Felted Kitty Hats

It's not as if they needed more hats, hats are just the perfect transformative accessory and I just can't resist making them.
At all.
   So I saw this kitty bowler hat from Marks and Spencer on Pinterest and I just had to try it. My favorite yarn store, i.e. my mom, ordered the yarn from Brown Sheep and knit up the initial hats from this Fiber Trends pattern leaving the finishing to me.

 If I were doing it again I would make them 1 1/2"- 2" shorter before felting, because I think they turned out long. The ears are double knitted: They look 20 stitches wide, but they are really 40. With two double pointed needles you slip every other stitch on each row so you end up with 2 knit stitch faces to your work. Every third row I slipped with the yarn forward instead of behind.

Once the ears were sewn on and all ends hidden I threw the hats into the wash for some quick shrinkage, but I had to finish up by hand. By that time I was at my in-laws for Thanksgiving, and I found the perfect hat block: A medicine ball! It was all knobby and just the right size as I reshaped and finnessed the hats into shape.

All that was left to be done was embroidering the faces on with a chain stitch.

 

Silk Lace Peacock Shawl: An Experiment in Dyeing

In a feverish quest for iridescence one young hero conquers adverse circumstances, and most importantly her own fear to imitate one of nature's most awe-striking wonders: The peacock. Did she triumph? You be the judge! 

 Note: Dyeing is an art and a science, but I apply it as art. This post is meant to be a creative journal showing my decision making process on how I dyed a shawl in peacock colors rather than a literal dye recipe. I considered splitting this into smaller posts, but it's hard to find them again if you are searching, so this one is just really long. 

It all began 3 years ago...

–See the diary after the jump!

Found: Crocheted Lace Ruffled Sleeve Cap

Had this been 1986 a line would have been crossed. Too much fullness added here, and this sweater would have skipped right from “sweet” to “cute.” (Hint: Sweet is okay, but isn’t it hard enough to be taken seriously without someone wanting to pinch your cheeks?) For so many reasons, luckily this is not 1986 and this sleeve cap is inspiring. If the fit were as spot-on as the styling it would be a winner, but the sleeves are out of proportion to the body causing them to pull and tear at the armpits. 

Found at the Goodwill Outlet warehouse --where you pay by the pound! The tag says Absolutely Creative Worldwide. 

Repurposing ideas anyone? 

This gorgeous image has me thinking head wrap, or it could turn into a child’s dress that would go with this shoot. What else?

A Third Birthday, and a "Berry Cute" Hat

 We celebrated Thacia's third birthday several times this weekend. I am so proud of how hard she is working to become the lovely person she is turning out to be. Blessings on your journey, sweet girl!

I wish I had pictures to show you, but there's this terrible habit I have of working really hard on something and then not documenting it. There are no photos of our craft: iconic conical party hats. There are no photos of the pizzas they made. There are no photos of them trying to feed the wide mouth frog puppet. The very tasty daffodil cupcakes and how they-all-had-candles-and-no-one-was-lit-on-fire went undocumented. The thing I will remember most, though, couldn't have been captured on film. The kids were so courteous to each other without prompting. It's one of those shining parenting moments where you realize you might not be launching a barbarian into the world every time you leave the house. There were so many pleases and thank yous, and eagerness all around to be good to each other.

  
Damaris is a child of many hats. She has been cheerfully borrowing other people's hats all winter, but I finally just finished one for her very own today. She loves fruit hats, so I tried the Berry Cute Hat from Fiber Trends. The toddler size was tight, so I ended up making it adult width, but toddler length. I feel like it's a little awkward, but she is loving it. What do you think?

In Progress...

 
It is time for a very quick works in progress report! A sudden dip in temperature this weekend lit the fire under me (or should I say iced me?) and reminded me of all the cold weather items I want and need to be making for my family! I have been remiss, but it is hard to remember how cold cold is when it is in the 90s. For one thing, my husband hasn't got a scarf since he lost the one he stole from me back in college. That is changing now.  

Next there is this coat I have been needle felting and embroidering on. I found it new at Goodwill with a few other wool jackets, and I thought I'd embroider them and resell them. But when Daniel realized they fit like gloves, he wants me to keep them. This happens to us all the time. What do you think? 

 
 Lastly, here is my progress on Thacia's quilt design. Given that I have only made 2 quilts so far, and they have been crib sized, obviously I am a great expert on quilting. That's why I decided to do make a Hawaiian quilt of my own design, that will actually be asymmetrical and very curvy. I have never hand appliqued anything this big, but I am pretty darn sure thistles are not the ideal image for a project like this. 

You have seen other steps of this project here, here, and here as I have screwed up my courage to do this crazy project I've never seen anything like, in a technique I have never used, to make an item I have never made before, all before my child freezes to death. Wish me luck!

