I got to knit a baby gift!

Most of my friends are done making babies... so by the time I really got into knitting, there weren't many babies to knit for. Luckily for me, some new friends of mine are expecting in a few months, and they're having a little girl!

A week ago, I picked up some Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock to knit up a baby sweater... and thanks to a free pattern called Maile (which has a sweet story behind it), I came up with this...

This is a closeup of the leaf lace. I love how the yarn knit up - there's absolutely no pooling! It is a hardy yarn too, so while it looks really pretty, it should stand up to lots of washing and baby abuse!

I did make a mistake on the yoke lace though... you have to look closely, but you'll see that the middle set of leaves is too long. I wasn't using a counter, so I knit one row of lace twice...

The mistake I made on the yoke lace is the reason that the buttons at the neck are so close together... The sweater is only supposed to have four buttons, but mine has five.

I gave it to our friends on Saturday. They really seemed to appreciate the gift, and I can't wait to see photos of their baby wearing her new sweater!

RIP

I don't know how it happened, or why, but my iron died yesterday. I was making a pillowcase dress for a friend's little one, and the iron sprung a leak and there was water. Everywhere. The entire reservoir emptied all over the floor and my ironing board.

I've always taken very good care of my iron, because it was a good iron, and it cost more than I ever thought I'd spend on an iron. It was only four years old, and a Rowenta, so it should have lasted. But it was not to be. I wondered if maybe our naughty cat knocked it off of the ironing board, so I asked if anyone had found it on the floor yesterday morning and replaced it before I noticed, but no. It just died.

Today, I got a new iron. Another Rowenta, and spent, again, more than I would have liked to spend on an iron. It will be broken in tomorrow.

RIP, old Rowenta. I'll miss you - you were good to me...but your replacement is sexier than you were.

Just for fun...

Breaking in the new serger

I sold the old serger yesterday. I think the "old" gal will have a good home... the lady who bought her was very nice, and already has some serger experience under her belt.

She also told me about a really neat local sewing initiative... It is called Our Social Fabric. She urged me to look it up, and I'm really thrilled that I did. It looks like chaos, but fun chaos. I'm hoping to make it out to their next event, which is this coming weekend. A full bag of fabric for $25? Bolts at $2 per metre? Yes please! My stash thanks you, Dorothy! So does my bank account.

So, since I got a new serger, I HAD to use it right away. It would be a shame not to, after all. I decided I wanted an easy, quick project, so I dug out my McCall's 6354 and made view B (but without the embroidery... did I mention instant-gratification?)

Here is the finished product. I love tunic-length tops, because they cover all kinds of sins. They're almost dresses, but they're still cute.

If anyone had told me six months ago that I'd be wearing orange, I'd probably have laughed at them... but I've been finding myself embracing warmer colours lately. I used to love cool blues and purples, but not so much anymore. Now it is all about warm plum, kakhi, rich brick reds, and warmer shades of blue. Oh, and chocolate. Can't forget the chocolate.

I'm pretty pleased with how the tunic turned out. For some reason I don't understand, it has French seams at the shoulders, so the only work I needed to do on my serger was the side seams and the waist seam. The hem is a double fold, so no serging there!

The surplice neckline is nice, but as usual, I need a camisole. Busty girl problems! Unless I'm wearing knits, this style of neckline gapes on me. I do love them though.

I also did some decorative stitching at the neck edge and along the hem, and made bias tape for the neckline out of leftover fabric rather than using purchased bias tape. I never buy the stuff - the quality is poor, and it only takes a few minutes to make matching bias tape for your project out of scraps. Why pay for lousy bias tape when I can make fantastic bias tape practically for free?

New serger, and some housekeeping

Yesterday, I went to the same store that I purchased my sewing machine from. They were having a BIG SALE!!! So the timing was perfect to replace my serger. It is a decent serger, but I wanted something better that can handle more difficult projects.

I rather fell in love with all of the features of the Janome 1200D, mostly because it does coverstitch, but I wasn't in love with spending over $1000 on a serger. I just couldn't justify the expense, since you mostly use coverstitch for sportswear, which I never sew. So, I picked up the Janome Pro 4DX. The price was about $20 more than I'd budgeted, so not a deal breaker by any means. Bonus is it was 40% off. It is quiet (for a serger), and doesn't travel, which is great. I really get annoyed when I am rushing to finish a long seam and the serger starts walking across the table! It also has a one step conversion to a rolled hem, which is a very nice feature. My old serger does a rolled hem too, but there are a couple of adjustments that need to be made, and frankly, I'm a lazy sod when it comes to adjusting my machine.

