Knitting Needle Holder

I saw this pattern for a simple knitting needle holder that I liked. I've got a few embellishments planned that will make it it a little more my style, but the basic design is from the Design Sponge post.

Here's my take:

New sewing machine

I have been learning to sew using a sewing machine I borrowed from a friend of mine. I wanted to make sure it was something I would be have a continued interest in before I invested. After a few months of making lots of projects, I finally decided to buy my own. Figuring out which machine to buy was a daunting task. After a lot of research and deep soul searching, I finally decided on a Brother CS-6000i. It's small, cheap, widely available and may not be the perfect machine, but did I mention it was cheap?

Anyway, to thank my friend for letting me borrow her machine for so many months, and to try out the new sewing machine, I whipped up some napkins using this pattern from Purl Soho. I think they turned out pretty cute.

Place mats

Went recently to Ikea to pick out fabric for my next project--place-mats. I love all of the Ikea fabrics. They are just so cool and modern, even the traditional ginghams look fresh compared to what you find in most of the fabric stores around here. I picked out a cool geometric cotton fabric and a coordinating grey linen.

They have been sitting in my closet for the last few weeks waiting for me to finish my last knitting project. Finally, today, I got to break out the sewing machine again and get to work.

Nothing fancy here. Just cut out four rectangles of each fabric, pinned them together right-sides facing, sewed around the edges, then pulled them right-side out and top-stitched. For a little whimsy, I did use a grey thread to match the grey solid linen and then used a different colored thread on the pattern side of each of the four place-mats. Ikea had a little box of four different threads, which, conveniently, matched perfectly with the colors in the geometric pattern print I used.

Cowl Finished!

Finished the Herringbone cowl, just in time for today's 80-degree temps. Perfect. Well, I'm sure there will be a refreeze in time for my friend Jen to enjoy it.

There are some trouble spots. I got a little lost in between rows, what with the row marker thingy, so there are some wobbly looking stitches in there. But, 90% of it looks good. Also, after binding off, I found a large space between the first bound-off stitch of the row and the last stitch where I pulled the yarn through. I kind of fudged it. But I think it looks cute.

Also, the thing is shedding quite a bit. Hmmm. Otherwise, happy with effort.

-CA

(Above: Snuggly cowl is starting to roll in on itself. I think that blocking it should take care of that.)

(Above: This is a detail of the "herringbone" stitch, from the pattern. In the background is my favorite light fixture, installed just a few years ago.)

UPDATE 2/19: Just blocked the scarf. I noticed, with some degree of horror, that when I blocked the scarf and pulled it lengthwise, the herringbone stitches seemed to lose their “herringboniness.” They just looked like weird stitches. When I (gently) pulled the cowl into a wider shape, the stitches seemed to ease back into their intended pattern. This photo shows what I’m talking about.

(Above: Observe the nice "herringboniness")

Big cowl is a big pain

Working on the big herringbone cowl as a gift (shhhh) for a friend. "Cast on 220 stitches," reads the first line of the pattern. What was I thinking? I got about 12 rows in (let's see...12 x 220 is.... nevermind, I can't count that high) and had dropped so many stitches I just pulled my circular needle out and started over with another ball of yarn. The second attempt is going better. But I'm still battling the demons of dropped stitches!

(Above: Ruins of my first attempt on the floor. )

Little Green Monster

This is an old softie I made a while back. I ended up giving it to a friend of mine who had a baby boy and she really loved it. Initially I had wanted to make little pants to put on the monster, but i loved the way the fabric sort of gathered and wrinkled where his legs meet his torso, so I didn't wan to cover that up. I sort of have a pattern that I drew up and printed to make this that I am sharing here. It includes the pants. The pattern is bigger than a standard 8.5"x11" paper. I tried to make it so the body and legs are about 11" all together. If you have a big printer you may be able to print at that size pretty easily. I use a program called Posterazor that allows you to take an image and split it up into 8.5"x11" chunks that you can print on any standard home printer and office paper. Then I tape them together and cut them out and get to work.

Also, I changed the face to use two different fabrics to create the face. It's pretty obvious how to do that, i think so I won't go into any detail unless I get deluged with requests (ha, ha).

Matt's Scarf

Matt is getting a lot of attention these days. Recently, in addition to a monster for his nephew, he requested I knit a scarf for him. He said he wanted a soft scarf that wasn't too long because he doesn't like to wrap scarves around his neck, so I used the Windy City Scarf pattern from Stitch n' Bitch as my jumping off point. It's a keyhole scarf so it will stay on without being wrapped around his neck.

I used the mock cable pattern from the Warm Fuzzies scarf pattern from the same book to give it a little visual interest. When I got a couple of rows in I felt like the cables were too tight and just looked jumbled up, so I changed the pattern a little. I added a 3rd row of k2, p1 and a 4th row just like the 2nd row. That spread out the mock cables a little bit. All in all I think it looks cute.

Hope Matt likes it.

My monster has two mommies

My friend Matt wanted me to make a handmade gift for his cousin's new(ish) baby's first birthday. I had been kicking around some designs in my head for a softie. These are some sketches I made:
Eventually, I decided I wanted my monster to be short and stocky with his knuckles dragging on the ground behind him.

I just sort of made the pattern up in my head. For the body I cut two squares of fabric, about 12"x12", pinned them right-sides together and sewed along the top and the two sides. I made 2" long cuts between along the bottom to separate the hands from the body/legs and sewed around them, but left the legs completely open.

To give the shoulders more depth I pinched seams of each of the shoulders together and sewed a 2" line of stitches perpendicular to the seams. There is probably a technical term for this. I do not know it. Next time I'll take more pictures as I go to better explain it, I promise.

Then I turned it right side out and top-stitched between the legs and above the space between the arms and the body. I cut out ovals and sewed them into the openings at the bottom of the legs. I also folded the ends of the arms backwards and put in a few stitches to make it look like he was dragging his knuckles on the ground.

The head was basically a miniature version of the body.

My favorite part is the tattoo of a heart that reads "MOMS" (because the monster is a lesbian love child).

Here is my best attempt at instructions: