More Sewing with Grammy!

Grammy had so much fun sewing with the girls last time that she actually came back for more (brave woman that she is)!  The girls had an early release day last week and Grammy picked them up from school with project supplies in hand.  She picked a project from the book Let's make Cute Stuff by Aranzi Aronzo! Fun Dolls.  If you are looking for a beginning project for a young sewer this is a great one.  She chose the snake pattern and a simple canvas fabric on which they used stamps and fabric markers for decorations.

This project is a simple shape that little hands can easily trace pattern pieces for, cut out, and they love personalizing the fabric to make it their own.  Sewing in the mouth and tongue was a little tricky, Grammy had to help there, but almost all of the machine sewing, stuffing and hand sewing was done by the girls.  It is really cute how much they LOVE their handmade snakes!

Sunday Sewing Bliss

This past Sunday we went to spend the day at Grammy's house to sew.  The youngest child received a Hello Kitty sewing machine, just like her big sister's, for Christmas and wanted to get started on her first quilt.  The older child has a book report due at the end of the month for which the students can choose any medium they want to do the report in.  She chose a quilt.  Do I even have to tell you how happy both of these young children yearning to sew make me?  And when I say yearning, they have both been BEGGING to sew on these projects for weeks now.  Luckily Grammy wanted to help, I don't think I could have handled both of them working at the same time.  Sewing with small children takes a lot of patience and constant vigilance since they are using irons and pins and machines, but it is so worth it when you see how proud they are of their finished projects.  Sam finished her quilt, proudly displayed below, but Courtney still has some embellishments to put on her book report quilt before it is ready to show off.

Man Scarf

Last fall, when we were out in Idaho, our second stop after getting off the plane was Isabel's yarn shop.  This yarn store always has something set up to catch your eye and this time was no exception.  As soon as we walked in the front door there was a table with the new Rowan Colourscape folk yarns and patterns.  These yarns, especially the darker color-ways, just shout man yarn.  Lots of women won't take their husbands shopping with them (especially on fiber procurement excursions) because they get told that they don't need any more yarn or fabric or whatnot, but with Jay I seem to have the opposite problem.  He has a great eye for color and design and I think I end up spending twice as much when he is with me.  I got enough to make him a matching hat too, hopefully I can whip that up before there aren't any cold days left to wear it this winter.  Luckily this is a nice spongy wool that knits up quickly.  The yarn is spun in such a way that it is fascinating to watch the colors blend into themselves and keeps you entertained while doing even a basic rib pattern.  The man scarf is flattened and pinned to the rug upstairs at the moment for blocking, but here are some pics of it straight off the needles and still curly.  I haven't ever blocked anything before so I'm very interested to see if it really does stay flat after it dries.

Pattern:  Aiden Hat from Rowan Colourscape folk
Yarn:  Rowan Colourscape chunky by Kaffe Fassett
Ravelry link here

Gifted Felt Bags

Hand knit socks were not the only knitted item under the tree this year.  My mom made these super cute little felted bags for the girls.  The initials on them and the little ruffles just kill me.  Little girls can never have too many bags... the youngest uses hers to carry around her new DS along with a small stitching project and the oldest stashes her random bits of daily life:  acorns, rocks, plastic baubles and balls.  It is always fun to peek in there and see what things they treasure on any given day.

Pattern:  Felt Ruffle Bag from knittingonthenet.com
Yarn:  Noro wool

Two Things

1)  Since yesterday 1,218 people have visited my blog because of this post.  Wow, hi everyone!

2)  Jay and I have both embarked on Project 365, you can find my set here and his set here.  We are now taking bets on who will last the longest.  Eventually I will figure out how to put a link in the sidebar or something equally fancy.

That is all.

2009 Completed Projects

I really couldn't remember any completed projects from this past year as I sat down to look through my pictures, besides the most recent socks of course.  I could only think of all the things that have kept me away from all the sewing and knitting that I would like to be getting done... the new full-time often overly demanding job, my youngest starting kindergarten and the demands of two girls in elementary school with homework and class parties and projects, the planning of a wedding and setting up of a new life with my dear hubbie, several bouts of various sicknesses running through the family the last couple of months... at first thought these events kept me away from my favorite past-times, but with a closer look at the pictures I realize that even when life is throwing crazy demands at you, you find time to work in the things that you love.

Socks were knit on the sly as the girls slept or we were out in Idaho, I fit in some less demanding projects on weekends like finishing a quilt that had been lingering for quite some time, whipping up easy skirts and dying yarn with my mom and aunt at a class.  And when my crafty endeavors were too big for the time I had available, close family and friends, and even internet friends, stepped in and helped me get everything completed. 

Those are now my favorite things... the wedding shawl my mom helped me finish and the ring pillows she helped me design and make.  The napkins that several people contributed to and the first quilt made mostly by my daughter but with lots of help from her proud mama.  It may not be all the things I wanted to do, but this collection represents a need to create and fitting that need in when possible.  I know 2010 will be no less crazy and possibly even more so, but I look forward to fitting this addiction into all the little cracks between living.  I hope all of you find the time to do something you love every chance you get too!  Happy New Year!