Two Solutions for Yarn Floats, and the Last Stocking

It only took, what, 4 attempts? 5? to get this last stocking done. Sometimes that's how it goes, right?

So here it is. Fireflies and Fir Trees. I like it, it looks magical. I ended up putting 4 stripey stitches down the back to make up for the smaller chart so it is the same size as the other stockings. 

Below is the inside of the stocking. When you are doing color knitting, also known as intarsia, you have to do something with the yarn that isn't being knit. It can kind of hang out on the back, as seen at the top of the stocking, but the rule of thumb for floats, as they are called, is that they shouldn't be loose for more than 3 stitches. So every fourth stitch the color isn't used, you twist around the working color to keep the excess in. 

I wanted to show you another technique, here on the bottom of the work, which is used in cultures that practice a lot of intarsia knitting like Scandinavia or Peru. They twist the yarns with every stitch. This yields a stiffer yet more elastic fabric. It is also a bit slower, but once you get the hang of it, it isn't irksome. I knit with both yarns on my finger at once rather than dropping yarns, twisting, and resuming. I reach over and under the unused yarn as I go, to keep the excess yarn worked in. The advantage is that there are no floats at all to catch your fingers in.  

Scandinavian Stocking Design Process

The design process is so personal and different for everyone, but I am always really inspired by seeing people's processes. Maybe you'd like to see mine? 

The only stated goal I remember having for this year is knitting family stockings. This is the last one, and it's only September! I fully expected not to do them and freak out about it on November 15th, to be exact, so I am high-fiving myself on not procrastinating. Above are the first three stockings. 

The first and third charts were adapted from Poetry in Stitches by Solveig Hisdal. It turns out it's out of print and I could make bank if I were willing to sell it. But don't ask, because I am not. Don't go buying that book for stocking patterns either, because there aren't any in there. Nevertheless, it's been worth it's expanded price tag to me. I browse it once a month or so.

 For the middle stocking I wasn't finding anything that sang to me. I wanted a floral border with movement, so I charted it myself. The most important thing about charting intarsia designs is to remember that stitches are wider than they are high. Thus, you chart the thin man and knit what ends up looking like a gnome.

I don't know how I decided I wanted to do fireflies and firs, unless it's from this picture, in which there is a conspicuous lack of fireflies. "Why fireflies?" you ask. "Fireflies aren't a part of Christmas in your hemisphere." Do they have fireflies in other hemispheres? I don't even know! Properly speaking, pine trees have nothing to do with the first advent of Christ any more than fireflies, but no one questions them. 

So in this picture I am playing with different sizes of bugs. The originals on the right are from Lesley Stanfield and Melody Griffith's The Encyclopedia of Knitting. It's a title that sounds pretty conclusive for such a small book, but its strong point is really in design ideas rather than technique. I reach for it twice as often as the more exhaustive Vogue Knitting Book. In any case, I arrogantly thought I had it all figured out here, and just needed to chart the repeat. 

    
This is the repeat, and I started knitting and recording my steps in case I ever needed the pattern. Oops. The repeat was 2 stitches too big. How did that happen? It looked funny. 

How to get rid of 2 stitches? How how how? How to do it when I was so bleary eyed from needing a nap that I couldn't chart the simplest pine tree, much less a repeat?  

I ended up shrinking the bug more, but it decreased the pattern from 28 to 24 sts. The nature of the pattern doesn't gracefully allow a decrease of 2 sts, more's the pity. I decided to just deal with it. 

Then I knit it up, and the trees were too stubby while the areas around the fireflies were too open. The trees could be pulled in, shrinking it up more, or I could find another solution. I decided on little star pinpoints, and now I think I am on the right track. What do you think? You think it's upside down. I'll just have to ask again when I am done.

When you are making something new do you tend to plan it all out, or just dive in? Are you more inclined to seek perfection, or settle for speed?

Stocking and Waiting

Sometimes you just need an attainable goal. I started Christmas stocking number 3 out of 4 yesterday during the long rain. It is the first of the series I fully graphed myself. I like the swirliness of this one.

I also started reading the Humanure Handbook because poop is probably what we do best around here these days. At least we could get some flowers out of the bargain, right?

I can't fully decide why these days and nights are so long and tiring right now, but every day for a few months now I wake up thinking the next day has got to be shorter. This season has to change at some point! And no, being told that motherhood goes by too fast is not encouraging at the moment. I may sound melodramatic, but I am actually really encouraged. At times in the past I would have just given up and been dragged along, but I genuinely recognize that this period of fatigue and babies has got to be temporary, as aggravating as it is!

Hey Girl, I Love Your Mess

You know that "Hey girl" Ryan Gosling meme that was going around? I know... that was so last month.

