lighter fare

I must admit, I've burned myself out on the huge knitting projects for the moment.

While I wait for the urge to start something large, I'm doing some fun quick knits.

I'm also obsessed with using up my stashed yarns and leftovers right now, so this scratches that itch as well...some new clothes for one Ms. Barbara Doll.

This shift dress took one day to make and used a few ounces of old leftover Baby Ull and size 2 needles. I hate the belt and will re-do it, but wow, what a FUN pattern to knit!

I ordered a selection of patterns from a great seller on ebay - "Pretty Patterns" - and while they are photocopies (I knew this when ordering) they are of excellent quality. I can recommend this seller for sure if you're seeking unusual or hard-to-find patterns. It seems there were many Leisure Arts booklets with Barbie patterns in the 80s (I saw some on ebay as well) but not anymore. I wonder why? Knitting for Barbies must be uncool now or something. Anyway, I liked the collections this seller had - they are very 50s and 60s and not difficult at all.

The back closes with 3 snaps, and it is hemmed, which is a nice detail. People used to put so much care into things. 

I loved making this. Can't wait to make more...it's perfectly delightful hot weather knitting. 

knit-ibalism

Sorry, sock. Nom nom nom.

Hat pattern here (it's free!)

yarn along

There hasn't been a whole lot of knitting over the last few days. With temperatures in the high 70s and abundant sunshine, we've been taking major advantage and spending most of our time outdoors. Such odd weather for March, but I can't complain. The only problem is my skin - I am extremely fair and there is no shade yet, so it's tough to find a place to sit outside and enjoy the warmth without cooking myself in direct sunlight. Oh well, that's not such a terrible problem to have.

I did do some knitting over the weekend. And I started a new book, so I have a yarn along post.

I'm reading A Thousand Years over a Hot Stove, by Laura Schenone. I had no idea this book existed until it caught my eye on the library shelf while I searched for another title. I grabbed it on a whim and so far it is an interesting history of the role of women in food production and preparation.

The knitting is Daughter's red cotton cardigan. The body is almost finished. I got some adorable buttons for it and I'm looking forward to getting it finished up so she can wear it to school in the mornings when it is still cool.

checking in

Well hello! What's new? I've been gone a bit...we went on a real vacation! With airplanes! And beaches! And, most exciting for my 3 year-old, elevators!

It was ok. Normally a family vacation to a sunny place wouldn't be in our budget, but after my sister cancelled her destination wedding in December, my parents were left with a bunch of non-refundable plane tickets. We got very lucky with an offer of a place to stay in the Florida Keys, so last week we packed up and jetted off. 

We enjoyed the warmth very much, and the Keys are...interesting. I wouldn't say exciting, but it was nice to visit. The kids enjoyed swimming several times a day, and riding the aforementioned elevator up and down in the condo complex where we stayed. It's challenging to travel with your parents, spouse, and young children. Kind of awkward playing the respectful daughter, the compromising wife, and the authoritative parent all at once, all the time. Still, it was a nice change of scenery and getting out of gray dreary cold NY in February is pretty priceless.

Now we're back to reality with all its funsies...therapy, school, work, chores, Daughter's stomach virus over the weekend (blech), worrying about AJ's preschool options for next year, pondering our next home improvement, waiting for signs of Spring. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 50s! Oh please, let it be so. We could use some outside time. 

My vacay knitting was the pair of rainbow socks I can't seem to finish. It's March already and I feel like I've barely knit anything in 2012. I know it's not a contest but sheesh! I do like to complete projects and this year has been a slog so far. I'm in the homestretch though...one more complete rainbow repeat and the second sock will be done.

Started a Spring cardigan for Daughter in this Cherry Cotton Ease. This photo is extremely washed out...it's a rich cherry red. Cotton is a bummer for my hands so I work on it in fits and starts. I'm just about to put the sleeves on holders and work the body stitches. I picture this worn with a (handmade) sweet navy blue sundress with white polka dots just like the one I made when she was a toddler. Wouldn't that be adorable? Unfortunately Daughter is becoming picky on the eve of turning 7 (!) and I'll have to bounce that idea off of her before I buy any fabric.

Weighing heavily on my mind these days is the upcoming maternity leave of our awesome speech therapist, Miss Sarah. Boooooo. We are thrilled that she is welcoming a new baby girl, but I feel a deep sense of loss as she will be leaving us at least until late summer or early fall - that is, if we can even get her back. I've started a little white cardigan for the baby, and with each row I say a prayer for her health and wellbeing, and a selfish prayer that she makes it to term so she stays with us as long as possible. Any gain our son has made in his speech since September has been because of Miss Sarah and her methods. Yes, I work with AJ all the time on his speech, but she has given us the tools and the encouragement we need to move forward. Also, she is at our house 5 days a week. Her absence will be felt. :(

Nothing else exciting to report. Just starting to formulate some plans for some possible summer sewing, and anxiously awaiting Spring. What's new with you?

last minute finish (2 of 3)

Ok, so the ends on the second sock aren't woven in yet (just tucked inside for the photo) but I am calling this gift done!

