How to sew your way out of a paper bag

Sometimes you have a project that has you saving materials for months, if not years. It takes up space in the corner taunting you with it's potential, whispering "I'm gonna be awesome! You'll have time to work on me any day/month/year/decade now!".

So gradually you keep adding materials to the pile, going so far as to hoard items that would be better suited to other projects; even prehaps buying things for it and placing them lovingly in the pile of potential. All the while you are envisioning an ever greater and more beautiful project. A project to end all projects, it will inspire endless jealousy in all your friends, bringing you fame and accolades all over the internet! Just as soon as you finish it ...or better yet start the damn thing.

You keep putting it off because you think maybe you don't have all the equipment for it, or you don't have the skills for it, or the time to do it justice... but really these are all just excuses for what you know deep down in the depths of your heart:

This project is going to suck.

• Because after all this time nothing you make can live up to the potential that you've built up in your head.
• Because your not excited about it like you were 2 years ago.
• Because you went out and bought the big-box-store equivalent of it.
• Because you've started and finished and started dozens of other projects in the meanwhile and you need to work on those first.
• Because your friend had the same idea and finished their version months ago and you know you're just not as detail oriented as they are, and yours is going to be haphazard at best.

But all that is OK because today is the day! You've had coffee, and got nothing better to do! You're not going to put the bloody thing off anymore and to hell with the quality! You're sick of looking at it, at moving around a great big unused pile of potential and you're ready to GET CRAFTING.

So carefully you set up your work area. Lovingly readying the martial and ever so carefully making the first cuts, basting your edges, pinning your seams ...It looks like this might work out after all!

...Yep it's going well!

...Sorta.

...Kinda

...Well maybe if you fudge this seam...

Nobody is going to look at it this closely right?

Then comes the point in this project where all your doubts just sort of crystallize. This project sucks. You went at it in a desperate kamikaze hoping to pull some skill and inspiration out of your caffeine addled brain. But really, even as you desperately try to sew a straight seam, you know the truth.

You will never finish the project.
You need to stop now and salvage what resources you can.
You are teetering on the edge of sanity.
You need to stop. right. now.

If you're lucky the power will go out, a hurricane will strike, or the universe will end. Otherwise you've just spent your weekend on a piece of crap.

introducing MR. KNITTYKNOME!!!!

So I finished some socks. The yarn is actually three different sock yarns, all of which were pathetic on their own, so I spun them into a SuperYarnCakeOfDoom. The resulting 3ply was awesome.


At work I found a gnome, his name is KnittyKnome, and his greatest ambition is to take over the world using only string. Here he is helping me through a bit of a snag, the yarn he's working on is some of the yarn used in the socks pictured above.
and here is Mr. KnittyKnome working on his first scarf. Like many of my friends, I introduced him to knitting with chopsticks. Manly because I couldn't find my sz9 DPNs for him to work with.
Also I've begun making wallets using scraps. so far there's five.
this is the most recent and complicated one. It has a zipper salvaged from a pair of pants, and my very first button hole. All of the fabricsclothng it features come from FancyTigerCraft

Flirty Skirty

so for work I have 3 choices for what to wear, black pants, kaki pants or a skirt. So I made some skirts. I have 3 done so far, though I only have pictures of two. Above is the second one I made with the Amy Butler Barcelona pattern. I chose it simply because I love the way David Tennant says "Barcelona"(1:o9seconds).


Above is the Barcelona skirt just barely pined together on the left side. I'm currently using the floor for a cutting table and it sucks. I hope someone donated a good table to work soon so that I can trash my cruddy too small desk.Above is the fist skirt I made, the Amy Butler A-line that also comes with the Barcelona skirt pattern I like it, but I have to learn how to make darts because it is a little too big.

below my mom is holding up the Log Cabin quilt I'm working on. I stole the pattern from The Yarn Harlot, but the yarn it's made of has been intended for a blanket for a looooooooong time. Currently it the blanket is too big and hot to work on efectively in the summer.

