My fiber closet!

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.

Little boxes

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

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:

Necessary neatening, with audience participation

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?

Fresh

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

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!

On my needles: Snowbound edition

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!)

On my needles -- ribbing edition

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?

Back in the studio

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.

Spring cleaned!

Photos from my newly spring-cleaned sewing room! (Still, alas, the dining room.)

I did a major overhaul of my fabric stash and kept only the fabrics I loved or thought would be really useful. "I might use it someday" is no excuse for hoarding items that could be used right now by somebody else. Now I can see what I have and I'm not bothered by the nagging thought that I should be working 24/7 to use up my stash, and using boring or ugly fabric to boot. See how nice it looks in my cabinet?

Then I went in and organized my ribbons, rick rack, pins, needles, elastic, thread, bobbins and other notions. It's easy to find what I need now, and it's easy to clean up, too, because everything has a place to go. I also un-teetered the piles of books that surrounded my sewing table, and organized them roughly according to category. I can't wait to get them upstairs to the new studio where there are real bookcases!

So what to do with the boxes and bags and tubs and baskets of fabric left over? I sent seven (yes, 7) boxes, mostly flannel but some terrycloth and an amount of quilt batting, to TLC for Angels -- they make blankets and clothing for "needy babies" and were happy to accept my donation. I have another seven bags of quilting cotton to give to my church's Prayer Quilting group. But there were still boxes and bags and tubs and baskets full of fabric -- fat quarters (kind of small for the prayer quilters), holiday and novelty prints, home decor weights -- plus a gazillion skeins of yarn and several more boxes of crafting odds and ends. What to do, what to do?

Obviously, this was the perfect time for D's parents' church to hold their annual flea market! We sold all of the fabric and nearly all the yarn, a few of the doodads and even a few handmade-by-me items: 3 small tied quilts, 2 patchwork-covered Moleskine notebooks, and a number of rice-and-lavender heat therapy bags. (We also sold: some clothes, a tv, vcr, dvd player and stand, and presumably some other things since our total intake was over $90, which is pretty darn good for a yard sale. We're still debating over what else we might have sold; it's kind of a mystery.)

And now -- onward and upward! Look for posts about my current projects, some new furniture, painting, thrifting, and more...

Getting organized

First of all: the handmade gifts were universally admired. Two reactions that thrilled me most: From my Father-in-Law -- "I'm just overwhelmed." (He got the Buchanan plaid blanket.) From my Sister-in-Law, about the gifts in general: "I think your crafts get better every year." *grins from ear to ear*

Now, on to the next thing: Putting away the leftovers and the projects that just didn't get done this year. Prioritizing. I'm thinking of creating a "project notebook" that would be half Idea Book, half Record Book with notes and pictures of the things I've somehow managed to create in all this chaos.

About the chaos: It's got to go. I'm going to spend some time in the next few days clearing out my "craft closet" so we can move D's new computer into it -- I guess we'll measure and go to Ikea to find an appropriate-sized desk or other piece of furniture to hold the thing. Once we get him settled in there, I can start moving things out of the office upstairs so I can measure and plan how I'd like to move things in when the time comes to set up my new sewing room, which I think is rapidly turning into a crafting studio.

Yesterday I went to the Jo Ann Fabrics up in Mount Holly that's closing next month and bought, for cheap, some fleece for a blanket, some linen to try as an alternative to the terry in the towel/blankets, some duck cloth to use in possibly making picnic blankets, some monk cloth to try making woven afghans (I also bought a book on that for half price), and a mountain of rick rack just to have on hand in case I ever feel like embellishing anything. It was loads of fun. I'll miss those folks when the store closes and they have to move on -- I hope I'll see them at the Mount Laurel store, but I know it won't be the same.