These socks are for Daughter, and wow have her feet grown! I can't believe how looonnnnng I have to make her socks!

I was concerned about running out of yarn, so I coordinated a skein of Heart & Sole "watercolor stripe" with the same brand in plain ivory for heels and toes. It looks like I would have actually had enough to make it using just the stripe, but that's ok, they look nice like this.

On to a hat for Hubs. And maybe an ornament for our awesome speech therapist to go with the gift card and chocolate bar I got today.....

2011 Christmas sweater - F.O.

Hubs has ordered a part for the dryer. Fingers crossed!

This year's Christmas garb for the children is underway. I always try for coordinating, but not matchy-matchy. This year I think I'm going with red, black and white. AJ will wear red:

This is the Knitting Pure and Simple neckdown children's cardigan...again. I wasn't sure about the hood but this Cashsoft Aran yarn is so, so soft and squishy and nice I didn't want to waste any or leave any behind as an oddball in my stash. It's 10% cashmere, people! What a lucky 3 year old.

The colorway is "poppy" which isn't too important to share as the yarn is discontinued (probably why I got it for around $2/ball). I used nearly all 8 balls, which is weird. That's A LOT more yardage than the pattern calls for in the 2-4 year size. I used size 8 and 9 needles. The buttons are a new style I've been loving from Joann's - I used them on my most recent cardi for myself as well. They look just like leather but they are plastic! And therefore much cheaper. And also washable.

The remaining yarn is there in the photo, and I'd say those balls are about the size of clementines. Mission accomplished...8 balls from the stash are knit up and gone. My guilt-o-meter can go down a tad.

whoa

I can't believe it's November 10th. What a week we've had over here.

It was a record-breaking 70 degrees for a couple of days (but back to freezing cold now with snow in the forecast).

The kids are sick, and AJ's ear was draining this morning. Thanks, ear tubes, for that up-close and personal look at infection. Blech!

On the bright side, we have a new niece! My bro and sis-in-law had their first baby in the wee hours of this morning. She is beautiful and all are well.

Unfortunately, overshadowing most everything, my little sister called off her wedding that was supposed to take place in a warm, tropical place three weeks from Saturday. It's such a sad, sad thing. They do love each other, but she just did not feel it was 100% right. My heart breaks for her (and for him) but I am fiercely proud of her for doing the right thing. I won't lie...it does free us up a bit financially, and eases some stress about the holidays and paying for the two windows we have to replace. But still, I feel awful for her.

So I've been puttering along, working on some stuff.

I appreciate the kind suggestions and offers about the red sweater yarn famine disaster, but it got rrrrrripped and restarted immediately, before the comments came in. There was really no saving it, and this way AJ gets a nice warm new sweater to wear for Christmas pictures. I think I have enough to make the hood, too.

Oy. What a week.

re-do

While going through my pile of forgotten knits, I found this sweater I started for AJ a year ago:

The pattern is this one, and I love it so much. The biggest size is age 3-4 so if I want it for AJ I have to make it, like, right now. When I started it a year ago I figured it would last for 2 winters. I had 8 balls of this beautiful Rowan yarn, a rare special treat that I got on mega clearance.

I started it, I liked working on it, but I tossed it aside. Last night I resurrected it and worked a couple more inches of the back. As I worked along, I thought, wow, this is a great knit! I like these cables! I'm really enjoying this! Why did I quit working on it?

Oh. Whoa. Stop the presses. I glanced at the remaining yarn and realized that there was no way I would make it with only 6 more balls left. Thaaaaaaaaat's why I quit last year. Now I remember that I realized this yarn shortage problem and was so frustrated that I just folded it up and figured I'd deal with it later.

The thing is, I still can't figure out how much yarn I would really need to make this sweater. I have 400 grams of my yarn which is 8 balls X 95 yards each. That's 760 yards. The yarn called for is 400 grams at 115 yards per ball, which is 920 yards. That's a 160 yard difference, whoops. What was I thinking? I don't know. Still, I can't understand it because even if I left off the hood, I can tell I'd never make it with my yardage. The cables just eat up the yarn too quickly.

Oh well, whatever, now I'm going to rip what I've done, wash the yarn and hopefully unkink it...it's been knit up like this for a year so it will be a mess. Instead I'm going to use this beautiful yarn for a top-down raglan cardigan with a hood, and hopefully use dark wooden toggle buttons purchased here. That place has the best price on lots of a dozen buttons that I've ever seen, and they are beautiful. I want to use this yarn up now because it is so, so lovely and once AJ gets just a little bigger I will no longer have enough to make a big enough sweater.

So this will be AJ's handknit under-the-tree gift, and Daughter will get her purpley sweater. I still want to make that pretty cabled cardigan, though...maybe if I get some yarny gift cards for Christmas.....

it's beginning to look a lot (or at least a little) like Christmas

I started making my Christmas knits list this morning. As usual it has too many things on it and I will never finish them all, but it's at least a place to start. 

