Hand spinning - a personal history

In preparation for my friend's visit over Christmas I started tidying up my living room and came across some partially plied handspun. This fiber has been spun in fits and spurts over the course of maybe a year. In the spirit of tidying, I plied and plied and plied some more, wound, niddy-noddied, skeined, washed and stretched and voila! 300 yards of yarn! My living room was maybe not as tidy as I would have liked when my friends arrived.

This is only my fourth handspun yarn and I have to say, damn, I'm good! HA, the humility!

I taught myself to spin after watching my friend Amy make some beautiful lace weight with her drop spindle, buying a beginner kit from a store on Etsy. I'm not going to mention where because I was extremely frustrated with the kit. The spindle was not very good quality and didn't have a notch on the top which I really need. Then the fiber, one part was combed top, the other was a batt and was snarled and just plain impossible to spin from as a beginner. After fighting with it and cursing more than was probably necessary, I finally wrangled something useable out of the fiber.

 

124 yards of varying thickness that I knitted up into a pair of mitts for my mom.

The leftovers from this original kit I kept as singles. Delicious, delicious singles.

Emboldend by actually managing to produce a useable product from such a bad start, I purchased myself a new pretty spindle and a bump of fluff from a different Etsy seller. And spun up thread. Lots of pretty thread.

 This yarn is pretty stuff, if I do say so myself. 530 yards of fingering weight. Beautiful. Given that this was a skill I thought was beyond me in the first weeks of trying, I'm glad I stuck with it because it's relaxing and oh so satisfying. There is currently 4oz of a lovely green fiber waiting for my next spinning adventure, but I'm trying really hard to not acquire a stash. Spinning is a slow process!

One more whale, because, why not?!

This time I paid attention to the directions (funny how that works) with regard to the orientation of pattern pieces and fleece stretch and look! The curve in the tail came back! Since this whale was gifted to a 6 year old I used buttons for eyes. This might be my favourite so far.

 

Swimming on a sea of knitted diamonds off to Seattle.

More softies

My fleece arrived from Hancock's Fabric, and man is it easy to sew with!

First up I made a Japanese rabbit for Craft Hope:

This pattern is from another Japanese craft book I bought back when those were all the rage. He's supposed to have a dress but for some reason there was no pattern included and my brain could not wrap itself around making one. So I sewed on some bright red tennis racquets instead. I think it works.

The second fleecy creation was another whale, this time for a lab mate who had a baby boy on the same day my nephew was born.

 

The fleece made the curves much easier and I only managed to put one pin tuck in there. Somehow I lost the curve in the tail (possibly because I forgot to sew the little dart in the back piece, but I still think it's cute.

Auntie Tina!

My sister had a baby boy!

Project 19 :: Dolls, Animals, and Monsters. Oh My!

Craft Hope recently launched it's 19th Project - to make soft toys for children affected by Hurricane Sandy, a project I could really get behind.

I had a look through my fabric stash and Japanese craft book collection, consulted Pinterest (what did I do before Pinterest?), ordered a pattern and poly-fil and set to.

First up is a whale made from a DIY Fluffies pattern and a thrifted craft pannel.

 

This is labeled as an "intermediate" pattern, I'd heartily agree! I found the tight curves in the tail very fiddly and so there is a bit of pin tucking and creative fudging n the tail. There were also a few things missing from the tutorial, like sewing up the darts and clipping curves before turning right side out but I think those are fairly obvious things to do. I think it's still pretty darn cute though.

Second up is a little doll from a Japanese book I bought years ago, Nuigurumi style (ISBN4-05-604179-2).

 

For her I used scrap flannel and tree print fabric from the swap table at Quilt Guild, and more of that craft panel for the dress. I'm not sure if the pigtails are a bit too bunny ear-like but again, I'm pretty happy with how she turned out!

Little Triangles Quilt

Finally New York has seen some daylight! After a couple of days of not being able to see the bridge out of my window for the fog (double rainbow reference shot), the sun finally burned through this morning providing me with enough light to photograph my finished baby quilt!

 

I've been referring to this as my "Little Triangles Quilt", for obvious reasons. Since I riffed off a commercially available pattern seen via Pinterest, I'm not going to list any dimension specifics but it's pretty easy to figure out. Mine is a little different from the original in that the scrap triangles don't meet on adjacent squares, but it's very close so I don't want to do my inspiration a disservice :)

 

 

I really like how the scrappy binding blends the triangle colours all the way out to the edge, I pre-planned the colour sequence with this in mind. It worked even better than I imagined.

 

For the back I used a piece of green fabric I picked up at a thrift store. I'm a little worried that it's thinner than quilting cotton and so may not hold up very well over the years but, I guess quilts aren't meant to last forever. The quilting is a little difficult to see, but I did a double grid 1/4" away from the seems on the squares, and then mimicked the diamond pattern formed by the alternating neutrals.

I'm pretty sure this is going to be a gift for either my cousin, who is expecting in March, or my lab mate, due in February...

Franken-binding

In the continued spirit of scrapiness, I cobbled together a bunch of scraps to make binding for the little triangles quilt. The colour sequence sort of matches the scraps around the perimeter and I'm hoping adding a bright punch will liven the thing up a little. It's looking a bit too pastel for my taste!

