Fairy Godmother

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Originally uploaded by runawaypenguin

Were it not for the fact that I know for certain that Marylen has needed to have her hips replaced, I might mistake her for my fairy godmother. Not only does she have the most incredible stash I have ever seen, but she sent me away with more yarn than I can wrap my head around. These five skeins of heavy worsted yarn from Brown Sheep are only a fraction of what she gave me, but the colors were hard to pick out in the larger photo and I wanted to show them all together.

Grumperina's tutorial the other day about making continuous stripes (where they line up all the way around instead of having a "jog" when you switch to the next color at the end of a round) is tempting me to use a few of these to make a striped kid's sweater, but I'm also considering making a pullover with a fair isle yoke. Whichever sweater I end up making, the leftovers will definitely become a striped hat of some kind.

It would be fantastic if this yarn ended up being for a young relative. My brother and I are expecting to have 8 nieces, nephews, and second cousins under the age of five by the end of June, and so far only one niece has received a hand knit. I'm not sure about the scratchiness level, however. I know that Elizabeth Zimmerman would say that children need exposure to sturdy wool early and often, but I don't want to make something that won't be worn. Any thoughts? How bad is it to give someone else's child a scratchy sweater?

In which I become well acquainted with a seam ripper.

Apparently this is work-in-progress week. Here's a third project I'm working on: taking out this nearly invisible hand-sewn hem. Makes you want to cry, doesn't it?
Inspired by this gorgeous dress with a hand-sewn zipper at Pink Chalk Studio, I finally decided to finish this skirt, which I started almost exactly a year ago. I won't go into graphic detail about missteps along the way, but eventually I finished sewing in the lining and creating a hem along the top.

At this point I wasn't sure how to proceed, so I brought the skirt with me to Valley Fabrics. The owner was very helpful (she's just come out with a book about sewing skirts that seems less about strictly following a pattern than knowing what general shapes you should cut for different types of skirts) and made an offhand remark about how it would have made more sense to layer everything so that none of the edges would show from the inside. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but now it will drive me crazy if I don't fix it.

In other news, it has finally snowed here (total accumulation: .0002 cm) and I have been feverishly working on the Norwegian Stockings. I'm hoping to finish the first and cast on for the second tonight. I had a moment of doubt in which I contemplated the relative merit of stockings vs. legwarmers (I'm not entirely sure that the finished stockings will fit in my only color-appropriate shoes) but I've decided to finish them following the pattern. I can keep them for inside wear if I have to, and now I will have plenty of red to use as an accent for a pair of legwarmers. I remember coming across a legwarmer KAL from a few years back, does anyone remember seeing this/know where to find it?

I've been on the cusp of making a case for my knitting needles, but I haven't been sure about how to deal with circulars. Lucky for me I found this tutorial about making a circulars case, which I am posting here both to share and make sure that I don't lose the link/forget about it.

Working title: Taming of the Scarf

What fun! Mo and I are filming a movie. It involves repeatedly moving a herd of pins very slowly. We finished getting footage today (at least, I have my fingers crossed that we can use most of the shots) and sometime during the next week we'll be working on editing it into a movie. It's going to be shockingly short once everything is cut together. I'm guessing less than a full minute. Here's a sneak preview:

Decisions, decisions

For some reason the purple fabric looks really bizarre in the smaller format of this photo, but if you click on the picture it's much more true to life.
I brought the paisley fat quarter with me to purl patchwork, and the original plan was to use the paisley, blue, and pink polka dot to make an embroidered knitting needle case similar to the make up case my mom and I collaborated on last week. I was simply drawn to the swirling purple, and I got a half yard so that I would be able to use it in a larger project. Now I'm not sure though; I really like the combination of the three right-most fabrics as well. Better to hold off on the purple or use it now and regret it later?This was a total impulse purchase, and I'm not quite sure what to do with it. I quite like the patchwork combination at shim + sons which uses the red version.

Scrap apron plan

This is my plan for an apron with an inset scrap border. My other idea was to make a Chinese Coin quilt, which is the smaller doodle on the lower right hand side. QuiltBus has a huge selection of quilt block patterns online, including the Chinese Coin pattern here, which might give you a better idea of what it would have looked like. After sewing everything together I realized I wouldn't have had enough to make a quilt anyway. My plan is to make a small size that I can quilt by hand, but I'd want it to be only a little shorter than this length, and with two stripes:
This is the border resting on some grape leaves on the porch. I don't know if I'll work on this more before going home, because I'd like to have a rotary cutter to even out the top and bottom edges. Either way, I'm glad I've done something with the scraps, because seeing them lying around made me feel neglectful.