p/lucky bees and rainbows (two finished knits)

Tags

bees to honey shawl, renfrew hat

I’m not sure where I read this: Ravelry? The Plucky board?

But I quoted it to my husband last week: “It is high holy knitting season.”

 

When I am not buying yarn (mostly I am not buying yarn I promise), I am drooling and dreaming and scheming about how I can get SQ’s (“sweater quantities,” to you fabric people). When I wake up, I knit a few rows with my coffee, to help my feet find the ground more steadily.

 

I started this shawl, from the Bees to Honey pattern by Amy Miller, a few weeks ago, but it’s been in the works for much longer. Back in September, I treated myself to a single skein of Plucky Bello Fingering–a fingering weight yarn that is 55% merino, and a whopping 45% cashmere. I chose my old standby favorite, gray.

A few weeks later, offhandedly, I mentioned on the Plucky Ravelry board that I had the Gris but really what I wanted was Miss Manners, the super-duper bright pink. A women who I don’t even know private-messaged me that very night, offering to sell me her skein of the bright pink. She said it was too bright for her! Nothing ever is too bright for me, so I eagerly sent her some Paypal funds.

And then! Another woman on the Plucky board who I don’t know offered her “extra” copies of the Bees to Honey pattern (she had purchased several kits) as gifts on the destash board. She gifted me the pattern. Without any planning, I had bumbled into the materials I needed for this shawl. (Materials that are actually very difficult to bumble into, seeing as how the last time Bello Fingering was offered for sale, it sold out in about 30 seconds.)

 

My luck held as I knit the pattern–many folks found they were running out of the main color of yarn before they finished the body of the shawl. I had a nub left over–enough for several more rows.

I’ll skip the part where I ripped out the lace portion TWICE because I kept fudging it up, and refer you to the first photo in this post–that is swoon-worthy lace, dearies. (And you can’t feel it because it’s a photo, but: 45% cashmere.)

I’m wearing the shawl right now and I can already tell it’s going to be one of my favorite knits of all time.

Less favorite: Lucy’s rainbow hat. Oy. It has turned cold in earnest this week, and in addition to refusing a hat, Lucy is now refusing to wear her winter coat. She’s 2.5, so I kind of feel like…she just needs to do it. At any rate, I did the good-mom thing and knitted the rainbow hat, as requested:

 

I used Jane Richmond’s Renfrew hat pattern, and Tosh Feather, a light fingering-weight single-ply merino-alpaca blend yarn, held double. I also used a size 5 needle to make the hat Lucy-head-sized. With all the fudgery, I’m surprised it came out–but it did!

 

There is a cute little faux-cable pattern on the right side of Lucy’s head–the variegated yarn hides the pattern here–it looks tricky. Oh, it is so not. I knit this hat in two days flat and I wasn’t even really working on it. Renfrew is a fun pattern I’ll definitely use again!

So, how are you dealing with the wintery weather? Are you dreaming of cashmere-y knits, shawls, and cabled hats? Or stitching up a few extra quilts (maybe minky-backed)?

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! I hope there is some sewing-machine time in it for you all.

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finished: phoenix twin quilts i and ii

Tags

finished quilts, phoenix twins

I looked back at this post and realized I’ve been working on these quilts since August.

Really, I had lost track of time.

These quilts pushed me as a quilter. I started with a tiny idea, for some paper-pieced improv chevron blocks. I pulled some fabric; my friends and I changed our minds; I puttered and thought and hemmed and hawed. I don’t usually make quilts without patterns, you see, and starting these was a creative free-fall.

What if I ran out of fabric? Chicopee is still fairly easy to find but…what if it stopped being easy to find, right at the wrong moment? What if the block design was splitty and unstable? What if it all just looked like crap? What if I couldn’t finish them on time? What if I didn’t make them big enough? (I’m still a little nervous on that count. These suckers shrank big-time when I washed them, so they’re cutting it close width-wise.)

And then the even more insidious worries, like, what if I think I’m being creative and original and really I just saw something like this on the internet, forgot, and then regurgitated it. What if my friends say they like them and really, they don’t.

So, to me, these quilts have ended up being about me as a creator. About pushing aside those evil voices that nag at you when you’re working–voices that sometimes make you put down your work in discouragement.

I’ll be pleased to make a couple of quilts from patterns as my “next things,” but these have taught me that I can make something wild and beautiful that comes out of my own head. I can trust myself to do the quilt math, and make all the blocks, and do 20 hours of straight-line quilting, and produce quilted work that I’m very proud of.

I’ll be mailing my big babies off on Monday, to make my friends’ home a little warmer for Thanksgiving guests. I couldn’t be gladder that I took on this challenge–and I couldn’t be prouder of the results.

for love

Tags

home dec cushions, nate socks, phoenix twins, rainbow hat

Like a swimmer poking her head above the surface just for a moment, to gulp the air

 

here I am.

The Phoenix Twin quilts will be done tonight. I have to get them done by tomorrow so I can photograph them with Nate’s help (we’re a little stumped about how to photograph two huge quilts together) and get them mailed to Phoenix on Monday or Tuesday.

The straight-line quilting is quite time-consuming, and possibly the most boring sewing ever. It had to be done this way, though. I can’t imagine these quilts without this added level of rich, quilted texture. And, as it turns out, I really love the friends who will receive these quilts.

As fulfilling as I’ve found this project, I am ready to have it it out of my hair.

 

Funny, “Outta My Hair” is the colorway name of the yarn I’m using to (slowly) knit my husband’s requested socks. I’m using the free-on-Ravelry pattern Porthos. The yarn is Plucky Feet in the club colorway Outta My Hair (which I have had to beg for THREE TIMES on Ravelry, a fact I don’t think my husband truly appreciates). (Does he think the yarn just SHOWS UP in the mailbox, eh?)

I told him that only someone who really loves him would knit socks this huge, and turn a heel TWICE for him.

 

I’m finding that my knitting energy keeps getting redirected though; yesterday, I took Lucy to the park and she flatly refused to put her fleece North Face hat on. It was 40 degrees, and I told her she had to a) wear her hat, b) wear her hood, or c) get back in the green car and go home. She chose her choice: go home. Rather than wear the hat. That’s my stubborn kid.

On the way home I asked her, “why wouldn’t you wear the hat? It’s a NICE HAT.” Quietly, stubbornly, she said, “No it’s not.” What kind of hat will she wear? “A rainbow hat.” I’m making some mods to Jane Richmond’s Renfrew pattern, and holding double some rainbow-y Tosh Feather, and hope to have a hat to keep away the ear infections by tomorrow.

 

By far, though, the project that took the most love to get through was this little home-dec project I did for a friend. She bought two chairs off Craigslist and the chairs came with black pleather cushions. She didn’t like the black, so she did a Sherry-and-Jon-Petersik and spray-painted them red. But the paint ruined the texture and made the cushions smell. She would never have asked me outright to make the cushion covers, but I offered, because I knew she’d pay through the nose for custom covers on this easy little job.

She chose a poly jacquard home dec fabric from fabric.com, 3 yards. I used this tutorial on Sew Mama Sew by creative little daisy and made these two piped cushions. By far, the worst part was working with the fabric. The day after I started the project Lucy pulled a clump of greenish poly fuzz from her mouth, clearly aftermath from the cushions, and I almost barfed. But I stuck it out, and finished them. They’re not perfect, but they’re full of love.

I’ll be back VERY SOON with beauty photos of these two big quilts. Believe me–you want to see them. 🙂