Merry Christmas

This Christmas knitting was a long time coming. I knitted the green Sean Stocking for my dear husband last Christmas, but I didn't finish my own until about a month ago. In the interim, he had become somewhat attached to the huge 44 inch long stocking and I had to convince him to let me felt them both. Clearly, they are much improved by the felting, and I'm quite pleased.

Still, I don't know if I'd actually recommend this pattern, since it took forever to knit up. There are much faster ways to make an equally satisfying stocking! That said, they made our Christmas this year!

Ambition (or lack of focus)

I have a few new projects in the mix at the moment, either because I'm super ambitious (or, more likely, because I'm feeling scatterbrained and can't focus on any one for very long).

They are:

1. A lacy cotton scarf, intended to use up a single skein of Araucania Ulmo from my stash.

2. Sean stocking no. 2. I finished my husband's stocking last year, and it took so long that I never made mine. Just picture this a lot, lot bigger.

3. Some sort of vest, made from Alpaca & Silk. There are multiple swatches going at the moment. I'm not loving any of them.

I'm also still plodding along on the fair isle pillow, but I have to alternate it with more mindless knitting!

Good as new (almost)

Here's a little update on the mouse-eaten dishcloth. I machine stitched around the chewed out areas to consolidate loose fibers, and then picked up stitches along the bottom of the hole. I had to knit up about 10 rows to complete the missing area. I grafted the top edge of the patch to the top edge of the hole, and then sewed the sides closed. It's not totally invisible, but not bad as a patch for a large irregular hole chewed by a mouse!

After

Before

Warning - mouse eats knitted dishcloth.

A few weeks ago, we stayed at my parents cabin for the weekend. As a thank you, I made my mom a towel and coordinating dishcloth. It took some convincing to get her to actually use them because she was afraid she'd mess them up. I swore they were durable and meant to be used.

Little did I know that the local mouse population had other ideas. Apparently a little guy chewed a hole through the dishcloth!

Luckily I'm heading home this Friday, so we'll see if we can do a little patch to salvage it.

Silly mice eating my knitting. This is a hazard I had not yet encountered!

Liberty Throw Pillow

A little fair isle experiment:



I've been wanting to try out the lovely fair isle Liberty blanket pattern by Mason Dixon Knitting, but its size seems a little ambitious. For starters, I'm making a set of throw pillows for our couch using only 2 repeats of the pattern, rather than 5.


Once I cut the steek, the fair isle panel will be about 18 x 18 or 20 x 20. This 12 x 18 pillow form is just for showing off the pattern in its present tubular state!

The window above the couch:


This elegant transom window sits above the couch. I think its patterns will play nicely with Liberty, which is why I picked this knit for our living room.

Tank top

This spring / summer I've finally taken to knitting some garments for myself (as opposed to for everyone else's babies / kids).

It's pretty rewarding making things for yourself. I just might get hooked on this.


Next up:
A ombre version of the Mason Dixon fair isle masterpiece, Liberty, in ivory and oatmeal colored Cascade 220. I'm starting with a throw pillow. If all goes well, I'll make the blanket too.

Reversible tote

I was itching to use some of my new fabric, so I made a quick little reversible tote for a special friend. The finished bag measures 10 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (without the straps).

She who has the biggest stash...

Thanks to Jen's brilliant suggestion, she, Cara, and I seriously augmented our craft stashes today at the Salvation Army Fabric Fair. The long cafeteria tables were piled high with fabric, yarn, notions, and other craft odds & ends, and we politely elbowed our way between fellow enthusiasts to sort through the goods. Huge lavender Hallmark shopping bags given out at the door gave us ample space to hoard our treasure. It was kind of addicting and hard to stop gathering, but the prices were great! I got about 2 dozen different fabrics and a bunch of vintage patterns--all for $50.

stretchy bag

I finished my everlasting bagstopper that I started when we were camping. I modified the pattern to make it a little smaller. I was slightly freaked out by how big the bag was going to stretch.

a little dishcloth

This is just a little Mission Falls cotton dishcloth. You may recognize the yarn from the sunhat posted last spring. It was well worth weaving in the multiple ends.

(pinecone denotes scale. Hint: it's a little pinecone.)

A noble cowl

Last night I finished the cashmere lace cowl that I've been working on for the last month. I love the fluffy warmth around my neck, but I'm worried that it's a little too wide and a little too short. I might frog back and pick up the pattern for another repeat.

It was supposed to be 11 inches high and 11 inches in diameter. I think it's more like 8 inches high--even less when the edge rolls.

Room to craft

Ever since we bought our house in July, I've been very excited about my new craft room. Of course, for the first six months, the craft room proved to be the "room full of junk from the move that I haven't quite sorted yet". With several concerted bouts of cleaning, the room is finally becoming usable, and visions of craft projects are dancing madly in my head.

The craft room came with turquoise walls and white trim, which I've decided to keep. It's a good happy color. Recently I also decided on this carpet from FLOR. It's called "Needlepoint Stripe" (in "Ginger"). It's kind of like a favorite handspun yarn made into a rug--perfect for a craft room.

throw pillow

Today I made a throw pillow, finally, with fabric that I bought in January in New York. It's inspired by these pillows from Room & Board, but my version was much cheaper : ) It was really nice to use my sewing machine again after about a year-long hiatus!

Pillow in process.
I cut two squares of the brown linen fabric and cut one into strips on a 45 degree angle. Then I pinned the strips in place and sewed loosely across at a right angle to hold them in place so that I could remove the pins while I did the final top stitching. My fabric was a fairly loose weave, so I opted for top stitching about 1/4 inch in from both sides. I was afraid that a single seam down the center would allow too much fraying. At the end I ripped out the temporary holding thread. Voila! Pillow!

Done! and on its intended chair.

The back side of the pillow is purple fulled wool with a hint of neon green in the cord that catches the button.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope everyone survived the holidays and had a good time with family and friends. I just wanted to share a little stocking cap ornament that I made for a friend's son's first Christmas.