Okay, Let's Sew!

I've been really interested in making some needle cases lately, mainly because I'm beginning to get overwhelmed with pin cushions! So I've been scanning through Pinterest for ideas and this is what I've come up with so far.

Needle Case Buttoned Up...

I borrowed a bee image off Pinterest and then made it up the way I wanted it in felt and sewed it on a large circle of felt. I think it looks really good and I like the neat running stitches and backstitches I used to put it together instead of blanket stitch, which is more usual. It never seems as neat as I'd like it. I sewed together the body of the needle case (I had to get out my sewing machine which I hadn't wanted to do but there really wasn't any other choice!) attaching the elastic loop at the same time and then inserted the padding to give the strip some body.

...And Unbuttoned!

I used the machine to sew in the felt sheets inside and then sewed around the edges...badly to be honest. I've not used my sewing machine for a while and I couldn't get the tension right and I lost patience. Anyway, it's all together. I hand-sewed on the felt patch with the bee on it and sewed a nice vintage button I had on. 

Ribbon to attach Scissors and Fine Needles.

 After all that, I sat back and admired it (while dishes remained undone and clothes piled up unfolded!) and realized I needed a couple more features. I added a strip of ribbon on the inside of the front cover to tie a small pair of folding scissors...

Back Pocket for Needle Packets.

 I also added a felt pocket at the back to hold the few packets of needles I have as well as a knitting needle size gauge that I also always carry around. I felt it was a very complete little unit now. Just what I wanted.

Felt Inner Sheets for Needles

And of course, a sheet of felt to hold loose needles. 

I like this but I wanted to make something a bit smaller that I could give away as gifts. Something that allowed a bit of creativity but didn't take quite as long as the Bee patch on the first case.

This is what I came up with.

Little Needle Case Shut

 It's a little folded needle case. Really sweet and cute! The fabric part was cut out in one piece with interfacing ironed to it to stiffen it a little.

Little Needle Case Open

On the inside I used two pieces of felt because I wanted to match some of the colours of the outer fabric and I didn't have a piece big enough. I hand sewed everything with fine white crochet cotton so the felt and the fabric are kind of quilted to each other. I sewed two pieces of felt in the centre for needles. I also covered the press-studs with scraps of fabric to make them look neater.

Little Needle Case Face

I sewed the felt flower on the fabric before I sewed anything else to it so the stitching wouldn't show on the inside. And to join the two fabrics I sewed bias binding around the edges. It was really a very neat little design! If I did it again I think I'd copy out the main template on cardboard and use that to trace the pattern onto the fabric required. There are things I'd change and elements that need a bit of fine tuning but over all I really like it! I might even get out the sewing machine and try and work out the tension problem...bit of a task since I think I've lost the manual...of course!

Okay, I think that's it so far. See you all later :)

Dx

Brain Wave!! Why not knit something for my Family??

It's kind of sad how long it's taken me to think of this but I had to recently re-order my wool room (it had begun to infest my sewing room! Gah!!) and realize that I had quite a bit of yarn...
...yeah, I know! Shocker, huh?
Anyway I figured since I had two practically adult sons I could ask them if they'd like me to knit them a jumper and If. They. Would. Wear. It! It really doesn't count if I go to all that effort and they don't wear the article I've made!
After much assurance that Yes, they'd love that and Yes, they would wear it I went ahead and began looking for a nice men's jumper with hoodie pattern.
Do You Have Any Idea How Hard That Is To Find Such A Thing!!!
I could not believe how difficult it was to find just what I was looking for! I wanted a jumper with multiple sizes, My eldest son is average height and of extremely slender build while his little brother is nearly 6 feet (and at 19, still likely to grow more!) and is built much more solidly that his bantam-weight brother!  Also I wanted a jumper with pockets. Both boys carry their phones everywhere and it was a special request from the oldest that the pockets be big enough to put a phone and a wallet in.
Ookay...
It had to be a hoodie because both boys think a knitted jumper would look too much like an article from grandpa if it didn't have a little cool added to it and I had to be able to convert the one for the youngest into a zip front because he "doesn't DO jumpers".
Great, I mean, how hard could that be to find??
I absolutely CRAWLED through everything I could find on Ravelry on men's patterns, both free and buy-able. Every time I found something it was never quite right and I soon began to get desperate! Then I found it! On the Knitty site there was a jumper called the Donut Hoodie

