Other stuff I've made: Sweater for the Roommate

Here's a sweater I made for the roommate for Xmas 2009.   He has another I made 20+ yrs ago & it was too loose when it was finished, is rather ridiculous now.  I may unravel it & do something else with the yarn.  Anyway, we met at a college radio station, hence the gadgets on his sweater (see detail).  He loves it & gets lots of compliments on it.  It's fun to make stuff for him, because he will wear it.  I also like having a roommate to dress up.

BTW, I've just added a tag cloud to the blog (near the bottom) & have started trying to standardize the labels (tags) I add so with any luck these posts will be searchable.  Let me know if you think I'm missing any useful tags or if you think I've mis-tagged something.  I'm a librarian, so tagging is my life!!

Other stuff I've made: Quilts

West African Fabric Shop

I'm always raving about West African textiles & the roommate's & my 5-week shopping trip there...here are some quilts to show you what I made.  I bought a lot of fabric, and haven't made much of a dent in it, so plan to use more for dresses, shirts for the roommate, etc...

The first quilt (they are smallish 6' x 4' or so each) is called West African Fabric shop and shows nice orderly rows of fabric, one each of every kind I bought!  A friend in Dubai machine-quilted them for me.

The Anarchy of the African Market

The second quilt is titled The Anarchy of the African Market.  We like markets and find that they are a good place to observe the local people just being people, not selling things to tourists, or performing in any way.  We like to walk around a good market for a long time.  But the markets in Africa are pretty chaotic, to say the least, and really, downright scary.  (This doesn't include the much smaller, much harder-to-get-to markets of Goram Goram, Burkina Faso, or in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, which were fun, friendly, not crowded and very interesting--though not if you were looking for tourist treasure.)  So this 2nd quilt tries to reflect that anarchy and explains why I ended up not buying much fabric at the markets!  And mostly why we skedaddled after 20-30 minutes...we did try to go a few times, in Ouagadougou, in Accra, in Lame, and in Tamale, in northern Ghana, but never lasted a half hour--scary!  Jammed so tight you knew you were a target for robbery (I get nervous about this anywhere in the world), and also, it was pretty easy to lose each other!  Yikes.

This last one is a table cloth, and it sort of quilted itself, because as I sewed each strip on, I sewed it to the backing, then I just put the binding on.  Hope you like seeing these.  Comments? Questions?

Here's a mix of classic highlife music to get you in the mood.  I'd recommend looking for a classic highlife (50s-60s) CD online, or at the library, to get a better taste of this amazing music.

African fabrics & crafts catching on in the fashion world!

You heard it here first!  So, my fascination with African fabrics is catching on, according to an article in the Washington Post on June 30.  I'm such a trendsetter.  If you check out the slide show associated with the article, picture 11 is my favorite: a lovely stack of fabric--super duper yummy.

Speaking of yummy stacks of fabric, here's a picture we took in Ghana in 2006 at a bus station.  We were fascinated by how everyone could carry stuff (big stuff!) on their heads, so took the photo to show that--but of course I love the fabric, too...I bought 80 lbs there.  If you'd like to see more of our photos from that trip, they are here...and thank you Reocities for reviving our once-dead Geocities site.  Here's an article about carrying stuff on your head & its efficiency (or not).

The roommate thought of this song:  Goin' Out of My Head, by Little Anthony & the Imperials.

My machine: Singer 9960 Quantum Stylist

This is a picture of my sewing machine, a Singer Quantum Stylist 9960.  I had one in Abu Dhabi (and left it behind in Istanbul because of the differing electricity issues).  I liked it so much that when I got another for my birthday last year I got the same one. And lucked out, because this one is like my old one, but it's now got a quilting-table attachment, and it's got more features (knot & clip).  So it's the same, but better.  Yay!!


This song popped into my head the other day.  My roommate is not the monster, though...I suspect he sings this about me!  My Beloved Monster, Eels.  

MMJ - West African skirt - I leaked into July

MMJuners, please forgive me.  I'll stop w/ the Mohammed-Made-June stuff, though there's quite a bit more in my closet.  But I do love this skirt.  It looks like Adinkra, which is stamped fabric made in Ghana, though this is batik, not stamped. (BTW, that video is great and even includes the symbol on my skirt.)  The symbols have meaning, and you see a large variety all over Ghana, on fabric, artwork, decorating stores, buses, labels in the grocery store--everywhere.  Anyway, the Gye Name symbol (on my skirt it's the non-square symbol) means the "supremacy of God."

Wearing this skirt is always a great opportunity to get out my green/turquoise sandals, my turquoise sunglasses and my turquoise (as opposed to green) turquoise.

I really really need suggestions for a cute little, v. efficient, amazing storage sewing room, please...

Okay, we just got good news about the new place.  We can put in a nice bedroom & bath downstairs.  So we don't need the mini 2nd bedroom (10' x 6') for guests after all.  So forget the murphy bed and the small cabinet closet.  Now it can be an office and a sewing room (it has a south west facing window!!).  And Bella will love it--sunny, warm & in the middle of everything and a window ledge just wide enough for a cute kitty.  So if you have a sewing table, or cabinets or a pull-out cutting table, or hideaway ironing board or whatever that you'd like to tell me about, it will be mighty appreciated.  And thank you in advance...

In the meantime, I've been checking out some sewing rooms online.  Here's one, from At Home Sewing.  Very cute but she has some technical skills I'm lacking (like making that drawer for thread by cutting acrylic--huh?) and a much bigger room--about 60% bigger!  But I do like using a drafting-board type desk for the machine. And those drawers have spindles tall enough for a spool of thread & the matching bobbin!  Great idea.

And I found someone who has our kitchen table, she's going to turn it into a sewing table (which is what I was thinking, too)!  Here's a very small area, lots of cool ikea organization.  And another.  And this page has tons of ideas.

Now that I've looked thru some pages, I have another thought--anything you've done that did NOT work?  I'd like to learn from others' mistakes!  And if you have floor plans, I love those.  I'm sort of addicted to them and will spend hours looking at them in the paper if there's an ad, even if it's for someplace I'd never be interested in otherwise.

I've also discovered Koala sewing furniture.  If you own something from this line, let me know what you think...

I'm very looking forward to your comments.

MMJ - West African print jacket - worn last day of June!

Yep, my favorite jacket!  The problem with all these photos is that I can no longer live under the illusion that my hair always looks great.  This photo could win me an award for very doofy bangs!  Anyway, I love the jacket & it's over a dress from Coldwater Creek.  I also wear it a lot with a brown skirt (w/ or w/out a sleeveless top).

My roommate and I had dinner in NW DC, then hung out at Politics & Prose a bit, before we walked over to hear Hundred Acre Wood at the free Fort Reno concert (every Mon & Thurs at 7:15 between now & the 2nd week of August--but not Monday 7/4!).  Low humidity, cooled off a bit, plenty of bug repellant, good music, handsome roommate--a great evening, all in all.