A Return!

Did anyone else have a crazy November? I don't know what happened to that whole month. It seems like I had an event of some sort planned every weekend and the time just flew right on by...

I was also participating in National Novel Writing Month. I've participated a few times now and won 3 of those. If you're not familiar with NaNoWriMo, "winning" means I wrote 50,000 words or more in 30 days. It's a lot. At the end of it I have a big, messy pile of words that will need to be heavily edited and rewritten before they really become anything, but it's a start.  I did pretty good about writing in college, but when your grades depend upon whether or not you finish a poem or short story for workshop the next day, it's much easier to stay motivated. So I have been working this year on taking my writing more seriously and trying to develop daily habits instead of doing a mad dash once a year and then forgetting about it.

But somehow, I also had time for some crafts. Here's a short rundown.

I FINALLY finished this beast of a quilt last night. This picture shows how much I had left when I ran out of bobbin thread. OF COURSE. You may remember me starting this... in March of 2014! I know. It's shameful how long this has been in progress. Especially considering this was supposed to be a gift for my now-husband in 2014. But this is the year! It will finally be finished!

I know this picture sucks, but this hat was a gift and I sent it off before I took any decent pictures. Sorry! But this is a Vermonter made up in Manos Franca yarn. It is lovely and soft and the colors are just gorgeous. I had to make some changes to the pattern to get it to fit, which you can find on my Ravelry page if you're interested. I made this for a friend who lives in a much colder area than me. She's been going through some hard stuff, so I sent her a bit of warmth. Like you do.

And this little beauty is my first Hermione Everyday Sock! The other one is almost done. I've turned the heel, made the gusset, and now I just need to knit the foot. It got put on hold in favor of the Vermonter, but I will be returning to it soon!

There has been more stuff, but this is a little sampling. I plan to return to this space more often to share, so keep an eye out :)

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday!

I Have Too Many Hobbies

It's true. Way too many hobbies. I knit, sew, crochet, run, read, write, play video games and sometimes cross stitch. And there isn't enough time to devote the amount of attention I would like to each of them. So I go in phases, sometimes week by week, sometimes month by month. But in a perfect world I wouldn't need to go to work every day and I could just rotate hobbies all day long...

Anyway, here are some things I've been working on.

A teeny tiny version of the wedge bags I make for my Etsy store! Seriously adorable. I'm probably going to list them for sale soon :) I love tiny things!

I cast on a sock! They will be Hermione's Everyday Socks when they're finished. I forgot how much I enjoy sock knitting, so this one has been fun.

A new bag for my Etsy shop- this one for needles and such. And a larger size wedge bag in black. I would also like to make a needle roll, but I need to design it first. I'll get to it eventually.

I've been pretty steadily knitting this scarf. BUT THEN TRAGEDY. I can't for the life of me find the second ball of this yarn! It has disappeared completely. I know I bought two, though, because I had a specific pattern in mind when I bought it and it required two balls of yarn! So. I knit half of this and it is now set aside. I'm hoping time away from it will somehow magically make the other ball appear...

A Staple Dress

Hello once again!

September has been a crazy month. I had 2 weddings and a 10k to run, all on consecutive weekends. Crazy, right? I can't lie- I'm pretty exhausted from all of it. But do I get to rest this week? No, because I have something booked for myself to do after work every night this week. All fun things, don't worry, but man. I am going to sleeeeep this weekend!

But you came for pretty things, right? Hopefully this qualifies.

Yes, I made another dress! This time of the Staple variety. I picked up this Anna Maria Horner voile aaages ago and just now decided what I was going to make. It was a difficult decision. The fabric is just so pretty and I didn't buy enough to make anything terribly complicated. So this was really the perfect solution.

I know everyone and their mom has made a Staple dress and so you have probably already heard how comfortable they are. Well, they are. Simple, comfortable, easy to wear. And the light voile made this a perfect late summer make. Not that I will have to stop wearing it in fall. Because Tucson.

I kind of love dresses with pockets, but I think this fabric is probably too light to make them very useful. If you put anything in them it drags the dress down in a rather unattractive way. So I don't use them much. Next time I will omit them if I'm using a similarly lightweight fabric.

