Do-Over

After much consideration, Dash is not getting the penguin. I repeat, I am not giving the penguin to Dash.

I am however, giving him this instead:

I think he'll forgive me.

Lion Brand Amigurumi Holiday Penguin.

Penguin!

My favourite kid has a thing for penguins. There's Mama Penguin, and Traveling Penguin, and Penguino... I've been meaning to make him a penguin for a long time now but finally got around to it on Sunday night.

Only problem is, I kind of want to keep him! I definitely have enough yarn for another one or two (wouldn't he be great hung from a Christmas tree?).

Maybe the penguin will be this year's gnome.

Pattern: Amigurumi Penguin from Lion Brand (Rav)
Yarn & Hook: Cascade 220 white, Jojoland Worsted black, scraps of orange cotton fleece. All on 3.5mm hook because that's what I could find.

A couple of wee quilts

The Rhinebeck weekend was a very productive one for the labs on my floor. Not one, but two babies made their entrance into the world while I was petting wool and meeting knitters. So as soon as I got back I set to work making a couple of tiny little blankies for the new tots.

First up was this little quilt for Ryotaro, who arrived two months earlier than anticipated.

Made from leftover Lizzy House Red Letter day prints and neutral sashing from Dash's Mod Sampler Quilt, plus a little bit of new kona cotton for the binding.

I added a wee name tag because, um, I botched attaching the binding in this spot but I liked how it turned out anyway. The back was also pleasingly simple.

Next up was a quilt for Diego (born on time and twice the size of Ryotaro!), the son of a post doc in the adjoining lab to ours. This quilt was made with blue and green charm squares from a pack I bought on Ebay eons ago.

It's not my normal aesthetic, in fact I find it to be a little bit psychotic what with the Ducks! and Planets! and Maps! and Watermelons! and Coffee! and Flowers! but I figure that just makes it more visually interesting for a baby. Or something. The back is a little bit more sedate and oh! ... there's that Lizzy House again.

I had thought I would use this little patch on the back of the first quilt but I didn't have room so I appliqued it onto the back of this one just to add a bit of visual interest.

So there you have it, two little quilts for two little people. I am working feverishly on one larger quilt for two larger people but shhh, that's a secret.

May the Force (and very large underwear) be with you

If you've been around these parts for long enough, although lord knows why you would be considering my dearth of blogging in the past, oh years... you'd know that I like Halloween.

I like Halloween mostly because I get to make my costume. And this year was no exception (last year was, but we don't talk about last year around these parts.) A couple of nights with a white sheet, magical sewing skills I never knew I had, some polyfil, duct tape and a glue gun and voila!

Can you guess who I was?

And it's done.

Did I mention how much I heart my new 70mm macro lens?

I heart it A LOT. In fact it hasn't been off my camera since I got it a week ago. Heart heart heart.

Bonus picture of me looking stupid if you click through to flickr on the last shot. Never let it be said that I take myself too seriously.

Pattern: Sexy Vesty by Canary Sanctuary.
Yarn & Needles: Two skeins of Brunswick Ballybrae that I got at a thrift store for $6. US6 for the body, US4 for the ribbing around the neck and arms.
Modifications: Knit the ribbing at the edge for only 2" and did the necessary decreases in the first knit round before starting the lace pattern (K5 K2tog/ssk depending on which stitch of the two was the knit from the rib). The ribbing around the neck was done for 12 rows, the arms for 9 since I was running out of yarn.

The yarn did soften a lot on blocking but this vest is still very definitely made from Wool with a capital W. I think it will definitely see a lot of wear over the winter once I buy a few more button downs to go underneath. I love me a good sweater vest.

Rebound Knit

I was knitting something beautiful beautifully. Then I ruined it. I'm a bit crushed to be honest, it was oh so pretty, a fantastic colour and then - poof. I ruined it. I'm not ready to say how but it was my own fault and until I've figured out how to fix it I'm not going to own up to what I did and to, um, whom (can a knit be a whom?).

