I’m the proud owner of a spiffy, new, magnetic katamari. My lovely friend Sarah made it for me at my request! I don’t know many people who would agree to crochet a bunch of acrylic out of the kindness of the heart, but Sarah is one of those rare few. In fact, our deal was that I would provide the supplies and she would do the work. However, it turned out I didn’t keep my end of the deal; I only ended up providing one small portion of the supplies and Sarah procured the rest. This is only a small example of her generous nature. I love the katamari. It’s heavier than I had imagined and I love tossing it around. For now I’m using it to hold straight pins, but I think it will be more of a toy than a pincushion in real life.
Tonight I had planned to attend Wear-a-Skanky-Hat night, but things don’t always go as planned when you’re in the process of moving across the country. I’m writing to you tonight while sitting in the midst of many, many boxes in my soon-to-be-former apartment in Alabama. This morning we went to Penske to pick up the 22′ truck we reserved for moving week. However, the truck wasn’t ready. The last driver reported some problems, but the mechanic hadn’t had time to look at it. We took the truck anyway, drove it a couple of miles, then turned around to return it. It had major vibrations, the sort which dislodge your internal organs, so driving it to Colorado was not an option. Penske didn’t have any other trucks for us, so we left and decided to work on a different, impromptu plan.
Early in our moving plans we had gotten quotes from many moving companies. They were all very expensive, so we nixed that plan… until this morning. With no Penske truck and full of movers’ fatigue, we decided that hiring movers would be a better plan today. The first company we called offered us a good deal, only $100 more than renting a truck ourselves, so we decided to go with it.
The movers were scheduled to depart Atlanta at 1:30, therefore should arrive about 5:30 or 6.
We were pretty tired by 5:30 or 6 and expecting their visit at any moment, when Guillaume accidentally sliced his finger on a rough metal edge. There was lots of blood and screaming, plus panic-stricken cats. I’d already packed the first aid box, but managed to find it before he bled to death. After I got everyone settled down, he decided he didn’t want to go to the ER. The fingerprint on his index finger may be very different when the wound heals. In fact he may yet end up going to the doctor to get stitches, but for tonight some bandages and electrical tape seem to be sufficient.
The movers actually arrived at 8pm and told us they had come from Miami that morning. That’s quite a drive. They took a look around at our furniture and boxes, then told us that the quote was too low and they didn’t have enough space in the truck for our stuff. We negotiated for a while and I think we came to an agreement. The head mover told us he needed to get some sleep, would get up in the morning to drop off his current load in order to make room for our load, and be back to pick up our stuff in the morning. He told us that a different crew would be unloading our stuff in Colorado, so I assume this means that it will go by train.
I’ll be glad to get all this stuff on a truck and see it away. I have lots of unfinished work on my checklist, but most of it is dependent on getting this stuff westward bound.
It’s back to gift knitting this week. I have several projects in the works, but only 2 that I’ll discuss here and now.
First I’m working on a shawl for Cecelia. When I saw her last month, she talked to me about some hand-knit shawls she’s been seeing. She told me that they were very expensive and they were knit with very big needles because they had “big holes.” I interpreted this as the shawls were lacy because the needle size was quite large in comparison to the yarn weight.
I think she wants a hand knit shawl.
A few weeks ago I searched around for a shawl pattern- something she’d like that I’d also like to work on. I decided on a triangle shawl with large, knitted holes in it. It is knit with worsted weight yarn on “appropriately” sized needles, but the holes are knit into it by casting off and on throughout the pattern.
I want to keep a distinctive hand-knit look to this item, so I searched for a thick-thin yarn: soft, calm with a handspun quality. Etsy was definitely the place. I found a lovely batch of yarn from a woman in Missouri who owns and manages her own farm, Dream Catcher Sheep and Fiber Farm . She sheers the sheep, cleans the wool, and spins it. I bought about 300 grams of yarn, hand spun in a worsted-ish weight. One of the things I loved about this Etsy shop is that she will tell you from which of her lambs the wool was spun. My yarn came from Stormy Wether, a very handsome fellow with soft wool. The yarn isn’t dyed or bleached, nor chemically cleaned, and it is a lovely yarn to work with. I’ll definitely buy yarn from her again.
