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!

Mission accomplished; moving on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

Vintage, yellow and roses

What could be nicer to wear to bed? This fabulous pattern from Ducky House uses the hem on a vintage bedsheet to finish a tailor-made pair of pajama pants, and it couldn't be easier.

The pajama pants experimentation continues. I was disappointed, when I tried these on, to find that the too-high-slightly-snug-waist problem had shown up again, but this time I took action. I cut off the waist casing that I had just sewn and sewed one on the now-shorter pants, tried them on and was reasonably satisfied with the results. I'm going to make the waist on the next pair even lower, and I think that will solve the problem altogether.

And yes, for those of you who are wondering, I did iron them before I photographed them, but I doubt if I'll need to do it again as they're made with No-Iron Percale. Definitely a plus.