magnificasti mirabilia

Thoughts on improvisational piecing

2011-08-01T14:40:00.000-04:00

I am loving the improvisational piecing in this quilt, which is "Nate's Quilt" from Malka Dubrawski's Fresh Quilting: Fearless Color, Design, and Inspiration.

Things I am learning:

The look might be random, but there's a ton of planning that goes into that look.
The build might be wonky, but there's a lot of skill that goes into building the wonkiness. (I need to work on this part.)
There are many degrees of randomness and wonkiness, between quilters and within quilts. (Take a look at Alissa Haight Carlton and Kristen Lejniek's Block Party--The Modern Quilting Bee: The Journey of 12 Women, 1 Blog, & 12 Improvisational Projects for examples.)

Questions I'm considering:

Can there be too much wonk? (I think the answer is, sometimes, but it can be balanced with similar wonk elsewhere in the same quilt. I had help with this question from a more experienced quilter.)
Where can I find fabric that is not quilting cotton to quilt and sew with? Linen, silk, good corduroy, wool suiting? (I am not impressed with what I find at the chain stores.) There is one store in our town that carries some of these things, but are there other sources? I am not against ordering online, but I prefer to see and touch what I am buying.
Where can I find other quilters who are interested in modern quilting? One answer would be to take a class, but I not had good experiences in knitting classes I have taken and worry that a quilting class would be similar. I would rather spend my money on good fabric and books.

More fabric love: Planning a baby quilt

2011-07-30T07:51:00.000-04:00

I had fun this morning pulling favorite fabrics from my stash and combining them with some fat quarters I purchased last week to make a quilt for a new baby I'm going to be meeting soon. I'm really feeling inspired to go wild with prints and colors, and I'm looking forward to doing some improvisational piecing. Stay tuned -- this is going to be a wild ride!

Fabric Love

2011-07-24T17:24:00.000-04:00

Today I put some of my favorite fabrics up on the wall. They are all (except one) from my vintage fabric collection and it was hard to cut into them, but I love seeing them together.

They look terrific with the "My House" quilt in my bedroom.

To secure the fabric in the hoops, I trimmed the fabric to about 1/2 inch larger than its embroidery or quilting hoop, then ran a line of hot-glue down the edge of the hoop and pressed the fabric down over it. Some of the excess fabric is still hanging over the back end of the hoop, but it doesn't show and it doesn't look bad in the back. The hardest part was not burning my fingers on the glue.

Now I am getting ready to make a baby quilt and at least a half dozen other things. My studio looks like Santa's workshop walked in and exploded inside it. I have a feeling it's going to be this way for a while...

Ten Things: Four

2011-07-23T05:28:00.000-04:00

Lately I have been thinking about my Great Aunt A. I would tell you that she taught me how to crochet, but that isn't strictly true. She taught me to crochet, while I was teaching myself how to crochet; that is, that crocheting is a worthwhile pastime and can produce valuable, desirable finished objects. Likewise, she taught me about sewing, embroidering and other needle-crafts.

Aunt A. was a remarkable needle-worker herself and had made beautiful clothing for my mother (and her dolls) when my mother was a child, and had moved on to afghans and pillow-cases and crocheted lace Christmas angels as she grew older. She never did anything less than her best work.

I would work next to her with my crochet hook or embroidery needle, and from time to time look for her approval. She was always gentle and kind; the worst thing she ever said was, "You didn't do a good job."

I hear those words now as I look at a crooked seam, a split stitch or a sloppy join. They don't always make me go back and redo my work -- sometimes it isn't worth it -- but they always make me think.

First, that I should always do my best work, that there is no excuse for that. I try to remember that and, if I am tired or just don't feel like sewing or knitting, stop.

Second, that kindness and gentleness go far in this world. They go farther than we can ever know. I try to remember that and moderate my words and tone whenever I speak. This is very hard.

Aunt A. died before she knew of the influence she had on my life. I tell K stories about her while we sew together, and I hope that K will know some of the goodness and richness that my aunt brought to my life.

Anniversary Quilt

2011-07-18T15:10:00.000-04:00

Congratulations! To my parents-in-law, on forty amazing years of marriage! Wow!

To celebrate, a whole bunch of us got together and ~~made~~ are making a quilt.

Last spring, we all went to the quilting store together to pick out fabric. We took over the place with our scraps of paper and calculator-phones, pulling out bolts and fat quarters every which way. It took a long time to choose.

Then we went to ~~the four corners of the earth~~ our respective homes, in four different states. Many, many emails and Fed-Exes of replacement fabric ensued.

Two people did embroidery, one person pieced the border, and another person pieced the quilt top. They sent everything to me, and I sewed the border onto the quilt. Now it looks like this:

Here's a close-up of the embroidery:

I marked the quilt top with an off-center diagonal pattern and basted it with the batting and backing. I did some of the quilting, but had some trouble with my machine, so did not finish the quilt in time for the anniversary celebration. I think my parents-in-law were pleased to see the unfinished quilt, though, and will be glad to have it when I can do the quilting properly.

It moves me that we were able to pull this together, even if we didn't quite come up with a finished product. I think it says a lot about my in-laws -- who are, indeed, a remarkable couple whom I have always known to "Choose life!"

SCI Knitting -- July Update

2011-07-16T07:00:00.001-04:00

Here is a sampling of the hand-knits we have received to go to the Seafarers at Christmas -- aren't they magnificent?

Some are done by veteran knitters and some by absolute beginners, and all were made lovingly and with great care for the intended recipients. I am told there are plenty more in the works!

I think I admire most about this project is the zeal with which so many knitters have taken it up -- they are not stopping at one scarf; I get quite a number of hat-and-scarf combos, and often multiples. Also, there have been several women who had not knitted a stitch before this project started but who have found ways to learn the ropes and have become amazingly productive knitters.

The deadline for our church's part in the SCI knitting project must be October 15, because of the work involved in putting together the ditty bags for the Seamen's Christmas. With that in mind, it is time to start thinking about the future of our knitting group, and considering other causes for which we might want to knit.

I will be addressing this subject at the next Knitting Group meeting on July 21; please attend this meeting if you are able. If not, you can drop me an email or leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on the matter if you wish, and I will share them with the group.

Christmas Bazaar Crafting -- Patchwork Ornament

2011-07-15T11:13:00.000-04:00

Last night's project for the Christmas Bazaar Crafting Group: a "Quilted Christmas Ornament."

I love that this is a no-sew project! It is tricky to get the hang of making these, and they are a bit time-consuming, but the results are so satisfying! I hope we can make a handful to sell.

Full tutorial can be found at Pot Holders and Panty Hose.

Journal Cozy

2011-07-12T04:39:00.000-04:00

I love my patchwork Moleskine notebooks so much that I dislike writing in plain ones anymore -- to the point that I will avoid making notes until I have time to decorate a new notebook. (I know that's ridiculous.) Then inspiration hit, in the form of an embellished Ann Taylor sweater from the thrift store. Why not make a journal cozy that I could reuse?

It took a lot of improvisation to get to this design. Some things I learned:

Don't try to machine-sew over beads and sequins. Just don't.
It might be a good idea to use some stabilizer if you're going to sew satin ribbon to sweater fabric. If you plan to do this, make sure ahead of time that you have some on hand. Otherwise, you might have to change your plans.
Sometimes you end up with a significantly different-looking finished product than you envisioned.
From my young friend Miss R. -- ‎"Don't be afraid it won't be perfect, the only thing to be afraid of really is that it won't BE."

Instead of binding the edges with pink satin ribbon or hemming them, I ~~had to~~ opted to zig-zag them with pink and purple thread. Rather than try to get the stitching "just so," which I knew I couldn't do, I went over the stitching several times in different colors for a layered effect. I like the way it turned out.

To finish, I zig-zagged a double length of grosgrain ribbon into the back my new notebook for place-holders, letting the stitching go a bit wonky once again.

What a fun project! I will be interested to see how useful this turns out to be.

Checking in

2011-07-08T05:36:00.000-04:00

This is just a quick post to let you know that I haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth. We have returned from our vacation and are still setting things to rights, and I am working on a major project (to be unveiled here soon) and have many smaller projects in the works. Also look for updates on SCI knitting and Christmas bazaar crafting. Hope you are all well and doing whatever you love with whomever you love!

Vintage lace

2011-06-24T11:21:00.000-04:00

What could I make with this?

On my needles: Vacation knitting

2011-06-22T15:07:00.000-04:00

Today marks the middle of our three weeks' vacation "down the shore." I brought a ton of fiber with me, along with my entire collection of knitting needles and my spinning wheel! Last year I wound up having to buy yarn and needles to work with, but I wasn't going to make that mistake twice.

I spent the first week swatching with Atacama yarn by Arucania, a discontinued DK weight alpaca that looked kind of skanky in hank form, but knit up into a lofty confection of a fabric with the big needles the Neck-Down Wrap Cardigan called for.

Yes, it took me a week to get gauge. I knit three funky-sized swatches (which, incidentally, I did not wash because the ball band indicated that dry cleaning would be most appropriate -- I suppose I should have steamed them, but what's done is done) and alternated the boring swatch-knitting with some hippy-dippy crocheting.

The Rickrack Kerchief, in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, is right up my alley. It's the right level of challenging, which means that I can watch TV or daydream while I work on it, and it's the right type of finished product, meaning that I will totally wear it when it's done. And it has a ribbon woven Right Into The Headband. I am completely mesmerized by ribbon these days -- buying it, saving it, making it, using it. The Christmas packages are going to be so much fun this year!

So finally I finished the swatches and started on the wrap cardigan. I had thought that I could not do another row of stockinette-with-raglan-increases when this number showed up. There is something about this pink-cotton-candy knitted fabric that makes it such a pleasure to work with that I don't care if the knitting itself is uninteresting. The yarn is fascinating and I cannot wait to see what it will do next. The thought of making a little more of the fluffiness in my hands is enough inspiration to keep me going, and I hope this will be a project where the process and the product are equally important -- I want to wear this loveliness.

I have also been reading a lot about knitting this vacation, and have many big ideas concerning fair isle, ganseys, log cabin knitting, organic cotton washcloths and multi-media knitting, but that's for another post. What's on your needles this summer?

Emergency Quilting: Stacked Coins

2011-06-12T06:01:00.089-04:00

A little over a week ago, I needed a teacher gift. Like, now. For K's other teachers, I had made small quilts, but I hadn't started one for Mrs. First Grade. What could I do?

I got out Last Minute Patchwork and Quilting. There, under "8 to 12 Hour Gifts", was a wonkily cut Stacked Coins quilt. Surely I could complete it in, say, 24 hours tops? I hightailed it to the quilt store because I did not have time to diddle around with scraps. Fat quarter bundles, baby. Yeah.

I cut the wonky coin strips and tossed them like a salad before I realized you were supposed to leave them in piles and sew them in "random" order by choosing them deliberately. Also, I cut half the fat quarter bundle into the wrong size coin strips so had to put them away for another project and was left with only orange and yellow fabrics for this quilt. But it all worked out okay.

The finished panels:

Cut into strips and arranged into rows:

The sewn quilt top, basted (I used over 1,500 pins on this small quilt top -- I am slow, but I am learning to be thorough!) and ready to be marked. I used a Clover chaco liner, which was great except that the chalk would rub off and I would have to re-apply it right before I quilted an area. If I were doing it again I would use my Hera marker.

Three things I learned about quilting from this project:

Buy the very best batting you can afford. It really does make a difference. Really thin cotton batting is a dream to work with, and it was perfect for this quilt.
The tension on the machine needs to be adjusted up, not down, at least in the case of my Kenmore. Adjusting it down leads to loosey-goosey stitches on the back.
I only ever want to machine-quilt with my Kenmore, unless I am using a longarm. That machine is a real workhorse!

