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!

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!

 

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!

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!

WIP Wednesday!

So sure, there's cats and dresses going on over here, but this is my latest work-in-project.  I'd heard of this yarn for quite a while, and I finally got my hands on it, pattern figured, and the rest of my knitting off the needles I needed.

The yarn in question is from a friend's time working on a sheep farm.  When she left, she was given a tub of this yarn, spun from the sheep she'd been tending.  I'm also told that it was dyed with plants found around the farm, which is amazing considering how bright and happy that blue is.

Now that I've got it, I'm making a striped jumper.  I didn't realize until after starting that the whole thing is done in a seed stitch, which means this won't be getting done quickly, but will have an amazing texture.

Linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday!

WIP Wednesday!

It's WIP Wednesday!  Time for me to get out all my projects, realize that there's way too many of them, only photograph a few, then go procrastinate and work on none of them!  I'm only half joking since I don't actually pull them all out.  I probably couldn't fit everything into one picture.

But anyway....  I am actually working on the #Catventquiltalong.  I love that it just takes about 15 minutes to finish a cat.  I've gotten one of every rainbow color done, the whole Roy G. Biv is there, so now I just have to fill in spots with more hues.

I'm finally digging into that stack of rayon that my mother picked out.  She asked for a couple copies of her favorite dress for Christmas, and naturally I said yes, even though I'd never worked with the fabric before.  After completing a dress for myself to practice, drafting a pattern, making the first dress and having my mom try it on, I'm ready to just bust out the rest of these dresses.

And I've finished the sleeves to this little commissioned sweater and I'm on to the body.  I got this far before deciding to check my gauge, and I'm concerned.  The gauge is correct, but I'm trying to replicate a sweater that I've already made, and that sweater's gauge is too big.  I'm taking a break from the knitting until I can try it on the little girl that it's for, but I have a feeling that it's going to be ripped and more stitches added to the front and back.  Still better than finding out when I got all the way up to the armpits!

Linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday!

WIP Wednesday!

Lots still going on around here.  I'm pretty sure that'll be the way things go until after Christmas is done.  Who am I kidding?  I'll probably have at least five projects going no matter what time of year it is.  

Anyway, I finally dug through my chest of yarn and found a lot of beauties that I'd completely forgotten about.  Most of these are from the days after I had an income, but no real financial responsibilities (the good ole days), so I'd go to the fancy yarn shop and buy balls of yarn.  I found two balls of baby alpaca, some mohair, and I can't remember what that colorful one in the center is, but it came from the same place, so fancy!

I never actually knitted anything with them, and just hoarded until now.  Kids are in need of hats, so I'll be working through this pile and perfecting my hat knitting.

This stack of square is going to slowly become an amazing quilt.  It's for a certain someone who might read this, so this is all the peek you get!

One inch squares!  Eep!

And this is the most insane project.  I was so obsessed with the Hello Kitty pixel quilt and the Pinkie Pie pixel quilt, that a friend suggested we make one ourselves.  Luckily my little girl is in love with Pinkie Pie too, and will be needing a bed quilt soon.  We're hoping to get this finished by Christmas, but the best thing about 2-year-olds is that they rarely carry around calendars and don't hold grudges if gifts arrive late.  

Linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday!

EZ Mitts!

 

I have a bit of a mitten problem.  These are so easy to make that I keep making them, though my wrist would prefer I take a short break.

The pattern is from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac, which a friend conveniently had and was willing to dig out for me.  Elizabeth had a serious thing for easy, quick knits that don't look like you just whipped them up, and these are the perfect example of that.  

They're just a tube, but the pattern of increases and decreases angles the tube, so you get a fun shape at the bottom and the stitches are on a diagonal.  And the increases and decreases are the simplest ones I've ever seen.  And, because you just repeat a row of decreases and a row of straight knit until it reaches your pinkie, then eliminate the increases, I don't have to look at the pattern at all to remember where I am.  I've just been shoving the knitting in my bag, instead of the whole knitting pouch with tools and patterns and counters.  Freedom!!

I dreaded the thumb, though.  You add it after by just snipping a stitch where you want the thumb to be, unraveling 15 stitches, and then picking them up to knit.   I had to have a friend do it for me.  It's just wrong to cut into the middle of your knitting!  Of course, it worked out, though I think the thumb on these purple ones is a row too short.  (Here's a great explanation of how to do it at the Purl Bee.  Also, I need to figure out how to finish the thumb like they do.)

Currently on my second of the seafoam mitts.  That makes four mittens in less than a week (not to mention the scarf I finished before starting the purples), no wonder my whole arm is sore!  I'm going to finish these and then get back to sewing.

Linking up with The Train to Crazy for Make It Wear It Thursday and Live a Colorful Life for Really Random Thursday!

WIP Wednesday

Little late posting this morning.  I was up late last night planning and scheming a quilt for my daughter for Christmas inspired by S.O.T.A.K.'s Pinkie Pie quilt.  Hopefully, we'll be able to start working on it soon, because Christmas is coming fast!

And these sheets just came out of the dryer!  I'm using these, and a couple more vintage sheets given to me by my sister to make her a quilt.  I haven't decided if I'm going to use that bright yellow in back on the front or to back it.  I guess I'll have to see how much actual material I have to play with.  Not completely sure on layout yet, but I've got a lot of ideas.

Last on my Christmas list is to start busting into this awesome pile of yarn.  This is what happens when the awesome yarn guys set up shop at the farmer's market; I can't help but buy a skein every time I walk by!  And I didn't even have a project in mind!  Very unlike me.  I'm a project-oriented purchaser.

Linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!