Everlasting Bagstopper explosion

I really need to stop making these bags...

While camping, I worked on one more:



And between the car ride to my mom's, free time there, and the car ride back, I finished two more:


I really need to stop... I can stop. Really, I can.

Project Spectrum for August and September

The last grouping for Project Spectrum will include:
Brown
Orange
Purple

Luckily, one of the only colors I have left in cotton is purple, so that's what I started making another Everlasting Bagstopper yesterday.

And I think I really need to give it up, frog this yarn, and start over in this two month span:
Yep. That's why I haven't touched these for 5 months--I was just waiting for the right project spectrum month! ;)

Project Spectrum... red, black and metallic

New two-month color change on Project Spectrum. I'm hoping that, by the end of July, I get at least ONE thing created in red, black and metallic. OK, I do have one thing done already.

To match our black, white, gray (and lime green accent) bedroom, I FINALLY got a copy of a picture taken at one of my best friend's weddings almost exactly three years ago. It's a pic of me (matron of honor) nursing M. (flower girl) and it's done in black and white. Here's a picture of the picture, now hanging on my wall:

In knitting news, I've been working on the same two projects (small ones) for over two months. Not great knitting time and weekly knitting club (1 1/2 hours a week) isn't enough to really complete anything!

I am also working on T's Star Wars comforter, which will be mostly black and red, so I'll count that! :)

FO's

I did quite a bit of finishing this week. First was the pair of socks knit from yarn that my swap buddy sent me way back in for Dye-O-Rama. Here's the post sharing the yarn and here's the post stating that I'd STARTED the socks. Well, they're done--and only 9 1/2 months later! That's longer than it takes to grow a baby....


I also wanted to finish up the squiggle scarf that I'd started months ago, because I wanted to squeeze it into Project Spectrum's Blue, Gray and White section (which ends on Saturday).

Done!

Finally, a picture of the 12 year old wearing the sweater I knit for her birthday:

(please note that all items have at least some blue in them, qualifying me for Project Spectrum)

February Sweater being modeled

Not great pictures, but I wore the vest for the first time last night. It was SOOO comfy! :)
The March "secret sweater" is coming along--slowly but surely!

February Sweater is Done!

YAY! After hours of sewing in ends (that was really the only thing I did NOT enjoy about knitting this sweater), it's done and blocking:
I can't wait to wear it!

Getting there...

Between the snowy day yesterday, knitting club last night, and my morning "off" (C. is home sick), I finished the back and got the neckline done:



Now all I have to do is seam the shoulders and knit the sleeve edging...

Sweater Vest progress

I had some free time today and once the front of the vest was divided for the V-neck, it went a lot quicker! I finished the front today:
Now I'll return to the back and knit it up (still in ribbing), then sew up the shoulders and pick up to knit the neckline and armholes. Yippee!

February sweater--NOT done

OK, I'm not going to make it for finishing my February sweater for the Sweater-a-month Knit-a-long. But I'm getting there! :)

So here's where I am on this, the last day of February:
The bottom ribbing is done; the back is still all ribbed and all one color; the front is somewhat striped :) (I'm going for a random striped look--whenever the mood strikes me, I stripe); I've even split and started decreasing for the V-neck; and I am still in LOVE with this yarn!

I haven't tried it on (too afraid I'll dump it off the circular needle) but it looks like it should fit.

Oh, and I've picked out a sweater for March, so I probably should get my butt in gear on this one...

The curtains are done!

I finished them today. They need to be steamed to get out some wrinkles (I'm actually hoping that just hanging will get rid of them, but...), but they are done and hung!

Open:


Closed:
Project Spectrum: 1 item done
New Remodel: 8th item done
Sanity: Slowly returning (oh, please don't make me sew anything else!)

The curtains

Do any of the rest of you have wonderful vision, but difficulty carrying things out? I really should know better by now. I tell myself I have my father's eye (he was a carpenter and a master of visualizing things), and I do think I'm pretty good at saying what does NOT look good, and what doesn't look neat or done right, but I'm not so good at fixing those things.

So I think I posted about buying these quilts for the girls' room:

Nice, simple, thick blue jean material. One in full size (bottom bunk) and one in twin (top bunk). I even splurged and bought the pillow shams! I figured this was easy to change up with accent colors/funky sheets and that jeans are cute enough for a 4 YO, but also mature enough for an 18 YO (I told C. I'm not buying new stuff till she moves out!).

