Halloween Goodnight!

It's all over! (Well, it is for us. Sounds like it is still happening for my drunken neighbors though.) Just had to share some of my favorite pictures from tonight. Even though this year was extra exhausting, it was a ton of fun for everyone.

My pumpkin! Totoro jack-o-lantern.

Naturally...because he is always getting in trouble.

Schroeder is such a good sport.

Muahahha!

Hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween!

Happy Halloween and Baby's First FO!

Halloween is a favorite holiday in this house, and we are extra blessed this year due to new baby Q and being World Series champs - yay Giants! My husband has been walking on air for days, with no end in sight. :)

Also...I finished Baby Q's first item! The Aviatrix hat by Justine Turner.

daww

More info soon. Hope everyone has a great Halloween!

I am not afraid of my Serger Part II: Piecing The Quilt

I am still working on photos for this portion, so you'll have to do with words for now.

So: Once I finally had my arrangement decided upon, piecing was easy.

I followed the recommendation from the original pattern and just picked up pieces in a single row, then sewed them all together. Since I was working with the machine it made things a lot faster, which meant no need to carefully stack every row and place in labeled zip-lock bags - each row only took about 5 minutes or so to piece together! I tested out the style of stitching I wanted with some scrap pieces beforehand and was able to get some nice looking ladders:

Using this blog post as a guide to flatlock stiching, I was even able to emulate the look from the original pattern! (Which is all hand stitched...admirable or masochistic, you decide.)

Once I finished piecing all the strips I ironed them out and miraculously, they are all pretty much the same length. I was careful when building the pattern to find pieces that added up to the same length - glad to see that it actually worked out.



Although it was super tempting to just continue to work and try to finish the quilt, I had already spent an exorbitant amount of time on this project and my son needed to go to sleep (which means no more machine running...we have a very small house).

Funnily enough, I went into labor this night. One of the first things I thought when I woke up with contractions was "But my quilt!! I wanted to finish that today!!" I was so disappointed!! So, we'll see when I get time to put the final touches on this. The great news, however, is that when my step-dad came to see the new baby he brought our old Singer sewing machine with him! So I will have no problem finishing all the non-Serger aspects of this baby. (I was really scratching my head about how to border this thing...ever impatient am I.)

I am not afraid of my Serger Part II: Practicing With Felt

I recently inherited several boxes of fabric, one of which consisted entirely of felt. A few new pieces but mostly ends and scraps and strange bits. I knew this would be perfect for meditation and practicing some more Serger action, but I didn't know exactly how.

I adore Purl Bee for all their amazing patterns and fabrics, so this was the logical place to look for inspiration. They even have a section of felt projects, which made it really easy to browse. After considering coasters, placemats, bean bags, and a memory card game I finally settled on this quilt as a guide:

Because why have a bunch of useless bean bags when you can have one useless quilt? :)

So far I've managed to cut a million squares, iron them, and arrange them into a pattern I think I can like. Since this is basically just to keep me moderately occupied (I'm at home waiting for a baby to fall out of me) and to get some extra practice with the machine, it's nice to not have to worry about being precise.

Also, cutting through felt with a rolling cutter is so incredibly gratifying. I cleared the box in no time at all - look at how many squares I had!

ok, it's hard to tell. but those stacks are really high! 

Here's a picture of the arrangement I settled on. Can't wait to start sewing.

The black triangles are covering some of my slightly inadequate squares.

Update: If you've been attentive you will have seen that the baby DID fall out of me...so whaaa? I write posts in advance and schedule them for later publishing...that's why the time warp. Funnily enough, I went into labor the night I was putting this together.

Zombie Bunny

Just in time for Halloween - check out this amazing creepy amigurumi posted by  Knit Hacker! Made by Mowglee Mo.

It looks like a standard bunny with a creepy eye and bloody bandage...brilliant. (More pictures at her Flickr stream. So creative!)

Happy early Halloween, everyone!!

Birthday!

