Domestic Sunday: Tentacular Craftacular

For many years, my fitful attempts at a regular yoga practice were enabled by my handmade yoga mat bag. The body was one of the only things I had ever crocheted that wasn't aggressively hideous, while the strap came from an import store and was purchased entirely because there was a time in my life when I felt uncomfortable if I spoke to a retail store employee and then DIDN'T buy anything in the store.

Of course, those semi-fond memories didn't stop me from leaving the yoga mat bag (and the yoga mat it contained) behind on the subway one day. Nobody ever turned it in to the TTC's Lost and Found either. I hope whoever found it is haunted every time they use it, perpetually unable to relax during shavasana and forever barfing during hot yoga classes.

I replaced the mat but not the bag. At least, not until this weekend. My friend Tamera had gifted me with just enough of this rad octopus print that I could make a decent-sized yoga mat bag. I spliced together this free pattern from Amy Butler(PDF) and a bag pattern from Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing, because I wanted a drawstring top. I placed the drawstring casing too high (the bag basically has a manbun of extra fabric on top), but I'm not about to rip the whole thing out. Otherwise, it turned out just fine.

My beer selection this week isn't all that domestic. Instead, it's from Portland's Rogue Brewery, but I'm highlighting it anyway because it's a weird, weird brew. It's their Voodoo Doughnut Lemon Crueller flavour, and there's definitely some witchcraft happening here. It tastes exactly like a lemon doughnut. Not like they dropped in a boatload of artificial flavouring, or like they got their spices but not the texture. Instead, the aftertaste even has a glazed quality. It's a mystery to me. However, it's also so sweet and powerfully dessert-like that it's impossible to enjoy more than one glass. I was reminded of my friend who demanded "Beer flavoured beer." Sometimes that's better than a liquified doughnut.

Domestic Sunday: Turkey Day Edition

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving! I hope your dinner chart looked much like mine: 33% turkey, 33% stuffing, 24% mashed potatoes, 10% carrots, and then all the gravy you want poured all over that. With the gravy, that's more than 100%, but Thanksgiving is about the two G's - gratitude and gluttony - so why not give 110% to your food?

In the ensuing tryptophan haze (urban myth), I nearly forgot that I had planned to bring back Domestic Whateverday to the blog on Sunday. Perhaps barely Monday morning still counts?

Unfortunately, the domestic craft portion of the post is not all that inspiring. In fact, it's a bag of fabric:

The plan is for this to become a new quilt for my new apartment. That was also my plan when I moved into the new apartment. At the end of June.

While that photo may not be that inspiring, I assure you that I've done something over the past three months. Behold:

Why, that's like six finished squares, and a few more than are halfway there! I only need to sew about 75 more, sew those together into the quilt top, get the batting and the backing, quilt all that together, and...

Whoah ho ho, it's beer! Let's move on to the other domestic part of Domestic Sunday, the brew. This is the Country Bumpkin from Niagara Oast House Brewers. It's probably much lighter than it appears in the photo, which was taken inside of a King Street bar that has its dimmer switch perpetually set to "smoky 17th century coffeehouse", ie, dark. This disconcerts me in the same way that a casino's censure of natural light bewilders a gambler, so that I probably spend more money than I should, and then act like a cave salamander when I finally head out into the bright and irritating light of day.

Or so any "working lunch" there usually goes. At least this time I kept to one pint. I picked the Country Bumpkin because October is the time for pumpkin beer. Pumpkin beers seem to be coming under increasing criticism from beer folks, and I resent that, because they're often delicious. I also resent the distinct note of sexism I've started picking up, alongside the notes of clove and cinnamon in the beer. Even supporters will feebly celebrate pumpkin ale as, essentially, gateway craft beer for the ladies.

Yes, some pumpkin beers do taste a little too sweet, going heavily enough on the spice that they start to taste less like a beer, and more like a carbonated Pumpkin Spice Latte. And so people will extend their stereotypes of PSL drinkers to beer. But screw 'em. More beer for me, and even a dudely hophead should have few issues with the Country Bumpkin. It was low on the carbonation, and the expected pie spices were supported by the hint of something vegetal. It's worth checking out, both as a decent beer, and as a fine introduction to the style.

Miss Protagi-Anne Elliot

I didn't mean to take a nine-day break from my blog. I meant to do a write-up on 10 zombies I would chill with (Bub the Zombie's overexposed ass is not on there) and an ode to Ginger Snaps before Halloween.

Instead, I studied for a standardized test, baked a cake while drunk and sewed a Regency-era gown in two days, but that was while sober. And that last bit was the hardest. I am not an accomplished seamstress and period gear isn't the easiest crap to sew. At one point, I made two of the same sleeves and had to re-sew one, because that took less time than figuring out how to amputate and then put one of my arms on backwards. But barely.

