sewing – Page 3

The full gift list

October 8, 2015 Marie Leave a Comment

The husband told me I should probably make a list of all my projects so I don’t lose track. So this is exactly what this post is. Allow me to present my epic to do list of holiday crafts and gifts:

5 knitting bags (3 done. Also, I may end up making more than 5 depending on what random holiday gift needs come up)
1 cardigan for the husband
1 quilt for the Little Mr
2 holiday ornaments
1 holiday countdown/advent piece, though I’m undecided on what, exactly, it will be.
3 flannel shirts for the Little Mr
1 holiday stocking for the husband (I’ve given up on knitting mine this year so it’s just the one unless I suddenly get though my projects in a hurry)

Missing from this list is a lot of gifts for a lot of people. I can’t decide what to make for everyone on my list, and the niece and nephew will probably just want money. So I might make them an ornament and that’ll be my handmade contribution to their ornament boxes. Same with the stepson and his girlfriend.

Also, I’m not sure that I really want to spend time making something for someone and it not be appreciated. So there’s that. Not everyone is knit worthy, I’ve learned, and my time is more precious these days.

I also have a baby gift to knit, which hasn’t even been started yet. It’s not a sweater, at least, but I can’t ever do something easy like a knit ball. So I really should get on that, too.

Giftmas presents, round 1

October 5, 2015 Marie 2 Comments

Two bags down, 3 to go. I actually just finished the dog one this morning really quickly – all that was left was to stitch the corners and flip it right-side out. The inside lining needs hand sewn to finish where I turned it right-side out but I’m waiting to do that until I get them all done so I can just do it all at once. Bags 3 & 4 are in the cutting process but shouldn’t take too long to finish – the first bag is always the slowest, but once you get the process down it speeds up and, before long, you’re making them without looking at the directions anymore.

They’re too small, honestly. I thought maybe they’d be a perfect sock project bag but I tried putting in a skein of unwound sock yarn and it’s snug. A wound ball of yarn is less bad, but you have to factor in trying to get your sock WIP in the bag with the ball and then that makes it tight. So these might end up being knitting accessory bags more than project bags. Oh well. I’ll just have to remember this next time I decide to make knitting bags and upsize the pattern a few inches each direction. It’s too late, now, and it would look weird if certain knitting friends ended up with a larger bag than the others.

Now that it’s October, it’s time to start counting down to my annual cabin trip weekend with the girls. This means not only deciding on what I’m taking to knit (and, hopefully, finish since I have quite the WIP list right now), but also packing/planning yarn dyeing. This year I have a sock blank, which I’ve never tried before, and I ordered some grey Full Circle roving from Knit Picks. Most of my fiber dyeing has been on white, so I want to play with the dyeing of the grey and see how pretty that comes out once spun. As far as the knitting that weekend… Ugh. I have no idea. I have too many projects going right now. I feel like, with a solid weekend of distraction-free (well, kid-free) knitting I need to pick projects that I don’t generally get to work on at home. Things that require more focus and attention than a sock project. That pretty much means the Husband’s holiday stocking, since it’s stranded and requires a lot of focus to stay on the right pattern row.

But, for now, the focus needs to stay on holiday gifts. I have about 32 days until that trip. I think I can hammer out quite a bit in 32 days, now that I think about it. If I can get the holiday gifts done (or most of them, at least) between now and November, then I can sail smoothly into the holidays and enjoy them as I’m hoping to.

Moving right along to October

October 1, 2015 Marie 2 Comments

Last night I settled into the craft room, determined to finish a shirt for the Little Mr. It’s my first go-round with the Oliver & S sailboat top and… it wasn’t going well. The shirt is made very sloppy because I suck at directions. There are folds and tucks on the sleeve because I’ve never set in a woven fabric sleeve before. The raw edges along the seams are… well, raw. The pattern didn’t tell me to overcast those edges, too, but it also didn’t tell me to enclose the seams nicely, either.

By the time I got to the last part – the sleeve hem – I was overly frustrated. How am I supposed to hem the sleeve on a child’s sized shirt when it’s too small to fit on my machine?? Ugh.

So I moved on. I started in on another holiday gift project using some spoonflower test swatches I ordered. I didn’t want to pay $11 or whatever it is for a fat quarter of something I’d not use again, so I decided to use the custom fabrics as a panel instead. These are paired with some fabric scraps from another project, and I haven’t decided on the lining fabric yet.

