Finally Finished

I've been working on these socks since June sometime. I cast on for them to be my 'traveling socks' since I always like to bring a pair with me to work on when I fly. Not surprisingly, only a few rows of these socks were actually knit on the airplane (I was traveling alone with a 6 year old after all). Most of the first sock was knit at my father's house while he watched lots of baseball and sappy movies on the Hallmark channel! (yes really).  The second sock was knit at the beach, on a hike break, in the car, at the park and while watching True Blood, Breaking Bad and Orange is the new black... it appears I watch too much television!

Here they are:

Rib and Cable Socks by Nancy Bush

Despite the photo, they are in fact the same length, one is just a little  more scrunched in the pic. I didn't modify this pattern much, except to make the calf shorter. These were so much fun to knit. I love the fact that for me this was a pattern I didn't actually need the pattern for. Other than for knitting the heal flap and turning the heal I never looked at the pattern at all. I decreased the toe in my own fashion rather than using her directions just out of shear laziness. For me these socks just nailed home the fact that I am finally a really confident sock knitter. I don't fret anymore at the heals or toes and even though sometimes I still screw it up, most of the time I can kitchener a toe without directions in front of me. This, my friend, makes this lady one happy sock knitter! 

As with everything I knit, there is at least one totally obvious mistake, and I really don't mind at all. These socks were knit with my two hands, not some factory machine and a mistake just adds to the charm. 

With these off the needles I get to shop the stash for my next sock project and I think I might already know exactly what that will be! 

It's all about Star Wars around here.

My son is smitten with Star Wars. He has watched at least part of all 6 movies and knows way more of the back story than I do. Probably even more than my husband. Every time we go to the library we come home with more Star Wars books from which I learn even more than I ever knew possible. Did you know that Han Solo was raised by Wookies and that that is why he can understand Chewbacca? I had no idea!

So we were at Joann's the other day and he saw the newly revamped displays of all the themed cotton. Star Wars was right up in front and he immediately wanted all of it. I tried to talk him out of it, I mean the boy has like 8 pairs of pajamas and I just couldn't think of what else to  make him with this crazy fabric. He was undeterred and demanded a shirt. It's hard to argue with a young boy who is excited to be in a fabric shop with his mom and is demanding she sew something for him.. so I went to the pattern books and searched around for a simple button down shirt. We ended up with Simplicity 5581, had our fabric cut and were on our way.

2 days later we had this:

It came out pretty well. I didn't have enough fabric to do the placket facings in the star wars material so I used a weird navy fabric I had in my stash.. I think it's some kind of blend because it did weird things when I ironed it. 

 Millenium Falcon on the pocket!

I picked the button placement so that it could be buttoned pretty high without it giving the Poindexter look that comes from a collar fully buttoned. My child will ALWAYS button that top button no matter what!  Since I didn't have any buttons on hand I rogued them from one of my husbands unworn shirts. They are perfectly simple. 

All in all a good sewing adventure. The collar directions were vague at best so I just kind of winged it. I also didn't do the fancy vent at the bottom side seams. The fact that my son put it right on and wore it all day was testament to my success. An added bonus was that he was wearing it with mama-made shorts as well. A truly hand made day! 

This moment :

A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Since this is my first "This Moment" I thought I'd cheat and share my inspiration for this idea... head on over to http://www.soulemama.com and check out her moment.

My dress and I went to the farm

I wore my Nordika Washi the other day on a Playdate which culminated in a trip to a local farm for a walkabout! The dress was so comfy and I got a lot of compliments on it that day. My favorite part of all my Washi dresses is definitely the pockets. I love that I can throw keys and cellphone in my pocket and go! As much as I love my Two Zip Hipster, sometimes it can really weigh on my neck and so I don't like to carry it (or any bag) for very long.

Pardon the rumpled nature of this photo but it definitely shows the dress in action!

Thanks for reading!

Lest you think there's only sewing going on in these parts...

Knitting will always be my first crafty love. My mother was an amazing knitter and she taught me so many times, I can't believe it took me until my late 20's to really get going. I knit when I'm bored, frustrated, angry, happy, restless, which basically means I knit pretty much every single day even if it's only one row. It has to be at least a full row, because I have learned that I am incapable of leaving my knitting mid row! It just doesn't jive with my personality.

Currently on the knitting agenda we have two WIP's that are moving along...


First up are my Rib and Cable socks :

My Ravelry 

I love knitting socks for several reasons. First off, I love the way a hand knit sock fits my foot and calf. It seems that every single store bought sock I have ever worn, has left sock indentations in my calf when I take them off and I just can't stand that. My handknits never do this. Secondly, they are infinitely portable. This pair was started with the sole purpose (ha ha) of being my airplane knitting. Knitting socks using the magic loop method makes them the ultimate airplane knitting, as you never risk dropping a needle and having to squeeze yourself down onto the floor in your row (yuck) searching for it. It also has the added benefit of not scaring  your seat-mate with all those pointy sticks! As you can see above, these socks have been a lot of places... in fact these socks have been to 5 states so far!

