Notes on Craft

DON'T PANIC! Embroider.

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 03:53:00 -0800

(NOTE: I took the following pics with my phone. They’re not as nice as previous shots but it was quicker and simpler to use the camera phone than it was to whip out the Nikon for every step. Sorry for the lower quality pics, might go back to the other way for the next project.)

My sister’s birthday was coming up and I knew she was getting the new Kindle with internet access.

I immediately remembered a great Kindle cover craft project I saw on the Craft blog inspired by this hilarious XKCD strip. We were both big fans of Douglas Adams as kids so I thought this would be a perfect gift from one nerd to another!

I wanted to do something a little different and so I hit the internet for some images and fonts and dug around my craft stash for stuff to make a cover.

I started out with an old 3-ring binder and a box cutter…

I took it apart, pulled out the dense board inside and measured out the size of a kindle (looked it up on Wikipedia) plus a few centimeters to build a margin.

I took the three pieces I cut out for the front and back cover as well as the spine and pulled out some extra knitwear fleece I had in the back of my closet, covered it in Elmer’s Glue and wrapped them up. This would give a little bit of a cushion to the cover, keeping my sister’s Kindle safe from jostling and falls.

Trimmed it down a bit…

…and pulled out some nice dark blue fabric I had bought awhile back.

I knew roughly what I wanted to decorate my front and back covers with so I made some basic placement guidelines.

My sister loves sashiko, a traditional Japanese style of stitching. She’s made some lovely projects of her own so I thought she would like a cover with a sashiko vibe so I broke out the white cotton thread and found a really cool font called “Radio Space” at dafont.com for the text and a logo from the film campaign!

In case you’re wondering how to get a perfect circle drawn onto a stretched out piece of fabric, here’s a good trick. Take a small glass or votive candle and a piece of chalk. Press the glass under the ring, take a piece of chalk and rub the ring of the glass through the fabric. Ta da! Perfect circle ready to be embroidered!

So the basic pattern of the front and back were done. Not super impressive but, oh, I was not done!

I marked out the spine of the book with chalk.

I went over to the ever handy Wikipedia and looked some quotes from the book (I haven’t read it since high school) and found “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”

It looked straight to me.

Oh, yes, and I added some stars. The Sagittarius constellation for my December born sister! Apropos.

Easy to find star maps online!

When I sewed up the sides and placed the cover on the body of the book the spine quote wasn’t straight. I tried to move around the side seams but that would make the front look weird. I undid the spine quote twice.

And then on the third try, after realizing my final attempt was too big and would not fit…

I gave up and started making fish! Like Babel Fish or “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!”

Pretty, pretty fishies!

Some eagle eyed readers might have noticed I added a little border to the spine! It’s lovely on the outside, not so much on the inside.

I trimmed down the threads and bound them all by winding more thread around each side of the inside spine.

It’s a little uneven but that’s what makes it obviously handmade. Some people like it, I’m sure there are easier or tidier ways to clean up threads but I stuck to this.

And that was about it. I added some velcro strips with hot glue and it was done! I wanted to add some double sided tape but wanted to converse with the birthday girl about what she wanted to stick to her Kindle.

All done! And she loved it! Teared up and everything :)

Still waiting for the actual Kindle to show up in the post. When it comes in I will definitely post some action shots!

Time may be an illusion, Mr. Adams, but this project took about a week!

Fun Knits, Good Karma

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:16:00 -0700

Have been knitting little hats and things for charity these past few weeks. Most will be sold at the Eagle Ridge Hospital store while one or two will go for Shaken Baby Awareness! Don’t shake your babies, people!

Knitting baby things are really quick and a great way to bust through small batches of end yarn you have left over from bigger projects. I used a couple of different free patterns I found online.

Bev’s Baby Ribs Hat is great for premies as well as Carrissa’s beautiful preemie caps! Drop’s has a really simple pattern but my favorite was this pattern from Simple Things. I’m not sure I mastered it but it was fun to knit!

How-Tuesday: Make Your Own Sandals :: Etsy Blog

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:30:07 -0700

How-Tuesday: Make Your Own Sandals :: Etsy Blog:

Make your own sandals! The possibilities are endless!

kokblog

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 18:19:45 -0700

kokblog:

Drawing and cooking and vodka? Nirvana has arrived and it is called kokblog!