My favorite was the one where he said something like "Hey girl, don't stress about me stepping on that pin. It's my fault for walking barefoot in the dining room."

The thing is, I have that dream man! Our house is filled to capacity with works in progress, and we were having company over for Sunday dinner in 10 minutes or so. I stepped through the door and thought "What a revolting mess." He stepped through the door with a sigh of contentment and said "I love our life. Don't you love our life? I love being surrounded with the things we are working on."

Friends, Whether he was serious or sarcastic, he was rewarded.

Sometimes I look at needlework blogs and think everyone gets more done than I do. You might think the same of me, so I'd like to give a tour of the mess. Keep in mind these are the things that are out. There are more projects put away. Oi. 

At the top you'll find a baby sweater almost finished. I designed the pattern, mom knit it and gave it to me to finish, hopefully before the child is 30.

Mmm, lovely. Kitchen scraps waiting to be mixed with nitrogen and browns for another shot at composting. I want to make compost, not mulch, and it's a surprisingly ticklish business. I simply cannot accept that I wouldn't have the skills to grow my own food and thrive in a post-apocalyptic world...which is just another reason you love me, right?

Daniel's Christmas stocking. Now that the holiday rush is over I figure what's the rush? I will feel this way until approximately November 15th, 2012.

A pin. I need to print photos of the girls to put in it, but not until the. last. instant.

This one has been sitting around for a long while. My mom wove it so I could try some shibori felting. More likely than not I will end up with an unusable piece of fabric in the end, so I am petrified. Meanwhile, this useless fabric occupies valuable worktable real estate. Brilliant.

I found this wood shaving wreath in the dumpster. I like to imagine why perfectly good stuff ends up there. Was it a gift from a recent ex-boyfriend? Did she come back in lovelorn remorse only to find I already dumpster dove for it? I'm going to put a bow on it as a Valentine wreath. Hope my neighbor doesn't mind!

A bunny stuffed animal waiting to be sewn and photographed. When Damaris was two weeks old I had the urge to create. For some reason I made a corduroy bunny because I'd never patterned anything like that before. It turned out cute, and I am working on a tutorial with a downloadable pattern for you verrrry slowwwwwly.

Finally, I am also in the last stages of making a dress for the girl's baby dedication. We are dedicating them both this Sunday, and I will be sharing some thoughts here about heirloom sewing shortcuts and designing for children. 

I hope you find my disaster edifying. At the very least you can show this to your own husband to prove you are a normal crafter... above average even!

A Blur

We are slowly settling into our new normal. The picture gives you a little idea of it: The double carry. The blur. And I can't get both girls heads in the frame at once in this format. That all seems about right. This week I've felt less overwhelmed than I have in a while. What a relief!

For the last five Christmases years I've agonized over what I've termed in my head "the stocking issue:" Should we go traditional? Quirky? What is traditional anyway? And what kind of quirky? Should they match or be unique? If I were to answer those questions, how would I decide what medium to use: Sewing, or knitting?  Pieced? Solid? Felt? Lace? Intarsia? Stripes? Handspun? Millspun? Suddenly the mist cleared and I started knitting red and white Scandinavian style patterns. Thus we get the visual impact of matching without being identical. They will be unique to our family, but essentially Christmasy. Alas, I did not get this idea until just before Christmas, and it has taken about a week to finish the first one so I've totally missed Christmas 2011.  That's okay, the girls won't remember this Christmas anyway!

I hope you had a great Christmas, and a great Thanksgiving, and a great Fall, for that matter! Ready for the New Year? Here it comes...

Romper Reality

I had pulled a slip of paper from my jar of challenges, praying that it would not say "65. Make neon tasteful." To my relief it read "4. Focus on texture," the very thing I was eager to do!
Though I was going to make this pattern to share, the textural focus made it a difficult pattern to write... so no pattern for you.

I chose a herringbone type cable for the body of the romper, sort of measured one of her pajamas as a pattern, and went for it. For the buttons I used vintage mother of pearl. They all sort of almost match each other. You may or may not have noticed that the tabs at the shoulders and the placket underneath fasten the opposite way you might an older child's clothes. That wasn't a mistake... I know. SURE. But really, this girl is a genius at taking her clothes off, so I positioned the buttons so it is harder for her to get naked. This is common practice in baby clothes, but I find it more obvious on sweater knits.

I love the color. Obviously. It's the same color as this bag, these curtains, and any other ridiculous number of things I own. Greige is dangerous for me.

I may yet apply I-cord to the back neck of the sweater. The front already has it knit in.
I went for a longer length than the popular bathing suit length. I thought it would be a little fuller on bottom than it turned out. Maybe I would add an extra pattern or two of the cables if I did it again. However, it fits and looks charming and surprisingly ungendered!