As is often the way when something good comes screeching to an abrupt halt, I rebounded. Hard. I basically knit a sweater vest out of twine in two days. Rebounds aren't supposed to be meaningful, there is no emotional investment. Just like with this knit.

The yarn is some Ballybrae that I picked up in a thrift store a few weeks ago. It's as rough as a bear's arse and horrible to knit with. But it's a pretty colour and like I said, rebound. This should be finished by the end of the night and hopefully blocking will take it from brillo pad to something less wire-wool like. Or not. Who cares?

Knitting? For reals?

It's been a while, knitting needles, but I thought I'd show you some love again.

I took the quilt to Canada where it was very well received. I had a fabulous two week holiday in Vancouver and Victoria. I can not wait until I can go back! (I've only been home a week....) While I was away I packed a little knitting something-something to keep me entertained. Turns out I didn't need much more entertaining than the two cities, but travel between towns afforded me a little bit of knitting time and I managed to finish up one little knit.

Pattern: Ishbel by Ysolda.
Yarn & Needles: 2 skeins of Artyarns Ultramerino 4 in 161 (a sort of burgundy semisolid), 4.5mm circulars.
Modifications: I knit the large stockinette and small lace but I ran out of yarn early, possibly because I used slightly bigger needles than called for. So I tinked back to the last pattern row of section D and did the bind off from there.

The yarn turned out to be much more variegated than I thought from the skein leading to a bit more striping than I would have liked but whatevs. Considering I'm more than likely never to wear it like a shawl the variegation shouldn't be so obvious. See?

And if I wear it like this:

... I think most people would be distracted by the fact that I look like an idiot rather than the vagaries of colour.

Ta-Da!

I am inordinately proud of myself. Everyone can expect quilts for Christmas. This is too much fun to stop now!

Onwards ever Onwards

The quilt is progressing despite my sewing machine's best efforts to thwart me. The back was sewn up in a snap and on Tuesday I took a slightly longer than normal lunch to baste the sucker together.

The front....

... and ze back.

And now the bit I was dreading - the quilting. I knew there was reason to be afraid! My machine is NOT LIKING. Not liking AT ALL. I did little test sandwiches that my machine loved, breezed through making perfectly even stitches that were a thing of beauty. But put the actual quilt in there and nuh-uh.

There is something wrong with the tension of the upper thread and it keeps snapping. I checked my machine's manual and it said to lower the tension (duh!) but when I do this even by the merest smidgen.... the stitches on the bottom look like Ass with a capital A. And the thread still snaps anyways. I have called my machine very many names over the past few days, none of which bear repeating and at one point I almost punched it. I didn't, though. I've come to the realisation that it might actually be the thread that is the problem. I bought 1000m of Gutterman 100% polyester as recommended by the quilt-along, but as I've got further into the spool I've noticed that the thread seems to be overly taut.

With time running out to get this sucker finished before I head to Canada (where the intend recipients have moved) on MONDAY, I have no leeway to figure out a solution other than to curse, curse some more, and knot and hide the ends of all those rows of quilting by hand. I really hope this thing makes it through the wash....

The antithesis of a mini-quilt

The BIG project I've been working on lately is a quilt. A real quilt, one that is bigger that 22" square.

I followed a link one day on Flickr to something that was described as the perfect beginner quilt, and you know what, I think the person who said that was right. I'm making the Mod Sampler Quilt designed by Oh Fransson. The directions are so clear and precise that I think just about anybody can follow them and end up with something awesome.

My intended recipient is going to be three years old in early September so I wanted to chose a fabric that wouldn't be too sophisticated for his toddler self but not so childish that he would disown it in a few years time. I trawled ebay to no avail and then came across the Lizzy House Red Letter Day collection on Etsy. I was instantly sold.

A few evenings of cutting and sewing and pressing later I'd completed all the blocks I'd need....

And then I got stuck. I couldn't decide on a layout that I really liked. Two or three evenings were spent shuffling blocks, a week passed, then two. And then in true Pom style I said "Eff It" and started sewing. I'm glad I did :)

I still have antother row of blocks to add to this and the edge sashing to attach and the top will be complete. The back piecing is much simpler and should be done in an evening. Then the quilting. THE QUILTING! I'm a little scared.

