Knit-Spin-Quilt

Mabel Messenger Bag: Done!

My green bird Mabel messenger bag is done!

Pattern: Mabel Messenger Bag by Jenna-Lou Designs
Fabric: Leftover from my Mixtape Quilt. And of course I forgot to write down what it was at the time.
Hardware: 18mm magnetic snap (I got mine from Purse Supplies R Us on Etsy) and a rectangle ring and slider from Jenna-Lou’s Etsy shop. There are lots of other options for what hardware to use, even if you limit yourself only to Etsy. :)
Alterations: I added a flat-applique’d on pocket on the interior, which will be nice for being able to locate pens and pencils and small things quickly. I also top-stitched around the edge of the bag once I was done ironing in the hopes that that will help it stay a little bit crisper in the long run.

This was a pretty straightforward pattern. A little dense in places, so reading the whole thing first was definitely a good idea! I managed to attach the straps wrong the first time, and had to un-pick and re-attach them, which was a little annoying. But there were pictures for all the steps that I might have been confused by, which was nice.

Only one oops: when I put the lining in, I forgot to check which side the zippered pocket was on. Usually (at least, I think usually) the zippered pocket is on the back of the bag — in this case, the side the closure flap is sewn to. Here? It’s on the other side. Oops.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Linking up to Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, which is hosted at Missy Mac Creations this week!

Next up in the bags queue is a second Mabel messenger bag, in Perk Me Up. I still haven’t entirely decided on how to use the fabrics, but I’ve got a little while to play with ideas yet.

WIP Wednesday

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced, and to the Small Blog meet-up at Lily’s Quilts. If you’re stopping by for the first time, you might be interested in learning more about me, or in looking at my finished quilts. If you’re interested in any particular kind of project, check out the tags in the lower right sidebar.

This is a remarkably picture-poor post, largely because it’s a to-do-list of the various projects I have in progress right now. Never let it be said that I’m a monogamous crafter? Projects are arranged in (sort of) order of least-work-to-be-finished.

General To-Do List:
-Tape a large piece of batting up on the tops of my two really tall bookcases and pin things to it, in an attempt to create something that sort of resembles a design wall
-Clean crafting stuff off my desk so it’s actually usable for schoolwork.
-Likewise clear books out of crafting space so I can actually sew w/out moving piles of stuff.

Test-Drive Mabel Bag To-Do List:
-Be proud of inside pockets and the fact that the lining actually (mostly) fits inside the exterior of the bag.

-Attach strap and strap extender once bag hardware arrives in the mail
-Sew around the opening, matching lining to bag outsides
-Turn it inside out to end up rightside out & sew up lining bottom
-Iron (and maybe topstitch?) for a finished, professional look

Mini Dresden To-Do List:
-Back of mini Dresden quilt: alternating tumblers in a variety of fabrics across a brown background: figure out the right size of tumbler
-Finish the corner fans of the mini-Dresden quilt, and arrange so that they will look all right after binding
-Binding of mini Dresden quilt: probably in a darker brown, but possibly in a scrappy series of colors. I’m torn between wanting to make it more cheerful and wanting the focus really to snap to the middle medallions
-Quilt & appliqué!

Simple Math To-Do List:
-Finish trimming all blocks from 6-and-almost-a-half-ish-inches to 6″ square

-Re-jigger design to figure out yardage needed to make a double-bed quilt out of slightly smaller blocks
-Pick out sashing & binding fabric (next week, with L, hopefully!)
-Cut sashing
-Piece a scrappy border, alternating white and blue
-Piece entire top (ugh!)
-Figure out backing for the quilt (!?!?!)
-Sandwich, quilt, bind
-Give to mom on October 18

Kitchen Window To-Do List:

-Cut the black 1 1/2″ strips for the “frames”
-Order more Kelly green and cut green strips for “borders”
-Cut about a dozen more organizing cards, number all 36 of them from 1-36
-Start laying out all 36 blocks, figuring out which ones need to be oriented vertically and which horizontally
-Piece blocks
-Arrange blocks on (hopefully!) “design wall”
-Piece top & figure out backing and binding
-Baste, quilt, bind

Knitting To-Do List:
-Subway socks (Malabrigo Monkeys)
-Red NaNo Sweater started in *cough* 2010: finish arms, finish torso. Yes, it’s fiddly cables: suck it up and knit it already.
-Modern Baby Blanket: finish while watching Olympics. Hope I have enough yarn.
-Finish the legs of those red socks already. Give them to mom on October 18.

