More Sewing and Knitting

My skirt has been a little more challenging than I thought. I’m still working on it today. I was hoping to have a fabulous picture of it to post today, but I won’t. The pleats were pinned, taken out, ironed, pinned, taken out, ironed, pinned, and then sewn. I hope I like the fit of the skirt, because it looks great and I’d like to make it again and again. We’ll see.

Instead of fun skirt shots, lets have vest shots:



I love this vest and I can’t even wear it yet. I’m using Patons Classic Wool for it and it just has a nice, soft feel. The thing I hate about using merino is that it can be horrible about pilling. This isn’t the merino, but soft = pilling sometimes. Hopefully this stuff won’t. I’ve only used it for felting in the past.

I found a wonderful crocheted poncho on the DROPS site the other night, but it is only in kids sizing. The largest size is for 12- 14 year olds, so I think I can size it up enough for me. I am not as good at figuring things out for crochet with my brain, so I may have to go with the experimental method. That would be where I start it and rip it out when it isn’t right.

This morning when I was sewing, I came up with the idea of not buying any yarn or fabric until February. I thought it might help me whittle the stashes down. It pertains more to the fabric than the yarn. I am really good about not buying yarn, but I have a real fabric weakness. A few years ago, I had no fabric stash to speak of. Now, I have a fabric storage problem. However, I do feel like I’ve been doing some serious damage to it since school let out for the holidays. Here are the nightgowns I made the girls for Christmas:

What I've Been Up To

The day after my last post, I got sick and couldn’t even lay in bed and knit. I felt nauseous most of the day and just slept. It felt worse than being pregnant. That morning I had been happily playing at the sewing table, and half an hour later I went to bed. In the evening I was at least able to sit in the chair and watch tv. I didn’t feel well enough to walk across the room and get my knitting, though. The next morning I was almost myself.

Anyway, here are the Solstice gifts I got for the girls:





Aren’t they adorable? I love them for the dark, gothic look they have. They are in a plastic sleeve, so the strange stripes of color aren’t real. We are going to hang them up in their room. I bought these on Etsy from the The Black Apple. I love Emily’s creations.

I decided to go ahead with sewing a project a day while we are off from school. I’ve done pretty well with it so far. On Christmas night, I made myself a denim skirt. Today I am making myself a skirt from McCall’s 5390. I will show pictures of it tomorrow. Before Christmas, I made myself a top that didn’t turn out as well as I hoped. It is very off putting because I had really looked forward to wearing it. I think it is too short and can’t think of any way to make it look better. Right now it is set aside until I can bear trying to wear it. Maybe it isn’t really as bad as I thought it was.

Before Christmas I got the trainer for my bicycle. I rode it 20 minutes the first day and decided to jump it up to 40 minutes the next day. That was a HUGE mistake. My legs felt fine, but my backside hurt so bad that I couldn’t get on it again for days. I haven’t been on the bike since the middle of the summer. Bicycle seats are one of those things that can do you in if aren’t used to them. Now I am working up to 40 minutes from 20. And then on up to an hour.

My Soria vest is going well. Right now I am well into the band of color work at the bottom. I love color work.

Christmas Makes Me Tired

Preparing for Christmas is such a tiring thing. Staying up late to finish projects that can only be done when kids are in bed, wrapping presents, etc. ad nauseum. I felt accomplished when I finished the Manchester United scarf and got it in the mail. In fact, I felt so good about it, I started a project for me. Just like that. Here is the scarf:



And this is the beginning of Soria:



Soria is a pullover vest in the new Knitty. I don’t think I’ve ever just seen a pattern I loved and started it. Generally, I make myself finish some other huge project first. This time, I had some yarn in stash already, so I didn’t have to buy all of it. I saw the pattern on Saturday, got the yarn Sunday, and cast on for it Monday. My goal is to finish it as soon as possible. Just because I can. I’d like to finish it by Christmas, but I think that would be pushing it.

I decided to go for that making one thing every day during our vacation. So far, it has worked out pretty well. I have 2 nightgowns that only want sleeves and a tablecloth for Christmas. Tonight I want to finish the nightgowns after the kids are asleep. And maybe kick out some pillowcases. Starting tomorrow I will be able to work on my sewing projects during the day because they won’t be gifts for the kids. It will be nice to get some things sewn up.

I intend to knit a bunch of stuff from my Ravelry Queue. I put stuff on my list because I want to make it, but I don’t always look there for my next project. And many of them are small projects. There is at least 1 sweater on that list that I actually have the yarn for. For now, I want to concentrate on the small projects, though.

Last night we had a solstice celebration. I made egg rolls and some other goodies for dinner, and we had a candle we lit to burn all night until the sun came back up. I believe it will last for another 10 solstices if I never use it for anything else. I way over estimated how big the candle would need to be. I had a gift for each of the girls. Pictures tomorrow.

