Squeezleknits Knits...and other crafty stuff

2012 = the year of the stripe

2012-01-28T19:43:00.000-08:00

2012 is looking like it's starting out as the year of the stripe for me! Not that that's a bad thing - I love stripes. First, I've been working on my striped Noro scarf and making some real progress - mostly because I can't wait to see what colors come next! I may have cast on a few more stitches than I really needed to - I just picked up a 12" circ and cast on until I could work in the round - turned out to be 99 stitches (I finally counted a round!) It's pretty big, but that's cool. I love the way it's coming out. I just grabbed 2 balls of kureyon sock that looked like pretty different colors, but I've been amazed at how many times I've hit patches of green and purple at the same darn time in both skeins! they're still slightly different enough that they show up as stripes.

Then Billy asked if I could make a striped scarf for him like the Robitussin orangatan. I imagine I can. I actually found some blog posts from people who claim to have made some of the sample scarves - apparently it's a 1x1 rib, which sounds like it's a good plan, whether it's right or not. I think this looks like lime green and dark green - but he says it's black and green, and again, whether it's right or wrong, it's what he wants. I imagine it'll also need to be about a mile long ("now that you've taught me how to wrap a scarf" he says!"

Then today I decided to buy myself a Kieran Foley pattern because I've been wowed by his stuff for years. There are some free Knitty patterns, but I've really been wanting to do Merlin. So that's what I got. It's stripey! I ripped out my Citron this morning because I really love the yarn, but just wasn't crazy about the half circle shape of citron. I also have a skein of laceweight cashmere in pale blue and I'm thinking it might be a cool color combination. Some people on Ravelry have done some really subtly colored stripes - almost to the point you can't see them, but I want some nice defined stripes! go big or go home. i've never used that line before.

Finish up Friday

2012-01-21T12:44:00.000-08:00

I started the weekend by leaving work early on Friday because i was feeling like poo, but had some errands I needed to run - i just wanted to get it done and be home to relax and not move anymore. I stopped at Joann's to get another skein of yarn to finish my Vera - i think the fact that I wasn't feeling well kept me from shopping and getting more than that, so I suppose it worked in my favor, in a way.

This morning, still feeling like poo, I slept way in - like until 10:30! I assumed my body needed it, but it hasn't made me feel much better. Even so, I decided to hang out in my sewing room (which is also ridiculous because it's the coldest room in the house - but i just layered on a sweatshirt over my cardigan!) I added borders to my embroidered pieces that I did last weekend - they're going to be a set of pot holders! I love 'em. This was another bunch of embroidery designs that I bought from Urban Threads!

Then I also did another dishtowel for the kitchen - peanut butter and jelly love! so cute! i forgot to use silver thread instead of white, like I did on the french toast, and now the little speech bubbles don't show up very well. shoot.

Here's my finish up Friday project though - my Vera hooded scarf! I really love this thing. I used to hate the idea of hooded scarves, but I'm a convert. The way the hood is formed on this one is very cool - sort of like the heel on a sock, and it really cups my head. It sort or reminds me of an old timey swim cap, but warm!

Jeeves loves Alice

2012-01-07T19:03:00.000-08:00

I bought some machine embroidery patterns from Urban Threads, which is an amazing source for really fantastic patterns at amazing prices. I looked at iBroidrery, which is Brother's pattern site, and the designs were just not cool, and also more expensive. nuts to that.

This old sewing machine schematic sort of design seemed perfect for a dust cover for Alice, my old machine. I just let Jeeves stitch the design then I pieced the rest around it. i think it's sweet that Jeeves helped make something for her. I was going to sew the sides to make it more of a slipcover, but that black and white fabric is some vintage stuff I found and it's much drapey-er than quilting cotton, so it seemed to work nicely to just lay it over the machine. and easier. and lazier.

I picked up some inexpensive dish towels at Target last time I was there, because I wanted to make some custom kitchen towels with food designs. I ran to JoAnn's today and spent a stupid amount of money on thread (it wasn't on sale and I forgot my only coupon (which would have only saved me $5)) because I just had to make a towel NOW! So I did this guy - he's french toast! you can obviously tell he's french because of the beret and the fact that he's saying "allo"

newer ain't necessarily better

2012-01-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

For Christmas, my uncle gave me a plastic bag of some old sewing stuff - a few spools of thread, a half used pack of machine needles, and a box with a bunch of Greist sewing machine attachments. Whenever I see those old attachments for machines, i think to myself "like hell I'm going to make a button hole with that contraption - my new machine will do it with one push of a button". I read the little booklet that came with it though - because I get a huge kick out of vintage manuals (and cookbooks, which seem to have the same breezy style of writing.) They aren't technical manuals - they explain it as if they're talking to you, and contain lines like "of course you'll take care of your attachments by keeping them clean and oiled" then they have a little picture of a girl with a giant oil can oiling the spots they've pointed out in the picture. Frankly, there were some amazing attachments there - two hemmers (very narrow and 1/4") with this unbelievable metal snail shell coil that just wraps the fabric around into a tiny perfect hem. I think there are about 10 different pieces there - and amazingly all the pieces are still in the box.

This attachment though, was clearly the queen of the collection. The Ruffler. I don't even think you can get the full impact from these pictures of just how amazingly complex it is. This is one side - the clear knob there is how you adjust how much fabric you want put into each ruffle or tuck - there's a gauge on the other side with marks from 1 to 8 and you slide it to adjust. The manual talked though each part and what it did. unbelievable.

On this side you can see that little gauge. On the top of the gauge, there's a bit where you decide how often you want the gather to happen - every stitch, every 6 stitches, or every 12. there are two little rows of teeth that the fabric feeds though on the bottom, then as you're stitching there's a toothy bar that come out every 1,6, or 12 stitches and tucks in the correct amount of fabric. I can't explain how cool this is. Let me just say I nearly started crying.

This is an example of gathering every stitch, with a fairly large amount of fabric in each tuck.

Then this is a pleat every 6 stitches. See how tight that is? it comes out almost like it's been pressed - it was the same way with the narrow hem. Perfect.

This is a smaller pleat every 12 stitches.

Obviously the look can be changed dramatically with your stitch length and the combination of tuck frequency and tuck amount. I think what amazed me the most was that it was just so mechanical and precise and you could see exactly what it was doing. it's so different from the electronics that we're used to now - you don't really know how things are working because you can't see the things that are happening - it's on a nano scale. This isn't. I LOVE my new machine for everything it does, but nothing compares to this.

One of my favorite shows on TV (and I'll admit this sounds stupid and nerdy) is How It's Made - it's Canadian and they show how, well, various things are made. My least favorite segments are about big things like RVs and hockey sticks (they do a lot of hockey related segments, as you might imagine). The ones I like most are factories that make things like erasers and chains links - small things with complex equipment that they slow down to show the precise action. It amazes me that the equipment to make that thing was designed to do just that motion perfectly. That's how I feel about this ruffler attachment.

I promise i'll shut up about this soon

2011-12-16T18:43:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to show this adorable little kitty that I just did on the new machine. I just wanted to try something and it was one of the preloaded patterns. Maybe i'll make a dress for one of the dolls out of this piece.

It's not easy to see that there are 4 colors in the design (light's pretty crappy at 9:30pm) - the background is all filled in with white, that's not just the fabric, then there's beige, grey and black. It worked like a real charm! I've already emailed a picture to my mom! (even though she won't see it till she gets to work on Monday!)

Apparently the Amazon warehouse is like a mile from my house

2011-12-16T16:23:00.000-08:00

I don't know how else my sewing machine was able to get to my house this afternoon! What? I'm not complaining, mind you.

She's amazing! First I just sat down with the big honkin' manual, then i wound a bobbin and threaded the machine and did a little test sewing. Love. it. ok, for those of you with electronic machines, i'm sure all of this is like "duh Chris, that's what sewing machines do" but i've been using a Kenmore machine that I bought back in high school or college - it's been so long i don't even remember. It was fine, but this is amazing. it can be programmed to automatically back stitch at the beginning and ends of seams. It will cut the thread for you. whaaaa? yep, it pulls both threads to the back of the work and then neatly cuts them before you even touch the piece to take it away from the needle (which will automatically stop in an up or down position - which ever you like.) All these years I've been using little scissors like an idiot. and then doing that thing where you pull the bottom thread to get a little loop of the top thread on the back side, then pulling it through with the tip of a pin, and if I feel like doing what my grandma taught me, tying the two threads together. unbelievable. It all seems so inefficient now. I haven't done any embroidery yet - i had to leave it to make dinner and do a little holiday candy making, but I'm making a quilted pillow for my mom this weekend so it'll be getting some use in terms of sewing. the preprogrammed embroidery patterns are pretty gawd awful - i might put a scrolly "C" on a cardigan or something though! The pair of parrots, and cross stitched boy with wheelbarrow that come programmed on the machine... those will never be used. seriously? I did find this site though with all kinds of cool machine embroidery patterns for download, so I see some cutie apron pockets or kitchen towels in my future!

My parents rock!

2011-12-14T17:42:00.000-08:00

I'm getting something for my birthday that i'm wildly excited about even though i've never really wanted it before: This Brother sewing machine with embroidery capability!!

I'm pretty sure I've consciously thought that I didn't want an embroidery machine because all I could picture was middle aged women with embroidered Disney character sweatshirts, and whatnot. However, I was talking to my mom about the western shirt I made for Billy and I'm not even sure who brought up the embroidery machines, but I told her there was no way because they were thousands of dollars. As we talked I googled "embroidery machine" and saw one for just over $300 so I thought maybe they'd come down a lot in price since I'd last looked. The more we talked, the cooler it sounded, and she told me I should look into it and that they could get it for me for my birthday! This was pretty shocking - the last I remember, my birthday price range was about $50. I did some research that night and found out that this Brother SE400, combination computerized sewing machine/embroidery machine was the only one on the market in the $350 price range and I read a bunch of reviews from owners who said it was a good beginner embroidery machine (only a 4x4 size capability) and intermediate sewing machine. For the price, it seems like a cool way to see if I have fun with the embroidery, and also get a snazzy new machine with bells and whistles that I haven't had since that unfortunate event with the electronic Singer I ended up sending back. Since then I've fallen really hard for my old 1930's Singer (whom I call Alice) which is pretty much the opposite of everything I'm saying about this new machine. However, the idea of a new machine is really floating my boat right now - probably because it's being offered as a gift! So anyway, I got back with my mom the next day and told her about this machine and where I could get it, etc. and she said "ok. we can definitely get you that for your birthday! go ahead and order it!" I'm kind of flabbergasted! I even asked to make sure she wasn't delirious from her recent cold! My parents have always been very frugal and don't wildly throw around gifts, and maybe $350 doesn't sound like much, but for a birthday gift it's definitely outside the realm of what I'm used to! My mom is just SO supportive with any crafty thing I do, which I just love her for. I ordered it today - it ought to be here before Christmas even!! Whee!! i'll keep you updated!

Progress!

2011-12-10T17:19:00.001-08:00

I took a vacation day on Friday so that I'd have a three day weekend to get some work done on Christmas projects. Because everyone on my team at work has to travel for the holidays, I knew I'd be stuck working right up to Christmas so I decided I needed a couple 3 day weekends to get on track. I sewed up a storm on Friday and today and I made some great progress! I made this denim western shirt for Billy and I'm pretty damn proud of it, if I do say so myself! It's much more involved than the usual instant-gratification projects that I tend to make for myself. However, it was pretty straight forward when I sat down to put it together. I think, sort of like with knitting, the hard part is getting enough experience so that the terms and jargon are familiar - after that it's just doing what the instructions say to do. I did a bunch of measuring against his existing shirts and I think this should fit well (fingers crossed) - just hope he likes it!

Because the denim is dark, its hard to see the details, like the yoke and the pearlized snaps - but you can see them a little in this shot. I think it's pretty snazzy!

Then, for my niece, who's big into Japanese stuff, I made this kimono-ish robe. I figure she can wear it as an actual robe, or as dress up. That tie around the neck is just the belt. It's got a few imperfections because slippery fabric is harder to work with, and because I just didn't feel like doing a bunch of ripping and resewing for something that might get worn during water balloon fights or trampoline-ing. I think she'll still like it!

Cyber Monday got me

2011-12-03T15:15:00.001-08:00

It's this time of year when I start not wanting to go to any stores for anything - like sometimes I wonder if I should just get a box of dried milk and hunker down so I don't even have to venture to the grocery store. It's all the crazy Christmas shoppers. Other times though, it's kind of exciting to be in the hubbub. Right after Thanksgiving though I was not thinking it'd be exciting and when I realized I didn't have enough interfacing to make the shirt that I was working on, and JoAnn's was offering free shipping for $35 orders, I just ordered it online, which seems pretty silly considering how close the JoAnn's stores are, but still... Interfacing, of course, doesn't cost $35 so I bulked up my order with a bunch of paint for Billy's stocking and for some reason I got this sparkly yarn because sparkles just seem appropriate for this time of year and I was envisioning a sparkly woven scarf.

Then, on Cyber Monday, I broke my yarn diet because Knitpicks was having a sale and I noticed so many colors of Telemark listed as "last chance" that I started fearing they were going to discontinue the line. I have no idea if that's true, but I bought up 2 skeins each of a bunch of colors and then also got some Merino Style and 3 skeins of Chromoa because I pictured that too as a woven scarf (I love to weave self striping yarn because it makes a cool plaid and I thought the slow color changes would look super cool! do i need another plaid scarf? that's beside the point.) When I took these two big bags out of the box, i was like "whoa!" It was a bit more than I expected. Jeepers.

Brace yourself for the cute

2011-11-19T17:03:00.001-08:00

Even though my mom suggested that both of my youngest nieces might like monkey pillows, I went ahead and made this bug as #3 and I think he may be the cutest of them all!

I already bought the fleece and i kind of wanted to use the stripey stuff. I must have been thinking of some different color combination when I bought the stuff though because I had quite a bit of orange and I remember trying to add up yardage at the cutting table because something else was allocated part of this orange (i don't know what though!) and I think I originally envisioned orange and blue for this guy, but whatever - it all worked out and there's no harm in some leftover fleece!

So Isabelle will get the monkey, Genevive will get the lamb (thanks Emily and Catherine for clearing up that mystery - I totally agree now that you said it!), and Jude will get the bug.

and then there was a monkey

2011-11-13T07:58:00.000-08:00

Each weekend the menagerie of pillows grows - this monkey is for Isabelle.

Let the Christmas makin' begin!

2011-11-06T06:24:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to avoid planning knitted Christmas gifts this year because I'm anticipating my mom's ponchette taking a lot of time (although I'm ahead of where I thought I'd be on it by now!) Instead I'm thinking of things I can sew - it's just quicker. For my 3 youngest nieces and nephews, I'm making these funny fleece pillows:

This pattern caught my eye because one of the designs is a monkey and my niece Isabelle is big into monkeys. I'm not sure what this one is supposed to be (other than just cute!)

Yeah - a fridge!

2011-10-28T13:47:00.000-07:00

I've only been talking about wanting a new refrigerator for like a year now. This will sound hard to believe, but I really think my main hangup was the fear of irritating the delivery guys. I want them to take my kitchen fridge to the basement, and take away the fridge that's in the basement now. I know that's their job, but it just felt like a lot to ask.

