Infinite Curtains

By far the best part of the new apartment is having a guest/sewing room. The old place was very small so I sewed at the kitchen table, ate at the coffee table, and lived with a mess. I'm especially stoked about how the curtains turned out (marathoned 6 sets in a weekend), but I won't talk about the bedroom curtains, which had a 2in difference b/w the left and right side. (Oops.)

Technique: I marked each curtain where it hit the floor, then added 1 1/2in to give a 3/4in seam (turned twice). Then I cut, pinned, and pressed the seam before sewing.

Lessons: Pro tip from my mom: use a longer running stitch when sewing with thicker fabrics to avoid puckering.

Ikea sells blackout curtains, which you can easily hang behind cute patterned curtains (hooks included).

If you're going for floor-length curtains, aim to have the bottom to be within 1/2in of the floor to avoid a weird cropped look. (Remember that bedroom curtain?)

What I'd do differently: Don't measure a curtain on the bed instead of a firm surface. Ugh. My mom—her wisdom is infinite—suggested reattaching the cut edge and making a box pleat to tidy it up so I'll give that a shot.

Worn This Way Hat

In June I joined a new team at work. July brought moving to a new apartment and adopting Gnocchi, a small brown entropy generator / cuddle sausage. While these were all awesome changes, their arrival in parallel was challenging and I dropped crafting over the summer. I started out with something simple (crochet) to get back in the groove, which was a very solid choice.

Pattern: Worn This Way hat by Wool and the Gang; knit in black Ra Ra Raffia. I made a small mod where I converted the eyelet rows into solid crochet.

Lessons: My attitude toward swatching is something like Gollum: "We should really make a swatch... BUT WE HATES SWATCHING." It would have been helpful for this pattern. Hats are chronically too small for my monster noggin, so I did an extra round of increases. But with my loose-ish tension the hat was working up too large so I had to frog back to the increases.

Crunching the raffia up made it more pliable and nicer to crochet with.

What I'd do differently: If I work with this fiber again (or really any unusual fiber) I'll grudgingly do a test swatch.

Try experimenting with wet blocking and stiffening spray to get the brim less wavy.