I can't wait to do my first garment on it. I'm thinking about a skirt.

I also did some housekeeping today. My yarn stash is a bit nuts, and not very well organized at the moment. And none of it was on Ravelry, so if I'm inspired to knit something, I have to haul out my big bins of yarn and rummage through them to see if I have appropriate yarn.

Bin #1 is finished, and you can see the contents on my Ravelry stash page. Some of the yarns still need details, but they're unknown yarns whose yardage I need to calculate, and frankly, I'd rather play with my new serger right now. I still have a second large bin to go through, and there are other miscellaneous yarns hidden around the apartment that need to be added to my stash. One of these days I'll get organized! I need to do my fabric stash at some point too. That ought to be loads of fun...

Next!

I finished my second sock last night. I'm quite chuffed with them. I'll take some fun photos later, but for now, you'll just have to wait.

I've ordered yarn for a special pair of socks for the boy. I don't know when it will arrive yet, hopefully next week so I will have time to make them before he returns from his Dad's house. These are secret socks! The only thing I will say for now is that they'll be red (his favourite colour) and nerdy. Let those imaginations run wild!

This leaves me in a bit of a fix. I have some gorgeous Hand Maiden Casbah to make myself another pair of socks, which brings me to another issue...what socks should I knit? Honestly, I need a break from socks. I've knit four pair in what, two months? Clearly, it is time to step away from the sock needles and work with something a little different.

I have loads of yarn in my stash, so I got to thinking. What should I make? A shawl? No, I'm not in the mood for lace. I want something I can haul around without messing with charts and markers. A hat? Maybe, but I'm just not in the mood. I kept looking in my stash, and found this...

not all of the stash is shown here...
just what isn't in the shower drying!

It is a really pretty yarn, from Knit Picks. I'm not sure if it is worsted or DK, because I get 14 wraps per inch out of it and I know for sure it isn't fingering. I always find Knit Picks yarn weights to be a bit finer than they are stated though (with the exception of their lace and fingering yarns).

The yarn is Swish, and the colour is called Marine Heather, a gorgeous blue with sea green mixed in. I can't even remember why I bought it now... I made a hat for the boy out of it, and a little scarf that he never wore and has since outgrown.

But what to make? Since some of the yarn is reclaimed (yes, I unravelled the scarf and the yarn is currently drying in the shower) and I have partial balls, I had to weigh it. I THINK I have about 600 yards. I hope I have 600 yards, or you're going to be seeing a very frustrated post from me soon.

I decided to look on Ravelry for projects that take around 550-600 yards of yarn in what I suspect is a worsted weight (see above complaint about Knit Picks yarn), for adults. I want something for myself! I found a lot of shawls, cowls and scarves, but no. I'm not in the mood. Changed the search parameters around to look for sweaters (good luck, I know) and mostly found tank tops and shrugs.

I don't believe in knitted tank tops. If I'm going to wear a knitted top, it is going to be warm. If I want to wear a tank top, it is because the weather is warm. It just doesn't make sense to me. So a shrug it is. I did find some short sleeved sweaters, but I didn't have quite enough yarn for any of them.

So a shrug it is. Shrugs are great for warm weather, because you don't necessarily want a full sweater, but sometimes your shoulders and arms get a bit chilled. The only problem of course, is that a lot of the shrug patterns I was looking at just didn't appeal to me... until I found this one.

project by nonobaddog

The pattern is called Verdant, available on Ravelry. I was hoping for a free pattern, but this one is stylish and looks pretty versatile, so I shelled out the $5.35 (after currency exchange) to buy it.

It is just about perfect, really. Reasonably priced pattern, very popular (which means it is probably very well written and any errors have likely been corrected by now)... and the yardage? Estimated at 550-600 yards. Sounds pretty perfect if you ask me.

I'll be casting on today. It shouldn't take too long, since there's not a whole lot of yarn there, so hopefully by the time the yarn for the socks arrives, I will have a new shrug to show off.