Knitty Gritty Thoughts

Things that make me go mmm....

Boy time sure flies when you're not having fun! =)  It's been crazy busy at work lately and a bit of a stress-o-rama, nothing big just lots of stuff to do and not enough time to get it all done in.

I've been wanting to get email under control for a long time.  I always feel like I'm behind so I've changed my email stuff around to try to get more organized.  I have gmail but I setup the pop mail to go to outlook so I can sort, sort, sort to my heart's content!  Let me know it it looks weird/different when you get email from me?  I'm slowly working through the backlog now so if you get some random email from me that's 3 months old now you know why. =)

Anyhow I was tagged 3 times (!) for making people's days and I feel so honored, thank you!

Tiennie, Angelika and Hilary, thank you so much! =)

Here's a few people who make my day (certainly not an exhaustive list ;) but you can't list everyone right?

Tasha
Stacia
Catherine
Erica
Rachel
Katie
Beth
Sasha
Rhea
and last but not least my special swap pal Debby!

Thanks Ladies for always making my day! =)

Other things that have made my day lately include:

A lovely mitten kit from Norway Finland, enabled by Chris and knitting up beautifully.  The colors are hand-dyed using natural materials and the patters are all created by her mom to match the yarns.  This kit is truly decadent.

More zen-handspinning on my new wheel:

Jolly Green Giant BFL from Vesper

...and Ming Handspun Superwash Merino from Middle Kingdom Fiber (Becky's a great blog pal as well)

And no I haven't forgotten about the last step on my bread-basket tut, I ran into some issues with the binding (my first real one) so it's taking a bit longer than I hoped.  Next time for sure! =)

European Bread Basket Sew-along: Part 3 Sewing up the sides

Ok so you're all caught up now right and ready for the sewing??? =)  If you missed any part of the bread basket tutorial you can find the project supply list here in step 1, and step 2 here.  Now if you're ready, let's begin! =)

I guess I should start by saying that this part is really easy, it took me less than 15 minutes to sew AND take pictures of the tutorial, so this is a really short step.

Last time we left off where you had put together your "bread-basket sandwich" and pinned the layers together.  Next, make sure to square everything up, that all layers are lined up and trim off any excess.  I get a little lazy when I cut my batting so I always have to trim a bit off the sides.

Once that's done you're ready to mark your sewing lines (zoom into the picture below if you are having trouble seeing them).  What you will do is mark a line with chalk or fabric pen 3 - 3.5 inches from the outside  (depending on how high you like your edges, I did 3") on each of the 4 sides.  What this will do is form the sides and bottom of your basket, you will end up with markings creating a smaller square.  Clear as mud?  If you're confused, scroll down to the finished sewing picture and it will make sense.

Now you're ready to start sewing!  Change to a walking foot on your sewing machine if you have it and start quilting the 4 lines you just marked.  Be careful to keep the fabric taunt in this step so you don't end up with gaps in the middle.

Once that's done trim any threads.  Now you're going to round the corners (this step is optional, if you would like to keep the corners squared than by all means, go for it! =))  I used a small jar to mark my corners, if you have one of those fancy round templates than this would be a great time to use it!  Finally, trim your corners round using scissors or rotary cutter.

Ok that's it, now step back and admire your work!

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and I will answer them there as well.  Next and final step, attaching the border and ties!  See you next time! =) Oh and don't forget, I'm still running my "blog friend discount"!  15% off anything in the store from now until this Saturday night! =)  Simply put coupon code BLOGFRIEND in the comments at checkout and wait for a revised invoice from me before paying.  Just my little way of saying THANK YOU! =)

European Bread Basket Sew-along: Part 2 Cutting out the pieces

Well hi there!  It  sure feels weird blogging two days in a row but we have a breadbasket to make! =)

Ok, so you gathered your supplies right???

Good - Let's get started.  As a quick FYI, each step should only take you about 15 or 20 minutes, 30 minutes at the most if you're a perfectionist so these baskets go quickly.  I'm the type of person who likes to break up my sewing projects into short steps and this tutorial is reflective of that.  OK?  Good! =)

So, first off you need to cut out your fabric:

• Cut one 13.5 inch square of both your top and bottom fabrics
• Cut two 13.5 inch squares of your heavy-weight iron on interfacing
• Cut one 13.5 square of your batting (now this could depend on your batting choice, synthentic is fluffier than the natural cotton so 1 layer would be fine.  I'm using the heirloom cotton batting so I decided to do two layers so it's fluffy enough, the choice is up to you.

