Sewing Roundup

I've been on a clothes sewing kick.  But I can only sew, and more importantly cut out pattern pieces, when the baby is napping.

But this is what I've made since I last posted 6 weeks ago:

This was supposed to be the Enchantment Under the Sea dress from Stitch Savvy by Deborah Moebes.  Made from Kaffe Fassett's Roman Glass fabric. I love this print and colorway.  I spent forever trying cut out the bodice so there's no unfortunately placed dots, and in the end, I just made it into a skirt. The waistband is orange bias tape. It's got the longest invisible zipper down the back, since I just used the zipper meant for the dress.

This is the Picnic Blanket Skirt from Tilly and the Buttons. The fabric is orange and white seersucker and pearly white plastic buttons. Per the instructions, there's an inch of ease, but I didn't like it.  Eventually I pinched in the sides.


Husband went to Salt Lake City for work and he brought home this shirt for me.  But I don't wear clothes that say things.  So I cut down and made into a shirt for the 1 year old baby.  I didn't hem any of the edges.

This is the dress New Look 6184.  The fabric is quilting cotton printed by balls of yarn with knitting needles. I thought it would look silly or quirky (which it is) but the first person who saw me in it, it took her a few minutes of conversation before she noticed the print. Instead of facing, I used bias tape around the neck and armholes. I've gotten compliments both times that I've worn it.  I'm really proud of it, since it's the most complicated dress I've made so far.

Progress of all sorts

Finished sewing the pink border to the blue field of the 5 year quilt. Here's the cat using the quilt top as a bed. Next up, sewing on the yellow border, then shopping for orange fabric for the binding, something for the back, and the batting.
Here's the roll of blue Kaffe Fassett fabrics, partly laid out. Was watching Season One of Warehouse 13 while doing this.
Speaking of Syfy, I've really been into Alphas. I think I've mentioned before that I like how the show starts by just dropping the viewer into the story -- there are people with powers (called Alphas), there's a team of Alphas headed up by a non-Alpha that works for the US gov't, and they work to solve crimes that may or may not involve Alphas.

Part of the mythology is dangerous Alphas are sent to be imprisoned in a special facility in Binghamton, NY; the US gov't doesn't like that there are Alphas, and there's a rebel group of Alphas called Red Flag that is agitating for the right to live freely and not be hunted down by the gov't.

I've also been using MyFitnessPal app to track calories in, calories out. In the 3 weeks I've used it, I've lost 4 lbs, then gained back 2. Plus exercising more. Dang I'm tired. However, in the long run, it'll be good for me.

Fabric shopping

I can see the end of the tunnel with piecing the 5-year quilt top. So I went to Intown Quilters to see if they do finishing work. They don't but did refer me to people who can.

Quilt shops are like yarn shops. All the colors! All the possibilities!

I first went to Hancock Fabrics where I picked up the quarters. I'm consistently drawn to bright colors. I thought about getting some different kinds of colors too, but none of them spoke to me.

Then I stopped at Intown Quilters and picked up the roll of 20 Kaffe Fassett fabrics bundled in 2.5 inch strips. I so want to start a new project and have many in mind. Once I get the 5 year quilt off for finishing....

Quilt inspiration

I have dabbled in quilting (another post for another day) and many of my afghans are based on quilts, so that's where I turned for ideas for 2 projects on my mind.

First, the Rainbow of Malabrigo, described in a previous post:

What to do with it? I pulled out my Kaffe Fasset quilt books (Glorious Patchwork and Kaleidoscope of Quilts, signed by the author!) and found these possibilities (terrible quality with glare, I know).

Hazy Corners from Kaleidoscope of Quilts, basically mitered squares with a solid square in the corner. The Rainbow of Malabrigo would fit right in.

Little Bricks, from Glorious Patchwork. Basically it's alternating rectangles with the stripes going horizonally and vertically. He's got a few plaids in there. I could do blue/purple stripes, with yellow/orange stripes. Green could be the garter stitch border.

Pieced Stripes from Glorious Patchwork. Years ago I sketched a blanket idea based on this quilt, using greens and whites with a border of squares. It's inspired by a Japanese kimono pattern, which I've seen in one of my kimono books. Talk about great sources of inspiration!

Then for Brother Two, I have these boxes of machine washable yarn.
Some of the yarn is from my stash (Mountain Colors' Bearfoot, Brown Sheep Company's Wildfoote, sock yarn from KnitPicks, Spinrite's Muskoka, Cotton Classic, Peaches 'n' Creme), some I ordered from KnitPicks. Over Thanksgiving, I showed him the catalog and asked him to pick colors he liked. He wanted blues, green, and grey (bor-ing! but it's his blanket, not mine). The red/grey is my idea. At the bottom is a crocheted blanket I started with sockyarn. Who am kidding? That project will take forever, so it will frogged.