I'm afraid I haven't finished much else this month, but next time I'll show you what I'm actually working on instead of waiting til the end. I'm not great at remembering to take progress shots, but I will try!

Happy first day of fall!!

I made a hat!

I finished some things! Yes, more than one thing! What a joyous occasion this is! Here's one of the things!

Right, so. I've been knitting tons of winter stuff. Because winters in Tucson are bitterly cold (obviously) and I just won't survive unless I'm covered head to toe in hand knits. Or I'm crazy and belong somewhere with a colder climate. That could be it, too.

Crazy is probably a good description.

The pattern is the Capucine Hat and you may notice if you click through that link that my hat doesn't exactly look like hers. Well, let me tell you what happened.. This hat is written for both bulky and super bulky yarn. My yarn was bulky and I somehow misread the directions, which clearly state that the bulky directions are in [square brackets]. Ahem. So this was knit with the instruction intended for super bulky yarn, which means my hat ended up not so slouchy...

At first I was sad. But then I realized when I put it on that what I had really just done was made myself a PONYTAIL BEANIE. Yes folks, that's right. I can wear my head up all winter and still keep my ears warm! What a revelation! So then I went from disappointed in myself for failing at instructions to EXCITED!

So while the pattern didn't turn out as planned, it is still awesome and nice and toasty. Which may come in handy if I go anywhere cold this winter ;)

Isn't it nice when a mistake turns out to be just fine?

Adelaide Dress

I've been working on my clothes making skills lately. It is long overdue!

Have you heard of Seamwork? It's a sewing e-magazine put out by the people behind Colette patterns. Every month there is a new issue with a bunch of articles from sewing techniques to fashion history to sewing resources online or in a particular city. That part of the magazine is free, but if you want all the patterns, it's $6/month. You can also buy each pattern on it's own for $7.

Anyway, that's where this pattern came from. I like button down dresses a lot and I thought this one would be a good place to start.

The only alterations I made to the pattern was to grade down a size on top, which is something I have to do fairly often. Three cheers for pear shapes! There is a little bagginess along the neckline still, though, so I might take a bit out next time and see if that fixes it. Still, I love how it turned out! I had to wait for my chartreuse snaps to come in (I got them from Cowgirl Snaps on Etsy), but it was so worth it to get something fun instead of just the boring white they sell at Joann...

Bit of an awkward pose. I was trying to listen for the sound of the camera. I can't find my remote so I've been having to use the self timer... :( Not nearly as convenient. Anyway, as you can see the back fits really quite well! The fabric is a chambray I picked up at Imagine Gnats. It wrinkles a bit, but that's expected. I still really like the way this fabric looks and feels.

Close up of the snaps! I picked up a pair of snap/eyelet pliers at an estate sale for like $3- score! I hadn't really used it until now. But it works! It's a little annoying to get all the pieces lined up in the right spot on the fabric, but by the end I was starting to get the hang of it. In the end I only ruined one snap! And it was a backing piece, not a pretty front piece, so it was fine. I would definitely use them again :)

I'm pretty proud of this dress. It fits well and I took my time and followed the directions, no shortcuts. It's also the first dress I used my new serger on! Did I mention I bought a serger? Well, I did. It's very exciting. I'll have to take some pictures for you ;)

Healed and back in action!

Technically, I've been okay since about the last week of July. Technically. But there was so much knitting and sewing to catch up on that I've only just sat down now to tell you about it!

Let's see. First, I finished my blocks for Sarah of Sew What Sherlock. You *may* remember we started a bee a loooong time ago. But life got in the way for several of our members and so things fell by the wayside for a bit. But we're gathering momentum once again that will hopefully see us through to the end!

Sarah's quilt is going to have a bunch of paper pieced arrows (the pattern is her own design and available for purchase) with low volume background blocks with a variety of shapes and patterns.

The whole this is very scrappy. It's going to be so lovely when it's all put together! Above are my background contributions.

 A shot of the arrows in their entirety. Please excuse the feet ;)

And a sort of close up of my favorite block. I just love pinwheels.

