sewn: summer skirts (Simplicity 4138 & 2611)

52.2 – Happy Bench Monday!, originally uploaded by earthchick.

I started this skirt in April, with plans to wear it with my modified February Lady Sweater for Easter. But the lime green fabric didn’t look as good with the blue sweater as I’d hoped, so I stopped before putting in the waist and doing the hem (and made a white one instead).

I finally got back to the skirt last week and finished it up. It is such a simple little project – an elastic-waist, 6-gore cotton skirt. The fit isn’t as flattering on me as a classic A-line or basic straight skirt, and I always look better in a fitted (zippered) skirt than in one with an elastic waist.

I had thought I’d relegate this to my fabric pile, to use for something else some day. But after trying it on again to take some pictures, with a simple cami and no hose (would y’all believe I almost always wear pantyhose when I wear a skirt or dress?), I realized that it makes a great knock-around-the-house/play-around-the-back-yard kind of skirt.

And so it will be.

pattern:Simplicity 4138, view E
fabric: very cheap light green cotton with tiny flowers, from Joann’s

So I decided that maybe tee+skirt+sandals would be my new summer uniform. Which of course meant I needed to make some more skirts. And since Joann’s was having it’s big Firefly Sale last week, I was able to score some new $1.99 patterns and some cheap fabric. Several years ago, I spent a summer making a new pie each week – I started thinking maybe this summer I would make a new skirt each week. Except that I probably have too many other projects (including many other things I want to sew besides skirts) to be that committed.

Anyway, this is Simplicity 2611 – one of their "1 Hour" patterns. It took me longer than an hour, but I did bang the whole thing out this afternoon, so, close enough. It’s a yoked drawstring skirt – there are just four panels to sew together, then the yoke (with buttonholes for the drawstring). I had a hard time figuring out what size to make, because the finished measurements indicated in the pattern made no sense whatsoever – they were based on the size of the skirt before the drawstring had been tied, I guess?

So I ended up making it too big, which is better than making it too small of course. I know for next time to make this at least a size smaller, maybe two. (I will take this one in so that I’ll actually wear it – but I’m afraid it’s going to be a bit of a pain because of the yoke). I’m pretty sure that even when it’s the right size it’s going to be a fairly full skirt, so I’m not sure if it’ll be the most flattering fit. We’ll see. I’ll be doing more skirt experimenting, I’m sure.

knitted: first handspun handknit (garter-brim hat)

YIP.6.9 – Handspun Hat!!, originally uploaded by earthchick.

So here it is, my first handspun handknit. The spinning is a typical beginner yarn, and the hat is too big (though it’s modeled here by Little Buddha, I meant it for My Old Man – but it’s too big for him too). Still, I am thrilled with it.

The fiber is “Midnight” BFL from Stephanie. Have you checked out Spinning Colors before? Stephanie dyes such lovely yarn and fiber, and she also occasionally offers her own handspun-hand-dyed yarn. I love her sense of color. The colors in this fiber ranged from a deep almost-black blue to a pale almost-white. (Stephanie and I have the same birthday – though she is many years younger than I am – and I finished spinning this yarn on our shared day! It was my second finished yarn and my first hand-dyed spin.)

You can see I don’t have much consistency with my spinning yet.

Plying really fixes a lot of problems! Though you can tell it’s still a thick-and-thin.

This is 4 oz. of fiber, which I spun into 214 yards of 2-ply, 12-ish wpi. I’m not sure the final yardage on the hat, though it is definitely somewhat less than the total amount.

pattern: Kim’s Hats from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, the garter-brim version. I knit the man’s size.
needles: size 8
dates:June 6-8

I will probably rip this and re-do it, either as a smaller version of the same hat, or as a Scholar Collar. In the meantime, though, I enjoy looking at it and fondling it.

obsessed: spinning

365.347 – Ladybug!, originally uploaded by earthchick.

So yeah. Apparently I like things that go around in circles. Last month, I blogged about my new obsessions with hooping. And I mentioned I had another new obsession as well.

I got a spinning wheel for my birthday! I can’t tell you how excited I am about it. I started out by renting it and taking lessons at The Spinning Loft in Howell, Michigan. (How lucky am I that there is a spinning store a mere 30 minutes from me?). I took four weeks of lessons with Beth, the owner, and at the last lesson, I purchased the wheel I’d been renting – a Schacht Ladybug. I love it SO much.