. While it didn't have instructions for a zip front other knitters had been able to convert the pattern to accommodate a zip. That's all I needed! It had a kangaroo pouch pocket at the front and looked just the ticket.
At first I kind of tried to wing it. I had a heap of beige acrylic and lovely charcoal acrylic that was beautifully soft so I just followed the instructions without doing any test swatch or anything on the needle sizes suggested. About a week later when I'd finished the bottom up and past the kangaroo pockets (another bonus, the pattern is knit in the round! No seams!!) I had an opportunity to visit my boys so I took the pattern and what I'd knit so far and decided I should take some measurements of them both just to make sure that what I knit actually fits them.
I'd already begun to have some doubts about the gauge I was knitting at but they were soon confirmed as soon as I showed eldest son the process so far. The gauge made it look like thick mesh bagging all over him and I could tell he wasn't hugely happy about the subdued colour tone. Afterwards I had a good hard look at all my work, swallowed hard and pulled it all out. EVERY LAST STITCH!!
Then I started going through the measurements I'd taken and looked at the range of acrylic yarns I had.
It had to be acrylic because I'm not knitting anything that can't take the cavalier treatment of bachelor wash days in their stride. I couldn't bear to get a phone call telling me that the jumper I spent ages on now fits their dashboard's bobble-head figure!
Anyway, that said, eldest son is a mad Holden fan so using the same grey I'd used before for the stripes I now used for the body of the whole jumper. I also chose a grey and a red for the stripes. Okay...here we go!
I knit a small swatch (I'm an absolute baby when it comes to swatching. I just want to start my project!) But it showed that the fabric looked better on 4.5mm needles which meant I'd be knitting the medium size even though measurement wise on the original pattern he's actually the small. But no matter! Tally-ho!!!

Body finished. Kangaroo Pocket at front.

I was very happy with the colours I chose, it was much easier to imagine my eldest actually wearing this and the knitting of the pocket was easy and the stripes lined up nicely. Once the body was done I progressed to the sleeves. I did not like them nearly as much! Knitting them in the round was a pain and I probably made it worse by doing them both on the same circular needle. Actually they broke that needle as I neared the end and I had to swap them over to another one to finish them. Because my stripe pattern relied on a colour pattern between the the two colours I ended up having to knit the sleeves longer than I intended but by then I was past caring and figured I could fix them at the end. Next part!
It was really cool when I got to knit the sleeves onto the body stitches and even more exciting when I had to graft the live stitches from the armholes of the sleeves and body together. That actually worked out much easier than I'd thought it would which was nice. As I neared the yoke decreases I began to realize that I was about to run out of the charcoal body colour. Damn!Since there was going to be no other option I had to find another colour to work in. There was no way I was doing a grey neck since the grey was so pale it would look like dirty white and the red would just be like a beacon screaming "Look at me! Look at me!!" so I used black in the same brand as the charcoal and worked it in by alternating a row of charcoal and a row of black until the charcoal ran out. It worked a treat!
So this is a pic of the newly completed jumper, nothing's sewn in yet but you can see the black going up the neck and the hood being done entirely in it (with stripes, of course!).
What you can't see is how long the sleeves are!

And there we have it!

 In the end I couldn't convince myself that it wouldn't matter since I'd measured Eldest sons arms from his shoulder to his wrist and it came to 21 inches. The sleeves were about 26 inches. Clearly that was going to be a problem. In the end I chopped off three stripes and the cuffs and re-knit the cuffs at the new length. 23 inches. That should be more manageable!
And now for the final reveal!!

Front

Back

Too cool for words!

I am so chuffed with how this has turned out! It looks...wearable!! I swear when I give it to him I am SO getting photos!
Sigh...
Oh, yeah...now onto Youngest Sons Zip-Fronted one. Oooo. This could be interesting!
Let the Adventure continue!!

Finishing Achieved!

Finally!Finallyfinallyfinally! I have TOTALLY finished all the detailing for the cardigans for the twins!
I am so STOKED!!
I've mentioned before that intarsia is not really a technique that I'm comfortable with but I can do it, with a bit of apprehension and gritted teeth. So I am really proud I managed to complete the knitting portion of these cardigans as well as I did.(I might wish they were better but I did my best!)

Two cardigans, knitting all completed and seamed up!

Now for the secondary stage. Detail and finishing! They needed zips for the front but I wanted apple green ones and preferably plastic. After hunting high and low (admittedly mostly on the Internet. Our small town doesn't offer much by way of range.) I ordered 5 apple green plastic zippers from Zipit on etsy www.etsy.com/shop/zipit but that meant they were coming from the U.S. Bit of a bummer but it gave me time to finish the second cardigan because I hadn't started it at that point.

When they came they were much longer than I'd previously thought because I'm a ninny and forgotten that the U.S. is inches and we're cms. 24 inches is quite a bit more than 24 cms. But it all worked out for the best. I just pulled the zip down to where I needed and chopped off the extra length.

Anyway, I hand sewed the zippers in and then hand sewed over the edges (cause I hate the scratchy edges of zipper tape) with cotton bias binding and then as a final touch I sewed two squares of felt of appropriate colour to the top of the zippers so the zipper head can't escape regardless of how hard it's pulled up.

Hand sewn bias binding (I bought that. I'm not that much of a perfectionist!)

And little felt squares at the top so no scratchy teeth against skin and little fingers can't rip the zipper head off!

So all have been duly shown off to recipient Grandmother to ooh! and aah! over (all done exceedingly well!) and have since been posted off to said Grandchildren probably in time to be just the ticket for freezing inland temperatures at night. 