The finished quilt -- washed and dried, it crinkled so beautifully that the imperfections in my quilting melted away and it looked really gorgeous. I am totally making one of these for myself!

Holiday weekend treasure!

2011-05-29T05:29:00.121-04:00

Memorial Day weekend is the official start of Yard Sale Season for me, and D and I kicked it off this year by heading to a 40-family yard sale in Lancaster, PA, where the pickings always seem to be a little more exciting than they are at home.

(I'm especially loving the blue rosebud cotton print that you see in nearly all of the pictures below! There's enough of it to make myself a pair of summer pajamas...)

Those big needles are called "Jumbo Jets." The little ones beside them are size 17!

Yard-sale notions are practically free! To heck with Jo-Ann Fabrics!

That big hoop is 17 inches across -- huge! I'm going to use these to make a wall display of my favorite fabrics.

I love vintage greeting cards. Six different kinds in this box!

A souvenir tablecloth with cocktail napkins. I don't really know what to do with this, but I thought it was interesting-looking.

I have so much fun on these adventures, and I am so lucky to have a husband who enjoys them too (even if we did end up with a copy of Men In Black II. Ugh.) Thanks for a great day, D!

Planning a Vintage Linens Quilt

2011-05-24T00:00:00.008-04:00

This is what happens when the vintage linens pile gets a little too large in my fabric closet. I had in mind a yellow-and-orange quilt, but the green insisted on coming for the ride.

My plan was to do a strip-style quilt like the one in Patchwork Style. Somehow, though, I couldn't visualize a vintage-linens version of that. I checked out another Make Good: Crafts + Life book, Natural Patchwork, but nothing there moved me either.

Fiddling with the yellow-and-orange linens didn't help. I remembered that Anna Maria Horner had some free quilt patterns up on her blog, and I went to take a look.

The Folk Dance Quilt was intriguing, and I wondered if I could pull it off with the linens I had. I printed it off and began yanking things off the shelves and swapping them around.

This would give me the chance to use patterns I had thought would never see the light of day!

Playing with colors and patterns is so much fun! I can't wait to see how they look in the zig-zag patchwork.

Having done all this, I am thinking rather guiltily of the *ahem* four unfinished quilts (plus two wool blankets) on my shelves -- so I hastily remind myself that it is the process for me, not the product, which is most satisfying -- and also that I try to spend some part of every day on a work-in-progress, and so do in fits and starts get things completed.

What a joy to start a new quilt! and with my beloved (and overflowing stack of) vintage linens! What a joy!

Potato-Chip Tea Towels

2011-05-23T00:00:00.002-04:00

I have been sitting on a bunch of feedsack material for several years now -- I think I bought it when I was getting ready to paint the studio and was planning to make my own curtains. Then I found the pretty eyelet curtains that are still hanging from my windows and tucked the feedsacks away.

Recently, I noticed that my kitchen linens were in rags but was reluctant to buy new ones. I went to get some plain white birds-eye cotton to make dish towels, but the feed sacks caught my eye. What good were they doing anybody in my fabric closet?

Enter Potato-Chip Tea Towels, so called because you can't make just one.

I followed the dish towel pattern in Linen, Wool, Cotton, omitting the zig-zag stripes and adding mitered corners to the hems (which I needed to learn how to do, and am so glad I did) after doing about a few towels without them and getting annoyed at having to stop and pick out stitches at the lumpy ends. My favorite thing about these towels is the hanging loop detail -- I plan to put up hooks in my kitchen so I can put them on display!

(Not too) swift

2011-05-22T03:06:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I should have known that I was not going to be winding yarn without ending up with a kitten in the swift. The title of this post, of course, refers to me, not the cat, who managed to navigate his way around the contraption pretty, um, swiftly.

Ten Things: Three

2011-05-19T04:05:00.050-04:00

I am a poet. At the moment, my poetry is dormant, but I have made a decision to wake it up. Look for it here.

I wrote pretty good poetry as an elementary-schooler, pretty typical (read: angsty and obscure) poetry as a middle-schooler, and pretty decent (if somewhat controversial) poetry as a high-school student. My eleventh grade teacher was a wonderful mentor, and I was published multiple times in the school literary magazine, Pen and Ink -- admittedly I was literary editor my senior year, so there was some serious nepotism going on there. I spent a summer learning about the ins and outs of life as a poet at the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts, and I wrote prodigiously in my journals and read constantly.

To start off, here's the last poem I remember writing:

For Daniel
February 14, 2002

At the journey's threshold
we join our hands,
filled with wondrous juxtaposition
of Mickey Mouse and amazing grace,
bathwater and the kitten,
skin meeting skin and your voice
announcing the thrill of now
touching evolution--
how we have grown to belong
together, not in tandem
as in the starting years,
but synchronous, symbiotic -- newly
alive! In rising up again.

Ten Things: Two

2011-05-05T09:03:00.000-04:00

Although I haven't done it in many years, I love to make pysanky -- Ukranian Easter eggs. That is one of the reasons I am trying to clean out and sort my world. I want to go back to this absorbing and challenging craft, and try some new adventures(such as hand-dyeing wool, yarn and fabric) in a more organized, well-defined space. I think that, as a crafter and artist, I am at my best when I allow myself access to many different media, but concentrate on just one or two at a time, flowing from project to project as my mood dictates.

Ten Things: One

2011-05-04T04:46:00.000-04:00

A friend blogged recently with a challenge to post ten positive things about herself that had nothing to do with a particular demon she had faced in her life -- that her readers might not know about her. I was most impressed with her response, and I would like to respond in kind. I am going to do my post a bit differently, however -- I am actually going to do mine in ten separate posts, and focus (in keeping with this blog's theme) on creative aspects of my self -- so here goes:

I love to read and write poetry and was literary editor of my high school's literary magazine, Pen and Ink, during my senior year. It has been a long time since I wrote regularly, but I am thinking about ways to get started again and how this blog might help me do that.

Leslie

2011-05-03T13:10:00.000-04:00

Meet the newest member of our family!

Mostly about rick-rack

2011-04-29T17:34:00.000-04:00

There are how-to-apply-rick-rack tutorials all over the blogosphere. I did a search when I went to make these lavender sachets. I had the lavender, the rick rack and some charm squares and a need for sachets (read: a burgeoning fiber collection) but the thought of pinning all those rick-rack bumps in between two pieces of fabric to make the pretty rippled edging on the sachets made my head hurt. So, through a series of tutorials, I devised a better way for myself.

I started with one charm square and some rick-rack. Did you know that you can heat-seal the end of the rick-rack with your iron so that it doesn't fray? I didn't. I did that, then laid the rick-rack down on the edge of the charm square (look, Ma, no pins!) and began to sew, keeping slightly to the right of center.

As I neared each corner I stopped sewing and turned the rick-rack, then pivoted the fabric under the presser foot and moved the needle by hand several stitches until the needle was in position to sew straight forward again. I sewed all the way around the charm square until the rick-rack overlapped itself. After I finished sewing, I cut the thread and then cut the rick-rack carefully just beyond where the thread stopped.

I used the iron to heat-seal the cut end of the rick-rack once again. Then I cut a six-inch length of grosgrain ribbon and folded it in half.

I centered the ribbon on the right side of a second charm square, with the cut ends of the ribbon at the top, laying the first charm square on top of them.

Then I sewed around four corners and three sides of the charm squares along the stitching line for the rick-rack. I left the fourth side open for turning, and I trimmed the corners, being careful not to cut the rick-rack.

This one did not come out perfectly -- some of the rick-rack bumps have little holes underneath them, and the rick-rack doesn't meet exactly at the end. I used my scissors to trim the rick-rack so that it looked a little more even, then heat-sealed it, but I am not particularly happy with that solution. The next step, top-stitching around the edges of the charm squares to close the hole and add a decorative touch, helped to cover the holes.

I think they're cute!

Thanks for bearing with me -- this post was mostly for my own benefit, so I can remember my own method for applying rick-rack, but I'd be glad to know if it was helpful to anyone else -- or if any readers have their own methods they'd like to share.

created -- Easter joy

2011-04-25T05:58:00.001-04:00

focusing on the good things created during the week...

Alleluia! The Lord is risen!

K studies clues from the Easter Bunny to follow the steps to her basket of goodies!

Mugging for the camera after church. You can't see it, but her socks match her purse match her dress!

Racing to hunt Easter eggs!

Hope your holiday was a blessed one!

In the studio -- Thrifted, etc.

2011-04-15T05:26:00.000-04:00

Treasures from a birthday jaunt to my favorite antique and resale shops in Lancaster, PA -- a mason jar, some tapestry wool, a painted wastebasket.

From The Lancaster Yarn Shop, because I was there: four skeins of New England Highland Wool, #67 Marigold, and one skein of Kettle Dyed Wool & Mohair Yarn, Heirloom Tomatoes colorway. Totally irresistible.

The current state of my cream-and-gray blanket -- behold, The Princess and the Pea. I hope to get back to this ASAP, but I am currently so engrossed in my knitting that everything else is on hold.

And there's knitting class this morning! TGIF, and Spring Break for K as well -- the Aunties are coming to visit and she is hoping to have some Girls' Only Craft Time. I have an idea brewing; look for it soon!

SCI Knitting News and Challenge

2011-04-11T06:29:00.001-04:00

Thanks to those who have begun knitting for the Seamen's Church Institute. Here is a little more information about the project:

The hats and scarves we are knitting will benefit specifically the Seamen's Church Institute of Philadelphia and South Jersey, which "greets merchant ship workers at ports along the Delaware River and provides services to meet mariners’ practical, spiritual, and emotional needs."
The ~~mariner's scarf~~ seafarer's scarf and watch cap patterns are available on the SCI of New York and New Jersey's website, but it should be noted that any items donated through St. Mary's Church in Burlington will go to the SCI of Philadelphia and South Jersey.
Scarves are the most needed items. If you can knit the ~~mariner's scarf~~ seafarer's scarf pattern with the ribbing around the neck, that is wonderful, but if not, a plain garter-stitch scarf is fine. The watch cap is the most desirable pattern if you would prefer to knit a hat. Solid-colored items only, please!
Yarn should be worsted-weight machine-washable-and-dryable and of dark and/or "masculine" colors. We gladly accept donations of yarn! It takes about 4 oz. of yarn to make a scarf and 3.5 oz. to make a hat, so please keep that in mind if you are donating leftover balls of yarn.

For new knitters: there are wonderful tutorials on the Knit Picks website to help you with tricky things like casting on, binding off and even that pesky ribbing on the mariner's scarf.

Now, for the challenge:

For those of you who are taking on this project with me:

Will you knit every day?

For half an hour while you watch the news, or half an inch while you watch the game, or fifteen minutes after you say your morning prayers, or however you decide you'll do it, will you make a commitment to work at this a little at a time, over a period of time, and see how much you can get done?

It's not for everybody -- and nobody will be able to do it perfectly. I know there will be days I will miss and I can even predict some of them now -- but it's worth a try. If you can use little bits of your time to finish one scarf to warm one neck this winter, think of that goodness. There will be other things you will want and need to do, but see what you can do with this one, if it's right for you.

Note: My apologies for including the wrong scarf pattern in the original post. The link to the correct pattern, the seafarer's scarf, has been added.

created -- shalom!

2011-04-10T11:37:00.000-04:00

Focusing on the good things created during the week...

It's hard to take a picture of yourself wearing the sweater you made, especially when the cat wants to get in on the act!