I am dying - dying - to buy new yarn. I browse around the interwebs and see other knitters' beautiful yarns and projects and aaaarrrgh, I want to place a humongous Knitpicks order and get a big box of loveliness in the mail.

But I did two things this morning to dissuade myself. First I went through the pile o' knitting that lives in the corner of my bedroom. This no man's land is a dusty pile of projects that seems to keep growing as I start things and abandon them in favor of new, shinier ideas. They're all viable projects, but I get bored and toss them aside. Naughty! So today I sorted out all the in-process items, as well as the yarns that I've pulled from my stash as I browse knitting books. That mostly adjusted my attitude.

Then AJ and I went out for some groceries at Target and BJ's (our club store, for those of you in other parts of the country). We needed a few big things like a case of toilet paper and a case of juice boxes for Daughter's lunch box, and I am starting to pick up holiday baking items like butter and brown sugar when I see them for a good price. When we got home I went to the white board and filled in my purchases, coming in right at $0 for groceries, and taking a solid hit in the "discretionary" column (t.p. and pullups went there this week to preserve more money for edibles). Wow, is everything getting more and more expensive, or what? 32 juice boxes are $10.99 (Juicy Juice brand, the second-least expensive ones next to Minute Maid which my kids don't like). I think for Christmas I will get Daughter a small Kleen Kanteen ($9.95 at Amazon) and she can take water sometimes. She always asks for it, but I don't have a good, leak-proof, BPA-free water bottle to send in her lunch box. The Kleen Kanteen is expensive, yes, but I think it is a good investment as she will use it for years.

So anyway, a shopping trip where I reach the end of my budgeted allowance for the week is always sobering. 

It will be a stash-based Christmas this year. Much as I would love to buy new materials, the fact is I have enough already to come up with gift knits. It may not be my first choice, but it will certainly do.

I do, however, think inexpensive patterns are fair game. After all, it is much less spendy to buy a $4 pattern to go with the yarn I already have than to buy $30-$50 worth of yarn to match a pattern. In that spirit I purchased the Kina pattern (Ravelry link). It calls for sport weight yarn and I happen to have some that has been marinating in the stash for years.

It's Wool Ease sport in the boysenberry colorway...and I had 6 of them at one time. I've used maybe one skein? I got them at a Tuesday Morning store, probably about 6 years ago now. Yep, I bet Daughter was a baby when I got these because I thought I could use this color for a little girl. There were 6 of these and 3 off-white and they were a steal. I have to say, this yarn knits up really nicely for being only 20% wool. I used to use it quite a bit for baby sweaters but they discontinued it a long time ago. Wish they would bring it back!

Anyway, it's sport weight yarn with size 5 needles so it's slow going. But the pattern is so cute, I am committed to getting it done and under the Christmas tree for Daughter. Oh, and the color is really more of a reddish purple, not the grapey shade in this picture. I just couldn't get it to photograph correctly in today's light. I'll try again when there's more to show.

What about you? Will it be a handmade holiday season? What are you working on?

Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeen!

We didn't really start "observing" Halloween in our little family until about 2 years ago, when Daughter was 4. Prior to that she was too little to know what was going on, and we lived in a somewhat rural area where no one trick-or-treated. When we moved to our current house (almost 2.5 years ago now, what?!), Daughter was 4 1/2 and wanted to dress up and trick-or-treat. That year and last year, also, she just put on some princessy dress-up clothes from her play stuff and went as a princess. Or a fairy. Or a fairy princess, I'm not sure, it depended on when you asked her.

This year, in 1st grade, it was a bigger deal to her. We started discussing ideas a few months ago. I tried to think of what we already have and what I could easily and cheaply make. It occurred to me that both kids had black shirts, and Daughter has several pairs of black leggings...what could we do with that?

A hunk of red fabric with black spots later...we had Ms. Ladybug:

I simply took the piece of fabric and hand-pleated one selvage edge (that sounds fancier than I mean it to...I just pinched it in inch-by-inch and pinned it like crazy), then cut a long strip of black cotton 2.5" wide to make a binding and ties. I just pressed it in half, then pressed the sides in about 3/8" and applied it just like you would apply store-bought bias binding to a neckband or armhole. Then I just continued the topstitching all the way to the ends to create ties. Pretty simple. The hardest part was hemming the other three sides. This slippery fabric is awful to tame. I got a fabric glue stick but it didn't hold at all, so I had to just slowly double-turn the raw edges, pin, and stitch slowly. In the end it looks kind of shoddy, but it's only a costume so I'm not beating myself up. Oh, and to make it seem more like a ladybug "shell" I whip-stitched black ponytail holders to the sides, which go over her wrists to hold the cape out when she moves her arms.

We added a black headband with twisted pipe cleaners for antennae, and red cheeks with black dots. Voila!

