Coming back....

Knitting and crocheting have not been up on the top of my crafting list these last few months. But there has been a bit of crafting along with the xmas sewing.



I made this little Bottle Cap Pin Cushion over the summer after seeing this or maybe this tutorial. Ones i really want to make are these tea pot pin cushions. I will definitley make more once i can find emory for the filling.

I also made a very cute Gnome t-shirt bag this summer:



- which should be a gift for someone but i am having a hard time parting with it. It has been sitting unused for months because of the guilt that overcomes me if i try to use it....ah the joys of being raised catholic and jewish....all that guilt!

And the last little cute item was an apron (of course) for our summer intern -


Project Runway themed fabric! Gotta' love it!

And then gratuitous Max picture:


or my other favourite from Thanksgiving is here.

MOre holiday pics of craftiness and baby coming soon!

Happy Holidays!!!!!!

I hope everyone is having a relaxing holiday! And did not spend Christmas Eve shopping like we did. LOL! Just did not have time to shop and still have things to make...fortunatley i am seeing the family on Saturday, so that gives me 2.5 days to finish sewing...i think....or go shopping.....

At this exact moment in time, my kitchen is doing a repeat of last year. Makin' cookies for the holidays.

In other news, I am officially self-employed. YEAH!!!! I am working at the store a few days a week and then sewing/designing/knitting/finishing etc the rest of the week.....nerve racking....crazy....but i am excited. I just cannot WAIT to start creating again....this will be part of my new year's resolutions, along with taking a german course and a tailoring course....and maybe lose 20 lbs :) oh and find a new hair dresser...mine moved to spain :(

not dead yet (again)

wow! 1 whole month has gone buy since i was last here.

I will be posting more now that i am not working full time - but it is amazing how much you work when you are not working.....

My last show opened at Imagination Stage. Miss Nelson is Missing is a fun fun fun show and if you are in the DC area until January 4th (so pre-innauguration) you should really check it out. If you do not believe me, check out the reviews(and the pics - i patterned both the Miss Nelson Dress and Viola Swamp Dress. Check out the matching plaid and all those pleats respectively):

washington post
dctheatre scene
????? but cool pic

so Thanksgiving was my last weekend and then I got SICK!! My last vacation was maternity leave - so 18 months later my body decided to shut down! Big time and i have been way under the weather since then. And i am building another show which runs next week at the Baltimore Theatre Project. So if you are in Baltimore next week, come and see ALICE IN WONDERLAND wednesday through sunday. It is a dance piece and i am not sure what it is like since this whole process has been very strange....very.
I will know on monday....

and i know i owe pictures from so many things - but this is just to tell you that i am alive :)

commercials i love (2)

the finest german engineering...how i picked my glasses (rodenstock)

Why can't i sleep at night?

The last few months have been crazy and ridiculous and not filled with much sleep.
After much deliberation and stress, I decided that it was time to leave my full time gig.

You are thinking:
Marietta! In this economy? Are you daft girl?

Well, my answer is:
duh! of course i am stupid!

But (because there is always a but) I have been ...unhappy in my job for awhile. And not really unhappy, just needing to do the next thing. Needing to move on and grow as a costumier (pretentious SAT word) and develop other mad skills (like how to type and spell) Or verbesser the Deutsch
Financially, I'm screwed - and really who isn't right now? But (because there is another but) mentally I will be happy as a clam (...do clams smile?)

As i mentioned in an earlier post, part of my reasoning was for this guy:


(Max as Luke Skywalker Halloween 2008 - and, no, he does not have a light saber. A light saber is a prop, not a costume. Props fall under Daddy's domain and Daddy did not get his prop)

The other reason is because of Fritz - who we shall now refer to as MR. Fritz :)
Here is Mr. Fritz's First Day of School picture:


Now here is his 2nd day of school picture:


Getting up at 5:30 am does not make Mr Fritz pleasant - nor does a nagging wife who wants a picture.

Fritz of the tshirt and jeans is now Mr Fritz of the shirt, tie, jacket and Dockers. He is now a High School Teacher of Technical Theatre.

My plan is a little vague at the moment - but I will be freelancing in the theatre world and in the knitting world a bit more.
Since September, I have built costumes for 3 shows at work, 1 dance company, 1 small opera, 1 high school show, another dance company assisting a broadway designer and building costume for another theatre on the other side of town. There might be something that I am forgetting.....

oh and raising a baby.

side note: yes i voted!!!! and i the lines were crazy long and i am thrilled i helped make history! i am really looking forward to the next four years and no, i idid not like what Michelle Obama was wearing on election night. So far that was the the only one total miss out of all her campaigning outfits.

commercials i love (1)

as another tech approaches (my last one!!!) i will be sharing a few of my favourite commercials with all of you - and a few pictures from halloween too :)

Halloweens past cont'd again

this one is my brother in 1979, i think. He was 10? He drafted the plans and did technical drawings for his phone costume. I think he wanted to wire it up so the buttons would light or attach a ringer? i remember my mom being worried that he was going to electrocute himself since it was raining

Halloweens past cont'd

So fast-forward approximatley 10 years and here I am in HighSchool as Dorothy from the Wizard of OZ. My mom made the dress from a table cloth found at a community theatre's garage sale. The shoes were something in my closet that i painted red and then glittered the hell out of them. And it was DAMN-COLD! so i had to wear a turtle neck.
Now what the heck am i holding in my right hand?....oh! i think it was supposed to be a picture of Auntie Em and Uncle Henry.....i think.....