The sleeves I added are enough to keep me toasty without roasting me in alpaca. A shout out to Myra at Woolbearers in Mount Holly for helping me work out how to do them nicely!

Knitting for Seafarers

2011-04-08T06:28:00.000-04:00

At a friend's request, I am organizing an effort at church to knit scarves and hats for the Seamen's Church Institute. They will be placed in "ditty bags" to be given to the seafarers at Christmas, along with toiletries and personal items that are, naturally, hard to come by during long stretches of time at sea.

Last evening we held a "knitting workshop" that was billed as "just for fun -- no commitment required" in order to encourage new and/or "out-of-shape" knitters to consider knitting a scarf. Although turnout was low, we had a pleasant time, limbered up our fingers and got two beginners chugging along nicely.


Making progress

A giant box of yarn donated by a young parishioner!

Some questions for you:

Can you knit/would you consider knitting for charity? Do you have the time, money, willingness, the what-it-takes? It's not for everybody. I'm not sure that, in the long run, it's for me. I want to explore this question more.
Which organization(s) would you be willing to knit for, and why?
Are there other crafts or services you would be willing to do/perform for charity, and why?

In my next post I will give information about how you might help out with our efforts, should you be interested in doing so.

OFF my needles!

2011-04-06T16:57:00.000-04:00

My Shalom Cardigan, pre-blocking.

I'm calling it a success, if not an unbridled one. The sleeves look like something a Tyrannosaurus-Rex might sport -- but they fit over my broad shoulders and that's what matters, right? It is warm and cozy and will keep my back toasty, but something about the placement of the underarms means that my front may stay a little chilly. Well, we'll see what blocking can help with and I'll model it for you then.

created

2011-04-04T06:23:00.000-04:00

Focusing on the good things created during the week...

This week: loving the process of making a felted wool blanket.

Making the initial cuts.

Seaming sweater scraps together.

Wait, what? There's no room on the worktable for new pajama pants now!

Pressing the seams on my new over-the-door ironing board -- small but mighty handy!

What can K and I make with all these little bits?

Some of the finished 14" by 14" squares -- start looking for someone to snuggle with.

There's still more work to do. File this under "Works in Progress."

created

2011-03-27T03:27:00.000-04:00

Focusing on the good things created during the week...

Midnight Caramel Crunch Shortbread. Need I say more?

On my needles -- the Raring to Go Edition

2011-03-23T14:29:00.000-04:00

I wouldn't say I'm exactly getting tired of my Shalom Cardigan. I could never tire of the soft baby alpaca yarn, and the back-and-forth of the stockinette body is soothing and allows room for chatting, reading, watching Big Bang Theory or meditating. But I am always itching to start new projects, so I am counting the rows until I catch up with my favorite cabled cardigan.

It's really not so bad, when you allow for the curling at the bottom of the body. Another four inches or so and I'll be adding the garter stitch border and wondering what on earth I'm going to do for sleeves.

My knitting class starts this Friday, and I have picked out a challenging (to me) cabled baby cardigan to bring there with me; I am looking at several other baby sweaters because I seem to have a surfeit of light fingering yarn; and I hope to complete a crocheted rabbit or three before Easter Day, about which we will have to see.

What's on your needles these days?

On my needles -- the Try It On For Size Edition

2011-03-15T14:16:00.000-04:00

It's going to fit!

created

2011-03-13T17:08:00.005-04:00

Focusing on the good things created during the week...

Choosing sweaters for a new felted-wool project is always a joy.

The finished wool-felt project: a poncho for my niece A.

K snuggles with some bamboo stuffing as she works on her book report project, a sock puppet of Mr. Brown from Dr. Seuss's Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?


Popping some bubble wrap on a break!

Clowning around with Mr. Brown

Finished Object Friday -- Wide Leg Lounge Pants

2011-03-11T18:49:00.000-05:00


The finished product!

I have been wanting to adapt my cropped lounge pants pattern to a long-pants version all winter. (What? I never showed you the cropped pants I made last fall? Shame on me. I will post photos when I get them out next month.) Now that Spring is nearly here, I found the time to give it a go.

First order of business was choosing fabric for the pants from my vintage bedsheet collection.

Easier said than done.

Then there was the job of modifying the cropped pattern to a long version. A little tedious but not difficult. At last I chose a bedsheet, pinned my pattern pieces on and began to cut.

My normal method for making pajama pants is somewhat slapdash, but I had pretty high hopes that this pair would turn out especially well, so I took care with the pinning.

Then I brushed up on my buttonhole-making (okay, I made my first, second and third buttonholes ever) because I wanted to try something new with the waistband: an elasticized drawstring.

Here's what they looked like:

Not impressed? Neither was I, but you have to start somewhere. I had to do a bit of finagling to get the drawstring to come out right, but in the end it worked. Here are the finished pants:

I wanted to show you a picture of me wearing them, but the truth is they are shaped a bit funny and look more like clown pants than the wide-legged yoga pants that I had been going for.

I may have to bite the bullet and buy the pair of pants I want to copy in order to get this right, instead of trying to fake it with the cropped version.

Anyway, they're comfy and the print is cute, and they will make fine pajamas. I'm calling the experiment a guarded success!

created/on my needles -- the sweater obsession edition

2011-03-08T15:52:00.000-05:00

focusing on the good things created during the week...

I'm so proud that I finished the yoke of my Shalom cardigan! Now I can't stop knitting on it!

On my needles: the summer dreams edition

2011-03-02T15:05:00.000-05:00

This week I have been working on a project from 'way back in last June, when we went to Wisconsin to visit relatives. Our route took us through Madison, where I conveniently managed to find, right around lunchtime, a charming little yarn store that I can no longer remember the name of nor find on Ravelry -- what a shame! I purchased some bamboo yarn there to start Claire Montgomerie's "smock top" from Easy Kids Knits for K. The pattern is adorable, a little airy sleeveless thing with a picot hem and a seed stitch heart adornment, and I am afraid I am not doing it justice, but blocking will tell. I still have a ways to go on this.

And then there is the ubiquitous Shalom Cardigan, this week in Cascade Yarns Baby Chunky Alpaca, a distinct improvement from the Ecological wool in both texture and stitch definition. It is creamy-soft and luscious to work with and slips off my addi turbos like a dream. My hope is that, with excellent yarn and pattern figured out, all will now be smooth sailing.

Look for my elf hat to come off the needles soon. I am plotting some Pointy Elf Mittens to go with it!

created

2011-02-27T23:15:00.000-05:00

Focusing on the good things created during the week...

This week: Lots of freshly organized space in the studio, and one happy cat!

On my needles: The facing facts edition

2011-02-22T15:10:00.000-05:00

On my needles this week are one project I have grown to love and one about which I have grown ambivalent. On the right is a Pointy Elf Hat, for me, in the Strawberry Smoothie colorway hand dyed by Woolbearers in Malabrigo Gruesa. I used this yarn to make everyone in the family such a hat at Christmastime except D and me, so now I am making ours. The thick-and-thin merino is soft and luxurious to work with and I can't wait to put it on my head. (Aside: K gave everyone an "Elf name" on Christmas Day: Grandma was the Cooking Elf, Grandpa the Sleeping Elf, D was the Computer Elf, Aunt S the Reading Elf, and Uncle A the Stinky Elf! I, of course, was the Knitting Elf.)

The Shalom Cardigan, on the other hand, is turning out to be a bit of a disappointment. Despite the many glowing comments I read about Cascade Ecological Wool on Ravelry, I am not entranced with the yarn. I can see that it will make a good, sturdy, comfortable sweater but I am not falling over myself to knit on it. I can see clearly that I will never make my end-of-February deadline with this sweater, and I'm having the occasional fleeting thought of frogging the thing and starting over with a chunky alpaca I have stashed away. For the moment, however, I will persevere.

If you have not already popped over there, I invite you to take a look at Soulemama's post for today, titled "an EZ set." She has some whimsical and wise words to say about -- and quotations from -- the inimitable Elizabeth Zimmermann, knitter extraordinaire.

created

2011-02-21T16:53:00.000-05:00

Focusing on the good things created during the week...


A pretty impressive tangle incurred when I tried to ply my newly spun "art yarn singles." Hooray for time to spin!

On my needles -- the On-again-off-again Edition

2011-02-15T03:28:00.000-05:00

I finally cast on for my Shalom in Ecological Wool on size 10 1/2's last Friday, then promptly lost track of it as I scrambled to finish K's quilt in time for Valentine's Day (which, as you can see by the lack of a corresponding post, I did not do.) I felt kind of iffy about the extremely loose and stretchy fabric of the garter-stitch collar at the start. Then I had some trouble with the twisted-rib portion of the yoke, which I knew I had been doing incorrectly in the original and which I wanted to set straight. Between one thing and another, I decided to frog it.

I have started knitting again on a size 10 needle, and things are looking up. Meanwhile, I have learned:

I was doing the M1 increase all wrong! You lift the little bar with the right needle and place it knitwise on the left, and then there is no hole after the increase! Hooray!
To do the twisted rib, you twist the knit stitches on the wrong side and the purl stitches on the right side. Voila!

Even if I don't finish this sweater by the end of February (and I still very well might!), it will have been well worth making for the lessons it is teaching me.

created

2011-02-14T04:17:00.000-05:00

Another week, another bout with bronchitis.

Focusing on the good things created during the week:

This week, courtesy Aunt H: A whirling dervish!

(Just like) starting over

2011-02-12T01:49:00.000-05:00

I'm over my lost weekend with the green Lopi yarn and it's time to start rethinking the Shalom sweater.

Frogging was a disaster. Apparently Lopi is pretty apt to give in and fall apart when you tug on it with any force, and it clings to itself fiercely, so reclaiming the wool I used was not an option. I might have enough left to finish a 3/4-sleeved sweater with, but there's no way to be sure, and I really want this sweater to work. Off to the LYS, where I purchased 2 enormous skeins of Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool, then home to wind the yarn into balls and crunch the numbers.

478 is a lot of yards to wind. It took at least an hour before I was ready to start swatching. The yarn called for #10 needles but the pattern called for #10 1/2, which is what I used.

Before blocking, my swatch gave 4 stitches to the inch, and the same was true after blocking. Using Elizabeth Zimmermann's percentage system from Knitting Without Tears and my favorite yoked sweater (not a cardigan, so I added 4 stitches for the button band), I calculated that I would need:

88 stitches for the neck
186 stitches for the chest
60 stitches for the arm circumference at the underarm
15 stitches at the bottom of the underarm (to be cast on after placing live arm stitches on waste yarn)
45 stitches for the arm to be placed on waste yarn and picked up when working the arms.

That was the easy part.

The number crunching got ugly after that. I had to ask for help from an expert (thank you, D) and consider several courses of action before deciding that I would work the pattern as follows:

Cast on 88 stitches
Follow rows 1-7
Complete row 8 as given; 142 stitches
Follow rows 9-19
Row 20: k5, m1, k2; (m1, k4) until 7 stitches remain; m1, k2, m1, k5; 170 stitches
follow rows 121-131
Row 32: k5; (m1, k4, m1, k3) until 11 stitches remain; (m1, k2) twice; m1; k5; 217 stitches
Follow rows 33-44
Row 45: k20, place 45 sts on waste yarn, k87, place 45 sts on waste yarn, k20; 127 stitches
Row 46: k5, p to first armhole, cast on 15 stitches, p to second armhole, cast on 20 stitches, p 15, k5
work in stockinette stitch with garter stitch border until desired length; knit 9 rows of garter stitch; bind off all stitches (note -- no waist shaping!)