A chronological diversion...

Before I get to the BIG project I'm working on right now, I thought I'd show y'all what I made last night. I bought a pair of jeans a while ago that fit perfectly in the store but then grew a ton width ways during wearing and as a double whammy shrunk by an inch or so in length after washing. How rude.

The jeans lay folded at the bottom of the drawer in time out, only ever shown the light of day when I was too lazy to do laundry. And then one fateful day, I tore my favourite denim skirt*. EGADS! I began thinking that instead of just giving those naughty jeans to goodwill I should refashion them into something useful...

I googled around and found this tutorial which seemed simple enough, dug out a heavy weight needle for my machine, braced myself.... and chopped up the jeans. I am so proud of myself that I stood on the table and took a picture. Not even a good picture, I couldn't wait for daylight.

I modified the tutorial to be a two panel skirt and then had to fudge a bunch to make it work. Being of the short-arsed persuasion my jeans were not quite long enough to make a skirt the length I wanted. This wasn't a problem on the front where the zipper leads to a shorter insert panel, but I had to get a bit more "creative" on the back.

I kind of like the decorative element the original seams lend to the whole look and the completely accidental tulip shape made by the curvy fit of the original jeans. The bottom hem is far from perfect but on the whole I'm very proud of myself, in fact I'm wearing the skirt right now. I'm pretty sure this is going to be a wardrobe staple this summer and I'm already planning my attack on a pair of wool trousers I ruined in the wash....

* The skirt tore along the seam of the front where the skirt splits. I repaired the tear using a bit of scrap denim from this project and a zigzag stitch in a matching yarn to basically darn it back together. I added back the original yellow hem over the darned patch and if you squint a little you can hardly tell it was ever torn.

Mini Quilts

I've been thinking about quilting for a long time, slowly collecting together charm squares and fat quarters with the idea that someday I'd quilt. Except I had novice sewers paralysis. I couldn't cut into anything because, gasp, what if it went wrong?!

Finally, finally I bit the bullet, bought some inexpensive cotton solid from P&S Fabrics and went to town on a tiny little quilt. I used 4" charm squares I bought on Ebay along with a tutorial I remembered seeing online somewhere and I did it. I quilted.

The top was machine pieced, the quilting was done by hand and the binding was a combination of both. Yeah! Go me!

After the success of my first quilt I cast about the internets looking for something that would require a bit more difficult piecing that I could then practice machine quilting on. The results weren't quite as pretty as the first go round but, you know, learning curve and all that.

And now I'm working on something bigger, MUCH BIGGER. Woot!

Stencils

I might have mentioned that I fell down a sewing hole. got stuck and never returned. It's mostly true.

I was inspired by some folks on Flickr to make a personalised wedding gift. I made a stencil based on a photograph of their dog and after an hour or so's work on a new but unloved t-shirt, I had this:

Never one to let a good stencil go to waste, a couple of days later I also had this (t-shirt courtesy of Gap):

Not exactly sewing but fabric-related nonetheless.

There is more! But you'll have to wait ;o)

The B*tch went nuts, Y'all!

(With thanks to Ben Folds for the excellent title lyric...)

Where'd I go? Answer: Flickr. 365 got me. I've done so, so much sh*t since I last posted that I really don't know what to do about blogging.

There was Maryland Sheep and Wool:

A robot:

Even some knitting (Shock! Horror!):

MORE KNITTING!!:

And then I fell down a veritable rabbit hole of sewing, sewing and more sewing. I might have even started quilting! More shock! More horror!

To stop myself from repeating, um, myself feel free to click through to flickr to get deets on that little lot up there. Maybe in another two months I'll catch the blog up with the fabric....

Yard Sales? In Manhattan?

I don't think so. So where, oh where am I going to wear this skirt?