Anyway, I took a couple vacation days to make a 4 day weekend and I decided that I just might get crazy and go look at refrigerators today. I did - and I bought one! whee! Apparently I'm hopelessly out of it though because I really want a refrigerator without all that water/ice jazz in the door (i feel like I sound just like my mom now!) but you can't get them that way anymore. Also, I wasn't super keen on the bottom freezer because it reminded me of having to dig down to the bottom of my chest freezer and that's not fun. I realize it's much better designed than that, but they only kinda sorta started to grow on my after 3 stores. i also wasn't really into the idea of paying $1600 for a fridge.

I ended up going with an old school top freezer, but it's a stainless steel one which I didn't even consider because they're always more expensive and I was just aiming for a shiny black or something - this one was stainless and cost less at HHgregg than the same size, same brand, but different model white one at Lowe's that I also liked. Plus the folks at HHgregg were really nice and helpful. Yipee - it's being delivered tomorrow! so now i just have to do all the annoying cleaning out of 2 fridges! (and doing stupid things like taking the stack of books off the dining room table so the delivery guys don't see it! i have no idea why, at my age, i worry so much about not making delivery guys think ill of my housekeeping skills!)

Anyway, now my obsession lies with this stove that I saw there while I was waiting for the guys to figure out some kind of computer codes:

(it looks cooler in real life - it's stainless and the gas burner covers look cool - but the kicker is that griddle piece over the 5th burner in the middle - how cool is that?)

how many gingham buttons is too many gingham buttons?

2011-09-19T16:28:00.000-07:00

It's a question that cannot be answered by me. Apparently my gauge of the number of buttons one person should own is somewhat skewed.

For some reason I decided to look at an etsy shop -Buttons and Such - that I'd gotten a bunch of adorable trims and buttons from about a year ago. I knew it'd be a problem. Once I saw the gingham buttons, things went a little nutty. There were so many colors! and they were so inexpensive! Can you see the gold threads in the brown and red ones on the right? (i feel the need to point out differences to justify the number of buttons there!)

Additionally, I got this super cute Japanese tape measure trim!

Unfortunately there's a message on her Etsy shop page that she's closing in a month (I have no idea when that was posted, so it could have been three weeks ago - you better get shoppin'!)

Paul why won't you come in?

2011-09-05T11:11:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went out to get the paper off the porch and this guy was there.

And he was all like "hello! I love you!" I went in and told Billy that there was a boy version of Margo on the porch so he went out and met him - we call him Paul. He's got to be someone's pet because he's super friendly and not at all skittish and he'll just let you pet him for as long as you want. We gave him some food and he wolfed it down. Every time we went out, he was there and we just fell in love with him. I sent an email to our neighborhood group to see if anyone recognized him. This morning I went out to see him and he wasn't there, but then a few minutes later my neighbor came over with Paul in his arms, thinking maybe he was ours - he'd been hanging out on their porch. After a little bit of a discussion, where neither one of us really said it was a good idea to take in another cat, we sort of decided maybe one more wouldn't hurt - because he's so friendly. I went to the store and bought a flea comb and also a flea collar, just in case. He didn't mind being brushed at all - even though he now smells like oil of olay dish soap! Then I brought him in. He was super curious, and not terribly crazy about the other cats - not that I thought he'd immediately get along with everyone. Then he kept going to the door and climbing up to look out the window to the porch. we knew that we couldn't force him to stay if he didn't want to, but I don't know how to tell ol' Paul that it'll just take some time to feel comfortable. I opened the door and he went right out, but stayed on the porch and meowed as I closed the door - but when I opened it again, he wouldn't come in. I stayed inside for 30 minutes or so, and went back out - he was sitting on the porch bench, as usual. I tried bringing him in again and carried him around to show him the place. Then when i put him down he went back to the door again and went right out as soon as I opened it. Then just turned around and looked at me like "ok, come out here!"

Oh Paul - this is all exhausting me! You're sweet as the day is long (he'll lick your lips and tuck his head into the crook of your arm to fall asleep) but you don't want to come in and live with me! why?

nekid

2011-09-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

I hate to laugh, but this is a pretty silly look for poor ol' Stella! However, she had knots and wasn't very keen on letting me cut them out so I decided to take her to the pros.

nothing can be easy with her!

2011-08-26T12:15:00.001-07:00

My mom is the best knitting recipient because she always loves what I make her. I'm pretty sure I've said that before. This year I decided that I'd ask her if she had any request for Christmas - usually I just make what I want to make for her, and I think she's only asked for something specific once. I started wondering if maybe she was thinking "I'd sure like a green cardigan with 3/4 sleeves, but she just keeps making me mittens!" So I asked - and also sent along some pictures of sweaters and other things I'd seen and thought would look good on her because I figured it might be hard to just come up with something out of the blue like that. I'd seen this pattern for Cobble a couple weeks ago and I really liked the fact that it was a non-lace shawl - and it looked like something my mom would like. Turns out I was right.

However, in a fashion typical for my mother, it'd be great as long as it was something different. It's similar to how she can't buy anything off the rack without saying "this would be great but it needs different buttons" or "i wish they didn't put this stupid tag thing here on the sleeve" and worse, when she thought that the dining room chairs would be better with oak seats instead of the upholstered ones they came with. some things are easy to change, like buttons, and some things, like carved oak seats, are not so much, but she kind of acts like they're all the same! So she told me that she loves the stitch pattern and the weight and length of this shawl, but would like it better as a short poncho. So i said "for you, I'll find a way to do it!" I bought the pattern and my plan is to just use the main stitch pattern to make two rectangles and connect them - that's the way I made her last poncho (the one thing she requested!) then I'll pick up stitches all around the edge and do some math to figure out what needs to be fudged so that it works out. I'll knit the edging from the top of the chart down and I'll use the corner/peak part of the edging in two places - on each point of the poncho. God willing it'll all work! Ooh - and the other cool thing is that I sent her a bunch of pictures of MadelineTosh yarn (Tosh Merino Light) for her to pick from (because the way she dyes will be fantastic on this, I think) and she chose Ginger. So at least I get to knit with lovely yarn. I bought 3 skeins because I just don't know what this is going to take and I don't want to run out - so maybe I'll have some left over and I can eek out a little beret or something for me!

all's well that ends well!

2011-08-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all the solutions to my unfortunate mitten situation, i pulled it together finally and everything turned out great! I found a Raveler who still had a skein of each color left over from her Christmas stocking kit and was willing to send them to me. She asked if I had any dark colored sock yarn to trade because she's working on a mitered square blanket! i had some in my stash that i didn't feel very likely to use, so I mailed it off to her - you were right Emily, it was only like $1.30 so it was a great deal! perfect! it came on Friday though - and thankfully I had taken a vacation day so i was at home as soon as the mail came. The birthday dinner was on Saturday so I knit until my finger had a divot in it, but I finished just before 1am. I tossed it in some water to soak then blocked it - of course stranded mitten take forever and a day to dry, so they were still wet in the morning (despite the power of the ShamWow!) and I had to stick the blow dryer in the open end and stand there for 30 minutes - even that didn't do it! my mom love them (but my niece said "why are they wet?") and i guess that's what matters! now i just have to get myself to do mitten #4 so we can have our mother daughter mitten set!

oh geez!

2011-08-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

I made a hell of a mistake on my mother's birthday mittens and now I'm in a whole new pickle.

I don't know if I haven't had enough coffee today, or what, but I'm just not able to make a decision on what to do! Ok, here are the finished mittens:

I love them! But here's the problem:

Yep. Two right mittens. yes, I'm serious. I can't believe I did that. what a numbskull. So I decided last nigh, when I realized what I'd done, that I'd just knit two left gloves and then I'd have a pair too. I made these out of Knitpicks Telemark and they're always fast with shipping, soI figured I'd just get another ball of each color and all would be well. Unfortunately, I find out this morning, Knitpicks doesn't sell that shade of blue anymore. There are two people on Ravelry with the shade in their "for sale/trade" stashes, so I could try to buy one off of them but for some reason it seems like a lot of work for a $2 ball of yarn (it retails for $1.99) - I feel like I should buy something else from their stash to make the shipping worth it. Ugh - I don't know why, but it's just more than I can make a decision on this morning! I'm pretty confident that I have enough yarn to make a 3rd mitten, which I just need to start doing now I suppose. but I've got the Knitpicks website up and I just don't know whether I should put in an order with an extra ball of white (and enough other stuff to get to $50, because I always do spend extra money unnecessarily to avoid shipping, as silly as it is) or not. wait - I'm going to see if that person with the blue on Ravelry also has the white - hers came from their stocking kit, just like mine did, so chances are good! whew - maybe that's the solution! Bah - please, someone just tell me what to do!

Seattle!

2011-07-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

I had a meeting in Seattle last week and I just got home last night. For being work-related travel, I actually had a ton of fun! It was just a smallgroup of us, and thankfully, they're all work hard-play hard kind of people so we buckled down, but ended at a reasonable time and went out to some cool restaurants afterwards and whatnot. I intentionally took an early flight in so i'd have time to explore before work started on Tuesday though. I walked down to Pike Market and saw the fish being thrown - I decided that satisfied the tourist-y requirement when in Seattle! I also ate some Beecher's cheese, which is made right there on site (you can watch them making it while you eat in the little cafe that's attached by a giant window!)

On Thursday night I met up with Hannah (iknityouknot on Ravelry) who lives in Seattle!! I've been Ravelry friends with her for years and test knit for her, so it just seemed right to actually meet her while I was in the city where she lived. She was super nice and we had a great time! Because I was terrified of driving in the city (it was CRAZY - i got a rental car and made it to the hotel, but refused to remove it from the parking garage the whole time I was there!) she took the bus down to where I was staying and we met at Top Pot Donuts (delicious! and the barista had a neat old-timey waxed mustach) then we rode the bus together back up north a bit to the Fiber Gallery where she works. The problem was that I was stressed out about driving to the Fiber Gallery (which was my original plan) and I also did not know how to take a bus (yeah, I'm aware that sounds ridiculous, but I've just never done it!) so her offer to come to me, then take the bus WITH me was perfect! she also dealt very well with the fact that I was kind of acting like a 7-year old on the bus because it was so novel and fun for me. First we stood and held onto those loops that hang from the ceiling, which I thought was very cool and big city-like, but then we got a seat, and then I noticed that we were on one of those long buses that bends in the middle and there were seats right on that bendy part that rotated all around when the bus turned so I was like "oooh - that's the seat to be on!!" and she was quite good natured about moving again. She's a nanny so I'm sure she's used to dealing with childish whims which worked out well for me and my first bus ride! So anyway, I shopped while she worked and came away with some spurge-y yarns, including some Hazel Knits which is dyed in Seattle (so i had to get that!)

I also got some Road to China, because I've read about it, but never seen it in person. It's super soft (merino, cashmere, camel, and silk) and this picture totally doesn't do the color variation justice.

I got a skein of Madeline Tosh light because I've always wanted some, but have never been able see the colors in person. This is a little earthy for my usual tastes, but I picked it up so many times, I decided that something in me was saying I needed to have it!

I also got a couple skeins of Rowan Purelife Renew (which I must have deleted the picture of?) They had a sample knit of Cyclamen - a short sweater that I fell in love with until I realized that it called for 11 balls of the stuff. I wouldn't expect to get a Rowan sweater for less than $100, so I don't know what I was thinking, but i just wasn't up for that kind of splurge. A pair of Rowan mittens or a hat is more my speed, so I got 2 skeins. Fiber Gallery was a really nice shop and they had tons of great stuff - I shopped for almost 2 hours and definitely felt like I could have looked longer! I highly recommend it if you're ever in Seattle. After that we went to a cool bar down the street called Oliver's Twist, with Erin, who also works at the shop, and knit and drank and ate amazing tomato soup and cheese sandwiches and talked about horror movies, zombies, and how men are just universally goofballs! it was a great way to end my trip!

Liberty scarf achieved!

2011-07-03T17:14:00.000-07:00

I decided that I was NOT going to let my Liberty fabric sit around, like I do with much of the other fabric (and yarn) I get! It's sometimes more fun (or easier?) to dream about what you'll make, than buckling down and doing it. But, I did buckle down to make the scarf and I'm glad I did! it can be worn several ways:

Whee! I love it! I don't feel like any of the pictures really show the fabric well though. bah, me and my photographic skills.

the long awaited big splurge

2011-07-02T10:17:00.000-07:00

I'll blame Purl Soho and their blog Purl Bee for my longtime lust for Liberty of London fabrics. I mean it's really Liberty of London's fault for making such awesome prints, but Purl's to blame for showing them to me. Purl could seriously sell piles of poop, I'm sure, because they'd all be laid out on sheets of amazingly colored hand dyed linen or something - really, check out their website and you'll understand! they understand marketing, that's for sure! So anyway, I've never gotten any Liberty fabric because it's $35 /yard. gaa! But then I decided to splurge with my big $40 check that I got for my jury duty stint - I rationalized it by saying that it's like they're giving it to me for free! On their blog they had a project that called for a half yard of two different Liberty tana lawn fabrics - that's a thinner and somewhat shinier version of their quilting weight cotton, and it has a nice drape, but it's still crisp. I made a version with some stash polka dotted fabric I already had (although it's not as long, because liberty fabrics are 54" wide instead of a normal 45") and liked it. So that's what I'm going to make with these two fabrics! I haven't decided what color of Kona cotton to use for the edging - I want something that really pops and contrasts - maybe a yellow or citron or red-orange, because i'm really liking red-orange with greens lately.)

Then I also decided to get some Anna Maria Horner voile yardage because it was on sale, and I've always loved this print.

I got a yard of each and I'm going to see if I can get a sleeveless top out of one - not sure what I'll do with the other! I hate to say it, but this stuff is usually something like $15/yard and I got it for around $9, and I kind of like the feel of it just as much as the tana lawn! It really is amazing how nice high end fabric feels compared to the lower priced stuff you can get at JoAnn's - I mean there's a place for everything and I'm not poo-pooing JoAnn's fabric - I still shop there all the time!! but a little splurge is nice now and then.

surprise in Indiana

2011-06-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a week in Indiana for work. On the way home I stopped at Unwind Yarn Shop in Richmond, which a friend of mine told me about - it was pretty much right on the way home, and it's only about 25 minutes from where she lives so it's her LYS even though it's pretty far away for me normally. It was a really cute shop with lots of yarn brands that I typically don't see at my LYS's. Then, in an even bigger surprise, here comes Helen - the friend who told me about the shop!! I hadn't seen her in months because we used to work together until she retired a little while back. I can't believe we were there at the same time! it was so nice to see her! I splurged a bit:

But I've been soooo good lately about buying yarn, the I let myself do it - plus they were things I haven't seen in person. For example, I've been wanting some of the Misti Alpaca handpaint sock yarn since I saw a pair of socks on flickr made from them - and it was there! I also couldn't leave without some Berroco so I got two skeins of Vintage. Then I saw some Cascade Eco in one of my favorite cascade colorways - lake chelan, and decided that i would be good for a cozy winter cardigan. I also picked up some square needles - she had a pair there that you could knit a few rows with, so I got to try them first. I also found, in the clearance closet(!), a Berroco booklet that I'd been wanting to get but felt guilty buying it essentially for one pattern (it's the scarf on the front that I love!) - since it was on clearance, I grabbed it! i also had to get Norah Gaughn vol 7. Yeah!! After that, I said "I have to get out of here!!!" and gave Helen one more hug!

