a sad time

i said i'd write about my recent pause.  we lost this little boy on august 12.

we took him in as a stray, probably around a year old or so, and had him just under two years.  actually, i had been looking forward to his september 'birthday' post.  he was always a sickly thing, and i kind of knew he wouldn't have a long life, but it was still hard and i still wasn't ready.  i still can't believe it.

he got sick really fast and we don't know why he died.  i was a mess for a little while and now i'm more at peace, but this is the first time i've looked head on at a picture of him and it's kind of hard to swallow.  it really broke my heart.



imogen cowl

i've taken a little break after something unexpected happened... which i'll write about on another day soon. fortunately for the imogen cowl, knitting was a good coping skill last weekend, and on top of knitting furiously during a recent trip to bar harbor, we're done.

i knit this using rowan cashcotton for a little stash-busting. i realize now why i had such a hard time finding the right project for this yarn (and i don't think this was the one); it has poor stitch definition and is fuzzy, but after blocking the pattern was more visible than i expected.

overall i liked this pattern - it was the first lace pattern i've done that patterns on both sides, so it took a little longer to memorize, but once i did it was pretty easy to remember. the resulting pattern is really pretty and it might convince me to knit another imogen pattern by carrie bostick hoge.

overall a nice little project: take a look at another beautiful imogen cowl just recently finished! (wish i could have done mine in 10 days!)

photo from mrsmurrayknits

i'm loving the quince & co. patterns recently and now that i'm starting to experiment with cotton (and worried about it's lack of springy-ness) i'm thinking about either this cardigan:

or a version/rendition of something like this (different sleeves, oversized and similar neck).

photos from quince & co.

any votes? i've got 6 skeins of gray seedling by classic elite (but can probably get more in the same dye lot if i need to).

i made my own underwear!

don't worry, i didn't model it.

but i'm pretty dang excited about it! it doesn't look so pretty in these pictures, but it fits surprisingly well and is pretty comfortable. this will help with more ethical choices so i can minimize one more sweatshop corporation purchase hopefully.

these were a little tricky; i used this isismade tutorial. i drafted a rough pattern from a pair i already had, without disassembling those, then made a quick sample from an old tank top so i could readjust as necessary. then using that pair, i drafted another, more precise pattern. i wrote the stitch settings on the pattern because they are very different for the type of zigzag i used. i also made note of the elastic length (20" for the legholes and 23" for the waistband).

now, my zigzag stichting varied from a flatline heart attack to nice and even, so i need to practice a lot more than that. i did not even think about what the grey thread would look like on the legholes until i turned it over - i used white for the waistband, and have to remember to use white from now on. another note for the future is to stitch a little closer to the bottom edge of the elastic, because the elastic kind of flips over when i wear it. other than that, these are suprisingly... wearable.

magic marker socks

remember my little color dilemma from the 4th of july? i finally sorted it out by casting on 48 stitches and using the simple sock pattern from madeline tosh. well. "i sorted it out" i guess is somewhat subjective, if you call the resulting christmas-elf-striped-sock "sorted out."

i'm easy to please i guess, because i still like them. i happen to think that what they actually look like are white socks that some colored stripes on with magic marker, and for some reason i love that.

however, if i were to tell the truth, i actually wanted them variegated sort of like the heel below, but that seems to happen only if you knit back and forth. very few back and forth sock patterns out there though...

i did use reinforcing thread on the heel and toe and my sob story of the day is that i ran out of thread with ONE INCH left of the last toe! what?! shouldn't one spool be enough for a pair of socks? this was a sunday, and i was thrilled to think i had finished these socks in 10 days. i could not get to an open yarn shop that CARRIED reinforcing thread until the following thursday, and then four minutes later, my socks were finished.

i love foot modeling as much as i love clothes modeling. not a little bit.

knitting breakthroughs

look at this contraption! a knitting breakthrough. a DIY yarn swift. i loves it.

store-bought yarn swifts are not in the budget, so i used this tutorial to construct my own, easy and good. along with this tutorial from knittinghelp.com (a website that is another knitting breakthrough unto it's own) on how to hand-wind a center pull ball, i'm feelin' pretty self-sufficient.

if you are currently hanging skeins of yarn on chair backs, laptops, and your boyfriend's hands (i may have done some of these) this will change your little knitting life.

a refashion from my nonna

taking a cue from granny chic week at C+C i pulled out my nonna's handmade dress that i had started and then put on "hold" for 2 1/2 years, back when i was starting to figure out how to sew. refashioning isn't something i'm very experienced with, and using my grandmother's dress is important to me, so i guess that's why i sat on it so long. i got scared.

i forgot to take this "before" picture before i dismantled the sleeves, but they were longer and wider. the theme of this dress was "conservative."

much to my amazement 2 1/2 years later, i did a pretty good job tailoring and waist-shaping, and when i discovered a zipper on one side, it took me a long time to realize i did that way back when. i didn't know i knew how to do that back then! not bad!

this week i finally shortened and narrowed the sleeves and hemmed the dress. the cool thing about the hem....

... is that i discovered this nifty little technique i guess my grandmother used for hems... and i got very excited because i have a box full of this type of hem tape (?) that i found when i was going through her sewing things last year, soooo....

... i thought it would be nice to pay a hidden little tribute to her dress and her sewing legacy and such, and i tried the same in purple! (although my whipstich doesn't hold a candle to hers).

thanks to Lizzie from C+C for the nudge!

useful things

inspired by this post and a former coworker's idea, i decided to make good use of my scraps and make reusable sandwich* bags.

i machined through them, cutting 7"x7" and 7"x4" squares from my scraps and using ripstop nylon for the linings and velcro for the closure. they are machine washable, but, word to the wise, turn them inside out before you wash them.

i used my favorite fabric (above) and now have a tank top, pillow, sandwich bag, and cat toy from this fabric. i'm unstoppable. i need to take a picture of the ensemble, yes?

* these bags can hold an array of items other than sandwiches.