Embroidery: needle + thread = pretty

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 05:36:00 -0700

Last year I was sitting on my friend Ingrid’s couch as she was going through her late mother Barbaro’s books. Barbaro was from Sweden and had quite an eclectic and beautiful collection of tomes covering all sorts of topics from poetry to history to biography. As I do not speak Swedish all I could do was admire the leather bound copies of literature and flip through to the illustrations. (The Swedes have an amazing history in illustration that oddly, other than Astrix and Obelisk, hasn’t blossomed into a strong presence in the comics industry, yet.)

Then I saw this simple little book lying on top of a pile of tiny leaflets and novellas.

I picked it up and flipped through it’s wonderfully thorough diagrams and photos and was engrossed as I would be in any good work of fiction!

I had started embroidery projects as a small child. I remember basic embroidery was one of the first things my mother taught me after crochet. I still have a pillow case cover I worked on when I was five years old!

I never really mastered it as I didn’t find any use for it at the time. I was such a practical child! If it was purely ornamental I wasn’t all that fascinated. That holds true today, I suppose. Also, I don’t recall being exposed to all the possibilities of embroidery. After all, it was the era of machine embroidery and I remember my mother taking a small foray into applique with her sewing machine in the 80’s but that didn’t last.

But this book I discovered on Ingrid’s dining room table was like a full course in embroidery. It covered the basics to the insane! Any possible embellishment you might want to add is covered in here.

Life is busy and I kept meaning to crack it open and start a project. Over the months I flipped through it over and over, fascinated by the techniques and the craftwork displayed in it’s pages.

Finally, I had something that needed a bit of something! A shirt! I had made this purple, flowy shirt a few weeks earlier, intending to wear it to Daphne’s christening but the neck was all messed up and I was focused more on her gown than what I would wear. I put it aside until another event came up, a wedding. Our good friends, Robin and Step, were having a casual carnival themed wedding and everyone was encouraged to dress comfortably and creatively. I already had the shirt. It was fitted to me and my odd little form, the neckline issues were fixed, but it was far too plain for this particular event.

So, out came Sömmar och Stygn!

I picked out a nice branch pattern (no. 27) and did my best recreate what I saw on page 10 and 11 of my fabulous guide to stitchery.

After very few re-dos I ended up with this!

But it still needed a little something more. So back to the book!

Some basics, a border! Number 6 is in order!

Starting the base stitch…

…and filling it in. Also, finished up the swirls on the bottom and added some stars!

Stars, page 16, illustration 56 a & b.

Still, needs a bit more…

Ha ha! Leafy pod things care of page 8 and 9. (Number 17, if you please.)

I wanted to add a lot more, and I might do, but it was getting late and the wedding was the next day so off to bed I went.

The next day I put on my new purple top and went to an awesome wedding where there was much love flowing everywhere, some of it going to my lovely shirt!

I will be adding more, I think, but for now I think it’s grand!

The happiest bride and groom in the world! And yes, that’s the shirtless best man in the background with the wreath of leaves and sarong! It was the awesomest wedding I’ve been to in a long time.

It was a wonderful day and I was proud of my handywork when compliments came my way. Nothing better than someone complimenting something you’re wearing and being able to say, “Why, thank you! I made it myself!”

And thank you , Barbaro, for collecting such beautiful books and Ingrid for sharing them with me and teaching me a little prettyness on something practical can be a lovely thing. Crafts were meant to pass on from on to another and I hope these skills will pass into the internet and out into the world.

I’ll be sure to post more from this amazing book!

Craftzine.com blog : How-To: Freeze Food

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:18:01 -0700

Craftzine.com blog : How-To: Freeze Food

Geek Art Loves Michael Flemming’s Star Wars ABC | Geek-Art.net

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:14:19 -0700

Geek Art Loves Michael Flemming’s Star Wars ABC | Geek-Art.net:

Amazing Star Wars alphabet series! More on the artist’s flicker feed!

Geeky Fingers!

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:48:55 -0700

Here’s a shot of my lovely sister, Pia, and the wooly gloves I made her!

She’s a huge Doctor Who fan, we both are actually. It’s a show we watched when we were little kids back in Toronto and when they started back up again in 2005 we were in! When Pia’s birthday rolled around I decided to make her some fingerless gloves from the “Doomsday” episode, the season closer from 2006.

It was the big, emotional season finale and The Doctor had sucked the power from a supernova to transmit one last message to Rose, stuck forever in an alternate universe! They meet one last time on a beach in Norway and Rose was wearing these beautiful fingerless mits that lit the internet up with crafters!

