CrafTBQ

First things first: I have shelves!
They’re still a work in progress but even so, I have them! Shelves for putting crafty things on! My current plans are to move the yarn out of the plastic bins and into baskets, and from there just wing it. Currently up there are books, yarn, jewelry making supplies, and cloth. *happy sigh*

Next up, there is my sock in progress:

As you can see I’m doing it toe-up on two circs. I like this much better than cuff down on DPNs. Much faster, and my OCD/perfectionist nature feels better knowing that I’m not going to run out of yarn while making the sock part of the actual sock. (Unlike before where I made it to the heel and then started fretting that the toe would turn out to be a pipe dream.) I’m very happy that I frogged the first sock attempt and went with this instead.

Then there was sewing! Which I did at 10pm last night because I’m insane. The story here is that I’ve taken to air drying my clothes, and I’m finally taking advantage of the warm weather to dry some things outside on the line. This means using clothespins and that means needing a clothespin bag.

(Well, not needing per se. I had a reused plastic shopping bag that did the job just fine. But that’s hardly fashionable or crafty!)

I have some fat quarters that I purchased off of Etsy for the specific purpose of having pretty cloth around to use for random projects just like this. I used this tutorial as general guidelines for the pattern, with tweaks along the way. Since it’s a clothespin bag for my own usage I didn’t bother with pesky things like “ironing” or “measuring.” Which is why the bag itself is “old-fashioned looking” in the sense of not having “straight seams” or “straight sides” and “obviously defines ‘old-fashioned’ as some new phrase which refers to how cats might’ve done a better job making this than the person with the opposable thumbs and the sewing machine.”

That being said I am starting to get a better feel for how things work while sewing. I’m not quite there yet but I’m nearing that “aha!” moment where it all clicks into place. Which is good since I’ve got cloth on the way that I’m hoping to turn into curtains and that’s when it’ll actually need to be done with some vague semblance of looking like I know what the frak I’m doing.

Here’s a breakdown of how it went:

The basic materials. I decided on having decorative trim to liven it up a bit. I also decided on using a wire hanger from the dry cleaners as a way to recycle it. My original thought was to sew the bag onto the hanger but as I worked I realized that it would probably be useful to be able to take the bag off if I needed to launder it. So I improvised a handle.

Step one: Cutting the main fat quarter into three pieces.

Step 2: Cutting fabric for the decorative edge.

Step 3: Doing a very loose stitch to hold the decorative fabric in place while I sewed it onto the main fabric. This was when I figured that ironing would’ve probably come in handy but that would’ve involved taking out the ironing board and iron and did I mention that I started all this at 10pm? (This would also explain the crappy picture quality.)

Step 4: Attatching said fabric to the main fabric. I used a leafy kind of stitch to vaguely match the pattern. Once this was attached I removed the loose stitches I had holding the decorative fabric in place. I’m proud to say some of the uneven appearance of those stitches is due to camera angle. We’ll just ignore how many other stitches I’m not showing you. Ahem.

After all this there was sewing the bag together, realizing I was going to go with a handle, making, and then attaching said handle. At which point we were kissing up to midnight and if I stopped for pictures I knew I probably wouldn’t start sewing again

(I hasten to add that a great deal of the time here is due to how I was sewing at the slowest possible speed on my machine so that I could have more control. This is obviously the kind of project that probably takes a half hour tops if you know what the frak you’re doing.)

Anyway, all that was done, the hanger was bent to accomodate the weight of the pins, and voila! One clothespin bag:

I haven’t had a chance to use it yet due to rain this weekend, but hopefully next weekend I can give it a whirl.

Or both? Yesterday I baked a four layer (aka two layers cut in half) yellow cake with chocolate frosting. It’s for my dad’s birthday, which is today. Here’s how it looks all frosted and yummy:

Yesterday I also finally finished the Go Gremlins scarf that I’ve been working on using a pattern made by airawyn. As you can see, it is an illusion scarf. The pattern was good: just enough changeup to keep things interesting, but repetative enough that it could be TV or SnB knitting. On the whole, I am pleased. It’s 7 ft. long including the fringe.

I finally hooked up my digital camera to my laptop which means that it’s much easier for me to upload pictures!

So, here’s some stuff:

These are the cards and bags that I made at the Stampin’ Up party that I mentioned earlier. The bags were filled with candy, which I am told was yummy.

This is a pair of Fetching fingergless gloves that I made for my sweet baboo (aka Cindy). The color here was a sort of burgundy/purple.

This is another pair that I made for my Mom for her birthday. It was a very easy gift to figure out for her since she admired the pair I had so much   The color in the picture is pretty true to the color of the gloves.  I thought it would go well with her hair and she agreed with me.

It’s been a thousand years since I’ve updated, I know. Er - whoops?

I have been busy with knitting, however. The SnB in my hometown is still going on and I manage to make it over there once or twice a month. This creates a nice mix of knitting projects because I enjoy having “TV knitting” when I’m over there, and it’s a solid two hours of work that I can count on. Then when I’m at home I can work on things that require a little more attention from me.