Just a quick note to say - brand new baby Q is here!! She was born on Monday, October 22nd at 10:20 am. She is so perfect and all of us are over the moon. Many pink baby knits on the way!!

Pattern: Knit Sunglass Holder

This project was really simple. The hardest part was actually finding a lace pattern I liked that (a) had enough holes to host sunglasses, (b) wasn't boring, and (c) was simple enough that I could finish quickly. This one is the Checkerboard Lace Scarf from Purl Bee.


I measured the frame and checked gauge and turns out that I could make it happen with only 2 pattern repeats. (The pattern is a 10x + 8, meaning any increment of 10 stitches plus 8 stitches for edges. So I used 28 stitches.) I was using scrap yarn from a sweater project - because the color was perfect - but it was bulky, so I upped the needles to 10 (but they knit like 10.5 or 11 for some reason - metal needles).

I just eyeballed to get the length of the frame, and then did a quick steam block.

post blocking

pre-blocking

I already had a frame in mind - an old piece that I painted years ago that no long matches anything in our house. I ended up keeping it there, in case an intrepid observer looked closely, and because the color matches the yarn I used...and I still like it. :)

knit piece and frame - size match!

picture without the matting

After that, some easy sewing with more scrap yarn to get the piece to stay on the glass and such:

just enough stretching to keep the lace taut

Then, it was just about popping it in the frame. Due to the bulky yarn this was actually harder than I expected, and I cracked the glass in the process. Sewing the back to keep the piece tight and in place was definitely important - you can see in the final picture that there are two saggy points, on the top and bottom. That's where I got lazy and didn't sew because I ran out of yarn and didn't feel like getting something else out. Derp...I'll be fixing that soon.

Anyway - tada! I placed it by the front door so I never have to worry about "where the heck are my sunglasses?!?" again. And I can stop trying to smush them into my Plastic Bag Stash-o-matic.

P.S. Here is the link to the Ravely project page.

FO: Tis the season for babies

Just a quick one to show off a FO - I knit a cardigan for a friend of mine who is also pregnant, and due just a few days after me!
It's her first - she and her wife are SO excited. I just attended the most amazing baby shower in their honor and can't wait to meet their little boy. E is so damn nonchalant during pregnancy too - she is still teaching, coaching field hockey, traveling, and being awesome in general. She's not even planning to stop until the day before her due date. I would wish her luck but I don't think she needs it :P Okokok I wish her luck.

Here's the cardigan I made (they already found out they're having a boy). It's a bit of a cheat - I used a pattern I already know and love. Hey man, low effort knitting is still knitting...and knitting is love, or at least looks like love when I can't explicitly say it :)

Got distracted and added too few stitches for the collar - so instead of a straight-on cardigan it's going to be a funny curvy fit. Oh well.

A close-up of the elephant I added with double stitching:

Now it looks like I meant to use gray!

This was a total stash buster as well - so many half skeins lying around, what else am I supposed to do? Find more info at the Ravelry project page including the free pattern I used.

FO: Knit Sunglasses Holder

First off, let me talk about how hard it was to name this project. A knit sunglasses holder? I mean...it sounds terrible! Awful! Like the itchy cruddy iPod holder/necklaces after-school knitting clubs teach kids to make for their family for Christmas because they are totally lacking in creative energy and resources. Anyway, I promise this project doesn't live up to that disappointment.

So this is something I have had my eye on for ages - ever since I saw a neat craft idea for hanging jewelry. Can't find the original inspirational photo now - dammit. I think it was on Apartment Therapy or something like that... Anyway, it's amazing and I've dreamt of using picture frames for hanging accessories ever since.

For this project I focused on a place to hang sunglasses - as that is a problem in this house - but it can be used for earrings, buttons, etc. (Buttons and brooches are the next item I need to address, in fact.) Interestingly enough, this idea has popped up a few times since then - most notably here (from my favorite inspirational knit-tastic blogger, of all people!) but never quite in the way I envisioned it.

