Mid-winter blahs

Here is a picture of my cat judging my lack of knitting ambition this winter:


I have been knitting the Uyen legwarmers from Berroco. I am so very close to being done with one legging but the knit one, purl one ribbing with tiny needles is really trying my nerves. I would really like to finish these so I may wear them before the summer. I think the finished product will be well worth it but the knitting is so incredibly boring!

More baby things

Well, just one more thing, I guess. I've decided that the best way to use up some of my stash yarn is to knit baby sweaters. I have so many kinds of yarn that I only have one or two skeins of and that is not enough for much of anything. I knit up this sweater (in action on its new owner). It's Hoodie #60554A (it's like a prison number --maybe I've been watching too much of The Wire lately...) from Lion Brand. I used some of my scrap Patons wool. It took about a week to knit, although the striping was very annoying. I had a lot of loose ends to weave in before I decided to just carry the yarn. It was a quick, fun pattern to knit though.

A birthday present

I went to a 1st birthday party this weekend and, like all the gifts I give this little guy, I made the birthday boy something handmade. My gift is probably a little too old for him right now, but it never hurts to give fun, educational toys.

I made felt letters. I just made the upper-case alphabet for now, but have plans on making lower-case letters and numbers eventually. I made a template for all the letters, cut out felt, blanket stitched, and stuffed all the letters. I started this at the beginning of January, thinking I'd make one letter a day, but it actually went faster than I thought it would.

I made a bag from scrap fabric (using up my stash!) to hold
all the letters, with plenty of room for additional letters as I make them. I pretty much followed the instructions from happythings to make the bag. I made mine much bigger than the tutorial though and it still worked out great.

All bundled up!

A Scarf for the New Year

Per my goals, I've started going through my yarn and assigning projects. I love the yarn search on Ravelry --it lets me browse projects and see how the yarn turns out for different people. I had some fine Red Heart yarn that was an impulse purchase. I love the colorway, but I didn't know what to do with it. I finally found a great scarf pattern: The Dropped Stitch Scarf from Frazzled Knits. I really like how it turned out. My grandma loves handmade gifts and her birthday is coming up next month, so I think I have the perfect gift!

A Year in Preview

My truncated goals from last year:
Post more often
Don't buy excess yarn
Organize yarn projects/work on Ravelry
Sew more
Try embroidery

I was able to work on a couple of these items. I did stop buying excess yarn and I did start to sew more. I get a BIG fail for posting more often though and while I've been using Ravelry more, I haven't really uploaded my own projects. And embroidery? Not so much.

So, my 2009 goals are pretty much my goals from 2008. I think I'll focus on working through my yarn and using Ravelry more. I have projects that are in the back of my mind and I need to really tackle them, along with projects from last year that I've put on the back-burner.

One thing I'm borrowing from Little Lugs is making more handmade presents. I am really inspired by all her hard work and hope to make even more gifts for others this year. I'm not very artistically enabled so when I can create something that I like, I need to remind myself to keep it up!

And I'm moving in August, so I might just get that Room of My Own!

Front burner & back burner

There's still one holiday gift I have to finish - I started it on a bit of a whim, but I'm determined to finish this month. It's the cotton throw blanket on the left, and I'm not going to work on anything else while I'm at home, until it's finished. I was going to take it on my holiday plane trips but it was already too bulky to be comfortably portable, so I started a pair of knee socks for myself instead - a much better traveling project. These will stay on the back burner, relegated to subway and lunch-hour knitting, until the blanket (and a batch of charity hats) is finally done.

A Year in review

I really fell off the blogging bandwagon this past fall, but school is now done and I can concentrate fully on crafting and blogging. I thought I'd start with a mosaic of my finished objects in 2008. I made quite a few things for my nephew! Despite my hectic final semester, I managed to create a couple handmade gifts as well.