Basically, I spent 2 hours in the craft room only to not finish a single project. It’s a good thing this is only October and I have time before these all NEED to be made.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

September 11, 2015 Marie Leave a Comment

Let’s pretend I didn’t set the camera up on the self timer to take these, okay? Let’s just go with the idea that I have someone following me around in the craft room taking my picture and that I didn’t at all have to run over to where I wanted to stand and wait for the picture to take, then run back over to make sure it looked okay or if I needed to take another and repeat the process more times than I’d like. PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!

My Dorothy apron is done. This one fits differently than the one I made before and I’m not sure why… seam allowances, maybe? I’m almost certain I didn’t pay attention to seam allowances in the past so that might be why the other one felt like a better fit on me. I’ll have to go dig it out of the kitchen closet and compare and see, I suppose. Maybe my body has just changed more than I realized post pregnancy.

Anyway. That photo of the pup and I just kind of happened. I kept trying to get pictures of me in the apron and they weren’t working out very well. I either looked awful, or the apron fabric needed fixed, or some other random thing about it was off. We don’t let the dog upstairs very often because she’s 13 with back issues but when I’m home alone I let her up with me if I’m going to be hiding in the craft room for a while. She just kind of jumped up on me to get my attention… and the snap has turned into my new favorite photo of us.

So onto the next project… the Wiksten tank dress. Yes, yes, THAT pattern again. This is probably going to be the last one I make for a little while because I would like to try out another pattern or two that I’ve purchased. I’m still working on that Mesa dress but just have hemming to do and I have to wait for my Amazon order to arrive and bring me the twin needle I need. So for now I’m using up more of the fabric I’ve recently purchased to make a dress version. It’s definitely a slower process than the last version. That brighter blue is sheer so I have to line the dress with some sheath fabric. which meant cutting the pattern twice, then stitching the layers for the fronts and backs together before I could begin stitching up the shoulders and sides. I have all of that done now, however, and just need to hem it all and apply the facing. I can’t decide if I should leave the curved hem, though, or just take it to my cutting mat and make it a straight cut. I think it’s a bit long, given that I’m only 5’2″, but I might wait until the husband gets home so I can ask his opinion first before I do anything.

I’ve had a very glorious kid-free day today, with taking the toddler to Nana’s and then coming back home to have time to myself. It’s been lovely. I’m not totally ready for it to end, however – I had this laundry list of things I wanted to work on today with my free time because I’m a huge over achiever and I’ve only gotten a fraction of it done. There’s still a bit of time, and there’s always after bedtime. But I have this really nasty habit of thinking everything I want to get done will take half (or a quarter) of the time it actually takes.

I’m going to need some ruby reds.

September 2, 2015 Marie Leave a Comment

I’m being super lazy tonight and sharing an Instagram photo. My camera is somewhere downstairs but it isn’t like it matters – I’ve probably got several weeks worth of photos on there that I haven’t had the time to edit and write about here. Sigh Sooo cell phone updating will have to do.

I got a new sewing machine (more on that in another post), so I’m breaking it in with a new apron project. Many years ago I was obsessed with this apron pattern and had purchased enough fabric to make four of them. One actually ended up made, another I attempted to make as a half apron and ignored the directions and winged it – and failed – and the other I ended up using the fabric to make a skirt (also winged it, also failed). This blue gingham and white eyelet had been tucked away in the closet since then.

I knew from the beginning I wanted this combo as an apron. It’s why it didn’t get used on a different project. As a little girl, The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie. I even went as Dorothy for Halloween, and this was back before it was more popular like it has been in recent years. My mom sewed me up a dress, and we took some old church shoes and glittered them up ourselves. I hated the constant requests to click my heels by neighbors, but they all thought I looked fabulous. So there’s a lot of nostalgia in this apron for me. Kind of an adult version of dress-up (but not the “adult” version if you know what I’m saying and I think you do).

With Halloween coming up, and a new machine to play with, it seemed like a perfect reason to finally make this up. I’m not sure if we’re passing out candy this year or if we’re going to let the Little Mr go to a few houses of friends in the area, but either way I’m probably going to end up wearing this thing outside of the house. Maybe even with my own DIY ruby red slippers, just like my childhood pair.