CMS/Colloquium knitting

So there was no sewing on Friday night.  I did not manage to make Friday Night Sew-In happen.  I just wanted to get a photobook with lots of white space ordered before I got my sewing machine out.  The photobook is going to be the guest book at our wedding, and I needed to get it ordered because we need it in LESS THAN 2 WEEKS!!! 

All of the photos in the guest book are from our engagement photo shoot, and it took way longer than I expected to get them all loaded to the photo-ordering website and then to choose the order and layout of all of the photos in the book.  The electric griddle cover I was going to finish on Friday is still at the top of the list of projects I want to work on .. below all of the wedding stuff, of course!

The photo above is of the first piece of Baby Rai's blanket.  It's really almost done, but before I can knit the last half inch and cast off, I need to fix the mistake I made.  I looked down during CMS last Thursday and noticed a dropped stitch about two inches back!  I didn't have a crochet hook with me, so I just knitted it up with the end of one of my dpns, but it was too hard to manage the garter stitch.  I just let it be a stockinette column, and I need to drop that stitch back down to that place and fix it with a little crochet hook.  Hopefully now that it's been sitting for a few days the tension will have evened out to make it easier than it was on Thursday!

Friday Night Sew-In

Tomorrow night is Friday Night Sew-In at Handmade by Heidi.  I've missed the last few, but I'm looking forward to finishing up a quilting project I started last week (or the week before?  I can't remember).  It's a cover for the electric pancake griddle we got as a wedding gift.  It's a super awesome gadget, and so far we've been using it about once a week, but due to the lack of space in our kitchen, it's being stored on the open cookbook bookshelf just outside our kitchen, so it needs a cover.

FNSI Results

I finished the arrow quilt (well, I still need to sew on the label, but it's bound and washed!) and the mittens. 

Here's the back of the quilt.  This is the first time I've done a patchwork back, and I really like it!

I'm happy with the way the quilt turned out, but I found the tutorial at Moda Bake Shop that I used to be incredibly frustrating - and sometimes just plain wrong.  I usually don't follow quilt patterns - I usually draft the blocks out myself from pictures and do my own quilty math.  But in this case, I decided to be lazy and just follow the pattern.  This was a mistake.  When I follow a pattern, I expect the math to be done right and the instructions to work out.  This was just a tutorial, but since it was on the website of such a reputable quilt fabric manufacturer, I trusted it.  The tutorial calls for, among other things, a half yard of the border fabric and a half yard of the binding, and these two fabrics also make up the stripe in the pieced back (the backing fabric alone is not enough to make the entire back). 

I bought the fabric in the amounts called for, and started cutting according to the instructions.  When I got to be border and binding, I realized that the tutorial calls for cutting 18.5 linear inches from the binding fabric! Out of a half yard!  Also, it says to cut four 3" by WOF strips for the borders.  The quilt is supposed to be 47" by 47", so you clearly need five strips!  Add this to the 6" strip for the back, and you need to cut 21 linear inches out of a half yard of fabric!

I had already cut the 6" strip of the border fabric for the back, and I needed it, so I ended up cutting five 2.5" strips for the borders, skipping the binding fabric that was supposed to be in the back, and piecing the back out of scraps of the arrow fabrics.

Another, less crucial quibble I had with the tutorial was the construction method for the arrows.  The tutorial uses two half-square triangles for the points of the arrows.  I'm sure this is designed to save fabric, but I think it would have looked better to use a single flying goose instead.  Several of my arrow fabrics have stripes, and they ended up meeting at right angles - you can see it in the top photo.

Other than that, I'm thrilled with how it came out!  I was going to free-motion quilt it, but I chickened out and did diagonal straight lines with my walking foot instead.  The only hiccup was that the yellow chalk I used to mark the two major diagonals didn't quite wash out ... but I don't think it's very noticeable, and I hope they'll continue to fade.

And here are the little mittens all done!  I decided not to do a string.  My cousin can add it if her daughter needs it.  I'm happy with how they turned out, and I hope they will keep my cousin's daughters hands all toasty warm this winter!

Friday Night Sew-In tonight!

I'm excited for Friday Night Sew-In tonight!.  My goal is to finish the mittens from the last post, finish sewing the binding on the arrow baby quilt, and maybe make a sock-knitting bag for a new friend from Yarn School!

FNSI is hosted by Heidi at handmadebyheidi.blogspot.com.

FNSI results

Friday was a Friday Night Sew-In  over at Handmade by Heidi.  I brought my machine over to my friend Taylor's place and worked on my Arrow baby boy quilt.  I got the little arrows sewn together and the big arrows halfway sewn together.  I'm going to try to finish the piecing this week and quilt it next weekend - we'll see if that's too ambitious!

FNSI Results - a little swoon

It seems like every quilter on the internet has made a Swoon quilt, and I wanted one, too.  Never mind that I've never done piecing this complicated, that I struggle to match seams on even the simplest patchwork, and that the fabric I'm planning to do it in is a fat eighth bundle (Kate Spain Good Fortune) so I drafted the pattern for a 12-inch finished block instead of 24 inches.  It sounded like a recipe for disaster, so for Friday Night Sew-in last night, I decided to do a test block with some leftover fabric from other projects. 

