Sampler Socks

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Heather

Socks, Socks, Sock! Honestly, I do make other things – I’ve got two shawls to share soon!

I’ve finished off the Sampler Socks I shared with you the other day.

Sampler Socks

The yarn is Yarn Hallow’s Summer Love (that is, Crystal Palace Panda Cotton) in colourway Santa Fe. The pattern is a combination of Wendy Johnson’s Toe Up Socks with a Difference and Sampler Socks from [amazon_link id=”1603425799″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Sock Yarn One Skein Wonders[/amazon_link].

Sampler Socks - Cuffs

I made both cuffs different, and took some liberties with the pattern because I changed them to toe-up.

Next up: a sweater.

No, just kidding! I’ve got to finish up those awesome My Vampire Boyfriend socks. Man, it is going to hurt to give those away.

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Wonky Blocks

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Heather

Oh, ONS why must you disappoint me? Orders should not take upwards of three weeks to ship. And if they do, you should send out emails to let your customers know. Honestly, if I hadn’t sworn off buying stash, I would be too annoyed to shop with you again any time soon.

On a happier note, yesterday I was able to lug out the sewing machine and transform the dining room into my sewing studio. (Delusions of grandeur, I haz them.) I got, more or less, caught up on the Craftsy Quilt Block of the Month class.

May’s lesson was log cabin blocks, but with a twist naturally. The first block is made more or less like a traditional log cabin block, except that the size of the strips used varies.

Modern Log Cabin

The second block is a wonky take on the log cabin. Strips of random colours and widths are sewn in, and the are trimmed at an angle to get a sort of five sided square.

Wonky 5-sided Log Cabin

It took me a little while to get the hang of this block, which is why the “centre” is so far off to the side. But, once I got going, I really fell in love with this method. I’m planning on making myself a lap quilt made up of only this block once this quilt is done. And, I’ll be using my carefully hoarded collection of Hello Kitty fabrics. I still need to find a few more fat quarter or half metre cuts to have enough, but I think I can manage that. 😀

You might have noticed that I haven’t posted April’s blocks yet. Well, they did turn out nicely, as the pictures below show. The method of the month was English Paper Piecing, which is essentially cutting out wee bits of fabric, lacing them around a paper shape, carefully sewing them together, and then removing the paper shape. You can either sew a whole bunch of shapes together as your quilt top or you can applique them to your blocks. Since this is the Block of the Month class, we took our shapes and did the applique method.

Hexi Stripe Block

Lovely, eh? But there is a problem. Since my fabric stash was in such a mess, I grabbed black broadcloth rather than black quilting cotton. They are not the same thing. Thankfully I noticed before I trimmed the stripe block! (And my fabric stash has now been tamed.)

Hexi Block

Also, I noticed before the block above was actually complete. I haven’t yet had the heart to pick out the stripe block and applique it to the proper fabric. I’ve promised myself to get to it before the end of June. I’m much less annoyed with myself about it now, so I’ll probably do it shortly. Next month is the modern nine patch, which I am really looking forward too.

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Winter is Coming

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Heather

I’ve been working like crazy on socks for other people, but I have found a little bit of time to work on Winter Keep by Teresa Wentzler.

Winter Keep by Teresa Wentzler

It is so close to being done! All it needs is the beads. This was my WIPocalypse project for this month, and I’m declaring it done!!

Here are the two pieces together. Isn’t it interesting how two designers can take exactly the same subject and produce designs that look so different. I think that anyone familiar with Teresa Wentzler and Jennifer Aikman-Smith’s designs would be able to pick out who designed which piece.

Winter Keep/Summer Keep by Teresa Wentzler and Jennifer Aikman-Smith

My plan is to finish this up as a needlebook. That means miles of nun stitch. So, I’m sure you can guess that is will probably be a while until I get to it. I’ll add the beads after I finish the nun stitch.

So, I’m making good progress on stitching up all my TW designs. I think it might be a lifetime of work though, since I’ve managed to collect all of them but two.

 

Finally, like to say thank you for all the recommendations for [amazon_link id=”0143119680″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]A Discovery of Witches[/amazon_link]. My mom also suggested it as a book I may enjoy. So, I cracked it open (actually, loaded it up on my Kobo) the other day and so far so good! (I’m also reading [amazon_link id=”0307352145″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Quiet[/amazon_link] by Susan Cain, [amazon_link id=”0061694940″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Anathem[/amazon_link] by Neil Stevenson, and [amazon_link id=”0812978846″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy[/amazon_link] by John Julius Norwich.)

3 Comments | Posted in Cross Stitch | Tagged , , ,

TUSAL – May 2012

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Heather

Goodness, it has been a lot longer between posts than I planned. I actually do have something to share, but I’m waiting for the final pieces to arrive in the mail. I’ve been waiting since April 5th! Apparently the package was mailed out on Saturday, so I should have it before a full two months have elapsed. Truthfully, I”m a bit disappointed. I really like this ONS, but the last few times that things have been delayed I didn’t get any sort of notification. To me, that is poor business practice.

Anyway, on to something a little more fun: my Totally Useless Stitch Along jar. This month it has new bits from the My Vampire Boyfriend Socks, Winter Keep/Summer Keep, and from a crochet project I just started (I’ll be sharing him later).

