Green Goodness

I've become fond of various shades of green this year; in my garden and my fiber choices. This lovely peppermint green yarn, Koigu KPM from Loop Yarn in Philly, is destined to be Glee, designed by Zephyr Style. It's a top down knit, with a small gauge, and the yarn is luscious, and such a treat to knit with.


My basil, a little darker green, but still with a hint of spring about it, became a very simple pesto, for pairing with pastas and salads throughout the summer. I'm quite pleased with my harvest so far, and doing my best to keep all the shades of green in my garden from going brown!

Baby's Easter Bonnet

You know how in the movie Easter Parade, Judy Garland and Fred Astaire get new Easter hats for the parade? I like to think of this sweater with hood as Baby's Easter bonnet. Having a boy makes Easter outfits a little trickier, but I think I will knit him a new sweater for Easter each year. This little hoodie is from designer Anny Purls, who has two little boys of her own, and she designs some of the cutest things suitable for boys. The blue marled yarn is wool, next year I think it will have to be cotton, as Baby lasted about 20 minutes in it before fussing from heat. Just about long enough to get a couple of pictures!

Sneak Peeks: A Finished Object

This...


Plus this....


Makes a surprise for my Cozy Domesticity swap partner!

Unraveling

I am unraveling...not from lack of sleep or the demands of a new baby, but because what I thought was an inspired project is not turning out how I imagined it! After seeing Tess of the D'Urbervilles on PBS, and reading the Ravelry forum posts about her awesome knit wrap-around shawl, I wanted to design my own happy version. The one Tess wears in the movie is decidedly un-happy, made of a dark grey and companion to her in her many troubles. My version was going to be bright, striped, and cheerful. After slow starts and unsatisfactory progress though, I'm giving up, and unraveling the yarn to use in more promising projects.

I really loved how the teal/hot pink combination was working out though; the one redeeming part of the doomed shawl. If you have a wrap-around and tie shawl pattern that you love, will you pass it on to me?

The Classics

After the domestic disasters of Saturday, I needed to redeem myself. I went for a couple of classics to help me out: chocolate and luxury fiber (as in alpaca, not oat bran or flax). The little scarflet is for our across the street neighbor who is graciously looking after doggy when we go in hospital; a similar one is on the needles for her daughter. You can't get neighbors better than this family.


And the chocolate cake? For my uber-hormonal body. The hope is the baby will come before we finish it:)

Domestic Disasters

Thursday night DH indulged me and bought me a copy of The Gentle Art of Domesticity. It is a delightful book, full of inspiration for using the home as a canvas for the gentle arts of needlework, baking, and nature. Jane Brocket, her tone a little self-consciously high-brow at times, writes of finding ideas in the everyday, and seeing colors, textures and patterns in domestic life. I've been reading it while knitting and feel super-charged to make wonderful things.

So, while reading this book full of artistic domestic successes, two of my most exciting projects fell sadly flat. The quilted farmyard is not turning out how I had envisioned it. It will need some serious embroidering and embellishment to make it really acceptable. I cannot even bring myself to post a picture of it right now, it is hidden away in a drawer to be examined in a more rational state of mind.

And, my cute baby bunting, after washing and drying, is now full of semi-holes and loops where the eco-friendly dryer balls pulled the threads. Ahhhhhhhhh!

Quilted Playmat

In the recent issue of Living Crafts magazine, they have patterns for five new knitted farmyards. Knitted farmyards, I thought? A knitted farmyard, I discovered, is a playmat that is made by creating and piecing squares of a variety of styles to create one whole "farm." Each square is a different part of the farm, like a sheep pasture, or vegetable garden, wheat field, or pond. Back in Living Crafts inagural issue of Winter 2008, they had this article about collaborating with a group to create knitted farmyard playmats.


Because I have no green yarn in my stash, which would be necessary for fields, I decided instead to make a quilted farmyard. Using different prints for the various fields, I'm sewing the patches together to make a Cotswold sheep farm. The fields are bordered by golden stone fences, typical of Cotswold limestone. My plan is to embroider the fields with flowers, crops, and vegetables, and somehow embroider the stone walls to look like stones. Then, when I put in the batting and backing, I'm going to quilt crop rows and waves of water onto the fields and ponds, respectively. Some knitted or wooden animals and simple wooden farm equipment which I hope to purchase should complete Baby's first Christmas present in a little under a year from now!

Knit Flat Fingerless Gloves

I designed these for those of you who, like me, dislike using double-pointed needles. These fingerless gloves can be knit with straight needles and close on the sides with decorative buttons. This pair is destined for a friend; I need to make some for myself soon!

