Sunday, October 11, 2009

I Like Having More Crafty Time

For anyone who cares: Later in this post I am going to show a picture of my cuff from the
Through the Loops 2009 Mystery Sock. It will be directly after the part about my Snip.Sew.Send. quilt. You've been warned. ;]

My work schedule has changed a bit and I now have more free time which means more time to sew and knit and clean our house. Oh, yes, it is usually in that order.
{Dirty's first sock}

I started this sock in January. It is the first sock I have tried to knit and I am glad that I finally finished it. Although I didn't work on it very consistently it did seem to take forever to get enough length in the foot. I did a little searching online and learned that I was not knitting properly. Instead of inserting the needle left to right in the front, I was going right to left in the back resulting in every stitch being twisted and tight.

{What you can't see is that my foot is turning purple}

Due to that, this sock has NO stretch and barely fit my foot and started to cut of circulation in my foot after wearing it for about 2 minutes. No way is it going to fit Dirty's foot.

{Sock 2 is going much better}

I cast on for the second sock with US 4 dpns instead of the 3s I was using before. I also adjusted my knitting technique which is making a huge difference. This one has stretch and potential. Not to mention I am using about half as much yarn and about a third of the time I spent on the first. I will frog the whole first sock and make a matching pair for him.

Ravelry info here and the pattern tutorial is great and is here.


{Rainbow Button Tab Hat}


OK, so it is 90 degrees today with 100% humidity and I really won't need a winter hat for about 4 months I couldn't help but cast on for the Button Tab hat by Marcie Nishioka. (Thanks for sharing yours, Heather.)


I am using gifted acrylic yarn for this so it won't be super fancy, but I am hard on my hats when I do get to wear them. It will be permanently fixed to my head for about 3 months and will no doubt get grass clippings, concrete dust and who knows what else on it. I prefer to just throw it in the washer rather than having to hand wash and air dry a hat. I think it will be OK. I am not much of a fabric or yarn snob. I just use what I have for the most part. My Ravelry info is here.

{The layout for a stacked books baby quilt}

Thank you for all your suggestions on how to showcase a fabric in a quilt. I really liked Anne's suggest of a coin quilt, but uniform straight lines scare me. And the fright makes me sew crooked. So I took Anne's suggestion and tweaked it a little with my style and decided to make a stacked book quilt. I took inspiration from this quilt and although I think there is a written pattern for this I am winging it.

{Left stack sewn and needing a good trim}

I am using a mix of new (Heather Ross VW buses on blue and Amy Butler Full Moon in the light blue/gray colorway), scraps and thrifted/flea market find fabrics. The white is from a twin-size sheet. I am loving how this is turning out. I construction is going smoothly and I get more and more happy with it as I go. Thankfully, the baby isn't due for a few more weeks and I may get this finished before the birth.

{My Snip. Sew. Send. Quilt: the front}

This new schedule also gave me a little time to work on my Snip. Sew. Send. quilt. I have the top finished (except for trimming it it size) and am working on the back.

{A closer view of the blocks}

I am very happy with this quilt so far. It will be the biggest quilt I have made so far and I really want to get it finished and start using it.

{Probably layout for the back}

The back will be something like this. Probably three strips breaking up the purple on the back. The strips will go all the way across, I think. Kris and Gretchen both sent back two blocks so they have one on the front and one in the strips on the back. So, so happy with this.





***SPOILER ALERT***

If you don't want to see my cuff for the Through The Loops 2009 Mystery Sock stop scrolling now.


{The mystery cuff}

I am so happy that I decided to participate in the Through The Loops 2009 Mystery Sock. Each Thursday Kirsten posts a portion of the sock pattern. First was the cuff, pictured above and last Thursday was the leg, which I am working on. I like having the pattern in sections. It makes it easy to manage and very exciting. When I was younger I loved grab bags and those games where you close your eyes and stick your hand into something that feels gross (like peeled grapes or cold pasta). I would have been horrible on Let's Make a Deal. But Mystery Socks are a win-win.

I am using Alpaca with a Twist yarn in a really pretty green/purple colorway that I did buy special for this project. I validate it because I did not have fingering weight yarn in my stash. My Ravelery info is here.

So far the sock looks pretty good to me. It is the first project where I have to do yarn overs and thanks to my trusty Stitch n' Bitch by Debbie Stoller I've got that technique in my knitting bag now.

So that was a couple of pretty productive weeks. Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll get some things finished. =]

2 comments:

Zonnah said...

I am so happy to see this quilt getting put together! It is so exciting :)

Anne at Film and Thread said...

What a fun filled post! I'm jealous of you learning to knit. There a sweater pattern that has owls all around the neck that I've seen floating around online and I'd love to learn to make it.

Your stacked books quilt is going to be fantastic! I like it better than a coin quilt. Lucky recipient!

Yipppee!!! The first snip.sew.send quilt is almost done and it really looks great. How are you going to quilt it?