Ahem. Anyone still out there?

It's been a while, huh? I'm not going to go that much into why I've been awol for the past few months, let's just say that life happened (well, I'll tell you this much, I separated from my husband, and have been living on my own since October. The kids stay with me every two weeks, so all of this is taking it's time to get used to.) This year has been pretty much the crappiest ever, so I'm really looking forward to next year. I'm thinking that it can't suck more than this year. :P One good thing tho, I'm graduating school in a couple of days, so I'm still pretty proud of myself for finishing school in the middle of all this. Aaand that's pretty much all I have for now, I'll try to squeeze in an FO-post before Christmas.

We've gone all girly around here.

I've always been a jeans girl. Never really cared for skirts or dresses and such. But this Summer I've come in touch with my girly side, and have made, not one, but two dresses for myself. And I've cut up the fabric to make another dress. And two skirts. :O No, wait, three skirts. But more on those when I actually get around to sewing them... The first dress is a maxi dress, because, you know, maxi dresses are in at the moment. I had problems with getting the upper part to fit, so there kinda is a seam where there kinda shouldn't be one... But you kinda can't tell that from the picture. :D
(Yes, the picture is, again, horrendous, sorry. The next one won't be any better either. :P)

And if the first dress was a maxi, then the second dress is the exact opposite, it ended up a wee bit too short. :D I kept yanking it down all night, afraid that my butt was showing. The fabric was a pain to work with, especially since the dress has a princess cut both in the front and in the back. Plus I've gotten a wee bit smaller lately, so the dress was too big for me at first. Well, it's my own fault really, I should have made some measurements before starting to cut fabric. Oh well, you learn as long as you live, I guess. :)

And since I have a new-found fondness for zippers that show, I decided to add a big metal zipper to this dress. :)
Last, but not least we have a dress for my tiny princess. She threw a fit the other day when we went shopping, and stupid mommy didn't buy her the princess dress she wanted. But I bought the fabric to make her a dress ages ago, just never got round to it. Until now. The seams are crooked, and the hem isn't all that straight, but she's three, she doesn't notice things like that. And I was in a hurry to get it finished. And it's kinda cute. :)

Wanna know what I did last week?

Well, I'll tell you anyway. :P Very early on Sunday the 5th we packed all our bags in the car, and drove to the airport. Five or so hours later we landed on a very sunny and warm Crete. In other words, we jumpstarted our Summer vacation by going to Greece with the kids! For a week we didn't cook, clean or do any other housework either. We rested, ate well, and spent half our time in the pool. I didn't knit a single stitch until the busride back to the airport. :D

And because a picture tells more than a thousand words, here are a few to tell our story. :)

And just to prove that I was along on the trip too, here's a picture that the husband too of me right after I had a shot of raki. :D

School's out for the Summer!

Yay! Wooohooo! Whee! Two and a half months of total relaxation, aaah... (Yeah right, with three kids running around? So not gonna happen.) I have a ton of stuff to do this Summer, but at least it's stuff I want to do, not stuff I have to do. There's a big difference.

(Oh, umm, let's ignore the fact that I should go to school tomorrow and on Friday, shall we? I just noticed today that my brain hasn't functioned for, oh, about a week now, and I made every conceivable mistake on my practice collar. My brain needs a break. And the tiny one has to go to the hospital for allergy tests on Friday, not likely that I'll sit in school that day.)

Aaanywhoo, yay, Summer! (See, I'm effectively also ignoring the fact that I can't even go outside without getting the most annoying rash all over, I don't even need the sun for it anymore. And it's gonna be like this until, umm, September or so. I'm just so happy that I don't need to get up and go to school tomorrow morning.)

I wish drawing was easier...

drawings, originally uploaded by RainbowDash2008.

So that making just three (yes, three, the last one is old) fashion drawings wouldn't take me all day.

Some stuff I've made recently.

I'm still suffering from having the crappiest Spring ever, but I wanted to let you all know I'm still alive (if there's still any of you out there.) Anyways, just pics this time. (In no particular order.)

I realized that I never showed you the details of the green tunic I made months ago, so here they are. Finally.

And then there was the princess dress I made for a friend's three-year-old.
And a hat for me.
A pair of fun earrings.
Turn-a-Square for the husband. (rav-link)
Sweet Peasy for the tiny one. (rav-link)
A tunic that made me look even more shapeless than I am. (from Burda.)
Alina-shawl. (rav-link)
A chiffon-satin-dress for a friend.

I have this weird thing..

About having to sew myself something new to wear whenever I go out to party. Which happens about twice a year. I think I need to go out more, just think how much clothes I'd have if I'd go out, say, once a month. But, alas, I doubt the husband would let me go out that often. :/ I have lots of improvements to make to the next version, but I'm pretty happy with this version too. FYI, lace is a PITA to sew. (I know, I know, the pictures suck once again, trying to take your own picture isn't all that easy. XD The first pic shows the color correctly, the second one is just to show the length.)

Upon request

No, I'm not officially coming back from my blog break, but some (well, one) of you (and you know who you are) asked me to blog about the corset and dress I've sewn in school. I made a corset for myself, and a dress for a customer. The corset is just a plain black denim, that was about the cheapest fabric I found when shopping for the corset.. But since I had no idea how this would turn out (it's heavily modified), I figured that I don't want to invest a whole lot of money in it. And without further ado, here it is
I'm thinking of adding some kind of embellishment to it, so that I know which end should be up and which one down. :D I just haven't figured out what I want to decorate it with. Maybe a flower or sequins or something..

