The End of Week One

I've stuck to it for one week, at least! No new projects were started and I even finished 2 "old" ones. Sure, neither of these had been sitting around for all that long but they were still on the list.

Trip Around the World Doll Quilt. Continuing my efforts to amass a collection like this one.

Flower Seeds pillow. I just love this fabric and how it matches the curtains in my craft room so it had to be a pillow. And, as an added bonus, this wool on the back is one that I love and have had for years and years (since my gung-ho rug hooking days in about 2004) but have never found a use for. Now I've used a bit of it at least!

Stitching Away

I don't think I'm going to get a whole lot more done on these wonderful ornaments of Alicia's once I get started on this huge quilt but at least I've finished two (of six -- I think I was feeling quite ambitious) before getting distracted. And had a ton of fun doing them both!


Isn't this one cute, even with its waste canvas in? (Waste canvas is, by the way, magical! I'd never used it before and now I'm seeing cross-stitches all over everything in my house!)


After my cats' complete and utter (and undeterable) obsession with my polar bear, I decided that it was a bad idea (for me -- I don't think there is a single thing wrong with the patterns) to leave the bottom open, as instructed, and so I cut a little ellipse out of some leftover felt and made a faux-ribbed cuff to close the opening, while still leaving the bottom of the mitten "open" (the extra piece of felt made the bottom 3D, rather than just blanket stitching it all closed). Maybe this will keep it all in one piece after the cats find my hiding spot (on the wall) and play football with the mitten.

And, to close, a less dismally dark photo of my polar bear, complete with tiny scarf. He he!

Happy Halloween!

If you celebrate that sort of thing. . .

(made from this pattern)

And Now for Something I Made

Although there have been few posts lately about things I've made, there has still been making going on. Most particularly, I made curtains (granted, they are more simple than roman shades but they're still curtains) for my kitchen window. Which is a very good thing because washing dishes at this sink when it is dark outside and all you can see are the ghostly white seed pods floating in space is not a fun experience. Now I'll be able to look at pleasant curtains instead!

I used Lena's book, Printing by Hand, for the basics on freezer paper stenciling (like which side to iron to the fabric and what kind of ink to buy) and then just had a fun time with the printing.

It was all as simple as the book makes it sound and her directions were super-easy to follow. The pattern is my own sketch, traced and repeated onto the freezer paper.

very before

after painting, before curtains

finished

As an added bonus, I now feel more confident to work on one of my proposed Alabama Chanin projects, having I've stenciled on fabric.

Lucky

Most of the reason I was so busy over the last week was because I had a visit from my grandparents and aunt. Which was very fun, of course, but busy as well. So the blog languished. But the house did not!

I am super-lucky to have a mother and a grandmother who not only are able but also willing to make roman shades for my very own craft room (I can't tell you how excited I am to have a craft room after my craft bay window for the past 4 years in Brooklyn). And this is no ordinary room. It is a sun porch so it has 5 windows. And I wanted to use in the curtains some lovely vintage French fabric I'd had on my ebay watch list for approximately 2 years. And I have a grandfather willing to help me string the said curtains and hang them in the windows. Now my craft room is infinitely brighter and nicer looking. As you can see from the "before" photo below.

All that's left to do is to paint the panelling!

Before

After (this is the window on the right in the photo above)

Quilt Update

I've been going full steam ahead on the quilt. Even though the bed it will be for is still in Oklahoma. I calculated that I will need about 32 squares and I'm up to 27 (I've done a few more since I took these photos). It needs ironing but you can still get the idea of the colors and layout. No point in ironing it before I'm ready to piece the blocks together. The cats will just get on them again anyway.

Because it's important to note things like this, I have to say that the lowest block on the right in the first photo is my favorite.

Also, because I'm absolutely super-lucky, my mother and grandmother are working on roman shades for me for the room the quilt will go in. They're going to have a panel of this (which I've had my eye on for years) down the center. I can't wait to show them here!

Pretty Projects

While there is a ton of construction-type work to be done on the house, it's not always the fun thing to work on. This weekend, with the help of our magnificent and generous houseguests, we did several of the "unimportant" pretty projects. And I can't stop staring at them!

The largest silhouette is from an antique store here in town which I had been stalking in anticipation of its opening for "the season". It's the only one which is actually cut paper and it made me feel like my collection was completed and had to be hung up. Even if the wall isn't yet patched and painted.

As you can see, this half-bath is tiny. It had a 3-inch deep medicine cabinet on the wall where the mirror is and that just wasn't working out too well for us. First, we didn't need it for storage and second, even the 3 inches of space was precious in this tiny room. So Kelly and I picked out this mirror while Patrick and Mark inspected lumber at Home Depot. We hung it and the shelf (from Pottery Barn but we've had it for about 5 years) and the little soap dish while they worked on their masterpiece on the porch (below).

Patrick and Mark working on our new guestroom headboard based on one I saw in a Crate and Barrel promotional e-mail about a year ago. (I don't know if the actual headboard was at Crate and Barrel, the ad was for bedding.)

Beeker's version of helping. At least she's not getting under their feet.