It actually turned out really well!  My flying geese and half-square triangles were pretty close to perfect (close enough that I decided to be lazy and not square up the HSTs), and although not all of the seams and points are matched perfectly, they're pretty good - certainly better than I expected, and better than I usually manage.  I actually think it's easier to match seams on a small scale than with larger pieces, although if I pinned at least every inch on larger-scale patchwork, I probably wouldn't have as much of a problem.  The points aren't perfect, but almost all of them are floating rather than cut off, which in my subjective opinion (I have no idea what the quilt-world consensus is on this issue) is the better option.  The block unfinished block measures 12 5/8 to 12 3/4" square, and I think if I had bothered to square up the HSTs it would have been right on! 

My confidence is bolstered!  I realized, though, that when I start it with the intended fabric, this quilt is probably going to take me a year to piece.  I don't think I'll even be able to do a block a week.  By the end of this block, I was pretty tired of focusing on it.  Probably it is a better idea to cut out all the  pieces and make the flying geese and HSTs, then finish squaring them up and sewing the block together another (maybe two other) day (s).

I'm linking up for Friday Night Sew-In at Crafty Vegas Mom.

June FNSI Results

My shorts were successful!  This was my third muslin for the "Giraffe love" pajama shorts I'm planning to make myself.  The first muslin was my March FNSI project.  I never got around to posting the second muslin because I was discouraged that it didn't come out quite right.  This time, I re-drafted the pattern from scratch, with a deeper "J" on the front pattern piece.  I also made the back waist a little higher than the front, and I tried out little side vents at the outside leg hems (not visible in the photo).  It worked!  I think they fit pretty well: they are comfortable standing and sitting, aren't to tight across the rear, and the waistband is at an appropriate height all the way around!

Now I just need to wash the giraffe and polka-dot lining fabric, and I can make the real ones!

Head on over to Handmade by Heidi to see what other people accomplished last night.

Tablecloth progress, plus FNSI this week

I've been slowly working my way across my Aunt Inge's tablecloth.  I can get three little squares done in a 45-minute episode of the West Wing.  If you look carefully at the right side of the photo, you can see the center crease, so it looks like I'm almost halfway done.  I counted the squares, though, and I've done 57 and have 95 to go.  So not quite half way. 

I'm looking forward to the Friday Night Sew-In this week, hosted over at Handmade by Heidi.  I think I'm going to do the next pattern iteration of my giraffe shorts.  The fabric I've got for this version is lavender with little white polka dots, and I think it's really cute so I'm hoping they turn out well enough to actually use them (and of course I can't wait to get to do the real giraffe version!)

May FNSI Results

 Last night I sat down and altered 8 of my old workout T-shirts!  All of these were originally size medium, and some of them were pretty stretched out, too.  These days I'm wearing size small - with my iPod nano clipped on to the hem when I'm working out, it really bothers me if there's enough room for the shirt to flap around. 

Here's one of the shirts before I did anything to it.  I turned it inside out and smoothed it out completely flat, and used a size small t-shirt that I like as a template.  I turned the small shirt inside out and smoothed it out, too, and then used my chalk marker to trace where the new side seams should be, up to where they meet the armhole seams.  Then I turned the line 90 degrees and went out to the sleeve hem.  I pinned along the line, sewed along it with a somewhat narrow zig-zag (using a "stretch" needle in my machine), and cut off the excess fabric with pinking shears.

Here's the result.  A much better fit!  After I knew that the first one worked, I did the others assembly-line style.
Now I have a bunch of refreshed work-out shirts!

The Friday Night Sew-In is hosted by Crafty Vegas Mom this month.

FNSI results

Last night I drafted out a pattern for a pair of shorts for myself and made a muslin. I have some really cool giraffe fabric that I'd like to make a pair of PJ shorts from, but I only have one yard of the polka dot fabric I'm going to use for the lining (and I don't want to waste any giraffe fabric), so I need to make sure the pattern is right before I make them.

Unfortunately, the pattern is not quite right yet. The general fit is okay, but there's not really enough room in the butt, so need to adjust the pattern and make another muslin. On the next round, I'm going to try out the waistband and hem also.

Last week's CMS/Colloquium + FNSI

Here's where my socks were at the end of colloquium last week. I'm running out of yarn, but I think the legs are just about long enough. My plan is to see if I can squeeze one or two more pattern repeats out of the purple yarn and then finish off with a green garter stitch cuff.

Tomorrow night is the Friday Night Sew-In over at Handmade by Heidi. I'm going to do some of the sewing projects I've been thinking about: my giraffe shorts and maybe altering some of my old t-shirts.

FNSI Results

I almost forgot to post this ... Last night I worked on a quilt I am making for Elise, a woman in my church family. I'm not sure how old she is, but I'm pretty sure it's more than 90, and she is warm, sweet, and wise. I've been thinking about her a lot lately, and I'm making this quilt for her. It is very simple - I'll show more pictures when I'm done with it.

I'm almost done with the quilting - this is my first free motion quilted quilt, and the first quilt I've quilted on my own machine. I'm done with the sashing and borders and half the squares, so yesterday I decided to take a break from the quilting and do binding. I attached the binding and started sewing it down on the back.

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!

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!

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.