I added some ribbing to the fingerside hem, just cause I like how it looks.

She wears them a lot, especially in the winter months in her studio where she makes stuff like this:

Doctor Who: The Forgotten

Torchwood Magazine #21

Yeah, she may be a bigger Doctor Who fan then me.

Knits around the world!

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:31:00 -0700

I’ve asked my friends and family to send me photos of things I’ve made for them over the last few years.

Here’s my brother in law, Ian, in a blue wool scarf I made for him. He’s not big on long, wrapped around your neck five times kind of scarves so I made him this short and simple scarf. It’s a ribbed scarf, knit one, purl one, with some simple tassels at each end. Just enough to wrap around once or lay on the neck and tuck in around the chest. A little bit of warmth and colour without too much fuss!

It’s done it’s job in his travels around he world, like here on a windy day visiting Stonehenge with his friends and comedy cohorts, Drew and Diana (lovely hat, not one of mine), on trips to Chicago in the bone chilling winter months and during Vancouver’s brief forays into seriously chilly weather.

Sometimes lace and cables and tricky patterns will be super impressive and make everyone ooo and ahhh, but other times a simple piece of well made yarncraft will be the most practical and well-used of items. Making something someone needs and will wear again and again is a hard skill to master! Harder than socks! Harder than fair isle! Harder than… well, it’s hard. And I’m happy when I sometimes nail it:)

Daphne!

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 04:14:00 -0700

After all that you deserve some pics of the special day!

Here she is, Ladies and Gentlemen, my goddaughter, a dangerously cute monster of giggles…. Daphne!

Button close-up!

A little running around pre-christening. See how happy she is?

Oh, so happy and curious!

“Yeah! You bet I’m pissed, lady! You dressed me up, took me out and a scary old dude in a white robe poured water on my head and wrecked my hair! And then you all laughed at me!”

Food came out, dress came off! Underdress will hopefully make a nice summer dress for the hot months to come in Edmonton.

Someone found the cupcakes!

Let’s play name the stain, shall we? Raspberry, cantaloupe, strawberry, icing, salsa….

And my favorite shot of the whole day! What grandma doesn’t know is those church shoes are super grippy and sneaker like on the bottom. She’s a climbing ninja in those things! And what a great camera that is, huh? It, like, caught that chip mid air!

"No matter what anyone tells you, it is never a shortcut to skip basting and go straight to sewing."

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 03:48:02 -0700

“No matter what anyone tells you, it is never a shortcut to skip basting and go straight to sewing.”

- Me!

Daphne's Christening Dress - Pt. 2

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 03:45:21 -0700

When last we met, I had just finished the underdress for my soon to be goddaughter, Daphne. As she was in Edmonton and I don’t have a lot of other babies in my life I searched around the house for something approximating her size. Wouldn’t you know it, Totoro has the waistline of a 16 month old girl!

And from the back!

So, my fingers well warmed up and my brain remembering all the tricks and how-to’s I learned from my mom, I proceeded to THE DRESS! As I mentioned in part one of this post, I used this BURDA pattern for the neck and arm measurements but was going to make a few alterations to make it the dress I had floating around in my psyche.

When my friend Laura managed to send me the measurements of a very wriggly Daphne, I was surprised to learn that she had the shoulders of a 3 month old, the waistline of a 6 month old, hips of a 12 month old and the height of someone her own age. I guess women never fit the clothing industry mold, even when we’re babies!

I found this amazing fabric at Rocco’s in Vancouver. It’s a wonderful source for fancy fabrics for special occasions. They specialize in saris and indian fabrics but have loads of variety. I fell in love with this fabric when I saw it but almost put it back when I found out it was polyester. It felt more like crepe and it draped so beautifully that I decided not to be a fabric snob and just buy it. Anyway, washable is better at that age!

The one finicky thing about this fabric is that you had to line up the pattern before you cut it. Didn’t want to make a top with leaning flowers!

With Daphne’s odd measurements I made the shoulders at the smallest size and blended it into the 6 month size at the lower arm holes and waist.

Then the back pieces. I took a lot off the bottom, too much! I wanted an empire waist but got a little too eager as you will see later!

I found this lovely silk for the collar and edging at Rocco’s, as well, but I couldn’t for the life of me iron it to a state where it looked neat. Probably it was meant to be some sort of crinkle fabric but when I cut out the collar pieces, the wrinkles weren’t very even, with one side having a huge crease down the centre and the other just looking like at came out of someone’s pocket!