I'm a modern Miss Marple!

2011-06-13T17:23:00.000-07:00

It seems like everyone around me is always getting called for jury duty and moaning about it. My response is always "why don't they call MEEEE???!!!" because I'd die to have jury duty! I don't know why, I just find it all terribly exciting. Well, I finally got the call, and went today - and guess what? i'm ON the jury!!! i couldn't believe it! of course, i can't talk about it because that'd be a breach of my civic duty, but let me tell you some of the awesome things so far:

1. I don't' have to be there until 8:30! i'm used to getting to work at 7:00 and not usually walking out until 5:00 or 5:30 lately. Today they let us out at 4:00 - whaaat? that's amazing!

2. The courthouse is super close to my house.

3. Hour long lunch break! another thing i never have the luxury of at work - i normally nuke whatever I brought and sit at my desk working while i eat.

4. I get to knit during the day! during breaks, lunch, and whenever we get sent to sit in our jury "holding tank". I've been a little disappointed that none of my fellow jurors have mentioned that I'm like a modern day Miss Marple as I'm knitting and untangling this mystery of a case, but I'm probably expecting too much.

5. I get to wear cute clothes for 3 days!! no hard hats and jeans! today i wore my new red wedges and a pair of vintage rhinestone earrings that I recently picked up - sweet!

6. Work has sucked real bad lately - just super busy, so it was nice to just assign everything to other people and walk away from it!

Aside from all that, it really interesting to see how the court proceedings work and I've learned a ton today already! They explain so much about how you need to come to your conclusions and what to consider and not consider when making decisions. I love it!! i came home today and announced that I'd like to become a professional juror! i imagine earning $20/day wouldn't work out for long though!

In other exciting news, my prickly pear cactus is blooming for the first time! I think this is the 3rd summer I've had it - a coworker brought me a piece of his, and it's been doing well, but he always shows me pictures of his blooming and I just sigh and tell him that mine isn't flowering at all. But this year it is!!! there are probably like 8 buds there now.

Here's a closeup because it's so beautiful!!

And, some evidence that i finally killed my nemesis, the honeysuckle vine (which I suspect is coming through the fence from my neighbor's yard - which might just be karma for MY weeds that are spreading into my other neighbor's yard!) Anyway, I found some spray that's designed just for tough vines like these, and it worked!! there are a few other things there that I didn't quite spray enough, so i'll shoot 'em again, but the honeysuckle is d-e-a-d!! yippee!

And my hollyhocks are blooming - they're pale yellow, but the sun was so bright it's hard to tell in this picture! I love them even though my neighbor calls them "alley weeds". She's got a very neat and orderly kind of gardening style, while mine is much more of a semi overgrown (and weedy) cottage garden style - and unfortunately our yards are divided by a chain link fence! So I'm sure she gets irritates when my stuff creeps into her meticulously mulched side! oh well.

flower pot success

2011-06-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

The flower pots on my porch sometimes just don't work out - it's not their fault - it's because they have to count on me to water them. I start out with enthusiasm but then it gets tough to think about it when I get home from work and already feel spent. However, this year they're looking great, so I figured I'd better document it! I got all of the plants in the upper pots from The Metroparks Mayfair sale - tall white marigolds in the back, then some shorter yellow flowers (I forget what they are - maybe a single marigold, or something?), some dahlias, and some purple sweet potato vines - and a couple coleus that I grew from seed. The lower pots are filled with zinnias that I started from see too. pretty pretty!

Naming achieved!

2011-05-27T17:29:00.000-07:00

We decided upon Boris Blackwell for the new fella! we took a trip to the vet today to get him checked and poked and prodded. He hated nearly every minute of it - but all the folks there fawned over him, so he had to like that a little! plus he got a clean bill of health (ugh, but a big bill at the desk! sheesh!) so all it well. he's downstairs napping on his daddy's shoulder right now!

The new squirt

2011-05-26T17:14:00.001-07:00

Isn't he just the cutest? We're killing ourselves trying to think of the perfect name! He hasn't even been with us for 24 hours, so I guess we just need time to get his personality.

Now I know for sure

2011-05-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

For some reason I always wondered if my dad really wore the socks I knit for him - I thought maybe he was just being nice and saying he liked them. I'd even ask my mom who will always give me an honest answer and she swore that he really did, but for some reason I still had this doubt in the back of my mind and feared that I'd find a drawer full of unworn socks in their bedroom 30 years from now after he died! BUT - when i was visiting for mother's day he showed me proof - a pair of socks that he blew the heels out of! Yeah! that means he really did wear them. So I'm making him a replacement pair for Father's Day. I'm using the same pattern, Manly Socks, with a slipped stitch rib pattern that I really like the first time I did it. Last time I used some Rowan wool that claimed to be fingering weight, but seemed a little heavier to me. This time I'm using Knitpicks stroll in a heathered green, because I had it and it seemed like a manly color! I'm also doing a longer ribbed cuff than I did last time because I realized that my favorite pair of socks has a long cuff - not just an inch and a half or something like what most patterns call for, but more like 2.5 inches, I'd say.

Soho thrifty

2011-05-09T16:59:00.000-07:00

Do you ever look at the Purl Bee blog? it's the blog for the Purl Soho shop - aka, the place I could totally drop a grand in like 30 minutes. Someday i WILL go there. It's amazing. Anyway, they always have projects on the blog that I drool over - lots of them involving Liberty of London fabrics. that's some pretty fab stuff. and expensive - like $30/yard. There was a project recently for a scarf with a torn Kona cotton edge and two different Liberty of London prints - it's one of those projects where I think "oooh, you only need two 1/2 yard pieces - that's not much!" and I suppose it isn't relative to, say, a dress, but it's still $30 worth of fabric. I decidedto make one with stuff I already had and see how I liked it. I like it!

I didn't use two different fabrics. duh. I actually forgot that part of the project until I just typed it above, but I do love these polka dots and the red with the turquois Kona is fab!

I'm still not sure I can justify $3o for Liberty of London fabrics to make another, but I'll probably make another out of something!

I made this runner/wall hanging for my mom for Mother's day. I took a bunch of pictures before wrapping it, but didn't realize how crappy and blurry the vast majority of them were! This one is the best, but it still doesn't show much of the stitching or beading or trims or neato textury fabrics. and the flash blew the color all weird. Oh well. She loved it!

makin' stuff

2011-03-26T07:13:00.001-07:00

Sheesh, it's been a long time since I've done a blog post! I really have been making stuff, I guess I just haven't been making time for blogging!

I finally finished my citron. I used Divine Lace, which is pretty fantastic stuff! The citron however, I don't find quite as fantastic. I find the half circle shape harder to wear than a triangular shawl. I don't like how it won't really scrunch up around my neck. It feels fantastic on, but I'm actually thinking of frogging it and using the yarn for something I like better. It seems silly since I spent weeks knitting it, but it seems even sillier to not wear the thing I made with yarn that I love and frankly was kind of a splurge.

My friend Catherine sent me a link for a purse pattern online and we both thought it'd be a great little spring bag. Last weekend I had 4 days off and I decided to make one! I used some fabric that I picked up at an antique mall (it's not antique fabric, just "vintage"). Because it's drapery weight, I thought it'd be perfect. The only problem is that it's pretty small compared to my Namaste bag that I've been carrying, so its sort of a big leap for me. However, I think it'll be perfect for trips to antique malls or flea markets or places like that where I'm walking for hours and a big bag starts feeling like a sack of potatoes on my shoulder after a while. And it's super cute - I love it!

Over my 4 day weekend, I also warped up my loom and made this rug for the bathroom! I'm not finished with it - I'm going to bind the short edges this weekend. I bought a bunch of cones of bulky weight cotton when the Peaches and Cream place was advertising that they're going out of business. I warped with worsted weight cotton then held three strands of different shades of blues together for the weft. It's still not as thick as I thought it'd be, but I think it'll be ok. I know this picture just makes it look like a placemat, but it's about 24" wide and 36" or so long.

Then a couple weekends back, after seeing this post on tall grass prairie studio, I decided to try my hand at recreating the chevron she did. Because I'm just kind of starting the piecing thing, sometimes I see what people have made and I have to stare at it and figure out how they did it. Then I have to try. I decided to just turn this into a hot pad so it's usable and not sitting alone in my sewing room! it's not exactly like hers, but I think I get the idea and it was a pretty fun way to use scraps!

Huge sale this weekend at JoAnn's!! I'll be heading over soon! I'm going to get some DK weight yarn to make this baby for my niece, and I'd like to recover the benches in my sewing room with some nifty vinyl since Stella, my cat who won't stop peeing on stuff, is living there full time now (and she doesn't pee on anything in there!) Having to take the lint brush to my bench everytime I want to sit down is kind of a drag, so a change needs to be made!

I love parcels!

2011-03-05T08:31:00.000-08:00

I don't just love parcels because cool things come in them, it's the box itself that makes me happy - and this one was the best EVER! why? because it had a string tied around it!! It really takes so little to make me happy, but seriously, who does that anymore? I couldn't stop myself from sounding like an idiot in the post office when she brought it out and I said "ooh! it has a string on it! isn't that just how packages ought to be?"

And as per usual for me lately, this box is from Thailand - because I can't stop ordering those little knock off Blythe dolls! This one is blond -although it's nearly apricot in a way. I like it and I'm going to see if I can't do some trimming and washing to make it nicer.

She's a Blybe, but has a CCE style body, which is thinner than any of my others and doesn't turn at the waist. Her hip joints are a little loose and there are some stains on her body, which aren't very noticeable and pretty much what I'd expect for $23!

Oh, other oddities that seem par for the course with these knock off is that sometimes the eyes are a little whacky! for example - the side glancing eyes above are very downward, but the ones below, aren't - I just consider that some extra personality! Again, I didn't pay $150 for a real Blythe, so you take what you get!

Oh, also, you can't tell it from these pictures but her eyelids are blue - not just painted blue, but blue plastic - I can see that her whole eyesocket mech is made of blue plastic. So when I redo her face I'll either work with the blue or paint over it maybe!

And I couldn't resist buying this little outfit for her! I usually make my own clothes, but it was so cute! Ok, next time you see her she'll be all new and beautiful after her mods!

My new old addition

2011-02-27T17:18:00.000-08:00

I can't turn down a sewing machine. My favorite uncle told me that he had an old singer in a neat 30's or 40's cabinet that belonged to my grandma and he wondered if I wanted it. I kinda don't have the space, but I know that he needs the space that it was taking up in his house even more, so I said ok and cleared out a spot in my sewing room. Isn't it beautiful?

so simple, so heavy duty - just forward and backward and I think there's a stitch length adjustment. plus, there were neat things in all the drawers

(see how cool and curved the drawers are?) like a button box and a couple incredibly complicated button hole attachments. Unfortunately, it probably hasn't been used in 20 years or more and it needs some tuning up. It was going real slow at first and we oiled up all the spots that looked like oil ports (it actually has spots with little felt wicks where it'll hold oil and dispense it as needed!) and my uncle is super good at working on stuff like that so he knew some stuff to look at and as a result, I now know what a worm gear does! For a while it was working pretty well, but then it started going downhilll again. I think I'm going to take it to someone because I'm betting that all the oil that was there is pretty gunked up after 20 years of sitting idle and our addition of new oil may not be enough to get it going. Fortunately the motor itself works great (we disengaged the clutch and let it run full out - so it's obviously just the moving gears that are bogging it down.) And there are no belts or electronics, of course, so it's just mechanical parts that need to be cleaned up. the cord could also use to be rewired, which I'm sure I could do, but because that's not the only thing involved, I think I'll have to find a hospital for her! I did a search online and found a few around here and some up in Columbus - anybody around here have a recommendation? I'm kind of afraid I won't be able to find someone who knows how to work on these things - just folks who are used to changing out motherboards and electronic cards on new machines!

someday my spring will come

2011-02-16T15:47:00.000-08:00

Ok, it has to be like 60 degrees out there today! and I'm not stupid - it's ohio and it will, without a doubt, get super cold again before spring is really here - it's only February after all, but I love it when it gets like this! It's the first taste of spring and it always makes me all excited!

today, before it got too dark, I went out with a shovel and started chopping up this big pile of yard scraps that I've been throwing in the back corner of my yard. I tell myself that they'll "mulch right down" over the winter, but I know I'm lying to myself and that it's just my excuse to be lazy and pile the crap there because I don't feel like dealing with it! Then in the spring and summer, big scary spiders start living the the pile so I can't do what really needs to be done which is hack it all up into smaller bits with a shovel - because obviously the spiders will bite and kill me. So this year, I went out early - while it was still too cold for spiders, and guess what!? it really did compost a bit - it's sort of black and nice! Well, the parts that aren't twigs and dried plants which I was too lazy to do anything with. So I chopped some of them up and spread it around as much as I could - and broke a sweat doing yard work, in February no less! I didn't take a picture because it's just a big wet pile of dirt and yard waste. and speaking of dirt that isn't fit to photograph yet, I started some tomatoes, peppers and flowers in my basement! my gardening co-workers all say "it's too early! it's too early!" but they can suck it because I NEED to do this now. besides, there's no doubt that I'll put them outside too early too - because they'll be big before it's really safe to plant them outside and I'll lie to myself again about the chance of frost probably being past...it's just what I do!

finally big enough!

2011-02-07T14:56:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me that I still wanted to add a solid border to my quilt top so I checked the size by flopping it over the bed again and decided that it really was finished!! I added a 6" solid red border to it and now it's slightly wider than the quilt I have on the bed now. I got a very promising lead on someone who'll quilt it for a fantastic price and I'm pretty much thinking that's the way to go. I was sort of dreading trying to do the quilting on a full sized quilt myself. Smaller ones, like baby size, haven't been too bad, but it seems like a real battle to wrestle something this big. One of these days I'll try it, but I think this one might just get sent away!

Process

2011-01-23T12:15:00.000-08:00

I feel like I rarely post about knitting anymore and I think it's because when I post projects on Ravelry, most of the people who read this blog, probably already saw it there. A bunch of quilting bloggers started this "process pledge" where they're trying to post more about projects as they're going - not just finished stuff with a blurb about it. I think that's a good one for knitting too - and it's the stuff that I tend to not post on my Ravelry projects page, even though I should. Oh, I'm also going to try to get better about linking blog posts to my projects because I always forget to do that!

So my first process-ish post is about a pair of mittens that I started.

