Spun to finished

It's taken a couple of years but I'm always excited when I take a project from fiber, spin it up into yarn and knit up something with it.

It started out as a purchase in 2008 at Rhinebeck

And through the years it changed

It sat around for a few years as I tried to figure out what to do with it. I didn't want to make a hat or mitts. Then a couple of months ago, I stumbled across a pattern called the Quaker Yarn Stretcher that only takes a couple hundred yards of worsted and looks great with hand spun and creates a good sized scarf/shawl.

And so...

FO Friday - A sweater! A finished sweater!

It's the Sunday Henley pattern by Neoknits from her book Metropolitan Knits.

 
Funny story behind this. Someone else on the ravelry Puck This! group was knitting it when it caught my eye. I found I already had the yarn called for by the pattern and there was a little bit of egging on in the group to get me to knit one. I LOVE the stitch pattern so that's what helped me to decide. So, it was a little bit of peer pressure. Now that I think of it, the person on the ravelry group is a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. Neoknits is a Philidelphia Flyers fan (and pointed out this is a nice Flyers orange). I'm a Washington Capitals fan. In most other worlds, we would not get along.

Pattern: Sunday Henley
Yarn: Quince & Co. Chickadee
Needles: US 6 (4.0mm), US 7(4.5mm)

FO Friday - Heartbroken Valentine

I do love my spinning progression pictures.

This fiber is a Bullseye Bump from Loop! It's a piece of roving in a long color gradient so you get some really long stretches of color. The colorway is named "Moody Valentine".


It starts from a dark purple and transitions to grey and then white, then pink and finally black.



I navojo plied the yarn and ended up atih 365 yards of something close to worsted weight.

The pattern is called "Fragile Heart" and so I decided to call this project "Heartbroken Valentine". The shawl is knit from the center out with increases on every row at the sides. With each section of the pattern, you move up a needle size so interchangeable needles come in handy here.

FO Friday - fast knits and not so fast knits!

I actually finished this Honey Cowl a couple of months ago. I just never got around to taking a picture. The Honey Cowl usually calls for a DK weight yarn. I used bulky. I cast on 250 stitches to start. Let me just say, this thing is HUGE! It can hang from my neck down to my knees!

Next up is Henslowe.

It's a little shawlette that fits just around my neck. It was such a quick knit that I started it last Thursday and finished it up on Wednesday. I used 1 skein of MadelineTosh tosh merino light in the Tomato color. There was something about this project had me obsessively knitting it. Otherwise, I don't think I would have finished it so quickly. I think I will make another one but much much bigger.

FO Friday - A larger bag!

I had to go get some brown fabric to make the handles and finish up this bag. More zebra print on the handles felt like over kill.

The bag measures 9.5 inches across the top and 6 inches tall. The bottom of the bag measures 10 inches long by 3.25 inches wide.

I really like the size of this bag! I can fit a small knitting project with a wallet and phone. Or I could probably fit a medium knitting project and make it a knitting bag.

Monday, I'll start the instructions for constructing one of these bags, starting with drawing out the pattern. For now, a materials list:

• 1/2 yard exterior fabric - heavy weight quilting cotton or lighter weight home decor fabric - You can also use 2 fat quarters
• 1 yard interior fabric - quilting cotton - You can also use 2 fat quarters
• 1 5/8 yard medium weight interfacing
• 9 inch hex purse frame - I bought mine from Sun Belt Fashion. It seemed sketchy when I placed the order since I didn't get any acknowledgement of my order but a few days later, my order showed up. An alternative source is Ghees.
• 4 bag feet - Also Sun Belt Fashion, Ghees, or Joanns
• 4 rectangular rings, interior width measures 1 inch - I bought mine at Joanns. If you choose to buy a different size, just know that you should alter your purse strap width.
• plastic mesh grid - for something solid in the bottom. You can find this at your local craft store
• matching thread
• ruler, rotary cutters, scissors, paper, pen/pencil, pins, and other general sewing needs.

A walking foot and a heavy duty needle for your sewing machine is recommended for when you're topstitching through some of the bulkier parts of this.

FO Friday - Bags!

I've been on a bit of a sewing binge, aside from the quilting. I love bags, I really do. I also really love bags that have a frame for the opening. I had made bags in the past and sometimes they worked out well, sometimes they didn't. The recent bags have been working out really well.

First up is the Cavernous Carpetbag from U-Handbag. I've had a 10" tubular bag frame sitting around for a couple of years and was trying to find a cute pattern to use it on.

I've also been an admirerer of the U-Handbag blog and it looks like in the last couple of years, she added this pattern. Her pattern is written for an 8 inch frame or a 12 inch frame. I had to modify the pattern for my 10 inch frame. Thank goodness for math skills and ratios!

The one thing I would do differently? The pattern called for quilting cotton for both the exterior and interior and fusible fleece. I had a home decor fabric that was slightly heavier than quilting cotton and I didn't want to make it too stiff so I used regular medium weight interfacing instead of the quilting cotton. I should have stuck with the fusible fleece since the bag body isn't as stiff as I would like it. Overall, I'm happy!



Next up is a little clutch that I had designed. A couple of years ago, I had made U-handbag's Hex Open Bag Frame. I didn't quite like the size and I wanted a wider bottom. At the time, I didn't quite understand the bag making concept and so I didn't quite get there. I've recently been reading up and watching Craftsy videos and the bag came together. It's a little small but I'm also working on a slightly larger one.