I have not yet decided how I am going to work the arms -- I have seen several designs that I like and I want to try on the body before I make a final decision about that. Also I want to get this yarn on my needles and get to work!

Frogging

2011-02-10T09:02:00.000-05:00

Well, I had a premonition but I didn't want to say anything. The neck looked a little too small, the sleeves a little funny, the chest not quite chesty enough. And (oh, shame) I had not swatched. I got about three inches into the body and had started inserting some desperate little increases when I noticed three little links on the Ravelry Shalom Cardigan page:

Shalom Tips 1

Shalom Tips 2

Shalom Tips 3

Oops.

So I read the first one. How comforting that I am not alone. And the second one. Oh. My. That explains the weirdness of the sleeves and the tiny chest. Now I know I must try my sweater on, because I am certain that it will not fit. It doesn't. When I am done swearing, I begin frogging while I read the third set of tips.

What's this? A full schematic diagram, with a nod to Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Without Tears? How comforting -- I understand how EZ's seamless yoked sweater works -- maybe there is hope after all.

I go to bed with the sweater half-frogged, thinking about stitch counts and percentages.

This morning, I am following EZ's recommendation of measuring my favorite yoked sweater, and then I will try to work out how to translate her seamless yoked sweater directions into the top-down design of the Shalom cardigan. All bets are still on -- it's just that the challenge has become considerably more challenging. I'm going to believe I'm up to it!

On my needles

2011-02-08T10:42:00.001-05:00

My February Challenge Sweater is coming along nicely. I have finished the yoke and bound off for the sleeves, and am ready to begin the body. I also found some buttons in my button box that I think will work nicely. From here on it should be smooth sailing.

Things I have learned so far:

I love, love, love the look of garter stitch. I'm looking forward to starting the Sonnet sweater from Knitty.com (well, ok, I already started it, but it's on hiatus till I finish a couple of other WIP's) which has rows and rows of garter stitch.
Do buttonholes neatly. The first time. I am not going to want to go back and fix sloppy ones later, and it may not be worth it. I plan on keeping my sweater buttoned most of the time.
Maybe I should not watch tv or listen to podcasts or music when I'm working on a pattern stitch, even a simple one as appears here. I had to rip out the first tier of the yoke at least three times because of mass confusion in the second or third row, and it was only when I began working in complete silence that I got control of the thing.
I can weave in ends invisibly and firmly. It's not hard to do that, but I need to take my time to do it right, which I never want to do when I'm frantic to get a finished sweater on my body. I heard someone on a Knit Picks podcast suggest that weaving in ends as you go might be a good idea, and I wholeheartedly agree.
I am learning quite a bit about top-down construction and how miraculous and versatile this sort of design can be. I rather think I'm going to prefer it from here on in.

All in all, not bad for a week's work. What's on your needles?

created

2011-02-06T19:47:00.000-05:00

Due to a bout with bronchitis, I'm afraid I haven't been particularly active this week, and so haven't been taking many photographs. "created" will have to take its form in words today:

Focusing on the good things created during the week...

Progress on my tea leaves cardigan
One spinach quiche for Sunday dinner and one herbed quiche for the freezer
Cottage cheese dill bread and French Lentil Soup
A good start on K's Science Fair project with help from D
A totally doable challenge to myself to knit a sweater in a (short!) month
A significantly greater challenge in accepting the role of craft table chairperson for the church Christmas bazaar -- but still doable
A precious memory of time spent with a good friend in need

If you are inclined to share, please leave a comment with some of your week's good creations.

February challenge: Shalom cardigan

2011-02-03T09:14:00.000-05:00

On the first of the month I began working on the Shalom Cardigan in Lopi Wool, having finished all of the interesting parts of the Tea Leaves Cardigan for a while -- I have miles of boring stockinette stitch to finish there. And, while I am still devoted to Tea Leaves, I got to thinking how I love working in bulky yarn, and what fun the Shalom pattern is to knit, and could I? Maybe? If I really pushed myself, could I get the Shalom sweater finished by the end of February? I think maybe I could.

It's going to take some discipline, particularly since I want to follow Soulemama's lead and add sleeves to the finished garment (where would I be without her creative guidance?), but I think it's doable. Look for updates here as I work hard to create an actual finished garment -- we process knitters have to do that occasionally -- and feel free to add your own comments and suggestions along the way. Won't this be fun?

On my needles

2011-02-01T03:54:00.002-05:00

Making plenty of progress on my Tea Leaves Cardigan!

created

2011-01-30T19:04:00.001-05:00

Focusing on the good things created during the week...

Ties on the quilt that was meant to be K's Christmas gift -- it should be bound by Valentine's day!

Cream of broccoli soup and pear bread on a snowy morning.

Music improvised by a budding pianist.

I learned how to hem my jeans while keeping the original hem intact!

A new table for my second sewing machine.

Some simple linen dishtowels.

Sunday dinner with the family: Ham, scalloped potatoes, "crunchy salad."

I'm still tweaking my pajama pants pattern.

Spin to spin

2011-01-26T03:52:00.000-05:00

When I first got my spindle, and then spinning wheel (and I know that some people name their wheels, but I think that's a little bit silly, so mine will just be "spinning wheel," at least until I acquire another, which I'm assured I will) I felt certain that I had to produce knit-worthy yarn right away, even if it was lumpy-bumpy "art" yarn (which it was.) I was spinning for quantity, as well -- if I were going to knit with the yarn I made, I wanted to make enough yarn to make something useful, which for me is nothing smaller than a sweater -- so you can imagine the fluffy puffs of fiber knocking around our house. But I have taken some time off from spinning to wash my two raw fleeces and do some sewing and knitting, and now I have some new spinning goals:

Read Judith MacKenzie McCuin's The Intentional Spinner: A Holistic Approach to Making Yarn and LEARN!
Spin for consistency -- learn to make yarn of a consistent, smooth thickness
Spin to experiment -- try using the wheel at different ratios and treadle speeds and with different fibers
Spin for joy -- because it's fun to spin!
Spin to make yarn -- don't worry about a finished garment, just see what kind of yarn comes out and assign it to a project later -- or call it art yarn!
Spin to practice plying -- an excellent skill to master
Spin to dye -- try dyeing some handspun yarn in Kool-Aid or natural dyes (I am not quite ready to set up a chemical dyeing situation just yet)
Spin for practice -- don't worry about whether the finished yarn looks perfect -- focus on what I am spinning IN THE MOMENT
Spin with a spindle -- because it is meditative and soothing
Spin for speed -- also a good skill to acquire, though better to be slow and produce excellent yarn than quick and produce shoddy yarn

That said, I do have one final goal in order to see that these other goals are met: Spin for at least three, one-hour sessions, per week. That sounds like a lot, and it kind of is, but I think it will help make me a productive and accomplished spinner -- and may help me produce some yarn that I can actually use in a knitting project, because I do have some in mind, yes, I do...

created

2011-01-24T05:08:00.001-05:00

Welcome to Created, a new feature of this blog inspired by Dialectic Dichotomy's Sanguine Saturday and designed to focus on the good things created during the week by me, by my family and by my friends. I would like to eventually include submissions from readers, too. The post will normally appear on Sundays but is a little late this week because I have just developed it as the response to a challenge from a friend. I will try to keep the narrative to a minimum -- I plan to simply use photographs with captions, and I hope that the format will become clear with time.

Plenty of progress on my 'Tea Leaves' Cardigan.

Beauty and order in my living and dining rooms.

Two guinea pigs with squeaky clean, shorter fur.

Empty space in our bedroom where the cradle used to be, and freedom from impossible wishing and longing for the past.

A brand-new antique desk for our little scholar.

More empty space, this time in my fiber closet -- to store good things to come!

Rockin' Grandma art by Miss K.

I've been sewing again! More on this one later.

My fiber closet!

2011-01-23T04:50:00.000-05:00

It was almost too easy to do this, after The Yarn Project -- just a matter of emptying the craft closet of unrelated items, inventorying the fiber and tools and packaging it all up neatly in the enormous space I had created.

I was amazed when there was room left over for my spinning wheel and drying racks -- not that I will be washing fleece again any time soon, as you can see by the two giant sacks of Romney fleece (the one on top washed a bright white, the bottom one a deep dark chocolate) resting on the closet shelves.

I had a little time left over to practice spinning with some of the Romney fleece I had carded before the Christmas rush began -- Kelsey examines my work and is clearly disappointed with the lack of twist in my single as it plies back onto itself.

What you do not see here are the piles of paints, papers, glue and artwork that came out of the closet and did not go back in. Now I am off to find good homes for these orphaned art supplies. But the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight -- soon I will be finished this early spring-cleaning process and back to learning and creating and producing -- hooray!

Little boxes

2011-01-22T04:40:00.000-05:00

Hooray! Every last ball of yarn is assigned to a project, collected into a labeled box and tucked away until I am ready to knit it, and the books I need are filed in my bookshelf. No more random bags of projects hanging on doorknobs with books hiding inside like bottom-feeders, never seeing the light of day. My needles are organized into sixteen manageable bags (plus one for the crochet hooks), and I am left with a double handful of straight needles to donate along with the big bag of odd yarn hanks. Looks pretty good to me.

Now I need to sort through my fiber collection (oh how I am dying to spin again!) and set up my new (to me) sewing table in the studio so I will have access to both sewing machines at once (yes, I really do need that.) I made a decision early in the year to purge my fabric collection of all but my very favorite quilting cottons, so I donated many bags of remnants bought from JoAnn Fabrics (when I first started quilting and didn't really know what I wanted to work with) and yards and yards of baby flannel (I seem to have had some idea of making receiving blankets, but I'm not sure for whom.) The remains are some really interesting vintage fabrics, a lot of wool felt and linen, and a vast collection of vintage pillowcases and bedsheets, with which I am well pleased.

Stash sorting snafu

2011-01-17T07:45:00.000-05:00

Someone please tell me how this happens! I began this project with the best of intentions for organizing my stash, and now high holy heck has broken loose. Now I'm playing a sort of game of Yarn Tetris, fitting hanks and skeins into projects of sweaters and vests and ponchos (because I can never plan a small project, though I do long for them from time to time.) This is what I'm looking at right now -- I'll talk to you when I've dug my way out a bit more:

Sweaters on deck

2011-01-15T13:24:00.001-05:00

My one fiber resolution for 2011 is to work primarily from my stash. I have come to an understanding that this will involve a deep and honest evaluation of my yarn and UFO collection, and that some difficult decisions will need to be made.

This first decision was not at all difficult: Frog City. I hate it so much I may not even bother to unravel the yarn, I may just pass it on to the Goodwill in vest form. It was meant to be a Berkshire Sweater from Weekend Knitting like the Violet Beauregarde sweater I made a year or so back, but the gauge was all funky and the yarn was not delicious and the whole thing was just sad. I will need to think of something to do with the yarn -- it's Debbie Bliss Chunky Donegal Tweed -- or else it goes to someone else's stash, so ideas are welcome.

This sweater is another no-brainer. It's the Millie Cardigan from Vintage Crochet and it's so close to done! I just need some concentrated quiet time to get the counting right. I can't wait to wear this!

Okay. This is just what it looks like: a pile of Lopi yarn in a bunch of colors I thought looked pretty together. It was way on sale. I'm thinking of something in garter stitch, maybe vertical stripes? Input is, as usual, appreciated.

And this is where I broke my no-new-fiber rule. Because I found the Blizzard yarn that I made my original Violet Beauregarde out of in a warehouse sale for, once again, way cheap. And I have a bunch of modifications that I want to try with the sweater to make it more attractive and comfy to wear. Nuff said.