And for AJ...well, we continued the bug theme:

Don't ask me what I was thinking, knitting a Halloween costume! I mean, sewing is more reasonable, it goes really fast, comparatively speaking. This little vest actually took a lot of time and energy, and the sacrifice of one of my Denise interchangeable needle cables. I used Lion Brand Hometown USA yarn in "Oakland black" and "Pittsburgh yellow" and - get this - size 13 needles. I am not meant to knit at that gauge! It was like wrestling rope around tree branches. And 2/3 of the way through, my Denise cable snapped right off. Luckily I had reached the armholes and separated the work to knit the front and back, so I was able to switch to a shorter cable. Still, it was a bummer.

Anyway, I designed this myself, if you can call it a design...it's just a bottom-up vest knit in the round, and I bound off about 2 stitches per armhole and knitted it up to the neck, which is kind of a boatneck style, I guess. One shoulder has extra rows and buttonholes, so it can be opened up to get it over AJ's head. 

Add in some inexpensive black sweatpants from Target, and a yellow headband with silver sparkle balls for antennae, and we have a bee!

Side note: last week when I finished this, AJ told me he didn't like it and wasn't going to wear it. It took some serious bribing/threatening to get him to wear it for a Halloween party over the weekend, but once he realized it was his ticket to getting candy, he was ok with it.

Trick-or-treating was a hoot. At the first house, AJ stood stock-still and wouldn't move. At the second, he made it to the door but hid behind my legs and wouldn't let the lady put the m&ms into his pumpkin bucket. By the third house he figured it out, and by the time we were heading home he was pushing his sister aside to ring the doorbells, yelling "twick-o-tweat!" and dragging me along by the hand. "Come on, Mom! We can get MORE candy!"

cheap wool

I pulled it together and got Daughter's winter hat finished:

I used Stitch Nation yarn for this hat - Alpaca Love in 'espresso bean' and 'lake'. This yarn is gorgeous and amazing to knit with. It feels SO GOOD in my hands. Unfortunately I don't think Joann is going to carry it anymore, as I got it on clearance in July for 97 cents a skein, and I recently saw it on clearance for $3 at AC Moore.

That bums me out bigtime!

I have a limited budget. My yarn purchases are definitely dependent on local craft stores and their coupons and sales. I rely heavily on Patons Classic Wool, Lion Fisherman Wool (no one here carries Lion Wool anymore), Red Heart sock yarns, Patons Kroy sock yarns, the Joann Sensations sock yarn, and most recently, this Stitch Nation line. Those are just about the only yarns with actual wool content you will find in the chain stores (AC Moore, Michaels, Joann Fabrics, and we have one lone Hobby Lobby that I don't frequent because it's too far away).

I occasionally buy from Knitpicks if they have a really tempting sock yarn colorway, or if I have a specific project and color in mind that I cannot buy locally. Their plain worsted weight wool (Wool of the Andes) is comparable in price to Patons regular price where I live.

I have to believe people are buying up this wool - heaven knows the clearance bins were practically cleaned out by the time I got there this summer. I grabbed the last few skeins I could get that I had actual use for. So I really hope the local stores keep stocking it!

I guess I'm talking about this today because I've read a few comments on blogs lately referring to yarn like this as "cheap wool." As in: "I am surprised how well this project turned out considering I used cheap wool."

WTF?

What does that mean? "Cheap wool?"

I think comments like that are really offensive. Not all of us can worship at the altar of Malabrigo, or justify making a child's garment from Three Irish Girls Merino, or indulge in Debbie Bliss or Rowan for our knitting projects. Some of us may not even want to; spending upwards of $10-$20 on a single skein of yarn just doesn't make sense to me. I've made countless garments and accessories using the "cheap" yarns I listed above. The majority have been made using Patons Wool, and all have come out gorgeous, sturdy, and colorfast, with well-defined stitches. They hold up, they wash well, they pill minimally, they are passed down from child to child. My mom and I are both avid sock knitters and have made probably hundreds of socks between us over the past 10 years, and we both find "cheap" Heart & Sole yarn to be one of the best we've used, wearing beautifully on the feet of both adults and children.

Sure, I've used some of the more luxury yarns out there, and they are definitely nice. Who doesn't enjoy working with Koigu or Rowan? They are lovely, to be sure! But the word "cheap" is not a nice word. In this context it surely means "less than" and insults both the fiber and the crafter. Should I feel bad because my kids are walking around in 100% wool sweaters that cost me less than $10 to make, rather than $40-$50 or more?

I mean, if you want to support a small company or farm or individual who is out there spinning and dyeing yarns, then that's cool, you can say that and it's totally legitimate. But if we're comparing factory-spun yarns here, then mine at $5 per skein is just as worthy of use as yours at $15. The jeans my kids wear from Target that cost me $10 will cover their legs and keep them warm as well as the $26 pair from Baby Gap. I doubt anyone would ever say to me, "I'm surprised your kid is warm enough considering those are cheap jeans."

