Friday Night Sew-In Results

Last night I made this little drawstring bag for the purple socks. I didn't have time to pre-wash the fabric, and I didn't have a pattern, but it turned out pretty well. I was vaguely trying to mentally follow this tutorial that I saw last week, but I couldn't remember where I had seen it and I didn't want it lined anyway, so it didn't quite work out the way I had intended - there was an issue with what to do with the seam allowances at the drawstring openings.

What I did was fold down the ends 2" and press, then sew all the way up the sides, leaving a 3/4" gap about 3/4" down from the top. When I turned the thing right side out, the seam allowances were all pointing in to the bag, when you really want them to fold inside the drawstring casing. What I need to do next time is sew the sides of the bag FIRST, and then told the top in and make the casing.

I also trimmed the fabric for the tablecloth, but ran out of steam before I could figure out how I want to hem it. Maybe I'll finish that today.

Friday Night Sew-In tomorrow

I'm doing the Friday Night Sew-In again tomorrow evening. I'm thinking about cutting and hemming a tablecloth from fabric that Robert's grandma gave me last summer and making a little draw-string bag to deliver the purple socks in.

Also, Evelyn is coming to visit!

Purple socks finished

I finished the purple socks on Sunday night! I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. They're soft and cushy and VERY stretchy, which is good since I was trying to knit them to fit someone I've never met. It was touch and go there for a while whether I'd have enough yarn to finish the second toe ... I ended up Russian join-ing the still-attached leftover yarn from the first sock onto the second one halfway through the toe shaping, and then cutting the remainder exactly in half to kitchener the toes shut. There was not a single inch of leftover yarn!

I'm meeting up with the recipient's mom between church services next Sunday. I hope they're as pleased with them as I am!

Friday Night Sew-In Results

I went over to Taylor's yesterday afternoon for Friday Afternoon Sew-In, but I don't have any pictures of that - I was working on my super-secret embroidery project. It's getting to a point where I can believe that it might be done someday soon. Taylor (and her kitten, Scout) cut out the pieces of a purse she's going to give her mom for Christmas.

After dinner last night, I made the top for the first of my quilted placemats (in the picture above). I enjoyed myself, but I was also pretty frustrated and discouraged. I can't seem to sew a straight seam or get an accurate quarter-inch seam allowance. I thought my machine came with a quarter-inch foot, but it didn't, and the quarter-inch guide line marked on the machine bed doesn't line up with the needle AT ALL. So I tried to measure a quarter inch from the needle and tape a strip of paper on the bobbin cover at the correct distance, but it's still not quite right. The flying dutchman block in the center of the placemat (which I sewed together with the geese facing the wrong way, so it's not actually a flying dutchman) is supposed to be 12.5" square unfinished, but turned out 12" square. I think I made it worse by trimming the geese wrong. You can see it's pretty wonky.

Anyway, so I'm going to have to fiddle with the machine more to get better seams before I can do any real quilting. On the bright side, my machine did come with a darning foot and feed dog cover as well as a walking foot and "quilting guide" (for spacing straight quilting lines evenly) so I'm good to go to practice both straight-line and free-motion quilting!

Sheepie jammies

I love sheep. Someday I will have a little farm with sheep to shear and I will spin and knit their wool into purple sweaters. But meanwhile, I have these adorable scarf and sock and hat-wearing sheep on my jammies. The fabric is actually a flannel flat sheet from Garnet Hill. When I was in college, I saw the sheets in the Garnet Hill catalog and asked for them for Christmas. My mom got them for me, and when they arrived she decided that she needed a set, too, and we ordered an extra flat sheet to make matching jammies from. They are cosy and roomy and comfy and warm.

Friday Night Sew-In

I'm excited to participate in the Friday Night Sew-In over at Handmade by Heidi. I think Taylor and I are going to get together to work on crafty/sewing things in the daytime, and I will probably also do some sewing actually at night. I wanted to do it last month, but I had a concert that night so I couldn't. Luckily, there are two this month to make up for it!

I'm going to work on my super-secret embroidery project and possibly start some quilted placemats. I feel like knitting is not really sewing, so I probably won't do knitting or spinning things.

Last colloquium of the semester

We are officially done with classes for the semester - we still have finals grading, and I'm still working on my non-class work (which is mostly what I was trying to do this semester anyway), but There will be no more CMS/colloquium until the second week of January. This past Thursday, we had two colloquia - our department is hiring a new professor next year, so we've had extra "special colloquiua" (a.k.a. job talks) all the time the last few weeks, and one of them bumped CMS.
This is the first purple sock, which is now done except for the grafting. I just barely had enough yarn. Hopefully the second sock will work out just as well.