The other gift knitting project is a cardigan for my mom that I started knitting last winter, then put into hibernation over the summer. Technically it has not come out from hibernation yet, but I know it needs some attention since her birthday is in January. The pattern is from the first Debbie Bliss magazine, the Cable Vent Jacket. I’m using Jaeger Extra Fine Merino DK in cream. I got it last year on sale because it was the end of the lot or of the colorway. It’s a soft, consistent yarn to work with, but I hate that about 25% of the balls have knots.
I’m going to keep plugging away at all this gift knitting, even though I really want to knit my peplum seed-stitch cardigan.
In keeping with the Vogue big silhouettes, I finished the #10 Ribbed Cowl pattern by Cathy Carron from the current Vogue Knitting Holiday issue. I used my favorite roving wool, Italia Fingerpaints, but since I only had one skein, I had to procure more of this discontinued yarn to complete the project. Although the yarn has been discontinued for quite a while, I found a kind Raveler in Massachusetts who offered to send me her 1.5 skeins for free! WoW! Her skeins were not the same colorway as my original, but that’s OK since I’m not picky when it comes to Italia Fingerpaints.
When finished, it does look like the pattern photo in VK. The pattern itself is super simple, can be accomplished in a day. As with all my Fingerpaints projects, the yarn seems to stretch width-wise a lot, and I have to fuss with it to entice it back to shape. In any case it’s warm, easy and fun to wear. This project now has me in the mood for more chunky yarn trespassing.
During the Vogue pattern sale last week, I was feeling pretty frisky, so I decided to try out this origami-ish jacket pattern. In this photo it looks warm and flowing to me. I got some houndstooth print fleece and a couple of cute, red buttons.
- Project Details:
- Pattern: Vogue 1145 Lynn Mizono designed Misses Jacket and Pants
- Fabric: fleece, 4.25 yards!
- Lining: none
- Notions: lots of thread and 2 buttons, 1.125″ diameter
- Pattern Description: Loose fitting jacket with bizarrely short and ill-fitted sleeves which are too large at the top of the arm. It has two patch pockets, each large enough to hold a quart of soy ice cream, and an even more gigantic collar. No hemming is required; edges are finished with machine stitching.
- FO looks like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope? I couldn’t figure out how to place the buttons, so mine does not look like the photo. Also, I think you’d have to have a very specific type of fleece to get the light, flowing look of the pattern envelope photo.
- Were the instructions easy to follow? Yes, it was a simple pattern in theory, but the pieces are so enormous that they were difficult to cut out and difficult to maneuver.
- My particular likes / dislikes about the pattern: I liked how quick and simply it is constructed. There were so many edge stitches on this project that I was able to experiment with many of the hundreds of stitches on my machine. I also love that you can wear it back to front for warmth and comfort without having your hands trapped inside so that you can move your arms and use your hands and still be wrapped and warm.
- My pattern alterations / design changes: Although the button placement is marked on the pattern tissue, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, so I improvised my button placement.
- Would I sew it again or recommend it to others? nope and no, however I will sell you my pattern for $4 plus postage. I have the XS-S-M envelope and I cut the M size, so all tissues are complete.
Tonight I sported it to Wal-Mart with the thinly veiled objective of getting spotted for The People of WalMart photoblog. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
After seeing this Gumshoe Sweatercoat in the recent Anthropologie catalog, I felt inspired to hop on over to my fabric chain store and buy some anti-pill, purple fleece and Simplicity pattern 2508. Well, it turns out the $1.99 Simplicity pattern sale ended yesterday, so I took my fleece and headed home to look through my Burda patterns. I have the 2 latest Burda magazines, but have never used a Burda pattern, so I could use a good excuse to give it a shot.
Before getting home to the Burda patterns, I added a via point: Anthro for a real life Gumshoe Sweatercoat sighting. They had the purple version, plus a black one and an orange one. The medium was too small in the shoulders, but the large was too large (and low) in the waist. The felted wool was thinner than I expected, plus the jacket had no lining. The button holes appeared to be pulled out of shape by the large buttons; the thin wool without a lining couldn’t really support the buttonholes well.
I liked the princess seams and the stitched waist detailing. With ruffles on both sides of the center front and pleated ruffles at the cuffs, I think it could be a fun sewing project.
After getting home, I found a Burda Short Jacket (#102) pattern in the September 2009 issue that will be a good baseline for my purple fleece jacket. Now I need to find some tissue paper and try to figure out how to do this Burda thing.