We all make our own buying decisions and they are personal, but when you put them out on the internet for everyone to see, they become less so. And probably I am simply too easily offended...I always have been, it's kind of a personality flaw. But when I read a post about someone struggling to pay for a medical procedure, and then read about that same person using nearly $100 worth of luxury yarn for a child's garment, I bite my tongue so hard it bleeds. I may be judging but it's not my place to say so...just as I believe it's not anyone's place to insult my choice either.

I am a semi-snob when it comes to my yarn choices. I do like wool, and I do not care for 100% acrylic, though I do believe it has its place (such as afghans in a house with children...washability is paramount). This is mainly due to comfort in my hands while knitting/crocheting, warmth, and longevity of wear. I find acrylic content can end up feeling "plasticy" after several washings. So yes, my preference is wool. But I also like to make a lot of things and continually challenge myself to learn new techniques and skills. That requires supplies, so I choose to use what I consider "reasonably priced wool." It is not "cheap wool," it is what I (and many others) can afford. I am just very thankful it exists and is readily available to me.

Edit:
A chunk of this post went missing when I hit publish! I'm not loving this new Blogger interface. It was supposed to say:


I made the above 100% wool/alpaca blend hat for my Daughter out of love and a desire to keep her warm. I hope that when she pulls it on she thinks of me. I hope she doesn't leave it on the bus! I'm afraid, though, it's likely that she will, and at least when that happens I'll feel a little less awful knowing I only spent about a buck to make it.

ran. dom.

Ok, so...I changed my blogger to the "new" interface...and I feel like I can't make it work right. I'm so confused.

Maybe I'm confused because I have an ear infection? I think I have an ear infection. It's making me dizzy.

I did finish a sweater. It's AJ's fall/winter wool cardigan:

Top-down cardigan from Raglans Unlimited (a really old pamphlet I got from my mom), size 4. Yarn is Knitpicks WotA in the winter night colorway. Again, I apologize for the otherworldly glow...it's a nice color in person. Buttons are little cars from Favorite Findings, purchased at Joann's. Side note: I dragged the kids to Joann's to buy these last week (with a coupon, of course), then came home and cleaned up all my knitting stuff, organizing my current WIPs, etc., only to discover I already had a package of the exact same buttons. My disorganization makes me sick sometimes, it really does. :(

School starts tomorrow. Thank goodness.

That is all.

i am perhaps seasonally confused

Oh man, file this one under "I'm a bad mom." At the beginning of summer I cut out this dress for Daughter, and proceeded to ignore it for pretty much the entire season. Niiiiiiice. I could give a bazillion excuses, but it boils down to: it was hot, the air conditioner is in my bedroom, and I am lazy. Really pretty much zero sewing happens around here in the summer, it is just too uncomfortable. So if I don't get the summer dresses and shorts sewn up in the spring when it is still chilly, it doesn't happen at all.

Case in point:

I did finally put this together last week. The temps dipped down to the high 70s/low 80s with a breeze, so I could stand to sit at the machine and, more importantly, use the iron. I was still sweaty by the time I finished, but at least it got done!

Here's a (purposely) blurry shot of Daughter helping a little friend of ours off the slide over the weekend. I just wanted to show more of the dress without splashing our friends' kid across the internet.

I can't find a link to the pattern on line right now and I'm too lazy to go upstairs and find it...if anyone has a burning desire for the exact number I can look it up. But I did a quick look around at Simplicity and McCall's and both have similar dresses shown right now in their current pattern collection. It's a very simple pattern...self-lined bodice, shoulder straps, and choice of one-piece full skirt or 3-tier even fuller skirt. I used the size 5 bodice pattern and the size 6 skirt pieces for length (the width is the same no matter the size). *Note* if you make this pattern, you can just cut width-of-fabric pieces for the skirt tiers. The pattern calls for even wider pieces but that is a waste. If you have typical 40-44" wide calico, like I used here, just cutting the lower 2 tiers from selvage edge to selvage edge works fine.

Also note that if you do not like gathering you will not enjoy making this. I cut two of these out at the beginning of summer, made one, and was very frustrated by the huge amount of gathering. For some reason this is a sewing skill I struggle with, and likely another good reason why the second dress sat unfinished for so long.

Moving on: here is a random action shot of me wearing one of the skirts I made earlier this year:

And finally, the reason for the post title...while still sewing summer dresses, I'm also working on fall and winter woolens (of course).

Listen, I have to apologize for the following photo, because it's awful and hurts your eyes. But the color of this wool (Knitpicks WotA "winter night") refuses to show up in a photograph without displaying an otherworldly glow:

Gah! Awful! But the sweater will hopefully be sweet. It's a top-down raglan (boring but reliable) in a size 4(!) for my growing boy. It will likely be a little too big at first, but should serve him well all winter. The weirdness of the color explains why I had a terrible time finding buttons to match (or even coordinate). We went with the little cars from Favorite Findings (with coupon, at Joann's). With an unusual shade of yarn, I find it best to go with completely non-matching buttons so it doesn't look like I tried and failed.