Halloweens past

me circa 1980 or 1981 as Snow White - costume made by my Mom :)

so the next few nights i figured i would upload a few new, but old pictures in the spirit of halloween and all that is costume-y...this is also known as procrastination from doing anything new, such as finishing (starting) Max's halloween costume. He *was* going to be Yoda but.....i have not had the time or energy to make the head piece....so i am thinking just Luke Skywalker....oh! i should get him a stuffed wookie!

Zoom zoom zooma zoom

after watching morning baby tv with Max, i figured i would google a few of my favourites....where are these kids today? anyone know?

dang!

i am not typically happy about death (though i am going to burn about that jig i did when an old bitter relative dies all those years ago) but this almost made my day....

Mercurial Austrian rightist dead in car crash


and yes i know it's wrong but his were politics i could not agree with - and he was in full force in the mid 90's when i was living in Austria.....

I'm not Dead....yet!

Okay - It has been almost 8 weeks and i have been a bad bad blogger. I even suck at posting pics on flickr! Really!

And there is so much to tell you! Crafting! Life! Crafting! Work! Crafting!!!

Okay to start:
The Cubs have failed me. After 100 years I really thought we could beat it...but this is getting ridiculous. We saw them lose to the Mets the week before it was all over and i couldn't take it. I should have known that it was going to be bad when Max puked into his popcorn bucket.....really..... he did....good training for his college career

That is just the beginning of the good and the bad drama in the KNIT-OR -GET -OFF household.....hint: I will no longer be working here full time (this is GOOD drama)

Partly (is that proper english?) due to this adorable guy:








new outfit for Max- burda pattern #9617 ,size 18mths, pants and shirt
basic black knit and stripey knit both from GStreet sale table.
started 9/30 finished 10/2


oh but there is so much to tell you!!!!!!!!! i will try to write more often - i promise and there are lots of pictures to show you all.....

and then, just for fun: (i am sure you know it but i had to do it...i was in the mood for consumate v's)

Swaps, gifts and other things that come in the mail

I have been meaning to blog about all of the above. But there is always that sad excuse of mine – LACK OF TIME!!!
And I think the baby excuse is getting old...no matter how cute!

So let us start with gifts:
As a birthday surprise (3 MONTHS AGO!!!!!) SewMad sent me the most wonderful birthday package:



The most fabulous seam ripper (fliegenpilz!), stitch markers made by herself, jack skelington buttons, beautiful fat quarters, a nifty piece of fabric from IKEA (that I am seriously considering turning into a shopping bag, or two), hot pink mohair, and the piece de-resistance (how do you spell that?):


My very own SewMad original, a Fliegenpilz wallet. I love it! And I use it all the time now. My cigarette case –turned- wallet is now living in the diaper bag with important Maxim info (insurance card etc).
I had to wait until she posted her fabulous pattern (which I also have a pattern for now – thank you Katrin) before I could post a pic of the wallet – of course i waited way past the time she posted it .

If you haven’t figured it by now I am not very punctual with much of anything.

As for the swaps – I joined 2 apron swaps this summer. The first one was over at Apronista.ning.com (because I need to join another on-line community). The apron I made went to Sue Ann of Giabella Designs and the apron I received was from Deb, the Crochetholic. I loved my apron from Deb! So cute! And it is already blessed by Rit Dye and Clorox Bleach from work.

The next swap was on Ravelry.com. The Sew Obsessed group decided to have its first swap this summer thanks to Carlitadee. We all took a vote and aprons won! SO I got the chance to make another apron – this time I copied an apron given to me by my MIL. I actually cut out 2 before I cut out a 3rd and finished it. Swaps are hard if you do not really know what the person likes. I realize that I had a fabric that I thought my swap partner had used in the past – so I changed my mind entirely – I also realized that one of the aprons was really for me (haven't finished it tho...of course)

Here it is modeled by my old boss: (little trinkets thrown in found here.)

Isn’t she cute? And she makes my new sewing room look good.

Here is a view of the room from where she was standing.


There is another swap – the Theatrical Crafters on Ravelry are also running a swap…i really need to get working on that one...but I have until the end of the month….