I thought about doing something from Mason-Dixon Knitting and last night, started swatching. Then this morning, I realized that I had to make Chinese Coins. Here's a picture from Beautiful Quilts: Amish & Mennonite, another great book for inspiration.

This is perfect in so many ways. First, we're ethnically Chinese. Second, our father's name is Coin. Third, it's a great stash buster.

Originally, I was going to do stripes of blues and greens, with little flashes of red, and have the solid sashing be the grey (shown blue above), with the red/grey crocheted as a border. But now that I realize I have all this green, maybe that will be the sashing.

(Added later -- I took out anything that wasn't worsted weight because I realized that having different weights would probably not work. Most of that was 6 skeins of green Cotton Classic and then all that varigated sock yarn. Plus I really wanted the sashing to be the grey because of the great contrast with the dark and medium blues and greens. This will require buying more grey yarn. A real hardship, I know.)

To make it reversable, I might use the checkerboard pattern from Husband's afghan. Or I might find something from the Barbara Walker Treasuries.

Oh the fun of starting a new project. And I haven't even blogged about my little Variations on the Lotus jag I'm on.

Another's (better) report on Kaffe Fasset's talk, with pictures

Kay, at Mason Dixon Knitting (link at right) posted today about KF's talk. She has pictures and more detail. The post is called Instinct Is a Good Designer (and So Is This Guy).

And by the way, Kaffe and Brandon both wore the same tops in her pictures as in Atlanta.
One thing I would add is that KF talked about loving color and pattern. The colors really sing because of their juxtaposition in a pattern.

So even if his shirt is rather subdued, each hexagon encloses a different print.

Kay also mentioned his attitude toward perfectionism. Me myself, not so into perfectionism. Perfection is impossible anyway.

According to Kay, he said that you can't really see the effect of your color and design choices at the row level, or the swatch level, or even the halfway-there level. You have to be willing to wait for the whole effect. If you work quickly, instinct starts to kick in, and "instinct is a good designer".

Personally, I don't remember him saying that particular piece, but then my memory is awful. Husband will say "do you remember XYZ?" and I won't, even if I was there or actually said or did it myself.

Anyway, this is only strengthening my desire to knit a Kaffe Fassett patterned Rectangle of Malabrigo (with maybe some Cascade 220, Manos del Uruguay, and other random skeins).

Kaffe Fassett, the freaky power of blogs, and the Rectangle of Malabrigo

A few weeks ago, I went to see Kaffe Fassett speak. It was a quilting event but KF's talk was about color and he had slides of his knitting, mosaics, quilts, needlepoint, everything.

When I got there the first person I saw was Brandon Mably and I just went up to him and introduced myself (like he had any idea who I was). I mentioned that I read Franklin Habit's post about the knitting workshop BM did and how it just opened Franklin's eyes to color.

BM didn't quite remember who Franklin was (as if I know who FH is -- ah, the power of blogs that make you think you know complete strangers), but when I mentioned Chicago and the Franklin's 1000 knitters photo project, he remembered. He said that he doesn't always know how effective he's been, so it's nice to hear this kind of feedback.

I think this was also a freaky example of the power of blogging. I told him that Franklin's blog post made me want to take his workshop, if he ever comes back to Atlanta.

Then I posted all of the above on FH's post on BM, just to complete the circle.

So, it's now November, I've brought in the house plants and turned on the heat at home. I'm still working on Sister's Top-down Raglan Cardigan in Manos del Uruguay in Eclipse, using Cosmic Pluto's pattern. Love the Manos! I love the way they dye the yarn different colors like ever two inches. The colors are so deep and vibrant. One day Husband and I went to the Silver Comet Trail to exercise. I was in the throes of work stress and didn't walk as long as I usually do, so I got back to the car before Husband. Pulled out the Top-down Raglan Cardigan and sat on the bench and knit, reveling in the gorgeous colors.

The body is too loose and short, so I'll have to rip back and re-knit. But with a yarn this beautiful, it's no hardship.

And I'm still carting around Brother-in-Law's vest, in KnitPicks superwash worsted, in the color Truffle. Which is a mid-brown with a hint of grey. Not inspiring at all, but it's for a guy. No man-stripe across the chest, like I did for my brothers' vests. Instead, I'll use a contrasting color stripe in the ribbing around the neckline, armholes, and bottom hem. Probably a green or blue. Yes, still not exciting. But it's my portable project, stockingnett in the round, so I don't look at it while knitting anyway.