I would like to go work on this sweater some more, but instead I must clean the mac-n-cheese explosion from our kitchen table area. Maybe if I go really fast I can squeeze some crafting into naptime.....

monday monday

Thank you for the kind words. The funeral was on the 15th, so I am still a tad melancholy, but I'm getting through it.

Other things that are more fun to talk about:

Hubs took me to see a production of FAME! on Saturday night. It was so awesome! I have an intense love of musical theater and will go see just about anything, so when these tickets were offered for free from his office (his company sponsored the show), Hubs knew I'd want to go. And, dude, it was FAME! Who doesn't love that? So the kids slept over at Grandma & Papa's house, and Hubs and I got to go on a date, with dinner and everything. The show was performed at Artpark, and if you're ever in the western NY area, I recommend you visit. It's a state park, open anytime, and you can walk right down to the edge of the Niagara River. It's really beautiful.

Also...I finished a sweater! Woohoo! I feel like I've barely finished anything this year, so I was really thrilled to block this baby:

This is Spring Time in Hollis and I really like it. I saw it on a blog last winter and in a rare move, I bought the pattern (through Ravelry, I believe). I liked that it was worsted weight, top-down construction and had just enough interest to keep me going. I'm getting bored after making a bazillion plain top-down raglan cardigans. This pattern is well-written and easy to follow, and I will surely make another sometime.

This is size 8 (!) for my big first grader, knitted from Knitpicks WotA in violet, a discontinued color that I got on sale years ago. I think I used about 6 balls, but I can't remember for sure, as I started this several months ago and only just now finished it. As per Daughter's request, I left out the eyelets and belt, and knit the sleeves somewhere between 3/4 and wrist length, so they "wouldn't get in her way." I'd like to get some fall fabric and make a matching dress for the school year...we'll see.

It feels good to get another languishing project finished. Time to go diving into the UFO basket to see what else I can clear out!

an easter sweater in july

There's a new online quilt show aimed at the young, new quilter. It's called "Quilty" and it's hosted by Mary Fons, daughter of super-famous quilt personality Marianne Fons (of Fons & Porter). If you haven't seen it, check it out, it's very cute and focuses on beginner quilting skills.

There's a 2-part episode dealing with hand and machine quilting, featuring Marianne Fons as Mary's guest. When discussing the sample they are using to demonstrate different styles of quilting, Marianne says she had trouble coming up with something to bring along...she doesn't have a bunch of quilt tops laying around because, in her words: "I finish my projects."

I finish my projects. What novel idea! I often wonder why so many of us have craft ADD, where we flit from one project to another, leaving baskets of abandoned socks, sweaters, embroidery, quilts, etc. in our wake.

It's fair to say I always have at least two knitting projects on the go at once, generally one on larger needles and one on very small needles (a sweater and a sock, for example). But sometimes, as in right now, I get way more than that piling up. I currently have a sock, a sweater for Daughter, a sweater for AJ, a long-ago abandoned baby sweater that was supposed to be for my son but will now become a gift, a shawl, and a granny square afghan (crochet, but let's lump it in there). Actually, I just surprised myself in coming up with that list...it seemed I had more semi-abandoned projects than that.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong to have a lot of projects going. It's certainly common. I have so many things I want to make it keeps me up at night, my mind racing with possibilities. And I also feel the need to knit and sew for my kids as much as possible while they are still little and will wear what I present to them...Daughter, at age 6, is already expressing strong opinions about her wardrobe and I've started consulting her before beginning anything new lest she dislike it and stuff it in the back of a drawer.

But none of that does any good if I don't finish up. So with that quote from Marianne Fons in mind, I sucked it up and finished the sweater I'd intended as an Easter sweater for Daughter.

Knitting Pure & Simple neck-down cardigan, size 6-8. I used close to 3 skeins of Lion Cotton Ease in white, knitted up on US 9 needles (US 8 for the seed stitch ribbings). I fell in love with these buttons and I think they are perfect to jazz up an otherwise plain sweater. Click on the photo to see them bigger - they look like gingham! So cute! They are "Dress It Up" buttons, purchased at Michael's.

This sweater was so boring, the size 9 needles felt so clunky, and the cotton yarn made my hands hurt. I guess that's why it took forever and a day to finish. Plus Easter was freezing cold (we wore wool) and it was such a cold spring season, this sweater wouldn't have gotten much use anyway. I'm hoping it will get lots of wear at the beginning of the school year.

So, that's done! I guess that means I can cast on for something new...right?

busywork

No one really tells you, when you become a stay-home mother, that it is pretty much a totally boring job. It's also largely thankless, but we mostly know that, I guess. After nearly 6 years of stay-home-ness, I am bored out of my mind. In the dead of winter in a cold climate, there is little to look forward to each morning...making meals the children will not eat, cleaning up after the children, watching PBS, playing playdoh, painting with watercolors, doing mountains of laundry, listening to the wind rattle the windows, more cleaning up, etc, etc.