The room that the girls will be moving into (currently our room) has three nice-sized windows that face the road. We live on a pretty busy street and there are vehicles (including emergency rescue vehicles) that go by all night long. These windows need double coverage (blinds AND curtains) and the hideous curtains (ok, drapes) currently on them are functional, but...well...hideous! See? (these actually were originally navy blue with that pattern, but I bleached them and bleached them and came out with a tan/pink shade that was at least somewhat less obvious)

So I came up with the brilliant idea of making some tab-top curtains out of jean material. How difficult can that be, right? After trips to two fabric stores, I realized that I had to do something else. I needed 8 yards of fabric (originally thought 10 yards, but it ended up being 65" wide) and no one had a full bolt. I did end up ordering online from Joann, where I had a 50% off coupon. 10 yards for $40, plus $8 shipping. Bought jean-colored thread and a neat brownish top-stitching thread for accents, as well as a pack of leather needles. Of course, then I found tab-top curtains that exactly match the comforters I bought:
but at $18 a panel (I need 6 panels), I was still coming out way ahead.

The fabric arrived and this weekend I sat down to sew. Cutting went...okay. G. helped a lot, but really it's just cutting out rectangles. I ironed and seamed the sides of each panel (hey, I NEVER used to use an iron when sewing--this was a big deal!) and then the top. I figured I'd save the bottom to hem when I saw that all of the panels were the same size. Then I started on the tabs. My livingroom tab-top curtains have 8 tabs per panel, so I decided to do that. Do you realize that that means forty-eight tabs? I quickly decided to cut it to 7 tabs a panel (easier to space if I put one in the exact center. I cut out tabs and seamed them, then wrapped them around the top of a panel, threaded the machine with the top stitching thread, and.....
{insert your choice of curse words here}
too many layers. I couldn't even feed the stack into the machine.

OK, so here's my "solution":
1) I'm taking each tab and sewing that cute little X-box thing at the base of one side.
2) I'm loading the machine with the jean-colored thread and tacking each tab in the middle if I can feed it into the machine
3) On the very ends, I've opened up the seams, cut out some excess, and used fray-check on the ends, and then done the same as in #2 above
4) I bought seam glue to get the rest of the tab ends to stick down neatly.
5) I'm only doing FIVE tabs on each curtain
6) I'm crossing my fingers that these do not end up looking like complete crap

If you're keeping track, I've now spent about $60 on materials alone. My house is trashed from the sewing stuff, and I'm STRESSED! I'm beginning to wonder if it was worth "saving" $40 after all of this. Too late now, though...

Here's a shot of the one I've done so far (sans bottom hem):

and a close-up of the tab attachment:


At least the curtains are blue, and therefore qualify for Project Spectrum!

Sweater #2's wee beginnings

Though I could not wait to get started on my second sweater (ok, it's a VEST, but I'm counting it!), it took until this weekend to actually pick up the yarn and get working. I've had so many other things taking up my time, but after a long day of sewing (more about that later), my fingers were dying for some knitting.

I wrote a bit about my plans and my yarn in this post, so I won't repeat it. Suffice to say that I am NOT disappointed. This yarn feels absolutely divine. Turning it into a ball was even fun! Knitting is fabulous, and the small amount I have knit feels so soft and sensuous. I'm going to enjoy this.

So I present to you the first inch (out of six inches) of ribbing, on the back:

And this is one of the many things in shades of blue, white and gray, that I have planned for Project Spectrum.

KAL updates/plans for February

So Stefaneener talked me into helping her with the Sweater-A-Month KnitALong, and I had already decided to do Project Spectrum 2.0, so my next project will hopefully accomplish both.

I was lucky enough to receive gift certificates to my LYS, Ruhama's from my mom and from one of the families that I tutor, so I went in search of a pattern and some yarn to make one of those trendy vest things that you wear over a long button-down shirt. I found Blue Sky Alpacas' Market Vest which is knit in sport weight, but I also found the most divine yarn ever--Plymouth Yarn's Baby Alpaca Grande--in a chunkier weight. Since the pattern for the Market Vest has you holding two strands of sport weight together throughout, I'm going to do a single strand of the grande. Cross your fingers for me that it works!

I figure a vest is close enough to a sweater for me, and the colors I chose are shades of blue--which fit in with Project Spectrum's Blue, White, Gray color family for February/March.

I cannot wait to start!