Rainbows...

When we moved into our new home, I promised my daughter that I'd make her a new quilt. She'd outgrown the cute pink and purple one I made when she was in Kindergarten, so she was pretty happy to hear that she'd be getting a new, more grown up quilt.

Daughter had this idea that she wanted her bedroom to be "like a garden", so I bought a tree wall decal, painted her walls robin's egg blue, and got a rug from Ikea that looked like grass. The quilt, which is up in her loft bed, is a rainbow.

Of course, stripes are boring, and I didn't want to spend all that time and money working on a quilt that she wouldn't like in a year, so I picked out some fabrics that are more grown up, and somewhere in between pastel and bold...

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The pattern I chose is called Window to the Soul Gypsy Caravan, and it is by Amy Butler. The pattern is free, which is a bonus!

Unfortunately, the pattern makes more of a square quilt. I really need to get more consistent about reading finished quilt measurements! Lesson learned!

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It's next to impossible to photograph a quilt in a loft bed, so these are the best photos I could get of the finished quilt.

Here's some background on the quilt, which I started quite some time ago...

First post, talking about the planning stages...

Second post, an update and talking about my machine...

Third post, another update...

Fourth post, could it be? Yes, another update...

And the final post on the quilt, the finished pillow sham.

Then nothing. I posted nothing further on the quilt. For shame! Well, I'm remedying that now, aren't I?

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The quilt, as I mentioned, turned out more square and was therefore a little too short, so I cut off the binding on the top and bottom edges, and added a band of another coordinating fabric to both ends.

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How did I add the length? Well, the quilt was already finished, so I had to trim off the binding. Have you ever taken scissors to a quilt? It feels so wrong!!! Anyway, that's what I had to do, and I lived to tell the tale. Thanks to my friend Andrea, I learned about the "quilt as you go" method, which I was able to adapt to this quilt. Basically, I used this version of the method, but more or less in reverse. First, I sewed the green and teal strips together, then I added them to the purple edge, which previously had been the finished edge of the quilt. I trimmed the extra batting, and used a decorative binding stitch to ensure that I caught everything on the underside of the quilt.

I had lots of the light green from the center left, so I used that, as well as some teal that I found I did not need.

Now the quilt is plenty long enough for daughter's bed.

Boyden cardigan

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It's been a while since I posted, but that's because I was a busy bee, working on my new cardigan!

The yarn has been in my stash for a while, and it was just recently that I found the perfect pattern for it.

The pattern is Boyden (although for some reason, I keep calling it Camden). The yarn I used, has, sadly, been discontinued. It is Cepholopod Yarns Traveller in the "Groton" colourway.

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This is a really interesting sweater to knit. It has beautiful Celtic inspired cables, on the right front, left sleeve, and right back. The subtle asymmetry is really appealing, as it prevents the sweater from looking too "busy", which can happen with cabled sweaters, especially in variegated yarn like this.

I did have a few issues with the pattern, but the designer is very available and approachable, and I got my questions answered very quickly. The first issue I had was with the stitch counts. I wanted to make absolutely sure that I had the right number of stitches, but the counts for the right and left fronts were different, and were not listed in the pattern. The extra stitches on the right side were to allow for the cable, so that it wouldn't pull the button band off-centre. I made a note of this on my Ravelry project page as well.

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Another issue I had with the pattern was that you're supposed to end the cable with a certain row, but mine didn't. I don't know if I made a mistake somewhere (if I did, I can't find it) or if there's an error in the pattern, but the front and back cables are supposed to meet up so that when you graft the shoulders, they flow over the shoulder. Mine appears to be off by a stitch or two. I'm not bothered by it, but if I knit this sweater again, I'll be more careful.

One thing that I learned on this sweater was how to do closed loop cables. I'd never done them before, and they're not as hard as they look. I didn't like the instructions provided with the pattern, as it resulted in a big hole at the bottom of the loop, so I used these instructions instead. The loops turned out quite nicely, I think, however I later found this method, which I will use in the future, as the increases are spread out over two rows, so you're even less likely to make a hole where you shouldn't have one.

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I also had issues with the sleeve caps. This particular sweater is knit in one piece for the body, then grafted at the shoulders. You then pick up stitches around the armhole, and knit back and forth across the top of the sleeve. The instructions were slightly unclear on the last row of the sleeve cap, so I've made a note on my pattern to ensure that I don't get stuck again.