It's a good size for make up or to act as the catch all bag in your bigger bag.

I do know how I made this and my thought process for this bag so coming soon, hopefully Monday, I'll start walking through the pattern drafting process and then the bag making process.

FO Friday - Icelandic Sweater!

My Icelandic sweater is finished! It was about 556 yards of yarn, much less than I had anticipated. It is incredibly warm! It is so warm that I really don't think I need sleeves to wear it here in DC. If I ever moved to Iceland, I can see needing sleeves there for the winter but it's too warm for that here. The pattern is the Lett Lopi Vest. You'll have to scroll down to the bottom to see the link.

FO Friday - A quilt!

This is not my first quilt but it is the one I'm happiest with. The quilts I'd made in the past were for full/queen sized beds and they weren't very manageable on the sewing machine and I only partially knew what I was doing. I only knew what I could read from books. I didn't know any quilters and there weren't things like Craftsy to give you some lessons and hints and tips.

I started out with the Bungle Jungle and Kona Snow layer cakes and made a bunch of half square triangles. I wanted to keep the piecing simple. The order of the squares were randomly arranged with an eye out to avoid having the same pattern next to each other and keeping all of the colors evenly spaced around.



I'm also very happy with the hand sewn binding. I think all of the bead embroidery work has helped to improve my skill with needle and thread!

FO Friday - Ishbel

I finished Ishbel! 3 skeins of sport weight madeline tosh. It's huge but that's how I wanted it. I love the color! The pattern was a quick and easy knit.

FO Friday - Rock Island

The yarn is Jojoland Harmony (cobweb weight) and was acquired from a friend in a yarn swap. I came home with way too much lace weight so I figured that I really needed to do something about the thousands of yards of lace weight in my possession. There are many more lace shawls to come this year!

The pattern is called Rock Island and it is by Jared Flood. The crispness of the lace pattern has always intrigued me. The border is knit as one long strip and then you pick up along the side and start knitting in towards the center so that the number of stitches on the needles decrease as you go. The border strip felt like it took forever. Once I picked up the body, it zoomed along from there.

FO Friday - Java Sparrow

I started with this


and spun it really really thin and took, what feels like, forever. Really, I started in November or so. I then Navajo plied it into a 3 ply yarn and to keep the colors together.





There are a couple of sections that I'm not too happy about but I'm hoping it's not noticeable once knitted up.

FO Friday 1/25/2013

I finished up a couple of things last weekend that I'm really excited to share with you! First was my travel project. It was simple knitting that I could carry around with me and doesn't require much brain power to knit. This was part of the Woolgirl Fairy Tales kit for Peter Pan. The pattern is called "The Cowl That Never Grew Up"



Next up is something I'm really excited about. I wanted to knit a dress for Vogue Knitting Live. It's a knitting convention. It was in New York City! I started with the pattern for Textured Tunic with Side Slits from Stephanie Japel. This is the sweater on the cover of her book Fitted Knits. One morning, I woke up with the idea to lengthen the sweater and make it into a dress.

If there is interest, I can go into details about the modifications I made but to sum it up I:

• recalculated the pattern to knit this in a DK weight yarn (Lousia Harding Grace wool/silk) instead of the aran the pattern called for.
• moved the basket stitch section at the chest to the high waist for more of an empire waist look. I looked through the various project pictures in ravelry and really didn't like how it looked as a band across the boobs
• included waist shaping. The pattern didn't have waist shaping. I liked the shaped look of the sweater on the cover of the book which they pinned.
• changed the hem/bottom slits so that there is just a slit on my right side rather than slits with buttons on both sides.
• knitted straight down for the sleeves rather than create a bell sleeve as the pattern called for

FO Friday

I keep forgetting to do my Friday post!

Last week's surprise project was a Baby Surprise Jacket (BSJ) with a matching hat. One of my friends is having a baby and I had never made a BSJ before and the construction technique has always intrigued me so I figured this was a great time to try my hand at it.

The yarn used is some Madelinetosh Vintage. It's a superwash worsted weight wool. I didn't want mom to have to worry about hand washing it if the kid threw up on it. I'm sure she'll have a lot more important things to worry about.



I found some cute buttons at the yarn store to put on this.



Finally, I had some leftover yarn so I decided to make a hat!

Finishing things

I've heard from some of you that you're enjoying these weekly updates. I'm really glad to hear that so I'm going to try to keep them coming!

I'll show you the finished knitting thing next week. For now, this week, I made some pear cranberry jam.



I think took some of that jam and some raspberry jam that I had sitting around and made some jammy cookies for a yarn party today.



In the last couple of years, I've found myself enjoying the jam making and canning process. It's too bad I can't eat through it quickly enough but I've been enjoying what I've made.

FO Friday 12/7/2012

Some finished things!

First up, I took a couple of Laura McCabe classes through the Northern VA Bead Society a couple of weeks ago. Some of her stuff I find that I can whip through very quickly. Others take a lot more thought and brain power. The Stargazer Bracelet was the first of two classes I took with her and the component came together very quickly for me. I had most of it done by the end of class and had the whole bracelet together the next day.




Next up is the NVBS Bead Challenge project. Everyone who participates is given the same set of beads and we all have to create something with those beads. I wish I had taken a picture of the beads before I got started but I'll know better for next time! Mine ended up being a hair stick with fringe!