bathroom preview

I finished a sweater last night. It's blocked and drying now, and I plan to get some lovely photos this weekend. They will be extra-lovely if my husband and/or I can find the battery charger for the good camera, but so far our search efforts have come up empty.

Meanwhile, here's a little bathroom preview:

Even though I'm wearing yoga pants, a hand-me-down tank top, no bra, and it's a late-night bathroom shot in the basement, you can see how awesomely this new sweater fits. I'm pretty stoked about it.

yard sale finds

So help me I'm turning into one of those people who stops at yard sales. In some ways it makes me feel uncomfortable looking through people's old things in their own front yard. Most of it truly is junk. Junk or baby/toddler clothes, which I am no longer in the market for.

Every once in a while, though, you find something usable, even wearable. Yesterday, for instance, I found a nice red jacket for $4. It's missing a button, but I can just move the top one down to the missing spot and you'd never know the difference. I also picked up some red curtains:

                                      

No, I don't plan to hang them up in my house. For one thing, two of the panels (there are four total) are badly faded in the middle:

They are, however, made of 100% sturdy cotton with that nifty stitch pattern, and there's a lot of fabric there, so I am going to cut them up and make shopping totes out of them. I actually don't need any more shopping totes, but they would be handy doubling up as gift bags.

Next up, a giant shirt.

                                      

It's a men's XL, and a roomy XL at that.  There aren't any XL-sized men in my life who would wear something like this! Again, I picked this out for the fabric: 100% silk, with a nifty printed pattern. I'd like to make a scarf out of this somehow because I like the color (brownish red) and silk feels so nice next to the neck. There's plenty of fabric to work with, but since the print is so big I'll have to do some thinking about how exactly to cut it.

 My biggest find was a skirt, also 100% silk, for $2. I tried it on over my jeans, and for a second or two, I contemplated just keeping it as is.

The truth is, I rarely wear skirts (not especially practical for biking and garden work, which is how I spend a lot of my time in the summer), this was about 6 sizes too big for me, and being all silk it's dry clean only, which is really a deal-breaker for a messy mom like me.

It would, however, make a lovely scarf, and that's exactly what I intend to do. You can barely see in the picture below, but the outside layer of fabric has a very delicate, pretty floral pattern. It's also so thin that you can't see that design without the lining underneath, so my plan is to salvage both the outer and liner fabrics, cut as long a rectangle as I can, and sew them together to make a scarf.

I'm a tad apprehensive about the execution of this plan because the fabric is so very delicate and slippery. I went to the Electric Needle this afternoon to pick up finer-grade thread and sewing needles, which cost in total $17.40 - far more than the two bucks I paid for the skirt. I considering some dissolvable stabilizer, but that would have been another $18 and not worth it for a first-time-yard-sale-impulse-purchase-upcycling experiment, in my opinion. So it could be total disaster, who knows. But at least I won't have spent a lot of money on the fabric and I'll have the needles handy and lots of thread leftover.

This afternoon after I dropped Daniel off at a piano group lesson, I wandered over to another yard sale and got a couple of wool sweaters for 50 cents apiece that were already felted (probably a laundry mishap by the original owner!). These will be added to the pile of thrifted wool sweaters intended to be re-purposed into potholders, mittens and blankets one day. (I've done some of this already but not blogged it, mostly because they've all been last-minute Christmas stocking gifts and I didn't have time for pictures and all.)

Yes, I'm still knitting! I'm almost done with a test knit (that is already woefully late) and making good progress on a sweater for Afghans for Afghans. Updates on those things soon!

birthday socks

Happy Mothers' Day to all the mothers out there. Mine has been busy. My own mother is here (and my father, too!) for a visit. It's been completely lovely, but I've been consumed with accompanying end-of-semester juries for music school students and helping run a fundraiser for my daughter's preschool (I managed to get us on the local news!! - and we actually raised $2500, not $25,000, but we still consider it a success). So the long and short of it is that my parents and husband have spent most of their time running the kids while I do freelance work and volunteer for the preschool.

All those things have nothing to do the socks pictured below. These are for my cousin Steph, whose birthday is coming up. 

I've had these socks OTN for months now, since last August according to my project page on Ravelry. These are my portable socks, easy 2x2 rib with a shortrow heel, that I took to places where I could handle mindless knitting. I kept putting them down for weeks at a time when I got caught up in test knitting and gift knitting and OMG Daniel lost a mitten and it's going to be 2 below zero tomorrow morning when we walk to school -knitting.

