I made this

I may not be able to write lately, but I’m totally kicking crafting’s ass. I made a dress:

the top of the dress I made

I didn’t use a pattern for this one; instead I measured and copied one of my favorite dresses. Here’s the bottom of the dress:

the bottom of the dress I made

And then I knitted my first sweater:

my first sweater, worn with my umpteenth dress

I couldn’t have made the sweater without the help of my friend Kristin, who showed me how to do all the new techniques I didn’t understand. I had planned to make longer sleeves, but my knitting skills aren’t really there yet, so I left them short:

this is how long the sweater is

The thing I think about while doing all this crafting is that if western civilization collapses and we run out of clothes to wear (which will never happen; there are so damn many clothes), I will be able to clothe myself almost entirely. Now I just need to learn to cobble.

11 thoughts on “I made this

  1. You should try gardening, too. You can grow tomatoes in a medium-size pot on a balcony, and eating something you grew yourself from seed is very satisfying. Plus, treadling your post-collapse sewing machine is going to work up an appetite.

  2. wow! you didn’t just kick its ass, you demolished craft.
    also, your hair is cute!

  3. Love the dress and the sweater! Did you use a pattern for the sweater? It’s cute. I’ve been crafting instead of writing lately too, and learning how to spin yarn on a spinning wheel. That really puts me in touch with all those women who ran households without electricity and clothed their families from the sheep and flax in the fields. It’s time consuming, yes, but satisfying in a way that buying a polyester sweater off the rack just isn’t.

  4. Dear Alison,

    I was wondering if maybe you could knit me a tiny version of yourself which I could then place on the dashboard of my 2000 Fjord Focus? Its been too long since I’ve seen ya. Hope you are well.

    Ira

    PS: I just emailed you about something – check it, yo!

  5. Wow Aligirl!
    I am super impressed! Do you want to craft a whole new wrdrobe for me? By the way,”hi”.

  6. Dammit, Shaun, the treadling factor had never occurred to me. When the apocalypse comes, you’ll have to remind me of these things by sending me memos via the pony express!

  7. Awesome! Well done! I love to knit too, although I’m not at the sweater stage yet. Nor do I know how to sew, but I want to learn! But I do garden, and the reader who said eating your own produce is satisfying, is right.

    I also think about the collapse of Western civilization, and am therefore proud to know how to knit and do sustaining things.

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