WIP Wednesday!

The whole place is trashed!  I normally try to keep my sewing stuff to the left side of the dining room table, but I just have so many things going that I've migrated to the right.  Family may not get a decent meal here until I leave for QuiltCon.

I've been sewing up some new clothes.  I know I don't really need any more, but it's kind of fun to make clothes where you'll be around people that will really get it.  And any excuse to buy fabric is a good excuse.

So far I've done one horrible muslin and scrapped that entire pattern.  Then I went back to the old standby, the Washi Dress.  One needs a hem, and one is finished.  I just have that Brambleberry Ridge fabric in the back there to go.  I'm thinking of adding some short sleeves to it, just so they aren't all complete duplicates.

And, I've thrown together a lanyard and a new business card holder.  I'm debating whether I should make a new bag for Con, or just reuse one of the many I've already made.  For now, I'll wait, but if I get the itch, I may end up elbows deep in interfacing in the middle of the night.

And when I'm not sewing these days, I've been working on this Corvallis Cardigan for my son.  He's pretty excited about it and keeps checking in on my progress, but I'm so BORED of it!  He just wanted a green sweater, so there's no stripes or color-changing yarn to keep me interested.  And I realized too late that I should have put something in, a cable or an interesting stitch, but I didn't.

I think at this point, I'm so close I just have to finish and remember for the next time.  I'm so close to the bottom ribbing and then it's just sleeves.  (Thank goodness this pattern has you knit the button band as you go, so that's one less step between me and finished!)

Linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday and Lorna for Let's Bee Social!

WIP Wednesday: A Very Do. Good One

So August was my turn again to lead our circle, and I wanted something a bit easier than my first (Pyramid Scheme turned out great, but was a bit more work than I realized).  So while I was scanning Flickr and Instagram for ideas, I came across this quilt by Jeliquilts.  I loved it, and figured blocks of half square triangles had to be easier.

All my bee-mates sent a nine-patch of warm HSTs and cool HSTs.  I waited until I got the blocks in, then made single HSTs and made strips of them to better blend the line between warm and cool.  I'm hoping to get to the quilting this weekend, but I was to excited to not share an early picture of the top (and also get it in to be eligible for showing at QuiltCon 2015!).

Also in the works this week, was getting these blocks done.  They're for the October round of do. Good, but I'm just a tad behind, but they're in the mail!

And that pile of yarn from last week, I finished one cowl out of it, then started on some Endpaper Mitts, realized there wasn't enough contrast to see the pattern, ripped it all back, and started these Diamond Mitts.  They're a really quick knit, especially because I cut down the ribbing quite a bit, so I'm hoping to have them done by the end of the week when the weather really gets cold.

Linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday!

WIP Wednesday: All The Yarn!

Last night a friend came over because I wanted to wind two hanks that I was planning on knitting into another warm and fuzzy cowl.  But once you have the swift and winder set up, you might as well ball every hank in the house.  I knew about two of these, but apparently I subconsciously hoard yarn, so I kept pulling hanks out of bins in my sewing area.  Surprise!

And, yes, those pinks are as neon as they look.

So today, I'm knitting up the two balls that started it all.  They're a really strange color.  It's chartreuse, and fuchsia, and lilac.  Pretty much so ugly it's pretty again.  And it's Malabrigo, so it's super soft.  The pattern is Thirty-Eight by Jane Cochran on Ravelry.  It's all seed stitch and ribbing, which is not my favorite way to knit, but I love the texture, so I'm stuck with it.

Linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

Wanderlust Honey Cowl

 Oh hi there!  Remember me?  I used to write a blog?  Yeah, instead, I've just been sitting at home sewing and knitting without you.

Well, anyway, today I decided to just get back at it.  I looked down, and there was my Honey Cowl, all fuzzy, warm, and unblogged!  Perfect!  I tossed it on the girl, grabbed my camera, and made grand promises about leaving a bag of Halloween candy unprotected on the table (models always demand candy in their green rooms).

