K is for Kitchen Table

Our kitchen table is an heirloom piece. My grandpa made it and it was the table my dad grew up with. It always had a tablecloth on it at my grandparents' house.


Look at those screws. Can you tell that he was an airplane mechanic (Conrad Mercier)? This is a table that was built to last. And last it has. I really like that we eat dinner nearly every night at the table where I ate breakfast on all of my summer vacations and where my dad, aunt and uncle at their breakfasts for so many years.

You wanna see what I made?

Cause there's some FO to report. Sewing and knitting.

Well, I do use the term "finished" loosely.

Knitting first?

1. A small sideways-knit garter stitch scarf. In Berroco Duo from MelissaKnits. I'm kind of on the fence about it, in an "it's not you, it's me" kind of way.


Here's why I'm on the fence about it: It's too long and too narrow. (too long is always a risk with my spotty gauge check) and too narrow is also my own fault. Turns out Melissa gave me 4 balls of this yarn. But two were on top and two were buried. So I only used two. It could have used a couple more rows. And I knit for as long as I could and then cast off, and ran out of yarn mid-cast off (that's the dark line down the left edge). And the effect is a little too "homemade" for my taste. I'm working on finding the gumption to fix it, although, I'm also considering leaving it as it is and putting it in my Dulaan pile for '07 and making a coordinating hat from the rest of the yarn.

2. The scarf for my mom. I'm pretty happy with this and am planning to finish it with multi-color fringe and make a coordinating hat. Maybe with reverse stockinette stripes in the scarf stripe color? Or is that too young looking for someone born in the first year of the baby boom?



So, this one is a sideways-knit garter stitch scarf in various colors of cascade 200 superwash.

Here's how the Cherry Tree Hill (potluck, water) sock is coming:


The colors on this are pretty close to real life. I'm thinking about sending my sister both pairs of socks - this and the Lorna's Laces Icehouse. These are just to soft and squishy not to love. Frankly, this yarn feels a lot like that cotton/elastic yarn - Cascade Fixation or that one from Elann. Pretty impressive for wool.

The socks for DH are coming along. I'm almost to the heel of the second sock.

I've got three stockinette in the round projects on the needles right now - two socks and a felted tote.

I wound up this yarn (Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, Potluck Brights) last night to attempt the Evelyn Clark Shetland Triangle from Wrap Style. I've seen some more pictures of it recently on the net and it renewed my lust. I'm not sure how the yarn will work for the pattern, but worst case, it's learning yarn. I'm not sure what my stick-to-it-ivness quotient on this project will be, so I don't want to go out and buy scads of a silk blend or something else fancy and wonderful and not make anything with it (like my Clapotis yarn to cite just one example).



OK. Now for the sewing:

1. I made myself the purse I was thinking about for weeks now and I really like it.



The outside is a Martha Stewart dishtowel. The inside is Waverly fabric that I found for 80 CENTS a yard. The handles are some ribbon from J. Caroline Creative and the button is from Joann's. I got the idea from Zhinka Dinka Doo It's mostly like SuperEggplant's tote bag tutorial. I added some inside pockets and a button closure as found here.

One of my favorite parts of the bag is the inside pockets. The selvedge of the lining material had words on it, and I kept it. I thought it was both funny and made the edge of the pockets easy to find.



The other thing that I put together, that wasn't quite as successful was a tote bag made from Martha Stewart placemats. I found them on sale for $2.50 each. I added a tube of natural canvas (or duck, not sure which) for the sides and bottom. I think there must be a better way to put it together. I got the corners really wonky on this. I think I'm going to "unsew" it and do it over. It's a nice size bag for bringing odds and ends to the office on a Monday morning.





I also sewed together the four sqares of fabric for my nephew's quilt. Next: ironing and figuring out the border and back.



We went to Boca Bargoons last weekend and on impulse picked up some material for curtains for LaLa's room. (Her pick. She's been on a Hot Air Baloon kick, wondering why we can't get one. And it goes with her cloud-painted aviation themed room. Amelia. Go figure. Anyways. Serendipity.) I still need to figure out the top of the curtains - I'm thinking about tabs in that natural colored cotton duck/canvas or using those rings with the clips. We picked up a rod (right now she has verticals. We're slowly working all of the verticals out of our house. I think we've got two more sliding glass doors to take care of after La's room.)



Also, the Monkey requested a "library bag". The fabric we agreed on was solid red and solid yellow. Not sure if there's going to be an edge of the inside fabric sticking out or what the handles will be made from, but we'll see.

J is for Joshua

I decided to pick up the ABC along again.



