Half a pair of mittens

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Suzanne

I did’nt look like I was being very productive today: I was camped out in my bed, with my laptop and my knitting pretty much all day long. I only emerged to:

Shower and get dressed and eat my breakfast
Use the facilities (several times)
Eat dinner ** (a meal that Mark prepared)
Try Mark’s mitten on his hand (many times. sometimes i made him come to me. the time I dropped the ball of yarn over the railing was pretty funny.)
Eat popcorn and watch the original Tron

Lest you think I was being a complete slacker, I was watching a video course on HTML, and spent part of the time doing the exercises for the course. I may have also watched an episode of Sanctuary at some point.

It was, frankly, a pretty awesome day, and I’m a pretty lucky girl to have a family that is self-sufficient enough that I can actually have a day like today.

I was even more of a slacker yesterday, and while I started the mitten, I only got as far as the cuff. I couldn’t really tell you what else I did — oh wait! I cleaned the kitchen! And freaked Mark out when I told him I had an IDEA for the kitchen. He got one of those “Oh crap, how much is this going to cost me” kind of a looks, but luckily for him, it’s more a labor thing, than a spend a lot of money thing. It’s a cosmetic change, and in the morning, when it’s lighter, I’ll take some before pictures so you can see what it is I want changed.

Not that it will happen any time soon, as we’ll hit the ground running for another busy week, and we should probably do the kitchen remodeling that my Mom’s kitchen needs before we touch our own kitchen.

We also went to Marshalltown to hang out with some friends, and that pretty much killed the whole evening (and I use “killed” in the positive sense, in that we had an awesome time, and wish we did that kind of thing more often).

And now, since I had such a busy day, I should probably head to bed. You know, since it’s been so long since I’ve seen my bed.

**Dinner = lunch. The popcorn was our supper.

Now I Need Mittens

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Suzanne

Pattern is Winter Leaf Slouchy Tam (<–Ravelry Link). Yarn is Cascade Cash Vero DK, a Merino/Cashmere/Acrylic blend. The pattern was pretty straightforward, and the yarn is so yummy to work with. There were a couple of spots where the written pattern was slightly different from the chart, but it was minor stuff and I just did what I thought was best.

It is symmetrical, it was just sitting slouched funny on the ironing board.

I should probably make Mark’s mittens first, though. And it sounds like I have plenty of people that would let me knit hats for them, but I’m not knitting one for my Mom. She can knit her own.

I’m working on this super-cute applique quilt today. I just discovered, though, that the bird on the right — his tail feather is missing it’s machine zigzag. Of course, I didn’t realize this until he was completely surrounded by quilting, so I’m waiting to see how my customer would like me to proceed. It needs yellow stitching, adn the back is yellow, so if it goes through all of the layers, I don’t think it will be that noticeable.

I sent an e-mail — and she might read my blog, so, Linda, if you are out there — read your e-mail!

Practice really does make…

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Suzanne

I would say “perfect” — but that’s not really true, nor is it really my goal (well, it is, but I try to fight my perfectionist tendencies…)

When I started really knitting, I wanted to be good RIGHT THEN. I wanted to knit quickly and nicely and make really fancy things lickety-split. Now, there are some prodigies out there, but I’m not one of them, and it made me crazy to not be faster, better, stronger, smarter, etc.

But I kept knitting, and guess what? Without realizing it, I achieved the level of competence that I wanted to have at the start. I still have a lot to learn, but I am thrilled beyond belief that I can now knit fast enough that I started a hat for Mark Friday night while waiting to ring in the New Year, and after 3-ish evenings of knitting:

The man has a new hat.

Perfect? No, but good enough to keep my poor husband’s shaved head warm.

This is a lesson I have to keep relearning, made even more annoying by the fact that I am constantly giving my quilting students permission to be beginners and to not be perfect — I have to keep remember to practice what I preach: that you have to put in the work and be patient with yourself.

I offered to make a cabled hat that matched his scarf, but he was of the opinion that cables are great, just not on hats. He wanted plain stockinette with a ribbed cuff, and the pattern I found was perfect.