Sewed the back and front pieces together and pressed the back opening on the folds with iron-on interfacing in the fold.

Once I figured out what the pattern wanted me to do with the collar I made the collar band and sewed it in. Took awhile for my brain to wrap itself around the idea of no yoke piece or whatever they call that part of a blouse that usually gets sewn to the neck and flipped to the inside.

No matter what anyone tells you, it is never a shortcut to skip basting and go straight to sewing.

The collar with this fabric turned out to be floopy and weak looking. I was disappointed and went off to the fabric store to scout out another satin for my project.

Ended up at Textile Clearing House on Fraser where I picked up a nice thick satin with warm tones to pick up on the off white of the dress. I had a little trouble with it when I got home, however. It made a nice strong, crisp collar but…

If you pulled on it in the wrong direction while sewing it would snag and create these awful thread lines across the fabric!

I actually made this collar a total of five times, twice in the first satin and three times in the thicker satin! I don’t have pinking shears, which probably would have solved some issues and saved an hour or two of my life! But eventually I ended up with a pair of collars pieces that fit, were unsnagged, and had a lovely curve to them!

Note to self: Next big purchase a good pair of pinking shears.

Oh, and a cheap pair of scrapbooking pinking shears out of the discount bin at Dressew? Not worth a damn when it comes to cutting fabric!

Oh, all the snipping and twisting and hoping I don’t cut too far!!!!

But I ended up with this beautiful little collar! Yay, me!

Got all excited and proceed to cut, baste, ruffle and sew on the sleeved before I took another pic. Sorry, but it’s just a basic ruffle sleeve. Same as all the others, just smaller and cuter.

The pattern didn’t have trim on the sleeves, but I wanted some so I put it there.

Sew, flip, handstitch, ta da!

The skirt! Again, lined up the pattern, pinned the fabric so it wouldn’t float around and added a good 6 inches past the pattern. This shot doesn’t show that I went back and just took a huge swath of fabric that covered nearly the whole width of the material. The pattern called for a back and front piece, I just wanted a whole piece all the way around with extra ruffles. The beauty of sewing, don’t like something? Change it!

Here’s the sewn together skirt and top. Looks lovely from this shot but up close I was not happy with the pleats, some were crooked and wonky and just looked shoddy.

Around this time I also was starting to worry about the length of the top. It was definitely too short!

The opening in the back

I don’t have a serger so I folded most of the bigger seams and zig zag stitched them together. Good idea to keep it all neat.

I already knew I wanted a big satin ribbon around the chest so instead of taking it all apart (and doing that damn collar for a sixth time!) I realized I could just add a strip of fabric and it would be covered by the ribbon anyway! Phew!

Re-basted the skirt. This time a two-tiered baste. If you want nice clean pleats and aren’t using a fabric that will run or snag, I highly recommend it!

Skirt sewn to the new lengthened top, baste stitch not removed yet.

After the basting stitch is removed. Still a bit puckered but a good press and it looked great! Worth the extra effort!

Now, the satin ribbon! Found various ribbons at Rocco’s and Dressew but all seemed a bit thin. Making the waistband out of the same material as the collar and sleeve trim just made sense. Folded the fabric at it’s widest point after all the collar and sleeve fabric was taken from it.

And again, got going and forgot to take any pictures! Basically, I pressed a half inch fold into the strip I took from the fabric and sew the flat side to at what would be it’s upper edge on the dress. folded it down and hand stitched the pre-pressed side to the edge, just above the skirt.

If I were to do this dress again I would have taken some time to make the waistband just one long piece, but I wasn’t thinking all that far ahead and didn’t so….

I made some extensions for a bow in the back.

Sewed it, turned it inside out, pressed it with the seam in the centre and hand stitched the tips after trimming off a lot of the fabric you see here.

Attached it to the waistband. Oh boy! It looked like a mess!

Pressed the seam open folded the edges in and hand stitched it all closed.

After it was all pressed, it looked like this. An obvious seam? Yes. But once it was tied into a bow it would be hidden! So, problem averted! Again, next time, going for one big piece!

As you may remember, the little lady who would fill this dress was in another city so I did a quick fold at the hem and would hand sew the final hem when I got to Edmonton.