Spinning To-Do List:
-Get cracking on that yarn for mom’s sweater. Finish it up by December, for a Christmas present.
-Spin exclusively from stash: maybe some merino/yak? Or the lovely greens from MA Sheep&Wool.

Mini-dresden quilt progress

Not much to show for this past weekend, since I spent part of it out of town and part of it helping my sister apartment-hunt. And then on top of that, I ripped out about 4″ of sock while watching the Olympics on Sunday night because it was too small and not stretchy enough to fit me.

Still, I got a little something done: I got my Dresden medallions to lie flat, and got background fabric for them, to make a mini-quilt for the EZ Dresden Challenge. While I won’t be traveling this August after all — too much still to be done on my MA thesis! — I still don’t have a chance of finishing the Dresden quilt I want to make before the deadline. A queen-sized quilt with something like 13 or 15 Dresden medallions, not just pieced but also basted and quilted and bound? Totally not happening before August 31st. So I’m putting that on the back burner, and using this mini quilt as a test-drive of Dresden medallions.

In other news, I think I’m addicted to Quilt-Alongs. Here are two that I’m considering joining:

I have no idea what I would do with this quilt — it doesn’t really fit with any of the things I own — but it looks like a great way to learn curves, and like a lot of fun. I could also do it in any size I wanted, which makes the ~~masochist~~ optimist in me want to think about queen-sized quilts. I suppose I could give it away, but I’m not sure I know anyone who would love it.

I’m also tempted by this one:

This one would be good for getting things pieced just so, and would end up a lap-quilt size, which is less of a commitment and also probably easier to give away.

I’m going to wait on both of them until I know where my sister will be living and then see if she likes either of them at all. If she does — DING! — I’m making that one for her, in whatever colors she chooses.

A finish and a start

I’ve joined two charm square swaps. The first is the the Let’s Get Acquainted I-SPY Swap, for which I’m sending two sets of blocks, one of moons and stars and the other of bananas. (If you’re interested, it’s still looking for more people!) I’m planning on making a quilt to donate to a children’s charity with the squares I get back from this swap.

Then I stopped by my local fabric store today to pick up some yellow and brown dotted fabrics for the 3×6 Fabric Swap. Now I just need to pick up a yellow solid (all the ones at the local store were greenish, or too orange for my taste) and cut it and the brown and I’ll be ready to send off all the charm squares. Now to find envelopes to enclose that will hold the right number of charm squares so I can figure out return postage. :)

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While I was at the local fabric store, I noticed that they’d gotten a new shade of green in: Kona’s Kelly green. I looked at it and it looked like I’d prefer it to Clover for the background of my Kitchen Window quilt: it’s a more sober tone, and I think it competes a little less with the prints. It presents less of a contrast with the black, too, which I think I like. Here’s a quick photograph of the two of them side-by-side:

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I’ve just started a handbag using the pattern Mabel, by Jenna Lou Designs, which I found through Purse Palooza 2012 on Sew Sweetness. I’m going to try to make an altered one with an internal dividing zipped pocket, so I figured I should make one following the pattern as written, first. I’m using scraps from the Mixtape Quilt. They ended up being cut sort of sideways, so the birds are all facing the wrong direction, but I think that will be all right in the end. It’s a good test case for getting used to working with interfacing, which I have not used before.

Of course, I only ordered the magnetic snaps and strap hardware today, so I’ve pretty much gotten as far as I’m going to get until it arrives. Maybe I’ll work on putting in an interior zipped pocket on one side and appliqued, open pockets on the other, just so the bag will hold something useful and not be an enormous black hole of stuff. It’s mostly a test case for a potential knitting bag, so I think I’ll try out pockets from this knitting bag, putting the outside pockets on the lining of the Mabel bag. We’ll see how it all works out!

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Finally, I finished my red monkey socks this week. They ended up being too small for me, and there wasn’t enough yarn to finish them even if the ankles hadn’t been too narrow, so they’ll be a gift for a friend.

The friend I’ll be giving the socks to is further along in her PhD program than I am, and she’s writing her thesis, so we meet about once a week and study together. It’s a really good system for me, because having someone else around helps me focus and keeps me from spending too much time surfing the web, or knitting or quilting or otherwise putzing around. It works surprisingly well.

