Shedir

Hey look - I knit too!  And have actually finished something. =)

Here is Shedir from knitty.com:

I started this hat some time last year (maybe earlier)... so this has been a long-term WIP and it's nice to have it finished.

It actually ended up being a bit bigger than it should have been, but I washed it by hand and tossed it in the dryer for a bit so it shrunk.  Now it fits nicely, and I look forward to wearing it when it gets cool again.  Which might be next week the way this crazy weather has been going!

Craft Storage

I've been enjoying a few discussion threads on how people store their crafting stashes, so I thought I'd share mine.

Since I live alone, I have the freedom to use the entire living room as my 'craft room' which suits me just fine.  I do like to keep things tidy so that if I wanted to have people over, I wouldn't have to spend a week hiding all my projects.

Knitting:
Knitting is really my travel-hobby so my stash is pretty small, and honestly I don't have that many projects in the works.

The top two hat boxes contain misc. quilting and sewing tools. The box on the bottom contains all my embroidery thread, hoops and patterns.  The pink striped hat boxes contain my yarn stash, the blue wine-box contains my sock yarn, and I try to limit my WIPs to what will fit in the bag.

Official 'stash' yarn... no projects in mind for any of it.

Current knitting WIPs - a mindless scarf to go with a hat I made a few years ago, Shedir cabled hat, and well, not really in progress yet, but I was going to cast on for a new pair of ankle socks.

Quilting:
I've got a lot more quilt projects in progress / in mind than knitting.... but my fabric stash is still fairly small.  It's kind of surprising because I feel like I'm forever picking stuff up at Fabric Depot... but I guess I've also made & given away quite a few quilts, so there you go.

The fabric stash is divided into the following categories: batik, non-batik, holiday, character prints.  From there I group the fabrics by dominant color - more or less.  I've also got a box of scraps that have been cut down into 2x2 or 3x3 or 1x3 pieces.  Although I have many specific ideas for what to do with these fabrics... they're not really in the 'active' phase yet.  There's sewing fabric in the purple rubbermaid bin... and I keep my batting in another bin in the closet.

These are the quilts in progress... or in some cases quilts in hibernation.  This is also where I keep my box of real scrap scraps.  On the top shelf are all my crafting books and magazines. 

Finally... my 'craft table' where all the magic happens... is just my dining room table.  But I also have a folding table (in the back) I bring out for cutting sometimes. 

Overall I'm pretty happy with my 'craft room' and stashes.  I like having everything easily accessible... but also neat enough that I can put it all away pretty quickly.  I'd love to have a ton more fabric... but realistically I know I don't have nearly enough time to make all the quilts I'd like to... so it's good to keep the stash somewhat lean. 

So how do you organize your crafts?  Do you limit your stash to materials for specific projects or do you have a 'stash of possibilities'?  I'd love to see everyone else's craft rooms. 

Pop Rocks Socks

I knit up another pair of ankle-socks over my recent trip to Nashville.  I finished up one of them while on the plane and kinda guessed (incorrectly) at when to start the toe decreases.... figured it out it was too short when I got home and kinda fudged it until it was long enough. 

I can't remember what kind of yarn this is... I'm sure it was a gift, but I lost the tag when I wound it up into a ball.  The black and pink remind me of a pack of strawberry pop rocks... so there you go!

Pop Rocks Socks!

TL: DR Socks

When my Spanish class ended I suddenly had a lot of free time to do something other than study verb tenses.  But the break before class starts again is only three weeks... not quite enough time to make a quilt.  So I cast on a pair of socks. 

I'm not a big fan of sock-knitting.  I just like having socks that fit and don't fall down.  But I figured I'd try giving the magic loop 2 socks at the same time method.  I had some instructions that I'd printed out... and I was even watching a you-tube video.  Nope- wasn't happening.  The cord of my circular needle kept coiling up and flipping around and I could never tell which part of the row was the top or the bottom.  The working yarn kept getting tangled up.  I must have cast on and ripped back at least three times before I finally gave up.

The thing is... I was in no real mood to try anything new.  I found a pretty generic pattern for cuff down socks and cast on for just one.  Now... I've not knitted a lot of proper shoe-socks, but I've made a ton of Fuzzy Feet slippers, which are essentially just very big socks, so I had the general concept down.  Just needed to be given a number of cast on stitches and reminders on how to turn the heel & how to Kitchner-stitch the toe.

