AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

on the road to Squam (java java java)

I'm leaving for Squam on Wednesday morning. While I might not act excited in a traditional manner, I am pretty thrilled. It's a very comforting and nurturing environment, and it is nice to have a bit of time to myself (not that I don't carve out some me time on a regular basis, but somehow it is a bit different when you aren't quite as accessible).

Last year people complained about the quality of the coffee. Now, I love mself some good coffee, but I drink Starbucks drip, lattes from a number of places, coffee from Mary Lous (which varies in intensity, but hey they give Victor a dog treat almost every time), and places with various levels of quality. To me, coffee is almost always coffee. I like it better when it is good, but even mediocre coffee is pretty good. The standard complaint was strength, more than quality of flavor itself.

However, for me, I am an early riser. Last year even without an alarm, I woke up at 5 or so every morning without the alarm on my phone or iPod. The dining hall opens about 2-3 hours after I've gotten up, so this year I'm making my own coffee. Yesterday I bought a Woodneck from Dwelltime yesterday. This morning I made myself coffee using it for the first time using their brew instructions. The Japanese instructions involve about 20 grams less coffee, so the Dwelltime instructions make a much stronger brew. I'll probably try it again with one scoop of grounds (about 16 grams) next time. This is a much better coffee than even the Clever Dripper, though I have to wonder how much of that is the amount of grounds vs. the brew method.

Either way, this involved making coffee this morning that was at least as good as what I can buy in my neighborhood. I tend to buy coffee out, because something about the French Press means that it just doesn't taste quite as good as what I'm buying out. Given that this tastes better than both Mary Lous and Donut King, my local coffee places, I'm way more likely to make coffee at home.

Taking a class with Abby Glassenberg

For the past 2 Mondays, I have been taking this awesome class at Gather Here with Abby Glassenberg (While She Naps). The class, Design your own stuffed animals, has been a blast. We came in with some ideas (or not) and Abby greeted us with freezer paper and tons of reference materials from catalogs to childrens books to animal guides. We got to see both one of her stuffies in pieces and a finished one in person and look at the way the seams were shaped.

Then we got down to drawing.

Now, I'm not the best artist no matter how many sketch books I've filled, so while the rest of the class were making manatees and hippos and narwhales, I created something sans limbs and I'm happy for it. The first class we went from a drawing, to creating a pattern and building a prototype. Abby walked each of us through adding gussets (in my case) to gussets and darts to create a three dimensional look. I loved it, and went home last Monday with a prototype and some homework.

Of course, procrastination is still my strongest suit, so I didn't get all of my homework done. So, I came into class last night and she went over the things that still needed to happen for people who needed to change part of their patterns. Because mine was so easy, there were no pattern changes, so I got to work with Sherpa fleece. I cut out pieces and carefully sewed them together. Maybe if I was quite so careful with the rest of my sewing projects they would look super cool and come out right more often.

I'm not quite done yet, but I'm getting there. I have an accessory that needs some ladder stitch (which is the same as mattress stitch except for fabric) and top stitching, and to cut and sew facial features. I probably won't get done until some time over the weekend, as I have deadline knitting to do as well. I already have ideas on how I can make more of the dolls, and some suggestions from Abby on creating the patterns. While mine was not necessarily as superbly awesome as the manatee made with quilting fabric (which created a beautifully patterned surface) or the roundness of the narwhale, I love it to pieces, and given the niche I live in (Japanophile who likes paranormal things), I'm sure I can make more of these either for just my friends or even for my sad Etsy store.

Abby gave us a ton of great tips from her favorite tools for stuffing (hemostats) to what she uses to pull a fleecy fabric like mine out of the seams (graduated awl). She had a lot of information about using fleece and designing and creating patterns with freezer paper. Of course, I have freezer paper ostensibly because I cook, but really because I had read about making stencils using freezer paper a few years ago. Now I enjoyed this enough and have enough ideas that I completely plan to make more items with my freezer paper. Though, next time I might graduate to limbs!

(I'd talk about what my design actually is, but I figure it will be a lot more fun to show off the finished one.)