Another pile of Lopi yarn, this time destined to become knitty.com's awesome Sonnet sweater. I'm going to have fun looking for buttons to go with this one. Have I mentioned that I love working with bulky yarn?

And, at last, my current fave, Madelintosh's tea leaves cardigan, done in Cascade Eco Duo that had been meant for an EZ seamless yoke sweater which I was simply not ready to tackle.

I would love to stay and chat but K's birthday party is this afternoon and I am using up precious knitting moments. Until next time!

One mitten

2011-01-11T04:35:00.000-05:00

Remember my handspun angora? From away back? My beautiful, bulky, teal, thick-and-thin, fuzzy, wonderful handspun angora? Here is what I made from it:

Yes, that is correct. One K-sized mitten. I know I should have made a scarf, I knew when I began the mitten that I would not have enough yarn for two. I was banking on my provider having -- or being able to dye -- some fiber to match the fiber I had already spun. Lesson learned: do not bank. So I am left with one bunny-fluff mitten to hang on the Christmas tree next year. I think it will look natural there.

Necessary neatening, with audience participation

2011-01-10T17:23:00.000-05:00

This is what my knitting needle drawer used to look like:

Mayhem had ruled my drawer for far too long. This weekend, I took action. Now I have a bag dedicated to crochet hooks and one dedicated to notions.

I have my circular and double-pointed needles in individual plastic bags, corralled in large zipper bags, one for each needle size.

And left over? My ridiculous collection of straight needles. I do not knit on straight needles. Ever. One might reasonably ask why I have any at all. I would, at this point, donate the ones I have, but I am saddled with the notion that I may soon be running a church knitting group where there will be ladies who will refuse to knit with circular needles, even if they're just knitting flat. So for the moment I'm holding on to them. I'm trying to think of something artistic or at least decorative to do with them, so they don't wind up just cluttering up a drawer.

My questions to you are: 1) how do you organize your knitting needles, and 2) what have you done with your straight needles, if you are no longer using them?

Reduce, reuse, regift, recycle

2011-01-08T05:25:00.000-05:00

This Christmas I was inspired by Soulemama to save some trees and make reusable fabric gift bags.

It was such fun making them! At least the first few... I did them with the suggested French seams until I realized that Santa would never get his gifts delivered on time at that rate, then switched to regular seams and pinking shears (next year, I'll start earlier...) And I improvised a method of attaching the ribbon by folding it and stitching it down in a box that seemed a bit more natural to me for tying the gifts. By 2am, after Midnight Mass, I had given in and was using last year's leftover paper gift bags -- cause that's still recycling, right? And since K woke up at 3, I was glad I did.

Aside from the ecological benefits of wrapping packages this way, I now have the bonus of being able to give any gift in attractive packaging, without hunting for the Scotch tape. What could be better? Plus, I had the opportunity to make use of some of the gorgeous vintage fabrics that have been languishing in my stash waiting for a worthy project.

Want to try one? My favorite is the bag near the middle, the one with the orange, green and navy flowers. It started out as an extremely worn, extremely dated vintage blouse that I had been holding on to with no idea what I was going to do with it. Of course I could turn it into a bag! If you don't have one of these in your closet (and I bet you do), it's easy to find them on half price day at the Goodwill.

The easiest way is to turn the shirt inside out, cut the collar and sleeves off just below the underarms, and sew closed, but if you need to you could narrow the sides and sew them closed as well. Either way, for my friends who are afraid of their sewing machines, it is just straight seams. Leave the bottom hem intact (it is now the top of the bag) and sew a ribbon to the center. Done. You've spent less than 10 minutes sewing, which is 3 minutes more than you would have spent wrapping, but your friend will think you slaved all day. And you saved a tree. Go you.

Second Sock Syndrome

2011-01-07T05:38:00.000-05:00

I started a pair of Cozy Toes Socks on our New Year's trip to visit family in Wisconsin, and knitted the first sock happily by the fire with Aunt Mary. What a joy, to work up a sock in no time with creamy soft alpaca yarn. And when I tried it on, it fit perfectly and was cozy indeed! As we packed for home, I began the second sock with all good intentions -- but since then, have I knitted a stitch on it? And they're predicting snow for the weekend! Clearly I have my work cut out for me. Time to push past Second Sock Syndrome and finish the pair so I can enjoy them (and start a new pair, of course...)

Emerging

2011-01-06T05:13:00.000-05:00

My, it's been a long time! I've missed sharing my work and ideas with you and have made a resolution to do those things more regularly in 2011. (Actually, I was intending to start back in on Monday, but you know how those things go...)

I have been overwhelmed with holiday sewing, quilting, knitting and wrapping. What a mess! I vow to not let this happen again next year. K will find a way to be satisfied with the "something to eat, something to wear, something to play with" method of gift-giving, and the adults will get their gifts through the year; I am not going to be burdened with the chore of making sure "everybody gets a bunch of stuff on Christmas day" anymore.

So expect to see more from me in the coming weeks: I want to write a bit about what I've been doing, and I hope to have some new projects to show off. My goal is to post at least every other day, and I hope you'll hold me to that and comment or email me if you don't see new content here. Welcome back; I'm glad you're with me, and I hope you'll stick around.

Handspun angora

2010-10-29T20:05:00.000-04:00

So I had been arduously spinning the angora roving I bought at the Garden State Sheep Breeders Sheep and Fiber Festival back in September -- on my spindle -- and I had worked through about four ounces in a month. Along comes my spinning wheel and zoom! I zipped through the second four ounces in less than a day. Here I am plying the spindled yarn with the wheel-spun yarn with a little help from Kelsey the cat:

Winding a hank on the swift is much quicker and easier than using a niddy-noddy, in my experience. My swift, when it's fully opened, makes a 36-inch skein, and I had about 51 yards of what feels and knits like a bulky-weight yarn when I was done.

Here's the skein, all neat and tidy and soft and fuzzy. I carried it with me and petted it all day today, but couldn't resist and by 4:30 was winding it into a ball so I could begin knitting K's Christmas mittens. It is truly delicious, and I am utterly amazed that I am so far along in the process of turning fluff from a bunny into clothing for my child. Incredible!

My handspun!

2010-10-27T03:04:00.000-04:00

The stats: Natural Grey Border Leicester, 136 yards or thereabouts, somewhere between aran and bulky weight -- I did not measure wraps per inch because I forgot before I skeined it, but that's such a hairy unit of measurement that I'm not sure it matters much. It's got a nice soft hand; I think it will be suitable for a scarf, hat and mittens, which was my intended project for this fiber.

I picked up a pound of this nice Border Leicester at Rhinebeck the weekend before last when I got my NEW SPINNING WHEEL (the Road Bug by Merlin Tree, more to come on that soon.) I have about twelve different projects going on, as usual, but would like to get a gauge swatch done on this yarn soon, so look for that and poke me if you don't see it.

UFO: Busy Stripes Quilt

2010-10-02T06:03:00.000-04:00

I have no idea why this little quilt has been sitting in my UFO box for two and a half years. A little stitching in the ditch, a little binding and it will be all set to go to a little fellow I know who will love to snuggle under its flannelly goodness.

UFO: Slice Twice Sorbet Quilt

2010-09-30T07:35:00.000-04:00

This one has been in progress in my studio for ages, and was meant to be bound and done last spring, but summer happened and I have been slip-stitching sporadically all these months. It's the Slice Twice -- Isn't That Nice pattern that I picked up at Olde City Quilts with a Moda Sorbet layer cake. Something like Two. Years. Ago. I sewed about 3/4 of the top together, let it sit for a year, and then came back to it when the guilt hit me like a ton of bricks. I finished the top, made the sandwich, did some machine quilting and put a tie or two in each block for good measure, and sewed the binding on the front. All in record time.

In the next few days I will be diverting as much creative energy as possible to stitching the rest of the binding onto this quilt I have come to love; then I will finally get to show you the finished product!

It's about the process

2010-09-28T20:33:00.000-04:00

The project started because I had been in the hospital and a nurse, who was expecting a baby before long, had been extra kind to me. Before I even got home I knew that I wanted to make the super-soft patchwork-bound blanket from Weekend Sewing for Baby C. As soon as I was feeling up to it, I headed down to the fabric store and bought a length of beautifully soft wool/cashmere blend, and fearlessly tossed it in the washing machine to felt it. The results were amazing, dense and plush and warm, exactly what I'd had in mind.

I cut the two pieces, but not carefully, and the blanket ended up being an inch short on all four sides because of it. The blanket-construction and decorative zig-zagging went well -- a pleasant surprise for me because the other times I've made this blanket I've botched those. Then I sat down with my bins of fabric to start creating the patchwork binding strips.

It was so hard to decide! I wanted to use all of my favorites -- it took a long time to narrow it down. Finally I worked out my patchwork panel.

I really like this method of making binding -- it leaves so much room for interpretation and creativity. Here are the finished strips, ready to sew on the blanket:

Here is the bound blanket -- it doesn't look too bad, although the binding is not sewn on perfectly and there was some difficulty sewing through the thicker parts where the binding overlapped (this was done before my Kenmore came home.)

Had I left well enough alone, I think the blanket would have been gift-able. But because I knew the baby's name, I wanted to personalize it. This is where I ran into trouble.

Because I bought the wrong kind of interfacing (Wonder Under instead of single-sided fusible) I had to cut out the 'C' three times before I accepted the fact that I was going to have to fuse the thing on in one layer and machine-applique instead of stitching the letter to the fusible, turning the thing inside-out, ironing it on the blanket and doing a decorative stitch by hand. Enter the dreaded zig-zag stitch. Although I tested it on a scrap and thought I had it right, I accidentally set it too wide and too short, making for a very sloppy stitching line around the 'C.' Hoping to disguise my messy work, I satin-stitched an edging around the letter with an embroidery needle and pearl cotton. You can see the result below:

So I'm not at all sure what to do about this. Give it away? Cut it up for scraps? Make another one with the fabric I have left over? The truth is that I don't like it very much.

Thoughts?

Just Make It ... Sew

2010-09-27T05:19:00.000-04:00

When I was picking up my "new" sewing machine the other day there happened to be a reporter from the Burlington County Times interviewing the shop owner, so I had to wait a minute or two while she talked to him. JoAnn and I chit-chatted while she rang me up, and the reporter noticed and asked me for a quote, which -- liberally paraphrased -- appears in this article. Look for more about JoAnn and her shop (including photographs, I hope) in the future...

Up and running

2010-09-22T18:10:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post to let you know that my Sears Kenmore 1430 Zig Zag is back in my possession, and after some fiddling and studying I have it humming nicely on some scrap fabric. K is home "sick" (read: needing Mama time) today so I haven't been able to do any real sewing, but I will post when I get a chance to zip through a quick test project.

The word, through the fabric store owner, from the repairman, is that I have a good sturdy machine with a pretty stitch that, if I take care of it, will last me a lifetime. Cost: $50 for the machine at the thrift store; $84 for repairs. Score!

Vintage Kenmore

2010-09-18T06:49:00.000-04:00

Earlier in the week, I found this at my favorite thrift store:

I noted the model number and did a little research on the thing.

There's not a huge amount of information readily available, but apparently the Kenmore 1430 Zig Zag was a pretty popular model somewhere in the vicinity of 1972 and is an all-metal workhorse that can sew easily through several layers of denim and even leather (demonstrated here on YouTube) and has "6 quarters" of room underneath the presser foot -- great for quilting.

