Tag Archives: sewing

Felt ornaments

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So our Christmas tree is up but not decorated.  I want to make some felt ornaments so the twins can help decorate the lower branches of the tree.   I actually ventured out to a few stores Friday afternoon for some supplies.  No Black Friday mobs in the afternoon.  

Future felt ornaments

The white cutouts are some of my paper patterns that I’ll need to transfer to cardstock or thin plastic so I can reuse them.  Not shown are assorted beads and embroidery floss.
Starting new projects always gets my heart pumping and my creative juices flowing.  I have a few projects I need to finish before I dive into these…listed in no particular order:
    1. Musica mitts: one down, one to go. Deadline: December 22.  I’m using fingering weight yarn and think sport weight would have been better for a larger mitt.
    2. Three Spud & Chloe earflap hats: one finished, one waiting for strap, one waiting to get started. Deadline: December 10 for these two  and December 22 for the third one.

    Toddler size hats

    3. Buttons for the above mentioned hats.  Deadline December 9.
    4. Seamless slippers for Dr. Professor: finished except for sewing on the rest of the sole. Deadline: last week.

    Teal and heather green seamless slippers

    5. Soakers: One halfway finished, one still in a ball.  Deadline: December 10.
    6. Ms Ida mittens: One thumb to go.  Deadline: December 9 (though the recipient wanted them yesterday).  This is an old progress picture. 

    Ms Ida CLM right palm

    I must confess that these are not for the meek.  For some reason I could not get the thumbs right so abandoned the pattern and figured out another way to decrease and keep in the pattern.  Sort of….  If I’m brave, I’ll post a picture.

Background info

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I grew up in a family where people made things.  They recycled things before it became fashionable.  My parents and grandparents lived through the Depression in the 1930’s.  They had a vegetable garden and canned those veggies for the winter.  We had quilts made from scraps of fabric used for our clothes.  Braided rugs made from old wool coats, suits and skirts.  I have two of those braided rugs in my home today.  When I look at them, I see pieces of skirts and dresses I used to wear, suit jacket scraps from my aunt handmade clothing, my sister’s old skirts.  Fond memories.

We also had redesigned blouses, skirts, and dresses made from out of style clothing.  Our clothes were custom-made and the first time I went to a store and tried on a dress that didn’t fit, I was shocked.  Store-bought clothes could be altered but never the way a custom garment fits.

Oversized mohair sweaters were the BIG thing when I was in junior high.  My grandmother FORBID us to buy one.  But my aunt bought one each for my sister and me.  We weren’t allowed to wear them around my grandmother for the longest time but eventually she found out.

My grandmother taught me to knit and sew.  My aunt introduced us to be paint, construction paper and felt.  My mom helped us with papier-mache and rubber stamps and provided a place to be creative.  We made spatter paint and stencil cards with felt and sequin embellishments.  So cool to a kid.

So my interest in all arts, crafts and handiwork came from those people as well as my home economics and art teachers.  I have friends who got me involved in cross stitch, ceramics, jewelry making, paper crafting.

We’re having a dinner party tomorrow night.  Last night I cleaned off the island in my kitchen, set the table and made wine glass name tags.  I’ll post a picture of those tomorrow.

I knit a few rows on the slippers and have four more rows before the decrease rows and then I will have one finished.  I don’t know if I’ll get the other finished by tomorrow or not.  They are a belated birthday present for one of my guest/friends.  I could give her one of the other pairs I have in my stash but I picked these colors just for her.  Again, pictures tomorrow.

I won! I WON!!

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No need to congratulate me, really.  I truly deserve the award and I wasn’t even trying to win.  In fact I wish I wouldn’t have won…the Dumb A** of the Week Award.

I was cutting out some fabric with a rotary cutter and wasn’t paying attention to where my thumb was.  It was riding along the business edge of the rotary cutter.

It’s a smooth cut.  It’s a DEEP cut.  And it’s still bleeding.

Fortunately I didn’t get any blood on the fabric.

I might be able to knit if I put a big thimble over the end of my thumb so the wound doesn’t reopen.  That is if I can get it to stop bleeding…

Knitting Police

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Ms Ida’s Chain Link mittens are in a time out until I figure out how to finish the ends as I don’t like the pointiness (made-up word).  

MS Ida CLM right back

 

Courtesy of Knit Picks Ms Ida Chain Link Mittens

 

 I’ve got two Swiffer covers almost finished.  It’s just the sewing/seaming on the multi-colored one.  Have I mentioned how I hate seaming???  

Swiffer covers

 

The green one was from a pattern I can’t find right now (but it was 17 stitches in seed stitch using size 7 US needles, knitted for 15 inches) and the multi one from this pattern.  

At first glance the multi one looks like a keyboard.  Heh.  

I knew a woman many years ago who knit sweaters for herself  and her husband during lunch.  She could get a sweater done in a week.  I asked her how she finished her seams as it takes me almost as long to seam up something as it does to knit it.  She said she gave the pieces to her mother to seam.  And she sewed them on her sewing machine.  

I had never heard of such a thing.  Isn’t that against the law?  Isn’t that just wrong on every level?  

Yet the Knitting Police never arrested her or her mother.  

I live in fear of the Knitting Police therefore I rip out and redo when something just isn’t right.  But sewing seams on a sewing machine on hand-knitted items is just sacrilege, is it not?