All in all, I'm pleased with my sweater. I love the colour, and it is lovely on. The buttons are a perfect match, though the buttonholes are a bit too big, so I'll have to sew them shut a little bit, or perhaps run yarn through them to prevent them from stretching. I usually wear my cardigans open, but I like having the option of wearing them closed.

I think the only thing I would do differently is to make the body longer. I usually prefer my sweaters to be a bit longer than this one turned out, but I was counting on the superwash yarn growing a bit more than it did. I do find that most cardigans are a bit snug at the bust, so I would probably go up one size if I make this one again. I also find the sleeves a little bit snug, but I frequently have issues with sleeves being too tight, whether I'm knitting or sewing. I probably couldn't wear a shirt with sleeves under this cardigan without making the sleeves look lumpy.

I would not recommend this as a travel project, unless you can count on having long periods of uninterrupted knitting time. The cables are complex, but fortunately there's a lot of stockinette once you're done the cable panels, so you can breeze through a lot of the sweater. I usually prefer smaller projects, like socks or hats for travel knitting anyway.

Would I knit this cardigan a second time? More than likely. I enjoyed knitting it, and the finished result is lovely and very wearable.

A little housekeeping

I'm not currently sewing anything (I have jeans to talk about, but haven't bought my pattern yet), and I'm knitting a sweater that I'll post about when it is finished. Rather than letting my blog go quiet, I decided to add a couple of pages of tips, tricks and tutorials.

The first (and so far most useful) page is for sewing information. As I find more useful information on the internet, I'll add to the collection of links.

The second page is for knitting information.

These pages will grow and become more helpful as time goes on, and the links can easily be accessed in the bar under the header on all of the pages of my blog. I don't currently have any tutorials myself, but as I start making them, I'll add them to the relevant pages.

Upcoming knits

My daughter is a huge Harry Potter fan... she's read all of the books several times, including the Hogwarts Library set. She has, of course, seen the movies, but waited until after reading the books. I hate to admit this, but I wasn't all that interested in the movies when they came out... even though so many people I know were practically jumping out of their skin with excitement. I just didn't get the appeal.

I've since seen most of the movies, and they were good, but I didn't really get into them much... then I read the books. I started reading them two weeks ago, and finished Deathly Hallows today. I can't remember the last time I shed so many tears while reading a book!

Daughter has done several sorting hat quizzes online (she's a Hufflepuff) and so have I (I'm a Ravenclaw). She's been begging me for a Hufflepuff scarf, and wants a tie as well, because ties are cool, of course.

I decided to humour her and make her a scarf, so I'll be ordering yarn to make her a year 1-2 Hufflepuff house scarf... I'm using Knit Picks yarn instead of the Cascade 220 called for in the pattern though. This will be the most boring, mindless knit I've done in many, many years, and it is going to take eons... they're long scarves! It'll be worth it when I see her face when it's done though, so I'll soldier on. It'll be a good travel project.

The other thing I am going to knit her, which was my idea, is Of Hallows and Horcruxes. This sweater is based on the one worn in several scenes of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It should be a fun knit, not too challenging.

I'm tempted to make one  for myself as well, but I think daughter would find that embarrassing.

Maybe I should make myself one in different colours, so that she won't roll her eyes too hard...

Fortunately, neither of these upcoming projects are surprises... if they were, it would take forever to knit them up, since I wouldn't be able to do them while she's home.

My second Oakridge

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Well, it took me a while to finish it, but here's my second Sewaholic Oakridge! I posted about the first blouse here, and cut out my second a few days later.

The fabric is from Fabricland, and it is a lightweight polyester. I wasn't sure about the floral pattern, since it is a bit  bright & pastel for my liking, but it was on sale, so I bought it and hoped for the best.

Do I like the finished blouse? The jury is out, as I usually wear darker, more muted colours, but it does make a nice blouse, doesn't it?

I didn't make any further adjustments to the pattern after my first Oakridge, as I was happy with the fit of the first one.

I usually sew with heavier, stiffer fabrics (most frequently cotton), so I found that I had to adjust the tension on my sewing machine, which I usually don't find necessary. Because the fabric was so much thinner than cotton, my seams puckered terribly until I lowered the top thread tension. I still find topstitching challenging, mostly when I reach a corner or edge, because the fabric doesn't feed evenly, which leads to imperfect topstitching. I feel like I need to find some tutorials to deal with this problem, because I want perfect topstitching! I did find that using a piece of tissue underneath the corners was helpful, but I'm hoping to find other ways to deal with this problem.

For some reason, I had a mental block about sewing the buttonholes. Usually, the closer I get to finishing a project, the more determined I am to complete it, but this blouse sat for a full week before I finally sewed the buttonholes and put buttons on it.