I think the room looks far more finished and less empty. Although I do still need to hang a few more things on the walls and do something about the frilliness of the ceiling fan (maybe just take down the light kit -- the light switch goes to a lamp in the corner anyway).

Hopelessly Addicted

I can't seem to stop making these! I've never made such and un-fussy quilt before. I just cut the strips freehand and started grabbing (mostly at random) and sewing. Lots of fun! Although I do think that I need to try a value quilt as I seem always to sort fabric by color rather than by value and it sometimes makes my designs difficult to read. And, let's face it, these value quilts are just really fantastic!

Must stop sewing as I ordered a bit more fabric early last week and if I don't stop sewing soon, it won't make it into the quilt at all! I'm going to switch off my machine, put down my scissors, and take another trip to the post office to see if the fabric has come in.

Giving My Scissors a Workout

I'm finally making a log cabin quilt! I've always been fascinated by log cabin quilts (my parents even have one made by my great-grandmother) but never quite had the right inspiration / spot for one. But now I'm going full-steam ahead! The color-scheme is based on this stained glass window which we saw in Paris last fall (I know, terribly silly to look at Tiffany glass in Paris when there is far more of it to be found in NYC but it was still fun to see even though it was a tiny exhibit). The internet photo doesn't really show the colors off to full advantage but you can use your imagination to see that the glass is actually golden yellow and peachy pink.

It's all going to be cut into strips soon (except for the neutrals in the middle which will be the center sqares for the cabins) and I'll have to have my scissors sharpened.

The quilt will eventually be for my daybed (my 10th birthday gift) which is currently at my parents' house in Oklahoma. How I will get it to Upstate New York is yet to be determined but I figure that the quilt will take some time so maybe I'll have time to come up with a plan.

Window Film Versus Fabric

As I know I've mentioned before, every window in this house, when we moved in, had a minimum of 2 layers of curtains/window shades, in most cases 3 layers. And, of course, the bathrooms were no exception.


Before and After.

I read about this idea on Melissa's blog two years ago when she first posted about it but I wasn't sure about how it would hold up so when I decided to redo the bathroom window coverings, I decided to buy some manufactured window film. This was, for me, a big mistake. I just could not manage to make that window film lay down flat. It's all bubbled and funny looking (it's in the downstairs half-bath but I don't have a photo of that one just now). Although I do like how much light it lets through the window. So that's its plus side. But if I were to have to choose again, I'd choose the fabric-and-starch method every time.

When Melissa posted her fabric idea again, with an update on how hers was holding up, I had to try it. I did everything exactly according to Melissa's instructions. It looked funny and blotchy for a little while (photo above) but, by the time the starch had dried, I felt very happy with it. The only place I deviated from what she said she'd done was to trim the edges with a razor rather than marking the edges and removing the fabric to trim it with scissors -- I just didn't want that extra step so I trimmed it in place. In case you're wondering, here's a link to the fabric I used.

The room is now much more bright and cheery although, unfortunately, still bubblegum pink and with formica sheets glued to the walls and peeling down.

Thanks to Melissa for the great instructions! I don't know how she has time to figure these things out with her three children but I'm certainly happy that she does!

Knitted Chair Seats aka A Five-Year Project Completed!

I found these chairs next to the dumpster at one of my college apartments and immediately thought of the knitted chair seats in Weekend Knitting (one of my all-time favorite knitting books!) I have been out of school for 5 years now, if that gives you any indication of just how long this project has languished.

The chairs were originally painted orange and had strange, pointy, wooden spikes on the tops of the ladder backs so I wanted to strip the paint and take the saw to them, before I could even start on the seats. I restained them and speckled the finish a bit with some paint and then whipped up the seats in a couple of months. Unfortunately, this was back when I knit everything too large. So the seats wound up to saggy and the boiling-water trick mentioned in the book for shrinking the seats knit of nylon cord only works temporarily. So the project languished.

Until I saw the chair pillow project in Natalie Chanin's new book. I don't know why I didn't think of just putting a pillow on the seat before. It was just the motivation I needed to sew the second seat onto the chair and to start picking fabric from the Alabama Chanin website for the seat cushions! And now the chairs are finished enough that they could be used (with temporary pillows) for brunch with our visiting friends last Saturday (the blue chair at the close end was not one of the project chairs but one repainted by my grandmother when this table was hers in the 50's).

The Wicker Rocking Chair

Another finished project! I feel like I'm on a roll.

I purchased this rocking chair at an antique store a few months ago. At the time, it came with the cushion quite oddly upholstered, as you can see in the first photos (the fabric was simply semi-wrapped around the cushion and set in the chair).

The idea is to eventually have several pieces of furniture for our porch and to use the Nigella fabric or something contrasting for the whole set. The rocker is a very comfortable start (the last photo is the view from sitting in the rocker on our porch).

Hanging on the Wall

We finally put up something other than my 1 poster I'd hung in the whole house! The hold-up is that I have to finish patching and painting the walls before I can hang things on them. But, as the TV Room has been painted since January, there really is no excuse other than the fact that I am always distracted by other projects. But, all that aside, the Ribbon Board is finished and hung on the wall! (I'd still needed to tack the fabric and ribbon down on the back even though the ribbons had been attached since the beginning of February). I'm even thinking of going into production of these for sale. Is there any interest in such a thing or does anyone who wants one just buy it from Pottery Barn in whatever the color of the season happens to be?

