Sara + h

the dangers of fabric shopping

Did you know that fabric shopping can be dangerous not only to your wallet but to your physical self as well?  I'm here to tell you it's true.

Today, while roaming S.R. Harris I apparently dropped a bolt of upholstery fabric, a big one, on my toe.  I say apparently because I wasn't actually aware when my injury occurred.  I supposed I could've stubbed my toe but that seems less likely and regardless, whatever it was I did, I didn't feel it when it happened.  I didn't become aware that something was amiss until I was driving home.  Those of you who've had a toenail injury will understand when I say that I had that "my toenail feels like it's flapping in the breeze" feeling and when I got out of the car I discovered my battered and bloodied digit.

While the state of my toes hasn't been all together pretty of late this is an entirely different kind of ugly.  I've lost somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of my toenail and while it may not have hurt at the time of injury, um, hello, it hurts now!  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.

Thankfully, I did find some nice fabric at a nice price.  I purchased seven yards of a heavy chenille and two 20"x20" pillow forms for about $75.  Not too shabby.  Just be warned.  You may want to wear steal-toed boots if you decide to go trolling S.R. Harris yourselves.  Birkenstocks may be foot friendly elsewhere, but there, not so much.

   

gracie's hat

I knit so much with wool that I always forget that cotton (and silk and linen...) is a totally different animal.  Because of that, I wound up knitting not one but two hats this weekend.  My gauge was right on if not a tiny bit small but regardless, the first hat I knit was big enough for me to wear.  There's not a vast amount of difference in the size of my head and the heads of my children and in fact, most of the hats that I knit in wool fit everyone in our family.  With cotton though, things are different.  The drapey-ness and lack of spring in the fiber means that a hat made out of cotton will just sit on the head rather than hugging it if those characteristics aren't taken into account when figuring the math (that's my experience anyway)...which I didn't.  I did though for the second hat and even-so it would up being on the large side.  A different animal all together, I tell you.  But just look at that stitch definition.  Tres beau, non?

Despite all the trials, the hat at least looks nice, I think.  Not perfect, but nice.  One other difference aside from fiber content between this hat and the other flapperesque hats that I made previously is that I chose to make the flower a pin rather than sewing it directly onto the hat.  I thought that Gracie's mom might like the option of removing the flower.  The idea while great in theory is less great in reality.  It looks nice here, but when worn the pin doesn't lay perfectly flat against the head and the flower ends up looking a little wonky because of it.

The flower is also not made out of felt.  Wool seemed a out of place considering the hat was knit with cotton, so instead I used some quilting cotton and cotton canvas.  I made a sandwich of fabric, fusible interfacing, fusible web, and another piece of fabric then cut out the flower and leaf shapes.  My guess is that it won't hold up well in the wash.  Another good reason for making it into a pin even if it does look a bit strange on the head.

wip

I'm making a hat for the daughter of a friend of a friend.  Gracie was born with a congenital defect that causes her to leak cerebral spinal fluid.  She's not yet two and Thursday underwent her third round of brain surgery to try and stop the leaking.  Her mother was looking for a simple cotton hat for Gracie to wear as her hair grows out and when she couldn't find what she was looking for she complained to my friend and my friend called me to commission a hat for Gracie.  I've never sold anything I've made so I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to charge, especially considering the circumstances.  If anyone has any ideas or insight, please comment.

I'm using Classic Elite Premiere that I bought on clearance from Webs early in the summer.  To touch this yarn is to love it.  It glides beautifully through the fingers as it's being knit and just look at the stitch definition.  Divine.  You'll have to forgive me for the gratuitous yarn shots.

Also in progress this week are some washcloths waiting for more yarn so they can be finished,

and a mystery project being made with the yarn I wrote about earlier this week (Can you guess what it's going to be?).

And finally, other progress worth noting is the exodus of some of the piles that have been cluttering up our house.  Granted these are all piles that have been hidden in our closets or storage spaces and the piles on my desk, kitchen counter, kitchen table, buffet, and elsewhere largely remain unchanged.  Still though, it's progress.

So long, piles!

Happy weekend, everyone.

free yarn

Could there be two lovelier words together?  Free fabric, maybe?  Okay, so I can actually think of more than a few other words that make my heart sing but free yarn both sounds and is pretty damn nice.  I will say though that while this yarn cost me not a penny, I did cost me in labor.