Joshua is "the monkey". He's my 12 year old step-son. He lives with us full time, and has done so since he and his dad moved in with me 7 years ago. His mother lived in New Orleans until Katrina and now she and pretty much the rest of her family live in Metropolitan Houston. Just to show how "full time" full time is, the last time he saw his mom was for spring break of 5th grade (March 2005).

Josh is a nice kid. He started 7th grade already. 7th grade. He's a Boy Scout. He's got his Tenderfoot rank and is one achievement away from Second Class. And then he'll be about 4 achievements away from First Class. He's thoughtful and smart. When he commuted with me most of the way to work to go to extended day over school breaks, he would always ask good questions about why things were happening as we were listening to NPR.

The things that he does to drive us crazy are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Mostly organizational stuff, time management, things of that nature. Hopefully, things that we can help him learn to handle in our efforts to help him grow up to be big and strong.

Now to figure out what K is for. Knit? Kite? I'll tell you what. K is not for Cathy.

Next on the needles!

I finished the socks for my BIL finally. This is an in-progress photo of the first one. It's the green one.

I cast on for the second of Dh's socks. It's a lot like the brown one above.

I started on the scarf for my mom again. This time it's a keeper. It's not Knitty's Wavy. It's not the "Not Quite Straight Scarf", (however, that's still a contender for future work.) It's a lengthwise garter scarf. In a palette reminiscient of Denyse Schmidt's Flea Market Fancy fabric line. Go figure. Cascade 220 Superwash in the colors I had on hand. I discovered that orange and turquoise look surprisingly nice together during La's sweater.

I also started swatching for a sock for my sister. Now, I don't know how you swatch a sock, but I really don't swatch very much (my tse-tse fly attention span is the real limitation on the projects I make. However, I can see a need to worry about gauge at some point down the road.) So, anyway. Swatching a sock. I'm really not sure where to begin with this story. I have two yarns that I thought were contenders for my sister. One was a yarn (Lorna's Lace's Icehouse) that she included in my birthday present in the hopes that I would knit her a pair (I'm not sure how this sounds on it's own, but she gave me yarn for three pairs of socks. All Lorna's Laces.) I'm thinking about trying Jaywalker with it. It turns out that I couldn't start this sock because my size one needles were in the sock for DH.

The other was a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, (potluck, water family) Lots of colors in it. So, I was going to try a plain stockinette sock. Here's how it's looking so far. Robin's egg blue seems to be the color that speaks loudest. None of the colors run for very long, and there are a lot of colors in it.

Ha ha ha. You remember how I was thinking about a sweater for the Monkey? Webs has Araucania Nature Wool and Nature Wool Chunky on for $4.69. I got Nature Wool, color 40 (perhaps an olive color?) for a sweater for DH and a cranberry color of Nature Wool Chunky for the monkey.

Saturdays seem to be for sewing around here.

Well, I didn't sew today, but did some prep last night. You wanna see what I made last Saturday?

1. A beach bag. This is it with 4 beach towels loaded in. The handles are twill tape. They might be a little long, but I think it'll work OK. Clearance fabric. Wah ha ha ha. Exterior is like a drapery fabric weight, inside is something that looks like fancy burlap. The end of the bolt said something about boucle.

2. Medium sized tote bag. Remnants. Not sure how to describe the trim I used for handles. Not as thick as a webbing. Sort of like gauze bandages, but more sturdy. I think both the inside and outside are something like a cotton duck.

3. Formal tote. A smaller size. Remnants. Exterior is silk (dupioni? the kind with the slubs). The inside is the kind of taffeta stuff that changes color when you look at it. It's chocolate-to-copper-to-black. The handles are like a nylon woven thing. not as thick as webbing, kind of a little heavier than a twill tape. About the size for a sock project.

4. A cute silk pouch. Gold nylon cord drawstring. Inside and outside are the same silk from above. The silk was a little tricky. It really wanted to unravel and fall apart.

Next up for sewing: finishing the quilt top for my nephew to be and a tote purse for me, made from a Martha Stewart dishtowel, some 80-cent-a-yard fabric and some ribbons for handles.

Before and After

First of all, thank you guys for your nice words about the sweater. It's really nice wool. I was so jazzed by the success that I started contemplating a sweater for the boy on Friday. I found it on froogle at Roxy Yarn on sale for $7/hank on Friday. They had other interesting sale yarn, including Noro Big Kureyon and Noro Silk Garden. I haven't bought anything from them before, so I can't vouch for anything other than the price.

As far as the quilt goes, I think I'm going to stick with my original plan for the square layout. Going back to the photograph, I really liked it again. I'm having a nephew! Friday I picked up some solid light blue for the border. It was tricky - the blues that I thought were going to be good (kind of an aqua), really fought with the red. And you know what was a cheap thrill? I brought one of the blocks in to Joann's and got props from the cutting table lady (I'm afraid I might be a regular there) for the color choices.