Fast forward days, months, possibly a year? And I have FINALLY found the time and resources to make this happen. Here's a picture of the finished project:

There is, admittedly, room for improvement (I can see the sagging~ I didn't pull it tight enough around the glass! Bulky yarn made framing this a lot harder than I hoped - I actually cracked the glass.) But overall....I LOVE IT! And now, finally, have a cool place to hang all the sunglasses that end up floating around the house. 

Full notes coming soon !

I am not afraid of my Serger: Part I - Yoga Ball Cover

My husband bought me a Singer Serger sewing machine for mother's day. I was so stoked - thinking of all the amazing things I could do with it! Fast forward 1.5 years later and the thing is still in the box it got shipped in.

Or should I say was in the box - now it is out! And has even been used! Here's how. 

I bought the same one for my mother that mother's day as well, and although she actually opened the box she was in the same position as me. Too many options! So many words! What a big instruction booklet! Where do I start? Scary stuff. She just came down to visit and I decided it was time...I found an instructional DVD in the package and we sat down and watched the whole thing. (Ok, like 20 minutes. Nothing drastic.)

Not at all scary!

Although we were both kind of shocked to learn that this machine wouldn't be 'replacing' anything...it is supposed to be used in conjunction with a regular machine. Whoops. (No biggie though...we've been taking turns borrowing her Amazing and Irreplaceable Singer from the 70s since I was a kid. Although for a minute my husband freaked "You mean you're going to need to buy ANOTHER sewing machine?!?")

I already knew my first project - a cover for my yoga ball! Also known as a birthing ball or exercise ball, depending on what you're using it for. It will probably be a birthing ball sometime in the next few weeks, and then after that a baby-bouncing ball. Truly never has been a yoga ball, dunno why that's my term of choice. 

Anyway I digress. My doula has a fantastic cover and I inquired where she got it - a friend who makes and sells them for $30. $30!? But I have a serger! And 6 boxes of fabric waiting to be used! And the wonderful internet, who provides information like an easy pattern for sewing such simple awesome things! Check out the blog post I found that describes all you need to know here. 

Stash fabrics and simple sewing - perfect project. Here's my first go, using some funky 70s floral and a blue linen strip.

giant blue slingshot?

the strap!

SO! One project under my belt, gotta say I'm really pleased. It isn't bad for a first go. Next time I will definitely use a stretchy fabric (don't think I have any swimsuit fabric on hand, like the original blogger suggests) and probably go with a shorter strap. 

FO: Plastic Bag Stash-o-matic

Do you have something to stash plastic bags in?It's pretty much a "must" if you have dogs, are a huge reuse/recycle fan, or are Asian. The basic idea is it's something that you can easily stuff a lot of bags in, and pull bags out of, and is put in a convenient place in your home.

We have a bunch of them made by my auntie - sewn sleeves that have elastic at each end, to hold in the bags. Unfortunately we've used them so much that the elastic is shot. Now, anytime you try to grab a bag, a whole bunch dump out all over the floor, and, well, no one likes that.

Ah-ha, knitting to the rescue! Wouldn't it be neat if instead of sewn, closed fabric - our PBS was mesh? Since I've taken to hanging my sunglasses on this it makes perfect sense! A new, improved Stash-o-matic that has dual purpose AND uses some of my leftover yarn! Win-win-win.

Improvised as I went, it's a really easy knit. Basically I made a meshy leg warmer, and then added a strap. 

I may have tried it on and danced a short 80s musical montage. Cannot confirm.

Check out the Ravelry project page here. 

Full notes on their way - I'm going to try another version and then type up the best product. So far I'm thinking I'll definitely switch to a larger gauge for the mesh, and a smaller needle garter stitch for the ends instead of ribbing. 

Call it a comeback - sure!

It's been a while - but I'm finally back on track! Not only am I finally able to knit I'm also able to blog about it. Reason? I finally started my maternity leave! Of course it's official baby-watch time - my due date is only 11 days away. So let's see how much I can get done before I am rudely interrupted by being a 2nd time mom. ON YOUR MARKS....!

ever vigilant

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