Knitting Supply Revisited

Remember the crochet supply bag that I made for Jesse's Birthday?  Well, when the hubby came back from  visiting his parents, he brought with him a bunch of knitting supplies from his Grandma.  I inherited 10 pairs of needles and a bunch of skeins of yarn.  I needed a place to store it... and soon. Since I already knew how to make a crochet bag, I set to making myself a knitting supply bag.

I used the 9" pie pan as a template for the bottom of the bag and measured the circumference for the long tube. I made it stand as tall as a typical desk because of how much yarn I had inherited.  I wanted to hide it all from my yarn gobbling kitties.

Notice all the pins? I pinned the hell out of this project. Made it a lot easier to sew.

Again, as I mentioned in the previous post, I used fusible batting and made two straps in lieu of the one strap that the blog that inspired me used (two is more sturdy).  I then used Nina's fancy built in stitches to jazz it up a bit an have fun.  Using a zig-zag stitch to ensure that the needle pockets wouldn't rip/fall off was rather fun. Nina made this project FLY by. Thoroughly enough making it.

It can hold size US 19 needles (the pink ones) and cable ones and scissors! I tried to make it hold everything you could possibly need in your knitting projects (not the embroidery needle - they're really tiny... need to find a good fix for that).

It only stands up that much because it's full of yarn.  When it isn't, it flops over all sad. Hence... reason to buy loads of yarn!

Scarves for everyone!

As I mentioned in my Christmas and several other posts, I've taught myself how to knit recently.  Since I've been learning or focusing on the basics I decided to stick to scarves (since they're knit on straight needles and are relatively easy to learn, etc.).

Do you remember my two garter (knit all the stitches, wrong and right side) scarves I gave my brother and dad at Christmas? They were done with acrylic yarn and I've stuck with that yarn as I'm learning (not wasting money on the good stuff).  Well, dear friends, don't be surprised if you get a scarf this year for Christmas.  I'm going to have ton of them and I only have one neck... =).

The third scarf I attempted was the Herringbone Stitch.  Looking back, I realize that I shouldn't have tried that one for my third scarf (really should have practiced purling more, but I'm stubborn).  I found a great tutorial at New Stitch a Day.com (LOVE this place!) and got started.

First off, this is just the starting swatch of it.  The finished product curls in (No, I didn't block it yet) and the yarn bunches at the edges.  When asking a knitting friend, she said that it's the type of yarn that I used and if I used "big girl yarn" it wouldn't do that (yes, but my bank account would be silently weeping in the corner).   I like it, but I didn't use a pattern and just knit until I got bored... so it isn't really long enough for any guy friends.

The edges are lying flat here, but the longer it got, the more it curled in =\

For the fourth and fifth scarves, I did Double Knitting, which is two colors being knit and purled at the same time to get the stockingette stitch on both sides one in each color (loved this one - but it took twice as long to knit).  The video I used is this one - she does a good job explaining it and since purling wasn't my best yet, it made me happy to have someone explain it simply.

This is the fifth one... the other one looks exactly like this, only pink/green.

And, of course, Domino wanted to "help" me ....

Dis MY yarn... *purr*

Hoping to post more pictures of scarves soon... not sure what my next stitch will be. Suggestions welcome!

HIDE YO KIDS... HIDE YO... Kitchen Aid Mixer?

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaave ya met Ted my beautiful KitchenAid Mixer?

BEHOLD - A TEAL GODDESS

She's pretty epic. I adore her. I've made a couple things with her, but I'm finding more and more things to use her for all the time (MASHED POTATOES?! NUTS).  C'mon, I cleaned my itty bitty counter to put her on display. So, WHY, on earth, would I hide her teal beauty? Because my house is dusty and I don't want to clog her motor.  

I found an image of a really cute Kitchen Aid mixer cover and it linked back to an About.com tutorial.  Not going to lie, I used it as a rough guideline. I ended up measuring it with a tape measure and making my own paper templates.  I think mine came out pretty nicely (I didn't have a use for the pockets, although, looking back, I should have done them. Pockets are always a nice thing to have.)

The main side (a lovely teal) with canary yellow piping (first time using piping... fun!!)

The other side... no piping, no love. Just there. Eh about this fabric.

Now... here's the fun part. I used my lovely new machine, affectionately named Nina, to make this project.  It actually was Nina's first project with me (*tear* they grow up so fast).  I played with her various built in stitches and had a blast. I never knew sewing could be so swear-free (but cursing like a sailor is half the fun for me). 

And, as always, Domino tried to help me.

But these went so well I might make more for others! =)  Stay tuned...

Ladies and Gentleman.... Nina, the newest member to this sewing family.