The Socks Really Did Get Done!

I'm still not quite sure how, but the socks for the youngest child which looked like this on December 19th:

were actually under the tree for her to discover Christmas morning.

 

It's all a blur of furious knitting.  Knitting while on work conference calls, knitting at holiday parties, knitting while watching movies until 3am several nights.  Somehow a flat of yarn became a pair of socks in just 6 days. 

I wish there had been someone to witness me doing the kitchener stitch on the toes in the wee hours of Christmas morning, but it was just me, the tree and the cat.  I know I'm not the only crafter that turns into a complete maniac right before a big gift giving event, I read many a blog of people in the same frenzy.  There is nothing like giving something you put your heart into and having your 8 year old tell you that gift made it the best Christmas ever, or having your five year old refuse to take her handknit socks off for two days.  The calloused fingertips and carpal tunnel were totally worth it!

 

Once again, the Ribbed Socks For Kids free pattern from Spud and Chloe.

I'm Sure The Next Pair Will Go Much Faster

Alright, it's crunch time.  I finished big sister's socks and now it's time to crank out some for the little sister feet.  I am inspired by The Yarn Harlot's post yesterday where she cranked out a pair of socks for herself in a day basically because she was bored.  I have seven days to make some for little bitty feet, no problem right?  Don't worry, I work best under pressure.

This pattern is the Ribbed Socks for Kids free pattern from Spud and Chloe.  Just a basic sock pattern sized down for little feet.  I didn't want to do anything fancy since they will probably outgrow these by next year.

Time to get knitting!

There Aren't Many People I Would Wait Four Hours to See For 30 Seconds

Who could possibly bring hundreds and hundreds of people out on a dreary cold Monday night in Atlanta to wait for hours to meet her? Apparently Pioneer Woman can! Ree Drummond stopped over in Atlanta yesterday while on her month long cookbook tour and I hauled the kiddos down to meet her.

Little did I know they had started selling wristbands the day before, or that we would have to wait four hours and the kids wouldn't get to bed until 11 on a school night, but I have to say it was worth it. Ree was as cute and sweet in person as you would believe her to be on her blog and she even had her sister Betsy and friend Hyacinth with her.

 

We were sitting right on the other side of the rope from them for many hours and I made several observations:

1) Ree drinks a lot of coffee.

2) Southern hospitality is alive and well if you could judge by the piles of cards and sweets and goody bags they had going.

3) Pioneer Woman has QUITE the fan base going a LONG way from the ranch.

4) She only went to the bathroom ONCE. Did I mention she drinks a lot of coffee? She must have been dying, talk about commitment!

5) No matter how crazy the fan or what the strange request might have been, these ladies were cheerful, smiling and gracious the entire time. They signed. They took pictures. They gave out free t-shirts. They chatted. They hugged babies. Really, after about 2 hours I would have been like man, I've had enough of you people.  That's a lie, I would last about 3.2 seconds.  But they were still smiling and laughing when we left with hundreds of people and hours still to go.

And, to top it all off, Bakerella had come through the line and left a whole box of cake balls (they were so cute and I didn't even get a picture!) and Betsy offered my obviously famished and droopy children some. Sam actually didn't want hers (I don't think she was expecting cake to be in the middle) so I got to have one of Bakerella's creations, yum! They had little miniature cookbooks on top of them!

I really don't know what magical fairy dust was sprinkled on my children to make them behave and entertain themselves so well, but even with the long wait it was quite an enjoyable evening (the fact that Borders ran the whole event really well definitely contributed to this).

One good thing about the four hour wait, I got started and made quite the progress on hubbie's Christmas scarf, about time!

Alpaca Love

Life has been crazy around these parts without much stitching going on (still working on socks for the little people), but I wanted to post about our most recent adventure out to Idaho. I have posted before about my Aunt and Uncle's house there and a couple of weeks ago Jay and I went out to join them and my mom on the ranch.

They have some wonderful neighbors, and knowing what fiber enthusiasts we are, they set up a visit to a nearby alpaca farm for us. My mom keeps talking about wanting alpacas and I keep trying to shove her in that direction, so we were total geeky knitters going to visit this herd. They have 15 alpacas that we got to meet and try to entice with apples, then they showed us how they spin the fiber and make yarn, which OF COURSE we had to buy some of.

This little guy is an outcast from the herd (apparently alpacas can be a bit uppity), doesn't he look like he needs to come live in Georgia? We named him Snowball. I wish he would have fit in my luggage!

The horses were VERY jealous of all the alpaca attention.

Quilt Gift - Finally Posted!

