odds and ends idea

hi all.

we have been so very busy that nothing besides pure requirement has seemed even appealing to me. however, after spending five hours at school yesterday getting the next two weeks in order, i am feeling a little better about everything i need to do. the next two weeks are crucial at school in terms of paperwork and deadlines, so i won't be blogging very often. and my poor husband has to close 16 homes this week... 16! so he will be busy too. i was lamenting our lame, un-creative, un-productive selves this past friday by tallying up the time we were spending laying on the couch. i said, 'we're lazy.' to which he replied, 'no, we are exhausted.' and he is right. which leads me to my point.

distractions and busy-ness completely stifle creativity.

and sanity.

and peace.

and i am slowly trying to reclaim creative time, sanity, and peace... especially the peace part. we are just going to get through it and be better on the other end. not sure if i mentioned it in my last post, but i am really going to try to see all of my ventures as a collective whole rather than one keeping me from the other. because i am the same person through all of my efforts, and i'd like all parts to be manageable together and fuel each other. the key will just be to be as intentional and efficient as possible.

if i am not making any sense, let's take a big sigh of relief as i end my late night rant of being overworked, overstressed, and overwhelmed at all the duties of life.

ahhh.

now, at school i had this big huge bag of remnant yarns that my mom gave me. they are super cool and were intended for use at school to teach kids how to knit. except they are sort of tricky- not the michael's type yarn that would be so good to just teach someone on.

so i have an idea. i want to make something like this:

i saw this picture recently (like in march or april) but i didn't write down where. so i'm very sorry to not give credit where it is so very much due.

this would be a great way to use remnants. i'd like to perhaps even sample some different (but complementary) stitch patterns in the various colors.

i just have a few questions:

-how will i determine what size needle to use? what if different remnants need different needles? how will i join them together if that is the case?

knitted sweater dress

This is a sweater dress that my mom knitted and embroidered in the early 1970s. I inherited it a few years ago when I basically carted it out of her house, saying, "I'm going to take this." (At least I think that is how I got it- that's how I get most of my things from my mom. She may have offered this one.)

I love it, although I haven't found the occasion (or the weather) quite right to wear it.

The dress was another pattern in a McCall's needlecraft magazine. I'm starting to think I'd like to order some back issues (if that were even possible) of this magazine!

My mom made the dress by knitting in the round (circular knitting). She created and cut steek stitches down the neckline opening. Then she embroidered on a black wool backing, and attached the green felt. She didn't deviate from the pattern at all. (In her words, she wasn't skilled enough to deviate... yet.) If she were to redo the dress, she would have used better quality yarn and would have never used felt.

One of the things I find most impressive about this dress is that my mom finished it the same winter that she started it. That's crazy!! But she is the most productive person I know, so that is also not surprising.

Whenever I feel ambitious enough to attempt wearing this dress, I pair it with creme tights and black knee high boots. It looks great. Except that it fits me exactly like those paper Chinese lanterns that we made back in elementary school: fitting in the shoulders and on the hem (?) but very large in the middle. Also, it is warmer than warm. One winter I WILL wear it when it is really cold. I almost wore it on Christmas Eve this year, but I figured I'd love it for 30 minutes and then want to change. The most annoying thing about it is how tight it is at the very bottom- not much mobility.

However, I love love love the style of the dress and absolutely love the embroidery. After discussing it with my mom last night, this is the idea: what if I removed the embroidery, found something to replace the felt (which has no 'give' to it), and reattached it? I think there should be plenty of stretch on the bottom if there is stretch in the middle. However, if I did this, would you keep the green color or change it to black? I love the green on the neckline but am not sure about it all over.

My mom noted that she thinks it is interesting that she didn't wear this for years but always kept it in her closet. I have done the same, and have not worn it out yet at all. But, I think there is a lot to this dress that is just perfect. It would sell for so much at a place like Anthropologie. Perhaps this summer I will work with my mom on a few minor adjustments. It's too amazing to keep on a hanger for so long.

my lofty knitting goal

i want to knit this 'tree of life' afghan.

it's beyond my current ability.

the directions seem complicated, and i vacillate between thinking, 'i bet i could do that' and 'i'm going to need to work up to this.'

but i love it. i love the trees. i have a necklace just like those trees at five green boxes and wear it all the time. it also reminds me of my mom's piece sleeping forest.

the only thing i am not sure of is the tulip border. sometimes i think a straight edge would be more modern. you can access the pattern for free through lion brand yarn.

i think it's good to have something to aim for.

gray sunset wrap

one reason i love working through a project is that so many stories get woven into one.

there's the 'life' story that reminds you of that moment in time.

but there's also the 'craft' story. i don't mean the michaels/puffy paint 'craft'. i mean the pieces where you think: that's the piece where i learned how to ____________. honing your craft.

this piece is kinda like that.

first, the 'life' of this piece. one day, at a school staffing, i noticed the wrap on a fellow coworker. it seemed simple enough: rectangular, one button hole, three buttons. i thought, "i could make that."

a few weeks later, i was in indianapolis with my husband for the holidays. i was itching for something to do, so my mother-in-law took me to the greatest knitting shop, called knit stop. it would be so dangerous for me if it weren't safely tucked away in another city several states over.

sweet brenda tolerated many minutes (hours?) of my awe and pure indecisiveness before suggesting, 'that yarn looks good.' and it did. it was amazing. it was lang yarns, mille colori big, color 757.0070

i got started on the wrap while in indy, and finished it up within the month. my mom had knitted some socks for me for christmas, chastising me for not finishing projects. so i was sure to get this one done!

one of the most interesting 'accidents' of this yarn is the striping pattern. the width of the wrap matched the length of each color stripe perfectly, so the wrap ended up having these beautiful stripes that looked intentionally gradual instead of the typical striping clumps seen in knitting projects. i'm not very big on that kind of striped look, so this accident worked in my favor.

through this project, i learned how to knit buttonholes and sew on buttons properly. (i've sewed on buttons for years but will forever do it differently now!) i also learned how to block a knitted piece. the folks down at fancy tiger told me how to do it. although i'm not sure it worked out totally well. perhaps its because the yarn is 50% wool, 50% acrylic. perhaps it was the style of the wrap. you see, i used the stockinette stitch for this piece and experienced a lot of curling (not suprisingly.) i need as much width as i can get to achieve the look i want with this wrap. so i needed to do something to weigh it down, or make it lay flat. the fancy tiger folks advised i wash it in warm water with woolite, rinse it in warm water, and pin it on a towel. the pictures below show the process, except before i went back through and added a crazy amount of pins.

it helped, but isn't the best yet. my new idea- use our steamer and have marc steam it while i hold it spread out. you might think that's a weird idea but it worked great on the curly edge i got from the pins. we'll see. if nothing else works, i will add a gray border in garter stitch. but i really don't want to do that.

the piece is finished, but because the finishing isn't finished the way i want, i'm tagging this as an unfinished project. any blocking tips are appreciated. :)

baby fern

this is a dishcloth that i knitted for a girl at school, amy. she had loaned me a really neat wrap that i wanted to use as a pattern and knit. trouble is, i kept the wrap for sooooo long. of course, she was gracious in waiting for it, but i felt bad- we didn't know each other well enough for me to behave so badly.

i used sugar & cream yarn in potpourri ombre. i followed a baby fern dishcloth pattern. (in this picture, i am holding the dishcloth upside down.) it was really fun to knit because it was MUCH quicker than the wrap i had been working on or the sweater i've been working on for...ev...er. (more on those some other post.)

in knitting this piece, i did not actually like the pattern. it isn't symmetrical- i don't like the vertical column on the left. i knitted a second dishcloth for my mother-in-law and fixed the pattern, which i will include in a later post. it looked much better! one thing i learned from this project is that it is worth ripping out stitches to get something right. i'm sure that others don't see the mistakes you make so easily, but in giving a gift, it is hard for me to have something be off. :)