KICKASS BAG OF AWESOME DOOM!!!!!!!!!

Pattern is High Street Messenger Bag by Amy Butler

This bag took me about 3days to make. I got all the materials from Fancy Tiger except the snap which I alredy had.


This is the inside of my AWESOME bag. It's got pen holes and everything!



The inside pocket of the bag hangs on a flap, so it can flp out for easy access. This is my favorite part of the bag. In the bottom left corner of the flap is a darker square. In the original pattern that was just negative space,but I decided that a coin pocket would be good and added a 4th zipper pocket. The zipper was cannibalized from the fly of my favorite pair of pants from a few years back, that unfortunately wore out beyond all repair in the butt.


This is the back of the bag, I find it to be very exciting in that the picture came out clearly. that is all.


This is the first time I ever used a Zipper foot. It was awesome, there's all sorts of things that you can do with a zipper foot. Not only is a zipper foot good at zippers, it's also great for making sharp edges on the edge of the material. Almost as sharp as store bought stuff, only my hands made it sort of wobbly .

Meet Catbarf (but not the icky stuff)

Meet Catbarf, my very own Stupid Creature. He's made from two socks that have been haunting me for months. What happened to there counterparts I've got no clue, but who cares now? Because isn't this guy so cute? I named him Catbarf because....well I have no clue, but it's stuck now.Grandma Gene sent me the white sock, it had Hedwig from Harry Potter on it. The blue cat sock was from Emma for my b-day a few years back. Sassy dose not like her new friend licking the back of her head.

Ravelry

Woot! I finally got my Ravelry invite today!!!!!!!!! So I'm at home, updating it, while trying to get stupid World Series tickets for the Rockies, with no luck. As soon as 1:30 rolls around, I'm givin' up and going downstairs to play around on Edna. I want to make some Box bags, (and dammit. I just relised that I forgot to grab zippers for them) and a sling bag for my gi.

Inside and Out

Nope, your not seeing double, it's just me messing around in photo shop. The picture is of one project, two views. on one side is the brown the other purple. I'm using Double Stockinette stitch, Witch is two strands of yarn knit as either McK1, CbP1*; or as K1 Sl1p* one round, P1 Sl1p* one round. I think I made up the second way but it's easer for me than a K1,P1, which bugs me even when I don't have to change colours.

Anyway, this is a picture of a pair of mitts I'm going to make. All I'm gonna say is that it involves Steeks, and don't be surprised if you never here of it again, because it's my very own brain child, and that leaves a lot of room for error. But I'm pretty confidant all will be well. So cross your fingers for me.

Frog in a bog.

Aww.... It's a cat in a hat.... anyway, it rained on Tuseday, and snowed a bit, and hailed. Basically it was wet and cold.
It was the perfect type of day to knit and what not, so i started a pair of gloves, and worked on my sweater. It took me all weak to get to my blog, so I just shoved the time-elapse photos into a sideshow. Gloves are almost done, only the tails need tucking, unfortunately hand is child sized, even thought the fingers fit perfectly. I'm going to felt them, so that they shrink a bit, and then ether sell them, or foist them off on a lucky kid.

I also started resizing my t-shirts. this one was gianormas, but now it fits fairly well. I did it all on my sewing machine, and I now understand pesky things like tension, stitch with, and length, and how to thread the needle sixty billion times. I've also named my sewing machine Edna, because I keep getting it confused with the brand (Elna) and it's easier to yell obscenities at an object that has been personified.
And I put patches in to my pants, I put the Pegasus patch on my beige pants but it was too obvious,(deep blue on glaring white+beige=ick) so I'm going to switch it out for the viper patch(blue on harpstring). I learned my lesson with patches last year, when I put Skeleton Jack on a hoodie, off center and couldn't get him off- the lesson is this: iron scrap material on to the back of iron on patches, and sew them on for real, that way they don't fall off, leave stains, or stick permanently.