TUSAL Jar full of thready goodness

And see those yellow yarn bits? They are from these crazy socks:

Toe-Up Sampler Sock

The pattern is a combination of Wendy Johnson’s Toe-up Socks with a Difference (pdf link), the Sampler Socks from the book [amazon_link id=”1603425799″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders[/amazon_link] (if you collect sock yarn, this book is fabulous!), and also some tinkering of my own. The cast-on is Judy’s Magic Cast-on, and I used Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off. (Cat Bordhi has videos demonstrating both of these on YouTube.) The yarn is Yarn Hollow’s Summer Sock (aka Panda Cotton) in colourway Santa Fe.

The second sock is well underway… or would be if I hadn’t had to rip out 5 cm of it last night. Knitting around and around might seem easy, but clearly I got too distracted while playing Minecraft/watching my husband play Minecraft. Yep, we finally drank the Minecraft Kool-aid and we love it! Now I’m trying to figure out how to sneak the Minecraft Lego set into the house. lol!

3 Comments | Posted in Cross Stitch, Knitting | Tagged , , ,

My Vampire Boyfriend

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Heather

I haven’t fallen for the most recent round of vampire-mania. I’ve managed to avoid reading Twilight (nor have I seen the movies), and I don’t know anything about True Blood or the Sookie Stackhouse books. But, back when I was a teenager, I did do the whole Interview with the Vampire thing and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. (Tom Cruise is the worst vampire ever!)

The title of this post doesn’t have anything to do with any of that, though. Instead, I’m writing about socks. (Shock!)

My Vampire Boyfriend (side)

This is one half of a pair of socks made from the pattern My Vampire Boyfriend, designed by Kate Atherley and featured in the Fall 2009 issue of Knitty. The yarn is from Yarn Hallow, hand-dyed in a semi-solid red. The yarn base is my favourite: Panda Cotton.

My Vampire Boyfriend

Look at those beautiful cables. Would you believe, after all that work, that these aren’t even for me?

Oh, and Louis would be my vampire boyfriend for sure. What about you?

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Ladybug, Ladybug

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Heather

I’m very particular in my preferences. My tastes run to what I would term a sort of shabby Victorian, even though I’m more of a jeans and t-shirt kind of a girl with it comes to clothing. (I would totally wear April Cornell stuff everyday if I had the shape and thought I could pull it off.) I’ve also got a soft spot of culturally sensitivity Asian designs (with my husband being Chinese, I often cringe when I see “Asian” things that are just a jumbled mess of stereotypes and misunderstandings).

Anyway, once in a while, something that isn’t my usual tastes just jumps up and says “Take me home! You love me!”

Japanese Handkerchief Bag

How cute is this little bag? Lady bugs are not me, and neither is red, but it was so cheerful and cute that I had to have it. The kit was from Quilt a Bag, and the pattern is Japanese Handkerchief Bag. It was pretty easy to make, but it did require some careful checking of straight lines. But my lovely new iron was a big help.

My Rowenta

Yes, I love my new iron. I’ve wanted to replace my $10 Walmart special for years, and since it was coming up to its 11th birthday and it was marking fabrics, it was time. The new beauty is a mid-range Rowenta, and it is a dream to iron with. (I also love the beautiful ironing board cover I bought off of etsy.)

What’s next in the sewing basket? A couple of more bags from Quilt a Bag (I already sort of messed up one, but I’ll be able to fix it once I’m not mad at myself any more), and maybe a pair or two of kimono shoes. What do you think?

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Theme-a-licious Update for May 2012

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Heather

So, Theme-a-licious this month is about memories.

There were a whole lot of projects I could have worked on, going all the way back to English Garden Sampler that I started sometime at the end of high school or beginning of university. There are a whole lot of memories wrapped up in it, which is why I haven’t worked on it in years. Ditto for Magical Night. Instead, I looked to more recent, but still untouched for a while, projects that held good memories. I ultimately decided on Winter Keep/Summer Keep, a two part piece designed by Teresa Wentzler and Jennifer Aikman-Smith. (See a theme developing?)

Summer Keep by Jennifer Aikman-Smith

I finished up the Summer Keep half (sans beads) late last week. When I picked it up, all that was complete was the dark green and brown in the outer border. It didn’t take long to finish it up, and I love how it turned out.

Winter Keep by Teresa Wentzler (WIP)

Winter Keep is now under the needle. It is much more fully stitched, but I’m still hoping to have it done by the end of the month. The pieces have been stitched close together on a piece of mushroom Lugana, and I plan to finish them into a needle-keep eventually. Hehehe – Summer Keep, Winter Keep, Needle Keep. 😉

 

In other news, have you heard about the Lizzie*Kate mystery sampler? I may have decided I have to have it. Maybe. I’m still wishing I had bought Halloween Rules, but after that order (if I did order it), I’m on a stash diet until the Creativ Festival in the fall. Goodness knows, I don’t need anything else.

 

And completely off-topic: I’m taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo in August. That means I’m finally going to write a novel. Check out this blog post on my non-stitchy blog for more information. And if you’d like to sponsor me (please!!), check out the widget in my sidebar.

4 Comments | Posted in Cross Stitch, Memes & Collabs | Tagged , , , ,