Just when I thought I would have the dress finished on time- minus the sash and the hair, but DONE- I got to last part and ended up in a pickle. The dress is held together by two drawstrings, one that goes around the neckline and the other that ties just under the bust. The first neckline threaded like butter, so I was feeling rather cocky as I grabbed my needle and went in for the bust.

And that's when things FUBARed. No matter how hard I pushed and pulled, swore and cried, jabbed a knitting needle in and, the needle wouldn't make it past the first seam allowance. Two hours and one hysterical phone call to my parents later, this had gone past making a fun costume for a fun Halloween. This dress was the litmus of my life. Fail it, and the rest of my life would be nothing but a series of well-intentioned defeats. Succeed, and there would be a 10 percent chance that maybe it would be something else.

That's when I did something I could, and should, have done hours before. I am a knitter. I live in a house of string. I threaded some thinner yarn through and got my ass to that party.

Foibles, Episode Two

So, today I go to the job center, to apply to some more jobs, in an effort to erase yesterday's disaster from my mind. And what do I do? I forget my wallet, with all my age-verifying I.D., at home. Clearly, I am too stupid to live. Oh well.

I do take a break from knitting sometimes. Then, I sew. But not terribly well, so I'm trying to improve my sewing skills since I'm home anyway this summer, and my Mom is a product of the "Sew Your Own Clothes" generation. She can do all sorts of amazing things with her sewing machine and fabric, my personal favorite being the hot dog costume, with condiments, she made me when I was 10. So, I dragged her on a fabric gathering expedition/ bonding experience to Len's, a discount store with a healthy fabric mecca. Here's the tiny haul we brought home:

Don't blow up the picture, as it is criminally fuzzy. Excuse my lazy photo-taking abilities. Start the highlights reel, Jimmy!

Two fabrics to make a circular needle cozy, much like the one in Stitch and Bitch. It's hard to see in the picture, but the one on the right? Is printed with a garter stitch pattern! Serendipity! Actually, Len's had a whole line of knitting-themed fabrics, but they were all fairly pricey, so I decided to use only one. The other is a sort of vintage-looking blue and white stripe with stylized flowers printed on it.

Fabric to make my own small Amy Butler Chelsea bag. I made a successful Rural Messenger bag, so here's hoping this pattern goes as well. The flowers will be on the outside most of the time.

The fabrics I picked out for my Mom's Chelsea bag. The fabric on the right sort of looks like knock-off Amy Butler, don't you think?

Mother, MAY I- Whoah.

Stupid May. Winter hung around for so long that it seems a little presumptuous of my calendar to tell me that it's May already. I've done the tour of all the Guelph stores, and am almost caught up with my appointments. Orthodontist down, driver's license replaced, and doctor's appointment booked. Next: dentist, hair and job. When you're an undergrad, the times you go home sometimes feel like you're a car going in for a tune-up, and you come out of the whirlwind of mechanics better-dressed, tressed, and fed. I've been opening my parent's fridge in wonder since I got home. Not only is it big people-sized, (the appliances in my apartment look like refugees from a Fisher -Price playset), but it's full of food. And not just No-Name juice from concentrate and yellow mustard, but real food. I try not to sneak in the deli meats, but the capicolo is too delicious to resist.

In one of those bouts of cruel justice the world brings down on us, Guelph got two decently-stocked knitting stores after I left. Well, one is technically a quilting store, Greenwood Quiltery. But it doesn't just sell lovely Kaffe Fasset and Amy Butler fabrics now, but also Fleece Artist, Mission Falls, and Blue Sky in a back room. Between the fabric and the yarn they got a hefty chunk of my paycheque last year. Actually, the quilt you can see Oliver (whom I miss terribly) lying on in this picture was made with fabrics largely purchased from there, and the fuzzy green sweater yarn was bought there too. That sweater hasn't been completely abandoned yet, and I finally slogged through rest of the body and worked a bit on the sleeve. I want an excuse to start something new, so I'm going to hunker down with it and some of my favourite childhood movies for a terrifying nostalgia trip cum knitting bee.

You know what? Writing about Greenwood has reminded me how much I want to work on my sewing skills this summer. Clothes cost a lot for a crap product I rarely like, so why not learn how to make my own? They can't suck any more than what's at Old Navy this season. And I can include wee hedgehogs! The other knitting store is rather new, and I do believe it's called the Stitch Niche. It has a small but well-edited selection of yarns. My Dad also taught the store's owner, but then again it sometimes seems like he's taught half of Guelph. They're always glad to see him, and yet he's still convinced that he's a bad teacher. Whatever. He went with me on my mini yarn crawl the other day, and witnessed me having inner strength. I passed through Greenwood easily, but finally gave in at the Stitch Niche, and bought some Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed in a pretty teal colour to make a replacement for the Glaistig I lost last semester. That one was made in a pink tweed, and I hope a less-delicate teal will have better juju behind it and stay in my possession.