My second WIP just got started last night. It's going to be Paulie:

It doesn't have a project page yet, but I will get on that. I've had this Gloss Fingering from KP in my stash for years now, and haven't known what to do with it. Originally it was purchased with the intention of knitting a second Thermal, but I have decided a cardigan would be much more wearable in my new climate. 

The stripes will be rather subtle since I have set a goal for myself to only knit from stash until it is pretty much all knit up, or until Stitches West 2014! It's a pretty soft goal, because I will purchase more yarn at Stitches next year whether I achieve it or not, but basically I will not enter a yarn store for more than needles or wool wash until then. Therefore I am using up the two skeins of Gloss I have left over from the Thermal I knit years ago. The blue will be the main color and is called Dusk and the green for the stripes is called Woodland Sage. It appears both colors have been discontinued. 

I will keep you updated on the progress of these projects. I expect those socks will be finished pretty soon and I know exactly the yarn I will be casting on once they are done! 

Until next time y'all! 

Nordika Whimsicöl

The second I saw this fabric I knew I had to have it. Has that ever  happened to you? C'mon tell the truth, you know it has! Anyhow, I was reading blog posts from quilt market and a lot of the bloggers posted pictures of Jeni Baker's new line for Art Market, Nordika. I kept going back to these posts to get a better look at this bag . I just loved how the border print gave this simple bag a lot of interest and I really like the leather handles.
At the time all of this was happening the fabric wasn't even available for purchase yet, so I tried to put it out of my mind. The end of the school year was in full swing and my vacation was coming up and so I was mostly successful at this.

My vacation looked a lot like this...

By the time we were back from vacation,  I had had many day-dreams about a Washi dress made out of this fabric. I had worn my linen Washi (dress #2)  a lot on my hot and humid vacation and lots of my family and friends said it was the perfect dress for me and that I should make more. I didn't even know how big the panel of the border print was, but I started putting 3 yards of it in the shopping carts on different fabric sites and then would walk away (you know you do this too!).
Then, I noticed that on Fabricworm they had the Whimsicöl listed per panel, with the dimensions as well. This was exactly the motivation I needed! I laid out my Washi pattern pieces on the floor and measured them. Turned out two panels would be just exactly enough, so long as I purchased a different lining fabric for the bodice. Just in case, I bought three! Isn't it awesome!

Before I cut anything I kept going back to look at Jeni's Staple dress. I just love the way the print makes a border at the hem of the skirt. I also looked through all of the Washi dresses in the Flickr pool. I knew I wanted a simple scoop neckline for this one, but I didn't want to leave it plain. I decided on a teal piping. The color (called Mediterranean on the package) was almost an exact match for the hills at the bottom of the print. I decided to jump in, even though I've only ever used piping once! All the fiddly-ness (is that a word?) paid off and the piping added just the right amount of something special! It finishes the neckline nicely and also adds definition at the waist. I often wear a belt with my other Washi dresses, but this way I won't need to

This is a wear anywhere kind of dress. It's casual and fun, and yet I think it could be worn to the right kind of wedding in a pinch! I will try to get some modeled shots for you here sometime in the near future.  The best part is that there is one whole panel of this gorgeous fabric left over... now what do I make with it?!

Maybe it's time...

I've been reading blogs for years now. It all started innocently enough. I used the web to search for knitting patterns that were cute and free. I especially liked seeing pictures of how the finished knits fit people, or the interesting ways they would wear a shawl or a beret. Mostly I lurked. I lurked on a LOT of blogs before I ever commented on one!

Along came Knitty.com and I was officially hooked. Free contemporary knitting patterns with lots of amazing pictures! What knitter at the time didn't fall instantly in love?  From there I found the blogs of the knitting designers, then links to blogs those designers were reading, and so on and on and on and on and on...

My love of knitting morphed into a love of being busy with some sort of crafting every day. I find I am less restless and more contented when I have my fingers in the crafting soup. Over the past year or so my first love of knitting has had to share time with my new obsession, sewing. I have expensive taste,  but a thrifty budget, and so the cute and cottony dresses from Anthropologie or Boden are beyond my reach. I had sewed many flannel baby blankets over the years but was always intimidated by clothing or things involving the dreaded zipper foot. Many blogs like Film in the Fridge and Made by Rae helped me get over these fears. Once the Washi dress pattern came out I was done for... I'm in the middle of sewing my FIFTH (yes you read that right 5th) one!! I love the confidence this pattern has given me, and can't wait to try out other patterns that my new found skills can conquer!

Since I've been essentially journaling all my sewing and knitting adventures for a while now, and boring my friends and family with photos on FB, I thought maybe it was time to put them up on a blog and bore anyone else who was interested too! I don't know if this attempt at blogging will take, so let's see how it goes!