Just the same, the machine I found was not in working condition and cost a fair amount of money, so I passed on it. But it stuck in my mind, and I visit that thrift store several times a week. Yesterday when I was paying for my latest finds, I looked up at the marquee where they advertise the day's sale tag color -- blue. Of course, nothing I was buying had a blue tag. But. The vintage Kenmore sported a blue sticker. I asked the saleslady if that counted, and she gave me the nod. Half of a fair amount of money seemed reasonable to me -- if the thing could not be fixed I could sell it for parts -- so I nodded and she rang it up.

Now I am totally beside myself. I rushed the machine to my favorite fabric store in downtown Burlington -- they have a man there who comes in to do repairs, and he'll be in on Tuesday. I can't wait to hear from him! In the meantime, I have joined the Kenmore Vintage Sewing Machine group on Yahoo Groups (yes, of course there is one -- search for "vintagekenmoressew" if you are so inclined) and am combing Ebay for parts and accessories. What fun!

K's duvet cover: a taste of independence

2010-09-16T08:01:00.000-04:00

In the interest of putting K in charge of making her own bed, I bought her a twin-sized duvet some time ago. Not wanting to spend $39.95 or more on a cover for it, however, I let it sit in the linen closet and rot. Despite the fabulous collection of vintage bedsheets toppling the bookcase in my studio next door. Somehow flower power just doesn't fit the image I have of my girl.

Not long ago, however, I happened upon a complete set of twin-sized rosebud-print sheets from Target's Simply Shabby Chic collection in the Salvation Army store -- a guilty (because I have more than once paid full price for this line) favorite of mine. I snapped them up and set them aside, waiting, waiting. And lo and behold, the other week, it happened! A different sheet from the same line popped up in the Linens section and made its way into my hot little hands. Woo-hoo!

I used the tutorial at the "Decorating: a journal" blog that I have used before -- it is straightforward and simple and requires no fasteners, which has worked well with the first duvet cover I made.

This will suit Miss K well and be comfy and cozy to boot. I'm looking forward to many a toasty morning snuggled up with her, planning for the day to come and maybe goofing off a bit? And she will be so proud to pull up the covers and have a neat and tidy bed in no time! I think it was worth the wait.

Questions from the Tooth Fairy

2010-09-14T11:08:00.000-04:00

K lost her first tooth last night in her sleep (is she really that grown up?), and with her sharp little six-year-old eyes managed to find it nestled in her white chenille bedspread (thank goodness!) -- leaving us with an important task: Finishing the Tooth Fairy Pillow today so that it will be ready for tonight's hijinks and hullabaloo. Originally we had cut the pieces out of wool felt with the idea that K would sew the pillow herself, but she assured me that she would not be offended if I assembled the thing while she was at school, so I set to work.

I tried to keep the stitching neat and sturdy but still childlike, as though K had had a hand in it -- not hard since my hand-sewing skills leave a bit to be desired. I wanted to stuff it with wool batting but chose K's favorite bamboo since she's the one who has to sleep on it. I do hope she likes it.

Now. Questions.

What is the going rate for baby teeth these days? K said something like "maybe a dollar?" but my fairy is just not sure.
Would a little present be appropriate along with the small amount of money the fairy is likely to leave? Like a new toothbrush, perhaps?
How on Earth does my fairy get the teensy little tooth out of the pocket without waking the excited child?

Garden State Goodies

2010-09-14T04:59:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was the Garden State Sheep Breeders' Sheep and Fiber Festival. I drove out on Sunday all by myself! It was fun to pet the angora rabbits and talk to the baby llamas, and I ran my fingers through tons of raw fleece -- but much to D's relief came home with neither fleece nor llama nor bunny. (Though I will be looking into raising angora rabbits. How much trouble can they be? And how totally worth it would it be to grow my own fiber? Really!)

I did bring home some beautiful alpaca worsted to knit into Katie Himmelberg's Best-Fit Jumper from Simple Style, which I have been drooling over for a while now. (The pattern calls for an alpaca-merino blend and my yarn is just alpaca, but I am going to knit the ribbing with a smaller needle in the hope that it will retain its memory -- I'm testing it out on the swatch. If it doesn't work I have no doubt but that I can find some other use for this delicious yarn!

While you're admiring the yarn, take a gander at my new swift! Life has recently become significantly less arduous for the wool-winders in the Martin household. I think D agreed on my purchase (special sale at Knit Picks!) because it freed him from his bondage to the almighty skein -- possibly more so than as a reward for my hard labor driving K to camp in the Pinelands and schlepping her to the beach all summer. In any case, I am loving it!

(Stay tuned to see the other goodies I brought home from the festival, as well as progress on the Wonky Blocks quilt...)

Wonky Blocks

2010-09-07T06:37:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry for disappearing these last few months; it has been a crazy summer, with trips to visit aunties and Alma Maters, a lovely vacation at the beach and many weeks of driving long distance to (totally worth it!) day camp in the Pinelands. Thankfully, school starts up again tomorrow and things are settling down again. I have many projects to show you! Let me start with my latest passion, the "mystery quilt," to which I will give the working title "Wonky Blocks." (An appropriate homemade gift will go to the person who can guess the actual name of the quilt before it is finished -- I will be dropping hints along the way!)

I am working entirely with pieces from my scrap box and from pre-cut (homemade) charm squares and jelly roll strips so far -- I will need to purchase fabric for a border, backing, and possibly for binding as well. The process of making the blocks has been quite liberating -- I started making geometrically precise little blocks with the pre-cuts, and finished by sewing the tiniest scraps together in any way they would go and cutting the results into squares. I'm loving the results!

Putting the quilt-block puzzle together is exciting and hurts my head, and is taking up the living room where D will want to set up with his computer as he is working from home today, and I am not half done yet. There may be turf wars to come.

Still to do: piece quilt; determine a size for the quilt (how wide do they make quilt batting, anyway, and can you sew two lengths of batting together to make a larger one?); determine type of border to use and amount(s) of fabric to buy; and so on, and so on.

Meet Hank

2010-05-10T06:39:00.000-04:00

Here 's my first homely hank of homespun, made with my Ashford spindle and plied from a center-pull ball that fell apart in my hands after the first yard or so. I did not take note of its length because I was too concerned about the yarn untwisting itself to measure it before I skeined it up. However, given Hank's diminutive stature (not to mention its highly variable level of twistiness -- is that a word?) I think that in the future I will wait to ply until I have spun two cops, and ply from two balls under a couple of flowerpots until I get hold of (or make) a lazy kate.

For all its obvious imperfections I'm in love with this yarn! I love the colors and the twist, the bulk and the softness, and I fully intend to work with it when I have finished spinning the batch. I can't wait to see how it knits up!

Spinning hand dyed merino

2010-05-06T02:58:00.000-04:00

Since we took our class together at the Sheep and Wool Festival, K has been itching to spin some real yarn. I've not wanted to hand my Golding spindle off to her because that's MY ball of yarn and I don't want anyone else to mess with it, thank you very much!

So I went down to Woolbearer's to look for a spindle for her, because although I could have made her a toy wheel spindle, I knew she wanted the real thing. I found the perfect beginner's spindle there (selling for peanuts) and some variegated purple merino roving that I knew she'd go crazy for, and a book called Spin to Knit: The Knitter's Guide to Making Yarn. I brought home the book, 8 oz. of the roving and two spindles and sat down to fiddle.

I knew, getting into this, that the merino would be harder to spin than the coopworth. Its shorter fiber length makes it slippery and easy to pull apart, and my impatient tugging didn't help; my roving kept drifting into little clouds. But I loved the merino's springiness and soft hand, and I enjoyed working with it.

When K got home we took the guinea pigs outside and put them in their pen, then sat down in lawn chairs to spin. We had a rough start because I got fussed about making sure she drafted in a particular way, and I couldn't see that her drafting was fine; it just wasn't the same as mine. (In fact, it was better; her fiber never drifted apart.) There were tears and there was some shouting, but once I realized my mistake I quickly apologized, and soon K was brightly saying, "Isn't this fun?" and chanting, "I'm makin' ya -- arn, I'm makin' ya -- arn!" And she was. She got the hang of drafting and twirling the shaft and managing her fiber and she did a fine job.

(We plan to make hats with the yarn we spin and be Purple Hat Buddies. Also, I have signed up for a spinning class at Woolbearer's that starts this Saturday. Oh boy!)

Festival fibers and a spindle!

2010-05-02T12:15:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in the blazing sun and heat, and I had a blast picking out my very own drop spindle and fiber to go with it. There were sheep, goats, alpacas, llamas, bunnies, and sheepdogs to see, and lamb delicacies of all kinds, and beautiful beautiful yarns, but I was on a mission. I'd been reading Respect the Spindle: Spin Infinite Yarns with One Amazing Tool, and I was convinced that I could spin yarn.

K and I took a class called "Exploring Simple Spinning" where we used a homemade drop spindle made with a dowel and an old compact disc when we first arrived. We spun absolutely nothing with it. The thing was useless, or we were, I wasn't sure which. But I had a good idea of what kind of spindle I wanted (high whorl, 2 oz. or so, rim-weighted and notched) and I sent D and K off to the sheepdog demonstration while I searched for my spindle.

After nearly giving up hope and purchasing the wrong (oh so wrong) spindle in desperation, I asked at yet another roving vendor's booth where I might find a spindle to spin their fiber, and was directed to Golding Fiber Tools in the Main Exhibition Hall. There I found this beauty:


See the little sheep faces carved into the whorl?

It's exactly what I was looking for, and this morning I spun this yarn with it:


They tell me I won't be able to spin yarn this interesting looking once I get better at spinning!

I'm so excited! I bought 12 oz. of undyed Coopworth roving (I have yet to learn what makes Coopworth different from other kinds of wool, but the woman who sold it to me said it supposedly spins itself, so I will look it up in my copy of The Knitter's Book of Wool later on) and some beautifully dyed "art" fiber that seems to have a little bit of everything in it, because that is what the woman who helped me find Golding was selling.

I'm looking forward to finishing my first ball of yarn, learning how to ply, and seeing if I can knit with what I've made.

Hunky Dory charm quilt

2010-04-28T14:14:00.000-04:00

Recently I discovered The Village Quilter in Mount Holly, a fun alternative to my local quilt shop that's not too far from home. I went over there to poke around and couldn't resist picking up a charm pack of Moda's "Hunky Dory" fabrics, thinking I'd do a quick prayer quilt and get to work with some pretty prints at the same time. They soaked me for another couple of yards of fabric by handing me a "free" charm quilt pattern, but I tried not to be too bothered by that. Here's the result:

I enjoyed working with the fabric so much that I decided to quilt it instead of tie it, so I made another quilt to give as a prayer quilt and did some outline quilting and bound it instead of turning it. I like the backing too; it was fun to use a big piece of a large-scale print. These pictures were taken with my phone and do not do the quilt justice -- I will try to get better ones up soon.

In the bag

2010-04-27T06:01:00.000-04:00

I have been busy making bags, because (unless they're the plastic grocery kind) you can never have too many, and it is always possible to make one suited to your exact purpose that is also pretty.


These were a snap to make using Betz White's tutorial.

For example, these shoe bags from vintage bedsheets (and yes, I have a pair of pajama pants in each of those patterns) replaced the plastic bags my dear friend was using to pack shoes in when she traveled.

This bag was a bit challenging with its pleats and lining, but look how cute it is!

I had fun making the "Mama's Bag" from Amanda Soule's Handmade Home -- the body is a thrifted brocade curtain, the lining is cotton poplin, the straps linen and the tie grosgrain ribbon, and the bright aqua and yellow helped to cheer me up through a dark, snowy winter. I've been keeping my red cashmere/merino chemo-cap-in-progress in it and it makes me feel quite sophisticated.

What a fabulous way to repurpose a pillowcase!