Now set your iron on a hot steam setting and attach each piece of the iron-on interfacing to both the top and bottom fabrics so they're reinforced.

Once they're good and attached you can start building your quilt sandwich or what I like to call my breadbasket sandwich ;) (ok, ok bad joke!)

Put them together like this

• Put your bottom fabric right side down on the table
• Batting goes in the middle
• Your top fabric goes right side up on top of them all

Ok, now pin the layers together and you're done!

Didn't I tell you it was easy?

Ok, I'll be back here on Wednesday for the little bit of sewing and then we'll finish up on Friday with the binding, easy peasy, right?

European Bread Basket Sew-along: Part 1 Supplies

Whew, boy the weekend went a lot faster than I was expecting, wow!  It feels like I just blinked at it was Sunday and I was late putting up the supply list for the bread basket-along.

Anyhow so here it is, you should have most of it lying around your house so hopefully you won't have to go searching too far...all the ingredients are pretty common.

• 2 fat-quarters of fabric or anything at least 13.5 inches wide, in coordinating colors (or you can get creative here and do a patchwork top, which would be quite pretty!)
• at least 15 inches square of batting
• 3/4 yd of the heaviest weight you can find of iron-in interfacing
• Timtex (optional for a smaller size but if you decide to upsize this basket I would recommend it, the larger the basket, the more bread you put it in, the more reinforcement it would need)
• Matching thread
• 1 matching packet of double-fold quilt binding (7/8 wide)
• 1 matching packet of extra-wide double fold binding (1/2 wide)
• Straight edge
• Walking foot (optional, but it will definitely make the quilting process easier)
• Pins

OK, now go gather those supplies!  Step 2 will be posted tomorrow evening sometime, after I get done with work.

AND the reason the weekend went by was so fast was I spent it head-first in fiber, carding up a storm.  It was so much fun!  I had such a great time coming with all sorts of new color combos!  Anyhow, I wanted to thank you all for your support by giving you a coupon for 15% off anything in the store from now until this Saturday night! =)  Simply put coupon code BLOGFRIEND in the comments at checkout and wait for a revised invoice from me before paying.  Just my little way of saying THANK YOU! =)

See you tomorrow!

Mermaid Mitts and More

I have a huge pile of stuff to blog about in my craft room so I thought I would grab a few things off the top of the pile and dive right in - the first thing I thought I would share is something I DIDN'T knit actually.

I had been wanting to knit mermaid gloves  for ages but could never find the time so Angelika and I did a trade, I sent her the yarn to knit these (beautiful Koigu from Rhea), and she knit them, and in exchange I'm hand dyeing some lace yarn for her.  Hmm.... I think I may have gotten the better end of the deal, I better send her some extra goodies too! =)

Aren't they gorgeous??? She even matched up the pattern to the thumb gusset and made me pretty little fingers too. The little fingers make me happy, hehe! ;)

Hmm so what else?  There has been spinning, I've been trying to spin some shop samples so first off are some Sheepy Battlets spun up (this skein is a belated Christmas gift too, so it's quite nice to take care of two things on my to-do list at once! =))  These are quite wooly and natural feeling, I've never had a fiber tell me how they wanted to be spun before but these clearly were shouting at me that they wanted to be spun with a backwards draw, preferably long!  Once I listened, the spinning went quite smoothly and I'm looking forward to spinning up more.

After that I started spinning up a Hearts Afire battlet sample, this is only 1 ounce but went quite fast on my new spinning wheel (Hubby bought me a Schacht Matchless DT for Christmas, aren't I lucky???)! =) (Leah you are such an enabler!!! ;))  I just love my new wheel, I'm still getting used to it.   The first thing I did after taking it out of the box was switching it to Scotch from Double Drive, since I'm more familiar with it from my Lendrum.