Yard Sale Skirt from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. The fabric is a 100% cotton DIY tapestry I bought on sale in Urban Outfitters for a couple of dollars. I had to make several modifications to the skirt to make it fit properly (none of which were mentioned in the errata - pdf). Firstly I had to decrease the width of the waistband by half, then I added a button hole in the center back for the long tie to pass through otherwise I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to tie the thing without it looking like ass. Then I retrofitted the front overlap panel so that it had a hem that fell straight down from the hip. I also shortened all the panels considerably so that the skirt hits just at the knee and did a regular sewn hem instead of the recommended rolled hem.

I think I may also have to add snaps or buttons at the front to prevent any unanticipated flashing in the event of random gusts of wind. But other than that I'm pretty happy ;o)

Now to figure out how to make the next skirt on my (very short) list....

Patchy

There has been a bit more sewing chez 'pom.

Just a scrappy little pillow slip made of..... scraps. (Plus a bit from some fat quarters because really, I've not been sewing long enough to have amassed enough scraps for anything as impressive as say, this.) I sewed this up following a log cabin-esque construction over two nights. Now I'm chomping at the bit for larger sewing projects (I've maxed out the living room's pillow potential), maybe *gasp* a real bed sized quilt or "double gasp* clothing?! We'll see if my eyes are bigger than my sewing ability :)

You can WIP it!

What's on the needles?

My modified Circle Socks are slowly, slowly being knit upon. I'm trying to keep these are my social knitting project since they are the smallest most portable project on my burgeoning WIP list. The last time I knit on them was a week ago at Sit n Knit's meetup at The Point and they have been laying around in a heap, pretty much like up there, ever since!

My Dad came to visit a little while ago which gave me the opportunity to answer one of my longest running niggling knitting questions. Would the Notting Hill Vest I started for him about a million years ago actually fit? The back of this sweater has been waiting for a front for about a year and half. I stalled because I was paralysed by the thought that I'd made a mistake by modifying the design to make it much longer. A quick "hold up and take a look" with my Dad was enough to convince me that in fact I'd made a good decision and that it would fit. It was only when I went to cast the front that I discovered... the Notting Hill pattern is no longer available!

It's a good job I know my way around the internets.

The Way Back machine managed to find me an archived link to the pdf which magically still worked! But then I forgot how to count to seven (I can make it to five quite well it would seem) and had to rip out an entire chart repeat. But finally, this knit is progressing! He might get it for this Christmas (only two years late!) that is if I have enough yarn....

(Ancient picture of the back in progress just as a reminder!)

Shiny!

Last week a friend of mine sent me a message on facebook asking for a "Knitting Favour". Now, I don't usually knit things for people when they ask mostly because people don't get that knitting a scarf or a sweater isn't, like, a five minute thing*. But if someone asks me for something that I'd maybe already been thinking about, or thought was cool then they are far more likely to get a yes response from me. And so the Jayne Hat was knitted. And in acrylic no less.

Pattern: My Jayne Hat by Redshirt Knitting (Medium size).
Yarn: About half a ball each or so of Vanna's Choice Brick and Terracotta, and Wool Ease Gold. All held double throughout.
Needles: Size US11 8mm dpns
Modifications: I knit a few more rounds of the gold before doing my standard hat decreases (K8 K2tog etc...) because otherwise the hat would have been a bit short.

I have enough yarn left over to make another one should there suddenly be a rash of requests for Jayne Hats from back home. I really can't see me using it for anything else, for acrylic this stuff is pretty good but for knitting yarn it's shite. (Hi! Yarn snob!)

Bendis: We're gonna die.

Mal: We are not gonna die. You know why? Because we are so...very...pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die. Huh? Look at that chiseled jaw!

* I don't really interject all my sentences with the word "like", only when I'm pretending to be other people.

Hello? Hello!

Are you there blog? It's me, Margaret, I mean, Misplacedpom.

Oh dear. Flickr has eaten away at my blogging mojo and life has intervened in the pesky way it does with my knitting time. Then there's all the secret knitting and well, there doesn't seem to be much to blog about. But as time passes secrets no longer need to be kept, so hey look! A pair of mittens!