I've been working on other stuff, too. Photos to come soooon! :D It feels so good to have 2 working arms again, I can't tell you...

Dead Stop

Last week I pulled the right trapezius muscle in my shoulder while walking my dogs. The smaller one saw a quail family and wanted to eat it and jerked my arm harder than I thought possible. This has rendered me basically useless. I haven't been able to knit, sew, or really use the computer at all. I missed a couple of days of work because most of what I do all day involves the use of the computer and it just hurt too much. I'm still not 100%, but the muscle relaxants prescribed by the doctor along with heat packs and pain killers have been slowly helping me heal.

This has been driving me absolutely insane, of course. I hate not doing things. I don't even like watching TV usually unless I'm also working on something. But that's been my week. When I take the muscle relaxant I can't even read much because I just fall asleep. In other words, I have been soooo bored and all I want is for my shoulder to get better so I can do things that I like to do again!

But in the meantime... Here is a picture of the shawl I'm working on. Or will be working on again once my shoulder heals.

The pattern in Zilver and it's free on Ravelry. It's a fairly simple pattern and easy to memorize, which I like. It's a nice project to work on when I just want to relax. I love it so far! I might even be finished if it weren't for my shoulder! I chose a free pattern for my first shawl just in case I didn't like knitting it. But! I've found I like knitting shawls so far. I definitely see more in my future.

You may be wondering how I managed to type all this out if typing is agony. ONE HANDED. Yes, this was all painstakingly and slowly typed out with my left hand. Here's hoping there's only a few more days of this and then I can get back to doing thing with both hands. That will be a wonderful day...

Knitting, knitting, knitting...

Craft-wise, that's all I've been doing lately. But I've also been reading a lot of books. And thinking about trying to find balance between all the things I like to do instead of obsessively doing just one and neglecting all the others for large chunks of time. Not that I've actually figured out how to do that, but I've been thinking about it...

I'm making a sweater for Mario. I don't know if he'll like it or wear it, but he picked out the pattern and the color. I chose an acrylic yarn to make him more likely to wear it. Things I know about Mario: (1) if an article of clothing is too expensive, he won't want to wear it for fear of ruining it and (2) if he has to hand wash it, it won't get washed. So acrylic seemed the best way to go. If anyone is curious, it's Lion Brand Heartland in Black Canyon. The pictures aren't great (it's really hard to photograph black, I'm finding). It's really just black with some gray flecks in it. It looks much better in person, trust me!

The pattern is from Knits Men Want. I think the title of the book is cheesey, but it was one of the few patterns I found that he actually liked. I showed him so many pictures of Ravelry! But this was THE ONE. So I bought the book and went to work.

I'm just about to put split the sleeves off on some scrap yarn and continue the torso. Exciting! The miles and miles of stockinette may not be incredibly entertaining, but it is meditative. Very enjoyable at the end of a long day. And it's helping me get faster with my continental knitting.

Other things that are difficult about sweater photography... I can't spread it out because my cable is too short :(

My goal is to have this be a wearable sweater by the end of the summer. The end of the summer in Tucson, of course, is pretty much mid-October, though, so I have plenty of time. I've made really good progress so far, so I'm very optimistic!

I'm also knitting a shawl, which is more interesting to look at. But I'll save that for another post :)

A Finished Quilt!

Yes, you read that right! I finished a quilt!

I made this on commission for a customer through my Etsy store. I don't really sell quilts there anymore- I'd like to focus on knitting/crochet accessories- but this customer bought a quilt from me last year and asked if I would be willing to make another. So of course I said yes!

I really love how this quilt turned out. I drew up the pattern myself, but it's fairly simple. I star in the center with flying geese radiating out from it on a background of low volume squares. It measures about 60" x 60" and I quilted it with an all over meander (for speed, mostly, but I just love the way this quilting pattern crinkles after it's washed!). I love it so much I'm just a little sad it's already sold. Maybe I'll have to make one for myself?

As much as I love this quilt and as much fun that I had making it, I am glad that it's done! I have a couple of plans for more bags and maybe even a needle case and hook case for the shop that I want to get working on. Now I can start focusing on those :)

Hope you're all having a wonderful week!

