Some sewing

Before the Halloween hubbub and the box of knitting unfinished business I was doing a little bit of sewing here and there.  My darling husband installed a clothesline for me this summer and after losing my clothespins (and having some mold on the line for not bringing them in) I decided to make my own clothespin bag.  I like the way the 'store-bought' ones stay open so its easier to get the pins in and out - so I made a ring at the top to insert part of a coat hanger after finishing.  It works (sorta) and I've kept my clothespins from molding and at my fingertips all summer

I used fat quarters of Denise Schmidt's Hope Valley and I think its very 'old-timey' looking which works well with the whole 'hanging your clothes out to dry' thing.

In addition I've been able to take cute pictures of my crafty things hanging on my clothesline - case in point this cute little ditty bag I made for my nephew for his matchbox cars.  (I made his sister one too to hold her 'quiet church toys' as a baptism gift - but I forgot to get a pic of that one).

I'm still knitting away and hopefully these posts are keeping you entertained while I get things wrapped up. :)

A new craft

Recently I learned how to make bows - not for my little man but for my niece.  And after learning how to make them I sorta got addicted and made more and more of them for all the little girl babies I knew.  Bows, headbands etc etc

These are for my niece

These are for a College friend's little girl

I started with the rosettes and had so much fun I just kept going. There are more upstairs for two other little girls and a stack of them that may get made into a Fall wreath (if I get it done before Winter shows up).  I am looking forward to pictures of the girls wearing these soon!

Hats... A lot of Hats

I have decided that I really enjoy making hats for little ones.  I made my nephew a few and since little e have made even more.  They are a quick knit, adorable on little heads and take relatively little yarn.  I've made quite a few for little e that I haven't shared on here so I thought I'd share some baby hat love...

First, this is a hand-me-down I made from my nephew a few years ago (can't believe he will be THREE in February!)  We found it in a box of his old clothes so we've already worn it this year...

Then there was a new Dino-ROAR hat for this year (last year we had one but it is too small already).  This is probably my favorite hat.  I don't enjoy making and attaching all the little spikes, but it is SOOO cute once its on a baby head that all is forgiven (and in the grand scheme of things it still takes very little time and yarn).

Doesn't he sorta look like he is coming at you saying "ROAR!" in this pic too? :)

Also there is the original crocheted hat for his owl costume (that I decided to make in green instead of blue after making the ENTIRE hat!).  I have one eye made but I'm not sure if I'll make the other eye and nose and attach them or just leave it how it is.

Finally I also made him a 'swirly' hat.  This had has been on my 'to-make' list for a long time.  For someone - anyone - and I saw one on Ravelry in gray sock yarn and I knew little e had to have one (and I just happened to have some gray sock yarn perfect for the job).  I think he looks the cutest in this one but as with other hats I've made with sock yarn it seems to slide up his head as you wear it.  Not ideal considering he only wears a hat if he forgets its on his head.  If I have to keep pushing it down he keeps remembering that its there.

I think his head should stay pretty warm this Fall and Winter with all these new hats, but I probably won't make it four more months without making him another one (or two!) :)

'Little e' the Owl

So I alluded to a costume I was making for little e and I hope I don't disappoint.  He was an owl for Halloween this year and I made almost his entire costume.  I started by dyeing a onesie with dark brown RIT (my first attempt at that and I think it turned out pretty well).  I used an old onesie that was stained and figured with feathers covering the whole thing it wouldn't matter.

Then I made a template for the feathers (totally winged that - no pun intended) and cut out individual feathers.  Arranging them and not allowing my OCD to kick in was a little difficult but I think it looks random without looking too 'planned random' as I sometimes seem to create.

Then I got to working on his hat.  I am a knitter first and foremost but the cutest owl hats I could find were crocheted so I had to step out of my comfort zone.  I used this pattern from Repeat Crafter Me (how clever is that?) to make his hat.  I bought the Vanna's choice barley for the top b/c in all the pics of these hats I saw online the ones with that color top were the cutest (to me) but I used leftover scraps for the bottom of the hat.  I have to say I crocheted this hat about 7 times.  Once TOTALLY with a blue bottom and then realized the blue feathers I had in the costume just didn't seem 'owlish' so I made it again in green - with the wrong stitch.  Then again, and again for different reasons but I think all in all it turned out pretty great.