Winter Came Knocking...

Winter has definitely arrived here. Last week it was bitterly cold, this week we are getting snow. It is wet, heavy snow. The kids will definitely be able to build a snowman with this stuff. It’s 3 in the afternoon as I write, and it has been snowing since about 2 am. We still have tv, but the internet is not working.

My work on the scrapbooks is coming along. I figured out how to put the pages together and made the covers. And I got started cutting out the clip art I downloaded. If there is school tomorrow, I should be able to work on them. Knitter #2 is way too smart to trick or fool. She always wants to know what I am making and who it is for.

School gets out for Christmas this Friday. I am thinking about seeing how much sewing I could get done over Christmas Break. Maybe a project a day. I have fabric for a lot of small projects. Tea towels, bags, skirts, aprons. I could probably put together a little girl’s dress in a day. My fabric stash is way worse than my yarn stash and it would be nice to make the things I planned with the fabric.

This morning I got the bikes up on the porch before they got buried in snow. A good thing, because the neighbor that plows our drive might not have seen the little ones. Mine is big and red, so it wouldn’t be an issue. And I am going to be bringing mine in the house pretty soon. I ordered a trainer from Bike Nashbar after my brother mentioned getting one. When the weather got bad, he started riding his bike in his garage. I’ve never gotten the hang of riding my bike, so maybe riding it in the house will work out for me. It has huge tires and my old one had pretty small tires. Anyway, I am very excited to get the trainer.

Christmas Decorating

What is it about decorating for Christmas that makes you want to harm your offspring? This morning when I was getting the tree and lights ready, I sent them to clean their room. The only spot I could see that was cleaner was about 2 feet x 2 feet. No one got a reward for cleaning. After they got done decorating their share of the tree, I forced them to put on boots, pants (they were wearing dresses), and coats. And then I shoved them out the door to play in the snow. By that point I didn’t want to see them for a good long time.

Today, I actually began to wonder if I was supposed to put up our tree today. It was, of course, trouble with the lights. I keep the tree lights with the tree. Half of them worked. I found more lights, and half of them worked. However, in some cases 2 halves make only 1 half. I plugged the 2 working strings together and they worked. I put them on the tree and then only 1 of them worked. I finally settled on 2 different sizes of colored LED lights. Good thing I caught that after christmas sale last year!

I am still not finished decorating the house, but it is nice that the tree is done. This is what I played with later:



I love making wreaths. After a little dismantling and some putting back together, I had this:



I used a couple packages of garland to fix up my wreath. I was sick and tired of seeing the wicker. The big bow is something I made a long time ago.

Now I feel in the Christmas spirit. Listening to Christmas music all morning also helped. There is now no reason to not get into my Christmas projects with gusto. Especially since Brent brought home a new color ink cartridge for the printer today. Girly scrapbooks, here I come!

And the Work Commences...

At some point this afternoon, I began to wonder if I was making the best use of my crafting time. I spent about 3 hours searching out and copying free clip art for the scrapbooks I want to make for the girls. I think I did well. We will see if it is enough to fill up 2 little books.

Here is the Manchester United Scarf I am making for my niece:



I have decided I have spent enough time playing the perfectionist game and will leave the black stripe the way it is. Future black stripes will have only 2 rows so I can avoid the yucky mix I have in the edging.

Last night I cut out the elf doll pattern:



And this morning, after much looking, I found the nightgown pattern. It says you need 2 1/8 yards of fabric. As I recall, the night gowns were really long, so it will be easy enough to shorten them about 6 inches. The ones I already made are floor length on the girls.

And look who we got a letter from!



It is SO exciting to get an actual letter from Santa. Way cool!

Getting Into the Christmas Spirit

I was going to get a picture of the scarf to post, but I didn’t think of it when I got home. It’s occurred to me that I need to get on it if I want to get stuff made for Christmas. This afternoon I was reading Angry Chicken and she mentioned she’s been making gifts. For someone who prides herself on making lots of gifts, I am not doing so hot this year. I intend to get to work on that as soon as I get done with this post. And tomorrow. I can get some stuff ready tonight at least.

We had a double whammy of bad news today. None of our fixes for the hot tub have worked. It is the pump. Fortunately, pumps can be repaired. Our other bad news was on my husband’s unemployment. It has been cut and we now have to live on less than $1000 a month. I am glad the house is paid for. I am pretty sure we can live on that, but if not, there are things we can cut back. Somehow, Christmas always seems better when I feel like we are desperately poor. Making cool stuff for the kids gives me a feeling of triumph. A bit like I’m sticking it to The Man.