They're the Anatolian mittens from Folk Mittens - which is a great book! I never really realized how many patterns in that book I want to make until I pulled it out recently! I could totally fulfill my 11 in 2011 goal with just that book! I love these mittens because they're colorwork with worsted weight wool - i just think that makes for such a warm mitten! I finished mitten #1 and encountered a problem though - it has a peasant thumb, which means you put in waste yarn then pick them up for the thumb later - really simple, but the problem is that the hand of my mitten just goes on forever - it's probably about 1.5 inches too low on my hand. like the thumb would be at my wrist if I put my fingers to the end of the glove. (can you see the little line of pink waste yarn? not really, huh?)

I think what I'm going to do is kitchner up the opening, matching the pattern as best I can,

then steeking for a thumb hole. i think i'll be able to get the mitten under my sewing maching - that's my plan anyway! i'm wimping out and starting the second mitten before I do that though! I'll keep you posted - and I'll be sure to take one of those horrifying "scissors on knit" pictures that always make me flinch!

I also finished my kaffe fassett sock yarn scarf! yippee! I love it! I used my nifty little fringe winder to do the fringe on the ends,

which I think looks better than wool getting all stuck on itself and not laying nicely!

oh kaffe, what can't you do?

2011-01-15T18:29:00.000-08:00

That Kaffe Fassett has color and knows how to use it! Little Knits had some of his sock yarn on sale (that Regia Landscape line that's self striping which I've bee coveting) for 1.99 so I couldn't pass it up and knew that I wanted to weave it! I love weaving self striping stuff where you use it as the warp and weft because it sort of makes a plaid on it's own and makes just plain old weaving, which is all I know how to do, and all I care to do, look really great with no effort at all. The box came today and I warped my loom right away. At first I thought the color repeats were going to be too short for them to do what I wanted, but man was I wrong. I'm loving this!

I got two different colorways and I'm definitely going to have 2 cool new scarves! I also splurged on this little (well, not really little - there's tons of yardage here) skein of silk and cashmere hand dyed laceweight.

It's fantastic and so saturated it's nearly impossible to photograph. The colorway is called plum jelly.

Evie

2011-01-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

Remember that little girl I got for Christmas? Well, she's got a whole new look and I think she's adorable with a capital "A"!

Mods:

face sand matted

eyechips replaced with Coolcat foils

new eyelashes

lips and philtrum carved

makeup reapplied (chalk pastels)

freckles added

2nd hair cut

hair styled (who knew you could use a curling iron on plastic hair??!!)

A new start

2011-01-02T10:21:00.000-08:00

It seems kind of silly that we pick Jan 1 as some kind of fresh start for our lives and make resolutions, but I guess it's better than never picking a day to make goals! (and I realize that every year I comment on how goofy resolutions are, but I always make them anyway because I really do like it - probably because it's a form of list making!) I looked back at my resolutions for last year and I guess I got a score of about 50% - not great, but better than 0% and honestly nothing is too earth shattering if I don't make my goal! So here's my list for this year:

-Make a pair of Julia Mueller gloves (I've been wanting to do this forever, and I know it's not much of a resolution, but maybe I'll do it if I say it out loud!)

-I think I'll do the 11 in 2011 glove/mitten challenge. I have a ton of them in my queue. I think I'm going to add something to it and say that at least 5 pairs will be for a charity because that's another thing I keep saying I'll do, but don't.

-This spring and summer I'm going to spend more time on the yard. I really let it go to hell last year because I was kind of lazy and whiny. It was hot. I got sick of mosquito bites. it got out of hand and then I was overwhelmed. There were things I'd rather be doing inside like sewing and knitting. sheesh. This year my mantra is going to be "you will not die if you aren't making a quilt or sweater in July!" I need to learn to not get so obsessed with one thing - it's ok to have different things to do in different seasons. If I'm honest with myself I think part of it is also that knitting and sewing are way less physically demanding than working in the yard, so if I stick to this resolution maybe my gut AND my flower beds will thank me!

-Better photography in my blog. I don't know if I just don't really take enough time to get decent pictures, or if I kinda suck and don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to see what happens if I focus a little more on the things I know work for better pictures - good lighting, better focus, etc. I got one of those bendy camera tripods for Christmas so I'm hoping that'll help me get fewer pictures that are shaky! we'll see!

-save $5k this year. I moved some money around on my direct deposits and if I can keep my mitts off my savings account, it'll work! again, we'll see!

zig zag

2010-12-20T16:22:00.000-08:00

There's not much I like more, when it comes to patterns, than a zig zag!

I started randomly working on this with no end in mind - kind of like that last thing, which has turned into a quilt top (and still isn't finished - needs to be a little bigger and I'm envisioning a chevron row or two in its future!) It could totally be a baby blanket, but I'm not sure I can give it away! I was also thinking of a quilt top with maybe a border between two lengthwise halves which could be coordinating colors, but totally different patterns! who knows - right now I'm just having fun making it! every chance I get, I add another row. Who knows where it'll end. If I actually used my dining room table, I'd call it a table runner, but who am I kidding? I probably shouldn't admit that out loud.

big catch

2010-12-11T17:17:00.000-08:00

The pillows that I just finished for my oldest nephew (he's 9) are cracking me up!

I happened to find this panel with the remnants at the fabric store - one of those things that are printed and you cut them out and make stuffed animals of them. I'd never looked at them before because it kind of seemed like a cop out, but these are really cool! He's big into fishing, so I liked the fact that they're realistic fish and not cartoon-y. Plus, it did take more than just cutting out two halves, sewing them together and stuffing them - the pectoral fins are separate from the rest of the body, and each of the fins are lined with batting then quilted before the rest of the body is stuffed. I think he's going to love them - aside from the fact that they're fish, they're also BIG and when you're 9 years old you judge gifts based on their volume!

More gifts, in the bag!

2010-12-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

I think I'm doing as well this year as I did last year on making stuff for all of my family! whee! I just finished this little aviator hat for my youngest nephew, Jude.

I hope it fits him - for some reason it doesn't seem deep enough (long enough? I'm not sure how to describe that dimension of a hat - you know what I mean, right?) so I'll just keep my finger crossed.

I also finished up my parent's stockings by lining them, which was super easy and I think it really makes them nice. Plus, stuff you put inside won't get all hung up on the floats.

Then last night I made this bag for my oldest niece.

She loves pink and is also into asian stuff (well she says she's into Japanese stuff, but she really doesn't know the difference!) so I had a fat quarter bundle that I picked up at JoAnn's a while ago and it was all asian type prints which was perfect. The solid pink was from a skirt that I got at a thrift store and wore a couple times before deciding I was too into it and subsequently de-zippered and de-lined it and put it on the fabric shelf - that may be my best recycling ever! Oh, and I used a heavy pink fabric to line it - stuff I bought year ago, of course, which I think gives it some strength, since the outside is basically just cotton quilting weight stuff.

I think it came out great! I'm not finished yet, but I'm totally ahead of schedule!!

squee!

2010-11-29T15:38:00.000-08:00

Guess who's engaged!! ME!!

ornament swap - ready!

2010-11-27T17:43:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across this ornament swap and thought it sounded mighty fun. I just finished my ornaments for my swap group - there are 10 of us in this group, so I had to make 9 and if all goes well, I'll get 9 handmade ornaments back! wheee! After several different ideas and kind of wonky prototypes, I decided upon these little birds and I love them!

I suppose I should have made 10 so that I'd have one to keep, but I didn't (and even though I could obviously make another, I honestly probably won't. who am I kidding?)

I still have to put a loop on them for hanging, but I have until Tuesday, which isn't the deadline, but it's the day that I have it scheduled for myself. Around this time of the year I make a schedule for myself because otherwise i just get all panicky and keep making list after list after list because I think it'll help but it's really just taking time and not getting anything accomplished. So this morning I just wrote out each day until Christmas with 2 lines for each date then gathered up all those little scraps of paper with my goofball lists and plugged each thing into a slot. It's comforting. And I feel like I can see that I can get it all done before Christmas and have some slots for the stuff that I've undoubtedly forgotten (like cookie baking! duh!) but I can also work ahead (like the ornament pictures and blogging were scheduled for tomorrow!) and that's cool too. I realize this sounds really stupid for non-list making people. Ugh, it also kind of makes me sound anal and a little obsessed with organization and order - which under any other circumstance is totally the opposite of me. oh well, I do what i gotta do!

righty lefty

2010-10-31T09:04:00.001-07:00

I'm making colorwork Christmas stockings for my parents this year and you'd think that I'd have done enough colorwork to know better than to do what I did. This is what happens when you hold the color you'd like to pop out more in your non dominant hand:

It was fine for the top part where the name is in blue on a white background, but then for the snowflake on a blue background I really should have switched hands but I didn't and I just felt like the details on the snowflake really got lost. So I ripped back 38 rows and started over. Much better!

and the pod is open!

2010-10-25T15:00:00.001-07:00

the very next day the carrion flower was totally open! it's at a very odd angle, so this is kind of an up-shot:

almost there!

2010-10-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

It's not quite big enough, but it's getting there!

the strangest flower

2010-10-23T16:59:00.000-07:00

It's happening again.

See that gigantic bud hanging below the shelf? Yeah, that's a bud for the most amazing and gruesome flower ever. I realized that this this is on a quite regular blooming cycle when I looked up the blog post from the last time it happened - it is just days off from being exactly 2 years ago. And I remember last year a bud formed too, but for some reason never opened. If you remember, I did a little research the last time the flower formed and found out that this particular cactus is from Africa and that its blooms are meant to look like dead rotting animals, and that they also have a stench so that it'll attract flies which pollinate it. I'm over the initial shock of that (some things should just remain un-Googled!) and I'm just looking forward to the flower, which if you didn't know any of the details about it, is really really amazing looking - even when you do know the details it's gorgeous, but you're like "yeah, I can see how those little red lines are supposed to look like veins, and the hairs are supposed to look like, well, hairs." This is just about the best thing you could hope for in October right before Halloween! You may not be able to tell from the picture, but the bud is like a nearly translucent pod that looks so alien you expect to see something alive in there if the light passes through! I love this thing!

A weird request

2010-10-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

A few months ago my 10 year old niece called me at home and asked if I could make her a Carmelite outfit. At time I didn't know what a Carmelite was and she tried to explain it to me and ended up with an exasperated "aunt Chris, can you just look it up online?" It cracked me up! I got the idea that it was a nun outfit, except brown instead of black. And yes, I looked it up online like she told me to. I don't know how many other 10 year old want nun outfits, but that sounds about right for my niece. I told her I'd make it for her birthday because she's one of 5 kids and I know well enough that you can't give just one kid something and not the rest - her birthday is this weekend, so I finally finished it up.

I used a halloween costume pattern and then kind of winged it for the wimple part. I guess it really should be like a hood, but I just took a rectangle of fabric and pleated it and then sewed it to one side of the veil hat bit and pinned the other side.

It'll either be ok, or it'll look like a white beard. Who knows!? I'm going to take a little sewing kit in case I need to make changes and I might be cool and sew some velcro to the side instead of making someone have to try to not stab her head with a safety pin every time she puts it on! She wanted a cape too, but that might have to come for Christmas! Oh yeah, the veil is being modeled by a big jar of cat food - it was kind of all I had that was remotely head shaped!

a little plastic surgery

2010-10-05T19:25:00.001-07:00

not for me - for my little plastic one! I've been customizing my little girl over the past couple weeks and I finally got her all back together. I tried to take a bunch of progress shots, so if you're all "ugh, she's taking about that doll again" you might want to just tap out now! :)

Here's her "before" shot

Then I opened up her head. The first of several kind of horrifying steps. I mean how often have you used the phrase "then I opened up her head"? There just aren't a lot of situations where that's an appropriate thing to say!

Weird look into a head!

Gaa! then unscrewed the whole shebang!

Unscrewed and took apart many small things which I smartly put into a little box so as to not lose them! look at me, thinkin' ahead! These pictures also helped me quite a bit when I had to reassemble and I was like "uuuh, there how did this thing go again?"

Then I sanded her face so she'd be matte instead of shiny - that right there made a world of difference to her look! I had to go to a woodworking shop to get the kind of sand sponges I needed and there i bought this overpriced set of files which I used to carve her mouth - sound scarier than it ended up being!

Took her eye mechanism out which required some tools and serious manhandling. I assured her that this hurt me more than it hurt her, because it really did! there are a surprising number of pointy surfaces there!

The hardest damn part was yanking out these damn eye chips which are apparently attached with the will of the devil, or something similarly powerful! this is a gluestick stuck to the eyechip and yes, it's the most recommended method. I couldn't make that up! you ought to see pictures where folks do this without taking the head apart - just picture a doll with two glue sticks jutting out of its eyes! none of this is pretty (until the very end!) I replaced her eyechips with amazingly lifelike Ana Karina chips (she's on Etsy) - I just did 2 sets because they're pricey! I left her original pink and pale blue chips but pulled the green and blue ones. Unfortunately the chips didn't entirely come out - bits chipped off and stayed in the little recessed ledge where the new chip would sit down in. there was a lot of cussing, chipping, prying and filing done and I still didn't get the stuff all the way out. Consequently, the new chips don't quite sit flush which causes her eye mech to not roll as freely as it should. that's a bit frustrating.

Ok, at this point I kind of got lax on my picture taking! I replaced her eyelashes, painted on new lips with a wider shape and used high gloss finish over them, then redid her eye makeup and blush with chalk pastels, painted on freckles, and miraculously got the whole works back together. I'm so much more in love with her now - I didn't even think that was possible!

It's Woolgathering Weekend!

2010-09-18T13:41:00.001-07:00

Today was the annual Woolgathering fiber festival in Yellow springs and I went with Catherine and Rita. As usual, it was tons of fun and also exhausting - I'm not sure why it wears me out. Maybe something about walking for 3.5 hours and being in hot tents! Speaking of tents, this year there were 3 instead of 2! well, actually more like 2.5, but still - more vendors! I didn't go with any notes or plans this year - usually I have a bunch of potential projects written down with necessary yardage for each one. I decided to just keep my eyes open for local stuff, hand spun, hand dyed - that kind of thing! I didn't need more yarn, but the woolgathering isn't the time for that kind of thinking - It's once a year and I let myself splurge because I won't be able to get the majority of it any other time. I think I did pretty well with my plan to get get commercial stuff - in fact, I feel like there was less commercial stuff being sold this year!

I bought some cashmere! I'm going to make my mother a triangular shawl for Christmas. She, of all the people I knit for, deserves cashmere!

Then I got this alpaca handspun yarn from Alpaca Meadows - I don't think the colors really show in the picture well - it's fantastic! only 66 yards though - I'm thinking I can eek out a hat if I use relatively big needles (it's pretty thick and thin stuff) and maybe do the ribbing in a solid yarn. I think it'd be a great semi slouchy beret!

Then, from one of my favorite sellers - Amazing Grace farms - I got this handspun hand dyed wool. It's actually yarn from Hilltop Heritage Farms, but the woman at Amazing Grace was selling it for her. I believe she sold the babydoll sheep to the Hilltop Heritage folks who recently move in just a few miles from her! She's a great lady and she obviously loves what she does! oh, I also got some soap from her.

Additionally, I got some big alpaca socks from Stewart Heritage Farm, in Xenia, for my uncle. They have the socks made for them, but the wool is from their own alpacas, which is very cool! The husband was really selling those socks - he was just standing by the basket talking about how much he loved them - and my favorite line was "I've never been a guy to get all that excited about socks!"