But the socks are done now, and have been sent to Steph in Kansas (where she surely doesn't need wool socks just now) along with a handmade card by my daughter, who is very keen on making cards in people's favorite colors (green and orange in this case, but I think she's okay with purple socks, too).

These socks were made with the last full skeins of Knitpicks Felici that I had stashed away. I bought a few colorways a while ago, and I like it okay. Felici is nice to knit with and washes well; I've made plenty of socks for my kids out of other colors that held up very nicely. But I'm through with Knitpicks, yo. They had this giant security breach a few months ago that was handled very poorly (I had a card number stolen and had to have it reissued, as a matter of fact.) Additionally, their entire product line and marketing strategy is based on getting lots of stuff for cheap prices, which in my opinion does a disservice to the millions of people on this planet who want to make a decent living but can't because so many people like me can't resist a good bargain. I'd rather save up and buy less yarn of better quality that is made in the US by people who are treated like human beings. (Also, I have so much yarn already that I'm knitting it rather than buying more.) Before I came to this conclusion, I bought a healthy quantity of their sport weight sock yarn, and I'm trying to decide if I want to make it all into winter socks for my family or just give it away and use something nicer. Thoughts on that, anyone?

All that said, these are nice socks. They should last a good long while for Steph, and the stripes are fun and not quite so matchy.

Pattern: Oh, I don't know. I cast on 68 and worked a 2x2 rib, did shortrow heels and a wedge tow with kitchener stitch. Is that really a pattern? You know what's sad? I have a whole pile of books on knitting socks and I hardly ever even use a pattern. Most of the time I go with plain old boring ribbed socks like these. Except these aren't boring, they're lovely.
Yarn: KP Felici fingering weight in blue/purple stripes
Needles: size 1 DPNs

bags, bags, bags

I've got a little bit of catching up to do here, don't I? This month has been quite busy, and while I've been knitting through all of it, of course, I haven't had a whole lot of time to write about it. Also, both battery packs for the nice camera are dead and neither Stuart nor I can find the charger. Neither of us is the type to frequently misplace things, so it's kind of driving us crazy. I do have my little P&S to use in the meantime, so it will have to do. Life goes on.

One project I've had done for a couple of weeks now is of the mass production variety. I made thirty of these:

My daughter attends a wonderful preschool run by a wonderful director with wonderful teachers. I know that my praise of her school may seem excessive, but it's entirely deserved. The preschool has been around for 45 years; it was founded by the community in which it is located, and is one of the oldest licensed childcare centers in the city. Unfortunately, due to some rather nasty beurocratic shenanigans by a few people with a lot of power, the school is being forced out of its location and has to move. I'm on the parent board of the school, and let me tell you, it has been a difficult, tumultuous year. For reasons of privacy, I won't say anything more, but I'll just skip ahead to the part where I sewed 30 bags in 3 weeks.

Because the school is moving, there is of course some fundraising going on. I volunteered to make tote/shopping bags on which the school's logo could be printed. Then they can be sold at our big fundraising event in a couple of weeks. 

Making these bags was no picnic. I didn't want raw edges, but I didn't want to serge every seam, nor did I want to use extra fabric for lining, so I learned how to do a French seam (like in this video). I lined the very top of the inside like so:

Halfway through making the bags, I noticed my trusty sewing machine (Bernette 60, it's like a baby Bernina) wasn't sewing straight anymore. I showed one wonky seam to Stuart and said, "It looks like I drank a glass of wine before I sat down to sew!" but of course I hadn't. It was the machine, or so I thought. Three visits to two different repair places revealed that nothing was really wrong with my machine. It just needed a good cleaning, a good oiling in the bobbin area, a new spool of thread, a stronger, sharper needle, and some patience on my part. One part of the problem, too, was the fact that I used cotton canvas, which has a wide weave, so the needle sometimes skipped over the threads in the fabric, which resulted in a crooked line of stitches. I wager a bigger machine with a stronger motor would not have that problem, but all the other little adjustments helped to make the finished bags acceptable enough.