About the sticks, Thacia spends a measurable percentage of her day gathering sticks from the yard into bouquets. Such a cute phase! Will her passion for yard work last into her teens?

Romper Inspiration

Have you noticed all the great rompers floating around out there in the nether? They are being made for older girls, not just babies, and they have more of a bathing suit fit lately. These pictures are of Wovenplay rompers from the publication Selvedge. (Thanks Kelley!)



I love the hot pink paired with white, the creative use of stripes with seaming, and the ruching that gives the bottom side more of a belled fit apart from the traditional romper fitting. It's so high-end and special!



Look, she's a little ruffled fairy!
These images were rolling around in my mind all fall. It seemed to me like making a wool romper would be a great way to be able to actually knit something meaningful for Thacia that she can wear in the unpredictable Texas weather. I didn't want to knit her a big sweater she could only wear twice! With a romper I can put leggings and a turtleneck underneath, or leave her bare-legged depending on the weather. It is pretty much the same concept as when I made myself wool shorts here.



When my mother showed me a skein of natural colored greige yarn she was spinning on commission I knew that was the yarn I wanted, so I did what any daughter of a yarn store owner would: I begged shamelessly and played the grand baby card. I had to wait until New Years Day for it, but it was worth the wait. If you actually pay for it, you don't have to wait for her yarn. See it here. Oh, this yarn! It is the color of flour when you add brown sugar. It is soft and nubbly in texture as handspun should be!
I feel like I have no time to knit whatsoever. How are all these mothers of small children doing it? I've been almost done for 2 weeks now, and this post is my attempt to motivate myself into finishing before the weather gets so warm she can only wear it... twice.
In the meantime it is fabulous just to knit. Handspun wool has a texture nothing else does. So springy. So much like a hug. I love wool. I even love the smell of raw dirty wool. True story.

Found: Hand Embroidered Fantasy Linens

Pretend with me for a moment that it is Friday, because my mother has found something truly fantastic! Linens!

My mother found them in an estate sale and rightly snatched them up. They are priceless, or at least I could never afford them. To the best I can tell these are hand appliqued and embroidered including the cut work. The bouillon stitches are tiny and perfect.

Am I right in saying most of us would settle for having accomplished one of these exquisite ships in our lifetime? Well, there are 5 different kinds.

All 5 appear on the runner. 2 apiece show up on each napkin. Two. And there are 15 napkins.

That's 35 tiny, perfect ships. And that doesn't even count...

the sea monsters! This is just one, but there are just as many monsters. Doesn't it look like Narnia? My mother believes they are not, in fact, of Narnian origin, but that they are from the Netherlands.

Which is pretty cool too. The only problem is that I can never ever ever use them except when serving extremely dry bread and water lest any one of the 15 napkins get their first stain. So I'll have to stick with the napkins I embroidered a few years ago.

Sea Foam and Red Color Inspiration

It has been very difficult to post without a camera, especially for Found Stuff Fridays. It is almost impossible to keep this blog current with what I am working on and thinking about because I can’t show pictures unless I sketch them or borrow a camera.

I’ve had it with this, so I saved up and bought a new camera which should arrive sometime next week. I can’t wait! I have so many delicious projects to show you!

Van Gogh La Mousme 1888

I love the simplicity of clean colors and architectural lines in clothing and decoration, but I also go through fits of the aesthetic “too much is not enough.” There is something oh so satisfying about repetition, & exciting about brilliant color. I am especially in love with combinations of punchy orange-red with glowing aqua-green these days. When I found these pictures paging through old reference books, they seemed irresistible.

Enjoy these examples!

From Kaffe Fassett's Glorious Color, photo by Steve Lovi

One morning on the way home from church on the east side, I gazed up the sidewalk to see Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably strolling my way. Fassett’s remarkable coloring was unmistakable, and any doubt I may have had vanished at the sight of Mably’s intricate tasseled intarsia fez & Fassett’s colorful scarf. All of this registered a moment after it was too late to smile or say hello. I can’t explain why I was so feverishly dumbfounded, except that I actually recognized someone on the street I had truly wanted to meet. Rosy O’Donnell, Betsey Johnson, or various models are interesting, but I don’t really have any questions for them. I wouldn’t, for instance, have died for an internship with them.

The pair passed me, and I stood there wondering whether I should hail them and introduce myself. I think that now I would. After all, they would probably have been at least amused. I can’t imagine that they get recognized on the street so often that they wouldn’t enjoy some praise. They were hardly being stalked by paparazzi. But in the moment my collegiate self was full of doubt, so I have not shaken their hands yet.

From Kaffe Fassett's Glorious Color, photo by Steve Lovi