There were several things I created at the end of the year that I never blogged about. One was a sweater for my cousin. I had her name for the family gift exchange. And inexplicably, I forgot to document it! I decided to make Flint Knit's February Lady Sweater. I used Cascade 220 for the yarn. It knit so fast and I think it turned out really well. I want to make one for myself now.

Other items I made for various gifting needs were: a toy alpaca, a felted rug, a lunch sack, and a reusable Target bag. I fused Target bags together and tried to recreate the real bag Target advertised earlier in the year. Stay tuned for my 2009 goals!

Hello 2009

Happy New Year!

This is what I wrote last year around this time:

With regard to knitting in particular, I have begun to develop a list of specific project goals and sketch out a timeline for getting them done. I've resolved to buy no new yarn or clothes for 6 months in an effort not only to economize but also to focus on working with the materials I already have to create new clothes (or refashion old ones). And charity knitting is still a goal, both with the group at work and on my own.

My crafting goals for last year were a bit vague, it's true. Having a project list, and starting a separate blog to track gift-making, really improved my crafting productivity and helped me achieve my goal of giving more handmade gifts. A couple of times I broke my resolution to give up yarn and clothes buying for six months, but the offending acts were pretty minor and once the deadline passed, I continued to exercise considerably more restraint in these areas than I've shown in the past. And I did participate in two charity crafting projects through work, in addition to doing one project on my own. I had planned a second solo project for 2008 but it's not done - I'm aiming to finish this month and send a box of knit hats to a local shelter.

So...2009. I want to make a quilt with the old clothes I've been saving. I want to continue crafting for charity - 2 solo projects. I want to knit a sweater for myself. And I want to improve on my handmade gift-giving - start planning earlier, and diversify by learning a new craft. Sounds do-able, right?

Almost there

These gifts for the newest niece in the family are the second- and third-last gifts I had to make - just one more left to finish! I made the bear from a cashmere sweater that I'd accidentally machine washed; he is so so soft! I made his face with embroidery floss and knit a tiny scarf to hide his neck seam. The balls are each about 3" in diameter, made with the same yarn I used for the ruffle scarf. I have plenty of these colors left over for another fun kid project or two in the coming year.

So close!

Three more completed gifts! The rainbow scarf is from the book Scarf Style; it's for my goofy (in the best possible way) niece. The hats are for my brothers-in-law; they live in Phoenix, but even the desert gets cold at night, so I made these with cotton to be climate-appropriate. I can't believe how close Christmas is!

And another!

Not a great photo (as usual) but I didn't want to wait till daylight to shoot this and put it into the finished gift trunk - got to keep the momentum going! This is the Thrift Shop Shawl, another Ravelry find. The pattern is so super simple, which is the perfect way to show off this lovely red cashmere yarn that I got for a steal from Smiley's last year (the picture doesn't do this color justice!). And it's so soft! This year's Smiley's Manhattan sale is next week...I may not be able to stop myself from going and looking for more of this yarn.

Another one bites the dust

One more Christmas gift is finished! This is a Debbie Bliss pattern I found through Ravelry - the Ribbed Baby Jacket. The ribbed placket is supposed to be wider but I ran out of yarn; also there's supposed to be a button but I think it's fine without it. I had this crazy yarn to use up; I just started with one colorway, knit until it ran out, then added the other one and knit until that ran out. I love how wild it turned out, and the sister whose daughter it's for tends to like funky stuff for her kids, so I'm hoping it will be a hit.

Weekend update

So this is what I've been up to - I started this vest on July 1 (!) and finally sewed the buttons on yesterday, November 1, but really it sat for long stretches without being worked on, so I should have finished much sooner than that. Anyway, I'm very happy with the finished product - pending the final fitting, on Christmas Day, by the recipient. It's for my Dad, and if you knew my Dad, you'd agreed this is just his style. It's knit with good ol' Patons Wool (with apologies to Mom, who will end up being the one to hand wash it) from a pattern in Men in Knits by Tara Jon Manning. A super simple pattern, with that nice little cable detail; I'm already thinking of doing another one in cotton for Dad's April birthday, since button-up vests are my Dad's favorites but they are getting harder to find in stores. I know I have some taupe Cotton-Ease lying around...