While we're talking yarn, I've got a quandary involving some on the needles. I've been working on these Alpaca Sox legwarmers (which in my case are not made of alpaca sox yarn) and i've realized that they're just way too big - and when i look at other people's projects on Ravelry, I've seen it's a common problem. why didn't i look at that sooner? i want them to be very legging like - like a sock that comes over the knee, but doesn't have a foot! these are slouchy. I decided to just do the top ribbing now and see if I can wear them pulled up over my knee so that the bottom hits me about mid calf - sort of like knee warmers! the bottom won't show anyway because I'll wear them with boots. If they're still slouchy being pulled up like that, they're going to have to be ripped!

goodbye legwarmers?

Guess who arrived?

2010-09-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

After a long plane trip from Hong Kong, Miss Pinky finally arrived today in Dayton! She says hello!

Even though she's a knock-off Blythe, I adore her! I'm also aware that Miss Pinky is a terrible name for her, but it's all I've got for now. I kind of wanted to see her in person before I gave her a name! So there are certainly some differences I can see right off the bat between this doll and a real Blythe: 1) her joints are much looser - her waist, arms, legs, and head swivel like a Blythe, but much easier - in fact, if you have her standing with her weighty head a little too far off center, she'll bend right over backwards! Also, her arms are on ball sockets so they can go outspread, not just up and down - I think that's different (?) 2) her eye movement is odd! You pull the string and her eyes close. And they stay closed. you manually flip her eyelids open and her eyes have changed but there's just no opening mechanism!
She has pink eyes (it might just be me, but these seem a little off center!)

Blue (which has a little glue residue on it, but that can be cleaned.

I didn't take a picture of the others, but she also has bright green and a very clear pale blue - I love those!)

Even though she was super tired after her pan-Asian flight, she agreed to try on some new outfits, like these jeans and a sweater (which is totally going to be a cardigan after I get some buttons! however, right now it's on backwards as a pullover.)

She'll be a little jet lagged still tomorrow, but she's totally up for meeting everyone at knit night!

{just for the record, I'm very aware that a grown woman with a doll is somewhat goofball, but I'm ok with that. Making tiny clothes is great fun!}

Victory at the Fairgrounds!

2010-09-03T13:40:00.001-07:00

This morning my friend Catherine and I went to the Montgomery county fair (and to the Butter Cafe for breakfast!) I suppose a fair in the morning isn't as action packed as a fair in the evening, but I still expected a little more of something - it was fun, but there just wasn't as much to see as I thought there'd be. I've never been to the Montgomery county fair, and I suppose I'm maybe comparing it to the Ohio state fair that I went to as a kid (which is probably not a very accurate memory - kids tend to remember things much bigger than they really were!) Regardless, we didn't have to fight any crowds, which was nice, and we got to see a bunch of animals, which i LOVE!!

These little pigs were only a week old! I put my hand through the cage and go to pet them as they ran past - they were sooo soft and their little snouts felt like rubber (as did their teeth - which was good since they were chewing on my fingers!)

We also saw a bunch of sheep, goats and cows, but I did't take any pictures of those, for some reason - I was probably too buy petting stuff! These chickens weren't really up for being touched, but doesn't this one make you want to? it looked like fur.

The bunnies were, of course, adorable! There were a couple angoras there too!

Then there's other stuff you see at the fair - like prize winning bales of hay, plates of field corn, apparently really perfect onions (i dunno), and odd stuff like elaborate displays involving bushel basket and what Catherine decided was a petrified baby (it was one of those freakishly lifelike dolls that do look kind of like a drugged child sitting there!) and stuff like these decorated vegetables with googly eyes:

Then of course, the important stuff - MY STUFF! I won ribbons for 6 of the 7 things I entered!! I got a couple spoiler reports from people who went before we did, so I knew about it and was pretty excited. However, when we got there and I saw the competition, I realized that I wasn't beating out much in most of the categories! oh well. it's still exciting. The one odd thing (to me, anyway) was that my Wollmeise Ishbel didn't win anything! and it was somehow put by the sign for stuff made by people 65 and older! nice.

Catherine and I felt that their display skills were a little lacking - for example - why lay a lace shawl out all folded up? Catherine took it upon herself to rearrange some of the ribbons that they put across the items so that you couldn't even see the stuff!

My mom's cabled sweater got a blue ribbon! oddly, there were no other adult sweaters there at all! what?
My apron won a blue ribbon! the apron next to it was its only competion

My bird in hand mittens won a blue ribbon! this was the category with the most other items in it, but honestly it was kind of mostly stuff like odd hats and fun fur scarves.

My little amigurumi lamb won 3rd place in the crochet animal category, but strangely I did not see what won second place. This big thing next to him won 1st place. hmm. I guess he's impressively loopy.

My little turtle came in 2nd in the sewn animal category - a batik elephant won, and he was pretty cool. Bender got 1st place in the knitted character category! oh yeah, no other competitors there either. However, the rules DO say that if there's no competition the judges will only award a ribbon if they feel it's warranted. I'm still baffled by the Ishbel situation. It's just a county fair, I suppose it's not worth getting so miffed about!

So that's how I ran the row at the county fair! (don't worry - I won't let it change me!)

old school

2010-08-22T09:31:00.001-07:00

I think it was a combination of those snappy Kindle commercials and the BF saying "do you think you'd like a Kindle for Christmas?" that made me start wanting one sometime last year - before that I didn't even think twice about it. But then I was obsessed with trying to justify the price and thinking about when it'd be convenient and all that. Yesterday, however, we went to Xenia to check out an antique shop and also stop at a used book store that we saw last time we were there, and I might have lost my obsession. I'd just finished a book so I was in the market for another and I hate to pay retail for fiction which I really don't ever read more than once. I ended up with a huge stack of books for next to nothing and had such a great time.

I picked up this hardback from the '50s (Anatomy of a Murder) and I flipped it open then closed it - "kwop!" - oh that sound! I reminded me of why books are so great! sure, you have to go somewhere to get them, and find a way to balance them when you're reading in bed, then deal with stuffed bookshelves - all stuff that the Kindle would eliminate, but there's just something about books and bookstores and interesting bookstore owners and cats that live at bookstores and sleep in boxes on the counter (of course this bookstore in Xenia had a sweet black cat!) that you just can't get with an e-reader. I don't think I want to lose that! Oh, the fabric under those books is a vintage tablecloth that I picked up for $6! I'll totally cut it up and frame those green roses in some kind of patchworky project!

prize fighting turtle?

2010-08-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

This year I'm all about winning fame and glory at the Montgomery County fair. I missed last year's entry deadline by days and this year I'm on it! I mailed in my form today and entered in 7 categories! Just think - I could win as much as $28!! haha! I entered in the following categories: adult sweater (unfortunately, the sweater I'd most like to enter - the honeycomb cardigan, can't go because it's a test knit that still hasn't been released - drat!), accessories (I'm going to enter my bird in hand mittens), other (my plan there is to enter my Wollmeise Ishbel - hopefully they don't say that's an accessory), crochet animal (I think I'll send my little amigurumi lamb), knitted doll - cartoon (go Bender!), and sewn animal. Hmm, that's 6. I can't remember the other category! Anyway, last night I made this guy for the sewn animal category - it's another turtle!

I sort of thought that the squirrel, like I made for Emily, may be a better prize winning contender, but it was so much more involved and I just wasn't sure I was up to it. So we'll see how this guy does. Regardless of how well he holds his own in the battle, he was fun to make!

Happy birthday, Mother!

2010-08-11T17:37:00.000-07:00

Today is my mom's birthday so I took a day off work yesterday (too much going on at work today - and what's wrong with a day early? it's her birthday eve!) and invited her up to Dayton for a birthday fun day! We took her to one of the antique malls in Springfield because she loves that kind of stuff - she's after stuff a bit different than I am, but it works out because there's such a terrific mix there. Let me tell you, she's a serious looker - like no scanning ability - she has to look at each and every thing! whew - it was a long trip through one mall! but she came out with some stuff and was delighted! I got some stuff too:

The fabric in the back is some heavy weight cotton that I've eyed a few times in the past and finally broke down and got. The yellow in the corner is a scarf - which I need like I need a hole in my head, but it's yellow and a scarf! how could I not get it? We've been looking for some glasses because we've mysteriously been losing our drinking glasses. Neither of us remember breaking any - except for our most beloved Georges Briard glasses which we've never ever been able to find again. The two glasses on the right are both Georges Briard designs too, but not the ones we've been breaking. Still cool. Frosted glasses were quite the rage back in the day. The other is one in a series of The Wonderful World of Ohio glasses - there were bunches of WWoOH things from a campaign back in the 60's!

My mom found this little refrigerator dish in a thrift store and snatched it up for me - only 99 cents!!

After the antiquing I took her to the North Dayton Garden center because she loves that place. She got a succulent that she's been wanting and I got these three little houseplants, which I repotted and put in my sewing room. One is a purple shamrock! Now the trick will be remembering to water them in there!

a baby for a baby who loves babies

2010-07-30T19:20:00.000-07:00

My niece is turning two (I think - if her parents wanted me to be able to remember all their ages, they shouldn't have had 5 kids!) and she loves baby dolls, so I made her this little stuffy.

she's got a lot of hair! I think her name is Matty.

1st mention and it's finished!

2010-07-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

Well I never even got around to posting this as a project on Ravelry before it was finished! I'm still in my tired-of-fingering-weight spell, so I cast on for this hat using the apple cider colored alpaca that was one of the colors in the 1st plaid scarf I wove. I think the set will be a gift for my mom.

In the picture above it just sort of looks like a watchcap, but it's the one that best shows the cool stitch pattern with the little bubbly things. Really it's more of a semi-slouchy thing - I modeled it here, but it's not such a great picture either because having one's hair up in pigtails sorts of wonkifies the way any hat fits. duh. Here's the Berroco picture of it - obviously they know what they're doing when it comes to photos!

In process rather than finishing news, my quilted thing is growing and I think it intends to keep growing until it becomes a quilt top! I have no objections - I'm still having a grand old time working on it!

Ok, so maybe that picture doesn't look a whole lot different than the last one you saw. This is the part that's different (a panel at both ends with a star in the middle of each):

Then, because I had so much fun with the stars (see how they're all unique and uneaven? I love that!) I made 6 more and I'll work them into panels that'll go up the long sides. That's how I just keep adding to it - sort of medallion quilt style. Whee! I wish the subtle prints showed up better, but it's either a closeup of one, or a shot of the whole stack. Trust me - they're swell! :)

stranger than drinking cow's milk

2010-07-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it feels good to cut perfectly good fabric into bits then sew those bits back into a piece of fabric. I don't know why.

This might turn into a quilt top. why knows. Here it is with too much flash. That's what happens when you decided to take a picture at 9:30pm.

details on the parcel

2010-07-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

Ok, this post is for Catherine who may be the only person not content to just hear that I got a package of cute stuff from China (care of Buttons and Such.) Or rather - she's probably the only one who gets as excited about this stuff as I do. Feel free to bail on this post now if you don't care to hear about more crap I've snatched like a magpie just because it was shiny! (oh wait, there's a bit about some lace I'm working on at the end! No, I'm not doing that just to drag you through all this!)

So this is what I got:

Ok, so leaving stuff in bags is kind of a bad way to photograph it! Here's a close up of some of the cute trims! Look at those little apples!

I also got a bag of 20 hair pins with a flat part at the top for decorating! I made myself a few flowery hair bobs so far! Because when you spend all week in a hard hat, you want to wear flowers in your hair on the weekend!

And to prove that I am still knitting, here's a shawl that I recently started! It's a free pattern from Elann.com called Moonlight Sonata - I just love the circles! It's a crappy picture because of the flash, but the non flash pictures didn't seem to show the stitch pattern as much.

when I say cute, I mean SUPER cute

2010-07-03T20:38:00.000-07:00

Oh man, I stumbled upon the best Etsy shop ever a few weeks ago - I don't even remember how. It's Buttons and Such and she's got the cutest trims and vintage buttons and whatnot - all at really great prices! and she's from China, so you get the fun of getting a parcel in the mail from China (yeah, that kind of stuff still excites me!) So I bought some stuff and it came in the mail today! I got a couple little cuts of fabric because it was just out of this world stuff, and I had to do something with this cat print right away! So I made an apron (and still used only half of it!)

Tell me that's not the cutest fabric you've ever seen!

Oh, the rick rack (which is de rigueur for all aprons, and don't let anyone tell you different!) is also from her. The ties in the back, which I didn't get a picture of - I mean seriously, how many angles do you need of an apron?- are green and white stripes.

Like I need a hole in my head

2010-07-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I have a lot of bags. Unfortunately that leads to me hopping from one to another because it just strikes my fancy, I suppose, but then I abandon the majority of stuff in that bag and just start fresh with the new one. It's great and all, but then I'm left with bags all over that are filled with that time frame's stuff - so if I'm looking for something I have to mentally figure out some time landmarks and then work backwards to the bag I might have been using then to find the stuff. I'm not so good at that, which is why stuff gets "lost" - not technically lost, just in the bottom of one bag or another. Anyway, the fact that I know this does not explain why I decided to make myself a new bag. However, I wanted to make something, had new fabric to make that something with, and thus creatively decided to make something I already had plenty of! Do I care? No! I love it!

Wow, that looks really out of focus when I compare it to the picture below. Ugh. Also, it's super difficult to take a picture of a bag on a person. I know that sounds stupid. Perhaps if I rephrased and said "picture of a bag on myself." first you have to both keep your arm from blocking too much of the bag, and also have it in a position to not accentuate arm fat (I did not succeed at that) - I just sort of ended up looking like I was doing some stupid muscle flex - ignore that - it wasn't the intent! Ok, I think the un-modeled picture below might actually show the bag better - I'm certainly less distracted when I look at it! Oh, I forgot to take a picture of the lining, but it's black and white gingham!

driven to madness

2010-06-26T16:50:00.000-07:00

This is what fabric shops do to me:

Catherine and I went to the Fabric Shack in Waynesville today - she had a plan of what she was going after, I bought with wild abandon. See evidence above. It was so much fun though!! I got 1/2 yards of most stuff, which made me feel like I was being thrifty (seriously?) but got a yard of the two flannels to make covers for the bed pillows. Oh, also the big roll of fabric was a ton of remnants that were only 2.98/yard - a couple bits were as much as a yard, but most were smaller - and I can't resist small bits! I think I better make some plans and have something cool to show for all this! In closing, I'm on a serious fabric diet now.

my lips are no longer sealed!

2010-06-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

Yeah! I've been making lots of baby gifts lately, but couldn't blog about them because then there'd be no surprise for the mamas! But now I can because they've been given - granted, most everyone who reads this has already seen the stuff, but you'll just have to sit through it again!

For Ginny, I made some felt booties. I got this pattern, which is a 1950's Simplicity reissue, and had no idea who I'd make them for, but I just had to get it! Because Ginny isn't going to find out whether she's having a girl or boy, I tried to keep them sort of gender-neutral. However, I think this pair is pretty girly! She'll have a 50/50 chance of being able to use them, I suppose!