I originally thought I was going to get a Kromski Minstrel. Both wheels were pretty much the only ones in my price range, and I had read good things about both. I thought I liked the more traditional look of the Kromski. But once I treadled both, I fell in deep love with the Schacht. And I decided I liked the more modern look better after all. I mean, how cute and sassy is that bright red wheel? Very.

I finished my first yarn during the third lesson – 312 yards of black BFL plied with light grey Polwarth.

I am not planning on knitting with it, I just want to keep it, so that I can always compare my later yarns to my first. The first few days after I finished it, I kept petting it and thinking, “This is yarn. THAT I MADE.” Even now, after I’ve been spinning for few weeks, I kind of can’t believe I can make yarn. It’s something I’ve been wanting to be able to do ever since I bought my first bulky student spindle a year-and-a-half ago.

I still have a lot to learn. But in the meantime, I am having So! Much! Fun! I have already made my first handspun handknit (I’ll talk about that in a separate blog entry). And I am finally feeling confident enough to spin the hand-dyed fiber I’ve been accumulating over the last several months.

“Scutterbotch.” 182 yds, 14 WPI, 3 7/8 oz., merino, tencel, and sparkles, a sort of gold with soft pink, from Funky Carolina. (Spun from a batt, which I loved).

“Five Plum Pie.” 4 oz. Falkland, 152 yds. 10 wpi, 2-ply. This is the May fiber from the Hello Yarn fiber club.

There are not words for how much I love this. This is the fourth completed yarn I have spun, and my first Hello Yarn. The colors of the fiber included brown, blue, purples, and a sort of lime green. The overall effect is a kind of soft brownish purple. I am in deep, deep love with it.

Currently, I am able to spin about 4 ounces over the course of two nights and then ply on the third night, making this a much quicker hobby than knitting! But I need to slow down a bit so that I can actually get some knitting done. (I am very, very behind in my planned knits. ) But I am pretty gung-ho when I am first learning new things, so it is hard to rein myself in!

sewn: for a pair of five year-olds (Pup Tent)

YIP.5.31 – Pup Tent, originally uploaded by earthchick.

Having finally conquered the birthday quilts, I was looking for some quick little something to sew for the boys’ birthday. This pup tent from Weekend Sewing fit the bill.

I waited until the Memorial Day Sale at Joann’s to pick up some outdoor canvas (because otherwise, 54″ home decorating fabrics are kind of pricey!). This pattern calls for 2 1/2 yards, and I think my final price was something in the low $20 range – much better than the $45-ish it would’ve been without the Sale coupons. (I have a thing about avoiding paying full price for fabric at Joann’s, because you can almost always catch something on sale there – either outright on sale, or with the use of a coupon – if you are willing to wait just a bit). Anyway, I thought this colorful striped fabric was just perfect for a backyard tent. Doesn’t it just scream “Pottery Barn Kids”? (I mean, except for the price tag – because if it were PBK it would be something like $99, yes?)

The pattern is straightforward, simple, and fast. Basically you sew three pieces together, make some loops out of bias tape, and sew the hems (with loops inside the hems). Get yourself a rope and some tent stakes, et voila! You can have yourself a campout. The book indicates that you can use aluminum needles instead of tent stakes. While that is a cute idea, it also costs twice as much – unless you happen to have some knitting needles lying around that you don’t mind jamming into the dirt. (I bought a set of 4 tent stakes for about $3.49, and priced out similarly sized aluminum knitting needles at $3.69 a pair – and of course you would need two pairs). There is enough fabric left over to make a matching outdoor cushion. I have the pillow form and plan to do this, eventually.

The boys got new sleeping bags from their aunt for their birthday, so we are just waiting for some good weather so that we can have a backyard camp-out.

sewn: Birthday Quilts, a year in the making (Easy Lap Quilt)

Fairy Tale Quilts, originally uploaded by earthchick.

So these were supposed to be for the boys’ fourth birthday. I worked on them with feline supervision.

