overheard on g-chat today

Jonathan: I'm checking the live macworld keynote updates really thin notebook just announced

me: cool

I would like that for my birthday and I don't mind if that's all I get :P

Jonathan: funny funny

Stitchette Quilt

My stitchette undertaking is finally complete! I'm a little bummed that there are no more stitchettes to sew up, but this has been a fun project and I'm glad that I finally one place to feature all the embroidery I've done.

I based the pattern for the quilt off of the cover of Kaffe Fassett book, Quilts in the Sun. Each of the squares has an 8" x 8" center featuring the stitchette. Then the squares are bordered with 4 inches of printed fabric. I used 8 different prints, twice each. For the quilting I sewed 1" parallel lines in the printed fabric portion of the quilt both vertically and horizontally. For the binding I used scrap strips of the patchwork fabric used in the quilt (a great way to use up the leftover fabric).

transformers

After Jon saw this washcloth on Oiyi's blog, he requested that I make one for him. Here it is...my first time following a design in a knit piece.

Transformers Cloth pattern from Knitting Memories

There is a mistake on Row 25. It should be: MB4, K3, P5, K5, P1, K2, P3, K2, P1, K5, P5, K3, MB4.

Size US 7 needles

Sugar N Cream yarn in Hot Blue

This was an enjoyable little project and I'm going to make a few more washcloths/dishcloths. I especially want to try out this ballband dishcloth pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting.

two things

1. Why is it that the heated mattress pad that we ordered after many nights of getting into an incredibly chilly bed arrives on the warmest day of the winter? Seriously, we have been stalking the UPS tracking page for this thing for over a week and it finally decides to show up when it's 52 degrees outside.

2. I have officially given up on this pink brioche stitch scarf. I don't think I have it in me to knit another 40" of this. I don't like the Cascade 220 yarn that I'm knitting with because it keeps splitting and it's frustrating me to no end.

I was browsing around on Ravelry today and have decided to cast on for the Fuzzy Feet with this yarn. If all goes well I should be able to make two slippers out of one ball of yarn and once I felt it, you won't be able to see all the splitting that's going on.

And, this is perfect for me because I've always wanted to try out sock knitting, but I've never wanted to put the time into it, especially because my skin is sensitive to wool. Wool slippers shouldn't be a problem with socks on underneath, right?

Brioche Stitch Scarf

I found this pattern for the Berlin Scarf on the Purl Bee early last year and started making it with some Cascade Quattro yarn immediately. Since then, the Cascade scarf has been put on hold and I've been directing my attention to this scarf instead.

I used Berroco Jasper yarn that's merino wool and self-striping and green. Jon and I are still discussing who this will belong to...I keep telling him that he can have it, but I'm not quite sure that I'm ready to give it up so soon.

This yarn is lovely and soft and squishy and doesn't irritate my skin, so I'm quite fond of it. And everyone that sees the yarn for this scarf is completely amazed that it's self-striping (myself included).

Well, I finished up the scarf a few days ago and after a scary incident in which I didn't leave enough yarn for the cast off, had to frog a few rows and re-cast off. And, I wasn't quite sure of the instructions for the cast off, so it ended up being a lot tighter than the cast on, but I suppose if I just tuck it behind my coat, it won't be so noticeable.

Here are the project details:

Yarn: Berroco Jasper

Colorway: Verde Lavras

Needles: Size 9

6 hanks (98 yards each)

Finished size: 8" wide by 60" long

Pattern variation: I cast on 42 stitches instead of 30 to make the scarf wider

big zig quilt

Here's the final Christmas gift that I made...a quilt for Jon. The extra special thing about this was that he had no idea that I had this project in the works. I rushed home from work every day for a few weeks to put in a quilting hours before Jon arrived home from work. Jon was totally surprised and didn't even remember that he had picked this pattern out earlier last year and had requested that I make one to match his office's green/grey scheme.

I used the Big Zig quilt pattern from Denyse Schmidt Quilts and solid Kona cotton fabric for the quilt. I did a little bit of tweaking to the size of the quilt. When I bought the fabric back in September, I had written out detailed notes and adjustments for the final size which included shrinking down the triangles to be more proportionate to the overall size (we're talking trig here) and turning the full sized quilt into a twin sized quilt. Because I threw out my notes months ago (did I mention I'm more of a purger than a packrat?), I just had to wing it for the final size and ended up using the original triangle sizes in the book and chopping off half of a triangle on the right side (oh, well). The final size of this quilt is 62" x 78" and works great as a lap quilt.

This was my first time quilting with triangles and it took a few passes and a lot of seam ripping before I figured out how to line up the pieces for sewing. I wasn't staggering the pieces enough to make sure that the points weren't cut off at first, but I was able to figure it out after a few tries.

For the quilting, I used a fabric marker to mark the zig zag lines and then traced along on my sewing machine with white thread. I love the parallel zig zags on this and think it's a perfect way to accent the two main zig zags. Denyse Schmidt is a genius!

I used the machine sew the front/hand sew the back of the binding method that I used on my last quilt and I think I'm officially preferring this method over the bias tape method. The only snafu that I ran into was that I used Polyester thread (hey, it was on sale) instead of cotton thread to attach the back of the binding, so it didn't shrink at the same rate as the rest of the cotton components. Now the stitches on the back are a bit more defined. But this is definitely something that only I would notice.

Happy New Year!

We had a few friends over last night for sushi and games and Jon got to try out his new sushi apron that I made him for Christmas while he was preparing miso soup and tamago.

This is just a simple chef apron made with a yard of fabric and about 5 yards of double fold bias tape. I got the fabric from etsy, but I'm not sure if the seller has any more for sale right now.