Many of you don't know what I've been sewing on the past two years.  I learned on my Mom's 1970's something when I was little, but three years back I inherited my Grandma's sewing machine. An early 20th century White built-into-a-piece-of-furniture-collectible.  It's a great machine, got it up and running by a local sewing machine witch doctor out here, but I didn't like using it too much (the feed dogs and I didn't get along -- I now know that it was probably the low quality thread I was using that was the issue).  So I conned my dad into buying me an even older Singer.

Me happily fixing a cornhole beanbag for a friend... see my lovely Pinta? She's sitting on top of Santa Maria.  You'll get the names in a second.

All Pinta does is a straight stitch, which worked wonderfully for many years on many newbie projects.  But my mother-in-law (which is awesome) noticed that I needed a little more.  She's the one to blame for my interest in sewing and crafting and she has this vast amount of knowledge and experience.  It's pretty epic to have only a phone call away when I can't figure something out or when I need to dork out on a sewing thing. 

As a Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, Good Job finishing your Master's gift, my hubby and her went in together and got me a Bernina 1230 machine.  IT HAS SO MANY BUILT IN STITCHES.

I'll call her Nina. So I've got three sewing machines... the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria... BOLDLY SEWING INTO A NEW WORLD. *a-hem*

You have no idea how thrilled I am to have this machine. LET THE SEWING HARDER AND CRAZIER STITCHES BEGIN!

Punny Pot Holders

I'm trying to improve my general machine quilting skills.  To do so, I decided that making a bunch of pot holders would be an easy way of doing so.

Well, I found this gem of a tutorial and wanted to do something similar.  I made two, one for me and one for my mother-in-law.  I didn't like the "You are so hot!" on the pot holder - it wasn't funny enough for me.  So I googled heat related puns until I found two that I really liked.

Behold!

This one says, "If that pure rump roast? Nothing butt..."

You can see the back splash fabric a little better in this picture.

Mine is already stained from using it (whoops). For the blue fabric I used rotten rack fabric (the stuff people return and it's much cheaper). I loved it. So... tacky. I didn't put a loop on mine but that's because I didn't care. The hubby likes theses because they're big enough for his hands (I didn't follow the tutorial on the sizing... otherwise it would be too small).

For Valentine's Day I made my Grandmother a pair of Heart Shaped pot holders.  I used a tutorial that I can't find now (ARRRRGH) but made some minor modifications.  Even then, I think the Martha Stuart Heart  Shaped Pot Holder pattern is easier than what I did...

You can slip your hand in and just grab away (I definitely played with them for a while like duck mouths... because I'm 5.)

BEWARE - they come out small.  My hands aren't that large, but hubby's hands don't fit at all and mine barely do.  Lucky, my Grandmother is tiny and they should fit her just fine.  If not, they can double as heat pads (which I left a note letting her know that).  I didn't do the other weird material in between, but instead found some lace that I liked as a way of spicing it up.  However, it was hard to properly sew it together, so it didn't come out as well as I'd like. =\ Also, the way the tutorial has you sew them together then just flip them inside out made them bunch up at the tip of the heart and look weird.  It could be how poorly I cut the heart halves, but I doubt cutting it better would solve this issue.

Those are the only ones I managed to do before getting distracted... woot!

Jessie's B-Day!

For those of you that know me, I've had a wonderful person attached to my hip since Winter of 2006. She is an amazing person and I am lucky to have her in my life.

With that mushy crap out of the way, I can show you what I got to make her for her birthday (yesterday).  Now, I sew and knit, but she does crocheting.  She made me this AWESOME pincushion holder for my birthday, so I wanted to make her something equally useful and awesome.

Isn't he adorable?!

I found this awesome crochet/knitting supply bag holder on Pinterest, but, like most links on that damn website, it didn't show me how to make the bag. It was just bragging about. Grumble.  So I used my knowledge of bags (since I've made two already) and bugged my hubby for ideas how to properly make the bag.  He suggested for the circular bottom to use a pie pan (9") and then from there I measured the circumference for the tube shape of the bag.  

The straps have fusible batting on the inside as does the tube-like part. 

See the pockets? This is reversible too, I just gave it to her with them on the inside.

As for the height, I winged it. I wanted it to be tall enough to hold a bunch of yarn (I was pretty sure she was just stuffing her supplies into a box... I know I was shoving mine into a plastic bag).  The pockets were the part I was hesitant on. I had one crochet hook, so I was able to use it as a gauge to see how big each pocket should be.  From there, I pinned the hell out of the solid fabric to the tube one (which I didn't stitch together until AFTER I stitched on the pockets). Then took FOREVER stitching those stupid pockets down.  For the crowning touch, I went to a fancy yarn store nearby and bought her two skeins of gorgeous yarn which I made sure she understood was to be used on a project for her... not anyone else.  