Now, he wants mittens to match his new hat and scarf…he says the mittens can be cabled.

Project Notes:

Yarn: Cascade Greenland (Aran weight superwash wool)
Needles: US 6, bound off with US 8 (Used Magic Loop technique)
Pattern: Top-Down No Math Hat: The Manly Version Mark had pretty specific requirements: plain stockinette to a certain length (8.5inches), with a 3 inch ribbed cuff.

Welcome to my sweat shop

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Suzanne

I have been so productive, that I have hesitated to speak about the productivity, lest I jinx it.

I am taking a break from the sewing marathon I’ve been immersed in for the last 2 days to share a few pics of what I’ve accomplished. Last week, I made this fleece throw for one of my nieces.

Orange is her favorite color, and this is the leftover fleece from those hats I made at the beginning of the month. I used the orange fleece, a blue cotton for the “top” and a wool batting, making for a very snuggly lap-sized blanket.

I’ve already documented the Lone Star Quilt that I got quilted, plus I quilted this one:

The pattern is Peppermint Swirls by Fig Tree Quilts. The pictures are terrible: we haven’t seen the sun in DAYS, and this one is hard to photograph in this nasty light.

The blocks and outer border designs are by Donna Kleinke and are called Winterberry Holly (I think?) I purchased them from Digitech Designs. They stitched out beautifully! I did the cream border and the green and cream stitch in the ditch freehand. The stitch in the ditch around the cross hatching, as well as the cross hatching itself, and the orange peel in the print fabric were done on the IQ.

After quilting that wonky Lone Star, it such a pleasure to quilt a nice flat quilt.

I have also finished the binding on a grand total of FOUR quilts. One is packed and ready to be mailed to its new owner, one has been claimed by my husband, and the other two are waiting for a home, they’ll probably be QOVs.

All were shop samples that had been quilted but never bound. One of the quilts has been sitting around waiting for me to hand finish the binding. I picked it up two days ago and thought, gee, a machine binding would look a lot better than the mythical hand binding and 30 minutes later: done. The other 3? That’s a weird story: some months ago I went on a finishing spree and had sewn the binding to the front, but I had never sewn the ends together, so they were sitting in a pile waiting for…something…the binding fairy, maybe?

I knocked those out the other day as well, although I was texting with my sister while I was working on them and managed to cut one of the bindings WRONG and had to piece in another section.

In knitting news, I finished a scarf I was making for myself, but it needs to be blocked, so I’m going to do that before taking any pictures of it.

ANd finally (phew!) I started piecing a new quilt. I am so beyond thrilled with how it is turning out, I can’t wait to show it off, but I’m only going to give you a sneak peek of a corner:

I haven’t been on a sewing marathon like this in MONTHS. I haven’t wanted to piece like this in months, actually. I pieced and pieced and pieced yesterday and this morning, and I’m going to have a finished 70 by 70 quilt top some time later tonight or tomorrow and it is so awesome, I can’t stand it.

I’d better get back to it — it’s a good thing we don’t have any big New Year’s Eve party plans: it’s foggy, foggy, foggy and has been raining (the freezing kind of rain) and slick and gross.

I hope that wherever you are, you are warm and safe and enjoying a celebration as we head towards a new year. 2011 had better be great, that’s all I’m saying…

This counts

Posted on December 27, 2010 by Suzanne

Mark received this Christmas morning with the needle and a ball of a yarn still attached, however: I spent a goodly portion of Christmas Day sitting in that exact chair knitting and knitting and it was done before we went to bed.

So I’m taking credit for giving him a finished scarf for Christmas.

(The pattern is Irish Hiking Scarf <–that’s a Ravelry link. The yarn is Cascade Greenland, a superwash wool. The scarf still needs to be blocked. He wants a hat to match, only he doesn’t want cables, he just wants a plain old hat with a cuff that you turn up…I have the pattern picked out, so it’s just a matter of doing it…)