This is one of my favorite knits so far (so favorite I made sure to add it to my Ravelry page).  It was quick and easy, but it's still pretty.  And the yarn is a...ma....zing.  It's Madelinetosh Merino DK in Cosmic Wanderlust.  I bought it as my souvenir from Purl Soho on a trip this summer, and there's still one more ball to make into a hat.

Or I might have to just make a second Honey Cowl for the little girl.  She loved wearing it and it's so cute on her!  And seriously, I'm completely unable to say no to this face.

Cheers!

Knitting and Stitching Things!

There's so much sewing happening here, I just don't have enough pictures to show you all of it!  I need a live in photographer, or maybe just a remote shutter control.  The latter is probably cheaper to maintain.

In the meantime, here's some progress on my mermaid.  See that little bit of red across her face?  Yep, that's it.  But I did manage to get the rest of the colors I was missing for this, so I can just sit down and finish her now.

And while I was shopping for the last of my colors, I decided to just buy another thread organizer and more plastic cards to wind the thread.  I have one of these somewhere absolutely stuffed with thread, but cannot find it.  It's extra large, so will take a bit longer to fill, but I still have a bunch of floss tucked away in baggies and drawers just waiting to be wound.

And I finally started on some holiday crafting.  Half of our extended family celebrates Christmas on Thanksgiving, so it tends to sneak up on me.  Hopefully this year I won't be binding and burying threads on the drive down to Connecticut.

What are your holiday crafting plans?  I usually make a big list then realize I should have started months earlier!

And you have one more day to head over to Quilty Habit to vote for your favorite Orange Peel Quilt-a-Long quilt.  I'm partial to mine, but there's a lot of great choices!

WIP Wednesday: LV Edition!

It's kind of a low volume with pops of color kind of WIP Wednesday.  I got my Orange Peel QAL top sewn together last night, but it still needs top and bottom rows of LV squares, plus any borders I decide to add.  I love it though.  I just want to quilt it because it looks like it will be so much fun.

And I started on this Honey Cowl, even though it's pushing 90 degrees these days.  I got this yummy Tosh Merino DK in Cosmic Wonderlust from Purl Soho on our last vacation to NYC, and I've been trying to figure out what to do with it.  A cowl will be perfect since it's so soft.

WIP Wednesday: Little Sperry Sweater

I love a fast knit.  This is another basic raglan sweater, but I actually bought the pattern for it.  Mostly, because it was perfect already and cheap, but sometimes it's just fun to support other crafters.  (Go Team Craft!)

Anyway, it's the Little Sperry from Amy Miller (get it from Ravelry here).  I love Amy's sweater designs, but this one is just perfect for what I wanted, a lightweight summery sweater for the boy to throw on on chilly evenings.  And my friend Laura (of Little and Lots) recently knitted this up for her daughter and it was just adorable.  She didn't post about it, but trust me, it was killer.

I got this great variegated cotton yarn on sale at Joann's, because I can't get a solid answer from the boy about his favorite color.  After years of blue, now it's green, but I didn't want to risk an all green sweater that never gets worn, so he gets both, plus yellow!  I'm skipping the stripes on this one, but I'm definitely going to do them on the next sweater.

Another fun tidbit, I actually knitted a swatch for guage.  Weird.  I ended up going down two needle sizes to get it right, apparently I'm a very relaxed knitter.

I couldn't get a good picture of the girl in it.  It's way too big, but the boy was unavailable for modelling.  This sweater is obviously too big, but I really liked the length on her with the shirttail hem.  I might make one as a sweater dress for her next.

Linking up with Lee for Work in Progress Wednesday!

Friday Finish: Drawstring Project Bag

I didn't accomplish much after my neck started hurting this week.  It's getting better, but standing at the sewing machine (yeah, I stand) is just not an option.

I did get really restless last night, so I whipped out this little bag for my sock knitting.  It's the Lined Drawstring Bag pattern from In Color Order.  Last week I made a couple of these to wrap a gift, and just loved how quick and easy they were.  I think it takes more time to cut the fabric than it  does to actually sew.