Rediscovering Knitting

First of all, thank you for the encouraging comments! You guys are the best :)

There are a couple of posts around here about things that I knit. Such as this Honey Cowl, this scarf and this sweater (which I actually finished... even though it's a pretty sad/weird sweater). But then I kind of stopped knitting for a while. And crocheting. I was a one trick pony for a period and that trick was sewing.

But now I've picked it up again and I have to wonder.. Why did I ever stop? I have been enjoying it immensely and have been finding myself trying to sneak time in here and there just for one more row or a few more stitches. The result? Well. I finished the ugly sweater mentioned previously. It's ugly mostly because I didn't follow a pattern, had no idea what I was doing, and picked it up after setting it down for months and I couldn't remember anything about it. So, it was a little wonky. The arms are too long and the ribbing on the cuffs and bottom don't really match in tension (I think I must have used different sized needles or something). But it was DONE and I was SO HAPPY.

So then I decided to re-knit some reading mitts. I made one once, not sure if I ever posted about it. But I made the wrong size and had to frog the whole thing. I was so sad! After that, I just shoved the whole thing in a bin in my sewing room and forgot about them. That may have been the moment I gave up on knitting for a while. All that hard work! And for what?? (Never mind that this was all my fault and the heartache could have been avoided had I just measured my hands).

But I decided to give them another shot, this time with the benefit of actually knowing how big my hands are so I could choose the right size (I know, seems like such an obvious thing, right?). And well, now they're done! Both of them! And they fit! And I LOVE THEM SO MUCH OMG. Seriously, guys. The other day while I was sitting in the car with Mario waiting to meet a guy from the internets about trading cars (yes, that's pretty much my life), I was wearing my pretty new mitts (even though it's May in Tucson and woolen mitts are really not necessary) and reading a book about dyeing yarn. I was the picture of yarny contentment.

I haven't really put down the yarn since then. Right now I'm working on a sweater for Mario and am eyeballing shawl patterns. I'm thinking something easy and free for my first every shawl. Like maybe Zilver? I'll keep you posted!

The Dress and Starting Again

Here I am, over 6 weeks later making good on my promise to talk about the dress. I've spent the last weeks thinking about a lot of things craft related and who I am as a blogger, as a maker, as a person. I didn't intend to take time away from the blog, but I think it was good for me because it gave me a bit of perspective. I started this blog as a Quilter. I wanted to make quilts and read about quilts and quilting and fabric all the time. But more and more I found myself straying into other crafts. I love yarn, for example. I've been crocheting longer than quilting and now I've taken to knitting as well to the point that I think about yarn more than I think about quilting. I've also been experimenting with sewing clothes more and looking at other things I want to make or do as well. I'd love to figure out how to keep plants alive in a real garden, for instance. Or to dye yarn. The more I started learning new things, the less I felt like I could share them here. I felt like anything that was not to do with quilting had no place here. Sure, I mentioned my other projects once in a while, but quilting was supposed to be the Main Event. When that stopped being the case, the blogging dropped off.

But lately I've been thinking about how silly that is. I started this blog because I wanted to reach out and find other crazy people like me who think that spending 5, 10, 40 or even more hours on making something we could easily go buy in a store is worthwhile and even fun. Most of us crafty people don't just stick to one craft, after all. So why shouldn't my blog be about whatever I'm pursuing at the moment? So now I feel ready to return with less expectations and pressure on myself, with more of an attitude toward exploration and sharing those explorations with you.

So, in the spirit of all that, I'm going to talk about making my own wedding dress.

This is my family. In case you're wondering, the older gentleman is not my grandfather, he is my father.

First, a note about wedding dresses. I don't understand wanting to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a dress you're only going to wear once. I also don't understand the appeal of white dresses (so hard to keep clean!) and dislike the symbolism that has come to be associated with them, so I pretty much rejected the traditional expensive white wedding dress from the beginning. From the start I knew it would be hard to find a purple wedding dress. They just aren't a thing. So I figured I would have to make it myself if I didn't want to pay a huge amount of money for someone else to make me a custom dress or if I didn't want to choose from the cocktail dresses and prom dresses available in department stores. And that was totally fine with me- it would be cheaper this way, anyway and allow me total control of the dress.

