challenged

My inspiration to sew comes in fits and starts. Changing seasons usually get me going, as do visits with my parents; my mom is an avid quilter, and her enthusiasm is so contagious it's hard not to be inspired when I'm around her! I haven't seen my folks since Christmas, but with spring just around the proverbial corner (for the moment, let's ignore the ice pellets currently falling from the sky), I've been itching to sew.

Now, usually when it comes to sewing, I go for the quick and dirty projects, stuff that is too easy to screw up too badly, and can get done in an hour or two, in other words before I lose interest. Drawstring bags, pajama pants, fat-quarter placements, that sort of thing. Every once in a while, however, I find a project worth the time and attention required to get everything right and good and perfectly perfect. I know I am capable of this. I had sewing lessons for several years when I was growing up. I believe my final project in 4-H was a nautical-themed jumpsuit with gathered cuffs at the ankles and a wide collar featuring a double row of gold soutache braid. This was the early 90s, so of course I had permed hair and wore thick glasses with pink plastic frames. Yup.

Anyway, fast forward a little over six years ago when I was pregnant with Daniel. I needed a maternity dress suitable for performance and I couldn't find any that were acceptable (I'm hard to fit anyway, and maternity clothes were ten times harder to find), so I decided to make one. I found a Vogue pattern for a wrap maternity dress and bought some navy blue crepe-backed satin and matching lining at Gayfeather Fabrics (fabulous shop, and the owner is ever so nice and helpful). It took for-freaking-ever. I made a muslin of the top to make sure it would fit. The fabric I used was so slippery that I had to hand-baste every seam, and even then I screwed a lot of them up and had to re-do them. It's a wonder I finished the thing before I went into labor, but I did. In the end, I think I only wore the dress twice - once for a voice recital about 2 months before Daniel was born, and once for my final doctoral recital a month before Anya was born. (Funny story: my piano duet partner for part of the recital was also preggo and due the exact same day I was. We got a few laughs when we waddled out on stage together.) I was really proud of that dress.

I don't think I've challenged myself on a sewing project since that dress. Until now. Enter: the messenger bag. The pattern is from Little Things to Sew from Oliver + S, and I'm making one of these bags for each of my kids. I started with Daniel's because he is so excited to have his, he can barely stand it. (I love that my oldest child still loves the things I make him.)

I'm taking my time, though, because I want to do everything just right. This pattern is complicated and has a lot of pieces. It took several days just to get everything cut out, and there are lots of steps in the instructions. Also, I made bias tape for the edging. This $6 bias-tape maker is my new favorite sewing tool:



Here's a peak at the front panel of the bag:



Daniel chose the main fabric (at Gayfeather!) and I went out later to find the solids for the bias tape and lining (Stitchers Crossing to the rescue!). There are what feels like a million little steps in the instructions to making this bag, but so far everything is going swimmingly and I'm really enjoying myself. I hope to finish this soon, and then I'll share more details about the process. I do want to mention that the sewing instructions by Oliver and S are excellent; everything is clear and easy to follow. I haven't had to rip out any seams yet, and that's saying a lot.

case of the mondays

Mondays for me are a series of pick-ups and drop-offs. Take one kid to school, kill a couple of hours, take the other to preschool, cram a run and a shower and lunch into about an hour and a half, pick up the first kid, give him a snack, pick up the other kid, figure out dinner...it's that icky combination of being quite busy without getting much of anything accomplished. I have finally figured out that I should make Monday the day I run a shorter distance, and then make up for that shorter distance by doing intermittent sprints for the last mile. So far, so good.

I grabbed last 15 minutes before picking up kid #1 to take a couple of mediocre pictures of a hat I finished over a week ago.



Pattern: Rosebud by Jared Flood
Yarn: Hand-dyed Romney wool from Yorkshire Rose Farm.