Finally it was still a few hours before trick or treat (and lucky for me nap time) so I decided I could still pull off wings for him too.  I am really glad I did because I think they made the costume.  I used this tutorial for the wings after seeing the adorable ones on Ashley Ann's blog (I absolutely adore her btw). I used the same fabrics as the front of the costume but in longer strips and pieced them together.  I also didn't cut my wings in the middle since the little guy wouldn't really be 'flapping' them.  I added elastic at the edges to go around his wrists and had to safety pin them up in the middle - but it worked out just fine.

Finally we met up with little e's good buddy - Alfalfa :) - and went trick or treating (after our photo shoot of course)

And what owl doesn't fly ....

We Moore's had a great Halloween - how about the rest of you?  

Up next even more knitting (I am doing pretty well at finishing the stuff in my 'unfinished business' box) as well as more sewing.  The Holidays have me in a tizzy of handmade gifts and fun things for little e to wear to celebrate the season!

Some finished business...

I dove into that box of unfinished sweaters and have made some progress.  I thought I'd start with what I thought might be the easiest to finish up, which was an orange shawl.  My thinking was it only needed a collar added - and it had been in the box since 2009.  (SADLY this is not the oldest project in this box - by a LONG shot *sigh*)
I ended up having to make some adjustments to the arm length (to make the back semi-wide enough) and then add the collar .  I've taken it off the needles twice to check the collar length and I'm getting close.  It would probably look best with some short rows (to lengthen it near my bust and down the back but not up my neck) - but I'm not sure exactly how to do that to make them look right so I'll probably add a few more inches all around - bind off - block the HECK out of this thing and then move on.
BUT since it wasn't quite the 'quick win' I was looking for I also decided to pull out the Tree Jacket sweater that had been snoozing in this box since 2010.  I had the whole sweater knit and one whole sleeve when it ended up in the box.  I was concerned because I knew I didn't have enough yarn for long sleeves - so exactly what length to make the sleeves (and the fear of seaming) had me putting this up.  So I pulled it out, knit a second sleeve, learned to seam garter stitch (easy peasy btw - nothing to be scared of) and then I even kitchener stitched the sleeves to the sweater.  It looks great, fits really well and I even got all my ends weaved in and wore this to our pumpkin patch adventure last weekend.  I have pictures of me in it - but nothing really close up or showcasing the finished sweater (whoops).

Family photo at the pumpkin patch

showing little e the cows. not a great pic but you can see the sweater and the finished sleeve length

In addition I've been crocheting - GASP!  I have only ever crocheted one other time (and I loved that cowl) but its out of my comfort zone.  I'm working on a hat for little e's first Halloween costume - he's going to be an owl (if I get his costume all made!)  So look forward to the big reveal of that crafting effort - dyeing, sewing, crocheting... whew!

Oh and just for giggles - here is little e's debut into crafting... he painted his pumpkin this week. Enjoy!

Unfinished Business

An entire box of unfinished business!  I have been lamenting the fact that I don't have enough of any yarn for an entire sweater (and now that we are a one paycheck family I won't be buying an entire sweater's worth soon) so I ventured into my box of unfinished business.  (I have been notorious for not finishing projects - I am the QUEEN of second sock syndrome!)

This box has unfinished sweaters, socks, scarfs and shawls.  I put some of them away because I didn't understand the next directions, they didn't seem to fit right or other random reasons.  I pulled some out this week and realized that now that I've been knitting for quite a bit longer I knew how to resolve some of these issues and started into fixing and finishing these sweaters.  Hoping to fall back in love with some of these projects and get them finished up in time for fall weather wearing!

Tying up Loose Ends... Literally!

I showed you the finished craft room in hopes that I would cut into that fabric and whip up some baby bedding - all voila!! Unfortunatley I got very stuck in the millions of pattern options you can create with six different fabrics and a 28"x14" panel and 'analysis paralysis' set in.  Luckily I have some good friends who came over and pulled me out of my rut and got me back on track.  I now have all the panels sewn, the ties sewn, the piping basted and thought I was soo close.  Unfortunately - piping is trying to be the death of me (or this project anyway) and we have had some issues.  First basting the original piping and then pinning it to the panels.  Now, I've recut the fabric for piping and re-basted.  Alas, we are on track again, so we'll see.

Design for bedding

In the meantime, while my mom was here and I was showing her all my great handiwork knitting for the little guy she might have noticed that most of my 'finished' knitting projects had some ends hanging off of them (or millions of ends hanging off of them in the case of my striped baby blankets).  So we made a pile and she gave me a goal of two/week to finish and ensure they are all ready for Little E when he gets here.

So far so good with one baby blanket done, one bib, one washcloth, and one vest blocked and ready to receive his buttons.  :)  Some finished pics coming up!