In the spirit of that, my dress cost less than $100 to make. Really, including the price of the pattern, the thread that I didn't have on hand, and the sparkly belt I bought on Etsy, it was about $70.

And Mario's family.

The pattern is the Flora Dress. I only made a couple of alterations to it. I had to do a small bust adjustment, which went just fine, though I probably could have taken out another quarter inch or so. And I had to take a wedge out of the back on either side of the zipper so the straps wouldn't slide down my shoulders. Other than that, the pattern sewed up easily and more quickly than I expected. The dress was one of the first things I crossed off my list!

The fabric is a polyester satin with a crochet lace overlay. I picked both up at a local fabric shop for around $3/yard. They aren't super luxurious, but I love the way they look and I love the way the dress turned out. It has a great weight and swish to it that I really loved.

Originally I had this notion that I would construct this elaborate dress with layers and layers of chiffon cascading all around me (likely this came from too many hours browsing Pinterest for the perfect dress- it's dangerous!). But then I thought about what a headache that would be and how terrified I would be all night about getting it dirty or catching the floaty chiffon on a cactus or something and I threw that idea right out the window. This was a much more sensible dress and really, it's much more my style.

So, there you have it. A simple, homemade wedding dress for a simple, homemade wedding. I'm really excited to share all the other things I've been up to these past two months! It feels good to get back in this space.

The Wedding

Guys! It's over! It's finally over!

I know that may not sound like the nicest reaction to having gotten married, but that's how I feel! Don't get me wrong, the wedding was lovely and fun and everything I wanted it to be. But I am so happy to be back to my regular life that does not involve guests lists, catering appointments, or agonizing over whether or not we bought enough booze to keep my thirsty friends and family happy (we did).

So how about some pictures?? These were all taken by my lovely mother. We haven't gotten the photos back from the photographer yet.

This was the ceremony. In my backyard. Most of the decorations are homemade. Remember I showed you a picture of all those paper flowers I made? Here they are, hanging in all their glory! It was a lovely, short ceremony. Maybe 5 minutes total. That was exactly what we wanted. Short and sweet and to the point :)

Yes, my dress is purple and yes I made it. I'll do a whole post about the dress later, I promise!

Just after the ceremony picture :) We smiled a lot that day!

My lovely bridesmaids/sisters. On the left is my sister and on the right is Mario's. Love them!

Here we are with Mario's parents :)

And the whole wedding party. Yes, I am short. 

 See that crown of flowers on my head? Mario's youngest sister (not pictures) made it for me. Those flower are made of clay and attached to a bark covered wire crown. Isn't it lovely? She's so talented!

I'll leave you with this one, which pretty much sums up the day. In spite of all the stress, everything went perfectly and everyone had a great time. I'm so happy I've found such a wonderful partner and have such wonderful friends and family. I feel so lucky :)

Lately...

OMG WHERE HAVE I BEEN??

Guys. Planning a wedding takes so much more time than I thought it would. Naive on my part? Yes, probably. But seriously, between appointments with caterers, making endless phone calls, meetings with parents and siblings and bridesmaids and decoration making... I have had almost no time for anything else. Including sewing, knitting, embroidery, etc... :(

But I did throw a fun party where we made a ton of paper flowers! There was cheese and wine and shenanigans. And look at all the fun puff balls we made!

What else has been going on? Well, I finally got on Goodreads (come find me!) and set myself a challenge to read a book a week this year. I thought it was a stretch, but I figured I could catch up after the wedding. But you know what? I've already read 11 (ELEVEN) books this year. That's INSANE. But you know what else? It doesn't feel that fast to me. I've always been an avid reader, I just never tracked anything before. And my pace also ebbs and flows throughout the year. Maybe one week I'll read 4 or 5 books by the same author because I'm obsessed, but then I won't read anything for the next two weeks. It's kind of nice to see how much and how quickly I read stuff, though. I don't know why I never joined before!