I ran into what I thought was a calamity when two of the fairy tale fabrics I ordered turned out to be canvas. But then Ashley told me I could totally use canvas for a quilt. So I did. (The one on the right has the two canvas fabrics – Jack and the Beanstalk and The Gingerbread Man – picked out by Little Buddha.)

I didn’t get these done in time for their fourth birthday. And then, having missed the deadline, I stalled out. I finally got them back out last month, and finished them with 8 days to spare before their fifth birthday. I love them very much.

pattern: Easy Lap Quilt, from Bend-the-Rules Sewing
fabrics: various, ordered from the folk tales section of reprodepot and some picked up at Joann’s
dates: late-April 2008 to late-May 2009

I really like the backing fabric, which is a mix of tales – Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, etc.

I love pulling a new quilt out of the dryer, when it’s all freshly crinkled, and then folding it up, so that it’s all squishy.

The quilts are great for using on the ground outside.

And they are perfect for cuddling.

knitted: dragon hoodie (Steggie)

Steggie, at last, originally uploaded by earthchick.

So, all of a sudden, I am living with two five year-olds. How did that happen?! I have lots to show and tell about their birthday party, but I’ll save that for another day soon. For now, I want to show you the monkey I finally have off my back:

pattern: Steggie , size M, by Julia Farwell-Clay
yarn: KP Shine Worsted, in Grass, 8 skeins plus a tiny bit of a 9th, so just a little more than 600 yards (less than the pattern indicates), plus much less than 1 skein of Serrano (red) and Serenade (purple)
needles: size 5 (for seed stitch), size 7 (for everything else)
cast on:March 27
bind off: May 23
mods: after I bound off the hood, I realized it needed to be much larger for my kid’s huge noggin, so I tinked and added a lot of depth. The hood is huge now, but it fits. I also am going to need to go back and fix the zipper. I really think it needs a longer one than I ordered – I measured well (I thought) but this cotton blend really stretches out (and especially down). Once I get a new zipper and install it, I will also tack down the top. As it is, the top looks pretty tacky!
verdict: He loves it! But I did *not* love knitting it. The pattern itself is cute and clever. But I picked the wrong yarn for it. A nice sturdy wool would’ve been just right. The cotton blend I went with – which I chose so he could wear it for warm weather – was heavy, drapy, and slippery. Doing the spikes in this yarn was a huge pain, and slow going.
raveled

Still, I’m glad to have a happy kid.

You know what else I’m happy about? After Tiny Dancer saw it, he declared he didn’t want one. He wanted something that had a dragon on it, not something that was meant to look like a dragon itself (actually this pattern is meant to be a dinosaur, but my guys like dragons, and had a dragon-themed birthday, so that’s what I went with). After a little etsy searching, I found this:

It’s an appliqued fire-breathing tee from monkeysbug on etsy. He loves it. And it’s so cute! (I would highly recommend this etsy seller – super-cute stuff, super-quick delivery.)

Once I got going on the dragon theme, I couldn’t stop. I also found these cute shirts on Threadless:

It’s a dragon blowing out candles on a birthday cake – appropriate, yes? Of course a week later and it’s on sale. Wishless

I’ll share about their party soon. I think five is going to be a fantastic age!

By the way, I am destashing my unused KP Shine Worsted. Maybe you want to give this pattern a go in this yarn – maybe you’ll enjoy it more than I did. Or maybe you have some other pattern in mind. I just know I won’t be using it. I have 13 skeins of the green, 1.5 each of the red and purple, plus a half of a red zipper and a half of a green zipper! Let me know if you might be interested.

knitted: in honor of an old friend (Ishbel)

365.349 – Ubiquity, thy name is Ishbel, originally uploaded by earthchick.

My best friend from college, Jen, lives with cystic fibrosis. When I was growing up, the average life expectancy of a child with a diagnosis of CF was horrifyingly short. A girl in my high school died of it at the age of 15. Over the last few decades though, the life expectancy has increased rather dramatically – in 2000, the average life expectancy was 32 (which was already way above what it had been in the 80s and 90s), now it’s 37; I expect it to keep increasing. Research has consistently led to improvements in treatment and care; my hope is that the life expectancy of people with CF continues to increase exponentially as a result.

