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?