The dress is made of taffeta, organza and tulle. You can't really see the tulle in the pictures, but it's there. :) Making the folds wasn't the easiest thing ever, but I think it turned out pretty nice for a first try. :) (Oh, btw, the color is way off in these pictures, the photo studio at school just didn't want to co-operate with me today. The dress is really much lighter irl.)

Too much crap

Mental capacity overload. Can not blog. Must take break.

I'll be back. (said in Arnold Schwarzeneggeresuqe voice.)

Ei mul mitään asiaa oo

(Sorry, only in Finnish this time.)

Kirjahyllymeemi a'la Minä. Napatkoon ken tahtoo. :)

1. Oletko mies vai nainen?
Dracula

2. Kuvaile itseäsi?
Angels & Demons

3. Kuinka voit?
Carpe Jugulum

4.Kuvaile nykyistä asuinpaikkaasi?
The Last Continent

5. Mihin haluaisit matkustaa?
London Bridges

6. Kuvaile parasta ystävääsi?
Maskerade

7. Mikä on lempivärisi?
The Bluest Eye

8. Millainen sää nyt on?
The Light Fantastic

9. Mikä on paras vuorokauden aika?
Night Watch

10. Jos elämäsi olisi tv- ohjelma, mikä sen nimi olisi?
Great Expectations

11. Päivän mietelause
Reaper Man

12. Millainen on parisuhteesi?
Wuthering Heights

13. Mitä elämä sinulle merkitsee?
Cradle and All

14. Minkä neuvon tahtoisit antaa?
Roses are Red

15. Miten tahtoisit kuolla?
Thud!

16. Mottosi?
The Sun Also Rises

Things don't always go as planned.

Thanks for all your thoughts and well-wishes regarding my surgery. Due to circumstances that I won't go into here, the surgery has been moved. I was hoping to get it over and done with now, but something's come up, and I'll have the surgery in April. Oh well, I've waited a year, I can wait another couple of months.

And on a lighter note, the missing mitten has been found! The husband found it between the wall and the radiator yesterday. Now I can finally finish the pair, yay!

I made a skirt and a vest a while back that I haven't showed you yet. I have the worst pictures of them that you can imagine, but I don't have any better to offer either. Oh, btw, they're made from the same fabric, but you can't tell that from the pictures. The color looks right in the vest pictures.

You know, this sucks

Remember my green socks-turned-mittens? No, you probably don't, because I wrote about them over a year ago, and never mentioned them again. Well, I finished one of the mittens ages ago (except for the thumb) and started working on the second mitten. I got about halfway thru the cuff on the second one, when I got tired of them. So I threw them in a basket, where they lay until about a month ago. I finished the second mitten, thumb and all, and thought I'd finishe the second mitten too. But then I took my three-week break from knitting, and guess what? I can't find that thumbless mitten anywhere. It's nowhere to be found. Argh. I'm starting to think that the mittens are cursed, and I'm just not supposed to finish them. Ever. Hmph.

And in other news, I started knitting again. I started working on the Alina shawl (rav link), because I thought it would fit the theme for the month. The shawl was designed by a woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer, and the pattern was released on the day of her surgery. And since I'm going to have breast surgery myself in a couple of weeks, I thought that now would be as good a time as any to finally knit the shawl. (And yes, I realize that I haven't mentioned anything about having breast surgery before, I just haven't found a good time for it.) My shawl won't be that big, because I'm using pretty thick yarn, but it's looking pretty so far. :) I don't have any pictures, you'll probably have to wait until the shawl is finished and blocked. :P

And just because blog posts without any pictures are boring, I'll show you a picture of a tunic I made in school. (and yes, I know I'd need to have the customers approval to show this picture online, but as the customer is a friend of mine, I'm sure she won't mind. :P ) In this pic the buttons are missing, I'll show you close-ups of those when I get round to taking them..

ainiin. ps. VILLAPALLO!

Still no knittin' goin' on

But I did sew a skirt for the middle kid. She asked for a skirt waaay before Christmas, but I only got round to making it a couple weeks ago. She chose the fabrics and I sewed it up. It looks bright and cheerful! :)
There's nothing new on the knitting-front, I'm on my third week of non-knitting, and I think I might just as well give in and start knitting again. See, my reasoning is, that if I haven't knit a stitch in over two weeks, and my thumbs haven't gotten any better, then it wasn't knitting that made the thumbs sore in the first place. And I can just as well start knitting again. I'm tired of sitting around and doing nothing all evening. Bah. So next time I might actually have something knitted to show you. ;) (Or I might show you the skirt and vest I made myself, I just have to get them photographed first..)

First two for 2011

Well, um, apparently I don't have that much to say, so I'll just show you my latest FOs, a pair of plain old mittens (made with not-so-plain-old-Noro-yarn), that are too big for me, and a slouchy hat (made with Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn). The hat started out as the Sockhead hat, but I only used the amount of cast-on stitches from the original pattern. And after casting on, I just ignored the pattern, and made the hat the way I wanted it. :)

Dunno when I'll have any more knits to show off, I have to take a break from knitting, because both my thumbs are crazy sore. My right thumb has been sore for, oh, two months or so, but now my left thumb is sore too. Oh poo. I'm thinking of taking a one-week break to start with, and we'll see if the thumbs get any better. I'm two days into this first week, and I'm going bonkers. How anyone can sit around and watch TV without doing anything with their hands is beyond me. And those of you who would want to do something, and can't, you have my deepest sympathies.