I also have a cameraphone, which makes taking and uploading pictures a much faster and easier process. I’m also trying out a new online album for much the same reason, so let’s see how this goes. Picture #1 is the ribbed hat that I was working on:

From Crafting Pics

Picture #2 is a wee sock that I did just to see if I could make a sock at all. The pattern is from Sensational Knitted Socks [ETA: My bad. It’s Cool Socks Warm Feet] and it’s a regular sock pattern, only smaller. So I got to practice all the necessary techniques without having to worry that I was throwing away hours of my time if I screwed up:

From Crafting Pics

I’m now working on a sock-sized sock with that exact same pattern. I had to frog it last night when I was not only displeased with the ribbing, but noticed that I’d dropped a stitch and knit right over it a few rows back. So I’m starting over and I’m just on the ribbing right now, but I remain confident that I can succeed!

I also ponder the concept of using a lifeline while working on a sock. We’ll see.

I finally got off my butt and uploaded pictures of my first finished BGAL project. You can see pics of the ribbed scarf I made over in the BGAL blog.

I finished the ribbed scarf that I was working on.  As you can see, it is not your average ribbed scarf:

It’s a little hard to tell from the photo but that’s about eight rows of box stitch at the end.  I wanted the end of the scarf to have a little texture to it.  Little did I realize that the ribbing would be far more elastic than the boxing, which is one of those things that’s really obvious in hindsight but not so much during.

I like how it came out, though. It’s a little different, and it does fulfill my desire for the end not to be boring.  The scarf’s about five feet long. I could’ve made it longer but I reached a point where binding off was more important than extra length.  I’ve got an extra skein of yarn that I’ll use to make a hat, possibly a plain ribbed one to match it, possibly a cable one. We’ll see which design wins out by the time I have brainpower enough to cast on for something new.

I’m fond enough of the way this combo of stitches stretches that I’d love to try designing a sleeve with that as the end. I think it’d be pretty.  Then again, what do I know about sleeve design?

In case you missed the updates on my LJ, BGAL now has its own blog. My perfectionist nature is still twitchy about some aspects of it, but I’ve decided to throw people at it and see if it breaks. Right now we’re still doing sign-ups. Sometime soon I’ll update with a start date and what have you. (Down, perfectionist nature, DOWN!)

Speaking of alongs, I thought some of y’all might be interested in The Summer of Knitting Naturally (more info to be found here). I’d probably join in myself but with enough knitting and crochet projects on my plate one of the ways I can reduce my impact is by not buying more than I need to. I am fascinated by those links, though. I may chat more about them when I get through Knitting in America which references one of the yarn sources she talks about.

Finally, lest you think this too texty for words (…is that a pun?) I give onto you pictures of the infamous zill holder:

This was a project done by me to basically give myself practice working with size 3 dpns. I modified the pattern based on the bag you can see on the cover of Last Minute Knitted Gifts. The modification was very easy once I guesstinated my gauge. At which point I have promptly forgotten just WTF I did. This is where my knitting journal would’ve come in handy. Whoops.

The yarn was sock yarn that was given to me by Zortified (I miss that LJ code whem I’m blogging). I assume it’s wool. I used it since I liked the colors. On the whole it was a quick and easy project once I got past the point of ZOMG this size 3 wooden octopus is going to stab me in the EYE!!

At some point I’ll make another one so I can recreate the pattern. I’m also contemplating doing further modifications like adding in cables. I suppose one modification could be to use larger yarn and needles, but at that point I think it’d miss out on a lot. Plus the holes might be too big to make it useful. I use this for zills but nothing’s saying you couldn’t throw other weetiny things in there.

As for the question of “WTF are zills?” here ya go:

Which is admittedly a better picture of the holder to begin with, IMO. Anyway, hence my desire to make more. Not only do I stubbornly wish to recreate the pattern just because it’s driving me nuts that I forgot it, but this could make for a very easy but still nice gift for my belly dance instructor. Hence why I ponder ideas like fancying it up more with cables or even beads.

Okay, so I took like a billion pictures of this thing. I was all artsy and put it over the rails on my four-poster bed and had the sun shining through to show off the pretty stitch detail, you name it. I was going to bore you with all the pictures I had!

Turns out only two of them came out worth a damn. Phooey.

But! Pictures! Herein lies the scarf I’ve been working on for the past few weeks. It’s a Herringbone Faggot stitch (…dirty?) knit on #7 needles with two balls of KnitPicks Ambrosia in lavendar. I was originally trying for the Purse Stitch scarf but apparently I purl way too tightly because it was such a pain in the ass to do. So I frogged that before I got more than a few rows in and switched to the HF stitch, which is like the Purse stitch, but you’re working knits all the way. I also added in 4 rows of garter stitch at each end plus 2 knit stitches at the start and end of each row to give it a border.

The end result was 6in x 43in, which was smaller than I thought it would be given that KnitPicks was able to make the Purse Stitch scarf with two balls and include fringe besides. I think what happened, though, is that I cast on four extra stitches for the border and that slowly ate up the yarn.

Still, it’s a fine enough length for warmth or decoration and it knit up like a dream. Here it is stretched out on my bed (sadly without artsy fartsy lighting):

Here it is a bit closer (and still without sunlight shining through, woe!) so you can see the stitch detail:

You may notice two lines running across it. Though they may look like times when I totally screwed up the pattern, you would be wrong to assume so. Those are actually very special lines that I added to the design. I call them the “Hot damn, Colin Firth’s in it!” stitches, and they get made when you try to knit and rewatch Pride and Prejudice at the same time. Don’t ask me how to make them other than to try to knit a Herringbone Faggot while Colin’s in a soaking wet white shirt. Somehow these special stitches just happen. It’s magic.