sleeve with the elastic, here is a picture of the completed outfit on Belle. My kitties had taken over my stool in the window (which is where I take the black background pictures - it's my black curtain and my black piano stool, lol), so I'm going to have to take final pictures tomorrow.

Do you think it looks like the one in the movie?

Jasmine (and the Egyptology Pants)

So for those of you that do not know, on Wednesday nights (at least for now, while I'm not working Wednesday nights - that's soon to change) my roommate and I go up to my work for dinner to see the mom of the little girl I am making all these dresses for. I always take a little something with me to show her the progress I am making. Like tonight, she got to see the completed Belle winter outfit. I also had with me the little bit I had done on Jasmine's pants. And that ended up to be a good thing. Because my boss came out and my roommate and he began to talk about history - namely ancient Egypt. Now, my boss is a history expert (history buff just doesn't even cover it with him) and you can learn a ton from him. And at the same time, you can learn a ton from him - meaning his history discussions can go on for a while. So what do you do when sitting at a dinner table listening to an Egyptology discussion? Why you knit a pair of doll's pants, naturally. I'm serious. I just nearly finished all of Jasmine's red pants sitting at the dinner table tonight.

Here is the last picture I posted of her pants to give a frame of reference how much work I got done at dinner tonight. I had about half of one leg done when tonight started.

Look, it's a pant leg! And I've started on the other leg! (Don't you love the lovely marble table background?) Oh, and let me add, this is after I have finished eating already.

Same amount done as the picture above, just of the other leg.

I think this was about midway through the discussion. It was the last picture I took at the restaurant. I have about half the second pant leg done already.

Shortly after getting home, I measured my progress on the second pant leg. I only had about 2 cm to go before making the cuff! Maybe I should knit at dinner with my boss giving a history lesson more often...

Two pant legs!!!! Now just to tuck in all those yarn ends and sew the pants up.

 I started at the ankle of one pant leg and shortly after passing the cuff part, pulled it on to the doll. Since I am designing these pants, I needed to make sure the cuff would fit over the foot and onto the leg.

Here I am measuring the sewn leg on the doll to figure out just how much further up I needed to go and still leave room to sew the crouch in.

Inseams sewn in. I had to put the pants back on Jasmine to figure out just how to sew up the crouch where it would work. At this point, I am fearing that the waist line is going to be too short...

And it was. Here are the pants turned right side out (I put the hem in with the pants inside out, just like on Belle's jacket). You can see how much of Jasmine's hips are showing. I think I accidentally gave a new meaning to the word hip-huggers!

But it turned out to be a happy mistake. I picked up stitches on the waist band to extend it upwards. I also added a silver thread in to make a difference on the waist band in order to imitate the lighter portion of her pants (see the last picture in this post). Since the pants were already sewn up, it was basically like working in the round even though I was working in rows, so I had to put the row on 3 DPNs rather than just one.

Measuring the new waistline on Jasmine. I probably could have stopped here, after just two rows, but I wanted to make sure it was long enough. So I went on to add one more row and a cast off row - which adds just a little bit of heighth too. Now that I know the top portion of the pants has to be added on, I will do that first with her remaining pants and then sew up the seams - make it easier on myself.

And here is the outfit 99% done! Tomorrow I will have to tuck in the final yarn tails and sew on a snap. I really like the way this one turned out.

Does it look close enough?

165 DAYS REMAINING!