While this pile might not look that bad, let me remind you that I neglected to show my desk, Seth’s desk and the dishes by our kitchen sink. Imagine several of these piles at each location and you will have a pretty good mental image of our apt on any given weekday.
ps: Honey, I promise I will clean up after my first project is completed on Thursday. :)
While procrastinating taking a break from my homework today, I made these four pins. The ONE I was going to make quickly as a birthday gift for my MIL turned into two hours and four pins. I am considering making a bunch of these to finally open an Etsy store, but am going to do some research first to make sure that these don’t look like something a million other people are selling on that site (I don’t mind being a copycat when I make things, but I refuse to sell things that look identical to someone else’s work – “Let’s get ethical, ethical, let’s get into ethics yeah”)
They are each a mix of burned-edge organza, wool, velvet and buttons. I keep scraps of things that might make cute pins in a bag and thought I should finally get to work on it! I could make an army of pins with my combined scrap/button/felt/bead/lace/random other things collection.
To make your own, make circles of various fabrics in various sizes. Make some poly-organza circles and hold the edges over a candle to get them to melt a little bit (this may take a little practice – I had both burned fingers and black melted organza after my first try). Stack them up in a pretty fashion (usually largest to smallest), add a small felt circle as a backing and sew the stack together using beads or a button. Securely sew a pin clasp onto the back and voila!
Moving right along with at least one of my goals (to knit 2o items this year), here is a collage of two finished things, and some WIPs.
Asher Vest, Kristen’s hat, Toasty mitts for Sasha,
and Garter Rib Fingerless mitts for me!
There seems to be lots of knitting happening at my apt, but now that school has started, it might have to take a backseat to full-scale sewing projects (this semester is going to be crazy BTW).
Speaking of sewing, here is a bag I made after New Years in one evening:
I’ve already used it a lot – mostly transporting other craft supplies – and I really like the handle length (refashioned karate belts) and the way the bag folds in and out on itself depending on what I am carrying.
Photos of my school projects to come – this weekend: a jacket and dress for my “inspired by architecture” project. Wish me luck!
1. Hooray for the upcoming Ravelympics (the Olympics for knitters – don’t mock me)! I joined the team of my SNB group that meets Sundays and signed up for the WIP event. My goal is to finish my Asher Vest and my long tan scarf before the Olympics are over. Which gives me two weeks, well, really from now until the Olympics are over, so longer I guess (which I will need, let’s be real).
2. At the Starbucks drive-thru near my apt, there is a stuffed Yoda doll clutching a venti cup on a high shelf just barely visible through the window while you are waiting in the line. Just a touch of quirkiness to a normally all-business, no messing around type of place.
3. I spent a good deal of the last two days sewing and knitting. Mostly sewing for new babies and knitting secret birthday gifts. I love the weekend. I also helped out with a World Relief knitting workshop Saturday AM, it was great to teach knitting to other women – maybe I need to get a new career (not that I technically have a career right now…)
4. One of my classes (Design Studio) has four big projects due:
(a) an original design based on architecture – I picked a Victorian House and will be making a dress/cropped jacket combo.
(b-c) a mini-collection of two designs inspired by a painting. I chose Winged Figure and have started one of the designs – a long white gown with the subtle design of wings on the back. The other design is supposed to be like the first in some way, but I have no idea what to make…
(d) Redesign a wedding dress/evening wear dress. The school was given three large boxes of discontinued sample dresses that a bridal store would have otherwise had to have thrown away (can’t sell certain samples). I grabbed two long strapless gowns, one in a bright blue, the other a deep brown. I have an image in my mind, but don’t know how to execute it.
I’ll post pictures of the designs and finished projects as they come up. The first one is already due in two weeks – time to get drafting.
5. Tomorrow is my day off work – I’ve got big plans including: the gym, drafting a jacket pattern, going to Susanna’s to wind yarn on her swift, and will finish off the day with laundry and watching the Psych guys on RAW (yes, that’s right – wrestling). Go Monday!
Everyone wish with me that Veera will write up a pattern for her latest knit… CLICK HERE to see the awesomeness. Thanks for the inspiration, Veera! (not to mention the bright green jealousy that does not go well with my complexion…)
1. Knitting: (a) Design 4 patterns. Even if they are simple, based off an idea in a magazine, or similar to someone else’s – I just want the experience of writing patterns for the future. Anything I come up with that is actually original I plan to publish on the blog and on Ravelry. (b) Knit 20 items. Since I am already at three and have four current projects, I foresee this one being easy (though we’ll see how school cuts into knitting time).
2. Read three non-fiction books. That may seem low for a whole year, but most of my reading time is unashamedly taken up by fiction books and Bible devotions. My first selection is a book on finances and marriage (Debt Proof Your Marriage), which I think will be very fruitful as Seth and I prepare for a potential move in the fall.
3. Tithe consistently. When you work part time and your husband is a student, sometimes it’s just easier not to give back to God what he deserves and well, what he gave you in the first place. Even though we don’t have much money, it’s my goal to stop forgetting and putting it off, and give generously.