This hat was very fun to knit. I've never gotten bored knitting a Brooklyn Tweed pattern. But the final product? Meh. I went with the larger slouchier version, and it looked completely stupid on me, so I ripped back and to one fewer repeat of the cable pattern. This helped, but it still has an unfortunate mushroom shape on my head. I do not understand this, because all the project pages on Ravelry look really good on everyone, even the super-slouchy versions! (I did check gauge, and mine is dead on, so it's not that.)

I may try this pattern again and just go with the smaller version all the way. Meanwhile, this blue is the perfect color for a friend of mine who can really rock a slouchy hat. I think it was meant to be hers!

one more

This week I finished one more sweater for the current campaign for Afghans for Afghans (details here).

It's only one more sweater, but it will keep one more child warm for one more winter. I hope.



I used the same blue yarn as for the zippered jacket I finished a couple of weeks ago (also for A4A), but to keep things from getting too monotonous, I tried a slightly different pattern. Instead of a bulky top-down cardigan with garter stitch edges, this time it is a bulky top-down pullover with rolled edges.



I used a Knitting Pure and Simple pattern. KPS patterns are great standbys for children's sweaters. I like that they are seamless and that you can kind of figure out the sizing as you go. I've also never encountered an error, not a single one, and that speaks to the quality of these patterns. Unfortunately, this time around I had some strange gauge issues. For one thing, it turns out that my stitch gauge with this yarn is tighter in the round than back-and-forth (not that surprising, but kind of annoying when you do both in a sweater, though this one was mostly in the round so it didn't matter much). More significantly, my row gauge must have been much more compressed than the designer's (she doesn't list row gauge in her patterns, which is my sole complaint about them), so I ended up ripping out the top half of the sweater to add more non-increase rounds in order to keep the armholes from being comically shallow. The sleeves took a couple of tries as well. They were nearing the circumference of a garden hose before I pulled them out and re-knit them with the decreases spaced much farther apart. What's really strange about this gauge thing is that I knit the zippered jacket with a KPS pattern in the exact same yarn, using the same needle size, with no issues whatsoever. Gauge is a fickle thing, is it not?

The end result is that I have a sweater slightly smaller than I intended, but still well within the size guidelines for what A4A is requesting. It is warm and sturdy, and, thankfully, finished!

clara parkes at mkg

For the first time ever, I plan to go to the Madison Knitters Guild meeting tonight. I've never been to one of their meetings. I've never even been interested in joining. I guess I just don't feel the need to be part of a large organization of knitters. Knitting is a solitary thing for me, and while I'm delighted to happen upon other knitters - which tends to happen when you knit socks in public places such as the elementary school right before kids are dismissed - I don't really have the inclination to seek them out. I'm also not particularly fond of large groups of people (unless I'm performing in front of them, oddly enough), and in case you didn't know, the Madison Knitters' Guild is quite a large organization, over 500 members!

Occasionally, though, I'll hear of a speaker or knitting event worth braving the crowds to attend. A few years ago when Stephanie Pearl-McPhee was the featured speaker at the Guild's Knit-In, I went for the day and was delighted not only to meet her, but also Meg Swansen. They are both every bit as awesome in person as they are in writing, and then some.

The draw tonight? Clara Parkes. Y'all, she is one of my knitting heroes. I have all three of her books (The Knitter's Book of Yarn, The Knitter's Book of Wool, and most recent, The Knitter's Book of Socks), and I find them all charming, interesting, and enjoyable to read, much like Elizabeth Zimmerman's books. When I got the latest one, I actually would lie in bed reading it before going to sleep, something I usually do with, you know, novels. My husband found that a little odd, but then, this is the man who reads Russian novels and programming tutorials in his spare time. To each his/her own, right?