Quilting Heretic

I foresee some pretty heavy handed steam ironing in my future...

Damn you bias seems!

Quilting Bug

The past few weeks have been very intense as far as graduate school and and getting the hell out have been concerned. I had my final Faculty Meeting last week, one that my boss causally told me I should prepare for as if it were my thesis defense four days before said meeting. I honestly have not been so stressed out and SO NERVOUS since I took my first driving test. The fact that I called it my first driving test should give you a hint that it did not go well, like, examiner slamming on the brakes five minutes in kind of not well. While I still contend that he overreacted, I still failed pretty spectacularly.

But! I did not fail my Faculty Meeting! In fact I got GLOWINGLY positive comments. I don't take compliments very well but everybody was so positive and congratulatory I felt as if I really had just defended, without even have to write. Of course I do still have to write but I'm feeling a lot better about the whole thing than I was a week ago.

All that is a long preamble into what I've been up to in the week since.

SEWING.

I took the day after my meeting off, slept til 11am and then sewed all day. It was blissful. I finished a secret quilt that might actually be the most favourite thing I've ever sewn (but I'll have to wait to post about it until after Christmas). Then my hands got itchy and I started hand quilting my majora quilt, until I broke my thimble and had to stop. I know, first world problems.

 So then I turned my attention to my scrap pile, and with one eye on pinterest started cutting 3" squares. 64 of them. Then I sliced up my only two neutral prints into 6" squares and sewed and cut and sewed and cut until...

Approximately 15 hours after I took this the top is now all sewn up. Just who I'm making all these baby quilts for is unclear to me but I'm sure having fun doing it!

Two very quick hats for the Rockaways

The cruel timing of a Nor'easter straight after a hurricane got my brain whirring and hands knitting. A quick rummage in the nether regions of my stash where lone balls of yarn accumulate like dust bunnies, one episode of X-factor and some ridiculously large needles later I had two hats to add to my pile of winter wear for donation. I made them on the small side as children's hats. I hope they kept someone's head warm today.

 

Sandy-induced Cabin Fever Quilt

Once we knew on Sunday that the storm was going to be very big and real, I scurried out to my local grocery store to buy water and milk. I knew I had no work on Monday. I watched TV while the reporters speculated incessantly and I got antsy. While I have several quilts in progress I was so restless I couldn't settle on one of them to work on. So I started something entirely new.

A few months ago I mentioned going to a rainbow themed party, and as part of the preparation for that I'd scoured my local thrift store for anything remotely rainbow. And I came out with these delightful culottes.

 

While they were the most unflattering things to wear, the shot cotton was really pretty so I decided to keep them for some future reuse.On Sunday night I carefully picked them apart, ironed all the seams out flat and cut out 5.5" squares. Then I chose a searingly bright coordinating solid (kona papaya) and sashed with 2.5" wide strips. For backing I chose a bright green polka dot (from Sunday in the Park by Piece o' Cake Designs) that I also found at the thrift store, and binding was cut from another thrift store find, a fuchsia pink curtain panel printed in navy with boats and nautical text.

By Monday night, just as the worst of the storm hit, I was finished.

 

 

 

Luckily my building was spared any damage, although my building at work did flood (in the basement server room - I'm trying not to think about the consequences of that). I'm shocked by what I'm seeing on TV, it's hard to fathom what is happening just blocks from my home let alone the devastation along the shore...

Second Bout of Insanity is Over

Given that I'm not really sure why I started the first blanket, the second is an even bigger mystery to me. All I know is that I wasn't ready to stop and given that I still had so much yarn left over I couldn't not keep going. And so the second blanket was born, an improvisational log cabin made out of sock yarn on the the same ridiculously tiny needles. This one was much less photogenic but I tried my best to document my progress over on flickr.

And now... after several nights of applied i-cord, a wash in the tub and a surprisingly quick block, the second blanket is finished!

 

Blocking on the living room floor...

 

And hanging up with its sister blanket in the same atrium I photographed the first, with little old me for scale.

I'm feeling a little conflicted about the end of my knitting era. I've been knitting these blankets for over two years. It was time to finish, and it's time for me to graduate and move on and away from Grad school, two events that are very much linked in my mind. One thing down, the other much harder one to come.

End of a knitting era

I've been posting some "tantalizing" instagrams on Flickr this week.

 

And that can only mean one thing.

 

 

The insanity in over.

 

My turn in the Bee!

After totally dropping the ball and forgetting that this was my month, I stayed up til the wee small hours Thursday night prepping fabric for my Lucky 13 Bee-mates.

The quilt I want to make is called Trajectory and is designed by Monkey Beans (finished quilt here). Each Bee member is going to get a packet with five 6.5"x6.5" squares in various shades of pink through purple, five 8"x6" rectangles of various shades of yellow, and the paper templates. I decided not to print out instructions on how to paper piece the blocks because that seemed very wasteful. Instead, I asked people to follow the very clear directions found HERE.


I'm looking forward to getting these back and playing with the gradations of colour!

