Busy week and weekend

Oh boy did I do a lot of sewing and knitting this past week and weekend. I had 5 days off and I used them wisely to help me with holiday gifts, some, um personal gifts as well, and to relax. I started out working on a child's sweater in blue. Wow, I couldn't believe how fast kid's clothes knit up. Really cool and I'm loving the sweater, but I'm not going to show that since it is a gift.

After knitting for two days, on Friday I switched over to sewing and sewed myself a purse, but before doing that I had some difficulties with my every-loving and helpful black cat, Snowball. Hey, my husband named her, not me! My husband just laughs at us and tells us to behave and quit fighting. He tells us this a lot since she is always in my face when I am doing something interesting. I always tell him that she started it!

To start with, we had a disagreement about what an ironing board is for and who can use said ironing board! She decided it was the greatest place to observe all happenings in our sewing/computer room. I decided she didn't need to be on an item I needed to use. Who won? Well, take a look.


After a while she decided that maybe the ironing board wasn't the place for her, especially since the iron kept hissing at her. I had it set for steam. At one point, she hissed back. I'm just glad she didn't try to mark the iron. Well, after leaving the ironing board, she decided to plop herself down in another area and settled in for a good snooze (left image). The fabric she is laying on is the extra fabric from the purse I made (right image). It's a Karen West pattern, called "Split Purse-onality". It's a great purse and reversible too! I love the batik fabric I used, purchased from Thimble Pleasures.
Well, that was my Friday after Thanksgiving. No shopping on Friday, no plans to shop the entire weekend, but then plans change. Friday night I also cut some fabric for a couple of bags and found out after washing the fabric I was short some inches, so on Saturday I went out to the dreaded, possibly crowded stores. Amazingly enough, it wasn't so bad. Got some great deals on some fabric too.

On to project two, a bag for a friend. But I can't say for who. But of course, you know who couldn't stay out of my way and here she is snoozing while I work on straps for the bag, that is in pieces underneath her sleeping head. She wasn't happy when I pulled the pieces out from under her, let me tell you.


Sigh, but I messed up royally on this bag. I made a rookie mistake. I forgot to check my size of the mesh before sewing. Here's the front of the bag (left) and the side of the bag (right). Can you see where I made a royal mess? The side seams are off by about 1/2 inch or so. It's really easy to see at the bottom of the bag. But, the bag's staying as is and the giftee will still appreciate it. It's not for Robin, but she knows the person. The bag is called "The Beach Tote" and is by Robin Quilts, Etc. I don't have a link that is working for this company though. The pattern was purchased from the Bunney Hutch in CA.
I learned one other important factor when using mesh, other than to check that the size of my mesh screen matches for both front and back pieces before sewing. I learned that a walking foot is my friend when sewing fabric to mesh. However, I didn't learn this until I talked with my mom after making this bag. So, there is some puckering in the fabric due to the fabric not feeding evenly in my machine. I did use my walking foot on the next project with mesh and it worked great.

And finally we have Sunday's work, some zippered pouches using Nancy Ota's pattern "ZipIt Screen Play II". I love these pouches. I made up the pattern on the one in the corner with the kitty and the yarn ball. I had a blast making these and yes most are gifts, with a few for me as well. I'm always in need of pouches for scissors and other odds and ends for knitting and spinning.


I'm not quite done sewing up gifts and knitting gifts. I'm still working on some things, but I'm having a blast learning new things.

That's it for this week's post. Hope to have another this coming weekend. Have a great fibery week, whatever you do!

Things Forgotten & Things Needed

When I posted about SAFF, I forgot to mention one little item. Robin wove each of us some slender silk belts to put on our wheels, so we have something to recognize the wheel in a crowd. Shown below is an image of my little belt. :) It's now wrapped around the handle part of my wheel, twice.


Instead of knitting, last night I decided to spin up some of this beautiful roving (left image below). This is the same roving I used to make my little fingerless mittens. I decided a matching hat and scarf are a must for me. Check out the brilliant reds in this colorway and the bright blues that pop out. The picture just does not do the colors in this fiber justice. :( Unfortunately, the roving was purchased second hand, so I am not sure who painted the roving, but it is lovely stuff.

And on the knitting front, since I can't knit on my purse/bag, I switched over to my shawl. I'm now working on the edge and have pinned it out a bit so you can see the edging. It's slowly coming along, and it's definitely taking a long time to knit.


Update on Robin -- well, she's moved into her new house and unpacking in between working and taking classes. Our guild has a fiber swap in December and the current plan is for her to pop up to visit me and participate in the swap. Yeah! Her final schedule even works out for her. :)

Alright, that's it for me. Happy fibering!

ack!

Isn't that a great title? Ack! Well, ack was what I was thinking this week when it dawned on me some time Wednesday evening that I probably will not have enough yarn for my bag I am knitting. No pictures right now, since I am planning on designing a pattern with this bag. But, we'll see.

Other than possibly running out of yarn, the bag is coming along nicely. I'm doing some mitered squares and triangles, based on Vivian Hoxbro's "Domino Knitting" and a class I took with Charlene Schurch a while back. Well, I wasn't sure my patterning idea would work, so I had to swatch several times. Especially as there is no pattern in Hoxbro's book on how to do triangles from the bottom up! There is a pattern for point down though, but not point up. Grrr. So, I had to wing it with my swatching.