Size: one size
Finished measurements: 8.75” long x 4.5” wide

Materials:

- Approximately 121 yards of bulky weight yarn; Patons Shetland Chunky was used for this design.
- Size 7 needles or size needed to obtain gauge.
- 12 - ¾” buttons for finishing
- Tapestry needle to weave in ends.
- Sewing needle and thread for buttons.

Gauge: 18 sts and 25 rows to 4” over stockinette stitch on size 7 needles.

Right glove:
CO 42 stitches. Work seed stitch (Row 1: K1, P1, repeat to end; Row 2: P1, K1, repeat to end) for two rows. Next row (RS): make buttonhole [K1, YO, K2tog], seed stitch to end. Work seed stitch for rows 4-6. Row 7: K1, P1, K1, knit to last three stitches, P1, K1, P1. Keeping first and last three stitches in seed stitch, and making a buttonhole every 10th row, work stockinette stitch until piece measures 3 1/4 inches.

Shape thumb gusset: Work 20 stitches, place marker, work 2 stitches, place marker, work to end. Work 1 row. (RS) Inc row: Work to marker, slip marker, kfb (knit into the front and back of the stitch) of 1st stitch, work to last stitch before marker, kfb, slip marker, work to end. Continue in this manner increasing between the markers every 4th row, until there are 12 sts between markers. (Remember also to keep working buttonholes along the side band.) Work 1 row.

RS: Work to marker, slip sts between markers onto a holder, CO 2 sts, work to end. Work 10 rows. Work 3 rows seed stitch; bind off in seed stitch.

Place stitches from thumb gusset on needle. Join new yarn and kfb of first and last stitches on first row. Work one row. Work seed stitch for 2 rows; bind off in seed stitch.

Weave in ends. Sew sides of thumb gusset to glove. Mark places for 6 buttons on side band of glove; sew on buttons and close gloves.

Left glove:
Work as for right glove, placing buttonholes on the opposite seed stitch band.

Waiting

Two weeks and counting...I hope Baby gets here sooner! We are (I think) ready with everything at home. Since this baby is coming in January in the Midwest, I was trying to figure out how to dress it when we go places. This knit bunting is my solution. It's made with thick chenille, from the Jil Eaton Minnowknits, Too book. The picture is kind of dark, but the yarn is a blue, deep purple, and magenta variegated, with a turquoise zipper. I figure I will take a bunch of baby clothes and the bunting to the hospital and the nurses can help me dress it appropriately.

How do you bundle up your little ones for winter?

Fini!

I decided to add some flowers to the ends of the green tendrils, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. Overall, a very enjoyable first crewel experience; I was anxious to do more.

So I did. Just a little sweet bud on some fingerless gloves destined to be a Christmas present.


Now, I must make other things worthy of embellishment.

Beginnings...

The Not-so-Plain Jane sweater; now I'm pondering how to proceed from here. Maybe some geometric flowers extending from the vines?

Plain Jane...8 years later

This sweater has been 8 years in the making. In high school I worked at a patisserie and had a wonderful Russian lady as a co-worker. She introduced me to top-down sweater construction. I went to her house a couple of afternoons, and she taught me how to do the math to design a top-down raglan sweater, with any yarn and any gauge. Unfortunately, the math and percentages have been long forgotten, and my notes are nowhere to be found. Cleaning out my stash the other day, I found the sweater, body finished, languishing at the botton of the box. I finished it, and now am awaiting my order from Renaissance Dyeing so I can start the embellishments, because, as is, this is a plain jane sweater.


I'm going to try crewel work, and I aspire to a finished product something like this or this. Pretty ambtious, huh? Here is my practice work, with regular worsted yarn.


The crewel wool I ordered comes in all kinds of luscious shades and is dyed using all-natural dyes in the Pyrenees mountains. Wish me luck!

A Finished Object

I'd been starting to feel some anxiety lately. I needed to finish something. I needed to finish a substantial craft project that would be satisfying. And here she is: the completed Juliet sweater! I like it, although some of my enjoyment was diminished as I tried modeling it and taking pictues of myself in summer clothes, as it was snowing outside. But now I can look forward to wearing my new top in the spring, in my post-baby body. Although, with my body temperature at tropical levels right now, heck, I might just wear it for Christmas!

How my life has changed...Or...Pondering the intricacies of cloth diapers

Well, last week I was overcome with a desire to make wool diaper covers. Browsing Ravelry I found lots of great knitted covers, but decided that I didn't have the attention span to knit 5 or 6 diaper covers. Reading articles on the Internet about frugal diapering (frugal is my new mindset these days), I learned that you could make diaper covers out of felted wool sweaters; makes sense right?



Just happening to have half of an L.L. Bean wool blanket on hand, I figured that would work just as well too. So, using one of my two purchased diaper covers, I make a pattern and started sewing. Overall it was pretty easy, and now I have 4 additional, almost free, diaper covers.