Several months ago, around the end of the school year, a friend offered me several boxes of clothes that she'd "outgrown" (I know the problem well).  In return she simply asked that I take what I didn't want/couldn't use to Goodwill for her so she wouldn't have to make the schlep herself.  Never one to say no to free stuff I leapt at her offer.  Among the things in the boxes was a really lovely green cable knit turtleneck sweater from J Crew.  It was a little snug through the bust and short through the torso but it was so cozily divine that I wasn't going to surrender it to Goodwill.

Last week when the weather turned Fallish overnight, I dug out the sweater and wore it for three days straight.  After day three I was finally ready to admit that it didn't fit me all that well and that it would need to be re-purposed (still unwilling to donate it) somehow.  A quick inspection of the seams told me that unraveling was an option and the decision about what to do with it was made.   Free yarn.  Free wool, rayon, angora, cashmere yarn.  Music to my ears.

Fool that I am, I didn't take a picture of the sweater before I ripped it apart.  I thought about it, but once I got out the seam ripper I was like a woman possessed.  Stopping for a photo shoot just wasn't an option.  The ripping, unraveling, winding into skeins, washing, drying, and winding into balls took quite awhile.  I wouldn't do this with a sweater made out of crap yarn and were it not for the 10% cashmere, I very well may have bailed on this project.  I'm glad I didn't though.  I now have a sweater's worth of about fingerling weight four ply to play with.  There are some soft, soft green socks in my future, I think.

One thing worth mentioning for anyone interested in doing this for the first time (like me) is that the unraveling pretty much obliterated any twist the yarn had.  It's now more like four plies cozied up to one another than four plies plied together.  This yarn is going to require some care in knitting so that I don't end up with stray loops all over the place.

 

fabric so pretty i may never be able to cut it

This fabric came from a lovely shop within walking distance of my house (danger!).  I spotted it weeks ago and finally succumbed to the urge to go back and buy a few yards today.  We shall not discuss the price.  When faced with such beauty, cost isn't a factor (it wasn't that bad but it certainly wasn't cheap either).  It's Japanese (of course) and I'm fairly certain 100% cotton.  I was so love struck both when I first saw it and when I bought it today that details like fiber content escaped me.  It could've been 100% polyester (it's not) and I would've bought it anyway.  Oh, fabric, how I love thee.  Let me count the ways.

The light here was completely craptastic today and the resulting pictures don't do justice to the gorgeousness of the print.  I was so excited though, I had to share regardless of the bad picture quality.

 

hint

This little peep show is for Kirsty's benefit.  I want to be sure she likes the colors of the fabric I chose for the tote bag .  I think they're a bit of an acquired taste and I want to be sure I send her something she won't hate.  So, what do you think, Kristy?

respite

The universe came around to my side last week.  Just as I was about to spontaneously combust from the stress of home improvement, the universe stepped in with some rain.  Two days of wet weather isn't good for exterior painting but it's great for restoring sanity.  And unlike the rain from the week before, it offered a welcome respite and inspired good parenting rather than bad.

It also offered the opportunity for a little sewing.  Initially, I simply set out to finish the aprons I'd promised to Lola's school at the end of last school year.  It was such good therapy though that once I finished that task I dove into my modest fabric stash and made some aprons for home too.

The fabric I used for these is among the crappiest quilting cotton I've ever seen, let alone purchased.  Despite the quality of the fabric itself, I found the brown & blue (a favorite color combination of late) print irresistible .  I paired the brown fabric with an equally crappy-yet-irresistible blue cotton print and a few vintage buttons.  I think it all makes for a winning combination.

More pictures here .

 

gifts, given & received

Since I'm having trouble sounding like myself I thought I'd post mostly photos today.  First up...

Here are a few of the things I sent to my swap partner, Ali.  In me fashion, I forgot to take pictures of the actual buttons themselves.  I sent Ali two of the bird buttons pictured below (the ones in the picture are two of the four I hoarded for myself) but if you're interested in seeing the rest you'll have to visit Ali's blog or the Flickr group .  I'm not sure when or if she'll have them up.  They've been having some fine weather (not) over in her corner of England so it may be awhile before she has decent light for a photo shoot.

And here are a few of the things Ali sent me.

Also, here are some random shots of things from the past few days.  Who wouldn't like to look at delicious chocolate [birthday] cupcakes or some lovely fabric from Ikea laying in the sunshine and shadows?