Celebrations & a Dress

I hope you will forgive me from skipping out on posting last week, my husband defended his PhD thesis in Chemistry and there were many celebrations to be had! Here he is, just finished and looking pleased as punch:


I'm so proud of him.

And since I'm posting a photo of him, I'll post one of myself in my new shirred dress:


I put up a video on making a shirred dress a few posts ago and finally got around to making one the other day. It was an incredibly simple process, though working with the elastic thread was... interesting. However, I really like how the dress turned out and will probably make another one soon, despite the annoyance.

Crafts On My Mind

Since I'm devoting all of my knitting time to the cardigan, I thought I would share some of the other crafty things that I have been thinking about recently:

Needle Felting

I just purchased a Clover 5-needle felting tool and am having lots of fun using it on my small stash of felt. I'm amazed at how incredibly simple and quick it is to fuse felt pieces together (and even put felt onto other fabrics). The hardest part about making the flower pin below was actually cutting everything out! I'm excited to explore the other things I can do with this tool.


For more info on needle felting, here's a nice tutorial from Betz White.

Embroidery

I think that I'm on a mission to learn about all of the fiber arts. Having just crossed off weaving and needle felting, I'm ready to tackle embroidery with a little help from Jenny Hart at Sublime Stitching. I just picked up her Stitch-it Kit and can't wait to get started!


An Inspiring Book

And lastly, I thought that I would share a very cool book that I found recently, My Favorite Felt Sweets. It is a Japanese (translated) booklet on making plush desserts out of felt. Even if I never make anything out of this book, it's worth having it as eye candy!

Sewing A Shirred Dress

Ever since it got warm here in Madison, WI, I've had dresses on my mind. This soon led to pondering how to make a very simple, summery dress using my small stash of cotton fabric. I thought that a shirred dress would be the simplest to make (it is just a big tube with rows of elastic near the bust), but I did not know of an easy way to sew in all of that elastic. Enter CRAFT blog's recent post on elastic thread!

And since I found the included video to be so helpful and interesting, I'm posting it here for you!



Expect to hear more about this as soon as I acquire some of this magic thread!

The Sweater and The Sweater Maker

This seems like a perfectly good time to cast on a sweater. I just got over my knitting funk, I need a challenging project that is not my lace shawl, and I recently purchased three skeins of Cascade Eco Wool. Really, this is all the Eco Wool’s fault—all 478 yards per skein of this gorgeous, comforting 100% wool. This bulky yarn is such a great deal at $15 per skein, but when Webs was practically giving it away for $10 a skein during their anniversary sale, I really had to exercise restraint and only buy 3 skeins. So with bulky yarn in hand, I went looking for a pattern.


Bulky yarn is a difficult weight to plan with, as your average bulky sweater can make you look like a giant woolly pillow if you are not a size 0 and eat only celery. But thanks to Ravelry, I hit upon a nicely shaped bulky cardigan from Winter’s Twist Collective: the Vivian cardigan. Designed by young Scottish knitter Ysolda Teague, this pattern makes use of cables and waist shaping to make a flattering and beautiful sweater. I’m only 12 rows in and I already have big plans for this sweater (including converting the hoodie to a stand up collar).


And not three days after casting on this sweater, I found out that Ysolda was state-side and planning to visit Wisconsin! So last Saturday, I rode my bike over to my nearest yarn shop and met the designer. She is really a stunningly beautiful woman with absolutely beautiful knitwear designs, many of which I was able to see (and feel) in person at the event. I got to try on my cardigan-to-be and even fell in love with a few of her patterns that I had never seen before. And to top it all off, she autographed a copy of Whimsical Little Knits, her new pattern booklet which I purchased at the event! I’m now even more excited about this cardigan and can’t wait to try out some of her other patterns.

Handspun Happiness

It feels so good to finally be over my knitting funk! Thanks for sticking with me when I had no desire to knit and therefore nothing much to blog about. All of the creative juices are flowing again, so I have lots of projects to share!


The one thing that really helped me get back into knitting was my handspun. My initial inspiration came from my bright and cheery 'eye candy' yarn, which I made into a little shawlette just large enough to cover my shoulders. Though I wish I had more yarn to make something larger, this little guy makes me feel really warm and happy.


And once I got started knitting with handspun, I could not get enough of those beautiful and subtle variations. So I cast on a pattern I've been wanting to make for a while now, Saartje's Bootees, with some fingering weight I made when I first started spinning. There is no baby in mind for these, but I think that the cuteness of these booties was reason enough to knit them.

I guess I am going to be sharing some spinning projects here in the future, as I need to restock my diminishing handspun stash!

My First Swap

The internet is such a big place that you are bound to run into someone who shares your interests. For me, that small corner of the net is the Harry Potter House Cup on Ravelry, amongst other groups that I take part in there. And now, I can add the Reducio Swap group to that list!

The Reducio Swap is a Harry Potter-themed swap of very small items, including a mini-sock (hence 'reducio') and a Herbology item. It seemed like just the budget-friendly/friendly people kind of thing for me to try out as my very first swap. And I was not disappointed!


I received my little swap package from Ms. Madrigal Fairden, who also happens to live in Madison! Her mini-sock skills were impressive and I was delighted to receive some mistletoe for Herbology (she assured me it was nargle-free when it left her house). It was a wonderful little package and I'm glad to know another knitter in Madison.


And since this was a swap, I sent a little package to Ms. Minerva Pigwidgeon down in Florida. I had a lot of fun putting everything together and knitting up the mini-sock. But perhaps I am most proud of the Herbology item--a Guide to Rare Wand Trees. I cut felt in the shapes of Elder, Holly, Hawthorne, and Yew leaves, each representing a wand that Harry comes into 'possession' of during the series: Dumbledore's, his own, Draco's, and Voldemort's, respectively. Not only was the crafting fun, but it made me happy in a really geeky way.

So, the first swap was a very good experience and I'm thinking about signing up for the next round of Reducio!

Wait! Just There! Did You See It?

It was here just a second ago. Maybe it's hidden under this huge pile of work on my desk. Ah, yes! There it is--my knitting mojo.

My mojo came back to me last week at a moment when I was feeling pretty tired and bleak, right in the middle of working 12 straight days. Suddenly, I had a craving for something warm and cheery. Remembering some bright yarn I spun last January, I cast on for a triangular shawl-ish object. I have no pattern and no idea how big it will be (or how I'm going to wear it for that matter), but I don't care because it makes me happy.


Also helping on the inspiration front are two awesome books that came into my possession recently, courtesy of my mother and my mother-in-law. My mother gave me a copy of The Intentional Spinner by Judith MacKenzie McCuin. So far I have read the background on the different types of fiber (protein, cellulose, and manufactured), which is written in enough detail to let you understand the processing and the structure/characteristics of the fiber, without being overwhelming. The author also gets bonus points for her detailed table on identifying fibers by burn test. I'm not even to the chapters on spinning and I can already tell this is a great book.


The other book I'm drooling over at the moment is Martha Stewart's new Encyclopedia of Crafts. Kudos to my mother-in-law for knowing how much I would enjoy having a copy. I've skimmed through the book's wide range of covered crafts, from etching glass, to making wreaths, to crepe paper flowers, and making candles, and found many new things that I want to try out (and a few old ones from her magazine or website). There is not a lot of fiber content here--no knitting or crocheting and minimal sewing--but it still provides plenty of inspiration to craft. Which is exactly what I need right now.