A cast iron metamorphosis

Oh the things pinterest will make me do! Well not make exactly but you know what I mean. Suddenly because you saw a pretty pin about flower arranging, or cake pops or sewing your own panty liners, those things suddenly become feasible things for you to try despite the fact that they had never even been a blip on your radar beforehand. So it was with cast iron.

I saw a pin a while ago showing a grody cast iron skillet transformed into gleaming black magnificence. Then I found a grody cast iron skillet for $6 at a thrift store. It was meant to be. Following the pin took me to this series of blog posts explaining the science behind cleaning and seasoning cast iron, and with zero trepidation I dove right in.

The pan was in pretty rough shape when I got it. The inside was both covered in crud and rusty where the seasoning had worn away, but there weren't any really obvious flaws in the casting. I sprayed it liberally with oven cleaner, sealed it up in a garbage bag and left it in a corner for two days. The sludge that came off was too gross to photograph, but after a quick rinse and scrub I was down to bare iron and rust.

Since I didn't have any wire wool and the rust wasn't coming off with my scrubbing sponge, I decided to risk a vinegar bath (50% with water). Vinegar can damage the underlying iron so I was a little bit worried and didn't leave the pan in very long, maybe two hours, then scrubbed again and the pan was ready for seasoning.

According the posts I linked to above, flax seed oil is the best option for seasoning. I ordered a bottle from Amazon and in the meantime started seasoning using coconut oil as suggested in the comments. Coconut oil didn't seem to be giving me anywhere close the the finish I was expecting after four cycles of high heat treatment. The pan remained gray and didn't feel like it was becoming any slicker. However, once my flax seed oil arrived, the first coat turned the pan a WONDERFUL dark glossy black. I'm not sure if the coconut oil pre-seasoning helped with creating the illusive "black rust" people aim for with cast iron but damn, the pan was starting to look amazing.

Three coats of oil, three times heating to past 500F for an hour and I now have a thing of beauty to use in my kitchen. Behold... the skillet!

Wedding Quilt Finished

After debating for a while over which of two vintage sheets to use as the backing, I experimented with 505 spray baste (LOVE IT) and quilted simple straight lines to echo the piecing and accentuate the sashing. Then I trimmed and bound using some leftover Sip of Summer fabric from my previous quilt.

 

It's really quite pretty and crinkly even without having been washed, which it will be in due course. During the making a whole heap of concrete dust got into my apartment due to construction on the exterior walls on my building. It's been a bit, shall we say, gray in my apartment.

Since the recipients are "related" to me through the lab, I thought it would be fun to take a few shots of the quilt by my bench.

 

The back lighting lets you see the backing fabric just a little, a vintage pink floral bed sheet purchased from Abby Hare Vintage on Etsy.

 

And because everyone is always telling me to do this and I never do, I added a small quilt label on the back. I embroidered over my own hand writing, applied it to the quilt with fusible interfacing then embroidered around the edge. I'm not sure this is going to hold up in the washing machine so if anyone has any hints as to a better method, please let me know!

Wedding gift in progress

A lab mate of mine is getting married in October and I decided to make them a quilt as a wdeding gift. There are only a select few people I would consider making a quilt for, and part of the decision whether to make one or not is based upon the relative craftiness of the recipients. Since he owns his own Victorian desk top printing press and she makes all her own belly dancing costumes, I think they know the value of handmade ;)  

 

At the bridal shower I learned (through an informative round of "The Newlyweds" game) that her favourite colour is pink and his orange or blue. So off I trundled to ebay where I purchased two 40 charm packs of Timeless Treasures Tonga Batiks in pinks and blues, and a couple of yards of Moda marble mates in baby white (very slightly cream coloured, almost solid). A few hours of very simple sewing and I have a quilt top! I've ordered a vintage sheet from etsy for the backing and am planning either turquoise or grass green for the binding.

Saturday Afternoon Refashion

A friend of mine was having a rainbow themed birthday party last night. This particular friend just so happens to be a burlesque performer and, given previous burlesque parties I've attended, two things would be for certain. One, someone was going to get naked, and two, the costumes would be awesome.

Given that I own nothing rainbow or rainbow-esque, I spent an hour or so in thrift stores on Saturday morning trying to find something to wear. Turns out, if I was under the age of six I would have been set, as an adult though I was out of luck. The closest thing to rainbow I found was this men's shirt.

 

Kind of rainbow-ish but way too big for me. So I pinned a well fitting sleeveless shirt over the graphic, and cut around the side edges and arm holes. I seamed the sides with a french seam since I pinned with the shirt the right side out and I didn't want to risk things getting out of alignment turning them wrong side out. I cut off the collar in an arc about 1/2" below the existing collar, then cut a curved hem at a length that I like. All the edges were then turned under and hemmed. A little roughly, I was running short on time!

To add some interest to the back I followed a tutorial I found on pinterest,  sliced and braided and voila! Interesting back!

After I'd finished I realised there was a little hole in the front (like there is on all of my own t-shirts) so I may either try to patch with a little bit of fabric on the back, or will hem to make a more cropped shirt. Either way I think I did good with the half hour I had, and as a bonus, the shirt only cost $3!