I’ll cast on a new pair of socks this weekend or early next week, using a Malabrigo sock in the “Persia” colorway. I’m not sure about the pattern yet: something with some stretch to it, and an easily memorizable repeat.

Fabric Stash

Having already shown you all my yarn stash some time ago, I figured it was time to do the same for my fabric stash. I always love seeing the way other people organize their fabric, and how they store it: hopefully some of you feel the same way.

This is all of it at once:

It’s a disaster area right now. To the left there are two cubes that are only about half fabric: one has my neutrals-and-or-miscellaneous pile and a bunch of black fabric; the one below it has interfacing and bags of scraps.

The floor is usually … well, no, it’s not usually any neater than that. I’m trying to figure out what to do with the leftover blocks from the Mixtape quilt (probably pillows?) and I have the fabric for two skirts that I haven’t started just yet.

And, well. That’s almost all of my fabric. There are also the blue and brown fat quarters I pulled for the Dresden quilt, and the coffee-themed fat quarters that will become a shoulder bag, and the bits I’ve cut for the Kitchen Window quilt. *ahem* I think I just need a little more time, and I’d be able to tame it a bit.

I fold all of it the same way, following this method, on In Color Order for uniformity’s sake. For cuts a half-yard or larger, I make one less fold, leaving me with a long rectangle of fabric (that fills up the back of my deep shelves) instead of a shorter, fatter square. Fat quarters are shorter squares, and I shelve them two-deep.

I’ve got it largely organized by color. There are the purples to yellows (mostly warm colors, though some of the purple might not count):

There are the greens to blues (can we tell these are some of my favorite colors? Yeah, just a bit.) This stack lacks the navy blues, because there’s just not space:

There are the neutrals, though this stack also houses the navy blues and any fabrics I have that don’t have a single dominant color:

I break one other “rule” in my neutrals stack: you see that fat quarter block of Summerville? Well, I shelve my fat quarters separately, because of the way I fold things. Those Summerville blocks should be in one of these stacks!

This one is my back row of fat quarters: solids and single-color prints and stripes — since taking this picture, I’ve integrated the stripes into my color-sorted piles and used the Circa 1934 on the bottom right of this photograph.

This is the front row of fat quarters. Some of them aren’t fat quarters after all, but quarter yards cut long: I don’t worry about it too much:

Finally, there’s the miscellaneous stacks on the bottom. They hold larger cuts of fabric, fat quarter collections, or complete lines.

This one is all 1001 Peeps, which is absurd. (I found it just as I started quilting, and decided it was fabulous. And then I found a sale. And, well, this is what happened. I just have to get myself to actually USE it!)

This one is a hodge-podge:

The very top is Curious Nature, by Parson Brown. The next one down is Circa 1934 in blacks. The next after that is a rainbow bundle from FabricWorm, which sits on an enormous cut of white Kona cotton. Below that are two fat quarter bundles from Pink Castle Fabrics.

The first bundle, Smooth Sailing, looks like this:

The second one, Sea Glass, looks like this:

Beneath those are some striped blue and brown fabric that I’m going to use as the backing of my Dresden quilt, whenever I make it, about a yard and a half (or two yards?) of a key print, and several yards of a punctuation print in navy. You can also see the red and white striped fabric I just used as a backing for my Filmstrip Quilt

I have projects in mind for much of this — certainly for most of the fat quarter bundles. But I do pick things up from time to time not because I know exactly what it’s going to be, but because they’re pretty.

How do you organize your stash?

Finished Filmstrip Quilt!

Filmstrip Quilt: based on the tutorial written up by Crazy Mom Quilts
The prints are Cosmo Cricket’s Circa 1934, the cream fabric is Kona Cotton, the black fabric is something I had in my stash, of unknown maker.

I managed to get photographs of this quilt on Wednesday morning before work, so that I could set up a post about it for today. The quilt has been finished, and all the little ends sewn in and so on, but hasn’t been washed yet: I want to get some color-catchers before I do that, because I’m not certain I trust the black not to stain, and that would be a pity.

It was already hot outside at 8am: I was really glad I didn’t need to huddle under the quilt for any photographs.

The backing is a single piece of red and white striped fabric that I’ve had since about 2007 or 2008 — I picked it up at a yard sale on a whim, sure I’d make something out of it. Well, I did! Finally. You can see the scrappy binding pretty clearly in all of these photographs.

