Progress!

First, here are the blocks I made in the month of January for my 1930s Farmer's Wife quilt.

I have ordered the fabric for the setting triangles as well as the backing.  Now that I have more than a third of the blocks done, I will start piecing them together.  I think I will also quilt that 1/3 of the quilt, too, and then sew the sections together at the end.  I need to figure out a plan for the quilting.

I finished the back of my Charlie's Cardigan, and have cast on the first front piece.  I need to remember I want to wear this on Easter, and work on it even though it is boring.

Progress is much slower on my Hedgerow.  Plus sized tall sweaters in fingering weight yarn are not projects to rush!

Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times for On the Needles !

A Tale of 2 Sweaters

It's no secret that I am far from a monogamous knitter.  I love to flit from project to project as the mood strikes.  I have no guilt about this.

I have two fairly recent project starts on the go now, both of them sweaters.  The first is a plain white cotton cardigan with lace fronts -Charlie's Cardigan by Amy Herzog.  This is intended to go with a capsule wardrobe I am working on and will look great over my planned Easter dress.

The second is a project of a bit more epic proportions- a stranded colorwork sweater, Hedgerow by Ann Kingstone.  I am making this in colors that I hope are like the ones in the pattern photo.  This is a bit of a crazy mix, and as such will be worn with plain tops underneath.  At the moment the colors are making me question myself, but I think as I add more, it will make more sense.

This pattern is found in a book called Stranded by Ann Kingstone, and I highly recommend it.  The patterns in it are all lovely, but she also includes some fabulous tips for techniques that I have found quite helpful.

Linking up with Patchwork Times for On the needles Friday.

Lofty Goals

I don't usually make any sort of resolutions. For some reason they tend to stall me out and then I feel like a failure.  But I have jumped on a resolution bandwagon of sorts over on Ravelry in the Hats for Sailors group.  You can find info about Hats for Sailors here.

Anyway, the gist of it is, we wanted to be able to provide hats for larger ships.  To do this we need more hats, obviously.  Someone set herself a personal goal to send 16 hats in 2016.  That started the ball rolling and a bunch of us took that challenge as well.

I am on hat #2 right now.  The pattern is called Spirals and Helices, and it is a nice way to use up little bits of multiple colors.

 My first hat of this round was from a pattern by Kate Osborn called Seathwaite.  It is a beautiful pattern and I think the pattern in combo with some lovely yarn from Magpie Fibers, made this one the nicest hat I have ever knit!

Linking up with Judy over at Patchwork Times for On the Needles Friday!

Farmer's Wife Quilt Progress in 2015

I had quite a lull in my Farmer's Wife block sewing, as I needed to concentrate on finishing the pillow project, and then spending time with my family for the holidays.  I managed to do a good bit of sewing between Christmas and New Years, and took this photo of all of the blocks I had sewn in 2015:

I made 4 more blocks this week, and now I am pretty much caught up and can get back to the current sewalong.  I need to keep up when I am in any kind of craftalong, or else I lose my motivation.

I was reluctant to piece any of the blocks into a top yet, because I knew I would be adding more fabrics, but I think I will try to figure out some sort of quilt as you go type method and go ahead and start on that aspect as well.

The Pillow Project

Some time ago, I think it was probably on Easter Sunday, one of my favorite relatives commissioned me to make some pillows for him.  His parents had recently passed, and he had boxes and boxes of his father's tie collection.  He wanted me to make pillows for him to give to his siblings and nephew.

I got a slow start, and then the request came in from my cousin for the quilt and bear for her new grandbaby.  As a result it was probably November before I finished the prototype pillow.

I decided that I wanted to include as many assorted ties as I could, and that I would try not to repeat any tie twice on any pillow.  To accomplish this, I pieced the pillows in pairs so I could keep track of what I had added to each.  For the initial pillows, I had to deconstruct ties as I went, so about 40 ties to make that first pillow.  After the first pair, I added 10 new ties to the mix, so that each pair had some ties that were different, plus a subset that were the same.

I cut strips from the deconstructed ties, and pieced them onto a muslin foundation, which I had cut to about 10 inches square.  Once I had the 4 squares for each pillow pieced, I trimmed them to 9.75 inches square for a finished pillow size of 18 inches.

I used blue wool suiting fabric found at the Goodville PA Fabric Outlet as the backing, and to cover the cording.  The backs close with nice blue coat type buttons.  I embroidered some labels, and those are hidden under the button placket.

This is a care label, the other labels included the personal information for the family , so I won't share it here.

Here's the whole collection:

I am super happy with how they turned out!

On the Needles Friday Dec 11, 2015

This really should be called "off the needles" because these items are done!  I finished the Christmas knitting for my mother in law, a hat and some dish cloths.

The hat is Peerie Flooers by Kate Davies.  It is knit in an assortment of yarns pulled from my stash.  The dish cloths are Grandmother's Favorite knit using Peaches and Cream.  I have 3 or 4 large cones and this seemed to be a nice kitcheny color!

I should finish off some old WIPs next, but instead I want to start swatching for Charlie's Cardigan by Amy Herzog.  I want to knit a lace front cardigan in some white cotton blend yarn, and this will be a nice sweater to go with my Easter dress among other things.

Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times for On the Needles Friday.

Misty Sewalong

Thanks you to Alicia over at Pandora Sews for hosting the Misty Jeans sewalong!  I really liked the pattern, by StyleArc when Alicia posted about the sewalong, and they had extended the size range so my measurements were included! So I bought the pattern and planned to sew along.

I made a muslin first of the size 38 with no alterations. This size was seemed like it might be big in the waist, but I wanted to be sure I could get it on over my hips.   I figured I could make the elastic the correct size for my waist and I would be ok. When I got to the trying on stage, they were really big in the leg, so I took out a lot of volume, on the outside leg seams only and only below where the pocket seams were.

Here are photos of me in the practice pair, which I made in $2/yd stretch denim I got from the FabricMart brick and mortar.

I am not dissatisfied with how these look, but I am forever having to pull them up.  

So then when I was going to make my "real" pair, I slashed the pattern and took 0.75 inch out of each pattern piece.  when I tried on this pair, the legs fit much better, but they seemed a  little tight in the torso.  This pair also needed pulling up constantly.  When I took photos of that pair, which I am reluctant to share, they seemed to somehow be simultaneously baggy and tight.  The back bagged, but it also pulled in the crotch.  I think I need to do a full tummy adjustment, because the tummy area is pulling too much of the pants fabric forward, making the back crotch too short.

OK, I will post the back view photos, but the front looks like a giant spotlight being targeted on my gut, so I will not post that one!

I really want to get this pattern to work out, I feel like these could be a great go to pant for my lifestyle if I can work out the fit issues.  I am currently watching the Craftsy class Plus Size Pant Fitting, and will apply what I learn there to this pattern before I try again.

Here are some closeups so you can see my topstitching, etc.  I could not see the topstitching very much on my first pair, so on my second, I used a stitch on  my machine that basically lays 2 straight stitches side by side.  This made the topstitching much more prominent.

This is the pocket of my second pair:

Front detail of the second pair: