Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Something old, something new

Life has settled into a high paced, but at least consistent, schedule.  I am at Mom's helping her rehab her knee, cook for the FabFam, and clean house while potty-training Little Guy.  (That's going great by the way; only a few minor accidents when he gets tired in the evening or too busy playing to go.  No sweat because I had kids that still did that in Kindergarten and 1st grade.  I totally got this!)  We are borrowing Mom's car to keep it active;  she can't drive anyway so I'm her chauffeur.  HaHa! City @ the Port, look out!  Hubby has our car and we aren't having to dash about getting everyone everywhere so that has been a nice change.  The Bee (who is also SuperGirl, that name just fits her better now) is almost finished with school so that's one less errand to do.  Also having her around more to play will be a nice change for both Little Guy and me.  We've missed her during the day.

While cleaning and passing the time at Mom's I have been knitting away at a s-i-l's birthday present.  It's a wrap and a lovely one at that.  I don't care to knit wraps (or scarves for that matter) because they are hideously boring to me so this has been a special labor of love, especially since she wanted black.  Why, do you ask?  Um, you can't see it.  At all.  Like the yarn totally disappears except under bright lights.  And this is a wrap with cables which kinda ups the excitement factor a bit when there is a mistake, which I tend to do because I'm usually knitting this while watching some movie or show ("Fantastic Mr. Fox" was truly fantastic but I had to rip half a row out because I forgot to cable) that I find more exciting.  At the moment it's Sgt. Cribb and I've managed to avoid disaster so far (knock on wood).  

I'm nearly halfway through it and I highly recommend the pattern if you like, or don't like!, knitting wraps/scarves.  The gauge is large enough you can see a quick growth but not so big it's a bulky piece.  The cable row is easy and happens every fifth row so just when you get stuck establishing a k-p switch pattern there's the cable to make it pretty and change it up.  Pics and a link (if I can find it) to the pattern/pattern name will be posted once it's gifted.

While making myself knit on this I've been cleaning out things at Mom's like closets and drawers.  I'm boxing up things for Snakeman (congrats on your latest addition!) and trying to work through all that's still here that's accumulated through the last 30+ years.  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.   This has earned me weekly trips to Goodwill and a local used book store and some rare gems of finds, some I get excited about, some not so excited.  I won't go into details on the latter.  :)  In the fabric boxes I found some pajamas that I had cut out to sew back in '99 and a little doll dress that I wasn't sure who made it but all it needed was a hem and snaps to finish.  I took them home and am proud to say they are finished.  I wore the pajamas last night and the Bee now has another not-naked doll (4 down, too many to go).  I couldn't imagine why I never sewed up those pajamas and had wondered where the fabric pieces had gone for years.  While sewing it up and trying to figure out what needed to go where (the pattern itself I'm sure was donated years ago) I realized why I had discarded it.  I had gotten too industrious on sewing shirttail hems and had hemmed the sleeves too soon which meant they would take some extra figuring to fit them on the shirt.  I apparently didn't feel like doing the figuring or ripping the hems out (knitting I don't mind so much but sewing I HATE ripping) so I dropped it like it was hot and went on my merry way.  11 years later it took me maybe 3 minutes to figure out the difference, make it look right, and sew that puppy up in under an hour.  I make myself laugh.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Sweater!!



...and now, the sweater!  It was perfect, if not a little more roomy than expected.  I actually ended up shortening the pattern by 3-4 inches because it was starting to look huge.  I simulated the folding by safety pinning what I had already done, accounting for the 2" ribbing I needed to do and tried it on.  Crikey, I did need to stop!  It was nearly too long!  It's still roomy enough to pin in the front when it gets cooler but totally breezy enough to wear in case I get caught in a too-well air-conditioned building.  It's cotton so it's heavier than normal but I like a little weight.  It sometimes tries to slip off my shoulders but that's a minor element of design flaw.

Curtains!!


Aren't they darling!  They came to me while shopping for pillow stuffing and I had strolled by the quilting fabrics only to take a peek, not to buy, about 4 months ago.  They've been living in my closet through all the project/financial reckoning/upheaval like an illegitimate child that was fun to get but I gotta tell the Hubby some day, who cares that he had known I had bought the fabric when I did and didn't care; I still felt guilty spending money on fabric that wasn't direly necessary even though I couldn't stand the curtains that were hanging there.  What had been there were blue broadcloth gathered-at-the-top, shirttail-hemmed-at-the-bottom-sewn-only-to-get-windows-covered-but-never-no-never-were-going-to-hang-for-nearly-4-years-because-I-would-get-around-to-making-decent-ones-before-that-long.  They were made too long (accidentally), were too blue for the kitchen (honest mistake, I love blue), and just, well, needed to go.  These are perfect, bright and sunny, have green at the top with a blue accent at the bottom and ties, and were actually measured to correctly fit the windows.  I'm such a better seamstress now than I was 4 years ago.  Maybe that's why I didn't get around to sewing them until now.