It's a long story but there was actually a big mix-up from Schacht, they messed up my order and told me my new wheel wouldn't be here for weeks (if ever) after I had to already wait 2 months.  Well, it was important that it arrived before Christmas so we did some major scrambling to get 1 here.  Paradise was quite helpful and rushed me the only wheel they had, it was still new but had been taken out of it's box to demo.  Well two days later a wheel from Schacht shows up on my door!  I now have two of these wheels at my house!  I obviously can't afford to keep two, and the other is still in it's box from paradise fibers.  Anyone looking for one?   They're quite hard to find right now due to the fact that Schacht is focusing on the new ladybug and they're out of stock just about everywhere.  Paradise is offering the person who buys it a $100 fiber credit (!)  anyhow email me if you'd like more info. =)  Oh and please spread the word too - if it sells due to you referring someone I will quite happily send you battlets from my store, or a free project bag or... something! =)

But...back to spinning...the hearts afire is quite similar to the candy-cane battlets (red/white) just slightly different proportions of each.  This screams Valentine's day and hearts to me, so I spun up the sample in a DK-weight single on the new matchless with the regular whorl and a short, slightly lazy forward draw.  I prepped the battlet by unrolling it and tearing strips off, I pre-drafted slightly to try and keep both colors together when I spun.  It was very fun and easy to spin and I had a great time! =)

Ok enough of the spinning and on to sewing! =)  I've had a few people email me about the European style bread-basket pattern, so i thought we'd have a mini bread-basket sew-along.  I'll post a supply list here tomorrow so you can have the weekend to pick up a few things and then we'll start on Monday and it will last a few days.  Are you in??? =) (And let me say to the non-sewers that it's quite easy, fast and only involves straight lines.   If you're on the fence about it, give it a try! =))

--Hi--

Well hello there.  Long time no chat! =)  A few things happened in rapid succession back there in December to take me away, first I had to travel for a week for work.  Then the day after I got back Elle's other cruciate ligament fully ruptured and the poor thing couldn't walk!  I ran around to the surgical vet trying to get her evaluated and see if she was healed enough from the first surgery to do the other leg.  We weren't really happy because we wanted to wait longer but in the end we didn't have a choice, she had to go in. 

In the midst of that, my husband came home from Iraq for his what they call R&R (basically 18 days vacation mid-deployment).  I hadn't seen him for over 8 months and this will be the only 18 days in 15 MONTHS that I get to see him so I did what anyone would do.  I took 3 weeks off work, I turned off the computer and I spent some quality time with him.  It was wonderful! =)

Unfortunately with Elle having the surgery we had to scrap any plans of going away.  We spent lots of time close to home, his mom/dad and 1 of his brothers and family flew out here from CA to see him.  We were able to spend time with everyone and have big family Christmases which I just adored!  We also finally got to spend an anniversary together as well (first 1 in 4 years but ah well)! =)

He left late last week and it's been hard readjusting to this big empty house.  Today is my first day back to work and I'm slowly but surely getting back into the swing of things.  I must say it was an absolute treat to turn off the computer and just relax.  I didn't realize how much I needed to just get away from it all - I spend so many hours a day on the computer it was a treat to unplug.

Anyhow, so if you emailed me you didn't get a response, I'm slowly working through the backlog now.  I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone, I've missed chatting with you and seeing all your projects! =)

In other news, I've had a lot of requests for new project bags, I've been working hard to get a bunch more out there so you can actually have some choices. ;)  6 new project bags are going up tonight in my store and about 6-7 more are coming this weekend (you can see a preview here on flickr.  I'm experimenting with some heavier weight fabric to see how I like it.  Aren't the sheepies adorable???)  Then after that it'll be a short break so I can focus on battlets.  I've been hand-dyeing like crazy but haven't had a chance to card any up.

Oh and I almost forgot project news! =)  The ripple blanket post will have to wait, I haven't had a chance to take any FO pics, but I wanted to share my yummy new project with you!

At a SnB that Margaret invited me to when I was traveling (thanks for the invite, I had a great time! =))  I finally got to see the infamous malabrigo lace and it was scrumptious!  I had absolutely fallen in LOVE with Heather's Victorian Lace scarf version (seen here on Ravelry!) and I knew that would be the perfect thing to knit.  I looked all over for other colors of malabrigo lace but didn't find anything that spoke to me so I decided to do it in green (colorway: VAA) as well.  Sometimes you just can't beat a great idea.

Just about 5 minutes ago I checked my mail and it had arrived from webs and I had a good laugh.  The package it came in was TINY and it barely weighed anything and I thought to myself, wow Webs must have messed up and forgot to put anything in the box!  When I opened it though, I was surprised, inside were two tiny little skeins that weighed next to nothing!  I put a chibi next to them for scale.  Apparently these little suckers are almost 500 yards each which seems impossible, but who am I to doubt?  I ordered two just to be safe! =)

Here's to some scrumptious knitting! =)