I used some of my coveted Amy Butler wallflowers.  When I set up my new fabric shelves, I realized I had way more than I'd originally thought, so no need to hoard quite so much.  And the black is a FQ I picked up from a quilt show with the intention of using it for some sort of craft bag.  Perfect!

It's the perfect size for sock knitting!  This poor ball of Malabrigo was getting bounced around my tote bag and every time I'd pull it out, I'd have to untangle it from all the books, bottles, and child debris.  Now it has a much happier home.

Linking up with Amanda Jean for Finish it up Friday!

An Unproductive WIP Wednesday...

Today is just a yucky day.  I got up this morning knowing that I had hours of free time to be spent sewing.  I was so excited, until I moved and realized my neck was protesting my sleeping position.  Why does something always come up just when you're about to be productive!

Anyway, I tried to power through, and even laid out these beauties to see where I was.  There's 26 of them now, so two more would bring the total up to a nice number to lay out.  I'm thinking of squaring them up and adding a border of white or black to bring them to some uniform measurements so they'd look like they were floating.

It might be too boring for these crazy blocks, or it might be just the right amount of boring to let them sing.  I clearly need to stop thinking about it and make some more blocks.

But that's about as far as I got this WIP Wednesday.  I did a little bit of knitting on my socks in the car waiting in the school pick up line.  (The pattern is Charade, which is available for free on Ravelry, though I modified the pattern from a top down to a toe up.)

I did have one moment of crazy where I thought that a heating pad would be nice, and thought that I should just whip up one of those sleeves of rice.  Makers are crazy sometimes.

Linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday!

 

Kids Clothes Week: Purple People Eater Sweater Dress

I try to keep things even among the kids.  So after I made Isaac his green sweater, I bought some more yarn and decided to make the same sweater for Dell.  I was only going to change the front panel, but then I got a bit carried away.

The pattern is a top down raglan, so I started with the neck collar.  I didn't like how the first sweater had a K1P1 rib, so I switched that out for a K2P2 rib and twisted my stitches so that the rib would look neater.   Now it pulls together much nicer and sits right up against her neck.

The next bit to knit is the chest, arms, and back.  I've been wanting to play with more textures, so I just started scrolling through stitch libraries until I found on that would work well with my increases.  This honeycomb pattern is worked over four stitches, so I was able to just add half and full honeycombs when I had enough new stitches on the sides.

Then I put the arm stitches on to waste yarn and had to decide how much of the honeycomb I wanted.  I thought of just continuing the pattern to the hem, and finishing it like a regular sweater, but I got a lot of votes for a sweater dress from friends.  So I continued the pattern to just above the waist and then increased every few stitches so that it would flair out a bit.  I have no clue how many I eventually added, but it was enough.

Then I realized that I only had one ball of yarn to finish the sleeves (still on the waste yarn) and the bottom of the dress.  I'd already cleaned out the store and had to buy a different dye lot, so I didn't want to have to go back and add a third dye lot to the pile.  The solution was short sleeves!  Which is perfect since the weather turned warm, and long sleeves would have been too hot to wear in the spring.

In the end, I love how it turned out.  It's so different from the first sweater, but I love that I'm getting comfortable enough with my knitting to start doing crazy things like this.

Linking up with Kids Clothes Week!

WIP Wednesday!

The Seacoast MQG and Boston MQG retreat was a major success!  I managed to quilt two quilts (one that's been lingering for about a year) and got some serious work done on Pinkie Pie.  Pinkie is back on the list, and close to the top since I'm not dreading pulling her out to sew.  

But the big WIP is to put away all that stuff.  Packing was so easy, just toss stuff in a bag and go, but the unpacking looks awful.  I may just leave stuff in bags and projects and supplies out as I need them.  Not pretty, but better for my brain.  And besides, all the projects I never got to are packed with the supplies I need to finish them.  Why break up such awesome organization?