In all the craziness preceding our recent vacation out to Idaho I was unable to find any time to post about a wonderful gift I recently received. Now we are back (I miss you Idaho!) and everything is still crazy, but I have to show you all this quilt that my very best quilt buddy made me for a wedding gift. (Jay keeps correcting me that she made it for US, but I have been under it pretty much non-stop since it arrived at our house a couple weeks ago). Melissa has blogged about it here, so I will just show some pictures and say again thank you Mel, you're the best and we love it!

Frustrated But Triumphant!

The socks I'm knitting for my first born are proving to be quite the challenge. First there was the issue with knitting the beginning of the heel inside out. That was last weekend and I ripped back several rows and fixed it and moved on, even though I ended up with some twisted stitches from my "fixing".

Oh well, I thought, if that's the worst that happens then they are still awesome socks. Well, today I managed to really screw them up. I worked on them all morning and afternoon and was thrilled to get the heel turned. Then things began to go bad. Very bad. First of all, the pattern wanted me to pick up 15 stitches along the gusset, but there just weren't 15 to grab. I forced 13 and moved on. Then, the pattern tells you to knit round one of two rounds from then on. Well, like most simple sock patterns the part on top of your foot is ribbed and if you are knitting a whole round every other round then you are ruining the ribbing that IS there in the second round. Does that make sense? Well, I've only been knitting for about a year, so I trusted in the pattern, plus I was already feeling queasy about not following the number of gusset stitches to pick up. I should have followed my instinct, the pattern is wrong (or at least wrong for how I want my socks to look, who am I to judge wonky ribbing?).

To top it all off, somewhere along the way I managed to get a hole. Yes, an f-ing hole.

By this point these socks had my original twisted stitches, messed up ribbing and an f-ing hole. I was ready to scrap the whole thing. My fingers were twitching to start ripping out rows, but I put it down and walked away for a while. After completely snapping at Jay when he walked by the sock lying on the table and had the nerve to say "the sock is looking great" (sorry honey, was a very bad knitting moment), I eventually calmed down and started to think about the problems.

I remembered my very first sock knitting class when I had done some stitches backwards and one of the shop ladies, Jenna (a knitting saint really), took my knitting and fixed the stitches in about 30 seconds without unknitting anything. I was awed and in no way understood what she had done, I just continued happily with fixed knitting. However, it had made quite an impression. On a whim I searched knittinghelp.com for "fixing mistakes" and actually came across just the video I needed to do exactly what Jenna had done that day. After watching the video about eight times and taking a very deep breath, I dropped stitches down to the first wrong one and wove them back in correctly. Then I did it six more times. By the last one I was feeling like the smartest knitter in the universe. And apparently, the hole was a dropped stitch that I fixed in just the same way, thanks to another video that identified the problem. Look, NO HOLE!!!

Now I am back to having socks that only have a few twisted stitches, and THAT I can still live with. I really want to go hunt down the knittinghelp.com ladies and hug each and every one of them. That site has saved my knitting ass on numerous occasions. On with the socks, hopefully the knitting gods will cut me a bit of slack now that I have taken the time to actually learn how to fix some common knitting mistakes!

Let the Holiday Knitting Begin!

I have started on my first present! I feel so ahead of the game, for now anyway. This delicious yarn, that was the yarn-of-the-month at sock guild last month, is going to be socks for these feet:

Don't they look in serious need of hand knit socks? I am using the free pattern that was recently posted on the Spud and Chloe Yarn website. I thought it would be really easy to find a simple child sock pattern online, but not so much. Luckily they posted this one a couple weeks ago and it was just what I was looking for and saved me from having to do actual math to convert the simple adult pattern I already had. These are pretty much the exact same socks as the first and only socks I've ever knit, just child size. Seems like the smaller size should be a quick knit, but you never know with how easily distracted I am. And of course, another pair must be made for the little sister next.

Close-Up Machine Sewn Binding

I have had a few requests to show a close-up of the serpentine stitich I used to machine sew the binding on my butterfly quilt and am finally getting around to obliging. I will start from the back, since that is the side where you are sewing when you start the binding...




The stitch is just an elongated S. It is one of the basic stitches on my bernina and I just increase the stitch length and practice on scrap fabric until I get it how I want it. Then you just carefully sew along the edge...



If you did a good job of folding your binding over the edge in equal amounts, then when you flip it over you will have also sewn along the edge of the front side...




However, if you have a spot that you accidently pulled the binding fabric too tight or too loose, you will run away from the edge on the front (because you were following the wonky edge on the back). Now, I don't pin or clip my binding in any way, I just fold it and stitch (gasp!), so if you are a methodic pinner or clipper you probably won't run into this problem. This was the first time I ever used this method, and it is a pretty big quilt, so I have to assume it would be a lot easier with some practice and especially on much smaller baby quilts (where I think machine sewn binding makes the most sense). This was the wonkiest spot I had, and I can live with it. I'm not one for pointing out imperfections, but didn't want you all to think this was some magic perfect technique :). Please disregard the cat hair in the close ups.

If anyone has any other questions I will be happy to answer in the comments!