4. Be able to do 5 pull-ups. Hopefully this goal will create a good exercise routine for me. To get to this goal, I plan to make a workout routine that I will actually follow (making the plan – easy, executing said plan – not so much). Really, I’d just like to be able to make that joke about getting tickets to the gun show and be able to show off real muscles.
5. Minimize fabric stash to only one bin. If we move, I don’t think we’ll have space to store multiple bins of the same craft item. I am pretty sure that crafting supplies in general will need more than one bin, but would like to get down to only one dedicated to fabric. Between actually sewing things and donating some fabric that I know deep down I will never use, I think this may be attainable.
I think there are probably many more goals that I have (including spiritual and financial goals that I am still working out in my head), but this seems to be a challenging and yet attainable set of goals for me to start with. Wish me luck!
What are your 2010 goals?
Seems like most of the blogs I read have already posted their first FOs of the new year, so I thought I’d better add mine to the list! Two gray wool hats for the Ships Project, and a pair of mittens for my friend Laena. She bought the yarn and asked for mittens – how could I say no? Especially when Ann and I dragged her to the yarn store for an hour when she doesn’t really knit?
Sorry about the photo – the combination of cloudy days, an iPhone camera and general laziness about photography are to blame. The blue hat was just being washed, it’s from 2009, not a new knit.
After those three more time-sensitive knits and completing Christmas knitting, I am back to my four current WIPs:
1. Tan scarf (sock yarn on size tens, stockinette stitch, half done)
2. Tan/Gray/Pink Baby Blanket (garter stitch, will eventually have a crocheted border, maybe.)
3. The Asher vest (STILL only half done)
4. A raglan baby sweater I just found one completed front for – since I have multiple pregnant friends, I located the pattern and other yarn and am going to finish it with these other WIPs. It’s going to be cute – dark tan with green sleeves.
I am pretty content with my WIPs right now - while there are a million projects I’d like to do, finishing these first as a sort of unofficial New Year’s resolution is keeping me happy and busy. Though given the research that resolutions only last an average of 18 days, I better finish these in the next week and a half… :)
Tomorrow: New Year’s Goal List for 2010!
Only a few Christmas knits this year -
Two unphoto-ed gifts for my sisters: a slouchy version of the stashy hat in a dark gray (my own pattern mods) and a basketweave/waffle-y stitch cowl in a tangerine orange (my own pattern).
A scarf for Seth (a birthday gift really) – 300 stitches by 26 rows =7800 stitches of love and warmth in manly colors:
A stashy hat for a cousin (we do a name exchange among extended family) out of soft purple yarn, I admit to almost keeping this one for myself, but don’t tell:
It fits like a slightly loose beany, but is long enough to cover your ears. I love this pattern.
I also crocheted a bunch of bowls to felt as gifts for my office-mates, will be finishing/wrapping those tonight with some candy in each…
Next up on the knitting list:
1. Two hats for the Ships Project.
2. Finish that vest, you remember, the one that has taken me almost a year to finish?
3. Lots of little things – a cowl, a couple hats – an attempt to thin out the stash a little bit for the new year.
I might also start something fun and new since I need to celebrate my two-year Knit-aversary which is in January! I know it’s nerdy, but it is meaningful for me to keep track of how far along in this hobby I have come since then – for example, during my first year of knitting, I knit my dad a hat that turned out to be WAY too big for him. What did I know about guage, I was a new knitter! This year, in my slightly older knitting state, I realized that this hat could fit the snowman we were building outside on Christmas day and that maybe the knitting world could use a pattern for “An Accidental Snowman Hat”.
Now at the start of my third year of knitting, I think I have moved beyond giant hats and denying when I need to rip something out and start again. Along those lines, I am officially making it one of my 2010 goals to write at least four knitting patterns of my own design. Wish me luck!
More new year’s goals to come in a future post.
Happy New Year everyone!
As part of our girl’s only Christmas party, some friends of mine and I made gingerbread houses.
Clare whipped up some super sticky, quick dry frosting and picked up the graham crackers and we all brought candy decorations. Here’s mine, it’s two stories with a mini-Santa in a sleigh:
We had some trouble figuring out how to do slanted roofs, and ended up eating as much candy as we put on the houses, but all in all it was a success! I do, however, now have an unquenchable craving for sourbrite crawlers…
As a gift to some football fan friends of ours, my husband designed a pretty neat quilt. One side was all Bears, the other all Vikings – this of course was necessary as she loves her purple and gold, and he loves da’Bears. (though I think it honest of me to point out that she is slowly winning him over to the purple-y side of the spectrum…) Now that Christmas is over, I can safely show you what their little daughter is all wrapped up in:
Seth did the designing and the fabric square cutting, and I stitched it up and did a simple (and not very neat) quilting job of criss-crossing over the whole thing. As per Seth’s instructions, we wrapped it to hide the Vikes side to see what sort of reaction we’d get out of Mrs. Vikings Fan:
They loved the gift and little Hannah is sleeping with it already (Vikings side up…).