She loves hers. I loved hers. So... I may have to make myself one....

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

FINALLY... I can share with you my Christmas creations (now that I've given them all away to people).

Everyone Got this one

I made an army of wine cork reindeer.
(Notice the newspaper that I used? It's clippings from the Battle of Antietam... reindeers attack!)

I used the following tutorial to make them.  The whole post gives you a ton of ideas of what to do with your spare wine corks.  I just think the reindeer were so cute.  Mine are a little different (the picture isn't very good, sorry).  I used brown pipe cleaners to make their rack more impressive.  Also, the bulb for a nose wasn't doing it for me so I used red jingle bells.  I added a string of green sequins so they could be hung on the tree or just to look like their reins.  I had WAY too much fun making these.

The Men's Gifts

Domino poses with Dad's Phillies wreath and Mike's Orioles wreath.

I bought 40 baseballs off Craigslist for about $30.  The seller was super nice and a huge baseball enthusts.  I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have sold me the balls if I hadn't said I was making wreaths for huge baseball fans (he required that I send finished product pictures. Nice guy!).  So I used this blog post as a guide on how to do it. I didn't use softballs because I had so many baseballs it wasn't necessary.  However, the coat hanger... ehhh not that great. These all kind of sag when on the door.  Makes me sad. I would use two coat hangers the next time or loops of metal wire... something more sturdy.

Now, the Braves one for Jason's Dad was a different story.  All the letters I got were from Michael's and I had to paint them the correct team colors.  However, I wanted a little tomahawk to make it look exactly like the Atlanta Braves logo.  Do you know how hard it is to find a pre-made one?! I ended up using scraps from Home Depot (they're really cool about it - just ask the guys at the back by the cutting station if you can have anything left on the floor).  I glued it together using wood glue, painted it red, wrapped yellow ribbon around it and glued it to the back of the A. It looks pretty cool.

The Mother-In-Law's Gift

She got me heavily into sewing so I wanted to make her something special.  She, and most of my husband's family, is a big fan of reading. When I found this bag pattern I nearly cried from joy.  However, I hate paying for patterns. I think everything should be free. So I ended up using this free wall hanging pattern as a starting point for the book leaning side of the bag. As you can see below, it came out very nicely.  The fun part was using scrap fabric for the books or fabric that she had given me to "play" with earlier in the year.

The pockets were the hardest part for me. I knew how to make a bag from an Easy Quilt's free tutorial on laptop bag making that I had done for my mom last year, but it didn't have pockets.  I used batting in between the library book theme fabric, which I don't recommend because it got way too thick and my old Singer couldn't handle it (I broke a needle at one point... whoops).  Also, the fabric I used for the interior was from a fabric website that I LOVE. 

The Knitting Obsession Begins...

So I found a cute pattern on Pinterest, which links to Ravelry.com a knitting/crocheting website, but I had no clue how to knit or even how to read the stupid pattern. Determined to figure it out, I decided to teach myself with YouTube videos how to knit a scarf, which everyone claims is the easiest place to start.

The Mistake...

Yeah. Easy. This stupid swatch shows you how "easy" it was for me at first. That took me about 3 hours of cursing, hissy fits, and wanting to chuck the needles out the window.   Eventually, I calmed myself down and tried again. I got it right, but to knit a scarf in garter stitch took me forever it felt like.  But I now know what I did wrong in the beginning. I was picking up stitches from the row before and increasing every, single row by 2-3 stitches. At least. So, when you're teaching yourself to knit, take your time to see where the needle is going or you're going to be VERY frustrated... very fast. 

Bailey liked to help me along the way (shocking).

See? I eventually got it right.  I finished this one and started on another one pretty much the next day.  

Same stitch, same needle gauge (US8), and same exact boring style.

Ladies!

Now, for some stupid reason, I didn't take a picture of what I made for all my female friends (arrrrrgh, bad Laura).  I made each of them a rice heating pad. I feel that at my old age *cough* all my friends are finding they have random aches and pains. So, I asked for their favorite scents, bought a bundle flannel fabric from Hobby Lobby and essential oils from Amazon, and sewed away! The tutorial I used wanted me to break it down into sections, but I ended up making three long tubes (instead of just a sack of rice that would bunch up and annoy my friends).  I used ziploc bags for different scents, dosed it all, and shook away! Now, some scents faded faster than others I recommend "touching up" the scents before giving them to others to ensure they still smell nice. The smell of burnt rice is vile.

Well... those were my Christmas gifts! Yes, I had to plan in advance, but it was well worth it to see the look on my friends and family's faces when they opened them. Merry Christmas!