Pretty cute huh? Two have this brown binding and two will have a bright green with ladybugs binding. Now I just hope they work! Couple more months before they'll be put to the test! Because I was too lazy and frustrated to make my own tutorial, check out the great one here.

Dusty Vintage

This could refer to my house at the moment, but instead it's the name I chose for the latest handbag. My SIL's birthday is coming up and I wanted to craft her something special. Since I'm trying to use mostly materials that I have in my stash, I came up with this repurposed felted purse. My first knitted sweater ever, when I was about 14, was a really pretty teal blue/green color; the color was great, the design and my execution were not. So I felted the sweater, made up a pattern, and cut my pieces out of the thick resulting wool.



The embellishments are made from bits of scrap yarn and buttons, and I just happened to have a leather purse handle and magnetic closure left over from another project. The only new material I used was the fabric lining. I hope she likes it!

On another handcrafted gifting kind of note, I found this interesting website, Buynothingchristmas, put together by Canadian Mennonites to refocus the meaning of Christmas. Kind of interesting, and it has lots of good ideas on saving money with handcrafted gifts.

My First Foray Into Design

The summer of 2007, DH and I took a 3 week walking trip of England; we walked about 80 miles in the Cotswolds, and about 70 miles in the Lake District. Each night we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast in a little village, and my favorite part of the day was waking up and enjoying the full English breakfast, plus numerous cups of French press coffee. We got spoiled!

From the start of the trip, I was determined to buy a knitting project, so I would have some crafty memory of our adventure. But...most of the villages were too small to house a knitting shop, so it wasn't until we reached Keswick in the Lake District (almost at the end of our trip), that I was able to get my treat. I bought a 10 skein bag of Jaeger ice blue mohair, and it's been languishing in my basement ever since.



Until last week. When I saw a gorgeous knitted dress on Ravelry; "Mohair Magic." It inspired me to start my own top-down knit version. So far, I'm almost finished with the bodice, working in the round, and increasing every other row for the raglan sleeve shaping. It is so pretty, and I hope to finish it soon so I can wear it for Christmas. More updates as work progresses.

Repurposed

In my crafting these days I'm considering how I can use the materials I already own in new ways. For wrappings, I make little fabric bags to gift things in. For some free diaper covers, I'm using a felted wool blanket cast off from another project (details for another day). And this bag was made using yarn I got from ripping out an old knitted sweater that I didn't fancy anymore. And yes, this is one yarn, can you imagine it as a sweater? Not a very pretty sight.

How are you using materials in new ways to fuel your craft addiction?

Small is Beautiful

I received this beautiful pincushion (plus lots of other goodies) from PoMoGoLightly in the Ravelry pincushion swap. It is such a fun group, all the members so talented and kind; I get very inspired! The pincushions are fun because they are a miniature canvas on which to try new techniques. My first attempts at pincushions for this swap have a long way to go regarding craftsmanship, but I look forward to trying new things in the future. Check out the group on Flickr and be amazed.

Another One...

This is the second BSJ, because the first was pink. So I think this one will work for either a boy or girl. If it's a girl, then I'm going to make a cute little red dress to wear underneath, and if it's a boy, he's going to get some red pants. Hard to tell from the picture, but the stripes are teal and light blue (not white).

Handmade Christmas

Almost every year for Christmas my brother receives a well-intentioned, but unfinished, knitted present from me. Two years ago it was a half-knit scarf; last year, I gave him a store-bought sleek Banana Republic scarf to make up for it. So this year, good intentions aside, I HAD to finish a project that I started for him; and not just finish, but in time for Christmas. To make up for previous years, it had to be something big and substantial, and since he would probably rather die than wear a hand-knit sweater, I decided on an afghan. My first ever. With cables. And eyelets. And lots of pattern repeats.

This does have a happy ending though, because I finished the afghan on Saturday with two yards of yarn left! I am so happy. And hopefully he will be too with a real finished present on Christmas Day.

And since he doesn't even know about my blog, I can disclose what gives me so much satisfaction about this project: it only cost $15! I consider that a triumph! The pattern was a free leaflet at Joann's, and each of the five balls of yarn cost only $3. It's value has been very much increased though with the love and prayers I've knit into it for him.

This reminds me of a wonderful blog I came across last night: Taste the Goode Life. Evidently this lady had a cooking show on the BBC for many years which was very popular. Now she writes this blog everyday, and has so many good ideas for frugal cooking and a frugal Christmas. I'm excited to be more financially mindful this Christmas, because I know it will (it already has; witness the $15 afghan) increase my enjoyment of the season as I savor what it really important. Check out her blog for yourself. She is quite an entertaining writer.