Plus I'm begining to sew together Husband's afghan, using single crochet.

But I want to start something new! I only have 3 projects on the needles. That's got to be an all time low.

So I pulled out some of KF's quilting and knitting books. I want to make something using my stash and his motto of "When in doubt, add 20 more colors!." I have at least 5 skeins of Malabrigo in purple, blues, yellow, and green. In many of KF's patterns, he mixes colors by holding 2 strands together, or inserts one row randomly using a different color yarn. This adds another layer of color, in case 20 colors wasn't enough. Go look at his knitting and you'll know what I mean.

The Malabrigo is kettle dyed, meaning the yarn goes from light, medium, and dark within the same skein. So I'd get the color mixing without having to work so hard.

So I'm leaning towards making a shawl using KF's Super Triangles motif. As he said in his talk, it uses a ton of colors, but you're knitting with only 2 colors per row. So I'm thinking a shawl using different colors every row, leaving the loose ends out as fringe.

Some people hate the Atlanta traffick. I use it to daydream about knitting, quilting, and pottery.

Kaffe Fassett's in town

Tomorrow night I'm going to hear Kaffe Fassett do a lecture on using color. It's sponsored by Intown Quilters. They recently moved but I haven't been to their new location. Probably just as well, as I already have a quilt fabric stash that does not need to grow.

All of Fassett's stuff uses a ton of color, many that I never would think of using together. One of his mottos is "If you're not sure what color to use, add 20 more!" or something like that. I have several of his quilting and knitting books (Kaffe Fassett's Kaleidoscope of Quilt's, Glorious Patchwork, Family Album, and Kaffe Fassett's Pattern Library) and will take them for him to sign. Conveniently, the lecture will be held at an office park right next to where I work.

On Wednesday night, he and Brandon Mably will be doing a book signing at my favorite yarn shop Knitch. But that's pottery night and I don't want to miss it again. Last time I missed pottery night was to see the Yarn Harlot speak.

There's only three pottery sessions left in this quarter and I have so many pieces to trim, bisque, and glaze. I still have pieces from the spring quarter that have yet to be glazed. This has been a great pottery class. I'm making really large (for me) pieces, using 8 and 10 lbs of clay, and now I've learned how to make teapots. Very fun. Next quarter I'm signing up for Mariella's class again.

Honorine and Babette

I've finished crocheting the squares for the orange and ivory baby blanket. There are 36 and I just barely had enough of the orange to finish. I frogged the swatches I had to get enough yarn.

Now all that remains is sewing them up and adding a border. And waiting for the baby. However, the baby girl (not mine) isn't born yet, so the blanket is nameless. And I just found out someone else had a baby boy, so of course I'm thinking, another baby blanket to make!

I've cast on for Honorine, using KnitPicks CotLin in Moroccan Red. When I got the box last week, the red made me swoon. Okay, not literally, but I was very happy with it. I swatched with size 6 US and size 5 US and size 6 gave me gauge (22 sts = 4 inches). However, after washing and blocking, the yarn expanded and the size 6 US swatch now turns out to be 20.5 sts to 4 inches.

What to do? Should I go with the pre-washed gauge and cast on the number of stitches for my bust size, or go with the after washing gauge and cast on the number for the smaller bust size and rely on washing to make it grow to my size?

I've also decided to knit it in the round and omit the lace insert for modesty. Actually, I don't want to have to wear a camisole underneath. It's just too warm in Atlanta most of the time to need it. This involved more math, as the lace insert uses a different yarn, with a different gauge which I had to convert to my washed CotLin gauge. In the end, I chose to go with the smallest size and cast on 180 stitches. Here's hoping this works!

Crocheting the orange and ivory really got me into the crochet groove. I've been eyeing Babette by Kathy Merrick from Interweave Crochet 2006 and there are lots of great pics on Flickr. I also have Glorious Patchwork by Kaffe Fassett (love his stuff!). The quilt on the cover was the inspiration for Babette.

But most of my yarn is not machine washable and there's no way I'm going to hand wash an afghan. Really now, people.

However, in flipping through Glorious Patchwork, I found a few quilts that I could convert into knitting or crocheting. After the orange and ivory blanket is done, I'll do some swatching and we'll see what comes of it.

However, it'll have to go the end of the line behind Husband's afghan, Honorine, Brother-in-law's vest -- for winter holiday or his January birthday, the Sandy cardigan from Big Girl Knits for Ma -- needs to be done by Chinese New Year next year, and fixing Sister's Bi-colored Cables sweater. I probably just need to reknit the sleeves. And the collar.

But for now, I will just enjoy going round and round on Honorine, my portable, mindless knitting.