Tried to sew the button holes, but my machine was not co-operating so those were hand stitched, too! An the cherry on top: some lovely enamel buttons from Button, Button! They were lovely and matched the Tiffany & Co. bag that her christening gift came in! I’m by no means wealthy, and I’ll be paying off that gift for awhile, but like the dress, I wanted something special for my little goddaughter, something that would look lovely and be an heirloom she could have when she’s older.

And a little shell button at the waistband. Like the seams in the bow it would be hidden and I didn’t want to add any bulk to that area so it wouldn’t be poking her in the back when she was sitting in a car seat or church pew. And there you have it! A christening dress!

All tied up and ready to get on the plane!

Mission Holy Party Dress, Batman!…. COMPLETED!

"Nothing ruins the fun of sewing more than hyperventilating over a hot machine at 4am the day before..."

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 03:08:49 -0700

“Nothing ruins the fun of sewing more than hyperventilating over a hot machine at 4am the day before an event!”

- Vicky Van

Back to Sewing! Daphne's Christening Dress - Pt.1

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:12:00 -0700

When I was asked by my oldest friend, Laura, to be the goddaughter of her firstborn, Daphne, I offered to make a christening dress for the special day. I haven’t broken out the sewing machine in awhile so I started the project weeks beforehand in case something went wrong.

Nothing ruins the fun of sewing more than hyperventilating over a hot machine at 4am the day before an event!

Plus, Laura and Daphne live in Edmonton, so I had to make sure the dress was completed to a certain point before I flew out a few days before the event but not so heavily sewn and tied up so that if any alterations had to be made they would be a pain in the ass.

This would require plenty of planning.

I decided to start things out right and buy a new iron. Nothing fancy but better than my roommate’s 80’s model that only worked if you held the plug at a certain angle!

What I started out wanting to do was this:

It’s a museum piece but I loved the idea of an old fashioned, turn of the century style summer dress. As my goddaughter is 16 months old the dress needed to be something she could run around in and as the christening was in June it had to be light. I drew up a rough sketch on my wacom tablet:

Simple, right? No. No way. Not in the slightest.

I searched and searched for lace that wasn’t overpowering but delicate and soft and most definitely not itchy. It seems that the kind of fabric these dresses were made out of aren’t all that easy to find anymore, which is why you don’t see them all that often.

Anything that came close was in the bridal lace section and at $80/meter and not the exact thing I wanted it was getting a bit frustrating.

After a few fabric stores my good friend Ingrid suggested I have an open mind and consider other designs. I had a good think about it (thanks in part to the huge amount of time I allowed myself to make this thing) and decided it was time to simplify.

I couldn’t find anything I really loved but a new dress started forming in my mind. All I would really require was a pattern for the top/yoke sleeve area, which I don’t know how to just make out of nothing so I picked out something simple from good old BURDA:

This pattern is basically two loose dresses, one organza overlaid over one satin that goes to the waist. What I had in mind was something with a bit higher waist and a fuller skirt but as I just wanted something with a simple collar I could work around so it did the trick!

What I knew for sure was that I wanted an underdress to fill out the skirt, like a slip or crinoline, but in cotton so it wouldn’t be itchy. I found this lovely buttery smooth cotton and started on the underdress.

The added logic of starting with the slip would be to make this dress as a warm up project, refreshing the old memory and hands to all the tricks of the trade.

Again, I had the luxury of time so I took it.

Basically, a very simple version of the dress pattern.

Here’s the back.

I wasn’t super happy with it. The top was too wide and the waist too low for my liking. After sleeping on it I realized that it might just be too much fabric under the dress to be comfortable, so…

I took it apart and started again!

You can see here that it’s not an actual skirt but shorts. The idea of the underdress was to fill out the skirt of the overdress, yes, but also to have something nice underneath when Daphne invariably lifts up her skirt to show everyone her tummy, a favorite pastime. I thought shorts would keep this Christening from turning into the Full Monty at the holy alter.

Back to work! First, I re-basted the skirt/shorts.

Then I made a waistband, not in the BURDA pattern.

Slapped it on the skirt.

And, ta da! A cute little skort!

Then I realized that it would probably sit better if it had straps so it wouldn’t slide around, peeking out from underneath the dress, looking all sloppy. I went with the idea of keeping cool and made a little front panel, kind of like really fancy overalls.

Made some straps.

Sew, turn inside out with a knitting needle, press…

Oh, lovely iron! My best buy of the last few years!

Pinned them all into the waistband, straps two inches from the back opening, and sewed it all together!

Wooo hoo! Much better! Time for some details!

Put some lacy trim on the straps and waistband.