Sit 'n' Knit New York had a secret mitten swap about a gazillion years ago (OK, more like a month ago) and I was lucky enough to be assigned to my friend Penelope. Given a short list of likes and dislikes in pattern and yarn, I trawled around on Ravelry trying to find the perfect mittens but nothing was grabbing me. Ludicrous I know given that there about eleventy bajillion new mitten patterns added to the database each day. I also knew that I didn't have just the right yarn to make the mittens with so all in all, my creative juices were more like a crusty stain on the bottom of the glass. That was until Hila decided to destash a couple of balls of floof my way. Armed with my in depth knowledge of the Chavlier pattern and a stubborn streak a mile wide, I made up a very basic mitten pattern on the fly. I even had a little bit of yarn left for an impromptu spool knit embellishment. Go me!

Then I totally failed to mail the mittens by the deadline. I missed by about a fortnight. Not so "go me". But eventually Penelope did get her mittens, just in time for that 60F day we had a week or so ago. Oh well, mittens keep!

Vanilla

I am nothing if not consistent. After showing you my last two completed pairs of socks (stockinette), I now present to you.... a pair of stockinette socks.

My Mum gave me this yarn a while ago as a souvenir from a trip my parents took to Germany so I thought it would be nice to knit her a pair of socks from it. So I did. In about two days (a slight exaggeration but I timed myself when I knit the first sock and know that it took approximately 8hours of knitting from cast on to kitchener.) I didn't use a pattern, more a tried and tested recipe that I keep in my head at all times so a simple well fitting sock. I hope she like (and wears) them!

Pattern Notes: See ravelry for a rough sketch.
Yarn: Opal Hundertwasser Cotton 48% Cotton 39% New Wool 13% Polyamide (nylon). Knots a plenty. I'm now the proud owner of about four mini-balls of yarn from where the adjoining piece of yarn was tied on with no regard to colour sequence.
Needles: US2 for the cast on only, US0 for the rest of it.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the feel of the yarn (the colours are not really my thing) and I'm guessing that they will hold up very well. In fact I was so impressed that when it came to casting on for another sock I purposefully reached for my other cotton-wool blend yarn, Plymouth sockotta. That sock is coming on at a fairly fine clip too....

Green Sewing

I found something else to sew!

Chante mentioned in the comments that she'd made a shopping bag that folded into itself which lead me on a google search to craftster and to this tutorial. While I can deconstruct a knitting pattern at twenty paces I'm not so good at envisaging where to put seams and such to make something neat and tidy. This tutorial was really clear and the end product is very professional looking if I do say so myself.

The bag has already had its inaugural run to the supermarket and it held up well to a loaf of bread, a bag of carrots, frozen blueberries, strawberries and raspberries, and finally a couple of kiwis. Unfortunately I still came home with two plastic bags. So I immediately made myself another one :)

And the knit goes on

After what seemed like a decade of K2P2 the main body of sunshine is finished. Now to knit the sleeves, the front flap and the collar... and then I can block it because boy-howdy does this yarn need blocking! I've actually worn a friction burn around the ring/tension finger on my left hand from this twine yarn and OMG is it dusty! I've never wanted to wash a knit so badly.

Sewing for the Knitter

Part of the reason why I've been on a sewing binge is that I wrote a list. And as one is want to do with lists, I have been slowly but surely crossing things off. The last item on my agenda was a dpn roll. I can't be alone in having scattered fifths of a set of dpns all over my home, knitting bag, knitting box etc etc so I thought I could whip myself up a storage solution.

I made the pattern up based on things I'd seen floating around the internet which I'm often guilty of. Measuring? Marking? Pinning?! No, cut sew and make do!

If I had been just a little bit smarter and less gung-ho, I would have sewn a flap at the top to keep the dpns inside the roll. As it is they will fall out very easily but hey, learning curve! As a toting-device this may fall short but as a "keep everything in one place"- device it works just fine.

Now I've come to the end of my "To Sew" list I'm a little bit stumped. What to sew next? Really it's what do I want to sew next since I've pretty much finished what I needed to sew. Hmm... fabric grocery bags, anyone?!