Plein Air Tote, started

New Project: This is what I started for class - the Plein Air Tote from a 2010 Interweave mag.


First side finished.
This thing is a YARN HOG. The first two balls of yarn are gone completely, used up in the creation of the aforementioned first side and getting about 3/5 of the way through the first (of three) sides of the bag.


That's the end of the third and fourth balls there - I'm REALLY glad I got six balls of yarn now! The whole thing is going to clock in around 1,350 yards of yarn (which STILL puts me over the "600 yards for a class project", since yardage only counts once for held-double projects).


Front and back finished
I'm hoping to finish the knitting-of-the-three-sides today and tommorrow, so that I can start planning the sewing of the inside. Here's what I have planned:


I need to get some gray canvas this weekend (and then I can finish my Slytherin Crest bag, as well). It looks like I'll need one big (metal) zipper, then two medium (plastic) zippers and two small zippers, a ton of heavy-duty gray thread, and, assuming a 48" fabric width, three yards of canvas and a yard of parachute material (to line between the canvas and the knitting to make the insides waterproof).

Hopefully next week will have pictures of the Finished Thing, since it's due on Thursday!!

Future Projects....

Look what I found on the Interwebs! A Sew Retro online course to sew a Perfect Fit Bombshell Dress!


Of course, finding it wasn't really hard - since it's in the sidebar of Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing, which is one of my favorite reading blogs. I just finally *noticed* it was there. Between that, and finding sewing magazines, and re-locating my dress form (it never left the house. I would've sworn it was in storage), the Universe has been telling me to sew something. (It's also been telling me to start drawing again. I think the universe wants me to clean up my studio once and for all.)

Look what else I found on the Interwebs!!


It's a CROCHETED Hello Kitty! Scarf in the Made by K - Tutorials blog! Oooooo!!!

No, I don't need another Hello Kitty scarf, since I'm not sure where the double-sided illusion knit one I made is right now. (It had BETTER be somewhere safe.)... but it's really really cute!!

Practical Skills Application

So, on my honeymoon in Fargo, North Dakota (yeah, you read that right), I was able to talk my shiny new husband into dropping by Nordic Needle, an amazingly wonderful cross-stitch/hardanger store. (Yeah. He actually went WITH ME needlework shopping ON OUR HONEYMOON. I totally had to marry him.) I got a lovely little hardanger kit, a photograph of which continues to elude me. However, during the learning-of-hardanger, I also got really good at buttonhole stitch for the edging of things. Until last night, however, I had never used this skill on an ACTUAL BUTTONHOLE. But now, I have:


And, whilst trying to find a photo of the elusive First Hardanger Project, I went to my other craft blog (craftygryphon.livejournal) and looked at some of my lovely cross stitch finishes from the last few years. I really do finish stuff, and it really does turn out well. The thing that amazed me? Of the 12 things pictured on the first page, 5 were for other people. I don't think of myself as ever making things for other people, but I guess I do. Huh. (Anyway, there's more than just the first page there; hit "go earlier" at the bottom for more. Many pretties!)

My favorite is a thread doodle I did in 2004 - as in no chart, just sorta winging it as I went... it came out great, and if I find it again, I'm totally putting it in Woodlawn. It's in my house, somewhere...!


Also rediscovered, to my amusement, a 2003 post from a knitblog I was doing "for practice." (Of writing regularly? Of HTML? No clue.) I didn't actually get a blog for two more years, but I'd been practicing my code in advance, it seems. So, April-ish, 2003, is when I started becoming a Knitter. Neat! And in May, getting Kelly Clarkson's first album was, evidently, key. Man, that really doesn't scream "six years ago" to me - time is really flying!

Coolest find that I'd forgotten I had, though, was a pic of me and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot, when she was on tour a few years back. She's holding Cup-o-Shawl, which eventually became the Lilly of the Valley shawl from Lace Style. Yay!


Actual knitting content will return shortly. Probably tomorrow. Thank you for your patience!!

Hand sewing - actually making something practical!

Bit the bullet and ordered my TKGA Masters Level I - Hand Knitting materials last week, and promptly almost passed out at the thought of the commitment I was making. Not just time, yarn, and money (and it's really not much of that last one), but the whole Going Back To School thing. And it really is just that; there's papers to write, research to do, and, oh yeah, actual knitted product to produce that will be peered at with a scope and graded... and likely returned for a do-over. Possibly more than once.

Over the weekend - since Friday, really - I haven't been feeling well. I probably should've stayed home today, but felt OK at 6 when I left the house. I can tell I was actually sick, since I didn't knit AT ALL all weekend. The height of my crafting was putting snaps on towels so they'd hang off the handle of the oven, thus:




My husband doesn't request a lot of craft-related stuff, so it was nice to be able to "make" something for him that he needed.