I think these other two pairs turned out as something a girl OR boy could wear though! I made one each of the different styles. I think I could make a million of these and never stop loving them!

Oh man, why are baby things so darn fun? because they're adorable! I was looking on the Purl Bee because they always have the most fantastic baby stuff (it may just be that they have great photographers, and make stuff out of their fabrics which are to die for - and also horrendously expensive. oh if I were independently wealthy....) and found some super cute bibs - perfect! I didn't use their suggested unbleached organic handwoven and kissed by a baby lamb $50/yard terrycloth, but I did use some pretty snappy fabrics, I think! I tried to keep the color family and prints sort of similar so it really looked like it was supposed to be a set. The edges are bias tape, and the contrast fabric at the bottom is a crumb catcher (which I didn't even know bibs had!)

Then for English Emily, because she's doing a woodland theme in the little acorn's room, I made this squirrel! Stuffed stuff is just the most fun stuff to make!! I had to warn her that it's extremely non-kid friendly! I used some buttons that belonged to my grandma for the eyes - I couldn't quite remember which tin I'd fished them out of, but my mom recognized them when she saw them, so I knew it was from her mom's tin! they've got several layers, which is perfect for eyes, but they're sort of loosely connected, so they're also perfect for choking on. Then to make matters worse, I used some nylon threads for the whiskers and kept them from falling out by putting a little dab of glue on the fabric around them. certainly not going to keep them from being pulled out and eaten! Then, to top it all off, I made the tail by knitting an i-cord and slipping it over a piece of old wire I found downstairs. "sometimes the i-cord slips around and you have to tuck the wire back inside" - that's what i told Emily. seriously. i might as well have sewn little razor blades on it's paws! However, it's adorable and i think it'll be great for a room decoration - not everything has to be a crib toy!

Then, because I had so much fun making the squirrel, I kept going and made this turtle - he's a woodland friend too! Both of these patterns come from an old Lady's Home Journal book that I had to get after my friend Catherine showed me her copy - for one thing, right on the cover was a doll that my grandma made for me when I was a kid! I was totally blown away when I saw that! But on top of that were sections of jungle animals, woodland animals, cats and dogs, Alice in Wonderland characters - just tons of fantasticness!

And, of course, I had so much fun with Ginny's bibs, that I made a set for Emily too!

And finally, because I cannot stop making these fun bibs, I made a set for another couple who are having a boy soon - they're friends of billy's really, but I don't care - it's an excuse to make more bibs! and I just realized that I kind of did the bias tape wrong on these - well, I suppose I should say that I mad the trim different on these - guess it's not wrong! Again- I did the crumb catchers in fabrics that were mostly blue, so they'd look like a set! I think I might have to ask for a big box of bias tape for christmas - I'm kind of in love with it!

Whew! I'm glad all that's off my chest finally!

Best. Swap. Ever

2010-06-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

Holy cow! I just realized that I forgot to blog about what might have been my cleverest move ever!

As you know, I have a thing for casserole dishes and also a thing for Wollmeise. I also kind of have a thing for frugality. Well, I ended up with this Longaberger casserole dish because a lady at work was having a catalog party and i sort of "owed" her for making a big purchase from me during a Pampered Chef party I had. I'm not big on baskets, and while their ceramic stuff is also not stuff I'd normally buy, I settled on a casserole dish that I figured I'd at least use. and it was yellow. unfortunately not really yellow enough for my taste. I think I used it once. I thought I'd try to sell it on Ebay just to get a bit of money back out of it and free up some space (granted, that space would probably be taken up by more casserole dishes!) Then I got a notion that maybe someone would want to swap some wollmeise for a Longaberge casserole dish! I posted the picture on the ISO/Destash board on Rav and got like 5 responses! woohoo! i kind of had my pick of the litter! Most of them just said "take a look at what I have and tell me what you like!" whaaat? so I settled on this one person who had Grasshupfer, which I love love love! she said sure! then asked if there was anything else I liked in her destash - I thought she was just sort of giving me the chance to buy a couple things since she was shipping the Wollmeise. Turns out she was just offering to send me more yarn! She was fantastic and I ended up with the Wollmeise, a skein of Baruffa cashwool laceweight, and two skeins of Malabrigo silky merino! oh man, what a good day!

scarf socks and sun!

2010-06-11T16:33:00.000-07:00

My first plaid scarf inspired me to plaid it up again - this time with colors that I thought might be good for one of the men on my Christmas list - like my dad, brother, or uncle. Even though I'm not totally into brown, I kind of love it and could totally keep it for myself! The brown, and red-brown are some alpaca that I bought bags of ages ago, and the off white is some wool.

I finally finished the socks for my dad for Father's day - I think he'll love 'em! The pattern is called Decorative Rib. and I think it is.

As much as I really didn't feel like starting on another pair of boring neutral men's socks, I have a terrible time thinking of gifts for my uncle, so I bit the bullet and started these for my uncle's birthday - believe me, if I'd have had any backup plan, I wouldn't have cast on! I "dressed them up" with a little pattern in some of the leftover grey from my dad's socks. I think I'll repeat it just before the cuff. Because they're plain stockinette, at least they're going pretty fast. I'm on the leg of sock #1. I'll see him for his birthday on the last sunday of the month, so I've got plenty of time!

I think all the sun and warm weather we've been having here has totally spurred my tomatoes on! Look at those! Do you see all the green tomatoes? whee! the warm weather has also spurred on the weeds, but has had an inverse effect on my desire to pull those weeds! oh well. we broke down and finally turned on the AC for this weekend's predicted 88 and humid weather. i think we made a good show and held out long enough!

Paper!

2010-06-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

At the Upper Valley Fiber Festival a few weeks ago I won a free class with Paper Alice - a papermaking lady up in Tipp City! She was also doing a demo there at the show and I watched her make some really great paper. I'd never really thought that it was something I wanted to do because it sort of fell into that "papercrafting" category, which is synonymous with middle aged scrapbooking moms to me (nothing against any of you scrapbookers, and I can totally understand why people want to make snappy photoalbums, its just not my thing!) Anyway, her demo looked REALLY fun, and I thought, hmm, i think i could totally get into that! for cards, or gift tags, and whatnot! yes. So I planned to take a class, but her website only had classes listed though May (I'm sure she hasn't updated it yet) and I'm kind of not a class taking kind of person anyway. i mean I think it'd be fun to make paper with other people, but not really necessary for understanding how to do it. I knew if I went, I'd come home with some gear, so I looked online and ended up buying this. It's only 5.5x8.5, but that's a decent size. It came in the mail today so I made some paper! Because Blogger is being all weird with uploading pictures, I can't put captions to the pictures right now, so it's just a selection! For some, I tossed in rose petals, little white flowers from my bolted radishes, bits of Tansy, glitter - whatever I had! Everything I look at now is like something that might go into paper! what fun! I'm totally using some of this for the gift tag on my father's day socks! oh, which i'm getting close to finishing - sock #1: done, sock #2:leg, heel, gusset done, on the foot!

plaid wool scarf!

2010-05-29T07:39:00.000-07:00

A plaid wool scarf is just the thing for the weather we've been having lately - 85F and kind of sticky! But really, how many things that you make in the summer are actually for wearing in the summer - sometimes I think that's the best time for getting a jump on winter woolies. I'm not sure that's why I decided to set up my loom and make a plaid scarf, or if it just sounded like a fun thing to do - probably the latter! Now that I've made it I've decided that everyone in my family probably needs a plaid scarf for christmas this year! we'll see how that goes!

I did learn that you should not use mixed fibers for the warp (those are the bits that run lengthwise.) I used some cotton and some wool and duh, cotton doesn't stretch so the edges, where the cotton is, are tighter than the center which makes the whole scarf kind of bubbly in the middle, but when it's on it's not so noticeable. lesson learned.

Oh man, I've been making some adorable baby stuff because there seems to be babies everywhere lately (my newest nephew was just born yesterday!) but I'll just have to show them after gift giving time is over!

I heart aprons!

2010-05-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

Today I made the apron from the fabric that Catherine gave me - it was surprisingly easy and sooooo cute!

I mean when in your adult life do you get to wear so many ruffles? never. add that to the "yeah for aprons!" list. Oh, and I totally have enough left over to make matching oven mitts! would a ruffle on the edge of those be too much? oooh, maybe a little one :)

Oh - I also finished the green cotton cardigan that should have been finished long ago!

I did sewn on button bands and added just one button to the top. It's just a simple top down raglan, but I love it and I know I'll totally wear it all the time!

It occurred to me that Father's Day is around the corner, so I started some socks for my Pop.

I'm using Knit Picks Stroll Sport and I cast on 54 stitches using size 3 needles and even though I'm doing a ribbed pattern (decorative rib, to be exact!) it seems a little big. I keep horrible notes on my Ravelry projects - and by "horrible notes" I really mean "no notes" - not a cast on number or anything! so every time I make him socks it's like starting from scratch! why do I do that? I have realized that his feet aren't much bigger than my own, and I tried on the leg bit that I have finished and I think it'll be ok. could probably be a bit smaller. I supposed starting over now would make the whole process quicker, but I don't want to second guess myself (and Charlene Schurch - I mean she does know socks!) All the other sport weight sock patterns that I referenced on Rav said to cast on way more stitches, so I think I'll just carry on!

Fiber Festivals are fun!

2010-05-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

well duh, fiber festivals are fun! they're also very easy places to drop lots of money! However, I got some great deals, so what was I supposed to do? This was the annual Upper Valley Fiber Festival in Troy, which is considerably smaller than the Woolgathering, but still fun. There were quite a few local wool and alpaca farms represented, which is always the biggest reason, for me, to go to these festivals! Although when I look at my haul, I got surprisingly little local stuff.

I picked up some bamboo circulars, which were nothing special - kind of stiff cords, but they were only $1.75! My knitpicks interchangeables don't come with 16" cords so I got a few common 16" sizes.

Then I got some black (natural color) fingering weight alpaca from Mount Ampato Alpacas - I think it'll make a great shawl (everything looks like a shawl to me now!) {hmmm something happened to my picture here - sorry!} I also splurged on a couple skeins of worsted weight natural colored alpaca and tencel from Cupola Alpaca Farm, and more specifically, from their alpaca "Libby" - I love knowing the animal's name!

I know this sounds stupid, but I really envision a big Shetland Triangle that I can use as a snuggly scarf with my coat in the winter.

Now I'll get to the real steal, and the booth that nearly killed the three of us!

This couple (I don't even remember seeing the name of the folks -Emily, Kamille, did you get a business card?) had scads of wool - all dk weight - in 100 yard skeins for $1.75 and then in 3lb bags for $12! That 3 lb bag was 2700 yards!! To make matters worse (well, worse in that they were so irrestible, but better because they were so very useable) the colors in each bag went together wonderfully - I got one bag with assorted greens just because it screamed out to be a striped cardigan! or two!

Then I got another bag just because I was getting a little hazy and I needed another.

Then I got some extra skeins because, I dont' know, I was getting really hazy and

I just wanted 'em! and they were $1.75.

It's not super soft stuff, but it'll probably get better with a washing and honestly I think it'll be fantastic for colorwork because you kind of want your yarn to be sticky for that. It's going to be months and months of fun for only $35! seriously? I walked out of there with 6000+ yards of yarn, and only paid $35! Oh, we also all got some felted soap - it's handmade soap with differnt colors of fiber wrapped around it - as you use the soap the fiber felts to the outside of it and it helps to make the soap last longer. Not something I'd usually buy, but we stood there and sniffedthe soaps so long I felt like we had to buy some!

The 4-H club brought out llamas just as we were leaving so we waited around to see them. we tried to pet them too, but they weren't having it.

I wore my Ishbel and got lots of compliments, but when people asked me about it, none of them seemed to recognize either "Ishbel" or "wollmeise" - words that I think everyone knows. To me, that's like not knowing what "kitchen" and "rainbow" mean. Emily took this picture to make it look like the llama and I were hanging out! I have a stupid look on my face, but apparently that's my "I like hangin' out with llamas" face. unfortunately.

OH, I almost forgot another exciting thing - I won a door prize!! this is my second door prize from UVFF! It's a gift certificate for a free handmade paper class from Paper Alice! I watched her do a demo and I think I could really get into it! Anybody want to come with me? It's $5 off if I bring a friend (that'd make the class $20)

freshest ingredients

2010-05-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

I've always joked that it was a bad idea to join the "Destash" group on Ravelry, but I've definitely gotten some great stuff (and just for the record, I've sold some stuff I was never going to use too! My newest score is a skein of Wollmeise 80/20 twin! yippee! It was red, and on the low end of the price range for Wollmeise, so I jumped! Isn't she pretty?

And speaking of ingredients, I just got some non-knitting ingredients too! My friend Catherine got me this fabric because we share a love of aprons and she thought this looked like me, and also looked like it totally wanted to be an apron. With the green fabric for a pocket. I agree!

I have a book called The Perfect Apron and I decided I'm going to use the fabric for this one:

Oh, it'll be adorable! (are you seeing that polka dot ruffle on the edge?) And maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to eek out a matching pair of oven mitts!

Tomorrow is the Upper Valley Fiber Fest!!! squeee! My friend Emily tells me that llamas will be doing an obstacle course in the afternoon! those crazy llama - they always have a sort of arrogant air about them (i think it's the way they hold their heads back so that it looks like they're staring down their nose at you) and I think the idea of them deigning to entertain us in such an undignified fashion is unlikely. well see, I suppose!

Knitting. Yes, I still do it.

2010-05-08T19:54:00.001-07:00

"A mostly knitting blog" my ass, huh? I don't think I've blogged about knitting in forever!

Next weekend is the Upper Valley Fiber Festival!!! yippee! I would say I feel like I haven't bought any yarn in forever, except that I did just grab another skein of Wollemeise from someone who was destashing it! I couldn't help myself - I can't wait till it gets here! But seriously, I've been getting much more discriminating about the yarn I bring in - it's like it finally sunk in that I really have enough and that justifying something just because I could make a great hat or pair of mittens with is, and therefore wouldn't need a lot of it, just doesn't work on me anymore - I have lots of yarn already that will make great hats and mittens. I've fooled myself with that line one too many times! Anyway, I do plan to buy yarn at the UVFF because there are always so many local vendor and you just can't get that stuff anywhere else. I looked at my stash listing on Ravelry and did a search for "uvff" because I was trying to remember what I got last year - big surprise - I hadn't used any of it yet! I decided that I needed to feel like I'd used something before I go again and I've had my mind on both the shetland triangle and some hand dyed yellow sock yarn I got from a local vendor (Amazing Grace Farms) - perfect match! The yellow is a little semi solid which is perfect for this pattern. I'm kind of gaga over shawlettes lately. yeah, i'm aware that it's all bandwagon-y and I'm ok with that. So here's what I've got so far -

4 repeats, and I have to do 8 before the border. How do you give a percent complete number for a shawl? I mean I can hardly say I'm 50% finished just because of the number of repeats - I mean repeat 7 is way different than repeat 2 in terms of size! anyway, this is one of those patterns that you just don't ever want to end. I'm loving it. I can definitely see more of these in the future. Oh, I just finished another shawl! I started one before I left for Phoenix because I wanted something that I didn't have to think about too much - I just used a basic triangular shawl pattern then did some lattice sections whenever I felt like it. I totally ran out of yarn half way through the cast off row though! I found some other sock yarn that's close enough and I don't think anyone will know. I'm pretty much loving it. It's kind of impossible to see the great colors though with this lack-of-lighting picture

Oh, it's Rio de la Plata sock yarn, which I believe I also got some someone's destash and it's great stuff - despite the fact that it's variegated! So there! I'm knitting! (oh, there's also a green cotton cardigan that should totally be done right now, but I'm all caught up in that shetland triangle, so it isn't - I'll fill you in on that one later!)