Remember the Olympics?

Well, I do because it was the last time I had time to knit or do anything crafty. It's been a very fast but uncreative month. I haven't even posted what I was able to knit during the Olympics, so I'm taking a break from reading The Name of the Rose (only 100 pages to go before Friday!), and posting what I made.

It's the Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigan for a well deserving little boy in my world. I had a lot of Cascade 220 scrap yarn. It knit super fast. I've never duplicate stitched before so that was kind of messy, but it didn't turn out too bad. I made it in the 9-12 month size so it'll be chilly by the time he's ready to wear it.

Hopefully, I'll have some time in the near future to knit again. I miss it. Plus, I have to make my cat's Halloween costume!

Making progress

Holiday gift knitting is coming along fairly well - I have two socks done, their mates are underway, and the brown vest is also past the halfway point! I also finished a last-minute wedding gift, the Plush Throw from Lion Brand, which couldn't be an easier pattern and shouldn't taken so long, but again, I blame Harry. Above you can see Penny testing the blanket for plushness (she deemed it acceptable). I should be starting at least one new gift this weekend now that the bulky blanket is out of the knitting bag.

Finally! Tree of Life afghan

It's done! And already packed up, along with the Baby Surprise Jacket, to be sent to its future owner. It's bigger than I'd expected, but still a very baby-friendly size - maybe about 3 x 4 feet? Since I ran out of the main color, and also because I really just wanted to be done with this, I skipped the leaf-lace border and just did two rows of applied I-cord in a different color for the edging.

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A mushroom

When I saw this pattern, I just had to make one. It's pretty cute and the recipient apparently likes to shake it!

Cage comforters

Here are three of the 11 Cage Comforters I have just finished. They are going to New York Animal Care & Control, where I hope a few little critters will get a bit of comfort from them. I'd saved some clothing and sheets from a big closet purge to reclaim their fabric for this project, so all I had to buy was batting. Each cushion is 12" x 18" and about an inch thick, tacked together with some bright yarn. I hope to be able to make a bigger batch next year, but as this was a new project in my charity crafting repertoire I figured I should start small.

Laptop bag tutorial

I've been accused of not loving my new macbook enough. It's true. I kind of hate it. My loathing for my new computer (who I should not talk bad about as I type on it!) didn't stop me from making it a fun new bag. I didn't feel like buying a bag for it, so I decided to make one. I also figured, since I'm making the bag, I might as well share the process. If there are any errors, please let me know!

Here we go!

Materials:
bag fabric
liner fabric
buttons/snaps/buckle
matching thread

So, I do this every time I buy fabric. I didn't keep track. I don't know how much I bought. I had some leftover green corduroy that I used for the outside of my bag. I bought maybe 1 yd or 1.5 yds for the liner. I had plenty left over so I think a safe amount would be 1 yd.
I also bought some buttons to cover with the liner fabric but seem to have misplaced them so they're not a part of the tutorial, but hopefully I'll find them one day and add them.
Finally, I really wanted to add a buckle that would let me lengthen or shorten the strap but I couldn't find a buckle of what I wanted, and I ran out of steam making the bag.

