Spring = Sewing

After a long, cold, rainy winter, the sun is finally here. For some reason, this means that I'll pull out my sewing machine and sew something. Must be all the light, my brain and my eyes tell me that the conditions are optimal for stitching time.

Another reason is a friend who just had a baby girl. I'm making her a baby quilt. It's all I've been doing this past week - cutting fabric, pinning, sewing. The quilt is almost finished, I just have to hand-sew the binding on the back. 
As a break from all the quilt-sewing, I sewed some random pouchy thingies from the scraps I had from the quilt. 

A zippered pouch that turned out meh. I always sew too close to the zipper tabs, and the result is a distorted looking top once I turn the pouch right side out. Note to self: Don't sew so close to the fricking zipper tabs. 

A drawstring pouch from this tutorial. No idea what I'm going to put in it, but it turned out cute.

 

An iphone cover disaster. Let's ignore the fact that my points don't exactly match up, my measurements are also off. It's a tight fit for my phone and a bit too short too. 

But the biggest disaster was my idea to iron the seams open. Once I started to tug and pull while I was sewing these seams started to pull apart. Not to self: Iron seams in quilting projects like this to one side. Or at least secure them by backstitching.

I also did a crappy job on sewing the lining, so this cover will be one of those things that I'll use until it gets dirty, and then it's going to the trash. 

 

Fake leather iphone case. I saw this color in the fabric store and just couldn't resist. I bought about 20 cm in width, just so I could try to sew with it. Also had to buy a new set of leather needles for my machine. I'm pretty satisfied for my first try. And pretty proud of my Elna machine. It really does sew everything. 

Sarah's Delight

I've come to the conclusion that I should only knit for myself, because I suck at knitting for other people. 

I promised my great-aunt a vest, chose a pretty pattern - Sarah's Delight - and cast on for a size somewhere in between the ones in the pattern. 
My aunt wasn't here for me to test if I had the right size, so I just went with my gut. And knitted on, even when I had that little nagging feeling that it might be too small. Turns out that nagging feeling was right - the vest should have been shorter and wider. It's still wearable, there is a little strain on the buttons when she buttons it up, and the length reaches practically the half of her thighs. My aunt is of course delighted, she would never say anything bad about the vest, but for me this was a total learning experience. Namely - if you think it will be too small, it's probably too small. 

 

Oh dear...

... almost three months since my last post. Ooops.
Time for another catch up post. I promise I'll try not to make this a habit and I will post regularly. 

Stuff I made since the last post, in no logical or chronological order:

Paulie

 

 

Paulie might be the best cardigan I've ever knit. It's done in fingering weight (Ispe Padova Serenada, 50% merino, 50% acrylic) took forever, but it's light and a pleasure to wear. I love the i-cord bind off and the fact that I managed to find buttons that exactly match the color of my contrast yarn. Shawl collar included short-rows, and as always, they turned out all messy, but the bind-off managed to hide them almost completely so it's all good. 

Julissa

 

Julissa is a great pattern. I love the cables and the lace on the front. It also has cables going down the arms - super amazing design detail. Done in ONline Linie 170 Kim, merino-silk combo. I'd like to say the yarn is great, but it's not. Sure, it's very soft and springy, but it pills. So badly in fact, that my sweater already looks old. And I only wore it about 4 times. Very bummed about it. 

Mont Royal 

Hat done in sock yarn. Never occurred to me before to knit a hat with sock yarn. It's probably my favorite hat right now. 

Random other stuff

So there, now we're all caught up. I'm going back to my knitting. I've got a deadline - to knit a vest for my aunt and a cardigan for a friend before the end of March. Haven't even started yet.

Stuff I made but never posted

Whoops, seems like I've been neglecting the blog lately. I've got a good excuse - I've been to busy knitting. So let's make this a catch-up post. Here's all the stuff from the past month and a half. 

Middlefield pullover (from the book New England Knits)

Gafunkel

Bella Lana Reversible Cable Scarf

Hermione's Cable & Eyelet Hat
 

Adventures in felting: Before

And after 1.5 hrs in the washing machine on 60 C.

My quilt ;)

Guess what? I made another quilt. I stumbled onto this tutorial for a great looking quilt block called Granny squares. The moment I saw it, the little voice inside my head went: You must make this. And it was a great opportunity to use up the fabric and batting I had left over from my previous quilt. I added some red fabric from my stash, the stuff I originally bought because I wanted to make a bed-sized quilt. The chunk of batting I had left measured about 60 x 42 inches, so my quilt is about the same size - Google tells me that this size is a lap quilt. 

The piecing of the blocks was relatively slow - each block consists of 25 little squares that need to be sewn together. Simple, but time consuming. But I really like the result, it's an effective block. 

 
I quilted the whole thing with free motion squiggles. Mostly because I wanted to secure my stitching in the pieced blocks a little more - some of those fabrics were really fraying. 

The quilting is better that it was the last time, but still far from perfect. It's so freaking hard to maneuver the quilt around when you don't have a decent sewing surface. I need a conference table, I really do. 

For this quilt I sort of grouped my little sewing table, my computer table, my ironing board and the TV table. Made the Alps from furniture, because each table was different height. And my quilt would regularly fall into the empty spaces between them. The amount of curse words I uttered would probably set a record. 

I managed to pinch the fabric on only two places, so that's an improvement. And I learned how to bury the threads in the quilt, new skills are always good.

I didn't have a big enough fabric chunk that would cover the whole back, so I combined the stuff I had. 

The whole quilt is perfect for lying on the couch while watching TV, reading or knitting. 

 
And that brings me to my finished knitting project. Express Lane socks. The socks that almost took me a year to knit. No idea why, the pattern is great and not that complicated. The yarn is Regia, one of those 100 gram skeins. I decided to use the whole thing, so the socks are almost-but-not-quite knee socks. 

Next project? Well, since I put my sewing machine away and finally vacuumed all the little bits of thread my whole apartment was covered in, my next project will be good old knitting. Such a clean craft, with barely any mess. I'm starting the Middlefield Pullover.