There is so much more to fill you all in on - all good news (and no, not pregnant). I will be taking some time off this and next week – so hopefully I will get some more knitting and crocheting along with a bit of blogging in :)

Tequila Sunrise Special

Having been inspired by all of the Chevron Scarves all over Ravelry, I decided to make my own Chevron Lace scarf. I loved the idea behind the original design in Last Minute Knitted Gifts, but I wanted something a little different - same concept just not the same :)

So I searched the wonderful world of the internet and found a stitch library at Knitting on the Net. I also searched my books but I had this particular pattern stuck in my head – probably from a sweater hanging in the store – and I was desperate to find it.

My other reason for wanting to make this scarf was the fact that I had four balls of this crazy hot Koigu (now 3 after making the scarf) and wanted to make something fun but mindless. The pattern of inspiration used 2 contrasting Koigus. I could just not find another yarn either in my stash or in the stores that contrasted in just the right way. Basically, I was being ueber-picky. So I went with the cool version of the same colour and am thrilled with the result! Granted, it looks like I only used one colour but it is now a more toned down version of the original purchase. And it reminds me of one of my favourite drinks – the Tequila Sunrise (yes, the drink is usually more yellow or orange bu i happen to like more grenadine in the mix than most)

There was a bit of trial and error with the pattern – such as just plain casting on too many stitches and making the scarf ridiculously wide.

Without further ado - the pattern for my:

Tequila Sunrise Special

Materials:
1 skein hot pink/orange Koigu (A)
1 skein cool pink/burgundy Koigu (B)
needle size -3.75 mm/US 5
Stitch holder
Note: Scarf is worked in 2 separate pieces to allow for scalloped edges then sewn together with Kitchener stitch
Finished Measurements: total length - 60"/width of chevron section - approx 5"/width of garter - 3.5"/length of garter section - approx 28"

With Colour A, cast on 36 stitches (pattern repeat is Multiple of 13 + 1 +2 for selvedge stitches)

Row 1: Knit to the last stitch, bring yarn forward, and slip last stitch as if to purl
Row 2: Knit into the back of the first stitch, continue knitting to the last stitch, bring yarn forward, and slip last stitch as if to purl.
Row 3: repeat Row 2

You should have 2 Garter Ridges or 4 Knit Rows (cast on row counts as 1st Knit Row)

Begin pattern stitch:
Row 1 (RS): Knit into the back of the first stitch *k1, yo, k4, k2tog, Sl1, k1, psso, k4, yo; rep from *, to last 2 stitches, k1, bring yarn forward, slip last stitch as if to purl.
Row 2: Knit into the back of the first stitch, purl to last stitch, bring yarn forward, and slip last stitch as if to purl.

Rep Rows 1 and 2.

Change to Colour B, repeat rows 1 and 2, 2 times.
Change to Colour A, repeat rows 1 and 2, 2 times.

And keep on keeping on until you have reached approximately 13 inches from the cast on row AND have finished a 4 row repeat.

Decrease Rows:
With RS facing, Change colours and Knit 2 rows (one garter ridge).
Dec Row: (With same colour) Selvedge, *k1, k4, k2tog, Sl1, k1, psso, k4; rep from *, k1, selvedge. (36 stitches) - ###this is not a typo, this is the same as the pattern stitch Row 1 but without the YO’S###
Next Row: Knit

Change colours:
Dec row: selvedge, *k1, k3, k2tog, Sl1, k1, psso, k3; rep from *, k1, selvedge (30 stitches)
Next Row: Knit


Change colours:
Dec row: selvedge, *k1, k2, k2tog, Sl1, k1, psso, k2; rep from *, k1, selvedge (24 stitches)
Next Row: Knit

Change colours:
Dec row: selvedge, *k1, k2, k2tog, k2; rep from *, k1, selvedge (21 stitches)
Next Row: Knit

******Change colours:
Knit 2 Rows *******

Break Yarn leaving approximately 12 inches and place stitches on a stitch holder

And begin again - this time starting with Colour B.

Follow pattern, working your way through the decreases. Repeat from ****** to ******* working just in Garter, changing colour every 2 rows until you have almost run out of Yarn or until you have reached your desired length.

Sew the 2 halves together using your favourite directions for the Kitchener Stitch – don’t forget to have wrong sides together and the yarn needs to come form the back needle.
You could three-needle bind off with right sides together, but I think Kitchener is so much prettier.
Block – the edges will have a natural wave.

The end!


----The usual copyright rules apply to this pattern - personal use only - blah - blah - blah.
I have only written 2 other patterns before and those were crochet – so let me know how this goes if you make it.

a whole month!

Wow! Has it really been a whole month? Where have I been you might ask? Well no where really. Just at the theatre for most of May and June and trying to recoup during the month of July.