Saturday I sewed up 5 tote bags and rearranged LaLa's room. Sunday we went to a friend's house in Tampa - to help them paint the outside. They're getting ready to sell it and move back to Orlando. So if you know anyone who wants an affordable and cute house in Tampa, let me know, and I'll direct you to the right person. [mrsngo .at. hotmail .dot. com] And that's where the story of before and after begins.

I have a good before and after story - seeing hand made gifts in action is always a cheap thrill. Sunday I saw this:

and upon closer inspection, saw this: That would be worn spots. [I swear I didn't look in the medicine cabinet or do any real nosing around.] These hooded towels are made out of one regular bath towel, half a hand towel for the hood, and a strip of coordinating fabric on the brim. One of DH's old architecture school buddies wife made one for LaLa when she was a new baby, and it still works for her at 3 1/2. I "reverse engineered" it and made them for gifts for a few people since. Fortunately, it looks like the tricky sewing parts (I bought thicker towels than I really needed to, probably. It is hard to resist a fluffy towel.) is holding up, so that's good. {BTW: if anyone is interested I can write up a tutorial. This is a really good shower gift. My sister loves hers too.}

I also saw this:
You may recall it from here. It looks loved and like the ends have held up (I'm glad I square knotted them - they did come unwoven.)

When we got home from Tampa, we got a message from the Cub Master. The banner that I sewed in 2004 didn't have the right day of the week on it for School Night (the night where they recruit new scouts from the monkey's old elementary school). When I first made it, it looked like this: When we got it from the Cub Master last night, it said "Join Cub Scouts Wednesday." We had to change it to this: It really needs a bath after it's tenure on the fence this week, and I'm not sure how many more times we can sew on new letters. The needle holes in the yellow fabric are starting to be kind of big. The letters are cut out with pinking shears and just sewn on to the yellow with zig zag stitch. DH made the pattern for the letters in Autocad. Once I cut out the letters, I had him place them on the background field. LaLa and I drove by it this morning and saw it hanging from the school's fence. It looked sharp.

My First Sweater is done!

I finished the sweater for LaLa on Sunday night.





Pattern: I winged it. I made it a little bigger than a hoodie that fit her last winter. I used the basic directions in EZ's Knitting Workshop and Knitting Without Tears for a bottom-up yoke sweater. I also consulted with an Ann Norling pattern that I bought for the baby sweater I'm planning to make. I think I made the sleeves about 2" too long, but it'll probably be fine. Also, I got the yoke patterning idea from Ann Budd's sweater book. [It looks like I take a term paper approach to knitting, where I read a bunch of directions, see the similarities in all of them and go from there). From the underarm join, I knit 1" + 2 rows stockinette, 2 rows (rounds) reverse stockinette, 2 rows stockinette, 3 rows reverse stockinette, 3 rows stockinette, 2 rows reverse, 2 rows regular stockinette, a couple short rows in the back to give it a front and a back, then a 2x2 rib for 3 rows. The yoke decrease rows (KK2tog all the way around) landed on stockinette rounds at about 2", 3" and 4" deep from arm pits.

Yarn: Arucania Nature Wool Chunky color 120. It took about 2 1/2 skeins for approximately size 4T sweater.

Needles: Size 10 for all.

Other notes: There are some wonky bits, like in the armpit join and at the end of the collar. It was a straightforward knit and fun to do. The bulky yarn made it knit up pretty fast and I like the gradiation in the color.

It still needs to be washed and blocked, and I fully expect for the color to run quite a bit, as my pale woodent needles were blue pretty quickly. The photos are from my phone - the previous entry has a better picture.

Sock Enabling and regifting.

Some "old family friends" [the husband is one of my college buddies and went to high school with my DH, and I'm pretty sure he's the one responsible for introducing us] are moving cross-country (the long way) to Seattle. Soon. Whenever I knit socks in front of her, I hear, "Oh, I wish I could do that!" And put in a request for size 9 socks, jewel tones when we were there this weekend. DH went to pick up some furniture from them last night and I sent him with one of my new bags with my copy of the Harlot's Knitting Rules (good sock recipe), bookmarked with a printout of Little Knits, 2.25mm needles, Lorna's Laces Uptown cast on with 60 stitches in 2x2 rib. I got about 2 1/3 rounds done by the time DH had to go. In the process, I regifted a couple things - the yarn was a birthday present from my sister and the Knitting Rules was a mother's day gift [very good book. Even if she doesn't make the socks, it'll give her lots of neat ideas]. But, hey. I figure it's a long flight from Orlando to Seattle. It'll give her something fun to do on the plane.