I have been looking for a good pattern for a market tote bag for some time now -- one Christmas I made a bunch of Morsbags as gifts and kept a few for myself, but found they didn't hold up well against the volume of groceries I needed to bring home. And forget those ugly cheapie "canvas" bags they sell in the supermarkets. I rip right through them. But the other day I found this tutorial on Creative Kismet, and I was overjoyed! A good, sturdy and adorable market bag made with materials I own to the point of ridiculousness. What could be better?

I'm going to make a dress for K with the other pillowcase from this pair!

Ah, but now I'm on the hunt for a good produce-bag pattern. Because yesterday while I was thrifting I found a gorgeous Laura Ashley rose-print sheer that will make up into as many produce-bags as I could need, and possibly more. Once I find it -- Look out, Wegman's!

International girl

2010-04-16T08:11:00.000-04:00

Here is K getting ready for school on International Day. She is (sort of) dressed as a "Russian Peasant Girl" in long gathered skirt, peasant blouse and babushka scarf (courtesy of Carefree Clothes for Girls.) And I have become One of Those Moms who stay up late the night before The Day Of, sewing the costume the child Has To Have and didn't plan ahead for. I could kick myself for doing it, but at least she looks cute -- if not exactly authentic. (Her idea was to go in her Sock Monkey Pajamas, because they say "Made in Vietnam" on the label. Not exactly what the teacher had in mind, honey. I like your creative thinking, though.)

Stashbusting; or, I am totally making this quilt

2010-04-15T15:16:00.000-04:00

I have officially declared May "No New Fabric Month." In preparation, I have been rummaging through my scrap bins to identify usable material, and cutting it up into sizes predetermined by the good folks at Moda, who make those irresistible charm packs, layer cakes and jelly rolls lying around next to the bolts in the quilting stores.


This is what I got out of the "small scraps" bin!

I could buy any number of books of quilt patterns that utilize the pre-cuts, but I was feeling thrifty and started hunting around on the web for free patterns, and I found this tutorial for a Value Quilt. I love it! It cries out to me! I must make one! You will excuse me, please, if I go back to my scrap bins and keep cutting. I am on a mission!

Quick fix

2010-04-13T14:42:00.000-04:00

I needed a quick project to do this morning in between finishing a quilt top and preparing it for quilting, and the guinea pigs needed some new bedding, so --

I think the blue of the mattress pad brings out the rust in Gordon's fur!

If I had given Chancellor his name, it would have been Spike.

Ready and waiting

2010-04-06T15:51:00.000-04:00

Here's the quilt I made to take to this week's prayer quilting session. It's taken from a free pattern I got from Moda when I bought one of their charm packs last week -- hopefully you'll see the quilt I made from those squares soon; it only wants binding. For this one I made my own "charm pack" out of 5" squares from scraps of vintage bed-sheet fabric. It was a joy to put together; at every stage I loved it more and more.

I was not at all certain about the plaid fabric for the backing, but I dove in with it and I think it gives a fresh, modern look to the old-fashioned florals. I would have liked to quilt this one but of course the prayer quilts are tied, so I put in pink pearl cotton ties and it's all set to go. An extremely satisfying 24-hour project. Will definitely be doing this one again.

Vintage linens

2010-04-06T04:36:00.001-04:00

Who has time to post with a collection of vintage linens this pretty? I'm making a prayer quilt, a tablecloth, a set of napkins, a dress (dresses?) and some charm packs for a rainy day out of the scraps. Who has time to clean up the studio with all that to do?

One word

2010-04-05T20:30:00.000-04:00

Fresh

2010-03-09T03:44:00.004-05:00

I've been spring cleaning my studio! The first thing to do was have K tidy up the message on the little board that sits under my calendar:

I sorted through all my books and reorganized them according to size and how much I love them. I got rid of a few and made room for some big jars to hold my pretty laces and fringes. Talk about eye candy!

It was warm enough to open the window and let the balmy breezes air out the room. I love my eyelet curtains!

I pulled Every. Piece. Of. Fabric. off the shelves, sorted by color, re-folded, tucked away in plastic bins (I love you IKEA!) and found enough beautiful material to make a gorgeous quilt from Alex Anderson and Liz Aneloski's Super Simple Quilts #3.

So in my fresh, bright, clean studio I got to work. Hope you find some freshness in your life now that the dreary days of winter are coming to an end!

On my needles: Black Cat Edition

2010-03-04T05:57:00.002-05:00

I could not get Mickayla off my lap to photograph the progress I've made on my first chemo cap, so here she is in all her furry black glory. I'm using the Race For Life 2009 Chemo Cap pattern that's available as a free download on Ravelry, and I'm ever so proud of myself for finishing the lacy border that is neither stockinette nor rib nor garter, the only stitches I've managed to successfully complete so far. Here's to moving on in the knitting world! (And yes, that's a new knitting bag Mickayla's flopped down on, but that's another post.)

For those who would like to make a chemo cap for Head Huggers, they need to be:

new
hand made
preferably washable
the softer the better -- wool is okay but is not preferred because of potential allergies
accompanied by a submission form.

Full details, guidelines and many patterns can be found at http://www.headhuggers.org. Any standard pattern may be used, as well. I will be posting links to patterns I find particularly useful/attractive/easy as I come across them; feel free to bring any that you especially like to my attention. This project will be announced at St. Mary's Church on Sunday, March 7th and will end on Sunday, April 11th.

OFF my needles this week came the Alpaca "Cashmere" Knock-Around Sweater. I was just not getting the fake "seam" stitches; the Make-1-purl-into-the-back-twist-turn-around-touch-the-ground instructions made no sense to me and I was getting yarn-overs where they weren't supposed to be, and I had frogged it four times and the yarn was getting really skanky, and I don't like knitting flat anyway, and what other excuses can I come up with? It just wasn't working. I will try to resurrect the yarn with re-skeining and washing. Maybe. Maybe not. There's still plenty to make soft yummy cowls and scarves and things with, in between bigger projects.

I picked up a copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears at the library the other day and became instantly enamored of her witty, practical demeanor. I know that I will own this book before long. Her methods for knitting sweaters in the round make good sense to me, and I have already made plans to do a seamless yoke sweater with some Cascade Eco-Duo (what could be better than a blend of alpaca and merino, the best of both worlds?) -- I'm thinking now about adding some texture to the yoke, and wondering how best to do that with the somewhat fuzzy yarn. Fortunately for me, it will be a long time before I have to make that decision!

I am nearly finished with D's mittens; I just have one thumb and the weaving-in to go. And of course I am still working on my socks. Maybe for next Christmas? They are a great fall-back project to keep in my car.

With any luck, before I approach this topic again I will have touched base with my stash and made a dent in the formidable tangle it has become. Wish me luck! And get started on your chemo caps!

Mission accomplished; moving on

2010-02-21T06:15:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I delivered six blankets to St. Matthias Episcopal Church in Trenton, NJ, where Project Linus of Mercer County was packaging up donations to send to Christian Aid Ministries for Haiti Earthquake Relief: A small but successful start to the crafting outreach experiment. I could not be more pleased.

Next up will be caps for chemotherapy patients. I'm looking forward to greater participation in this effort because the project is small and quick and the deadline will not need to be so stringent. I need to do some research on where caps are needed and what types of caps are desired, so between that and the impending quilting-with-kindergarten afternoon I'll be doing this Friday (did I not tell you about that? Surely it's worth a post of its own) it will be a week or two before I can officially announce the chemo caps plan. Until then -- a sweater to knit, a quilt to sew, some soup on the stove -- my work is cut out!

No-Sew Fleece Blanket

2010-02-15T17:35:00.001-05:00

As K's contribution to the Blankets for Haiti project, we picked a No-Sew Fleece Blanket. Of the many instructions we found on the web for this type of blanket, we thought these were clearest and made the nicest-looking finished product. A friend and I cut the two layers of fleece to size and snipped the fringe, and then the three of us got to work on the knotting.

The result was a cozy throw that K is proud to donate to a Haitian child in need. And "maybe could we make one for me, too?"

Guinea pig mattress -- Adobe glitch

2010-02-15T03:47:00.003-05:00

For those of you in Guinea Pig world who may be trying to get at my Guinea Pig Mattress Tutorial and having trouble, I'm told that there seems to be a bug in the latest version of the Adobe software. Turns out that you can load the PDF just fine when you click on it, but you can't *see* the PDF in some browsers until you *resize* the browser screen. It's not a disaster, and I'm sure Adobe will get it cleared up soon -- but it's been confusing to more than one person, and I want the instructions to be available to anyone who'd like to use them, so I thought I'd mention the fix for it here. Happy sewing!

On my needles: Snowbound edition

2010-02-11T07:27:00.004-05:00

Several of the yarn stores near me had Super Bowl Sales this weekend -- but they might as well have been Blizzard Sales, given what the weather has been doing. I snapped up several sweaters' worth of super bulky yarn, which is my weight of choice despite the fact that most of the patterns I see call for worsted or DK weight yarn. I think I'm going to need to learn how to design my own sweaters because of this, but I've been listening to the Knit Picks Podcasts quite a bit lately, and Kelley Petkun's ramblings have given me enough inspiration that I kind of think that might not be a totally hopeless undertaking.

I got the light turquoise Debbie Bliss Donegal Chunky Tweed at Woolplay in Haddonfield, and I originally intended to use it with a second strand of teal, but that turned out to be a bit too chunky. So I started the Berkshire Pullover (yes, another one) with the intention to stripe the teal and turquoise, but chickened out, and now I'm working on a solid turquoise pullover which I'm very happy with. The label calls for a size 10.5 needle for 3 sts/in., but I'm using a size 13 and getting a much larger gauge and a soft, stretchy fabric. I think if I had a size 11 I'd have tried those, but it started snowing and all. And the idea was to make a light, airy version of the Violet Bearegarde -- which I love but can't wear very much because it's so incredibly dense -- and that's working for me.

I still have my socks on the needles; they'll be my out-and-about project; and I am joining the Mitten Knit-A-Long on Knit Picks (where I will be knitting with pretty red Cascade 128 Superwash Chunky yarn instead of the recommended worsted, of course) -- I need to pick up my 32" size 9 circulars to knit them with the Magic Loop method, a first for me! I will want to be starting the white ribbed sweater too, and I have picked up the alpaca "cashmere" unisex knock-around sweater again. So many projects to keep track of! Not to mention additions to my stash that I haven't even mentioned! I have some serious labeling and prioritizing to do.

I am also itching to get back into the studio now that the sun is shining and it is not so all-blasted cold. I have added some gorgeous vintage bedsheets and chenille to my collection that cry out to become something beautiful, and D has put up an inspiration wire for me to fill, and my Amy Butler quilt cries out to me, and my fabric stash is begging to be sorted and reorganized for Spring (yes, Spring!)

Blankets for Haiti

2010-01-28T13:27:00.003-05:00

I have been watching for crafting opportunities for Haiti relief, and Project Linus has come through, coordinating an effort to collect 10,000 blankets to send to Haitian children.

You can help. Details:

Blankets can be of any size
Blankets may be knitted or crocheted, quilts, or fleece
Donation deadline is Feb. 20. (In practical terms, this means they must get to the Project Linus drop-off point by Feb. 20. If you want to drop them off with me -- and I'd be delighted to deliver them for you -- they'd probably better get here by Feb. 19th.)

My additional thoughts about the blankets are that:

They ought to be made of washable materials
When deciding on a size for your blanket, consider that it will be going to a child. This doesn't mean it has to be a tiny baby blanket, but a full-size quilt could be overwhelming (not to mention difficult to carry around.)
I know they need to be made in a hurry, but if you can add a little personal touch -- some embroidery, an applique, a crocheted flower or a ribbon -- something small but special, that would make the blanket feel more like a gift to the recipient than a charity offering.