Sock Week Day 1

I've had poison ivy on my feet for about 3 weeks now and haven't been able to wear socks at all. But I do love socks. So, in honor of the poison ivy finally starting to go away (I am VERY allergic to it), I have decided to declare this Sock Week.

aa

For Sock Week Day 1 I have to share my current obsession with the new Debbie Bliss Magazine. I'm not much of a magazine reader but occasionally find one that strikes my fancy and this one seems like it will be one of those. I can't stop looking through it! I has bags and a knitting needle case and men's patterns and even a recipe for scones. And it has TWO pairs of socks that I love. I have started on the tall ones as the magazine came out when I was looking for a pattern for tall socks anyway (I even had yarn already picked out!) and I may just make the short ones for my next project.

Happy Labor Day (here's a hat!)

Today was a good Labor Day. Very quiet (and I've had very few quiet days over the last month). And since it was quiet, I finally got my adjustments to the hat pattern in Rebecca Magazine written out. I, along with just about everyone else I know who knits, loved the Foliage hat pattern from knitty. And I got some Malabrigo yarn with the idea of making it. But, right about that same time, I saw this pattern in Rebecca No. 36.

I decided to use the idea of the pattern running all the way to the top that I liked so much in the Foliage pattern along with the different lace rib pattern from the Rebecca hat and this is what I came up with.

And here are adjustments in case you'd like to have one as well. It's still hot here (it actually got cool over the last week and now hot again today and yesterday) but I know that I'll be happy to have the hat to go along with my collection of new scarves and cowls when it gets cold.

Work pattern as printed until row 35

Repeat 11-16 once more

BEGIN DECREASE:

Start repeat again but this time, on the 4th row, p2tog rather than p2 ea time (so the rib pattern reads: *p2tog, k3*, repeat between *)

*p1, k3* rib repeat for one row

*p1, yo, sl 1 knitwise, k2tog, psso, yo* repeat

*p1, k3* rib repeat for one row

*p1, k3, p1, place next 3 stitches on a cable needle and hold in front, k2tog, k2tog, knit 3 stitches from cable needle, p1, k3* repeat 3 more times

*p1, k3, p1, ssk, k3, p1, k3* repeat 3 more times

*p1, k3, p1, ssk, k2, p1, k3* repeat 3 more times

*p1, k3* around

*p1, yo, sl1 knitwise, k2tog, psso, yo, p1, sl1 knitwise, k2tog, psso, p1, yo, sl 1 knitwise, k2tog, psso, yo* repeat 3 more times

*p1, k3, p3tog, k3* repeat 3 more times

*p1, place next 3 stitches on a cable needle and hold in front, k2tog, k2tog, knit 2 stitches from cable needle* repeat 3 more times

*p1, ssk, k3* repeat 3 more times

*p1, ssk, k2* repeat 3 more times

*p1, p3tog* repeat 3 more times

8 stitches remaining – draw tail through all 8 stitches and pull tight

work in loose ends

Two Finished Scarves

I know it's been in the nineties in New York this week but you just can't stop a knitter! No amount of heat seems to discourage me from knitting away. Or from getting out on my stoop to have the projects photographed (you should have seen the looks we were getting!)

Cream of Spinach Scarf

How do you like the little t-shirt, bulky scarf look? Maybe I'll start a new trend (or not!) Don't ask me what I was doing with my arms. That's just how they fell.

This scarf began in early May and finished yesterday evening. It is some very nice, semi-solid Blue Sky Alpaca which seems to work well with the pattern to have a nice drape. Or at least that's how I choose to see it! I hope my grandmother likes it. In 6 months. Well, now there are only about a dozen or so more gifts to make. . .

Jury Duty Scarf

This is the scarf that I was using to demonstrate the double-knitting tips. I think it's one of my favorite scarves I've ever made for myself. I'm sure it will be getting some use. When it's a little colder, maybe. Like it was at the courthouse this week. It was jury-duty time for me on Monday and Tuesday! And, if you've not been before (as I hadn't), let me suggest an engrossing pattern to work on because you will find yourself sitting for hours. Not that I have a problem with jury duty, in theory. Just with all of the waiting about that is involved. But look at the work that got finished! (I think I did at least 1/3 of this scarf during those 2 days — not to mention reading about 100 pages of Posession which is fantastic so far.)

I've included a chart this time, just in case anyone is enamored with my pattern and would like to give it a shot. Also, I'd like to add a tip on how to set up the double knitting: you should cast on the number of stitches, based on your gage, for how wide you'd like for your piece to be. Then, on the first knitted row, knit into the front and purl into the back of each stitch. So the purls will become one side of the scarf and the knits the other. This chart has to be knitted on both sides simultaneously (so, in other words, knit each box of the chart twice, once with the knit [in color A] and once with the purl [in color B] in each pair of stitches — Each side will be the exact reverse, color-wise, of the other side).