I don't know if Ms. Parkes will have time or inclination to do a book-signing, but I'm bringing all of mine just in case. Of course I'll have knitting, too, a couple of easy projects that can be done while doing/watching/listening to something else:



I've got a plain top-down sock and the last bit of a sweater collar. I expect it's enough to keep my hands busy tonight!

party favors

Daniel turned six on Tuesday. For the first time ever, we decided to throw him a real, actual birthday party with lots of kids and cake and all. I can't possibly host something like this at our house, so we went all out and rented one of those party-chain-gym places. They run the party and provide service ware, drinks, and clean up, so supposedly we're paying all this money to make things easier on us, but I tell you what, I've been busy all day making chocolate cupcakes and mini-pizzas and stuffing bags of party favors. Here are a few of them:



Daniel insisted that we not use bags that will just "get thrown away," which certainly appeals to the strong environmentalist in me, but it made for some extra work. Not that these bags are in any way complicated or elaborate, mind you. I just cut up some flour sack tea towels leftover from another project and sewed them into drawstring bags approximately 5"x7", and then stenciled the stars on with fabric paint. Daniel chose the colors for the stars and helped stuff the bags with things like pencils, tiny notepads, fruit leather and chocolate candies.

The party starts in about an hour, which gives me just enough time to sit down, take a few deep breaths, and figure out the best way to keep 18 mini-pizzas (probably twice as many as we need) warm until it's time to eat them.

what we take for granted

This recent absolutely heartbreaking article in the New York Times stopped me in my tracks this morning. After 10+ years of military occupation of Afghanistan, and children are freezing to death in Kabul? It's unthinkable. I can't imagine the grief and anger those families are feeling. How many of us take our heated homes for granted? Probably all of us.

It's so easy to feel completely and utterly helpless in the face of suffering that is this massive, this unjust, and above all, so easily preventable. But instead of throwing up our adequately warm hands in despair, the important thing is to do the right thing and take action. For me, that means contributing knitted items to Afghans for Afghans when I can. It may be the drop in the proverbial bucket, and it may not save a life or right the terrible wrongs that have been committed in Afghanistan, but one more sweater or blanket or pair of mittens may help keep a child a little warmer, and that's something.

Last night I finished sewing the zipper into a cardigan for the current A4A campaign. They are calling for children's garments (to fit kids age 7-16) and blankets. In light of the harsh winter they're experiencing, this seems more urgent than ever.



Pattern: Children's Neckdown Jacket #249 by Diane Soucy (Knitting Pure and Simple)
Yarn: Northampton Bulky, in the color "dark navy", which isn't very dark at all. I bought loads of this to make a sweater for my husband, but it turned out to be a bad shade of blue for him, so I'm making it into A4A sweaters instead. This one took exactly 5 skeins (down to the last inch, as it turns out), and I've got 8 left!

I feel like I should cast on another right away. I have plenty of this yarn leftover, so maybe I will.

not-quite-perfect yellow hat

Sadly, the yellow hat I made Anya last year is getting a little small. She still wears it, but it doesn't always adequately cover her ears. We're having such a mild winter here, that isn't as much of a problem as it would normally be! Still, she needed a new one.

I let Anya pick out the yarn at Lakeside Fibers the other day. Yes, I should have shopped the stash first (I do have other yellow yarn, if I must be totally honest) but they were having a clearance sale and even the Malabrigo was 20% off! Malabrigo is not my favorite yarn, since the single-ply-softness makes it feel like it's about to fall apart. However, my daughter tends to complain about knitted things being itchy, and I figured the Mal was a safe bet.

Since Daniel's Windschief practically knitted itself, I decided to use that pattern again. It was done in less than 24 hours! Anya is happy with it:



The color, "Pollen," is not quite as bright as it's showing up in the photos. It really is a lovely shade of pale yellow, which means of course that it completely clashes with her bright yellow scarf and gold-colored hand-me-down winter coat. The important thing is that she likes it and it keeps her warm!



Now that I've knit the pattern twice I have to say I'm not in love with the crown decreases at the top of the hat. It calls for k3tog, which is not only hard on the hands, but makes for some funny puckering that is not rectified by washing and blocking (though it helps a bit). The puckering is not as obvious when stretched out over the head, but a hat that is too stretchy tends to ride up over the ears.

So, while this is the most recent yellow hat I've made for Anya, I have a feeling it's not the last. I can't help but wonder, though, if by the time I finally make Anya the perfect yellow hat, she'll have moved on to a new favorite color!