Happy Mother's day to my mom!

2010-05-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

My mom is, hands down, my biggest fan when it comes to stuff I make - she's always encouraging (she bought me my loom) and never criticizes or nitpicks (even though I always nitpick my own stuff and can't seem to keep my mouth shut about little flaws when I give her something.) My grandma was an amazing seamstress (she made Barbie clothing with finished seams and smocking and hand sewn hems - I can barely get myself to zig zag the raw edges on the inside of a person-sized skirt!) and my mom always says "oh, you're just like your grandma!" - and my mom doesn't just say crap to make you feel good, if she says it, she means it, even though I think it's a ridiculous comparison! Even though I've never seen my mom sew without cussing and getting mad about something not working right, she taught me a lot about sewing and always let me make mistakes when I was learning - then taught me the valuable lesson of seam ripping! My grandma always wanted to do the difficult stuff when we make things together, so that I didn't screw it up, and I guess I learned something from both sides. I'm eternally grateful to my mom for everything she's ever taught me and everything she's ever done for me!

I decided to make her a set of placemats for mother's day. In my mind, a "set" meant 4, but then later I wondered what exactly she'd do with 4 placemats since the people at her table are either her and my dad, or the whole giant family! I changed my definition of "set" to 2 and it's a good thing because I just got them finished! It's also a very good thing I'm going to visit her tomorrow instead of today (initially she asked if I could come Saturday then changed her mind - whew!) I think they turned out great - even if the color scheme is totally not "me". I think she'll love them. I even made the binding myself!

I LOVE YOU MOTHER!

the names we give clothing

2010-04-17T18:36:00.000-07:00

The last week of this month I'm going to be in Arizona for work (at a resort(!) which looks awsome, but which I'm not going to ever see because we're totally booked from 7am-9:30 at night either in meetings, or "breakout sessions" or in dinner/networking (which to me is just forced mingling and after ALL day, I tend to just want a little time to myself with my knitting needles and no need to be "on", but that's the deal.)) Anyway, the point is that is says we should wear "resort casual" clothing, and gave the example of shorts and tennis shoes being fine during the day. In my mind, shorts and tennis shoes are going to be paired with some kind of golf shirt or polo shirt (those might be the same thing) and I just don't do that look. I don't own a pair of shorts. I think "resort casual" says I get to wear a summery dress with a cardigan and flats! So I'm making this dress - I'm making the one on the upper right (the black one), but with straps like the one on the bottom because I want to wear a bra.

Granted, I'll never wear it without something like a cardigan thrown over it, so whether or not my bra straps show is probably moot, but I guess it's the principle of the thing. And note the fact that it has pockets, which I LOVE! I'm making it from a fabric which apparently is nearly impossible to photograph - here's a bigger piece of it.

Anyway, it's flowy and drapy and I think i'll be just great! I found the fabric in my stash, which is also great because, like with a yarn stash, it feels great to make use of something you bought with no real plan! I'm back to my old Kenmore machine and I just have a total newfound love for it! I don't think I'll replace it for a while. Oh, and another thing that makes sewing great is this little wrist pincushion that my friend Catherine made for me.

My appologies if I've mentioned it before, but it's so darn cute and totally handy! and a handy thing , when you're sitting on the floor, arms and legs going every which way, twister-style, trying to cut out pattern pieces, is a very good thing to have!

Ooh - today I also cast off side #2 of my mom's requested ponchette!

They're blocking and hopefully I can seam it up and take it to her tomorrow, which is my brother's birthday dinner at my parent's house - so how handy would that be? I suppose I could also take my SIL the baby quilt and it could just be presents all around! I can't even remember when she's due - I'm a horrible sister in law, I guess. But this IS baby #5 and I know, I know, they're all special, but it's just much less of a production now, I suppose. Anyway, the point of all this was that I'm almost done with that darn poncho and I kind of hope my mom has some overpowering AC in her office, because otherwise a wool poncho isn't terribly useful this time of year! she did say that she wants to wear it at work when she's chilly, so I think it'll be ok!

Look who's come home!

2010-04-11T16:31:00.000-07:00

Or rather, look who taught me the value of cleaning up the stuff I have hanging in bags on the back of my dining room chair? Yeah! my Noro shawl!

I saw a bag hanging on my chair just a minute ago and thought "what's in that?" - it's pretty bad when something has been there so long it doesn't even look out of place anymore! ugh, i'm terrible. but yippe - no more tears over lost things!

One day when things were going crappily at work, I soothed my nerves by buying a stack of Kaffe Fassette fabric - I got a pack of 4" squares and a pack of 6" squares (both in the same color family - like 6 or 8 different prints of reds and fushcias.) Last weekend I started playing around with some quilt squares and after poring over one of the Fassett quilting books I checked out of the library, I sewed some together to make simple half squares. I also added in some fabric from a shirt I had, and loved, that ripped (which I realized when I was wearing it! real classy!) I put them together without a real plan as to what they'd be and then decided the piece wanted to be a pillow. I spotted some black and white gingham in my fabric stash (yes, that's why it pays to have stash fabric, and I'll never feel bad about it!) and decided it looked smashing against the florals.

I put some muslin on as a backing and quilted it up - with my old faithful Kenmore (I sent that Singer back!) and it was FANTASTIC! no fighting with it, no glitches! sure, there was no handy switch to drop the feed dogs - I had to use the little plastic plate that fits over them - very analog, but it WORKED! I took a picture of the quilting on the back side because I think it shows that I had a good time doing it (unlike the quilting on the baby blanket, which was full of anger and foul language. no baby deserves that! even though they do a lot of screaming themselves, but I digress.)

Then I thought, for the crowning glory, it needed some peacock blue pom pom trim!

I sewed it up today and I think it may well be the best pillow in the world. maybe the universe. I'm that happy with it!

More makin'

2010-03-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend we got a new computer, so while the fella was setting everything up, I made this little makeup pouch. I have a meeting in Arizona next month and I decided that would be enough justification to make a little bag - I'll need a toiletry bag, right? I used the little owl fat quarters that billy got me for christmas - they're double sided japanese fabric, so one side has owls on it and the other looks like sashiko.

It surely is easier to quilt something this size, rather than blanket sized! Oh, on the subject of sewing, I called JoAnns about my machine and they're going to email me a shipping sticker so I can send it back without having to pay shipping, and, if I understood the customer service lady correctly, I'm getting a credit card refund even though the website said that if it's an opened item you have to take an online credit. I just assumed I'd have to try another machine, but it kind of looks like I may not! If I get another, I'm definitely shopping somewhere that I can put my hands on the machine - although honestly, I'm not even sure that I totally want a new one now. I dunno.

That honeymoon sure ended quick!

2010-03-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

(yes, I'm aware that the title should actually read "ended quickly" because an adverb modifies a verb, but it just didn't have the same feel, ok?)

I finished the quilt today! But I used my old sewing machine to do it. The new Singer and I are not speaking. In fact, I think the Singer might be moving out, but we aren't sure yet. That damn thing has been nothing but a problem - the tension is totally out of whack and I've done everything I can think of to fix it, but nothing is working. It's under warranty, but that means I have to drive it to Columbus (which I think is the closest place) or I can send it back to JoAnn's for a credit and get another machine. I'm not sure what to do. Anyway, here's the quilt!

It certainly won't win any state fairs (or county fairs, for that matter) but I'm still really happy with it! The final measurements are about 39"x56". It's pretty jacked up in places, like this:

but oh well. it's never going to be on antiques roadshow garnering praise of workmanship. i can live with that. I'm going to wash it now and hope like all getout that none of the fabrics bleed!

It must be my birthday!

2010-03-05T19:27:00.000-08:00

not really, but it's a good Family Guy line, and it's how I felt this week because I got myself this!

A new sewing machine! JoAnn's had a great deal on sewing machines (free shipping on top of sale prices for all machines!) and I decided that I deserved to know the bliss of drop in bobins and electronics - all the stuff that's totally basic on machines these days! I've been using a Kenmore that I got back in either high school or college - I can't even remember! I have the original that I bought back then, and also my grandpa's that my mom bought him because we liked ours so much. They're still fine machines, but mine needed to be repaired (it decided suddenly to only sew backwards!) and I decided that maybe just getting a new one was the way to go! Of course I'll keep the old ones as backups, but this one is so cool! Look at all these nifty stitches it does!

And it can sew with or without the foot control - just pushing the button for starting and stopping is way less difficult than I thought it'd be. I also got a set of presser feet designed just for quilting - it has like 9 different feet - including a walking foot, which was the one I totally wanted. Sorry if you don't care about sewing, but I'm excited as all get out!

something for my next nephew!

2010-02-26T15:21:00.000-08:00

I'm making a quilt!!!

Hopefully this one will be less wonky than my last baby quilt - I'm just going to assume that wonkiness decreases with practice! Obviously this is just the quilt top and it needs a bit more pressing, but I had to take pictures! I wanted to make it bright and fun instead of all baby and pastel-y - but that's mostly because it make me happy, I guess!

I went to JoAnn's today to get the white fabric and ended up with a whole earful of advice from a lady who worked there named Penny - she was kind of loud and very enthusiastic and she was one of those kinds of ladies who would grab your hands, or sometimes just your finger, when she'd talk to you. it was very endearing. and she really did help me. She talked me into some stuff that she called "minky" for the backing - which I would have never picked because it sort of borders on fleece, except that this stuff is stretchy and has more nap - and really does feel like what I assume a mink might feel like! Plus it was 60" wide which meant that even at $6.50/yard (which was the sale price!) I needed less than 1.5 yards. She said that she does a self binding so that the minky is wrapped around all the edges and the babies just love it. I think I would if I were a baby! So it's not really traditional, but I think it'll feel wonderful. Now I just have to do the wrestling with the batting and all that quilting. I think because it's pretty angular, i'm going to stick with that and do long straight lines down the length of the white pieces. Penny gave me advice on the top quilting part too - even drew me a little picture!, but I think I like the idea of sewing in the ditch of the blocks instead of doing radiating lines, as suggested. Oh, here's the part where I screwed up because I didn't have enough of the orange fabric, or the yellow - I'm telling myself it isn't horribly noticeable.

if you think it is, just don't tell me, ok? I prefer to live with my rose colored glasses on!

dirt under my nails

2010-02-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

I have dirt under my nails and it's still February! how's that possible? it's because of this lovely green spot in my basement!

I have 4 varieties of hierloom tomatoes, two types of peppers, some eggplant and a bunch of flowers! whee! (I know most of you don't care - I'm just posting this so that Hannah is good and jealous ;)

I did it!.

2010-02-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

Remember how I decided that having wollmeise sitting in my stash without actually being anything was just stupid? Well, I did something with it - an Ishbel! I love it. love it love it love it! I blocked it this morning and took a blowdryer to it because I wanted to take pictures this afternoon. I think I could have left it a little longer - I don't think it was totally dry - the points didn't spike out as much as I wanted and I hate it when people don't yank those points out! oh well, I can always block again. Oh, I got to use my blocking wires that I got for christmas - those things are pretty sweet!

I'm a makin' fool!

2010-02-07T14:22:00.001-08:00

The weekend is officially a success! I took Friday off work because I wanted to do some sewing and it was like a fantastic adult snow day! When the bad weather started coming, I didn't care because I didn't have to drive anywhere. I got my embroidery box finished and also a denim skirt that I'd been working on! Then this morning I finished up this:

It's a woodsman shirt for my uncle. He brought the pattern and the fabric to me because he bought it years and years ago and he thought he'd make it (I've never known him to sew, but I'm sure he could if he wanted to.) I told him that I'd do it for him. The only part left to do is the buttons but he's making some out of antler (he had antler buttons that he bought for the shirt way back when, but he's a very obsessive detail kind of guy and decided that he wanted some that were slightly more domed on the top and polished - and 4 holes instead of 2, with the holes countersunk... very detail-y!) I've been sitting on the stuff for about a month or so and decided that I'd better do some work on it, then bam! it was finished! well, except for button holes, but that's nothing and I have to wait to see the size of the buttons anyway. I'm not exactly sure why he wants an authentic woodsman shirt - but he's my favorite uncle, so it doesn't matter! now, I can get on to the quilt for my next nephew!

I could if I wanted to!

2010-02-06T17:00:00.000-08:00

...hit the road and take my embroidery with me, that is! I made this little case for my embroidery stuff after Catherine and I met at a coffee shop to stitch a few months back.

She has the cutest little vintage celluloid case for her stuff and I decided that I needed something too. After looking at a bunch of sewing boxes on eBay and keeping my eyes peeled at junk stores and antique marts, I decided that I'd just make my own! I embroidered the top then used some of the double sided mama jama interfacing (I forget what it's called, but it's super thick and made to stiffen stuff like this!) to give it some body and to attach some lining fabric to the inside. Then I cut sides and sewed in a zipper so it can unzip all around 3 sides and open up kind of like a book!

Now I just have to make a little pincushion-y spot where the needles can live (yes, i could just toss in a pack of needles, but i've come this far!) and make a little pouch for threaders and whatnot! Ok, so I've only taken my embroidery on the road once in my life, but by gum, that's enough to warrant a cute box! Oh, and for any of you not living in Ohio - this is what my back yard looked like this morning! I only took pictures because i'm kind of obsessed with getting one on the Channel 7 news! i don't really know why.

I don't want to say goodbye

2010-02-03T16:37:00.000-08:00

Dear Gaia scarf made of Noro - where have you gone? why did you leave me? are you just hiding? is it one of those awkward situations where it was kind of funny at first and you thought I'd find you in a day, then I didn't and now it's just weird and not funny anymore so you're kind of avoiding me? Did I leave you somewhere and now you're pissed at me? I miss you. I think everyone I know should look for you where ever they go.

dead as a doornail!

2010-01-21T15:37:00.001-08:00

Aaaw! I got killed today. By a fantastic pair of socks! Darn sock wars - I didn't even get one kill in! But, if I had to get killed it couldn't have been by a better assassin! Look at this great package - red socks, with some homemade chai mix (which makes the whole deadly package smell amazing!) and this hilarious newsletter with headlines broadcasting the kill!

And she even sent me the leftover sock yarn!

color on a grey day

2010-01-19T16:01:00.000-08:00

This goes out to English Emily since she first brought up how happy color can make you - especially these days when it's nothing but fog and grey skies. Today I ran to the fabric shop after cutting out of work at 4:00 because they had a 40% off sale on all of their quilting fabrics. yep, the quilting fabrics that I need like I need a hole in my head. shut up. Just look at this joyous spread! I just stacked up whatever caught my fancy, then only took 1/2 yard increments of each one - plenty for quilty patchworky stuff, but still super cheap. I came home in the best mood ever! Yes, I'm aware that I should be furiously knitting a sock, not buying fabric - that's next!