And some cotton eyelet frill along the bottom.

At this point I realized that the skort thing might be complicated getting into with the straps and all so I clipped the legs and just made it a full skirt. Sometime around here I thought, “Oooo, I can make little shorts to go over her diapers!” Here’s a close-up of the inside seam of the slip post garment-reassignment-surgery from short to skirt.

I made a special trip to the awesome Button, Button in Gastown where the owner helped me pick out some really beautiful pieces for this dress. Here’s a shot of an akoya shell button I picked out for the underdress. You can also see the lace a bit better, all hand sewn in!

And there it is! The most adorable thing I’ve sewn in a long, long time!

View from the back!

Oh, don’t forget the underpants! Here’s a pair cut from a pattern of a dress and undies my mom made ages ago.

Sew the inseam, sew the crotch, fold over the waist and legs to create space for elastic and if you’re like me, forget to buy elastic and rummage through your own panty drawer for an old pair you can cut the elastic out of and voila! Baby underpants!

I was going to add some similar fringe to the legs that’s on the hem of the dress but thought this might get ticklish for Daphne and I wanted her to be comfy.

Instead, I broke out an embroidery hoop I was given at this year’s MaxFunCon from the wonderful ladies of Home Ec, Silverlake and Sewdarncute . I still haven’t conquered the lovely cross-stitch MaxFunCon Campfire Badge design that came with the kit, but damn if the hoop didn’t save me another trip to the Dressew in Vancouver! Thank you, ladies! My feet were getting so very tired by this point and I think the people at Dresssew were getting sick of me showing up every other day!

That’s a D, a V and a P, Daphne’s initials, followed by the date of the event 5th of June, 2010.

Next post: Daphne’s Christening Dress - Pt.2! In which Vicky actually makes a christening dress!

One of my favorite sites, The Sartorialist, featured this little...

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:04:00 -0700

One of my favorite sites, The Sartorialist, featured this little gem on how to tie a scarf.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I..."

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:54:34 -0700

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

- Frank Herbert, Dune… and me before a complicated pattern.

Here’s a shot of me at the Stephen Colbert taping during the...

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:41:00 -0700

Here’s a shot of me at the Stephen Colbert taping during the Olympics this winter. Those are my favorite gloves! They’re a bit too long (I keep meaning to take them down a bit from the tips, about half an inch) and they’re a bit too thin (great for driving or sunny Vancouver winter days but no match for real winter) and they’re super simple and plain. They were the first pair of mittens I ever made, however. I thought those thumb gussets were going to be the most mind-boggling skill to learn, the pattern notes looked scary, but I took it line by line and by the end realized they were the simplest thing in the world! That’s why they’re my faves! I took the same approach when I saw my first scrolling corner pattern. Freaked out and then proceeded to break it down.

The scarf I made from some beautiful Finnish wool my aunt Hillu sent me. It’s a mock cable stitch with these lovely colours that you can highlight and play up or down depending on how you tie it around your neck. I should really get a close up shot of it!

And finally the hat is something my genius sister made me. She crochets without patterns! Just whips things out of nowhere by eye! It’s warm and neutral coloured and you’ll find me in it all winter long:)

The best part of this picture, however, is the lady just over my shoulder. Man, she couldn’t look more pissed. Makes me chuckle whenever I look at it:)

Knitting projects

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 03:39:00 -0700

These lovely things were made for my friend Hilary who lives in Rome. It gets cold there, who knew? It’s a trellis pattern around the cuff and up the front and a moss stitch across the palms. I kind of winged this pattern inspired by the brim of this hat pattern over at Ravelry and measurements from some really great WWII mittens I found online. Made from organic cotton. Ooooo, schmancy!

Oh and this was my very first scrolling corner! Pretty awesome, right? Too bad the sweater that it’s supposed to be attached to it kept puckering. Just could not figure out the pattern after I changed needle sizes to fit the yarn I bought. Kept redoing it but, alas, it is still sitting in a bag under my desk, half knitted. Oh, bitter disappointment, thy name is knitting!

And these bad ass puppies are the Doctor Who fingerlesses I made for another friend, Shane, who lives in Australia. It gets cold there, who knew? The pattern is based on the pair worn by Rose in the episode “Doomsday.” I used this pattern but altered it a bit, giving it some ribbing and I think I altered the cast on number to fit Shane’s hands. I made a similar pair for my sister in a thick burgundy cascade wool, but don’t have a picture on hand.