By the time I finished bag #30, I just about couldn't stand it. I don't care if I never sew another tote bag again, I thought. But you know what? Hopefully, they'll sell, and if they do, I'll happily make more for next year's fundraiser. This school is worth it.

phone call

I just had the most wonderful surprise: a phone call from my uncle. I probably haven't spoken to him on the phone since I was a child.  I feel close with my extended family, but I don't talk with anyone regularly on the phone other than my parents and my brother, though sometimes it's even sporadic with him.

Tom called me to thank me for his blanket. He's not what you'd call loquacious, and I was quite touched to hear from him in such a personal way. We talked a lot about the weather - it's a big topic everywhere these days, considering how strange everything has gotten with global warming and all - and for a lifelong farmer, the weather is absolutely crucial. Central Kansas has seen an unusually cool spring, with frost as late as this week, and he's been using the blanket a lot.

It was so good to hear from him. He's halfway through his chemo treatments now, so they're getting more difficult, but he claims to be feeling pretty good, and he certainly sounds in high spirits.

I told him I enjoyed knitting every stitch in that blanket (which is true - I didn't tell him about the many, many stitches I had to rip out, which I did not enjoy!!) and that I hope he rests and heals up. He's got a long recovery ahead, but we are optimistic. We have to be.

killing time (quietly)

My kids are coming to an age where they have a few (just a few) extra-curricular activities. Most of these last less than an hour, which hardly leaves time for me to drop someone off and leave, unless I have a short, specific errand to run, which I usually don't. Most of the time I hang around until the piano lesson or gymnastics class or what-have-you is done. This has generally been a positive influence on the amount of time I have to knit; in fact, you'd think I'd have more socks made by now, but alas the sock-knitting mojo is on a down swing at the moment. 

On Monday afternoons, Daniel has his piano lesson. It only lasts 30 minutes, during which Anya and I sit in the waiting area so I can listen to the lesson. There is a very comfy couch there (so comfy that one time Anya fell asleep on it!). We cuddle up on the couch and I knit something mindless and Anya...well, there's the challenge. She needed something to do. For a few weeks, she was happy with coloring pages. When she got tired of those, I found some dot-to-dot and easy number puzzles. We had brief success with some lacing boards. Then I ran out of ideas and just had her sit there, but she was, understandably, getting pretty squirmy.

And then, this Monday, before Daniel's lesson, she announced she wanted to bring her knitting along.

Bingo! I just hope she doesn't get tired of this because I'm totally out of ideas.

ouch

There are telltale physical signs that go hand-in-hand with many professions and hobbies. Chefs' hands are scarred with burn marks and cuts from knife accidents. Guitarists have long fingernails on their right hands for plucking. Swimmers have goggle hickeys around their eyes. Vioinists have a dark callous under the left side of their chins.

I'm not sure what's the giveaway for pianists. My hands are rather big and strong compared to the rest of me. And I've never met a pickle jar I couldn't open. But I don't have any scars or callouses to prove it.

I did, however, experience my first real sewing injury today. I'm not sure how it happened, but - now brace yourselves for this one, because it is Not Pretty - I somehow sewed through my finger this morning.

Before you go any further, be warned that it's a little gross. But rest assured, I'm totally fine, if a little sore.

Anyway, I was working on a pile of tote bags that I have volunteered to make and sell as a fundraiser for a local non-profit. Making these bags was giving me fits, which is a saga I will save for another time, but after some frustrations and setbacks, I finally got back on track this weekend. This morning I decided to try using the walking foot on my sewing machine, but it made feeding the fabric more difficult and goofed up the tension. After I broke a heavy-duty needle, I decided to switch back to a regular sewing foot, and within a few inches of the first seam, somehow my finger got stuck underneath and the needle went. right. through.

This is where it gets a little icky. You've been warned.

That's right. The needle went right through my finger. More precisely, it went in on the side of the nail and came out the bottom. I was momentarily horrified but had the presence of mind to turn the side knob and get the needle out of my finger right away. I also managed not to curse (out loud) or freak out too badly, since the kids were downstairs and I didn't want to scare them.

Anyway, all's well that end's well. It didn't bleed too much (hooray for a brand new very sharp needle, I suppose - good clean puncture wound), and it's still warm and throbbing but fortunately didn't hamper the string of rehearsals I had this afternoon.

When I told my mom about it, though, she was completely nonplussed. "Oh yeah, everyone does that at some point or another," she said. I guess it just comes with experience.