SOCK WARS!!

2010-01-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

The bloody battle starts tonight!!! I'm ready and armed with my dpns - my first victim is called "killergranny" - I never thought I'd have to take down an old lady, but that's exactly what I'm gonna do! who else is in the sock wars fray this year?

requisite resolutions

2010-01-04T17:04:00.000-08:00

I know it's all cliched to talk about how everyone feels like they have to make resolutions even though they know they won't keep them - but I really do feel that way - like if I don't even try, then it's just giving up, even if I'm pretty sure i'll fail eventually. However, last year I vowed to have a pair of socks on the needles at all times and I'm pretty sure I did that. How many pairs did I churn out? not that many - but that's wasn't the goal! I just said I'd have them on the needles! (brief Rav break to count the actual number of socks I made) OK - I totally take that back - I made 6 pairs of socks last year, which I think is pretty decent!

So, in light of that successful(ish) resolution, these are things I'm gonna try my darndest at in 2010 ( I love to say 20-10!):

-stop machine washing my socks! the 1st pair that I made in 2009 are fairly well ruined now - they were made out of Cherry Tree Hill and they felted to hell and back! I can still get them on my feet, but the pattern -which used to be so beautiful - is no more!

-eat more like a sane person, and realize that it really does count even if you're sneaking another bite in the kitchen where no one can see you!

-AND MOST IMPORTANTLY - knit from my stash! that means I need to stop buying yarn because it's on sale (please disregard the yarn that I just added to my stash - it was on sale, see?) or because I like it. I have so much great yarn and so many great projects planned for it - I need to work from the yarn end, and not the pattern end of knitting. ask the yarn what it wants to be and make that - not find a pattern, then buy yarn because there's nothing quite right in my stash.

-Sew more, embroider more, craft more, weave more - i sometimes knit to the exclusion of this other stuff that I really enjoy!

Alright, there - I've done my requisite resolutions.

Handmade Update

2009-12-28T17:22:00.000-08:00

I realized that when I belted out a hat for my brother, I'd officially made something for everyone on my christmas list this year! My mom loved her quilted wall hanging and her thrummed mittens (which fit! and she, being my mother, didn't mind the wonky parts where I made my thrums too fat and unevenly spaced them!) My uncle seemed happy with his sweater - and it did fit him (although the sleeves were a little long and I think the shoulder cap could have been shallower - it was a little bunchy when I sewed it in and I thought I blocked it out alright, but I dunno) but I think one of my favorite things that I made were these Noah's Ark ornaments for my SIL - I'll probably make her more for her birthday in January!

Quilting for Christmas

2009-12-12T09:46:00.000-08:00

My mother wanted a quilt top wall hanging for Christmas and I wanted an excuse to buy fat quarters, so it was a perfect combination! Unfortunately, she's kind of into the country primitive look lately, and she mailed me a couple pictures she'd clipped of the color combinations she liked - it's that sort of tea stained looking red, white and blue kind of look. Not what I'd choose for sure, but it'll make her happy!

I learned how to do the quick piecing method (where you cut the squares then sandwich them and sew two diagonal seams 1/4" from the center, then cut down that center line, to make perfect half squares, and then you can flip them and do it again for perfect quarter squares - you end up with fantastic triangles but never have to deal with sewing triangles together at all!) It was SO much fun!This is about 20"x20". I think I'll put some thin batting inside and put a back on it and use ribbons to tie it to a rod. Or, if I don't do that, then I don't actually have to quilt the thing. But the back isn't attractive, so I feel like I ought to do something and if I put a back on it seems silly to not quilt it, you know? I'll figure it out before Christmas!

As cute as the day is long

2009-12-06T11:58:00.000-08:00

A little stuffie I made my my youngest niece, for Christmas.

I can talk myself into anything

2009-12-05T10:26:00.000-08:00

Every year for my father's birthday I make him date bars from the recipe my grandma used when he was a kid. Every year, for nearly his whole life he's gotten date bars - there was a brief stint where my grandpa made them after my grandma died, but he forgot one year and my mom got a little miffed about it and the next time I saw my grandpa he handed me the recipe. I got the message. So anyway, I'll be seeing him on Sunday for his birthday dinner and I made the date bars Friday after work. Except that what really happened was that I made him fig bars. i know. The whole time I was making them I felt like something wasn't quite right, but I just kept going. This morning my eyes flew open at 7am and I realized THOSE WERE FIGS!

and the stupid thing is that i TOTALLY know the difference between a fig and a date - but I think I just had it in my mind that I bought a pound of dried dates and I couldn't shake it. This morning I dug in the trash can and found the wrapper and it did indeed say "figs" - it wasn't even like I needed to confirm it because, again, I totally know the difference. duh. So this morning I made Date Bars 2.0 after making a run to Meijer to get the right stuff. I'm going to give him both versions because it's not like the figgie bars are bad - just not date bars!

branching out!

2009-11-28T16:09:00.000-08:00

On Friday, instead of fighting the crowds to save a couple dollars, I got together with my friend Catherine to get a little embroidery lesson! She's fantastic with embroidery and I just bought pattern for embroidered felt ornaments, so I wanted so advice.

We met at a coffee shop and I showed her my fabric and quilt block pattern that I'm going to use for a wall hanging for my mother (more to come about that!) and she showed me a bunch of embroidered pieces that she'd made over the years and now plans to make into a quilt. We got some coffee and looked at some books she brought - one was a book that had stuffed animals and dolls in it and right on the cover was the doll that my grandmother made me when I was a kid! what are the chances!?! After that we got down to business and started making ornaments - mine was from the pattern, which I ended up having to freehand onto the felt because I couldn't get anything to transfer it well, and hers, because she's all artistic and can just draw things, was a bird based on some old school ornaments in one of the books. Mine was supposed to be nearly all satin stitch which seemed kind of difficult, and also kind of boring after looking at all the stitch patterns that she'd used on her stuff. I ended up just doing whatever I wanted to and didn't worry about filling in the spaces with solid color. Before we knew it, it was like 3 hours later! I didn't feel like I got a lot done there - embroidery always takes longer than I think it will! That evening though, I finished it up. And I love it! I wish I'd take the time to do stuff like this more often - diversify my craftiness a little instead of always letting my knitting win!

Aslan+Chard

2009-11-23T16:43:00.000-08:00

When I was blanching my swiss chard over the weekend, I noticed that the water was turning a fantastic shade of red so I decided, of course, to dump some yarn in it! duh. I put in some vinegar first for acid, then put in a skein of Lorna's Laces fingering weight that I'd never been crazy about the color of - it's called Aslan and it's kind of off white and tan. It got sort of red-ish, but not really what I'd imagined, so I cheated and put in about 8 or 10 drops of red food coloring. It turned out pretty great - much better than before. Of course I now have one skein of the original color and one of this red. I suppose that means I can make two fingering weight hats, or maybe do a striped sock with alternating bits of the original and the new red! I'm downright brilliant-ish!

harvest in November - whaaat?

2009-11-21T17:50:00.000-08:00

I dare you to find a more beautiful vegetable! Bright Lights Swiss Chard

So beautiful I almost can't stand it!

Cookie is Cool!

2009-11-14T06:40:00.000-08:00

Correction, she's really cool! Yesterday's class was fantastic!

I walked in and Cookie was sitting up at the front table futzing with her camera and in my head I was like "whaaaaat? this is crazy!" but everyone just seemed so calm - they were sitting there knitting or whatever. I guess I didn't expect everyone to be standing and screaming like we were in the same room as the Beatles, but inside I kind of felt that way! There were only about 13 people in the class which was great because we all got personal attention! First she talked about all the calculations you have to go through before casting on - it was fantastically mathy! Oh, within the first hour I felt like I'd gotten the best tip ever and it wasn't even about sock design. Someone asked her what cast on she used, and how to make it stretchy - she uses the long tail and talked about how sometimes you'll hear that you should use a bigger needle to cast on so that it's not so tight, but that all that really does is make the stitch taller, when what you're really aiming for is more space between the stitches. She showed us how she just puts her thumb on the needle when she's casting on to create a little extra space between each needle instead of cramming them up so tightly next to each other. Duh! that's so intuitive, but it never hit me before! She also taught us how to "scientifically calculate" the "suckage" of different pattern stitches and figure out how many stitches your sock really needs to be - just because you normally do a 64 st sock, doesn't mean it'll work for everything. She showed us how to take a stitch pattern and chart it out to see what it does and how to combine things to get the number of stitches you need - and even how to expand or shrink a stitch pattern proportionally to make it do what you want and fit the target stitch number. Then she showed us how she designs the fantastic cuffs that she does - where they flow into the stitch pattern. Then we all picked stitch patterns and graphed them out and calculated our socks and she came around and talked to each one of us and gave us advice and told us different things we could do - she was so sweet and helpful and totally remembered all of our names and the stitch patterns we were doing. it was amazing! I feel like I copped out a little by picking a pattern that I ended up doing around the whole sock, instead of incorporating multiple patterns (although that is often more difficult to make work because the stitch numbers just might not be right and it's easier to combine columns that you can manipulate easier) and then I also tried to design a snazzy cuff, but when she looked at it she didn't feel like the stitch pattern had enough really strong lines to warrent it, and recommended a 1x1 twisted rib, so I switched to that (which is very pretty - I fell in love with it the first time I did one of cookie's socks.)

We all ate and knit for a few hours then she went over how to decided on where to divide your socks for the top of the foot so that the design flowed nicely - this is where I realized how much she remembered about what each of us was doing. She went through everybody's socks up in front of the room by drawing out the design patterns on the wall (pretty much all by memory - like saying "ok, Chris is doing something that has some alternating yarn overs on the edges, like this, and then increases and decreases in the center of a 5 stitch knit background, and it's a 9 stitch repeat") and suggesting where to split based on the repeats and how to make the edges look perfect and intentional. Oh, it was just great and I learned more than I really thought I would! Plus, it was so cool and informal and people could just ask questions and talk to her like she was a regular ol' person.

Oh, and while we were knitting she came around and took pictures of all of our handknit socks that we were wearing (Emily - I was wearing your Taylored socks, so you'll be famously documented!) and took pictures of what we were knitting! Here's Cookie taking a picture of MY sock! whee!

What a great day!!!

Ready Eddie!

2009-11-12T19:57:00.000-08:00

Sock Innovation book - check. Stitch pattern chosen from Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns (what else?) - check. Malabrigo sock, lettuce, wound - check. Size 1 Knit Picks Harmony needles - check. camera - check. I think the only thing left to do is paint my nails - it just seems right for such a hand heavy day!

lunchtime yarn binge

2009-11-10T17:18:00.001-08:00

I'm taking a class for work all week down in Springboro and I tracked down Wooly Bully yesterday after lunch - it's a little LYS only 25 minutes or so from my house, but I'd never been there before! Today I packed a peanut butter sandwich so I could eat it on the road and spent my lunch hour yarn shopping! whee! It's such a cute little place and has a lot of yarns that I hadn't seen elsewhere. I got two skeins of Mirasol Miski (100% baby llama) for an Opus beret,This one is a pretty blue, with bits of purple

This one is navy, but it's hard to photograph.

And 3 balls of this Queensland Sugar Rush, just because it's made of sugar cane fibers and I don't have anything in my stash made of sugar cane!

and it's soooo shiny and purple - so why not? Oh yeah, not to rub it in or anything, but I'm going to be in the same room with Cookie A on Friday! woot!

Everybody needs to make these!

2009-10-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

Goulish cookies - perfect for halloween and SO easy to make!! I swear I couldn't stop cracking up every time I looked at them! I didn't make these up, but here's my version of how to do it:

So it's just a basic shortbread cookie recipe (that's just butter, confectioners sugar, flour and almond or vanilla extract) and you roll pieces out into something kind of like a finger size, then just squeeze it a little in the middle for the knuckle and make little lines for wrinkles with a knife. Then take almonds (the recipe called for blanched almonds, but I only had the regular ones, and I kind of think that looks creepier anyway!) and press them in the end as fingernails. Bake them for something like 10 minutes or until they look done. The "nails" don't stay in the cookie on their own - they'll fall right out, so you just

mix up a little icing with a bit of confectioners sugar, water, and red food coloring, then take out the almond, run the back of it through the icing and press it back into the nailbed so that it sort of oozes out like blood. If anyone is going to a halloween party, you totally need to take these! Walk around with one hanging out of you mouth - it'll be both hilarious and delicious! (because really not much beats toasted almonds and shortbread in the delicious department!)

I love buttons

2009-10-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the BF and I walked down to Remember When Anitques - it just a few blocks away, but I haven't been there in years. I love living in the city where you can walk a few blocks and hit something like a little antique shop! Plus there were leaves on the bath through the boulevard, so it felt like a fall walk ought to feel! The shop is in an old house and it's just packed to the gills with stuff - like so much stuff that you feel more than a little nervous walking through the halls lined with shelves of glassware, wishing you'd brought a smaller purse. There's one room with tons of kitchen stuff, all arranged by color (I love it when they do that!) - I managed to get through it without finding anything I had to have, even though there were tons of things I'd have liked to pick up. Then I hit the buttons. uh oh. I'm such a sucker for buttons! Most were $3 or less per set, so obviously I couldn't help myself!

I got these

and these

and these.

(I think I'm in the middle of a sparkle phase! I couldn't resist the rhinestones!)

Guess I'd better start cranking out more cardigans, huh?

I can't stop taking pictures of this

2009-10-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

Isn't this just the most beautiful geranium you've ever seen?

I've had it for years - first I put it in a pot on my porch, then brought it inside for the winter - then I take it back out to the porch in the spring and back in again. It's the most amazing color and I can't believe how much it blooms.

It seemed so happy on the porch in the sun, but I don't want to risk losing it if we get a particularly cold night (which is quite a possibility these days!) So now it's in my dining room and I'm sure I'll soon have an inch of geranium petals on the floor. I just had to take a picture one more time!

Despite my glut of Christmas knitting, I cast on for a scarf this week.

Maybe because I feel like I'm making pretty good progress on my Christmas stuff, or maybe because the mister so rarely asks for stuff, I decided it was ok. and I kinda needed an excuse to do something different for a minute anyway. He wants a black scarf and I nearly went out and bought something like wool ease for it, but then decided that it was ridiculous to have 800 yards of Adrienne Vitadini Trina in my stash and not just use that. Now you could also say it's ridiculous to use discontinued merino/cashmere on a guy who doesn't always take the best care of his stuff, but I figured it'd be nice for him to have something really soft around his neck, and even though I got the yarn with a project in mind, the chances of me getting to that project within the next 20 years is slim. seriously. Plus, it's nice to be able to knit with it - I mean isn't that half the reason we buy lovely stuff? It's seed stitch, which is simple but manly and if I'm making something for him, I don't just want to churn out a plain old garter scarf - even if he can't distinguish it from garter, he deserves more than that!