*All seam allowances are 1/2", unless stated otherwise*

Cut these pieces (all these dimensions are allowing for the 1/2" seam)

Outside fabric pieces:
Front/Back piece x2: 15"x10.5"
Side piece x2: 15"x3.5"
Bottom piece x1: 3.5"x10.5"
Top flap piece x1: 7.5"x10.5"
Bottom pocket piece x1: 8"x10.5" (split into two pieces: 5", 3")
Strap piece x1: 37"x2"

Liner fabric pieces:
Front Back piece x2: 15"x10.5"
Inside panel x2: 14.5"x10.5"
Side piece x4: 15"x2.25"
Bottom piece x2: 10"x2.25"
Top flap piece x1: 7.5"x10.5"
Bottom decorative piece x1: 4"x10.5"
Bottom pocket piece (liner) x1: 11"x10.5"
Strap piece x1: 37"x2"
Inside pockets
-itouch size x2: 5.75"x3.75"
-ipod nano x2: 4.25x3.5"

Interfacing:
I put a fleece interfacing on all the front/back/sides/bottom/middle panels to give the laptop a little protection. I added it to the outer sides and the inner panels just so the sewing would be easier.

Final dimensions:
14" tall
9.5" wide
2.5" deep

Sewing the outside of the bag:

*iron interfacing on before starting*

1. Sew side pieces to bottom piece. Trim seams.






2. Sew outer pocket together
a) sew bottom decorative piece to bottom pocket piece. I split the pocket into three pieces, from top to bottom: 5", 4", 3". Using a 1/4" seam allowance, sew together to form one 11"x10.5" piece that will match the liner piece. Press seams to the outside. Top stitch along the decorative piece to create a nice finish.
b) Using a 1/4" seam allowance, sew liner top to outside top. Leave sides and bottom unfinished because they will be sewn into the sides at a later time.






3. Using a 1/4" seam allowance, baste pocket to outer front piece.







4. Sew Top flap liner to outside on three sides. Trim seams, clip corners, turn out, press, and top stitch around three edges, leaving one edge rough.

5. Sew strap together.

*add interfacing if you want a thicker/softer strap*

a)With right sides together, sew one piece of the outside fabric and one piece of the liner together.
b) Stitch along the long edge of each side, forming a tube.
c)Turn the right side of the strap out, and press.
d)Top stitch the strap for a nice finish.

See this tutorial for a visual

6. Sew Side/Bottom pieces to Front/Back to form the bag. Trim all corners and edges. The fleece adds bulk that can be trimmed away.









7. Baste Top Flap and Strap pieces to bag.













The Outer part of the bag should be complete.








Sewing the Liner:



1. Sew the inner panel together.
a) With right sides together, stitch the top of the panel. Trim the seam, turn so right sides are out and top stitch across the top.





2. Sew the sides and bottoms to the inner panel.
a) I attached the sides to the inner panel and sewed the sides at the same time.
b) I lined the bottom of the sides up with the inner panel. The sides should extend beyond the inner panel. The inner panel is shorter than the outer part of the bag.






c)Then attach each half of the bottom one at a time. This is a little tricky. Don't sew the other sides into the side.









Lining up the corners isn't pretty. Just go slow and it's ok if things don't match up exactly--just make sure there aren't any holes when you're done sewing.






It may get ugly. Just keep going!










3. Sew inner pockets together and attach to Front/Back liner piece.
a) Using a 1/4" seam allowance, sew pockets with right sides together, like a pillow. Leave an opening for turning. Trim corners and turn.
b) Attach pockets where you want them on the Front/Back liner piece, making sure opening in facing down so it will be sewn closed when the pocket is attached. Sew three sides to form a pocket, closing the opening as you sew.








4. Attach Front/Back pieces to inner part of the liner. Trim all the seams so there is less bulk.











The liner should be complete now.







Finishing the bag:


1. Stuff the outside of the bag inside of the liner, right sides together. This is a little tricky. Put the outer bag in just one part of the liner. Match up the corners and pin all around. Be careful with where the back flap and straps are.








2. Sew all around, leaving an opening to turn the bag. Be sure to have the opening where the back flap is not. It's easier to top stitch it closed. I did not do this and it didn't work as well as I wanted it to.









3. Turn and top stitch all around, closing the opening.




4. Add buttons or snaps to the flap so the bag stays closed.

It's done!










Perfect timing...Michael Phelps just won his 8th Gold medal! yeah!