So when a mom at our preschool contacted me about making something for a silent auction to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, (in memory of a friend of hers who died of CF last November) I didn’t have to think twice. I jumped at the chance to make a contribution. I love the idea of directly contributing to research that has already helped extend lives and may yet prove to save them. Captivated by Heather’s gorgeous Ishbel in HazelKnits sock yarn, I decided to make one myself, in the same yarn.

pattern: Ishbel by Ysolda Teague
yarn: HazelKnits Artisan Sock Yarn, in “beach glass” (less than 1 skein)
needles:size 6
cast on: April 19
finished:May 3
modifications: none
verdict: I love it so much. The pattern was super-fun (and super-quick) and the yarn (90% superwash wool, 10%nylon) was a dream. I would love to make one just like this for myself (but it might have to wait awhile).

If you are local, the Art for the Cure fundraiser is at Conor O’Neill’s Celtic Room, Saturday, May 30, starting a 7:00pm. You can read more about it here.

If you can spare a prayer or positive thought for Jen, please do. She recently had her worst pulmonary function test ever. But she has an indomitable spirit, so I’m hopeful this is just a blip along the way. Currently, there is no cure for CF, but it’s amazing what gains research has made in terms of treatment and life-expectancy. I am hopeful.

obsessed: hooping

365.345 – Hula Hoop, originally uploaded by earthchick.

So perhaps I should rename this blog earthchick … does stuff (and some of it is knitting). Knitting is still happening, of course, but spring always means I want to sew more, and with my 365 project on flickr I have fallen even more in love with my camera, and I also had a brief and intense encounter with vampires (yes, I realized I am the last 30something woman you know to read the Twilight series). Basically, it turns out that I’ve been throwing myself passionately into a whole lot of things besides knitting. And now, I have become completely obsessed with something that is totally unrelated to arts, crafts, or vampires.

Hooping! Like many other flickrites, I got interested in hooping because of gleek. I watched her hoop-related posts on her flickr stream for two months, enchanted my her hooping videos and inspired by her enthusiasm. Others started getting hoops too, and the next thing I know, I had to have one too.

So I got a hoop for Mother’s Day, and, much to my surprise, I was able to pick it up and start hooping right away. It seems like a natural augment to my yoga practice and my weight-lifting regimen. And I can’t seem to stop! I feel like I could do it for hours and hours, but I don’t have that kind of time. So I’ve been doing 20 minutes here, 30 minutes there, and then giving myself 5-minute hooping rewards for doing housework. (yeah, I know, kind of sad that I have to have an incentive to keep a clean house)

Poison Apple hoop from Hoopnotica.com (44″ hoop, weighing 2 lbs – if you want to hoop, you really need a hoop made for adults, not a child’s hoop). I got the Hoopnotica basic DVD too. So far I’ve only watched the waist hooping part. I hoop to the right but can hoop to the left a little. I can do a little hip hooping as well as walking around and spinning. It’s addictive, y’all!

I’m learning some other new skills right now too (read: more obsessions). I’ll be blogging about them soon. Back to hooping now.

celebrated: Earth Day

365.326 – Happy Day, Mama Earth!, originally uploaded by earthchick.

I took this picture standing under the canopy of a weeping cherry tree in the memorial garden of our church. The tree only blooms for a few days each year, and it is spectacular. The first time I ever saw it in bloom was the morning my grandmother died in 2001. So whenever I see it blooming, I remember that morning and feel a strong surge of emotions and connection to my Granna.

(this was taken from underneath the canopy)

Truth be told, i didn’t do that much to celebrate Earth Day, other than spend some time in the garden enjoying nature. And talk with my boys about recycling and caring for the earth. I stopped at the natural foods store that afternoon and since I was in my husband’s car I didn’t have my usual assortment of reusable grocery bags. I couldn’t bear that thought of using plastic bags on Earth Day! At the natural foods store! So I bought yet another canvas bag while I was there. So, yeah, that was how I celebrated.

How about you?

I am so behind in responding to blog comments, but I appreciate them all so much. Thank you for taking the time to read and to comment. You have all been so kind in your comments, especially on my February Lady Sweater. Please know that I appreciate each one.

hello, spring!

365.320 – hello, spring!, originally uploaded by earthchick.

I’m so glad to see you!

(I rented a Sigma 10-20 [wide angle lens] and am going to enjoy playing with it for a week!)