But even that got to be more reading than I really cared to do as a result of not really reading the instructions too thoroughly the gusset decreases on one of the socks are a bit hap-hazard.  Oh well.  I finished them up and they do in fact fit nicely. 

I decided to call them my Teal Deer socks, mostly because I had a bit of a  "too long; didn't read"  relationship with the pattern, but also because look- kinda looks like the color of a deer with a bit of teal in there for fun.

w00t!  Christmas Socks.


Notes
Yarn: Fingering weight Superwash Merino
Needles: size 1 Addi turbos, 47" cable (I don't like the cable, but the tips are good), ML one at a time.
Cast on: 58 stitches - cuff down
Heel: Eye of Partridge
Toe: classic/standard (totally botched the direction of the decreases on the first sock)
Cast off: 8 stitches on top, 8 stitches on the bottom... next pair I'll cast off sooner to get a toe that matches my actual toe a bit better.

Montego Bay II

One could argue that I already have more scarves than any woman could possibly need.  One would have plenty of evidence to support that argument! 

Nevertheless, when I was going to Costa Rica I thought it would be good to bring some knitting along, so I wound up some yarn - Twinkle Toes in Chili Pepper - and jotted down the Montego Bay scarf pattern I'd done a few years ago.

I got a few lines knitted up waiting for the plane, and then a few more lines watching TV with my homestay family.

But mostly it was my commute knitting.  And because I have such an annoyingly long commute... it didn't take long to finish up!

Montego Bay #2! 

WIP round up

We're about halfway through what passes for summer here in Oregon, and what do I have to show for it?  Lots of starts and not too many finishes.

Knitting:

I've started Shedir, a cabled hat from Knitty.  It's beautiful and it's not really difficult, but it does take full concentration so it's not something I can do easily on the bus.  And there's something like 130 stitches in a row so if I can get one or two rows done in an evening I call it good.

Embroidery:

Needlework is something that I've been wanting to get back into.  Cross-stitch was one of my first crafts and while it has it's limitations, I did enjoy it.  I'm branching out a bit and trying to learn new stitches.  I started out with the sampler page from Sublime Stitching, but then picked up Doodle Stitching and have sketched out a little design, but have only managed to finish the chain stitch border.  w00t chain stitch!

Sewing:
Even though I'm financially solvent, I've been feeling thrifty lately and have actually done a bit of good old fashioned mending.  I replaced all the buttons on two of my sweaters (I'd lost about 3 off one and 2 off the other), and re-attached a loose button on another sweater.  I also re-hemmed a pair of pants that had ripped cuffs, unfortunately I hemmed them a bit short, so I'm going to have to work a bit on my hemming skills before I try that again.

I've done exactly nothing with my Halloween costume.

Quilting:
Evergreen is still in pieces on my table.... someday, someday!!

While living in Thailand I decided to make a quilt to commemorate the experience.  Originally it was going to be a lap-sized quilt, and I have a laundry list of things I want to include on it... but in an effort to actually get it *done* I've decided to scale it down.  It'll be a wall hanging, a little bigger than a
place-mat. 

The embroidery in the corner says "Gor - gai" which isn't the first thing I learned to read in Thai, but it's roughly equivalent to our "A - apple" (or literally "C - chicken"). This is really just the background... much to be done still. I'm excited though, to finally be getting those ideas down in quilt form. 

But most of my crafting time & effort has been going into this one.  It's a gift, and I'm actually coming to terms with constantly making gift quilts.  As much as I want to spend time on quilts for me, I do like getting to try out different ideas without adding to my ever growing stash of quilts.

I can't show off the top because I haven't mailed it off yet.  Last night I attached the binding and was 15 minutes from finishing when I discovered that I didn't have any dark brown thread.  Gah!  So today I took a 45 minute detour to the fabric shop to pick up some thread on my way home, only to learn that they are CLOSED on Mondays.  GAH!!!  Isn't it always like that? 

So that's what I've been working on, and hope to have at least a few things finished up before I go off to Costa Rica. We'll see.  I seem to keep finding new projects to start!