I think really I've been reading more than anything else lately because I can fit it in in small chunks between doing other things. Waiting 15 minutes for Mario to pick me up for a wedding related appointment? Read. Waiting for a meeting to start at work? Read. Waiting on hold? Read. Also my sewing room is a DISASTER right now and I can't motivate myself to sew when everything is in such a state. This weekend I'm going to get it fit for human habitation again.

Speaking of sewing... I did do a little bit! I participated in the #bitchesgetstitchesswap on Instagram. And, in typical ME fashion, I took no pictures of what I sent... UGH. But I did get this amazing package from my swap partner!

Isn't it fantastic?? I love it so much! I haven't hung anything up yet because... well.. sewing room, disaster, etc. But I can't WAIT to!! Here is my partner's IG post of what I sent her:

This was such a fun swap :) There are so many great ones on IG that I want to join! But I was really good and didn't join any that would have me sewing right before the wedding. I didn't want to stress myself out too bad... But it was hard. There was a Studio Ghibli swap! And a Gilmore Girls swap!! There will be more. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

And last but not least... I've decided to start running. Specifically, training to run a race with my friend in May O.O I've never run a race before, but I've always wanted to give it a shot. So, HERE WE GO. I have the option of a half marathon or a 10k. My friend is opting for the half marathon, but I'm reserving judgment for a few weeks at least. I know I could do the 10k without too much trouble, but the half marathon kind of scares me. But isn't that a good reason to give it a shot? I don't know yet. Right now I'm training as if I am planning to run the half marathon, so I guess we'll see how it goes!

So, as you can see.. I've been super busy. I miss my blog, though. Even if it isn't always sewing stuff, I aim to keep you all up to date on stuff. And hopefully as soon as the wedding is over life will go back to normal enough that I can spend a lot more time behind my sewing machine!!

Welcome to 2015

Hey there, long time no seeeeee. I know, but December is always a crazy month, isn't it?

First: some good news. After 2 surgeries, Charlie the white husky's lab results came back CLEAN and we will not have to look at other possible treatment options. My poor little Charles. He is really pathetic after surgery. See below for doped up post-surgery Charlie face:

There were illnesses and awfulness in December, but I still somehow managed to make a lot of Christmas presents, some of which I didn't actually photograph before gifting. Please forgive me. Some of them were still in progress on Christmas Eve! It was totally down to the wire...

I made two of these sweet little felt hearts, stuffed them, and added a hanging ribbon to make them ornaments.

This is probably my favorite ornament. I made it for my sister, who love T-Rex in all his awkward glory.

Mario got me a screen printing kit as a Christmas present, which I opened early and used to make more Christmas presents! This is the first one we made. Mario has a vinyl cutter, so we cut out stencils on that and then printed this on felt. It was so fun! We printed all sorts of things for Christmas. If I can find pictures of the other little things, I'll post them later. I'm missing pictures of 3 really cute ornaments! Tragedy :( This one was for my aunt, a boston terrier lover.

This is what the screen looked like after printing. Note the super high-tech newspaper we used to block out the back!

This silly sheep design is one I plan on printing on some totes and drawstring knitting bags for my shop. I'll post a picture of the finished product soon!

This is a t-shirt we made for a Star Trek loving friend. I love how this one turned out!

And for a Metal Gear Solid fan :)

All in all, 2014 was a pretty damn good year. I made a lot of stuff, opened an Etsy store (that has been sadly neglected these past couple of months), bought a house, got engaged, got a promotion, and somehow still managed to read some books! 

My goals for 2015 include:

1. Get married. Which includes surviving the wedding planning phase of things. UGH.
2. Spend more time on my Etsy shop
3. Screen print ALL THE THINGS.
4. Finish all my sad, neglected unfinished quilt tops
5. Make more of my own clothes
6. Blog at least once a week!

Sounds doable, right? RIGHT? I am looking forward to this year. I think it's going to be fantastic. And I will be making an active effort to spend more time in this space, interacting with the rest of you lovelies out in blog land. 

What are your goals for the year?? I will leave you with this wonderful picture of it SNOWING in TUCSON, ARIZONA just before midnight on New Year's Eve. Pictured is my friend Kate, who is from Phoenix and had never before stood in falling snow. Magical, right?