There has been limited personal crafting – but there have been a few things that I wanted to share with you for while but just haven’t had the chance to do so. That baby and that job have been getting in the way of fun sewing. And lack of space to craft at home have made it difficult.

But that is changing very soon:
Here is Fritz:


and here they are!!! My new cutting table, ironing table and sewing machine table all built to my specs! (read: really flippin' tall - 42" for the tall tables and 32" for the shorter)


It is still a work in progress. And it will probably take awhile. Nothing is in the ‘cute’ organizational style – old diaper boxes used for storage bins for magazines and single patterns, as well my sewing patterns and a few other random things. I plan on using baby formula tins for notions and trims – and some of those leftover baby jars and tupperwares. There will be one or two more trips to IKEA for better lighting and other organizational tools.

And while organizing the disaster that was our guest room soon to be my personal studio (imagine happy dance here), I started taking pics of my yarn stash to post on Ravelry.



If you cannot find me there (mafgreene) then check my stash out on Flickr: here and here and here


The sad part is that I found quite a few (read: a crap load) of unfinished projects. The first one will be 5 years old this fall. the 2nd is an on-again, off-again relationship for the last two years...it might grow up to be a lovely blanket someday



and let us not forget these lonely socks…..some day they will have a friend



And here is an adorable pic of my boy!

Also check me out over at Woolwinders– I was the guest blogger this week pushing the penguin!

The Neverending Costumes...I mean STORY

so this is where i have been for a few weeks now (actually we have been developing this production for 2 years)

And it is finally opening - the second world premiere live theatrical version of the NEVER ENDING STORY...

i will post soon (and maybe youtube will actually post this video this time - try #5)

Anniversaries and birthdays

Did you know that I have been an irregular blogger for the last 2 years? It is true. 2 years plus 1 week…and I had a birthday…and today is my 8th wedding anniversary! Wow! Lots to celebrate!

My fabulous assistant, Jessica, has made these most delicious cupcakes to celebrate my 3 ½ decades on the planet. I hear there are more treats planned for later in the week by the other lovely assistant, Katherine. After eating 3 of these yummies today I really do not need anything other sweets….of course, that is saying like I do not need any more yarn or fabric…such a silly concept.

For my birthday/anniversary present, I received a lovely gift from Fritz and Max.

THEY ARE NOT HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is Tuesday night and I have not seen them since Saturday. Can you believe it? It wasn’t so bad on Sunday and Monday since I was in Delaware checking out my mom’s new digs:

Some love shots of the garden.

The lovely Mamie.

And neighboring gardens.




Last night was awful though – I was home all alone and really missed Max – first time we have been apart since he was born….both fantastic and depressing. I mean, how can you not miss this face?



In other news, the personal/work life has been incredibly stressful, so when I get home, I have almost no interest in the knitting or crocheting or even sewing. Our next show THE NEVERENDING STORY is absolutely overwhelming for us at the moment. There are many many many costumes and not enough time to make it all happen – and not enough staff. We have been working hard on this show for way too long – it is truly the never-ending show.

Outside of the crazy number of costumes, the costume shop is also responsible for dyeing the ‘nothing’ fabric.
Here it is in stages:

no crafting here

well not at home but very busy in the work place.


just got a new camera though......and still need to learn how to use it. Here are a few pics from this weekend:



a very filthy Max:

my mother's day breakfast in bed:


I am always giving Fritz a hard time for wearing the same thing every day and said he should switch it up a bit. So he emailed this pic and wanted to know what i thought:

Yeah, well, it's the same thing he wears every day: Black polo and blue jeans. The leather jacket was for the weather :) Gotta love 'im!

in fashion news - my mom sent me this cool link to a New York times article about a Superheroes exhibit at the Costume Institute at the Met in NYC.

check out the video

and for more music - Kate Nash, again, PUMPKIN SOUP and there is knitting in it!

time keeps on slippin'....

(more photos of max in traffic wearing Adam's hat)

(there have been a few complaints from family members that there have not been new Max pics in awhile - I hope you enjoy these two!)

Time is getting away from me again.

Not much by way of crafting for me at the moment. I think i mentioned before that I have been taking on a lot of sidework lately (when it rains it pours). One of my designer friends is opening a HUGE show tomorrow night and I was only able to make a few pieces for her. I felt bad when i saw how exhausted she was yesterday - i really wish i could have done more, but i am just overbooked with life right now.

I am seriously considering Freelance as a full-time gig. The problem with Freelance is that I am kind of lazy - and you have to be ueber-organized and have the proper space to do it in..... I need to get through the next show before I make that decision. The thought of spending the summer by the pool with the baby sounds heavenly - okay not all that grand as i turn to a lovely lobster red when i am in the sun too long, BUT a few afternoons of scheduled swim time with me and the baby sounds fabulous.

my latest obsession:

My assistant, Jessica, got me hooked on Kate Nash...love this album! I really like her style.