Very pleased with myself :) Not only did I do something for someone else but I also expanded my technical abilities in knitting. Win-win situation!
Have a great day!!

Sometimes It Just Doesn't Seem Fair....

Just as I seem to finally be able to sell some of my pretty things to a few local gift stores, Hubbie gets his transfer papers! Which is not a bad thing, it just complicates things a bit.

Carnamah will be an entirely new experience for all of us since Jordan probably wont be moving with us, he'll be moving to Perth instead to further his education. And we've never been posted so far from home before.

And it's going to be hot. Flat. Inland. Wheat country.

Ggggreattt...

But on the upside I've been able to sell 13 of my resin and glass pendants to a specialty gift shop in Walpole called Arcadia Blue with the help of a lovely lady who was not only helpful but sooo encouraging! I also sold 8 to a beautiful gift store in Denmark called Karissma Gallery and Gifts. And I've recieved an email from another shop in Denmark, All About Me, where I left a sample piece and they'd like me to come back on Friday and maybe buy 6 off me. I'm actually starting to get anxious that I'm going to run out of stock!

So I've ordered more frames, glass and chain and I'm going to have to make myself get organised and pour more resin pendants before I run out! 

Oh, it's so nice to be doing something I love and being able to make a little money as well :)

My Shop is Open and with Stuff to Sell!!

Yes indeedy! I finally got brave and started putting just a few of my things on there at a time. Still getting really pretty pics of my pendants but so far I've got about 5 knitted items and 1 tatted pendant up on my shop site.

These are the knits. I've only shown 1 set of mitts because I've got three of the same design but different colourways. Very cosy and easy fit!

 

I've got heaps more to put up! Since I'm such a compulsive knitter I have to get rid of some of it before me and my family get smothered under it all! So please come and have a look. You might find just the perfect gift for someone this christmas, be it a cosy knit of a piece of unique jewellery!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/danie17

Look forward to see you :)

As the weather turns chilly...

Dear Daughter has begun to notice just how cold Canberra can be (and it's only Autumn!) and put in an order for some gloves but she wanted the convertable kind, Fingerless gloves with a flap that you can slip over them so they look like a pair of mittens. No problem! said I.

Have wanted to have a go making these so it was a perfect excuse and I found a lovely pattern off Ravelry for just the thing! I used 8ply which in retrospect is a bit heavy but they are lovely and warm and I wanted something in a pretty colour that would put up with indifferent sorting when doing the laundry. I'm not spending my time lovingly crafting a pair of woolen mittens only for them to get tossed in the wash with anything, including Army fatigues and coming out the size of a postage stamp! So Acrylic it was! Here are my results.

Aren't they lovely? And they are so snoodly warm! I hope she loves them. I put press studs on the back of the flap and the top of the wrist so when they're folded back they wont flap around and then I sewed a little felt flower over the press stud on the flap with a hole for the press stud to go through to make it look prettier.

It was a wonderful pattern too. If you're looking for something like this look on Ravelry for Broad Street Mittens by Janie Cortese. Very easy directions and not at all confusing, well, I didn't find them so anyway :)

I finished these a few days ago so this Monday, into the post they go. I hope her little fingertips will hold out until they get there.
Happy Knitting :)

Finished a New Celtic Tote!

Over the Christmas break my brother's fiancee admired the Celtic Tote bag I'd made. I asked if she'd like me to make her one and she said she'd love that, her only requirement was no brown.
Okay, with those provisos in place, I embarked on the project!
In the end, wasn't as straight forward as I'd hoped. The yarn I bought didn't come in very interesting colour ranges and I couldn't find a contrast yarn that I really liked. So I had to do some thinking.

I ended up using the blue and knitting the first side. Wasn't coming out as big as the first one but didn't worry about that too much. My big problem was trying to come up with a contrast colour I liked because I wanted to make one of the cables a feature, doing it entirely in the contrast colour.

In the end I pulled something out of my stash. I had some spun and dyed corriedale wool that would felt nicely and I thought the colours were lively enough to be eyecatching.

So, when I began the second side, they became the feature cable!

But I was still really unhappy with the colour and finally decided the only thing would be to dye the whole thing! Decided on red since it really made the contrast yarn pop but my first attempt wasn't very successful because I didn't have a whole packet. It came out a sort of wishy-washy purply-colour.

So I decided to let it dry, press the pieces and sew them all together and dye them like that since I had to wait until I could buy more dye! But the bag did look lovely all sewn together.

Finally I got the dye and once that was done I threw it into the washing machine and felted the daylights out of it! I knew it was going to come out much smaller than the first one but I was a little concerned with just how small it came out.

But still a very usable size, much more like a handbag. So I got the lining material I'd bought (which now the bag had been dyed went with it much better than it had before!) sewed it all up, attached the button and Viola! A very beautiful little Celtic Tote!

I'm very happy with the end result, especially the colour! The feature cable was horribly fiddly to knit and although I'll never do it again! I think it really makes the bag its own individual and extra special. Now all I have to do is get it to recipient. That could take a while too :)
Hope you like this. Happy Knitting :)