Now, admittedly, I was pretty off on the first 3, yes 3, swatches! I kept decreasing in the center and increasing on the edges, which doesn't work. Instead, I got a puckered bit of knitting that sort of looked like a squished triangle! And not enough edge sttiches. Sigh, I did lots of different things, mostly with short rows. Finally, it dawned on me. . . I need to increase in the center, not decrease! Sigh, can we say "Duh!" So I swatched two more triangles onto my initial yarn swatch I used to determine my gauge (bottom of bag for gauge). Finally I think I've got it.

Phew, after swatching and writing my initial pattern, I thought I was set and started to knit my bag. I always like to start with a written pattern, so I can scratch everything out and change it as I go. Hmm, at least that is what has been happening, scratch scratch, mark mark. Anyways, I knit the bottom of my bag. Easy peasy! Then I pick up my edging and I pick up double the normal amount I usually pick up on edges. Why? Because that was the plan, see! Well, I'm knitting along and decreasing happily at 1.5", 3", and 4.5". I'm nearing 5 inches when I take a look at said edges. Hmm, too many stitches there. HUH? Well, drats. Wonder if I can pick up less. I put the bag away and before getting to sleep it dawns on me. Dratted nagging in the back of my head.

Oh, I get it, my main pattern is over 120 sts. Well, why don't I have 44
sts on the front and back and 16 sts on the edges, which makes 120 sts total, instead of decreasing and picking up so many edge stitches? This is the amount I need for my patterning! Well, golly gee, I cast on 42 sts for the bottom and knit 32 rows. Hmm, I can CO 44 sts and knit 34 rows. Wowsers! The things I think about before sleeping.

No, I didn't frog the whole purse, just until I picked up sts and knit 2 more bottom rows, and increased sts on the front and back. Did I mention I am knitting with 2 strands! Sigh, pain in the butt to untangle two strands, so the strands got frogged and wrapped together into a ball.

Where am I now? On the second triangle of my main patterning. It's at this point that I notice I m ay run out of yarn. Sigh, I bought more yarn and will have to mix dye lots. However, since I am knitting with two strands, this won't be so bad. Right?

And of course, while buying more yarn, I bought yarn for a child's backpack. Why? Because I have plans! I'll probably line the backpack with fabric, but oh what fun this is going to be.

How am I doing on my shawl? It's still at the end of Clue 4 and needs to be worked on. That's the plan for this weekend since I am waiting for my yarn to come. Knitpicks.com is great. I ordered yesterday and the yarn has already been shipped. Whoopee. Won't be here until next week since I opted for free shipping, but I'm not going to complain. It's coming. I will have a new purse sooner or later.

Another weekend project, sew a purse. I'll post pics this weekend.

Happy fibering all!

mystery altered

My mystery shawl is coming along nicely. I'm working on clue 4, but this clue is going slowly. It doesn't help that I've been sick and have been working late hours. But enough whining, here's an image of my altered shawl.



I extended clue 3 and love the result. Can't wait to finish this shawl and block it out.

Happy fibering.

Does your shower look like this?

The yarn in my shower is not from spinning. I am not setting the twist of my own yarn. Although I wish I were. Nope, I'm resetting the twist of the yarn from frogged projects. That's right, I've been mindlessly frogging things. Or maybe frogging wasn't so mindless since one of the projects was difficult. I apologize for the dark picture, but my bathroom has no natural light sources.


To what projects do the skeins belong? Well, you may recognize the yarn on the left from that sweater I had problems with the underarm seam. The skeins hanging here are only half the yarn. I still have to finish frogging the fronts. Good news is that I found another sweater pattern I like (raglan sleeves) for this yarn.

The yarn on the right is from a purse that I badly need. But, alas the purse was not meant for me. I finished seaming the purse front, back and sides together one night this past week and found the shape to be mightily lacking in fit (don't even ask!), and the fabric was too flimsy really for a purse, so I frogged it. Hmm, I seem to be doing much better about my fear of frogging. What do you think? Two projects in one month. Three if you count my frogging my shawl too. The good news for my purse is that I have a new plan and if all goes well, the bag will be started soon. I'm pretty excited about this new design too.

What of my mysteryshawl? Well, I'm still where I was when I posted about clue 4...3...4. Work is a bit hectic right now, not to mention my getting into design mode and working on the numbers for my bag. Hopefully, I will persevere and finish clue 4 tomorrow of my shawl, but I still need to calculate the additional rows and the math for the final clue.

Wondering what happened to Robin? She's around and very busy. She is doing well in her studies at graduate school and keeping busy working on a fellowship. Their house is finished, so she will also be moving in next weekend. Needless to say, the pace of her life picked up quite a bit this month -- tests, papers, and moving. She did get some spinning done and is working on a commission. See, busy.

Hopefully I'll have more interesting pictures, such as finished projects this week. Happy fibering!

Clue 4 . . . 3 . . .4?

Okay, I frogged my shawl back down to clue 3 and added on to clue 3. I did this this past weekend. Right now I am in the middle of clue 4 and hurrying. I think I will add on to clue 4 as well.

Why did I frog? The pattern is lovely, but my yarn is thinner than the yarn used by the designer and doesn't have much stretch to it. I'm also using smaller needles. The above factors mean that my shawl was more like a shawlette. After trying clue 4, I decided to frog and add to clue 3. I knew ahead of time that I might have to do this to get the length and width I want, which was fine with me. I'm really pleased with the shawl and hope to have an image up soon. Maybe not tonight, but this weekend for sure!

Not much else happening fiber wise as I've been sick, but I'm sure I'll have some more pictures soon as I've been itching to spin the silk hankies Robin and I bought at SAFF!

Happy fibering all!