I've scheduled many playdates this winter in an effort to combat the cabin fever, but inevitably someone gets sick or something comes up and either I cancel or our friends do. We've all been sick since Christmas, almost non-stop. We were on the upswing for about a week, until Daughter brought home another nasty virus from Kindergarten. AJ just managed to squeak in for his surgery last week, though his nose was stuffy. Another couple of days and he'd have had chest congestion and a fever like his sister. Luckily those symptoms showed up after the surgery day. He is, in fact, sound asleep right now (11:45 a.m.) and has been since 10:30, because he barely slept last night. He was restless and feverish, crying almost constantly. Which means Hubs and I are exhausted as well.

It's just a crappy, crappy time of year. I'm going through the motions but barely getting anything done. It's all too easy to just sit and browse the internet for hours on end. I grab a ball of yarn here and there and work on something, but I'm not feeling inspired. It's all just busywork to pass the time.

Here's the marled sweater I showed a couple weeks back, now finished:

Knitting pure & simple neck-down cardigan, size 2-4. My little boy is getting big! This took nearly a whole skein of lion fishermen's wool. US 9 needles for the body, US 8 needles for the ribbing.

It went really fast and was pretty satisfying, so look what I found in my yarn trunk:

Another orphan skein of fishermen's wool. Another neck down raglan? Sure, why not.

I'm making an attempt to cheer up and look forward to spring:

This yarn has been hanging around since I was pregnant with AJ, waiting to be made into socks for Daughter. I'd better do it now, as her feet are almost too big to squeeze 2 socks out of one skein. I'm hoping to put these in her Easter basket. We try to go really minimal with the Easter candy because no matter how we beg and plead with my in-laws to lay off, they inevitably show up with enormous baskets filled with chocolate and junk. So I go with one very small chocolate figure, some jellybeans and m&ms, and some sort of useful item (like socks) or a book or something.

I'm pleased with myself for actually working through my stash a bit so far this year. I keep most of my yarn in my old college footlocker, and I can now close the lid easily, without sitting on it. That means some yarn is definitely gone. With little else to do and sick/post-surgical children lolling around the house, I might as well keep cranking out the knits, using up all that yarn I've been collecting for so many years.

so much making

There's been a bit of recent sewing around here...the machine never really gets put away for long. I went to Joann's to get a few summer patterns for dresses and tops that I desperately need, and this awesome dinosaur fabric leapt into my cart:

So cute! I mean, really, how often do you find great fabric for little boys? These little dinosaur pants came together in about 20 minutes. I used the pajama pants pattern that I've made a million times before, with no outside seam, just an inner leg seam, crotch seam, hems, and waistband. So, so fast! And now that AJ is getting to be a big boy (2 and 1/2 already!) he is forming opinions about his clothing...but he loves these! So that's kind of awesome.

Here's a bit of a closeup of the fabric. It's from the juvenile prints section at Joann's, and is a nice lightweight twill-type fabric, 100% cotton and washes and dries beautifully. One word of caution: it was printed crookedly so I actually lined up the pattern piece with the print, rather than exactly on the grain. For simple little pull-on toddler pants it made no difference.

Oh, and these pants cost a whopping $3.50! I love it when sewing can actually be economical in this day and age!

But mostly there has been knitting. Please, it is like 5 degrees F here! I can't even bear to sit at the sewing machine, it is so chilly. We keep the heat down during the day to cut down on the dryness and the gas bill, so I tend to gravitate toward the couch and cover myself with afghans.

I showed the yarn for this sweater a few weeks ago. It was a bag of "mill-ends" from AC Moore. I always dig through that bin because there might be a treasure buried beneath all the yucky white acrylic!

I am reminded of why I don't work with variegated yarns. Look at this goofy sweater! Daughter says she will wear it, but frankly I wouldn't blame her if she didn't. The yarn is Paton's classic wool, and knit up into a warm, springy, soft cardigan. I used Elizabeth Zimmermann's "EPS" method, which I have come to adore because I need no pattern and can haul the project around anywhere without having to refer to anything. The buttons are jewel tone and I will have Daughter help me choose which to sew on.

Side note: gosh, Daughter is getting big. I totally underestimate her size because she is very slender, but this sweater seemed HUGE when I was knitting it and it just fits.

Moving on...it's not like AJ needs another new sweater right now or anything, but I desperately need to keep busy and also use up some orphan skeins of yarn. So he's getting a Knitting Pure & Simple neck-down cardigan, in the 2-4 year size, made from this skein of Lion Fisherman's Wool.

I'm not loving it, but I'm not hating it either. Anyway, it's going fast and makes for excellent mindless knitting while I hunker down under seventeen blankets to watch movies at night.

