Ages ago I bought Amy Butler's In Stitches from Amazon. This CD Box is my first project from that book.
I would like to tell you it was a complete success, and it was going rather well, but then the crappy sewing on the top edge happened. I could blame my Toyota sewing machine, but let's face it, it's probably me.
I did do a very fine job on the bottom. Look at that crisp edge. Too bad you can't see the bottom when the box is doing what it's supposed to. Namely holding CDs. 
This project calls for Timtex, a fancy schmancy interfacing that is not sold here. I used a cereal box instead to give it some shape. I also omitted the handles for the box, because I didn't want to cover the pretty red flowers. The fabric is from Etsy. I only bought a half a meter. Should have gotten more when I had the chance. I could have made two boxes. I would have even been extra careful with the topstitching on the second one.
When I was a kid, "The Smurfs" were my favorite cartoon. I've recently stumbled on a episode on youtube (here in Croatia, the show was dubbed in our language) and it brought back fond childhood memories.I actually still use some of the quotes from that cartoon, like the unforgettable "Ima li još puno, Papa Štrumf?" ( How much further, Papa Smurf - from the Astrosmurf episode).
But my favorite character was Grouchy - Mrgud in Croatian. His random exclamations of hate cracked me up. I find his wisdom to applicable on so many things in everyday life, one of them being housework. Especially dishes. Washing dishes. Drying dishes. Dishes.So, with Mrgud in mind, I sewed a dishtowel out of aida cloth and stitched my most honest opinion of dishes. 
Imagine Grouchy saying in his grouchy voice: I hate dishes!
That's what I do everytime I look at this. It makes me chuckle a little. And then my face gets the same expression as Grouchys when I realize it's time to do the dishes.
Mrgud/Grouchy was done on 22-count aida cloth, with only one strand of floss. It took me about a week to finish.
The back is a mess and that's the reason it's not pictured. I'll probably sew a patch or something on the back, before I use the towel for drying dishes. Or maybe I should forget about function, trim the cloth, frame the cross stitch and display it in my tiny kitchen as the universal truth?
After more than a month of working on this, I finished my Pintuck T-shirt.The pattern was great, easy to read and to follow. A lot of short rows, and while I generally dislike those (I end up having holes all over the place) it resulted in some nice shaping, especially on the sleeves.
I used different yarn than the pattern calls for (as always) and fumbled a bit with the size - I think I started with XS and ending up doing half of the shirt in S. I should have written it down I guess. Due to my marvelous XS/S sizing changes, the bib is a bit too high. Actually, way to high. Also, the shirt is a little tight in the armpits. Someday I will knit a short sleeved shirt that doesn't cut off circulation in my arms. Someday.
A real knitter here would have admitted defeat, would have frogged the pits and the bib and re-knit the whole thing. Not me though. I am far to lazy to do that. It's taken me too long to even get to the bib, no way am I going back now that I've washed the damn thing and sewed the buttons on.
Besides, it's only tight if I move my arms around too much. It'll be okay for those two times I'll actually wear it.
It's shameful, but I hardly ever wear the stuff I knit. Want to know why? Because I don't dare tossing them in the washing machine and hand washing is such a pain in the ass. We've already established that I'm lazy.:-)
Pattern: Pintuck T-shirt
Yarn: Lana Grossa Elastico, 3 skeins
Needles: 3,5 mm
Time it took: 48 days