I will post links to relevant web sites as they become available -- right now I am working from a sign I saw in a shop window and a brief conversation with the shop's owner. In the meantime, I hope you will consider taking on this project in whatever way seems appealing to you. If you need ideas, inspiration or materials, please contact me -- I can try to provide all three! If you think you can't make a handmade blanket but you want to try, I can show you how to do it in an hour.

Now, if you will excuse me, I've got knitting to do!

On my needles -- ribbing edition

2010-01-28T03:41:00.001-05:00

I've been knitting a lot lately, but not finishing much, so there hasn't been much to blog about. I thought I would finish a pair of mittens for D, but ran out of yarn (such giant hands!) and had to regroup because I didn't want to schlep out to Woolbearers just then. I had some Cascade Eco Alpaca sitting around being melty-soft, and though it is definitely not sock yarn I started a pair anyway. They'll be comfy to wear around the house or with Birkenstocks, and I promise not to be fussy if they droop a little. I'm knitting them in 3 x 1 ribbing all the way down to try to compensate a bit for the lack of springiness in the alpaca.

Then yesterday I made the trip to Mount Holly to pick up the mitten yarn and also the wool for my father-in-law's new sweater (some really nice Plymouth Merino Worsted Superwash), and spent the rest of the day winding one hank into a ball and trying to make a gauge swatch. I'm really frustrated with how slowly the winding went and how slowly and painstakingly I knit. I know that the knitting will come with time and practice, but the winding! Oh, how I wish I had a swift! My current dream is to make one like this, using tinkertoys of all things! If I can buy some used (the new ones cost practically as much as a swift does) I will do it, I will!

As you can see, I'm having serious storage issues with my knitting needle collection (there's that mitten again.) This is what happened when I went to find my size 7 circs to make the gauge swatch. Clearly something needs to be done. Probably I need to purge the needles I know I'm not ever going to use (like the bendy rubbery ones that came in the big thrift-store lots I've purchased to get the nice big wooden ones), make some sort of caddy for the straights, and maybe come up with some sort of binder/folder system for the circulars. How do you store your knitting needles?

Living Room

2010-01-18T22:03:00.006-05:00

Since the cold weather came we've been spending less and less time in the "TV Room," where it's freezing, and more and more time in the Living Room, where it's toasty warm. We read, play, knit, draw, talk, giggle, and fiddle around on our laptops here. The guinea pigs live next door in the dining room (don't ask me to explain how that happened) and we chat with them in their cage, and sometimes set up their play pen in here and let them run around and munch on veggies while we fend off the cats. A lot of living gets done here. And I wanted to mark that, somehow.

Enter Amanda Soule's Handmade Home. Her One-Word Banner project fit the bill just right, I think. The letters are cotton fabric scraps appliqued onto felted wool rectangles, and they're just sewn at intervals onto a length of bias tape. (Ah, the magic of bias tape. Why is there never a sale on bias tape?) As usual, I love that they're red.

While I was working on appliqueing the letters and nearly finished, K walked into the studio; she saw l, y, and a heart. She asked what word I was making, and I asked if she could guess. "Something with love?" she ventured. Yes! Yes! Something with love.

Guinea Pig Crafting

2010-01-17T15:33:00.002-05:00

Have I introduced you to the two newest members of our family? Meet Chancellor and Gordon, two Peruvian guinea pigs with a lot of hair and a lot of style!

Despite what the above photo would have you believe, they spend their days on a bed of fleece -- it wicks moisture right through to an absorbent layer beneath, which heretofore has been a towel, but as of today they sleep and play on a mama-made Guinea Pig Mattress. Cuddly fleece on top, absorbent diaper soaker fabric inside and waterproof barrier on the bottom. Nothing but the best for my boys!

I had seen instructions for making this sort of thing in other places online, but none of them seemed to fit my style -- either too much sewing was involved or the directions were too complicated or something -- so I set out to make a fleece mattress that was simpler in design and even simpler to construct. The result pleased me so much that I made another one and wrote a tutorial for it, and here it is for you to use:

Guinea Pig Fleece Mattress Tutorial (PDF)

I invite you to try it out, let me know what worked and what didn't work and what needs improvement, what changes you made and how your piggies liked it. I hope you're as happy with your results as I was with mine!

(For those of you who are not cavy-crazy, if you'd care to read the tutorial and offer constructive criticism, I'd be grateful for that, too.)

Smocks and more

2010-01-15T19:56:00.005-05:00

K has a birthday party to go to tomorrow. We needed a present and something special to wear, stat. I found the pattern for this "Swing Swing Smock" in Amy Karol's Bend the Rules Sewing and modified it to fit my six-year-old. Thanks to Amy's zig-zag method of applying bias tape, it was a cinch to make -- took maybe an hour, tops. The fabric is Amy Butler from my stash, and I have a yard of that pocket material waiting to become a Lazy Days Skirt (by Oliver & S) -- but we needed something warm enough for K to wear now.

Out there on the Internet are tutorials galore, and I found one to make a child's skirt from an adult's sweater and another to make a child's leggings from the arms and shoulders left over from the adult's sweater made into the child's skirt. As it happened, I had a brown cashmere sweater that I didn't enjoy wearing very much, that was just the size, shape and softness to make into a skirt-and-leggings set for K.

She was delighted with her new outfit when she came home from school today and it was all I could do to get it off of her at bedtime! I'm just relieved that both pieces fit and were comfortable for her.

For her friend's birthday present we found fabric featuring the characters from Disney's The Princess and the Frog -- K reports that the child is Disney-princess crazy -- and I made another smock. I didn't have an appropriate sweater to make a skirt/legging set so I purchased a t-shirt and leggings at Target that I hope will fit her. I am less enthralled with this outfit than I am with the one for K, but if it suits her classmate's taste (which I hope it does), then I'm happy.

Goodies from the Guild House

2010-01-14T16:53:00.001-05:00

After prayer quilting group today, I stayed in the vestry room to watch the cleaning-out of the wardrobe that was once used by the women who sewed vestments and linens and other items needed by the church, including a set of aging and obsolete confirmation veils that we pulled out and wondered what to do with (they went back in the closet.) I took quite a bundle of treasure home with me!

This thread-holder was made by the husband of one of the sewing-guild ladies, and I got to take it along with its collection of antique and modern spools of thread. I love that it's red!

As you will read in a post that is coming soon, I have recently discovered the magic and wonder of bias binding. Today I hit the jackpot with this box full of it! It's not all in perfect condition, but it will certainly do for doll clothes.

Is this green brocade magnificent? There's enough to make a good-sized pillow, front and back, or a pair of pillows if I use a different backing. What would you make with it?

I'm sure I will find something ornate to use that gorgeous gold, green and white trim on. And check out that white damask peeking out in the corner. That's about a yard of 45" material there, enough to make one pretty fancy christening set for someone's baby doll.

If all that weren't enough of a prize for going to work on quilts with the church ladies today, get this -- as we were wrapping up, one of the women came in bearing a quilt that looked astonishingly like the My House quilt on my bed -- I was astonished! After some inquries, I found out that someone had found some four-patch pieces in a bag that had been donated and liked the colors, so had sewn them together into a prayer quilt. Of course! My leftover patches! So someone else will have a My House quilt for comfort and healing. That just completely made my day. I could not be happier.

Oh, I love it!

2010-01-13T13:11:00.003-05:00

I just had to pop in and point you to Amanda Soule's latest creation, a gorgeous fleece-backed flannel quilt, made simply of large blocks and tied at the corners, so cozy for her youngest child's new bed. I am entranced by the new collection of prints by Anna Maria Horner, so bright and pretty. If only I didn't have such a backlog of projects, I would certainly copy this one! Go take a look; it will make you smile.

Back in the studio

2010-01-12T16:25:00.006-05:00

I took a break over the holidays and mostly worked on knitting mittens -- finished a pair for myself and nearly finished a pair for D, which he may yet get by the time the cold weather is over. But I'm back in the studio with a new sewing machine and plenty of new projects in the works.

Before Christmas I went through my stash of thrifted sheets and readied them for projects galore... They're not just for pajama pants anymore!

I spent most of today working on a long-overdue birthday present for my nephew J, who turned The Big Oh-Three back in November. I had fun making his superhero cape, though by the time I was done it had me singing my high school's alma mater (Crimson and gold, triumphant evermore!) and wondering whether J might look more like Ronald McDonald than a powerful crime-fighter. I think he'll probably enjoy it just the same.

My notions bin has yet to recover from the ransacking it received when I was looking for just the right trim for an improvised doll's dress that K's hand-me-down baby could wear to show-and-tell last Friday. It was constructed and donned with haste and I have not seen it since, or I would show it to you here.

Here are the pre-washed fabrics for the preemie quilt I'm making as a sample for the craftivism group I'm trying to get together at my church. I've been wanting to work with 30's reproduction fabrics for a long time, and I had a good excuse to buy some last week at my quilt store's Fat Quarter Friday -- they will be perfect for a baby, and they mix seamlessly (no pun intended) with some vintage scraps I bought when we were antique-scrounging in Michigan last summer.

So my hands are full and busy, and I must say I am quite happy with the whole deal.

Six!

2010-01-03T18:05:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday to my new six-year-old!

Here she is in her self-made birthday crown:

And here she is in her mama-made oilcloth apron:

(Naturally, I have a matching one. Painting party, anyone?)

Beach blanket -- take two

2009-12-13T06:28:00.000-05:00

I happened upon a gorgeous green chenille bedspread the other week and I knew it was time to try the beach blanket project again. I'm showing you the back first because I love how D and I managed to cut the center medallion out so nicely. It's not like anyone will see it, but I love knowing it's there.

The front side is made up of ten squares cut from vintage bedsheets. I have already made comfy pajama pants from seven of these bedsheets, and I plan to make pajama pants from the remnants of the other three and revel in their flowery goodness!

And it all wraps up into a neat little package at the end. Bring on the beach weather!

Violet Beauregarde, complete

2009-12-04T07:55:00.002-05:00

I fixed the hole! Now my sweater is wearable! First I re-knit and grafted the stitches together according to the methods given in this article. Then (though I know some of you will shudder at this) I darned over the graft because I was so worried that I hadn't done a good enough job. It doesn't look bad, especially when I wear the darned part on my back, and when I consider that this is my very first sweater EVER I feel quite successful about the whole thing. I learned many lessons and still came out with something I could wear. In public. Which I'm doing for the first time today, Violet Beauregarde and Barney be darned.

New knitting project

2009-12-03T06:46:00.002-05:00

I am in love with this chunky alpaca from Cascade Yarns. It's just the right weight for a sweater -- not too heavy (the purple sweater I made is nice, but a little weighty for general wear, better for chilly winter evenings when I don't have to move around too much) or too stretchy and fluffy (the white yarn from Misti Alpaca that I tried the first time around was, once again, nice, but a little too pouffy.) This yarn is looking like a good substitution for the obscenely expensive yarn called for in the "Unisex Cashmere Knock-Around Pullover" in Weekend Knitting that I've had my eye on since last summer. It's by far the most challenging knitting pattern that I've tried, but I think I may be able to pull it off. I'll keep you posted.

On my wall

2009-11-16T17:08:00.001-05:00

My favorite quilt, which D finally hung up in my studio last night.

I made it well over a year ago and it's far from perfect, but I love it! The picture does not do it justice -- come visit me and see it in person! You'll have to wade through piles of vintage bedsheet scraps, but it's totally worth it. Trust me.