Finally for today, a bit of stashbusting. We knitters tend to have a stash of yarn, and some of us (me) tend to buy without thinking at times. We see a clearance sticker and take temporary leave of our senses. Then we blog about it, lamenting the fact that we have so much yarn and need to make use of it. I'm as guilty of this as anyone, but this year truly needs to be a stashbusting year for me. We've had lots and lots of medical bills piling up because every year our health coverage gets worse and worse. So whereas my son used to have surgery and it hardly cost us anything, it's now climbing into the thousands. Yep, thousands. I have newfound empathy and deep pity for the uninsured these days...but that is another post.

So in light of that, I went diving to see what needs to be used. I found this:

One full skein plus dribs and drabs of Cotton-Ease in the looooooong discontinued blueberry colorway. I got these on clearance at Joann's when Daughter was a wee baby, for half off the clearance price if I recall correctly. I made myself a Sitcom Chic cardigan with this yarn, probably about 4 years ago? I can't even remember exactly when. And this is the remains.

There's probably just enough here to squeak out a toddler sweater for AJ. But I was not excited at the prospect of making another plain blue sweater with this yarn. I left it sitting on my dresser for two weeks, where it stared at me and made me feel guilty every time I went in my bedroom.

Then I saw a really cute little quarter-zip pullover at Target. Maybe you saw it too - it was royal blue with lime green striping in the cuffs and hem, and a little lime green robot on the chest. I waited and waited for it to be marked down, but by the time it was, AJ's size was gone.

But I was inspired.

I sacrificed $3 of my precious birthday gift card for Joann's to purchase this single skein of Cotton-Ease in lime. That gift card is supposed to go toward making myself summer clothes, but this seemed a worthy use too. Now the blueberry yarn will find a use after all these years, my son will have a new sweater, and I will feel quite satisfied with myself. Ha! Look at me rationalize.

So that's the crafty update from over here on the frozen tundra! What are you making during this deep freeze?

emergency mittens

A certain little girl keeps leaving her hats and mittens on the school bus.

*sigh*

So a certain mother keeps knitting up more.

Basic worsted weight mittens, made from Ann Budd's book (Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns). The yarn is Debbie Stoller - Full o' Sheep? I can't remember, and my toddler is obsessed with throwing things in the garbage so he took care of the yarn ball band as soon as I removed it from the skein.

These will be clipped firmly to her coat cuffs and hopefully not lost in the next few weeks. And hopefully the bus driver turned her others in to the school office. Ay-yi-yi.

12 days in and another F.O.

Less than two weeks into the new year and I have two finished garments to show for it! Ok, granted one was started in 2010, and one is only a vest, but still!

I finished AJ's Milo vest this morning, weaving in the ends just before bathtime because I wanted to put it on him right away.

The entire time I was knitting I was convinced it would be too big. But I always misjudge the size of my own children. It ended up fitting perfectly.

Stats:

Milo by Georgie Hallam (ravelry link)

One full skein and a little bit of another skein of Patons Classic Wool in "dark gray mix"

US 6 needles to more closely approximate the pattern gauge (pattern calls for DK weight yarn)

Size knitted: 3

Here you can see it's not as short and boxy as it looks hanging on its own. I like this little vest - it's nice and simple, and the neck-down construction is really pretty ingenious, with the cast-offs forming the straps and armholes at the same time. Pretty neat - I'll probably make more.

And a belated Christmas item...

This was under the tree for Daughter on Christmas morning. It's the jumper version of the pattern I used for her red corduroy Christmas dress (Simplicity 5830). I only had a 9" zipper (the pattern calls for 14") but I was trying to be thrifty and frugal so I just put in the 9" and crossed my fingers. It works just fine.

The fabric is denim I got at WalMart when they closed their fabric department last year...in total this dress probably only cost about $3 or $4 to make. It's adorable on her, and goes with just about every shirt, sweater, and pair of tights she owns.

My son and I are still hacking and coughing...oh, the coughing! He's down for his nap and I'm about to follow suit. This is the second time this week that I'm giving myself permission to nap...feels quite decadent, I can tell you that. But I need it, my body is begging for the rest.

dispatch from the TB ward

A picture is worth 1000 words, no?

This is about all I have, friends. Three-quarters of a Milo vest and some cold meds. We are sick and it's the pits. Daughter brought home a germ last week, and since AJ and I had been very slightly sick with a mild cold over Christmas, our poor weakened bodies jumped all over this one. Now Daughter is 99% better but the two of us are miserable.

It's a chest cold, too - the kind that makes people look uncomfortable and walk away from you in the supermarket. Niiiiiiice. And of course I'd decided to give myself a wee break from laundry and groceries late last week. So yesterday and today have found me digging out from under the enormous pile of dirty clothes and towels, and making a quick run to Target and the grocery store this morning. I hated taking AJ out in 25 degree weather when he is coughing up a lung, but we had to get his prophylactic antibiotic for surgery next week (that's right, he has 7 days to kick this germ). Actually I am hoping we have a bacterial infection and NOT a virus, because that means the antibiotic will do something good for him.

At least we have some food in the cupboards now and I don't have to leave the house for the next several days. PJs here I come. Maybe I can finish up this Milo vest and move along to something more cheery and colorful!