Tuesday tidbits

in which our plucky heroine is blue, but not sad...

Its gingerbread season, but I've never made cuneiform gingerbread... or for that matter, stamped cookies like the ones that Reannag Teine creates amazing stamps for...

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New dress, made from indigo dyed batik cotton stripe, using the revised button front bias cut bodice pattern. There are still a few subtle adjustments I want to make, but overall am pretty happy with how it turned out. Most of the time, everyday dresses are worn underneath a pinafore, like this:

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My bias front bodice pattern is drafted a bit more closely fitted than the straight grain bodice... so it needs a pleated back yoke to help with freedom of movement, like when I ride my bike. But there are some fabrics that look weird if the printed design is on a diagonal, so having two different bodice options is a good thing.

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After the winter holidays, in January I plan on participating in the "Sólbein Steek-along" hosted over at Fringe and Friends. I love sweaters made from Icelandic yarn, and the pattern motif on Sólbein is simple and subtle, and my chosen yarns are all denim-y indigo:

BUT... I don't want to knit the sweater top down, for two reasons - 1. I do most of my knitting while riding transit. A top down sweater gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and is not at all modular. A bottom up sweater is modular for at least half or more of the process, until the two separate sleeves and lower body are united. And 2. I think that knitted decreases look much tidier than knitted increases. So, I have been gradually trying to suss out how to transform the top-down pattern into a bottom-up pattern. It is rather like a word problem in arithmetic.

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December SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	brown linen blouse	GM enamel	extra tartlets**
2	jingle bell	brown blouse cuffs	-
3	indigo batik dress	x	-
4	x	x	-
5	x	x	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	-
8	x	x	-
9	x	x	-
10	x	x	-
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x