I quilted it in straight lines about 1/4″ from the seams between the blocks and the sashing, using white thread, which more or less disappears into the cream/red fabrics, and provides a little bit of pop for the black. The lines are very, very wobbly: this is not a quilt that would win any awards for precision. At least some of it is because not all of my blocks lined up perfectly, so there was the occasional wonky intersection. Part of it, though, is probably sheer impatience: I find straight-line binding really boring, and about 2/3 of the way through I really just wanted it to be DONE.

Still, overall, I’m pretty happy with how it came out!

Quick post!

I’m running off to California for a wedding this weekend, and my computer will be staying at home to avoid flying hassles at security, so I’ll be a little scarce, but I’ll be back on Monday!

I just finished my Filmstrip quilt Tuesday evening. It took me about three and a half hours to hand-sew the binding onto a quilt that only had about 200″ of binding: this is why I usually machine-bind my quilts. Perhaps I’ll get better and faster if I do more by hand. And I watched some episodes of Chevalier D’Eon while I worked on it: the dub is really quite awkward, and the premise kind of absurd (that’s not how alchemy works, guys!) but I still want to know what happens next.

I’ve tried to photograph the Filmstrip quilt and I hope to be able to post about it on Friday as part of Thank God It’s Finished Friday, which Plum and June is hosting this week. But that may not happen, depending on how busy things are once I get out to California. I’ll be staying with my college roommate, and I’m not certain how much free time we’ll end up having.

In the meantime, I’m auditioning colors for the “frames” of my Kitchen Window quilt. I’m torn between navy blue and black. Here are two photographs:

The photo taken with flash:

The photo taken without flash:

Opinions would be greatly appreciated. I like the warmth and interaction of the blue, but I find it draws my eyes away from the prints. The black is a lot starker, but I find that that makes me look more closely at the prints, ignoring the black as if it were a framed photograph.

What do you think?

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Linking up to WiP Wednesday, because, hey, this Kitchen Window quilt is totally a work in progress, and there are always some really excellent projects and posts linked up — go check some of them out!

Tuesdays are for knitting

I’m still working on the same sock, and it’s still a subway project! I’m using Happy Feet yarn on size 0 (2.0mm) needles.

I’m about halfway done with the first sock, and well into the part of a sock that is the least interesting to me: the endless march down the foot. Unlike the cuff, you don’t have turning the heel to look forward to, and the toe isn’t interesting enough to make me excited about getting to it.

Thankfully, the pattern for this sock is enough to keep me engaged. I altered it slightly to fit my larger-than-average feet.

This pattern, Monkey, calls for you to cast on only 64 stitches: 4×16 = 4 pattern repeats. Well, I happen to know that my feet and ankles (not to mention my very high arches and deep heels) just don’t fit into a 64-stitch sock, unless I knit it with thicker yarn on larger needles. And we’re not talking about a “slightly bulky” sock, here — we’re talking about slippers. So I had to find a way to expand the sock to make it fit, without making it look really odd.

I know that about 80 stitches makes a ribbed sock that fits me nicely, and that the Monkey pattern doesn’t have a huge amount of stretch to it: it’s knitted, so there’s some, and there are purl sections, which help, but it’s not super springy.

I considered adding a fifth repeat of the Monkey pattern, to put me at exactly 80 stitches, but that would get awkward when it came time to do the heel and would be difficult to space out over the top of the sock when the time came for the foot: two and a half repeats? Three repeats? It didn’t seem like a great plan.

So instead I cast on an extra ten stitches, and knit p2, k2, p2, k2, p2 ribbing between the first and fourth repeats of the pattern, along the back of the leg.

If I had been thinking more clearly, I would have added fourteen stitches, because while this sock fits, it’s snug, and it’s a near thing: any smaller, and I wouldn’t exactly be eager to wear it. As it is, it fits, though getting it up over my heels can be a bit of an endeavor.

In any case, it’s certainly better than my worst sock ever. In college, I went through a phase of knitting on VERY SMALL NEEDLES. Let’s just say that if you knit a sock on 000 needles, with a normal sock yarn, and you pull the yarn as tight as I do? Well, I could wear it and have one very bullet-proof foot. It is SO uncomfortable, it lives in the back of a drawer and gets used to clean dust from my computer screen and that’s about it.

What about your disasters? Any funny mistakes that you look back on now and laugh?