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I'm glad to be finished the second blouse, so that I can move on to the collarless version. I have a nice rayon to use for the next one, which is more to my taste than this fabric.

I suspect that the print will grow on me, especially once it warms up enough to wear skirts. The weather has been lovely here recently, but the last couple of days have been cold and wet. I think the Oakridge looks great with jeans, but I really want to wear them with pencil skirts.

Speaking of jeans, my next post will be all about my troubles with finding jeans that fit properly. I'm about to embark on an exciting journey, making my own jeans!

Invasion of the robots!

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Please excuse this photo. I know it is lousy, but it's the only one I have of this hat. The pattern is Robot Hat, and I had a lousy camera at the time, so you're just going to have to put up with this bad photo.

I made this hat for my little guy when he was five years old, out of Knit Picks Swish worsted. It's not my favourite yarn, as I find that it grows quite a lot after washing, but it is good for small projects like hats and mittens, because it is nice and soft and comes in a very wide range of colours.

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 This past winter, my son asked if I could make him a scarf and a pair of mittens to match his hat, which he still wears, four (going on five) years later. I'm glad he likes his hat so much!

I decided to make him a cowl instead of a scarf, because honestly, it doesn't get that cold here, and scarves take eons to knit. I hate knitting scarves, to be honest, so he ended up with a cowl. Instead of typing everything out again here, take a look at my project page on Ravelry for the details on the cowl.

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For the mittens, I found a free mitten pattern, then used duplicate stitch to put robots on the mittens. I could have knitted them using stranded colourwork, but I decided to try my hand at duplicate stitch instead, since I'd have to handle the floats all the way around the mitten, and it was going to be a hassle, as the robots are only on the backs of the mittens.

My Ravelry project page has more details.

Sweaters for my folks

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My husband, modeling Dad's sweater

Some time ago, I promised my parents sweaters for the holidays. Dad was recently retired, and asked if I'd be willing to make a turtleneck sweater for him to wear while out on the boat he had purchased.

I decided that I wanted to make sweaters that would go quickly, so I opted to knit with bulky weight yarn. For both sweaters, I chose Berroco Vintage, which is a good quality, affordable, and easy care yarn. I used it a couple of years ago (in DK weight) for sweaters for my grandmother.

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The sweater pattern I chose for Dad is called Hayfield, and it was a quick and easy knit. The cables were simple enough to knit while watching TV, but interesting enough that I didn't get bored while knitting the sweater. There's nothing as dull as miles and miles of stockinette!

My one complaint about this pattern is that the PDF file was protected, so I was not able to make annotations on my tablet. I don't like to print patterns, since they get tattered and it's a waste of paper. I'm still using EZ PDF Reader, and have figured out a few ways to make the app work better for my needs. I tried making a new PDF with the pattern, but had the same problems with being unable to annotate, so I printed it and scribbled all over it so I could get to work on the sweater.

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My mother requested a cardigan, so I looked for patterns that would be quick to knit. She liked the Midwinter Cardigan, so I purchased my supplies and whipped it up. This was a very quick knit, as it only took me 19 days to complete.

Again, this sweater was knit with Berroco Vintage yarn.

My one complaint with this sweater is that the hem curls up, because there's only one row of ribbing. I usually like the look of stockinette, but unless you have a fairly wide border, the hem's going to curl. Fortunately, it doesn't look bad, and if I hadn't pointed it out, it's unlikely anyone would notice. With the braided cables on the front, I don't know that you'd be able to add a wider border or ribbing or garter stitch. I'd be interested to try it, which I might do one day, since it's a really nice sweater and I'd be willing to knit it again. I do have a similar pattern that uses a worsted weight yarn, so I might use that pattern but incorporate the short row shaping at the bottom of this sweater since I like the curved hem.

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This photograph is a pretty accurate representation of the colour of my mum's sweater. It's a lovely heathered plum, and I wanted to keep the yarn for myself!

While knitting this sweater, I needed three row counters, as the cables on the front are mirrored and need to be counted separately, plus another counter is needed to count the rows of the sweater itself, not just the cables.

When you reach the underarms, the stitches are split into the two fronts and the back. Underarm stitches are bound off, then you knit the left side, back, then right side. After that, you knit the sleeves. While the construction of this sweater is a bit complicated, it is not difficult so long as you’re paying attention. This is not a project I would tackle as a travel project!

I visited my parents last month, and brought their sweaters along with me. Hopefully they will get plenty of use out of them!