This is not what I recall.

After thinking about it when I was posting about the Fuzzy Feet, I went back and got the quilts in progress for the Monkey and for El. In my mind....the tops were both almost done and done, respectively. In reality, though, there was not as much quilt as I remembered. The goal for each is something about the same size as La's. 3'x7'ish? I last blogged about the two in June 2007. Ugh.

For El:

What I've got done is great for a toddler sized bed. Which, might have been what I was thinking of at the time. But I think I'm really imagining a twin size quilt. La and I went out and bought more fat quarters that coordinate. I think I need to make about 3 more strips to really make it the way I want it to be. I'm planning to make the strips, then rip some seams in the quilt, insert the new ones and resew.

For the Monkey:
I was sure his was almost done.

In real life, it's about half done.

I was planning to put yellow sashings in between the blocks. I tried just putting the blocks on the yellow fabric to simulate. It's really swimmy. And it messes up the flow of the diagonal stripes. more squares.

Happy Thanksgiving!

From our turkeys to yours.....

Notes from this Thanksgiving (so I can remember them):

1. One regular sized can of pumpkin (12 or 15 oz?) and one 12 oz can of evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed. If there are two similar choices for something, I always get them mixed up - baking powder/baking soda, greater than/less than symbols, evaporated milk/sweetened condensed milk, etc.)

2. However, if I'm making two pumpkin pies, I still need to make them sequentially - the mixing bowl is only big enough for one at a time.

3. It's probably worth the effort to get the food processor dirty and use it for making a graham cracker crust. Otherwise it's hard to get all of the crumbs really, really small.

4. For 2 regular-dish pie pans, two cello-packs (2/3 box) of graham crackers is probably the right amount to get it all the way up the sides. Don't be cheap with the graham crackers.

5. Johnathan and Rome apples work OK in the pie, if you can't find the ida reds. My usual combo is Rome and Ida Red.

6. Move the rack down to the 2nd from bottom for the apple pies. The tops got a little too dark.
Lots of good stuff to come this week: fuzzy feet finished, assessing the quilt situation, probably more.

A special request

The monkey mentioned that he could use slippers. I got out the box of feltable wool and told him to pick one out (purple). Then asked if he wanted a second color and he picked out a stripe color (black). The choices surprised me - I was sure he'd go with charcoal, or maroon or something. He's been trying out colors not usually in his palette lately. It seems a little affected and they aren't really that flattering to his skin tone, but I guess it's good to branch out and expiriment. If you can't do that at 14, when can you?

Dang. I need to finish his quilt. And El's.

But the Fuzzy Feet are rolling along. Here's a shot from Thursday. I finished the first one Friday when I was home with La. Turned out to be a good thing that he picked purple - there's a lot of it in the stash.



The color is so not accurate, but at least you can see the stripes. Pretty low contrast under artificial light, but during the day you can see them pretty well.

Happy Birthday Kelli

I finally finished a gift for my friend Kelli. Exactly 1 year late. Here are her monkey socks:


When I picked these back up in the middle of October, I had finished the 2nd repeat of the lace pattern. Once I got past the other two, it was a cinch. Not that the lace pattern was tricky, but it's trickier when you have frequent interruptions and/or yarn grabbers. The yarn is Trekking XXL - who knows what number. The color is pretty, but it would have been just fine in a plain sock.

And this year's gift. The theme was "be nice to yourself" (it was a milestone number) and included lovely bath stuff, a handknit washcloth and Godiva chocolate.

We might need a new washer.

I was getting my socks and shoes yesterday and saw this!

In my favoritest pair of socks, no less. At first I was afraid that I dropped a stitch, but there were little ends sticking up, like it got chewed up in the washer. Once the girls were put to bed, I tackled it.

First I got some waste yarn and a chibi needle and threaded it through, at the level of where I could find exposed stitch loops. For anyone trying this at home, I recommend using a straight tipped darning needle. Mine have bent tips, which are nice for some things, but not this. I was worried about missing a stitch - it's just an up-down-up-down pattern through the "V" shaped stitches. The hard part was sticking to just one round.


Then, snip, snip, snip. If you're feeling brave, cut close to the waste yarn. If you're feeling like a chicken (like me), give it a little ease and then tink/unravel it to the waste yarn. Thread the DPN through the stitches of what seems like one round, using the waste thread for a guide. I think I picked up all the stitches backward, and there were a few places where I kind of dropped a stitch, so on my first round of knitting, I was careful. The other trouble is that the closest needles I could find were 2.75mm. These were knit on 2.25. On this kind of scale 0.5mm is big.


The green socks are on hold until I finish these. I think I have about 4 rounds, then the toe and done! Just in time. :^)

Is it too late to show Halloween stuff?

Here are the three monkeys: El is a fairy princess. La is Gabriella from High School Musical and the Monkey is Rorschach from Watchmen. I made El's dress and the Monkey's mask and scarf.



Here's a shot of the dress where you can actually see it. The sparkly stuff was really hard to sew - I probably should have changed to a finer needle. I used bias tape on the hem and then sewed the trim above it. I didn't have enough of the trim to do the whole hem, so I just did the front. Delightfully cheesy. La picked out the trim, buttons, and fabric for the dress. The pattern is Butterick 3772. I made view A. I cut out two of the dress - one in the slinky, one in the shiny. Joined the sides together for each, then when you sew the dress shoulders to the facing, there were three layers - silky, shiny, facing. The hem on the shiny is just pinked with shears. It all came together in an afternoon.