And while I was procrastinating from the pile of stuff, I decided to bite the bullet and rip out these socks for the third (fourth?) time.  I got mid foot and realized that I didn't like working the complicated cable pattern (I like patterns I can remember and don't need to constantly be looking at the book to get right) and they were probably going to be too big on me anyway.

So I ripped out until I was down to just 60 stitches on each sock (instead of the 68 I had), and put those back on the needles very carefully.  I restarted them using the Seagrass pattern from the book (Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time) which is just a staggered pattern of knits and purls over six stitches.  Way easier, and I can knit them quickly in the continental style, which was impossible with all the cables before.  Hope to have socks before it gets too warm to wear them!

Last on the short list of WIPs is my quilt for do. Good Stitches.  I picked the Pyramid Scheme block by Quilt Dad, and I got the last set of blocks on Friday.  I'm going to just piece them together without sashing, but I need to decide how to orient the blocks, all in the same direction, alternating so the big colored triangles match up, or something else entirely.  Now that I have them all I can really play.

And, speaking of do. Good Stitches, my circle was featured on Stitched In Color, so everyone should check it out here!  The pink quilt in all the pictures was the first quilt I worked on with these women, and I love how it turned out!

Linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday!

Friday Finish: The Fastest Raglan Sweater

This sweater is proof that I can't let my hands rest for even a minute.  I was supposed to be knitting up a baby blanket for a friend.  It was going well until I realized the pattern was off an entire ball of yarn on it's supplies list.  So while I waited for my order to arrive (of course, the one time I order yarn online) I made this sweater.

I let the boy pick the yarn and I love the color he chose.  It's Jade Heather from Patons.  It looks green from afar, but close up it has specks of yellow and blue.  And knitting with it was really nice.  It has the right combination of slips off the needles so you can knit fast, but doesn't just slip off the needles and you drop stitches.  Makes sense?  Who knows, but I liked it.

The pattern is an oldie.  I went to ask my knitting partner-in-crime for her Elizabeth Zimmerman books, and she busted out this crazy raglan sweater chart where you just measure the person you're knitting for and follow the column of numbers for your cast on stitches, increases, length of stockinette, etc.  It's kind of amazing.  I've already bought more yarn to use the pattern again, but this time with a few variations.

The one bummer with the sweater is that the sleeves aren't really long enough for him to grow into next winter, so this is probably just going to be worn for a few months before getting sent to his sister's drawer.  I swear I measured and then had him try it on before I added the ribbing, so he must have had a growth spurt overnight.  It's the only explanation.

But he loves it, so I don't care about anything else.  Also, he's a goober who just wanted to eat snow the entire time I was trying to take his photo.  At least he wasn't cold!

Catnap Bolero... Ole!

Is there anything better than making something and having your kid absolutely love it?  It does get a bit complicated when you weren't making it for your kid.  Oh well, she's too cute and I can't take it away.

This is really an adult bolero.  My crafty partner in crime wanted to enter the Lizzy House Catnap Dress Contest (now closed, but check out all the entries on the Flickr page!)  She made an adorable Washi Dress (the best dress pattern!) but thought she needed a little something extra.  So she bought this Lamb's Pride yarn in Roasted Coffee, and handed it off to me.  I love how this yarn is chunky and fuzzy, but still shows all the stitch detail.  I wish it had a little less debris, but it adds character.  

I used the Bazan pattern from Jane Richmond available on Ravelry.  It knitted up really fast.  I think I spent one week of evenings getting this done.  The method Jane came up with is pretty genius.  You knit the whole thing (minus the ribbing along the edge) as a single panel, then seam the arms.  Then you pick up stitches along the edges and knit the ribbing in the round.  It made it pretty fast with few opportunities for failure, which is what I look for in a pattern.  

And just in case you don't believe that toddler cardigan is really a bolero, here it is on my friend Jess.  All that mesh on the back lets it really stretch.  Also, check out that cute dress!  I might have to make one for myself in the print behind her, and the little girl should get a Geranium to wear with her newly stolen cardigan.

  

Linking up with Blossom Heart Quilts for Sew Cute Tuesday!