I’m 50% done with my Jaywalker socks. Yay! Yes, that means I have one sock completed. My FIRST sock ever.
I did it toe up with short row heel and toe. I read somewhere about adding extra non-patterned rows on the heel to make it look like a heel flap. So I added 3 rows since I needed to increase up to 38 stitches anyway. Result? A nice hole. Oh well. On the next one I will instead pick up stitches.
I blocked this sucker on a wire hanger bent into a sock shape. It looks much more like a real sock after blocking.
I’ll have to get on knitting the sister sock so this one doesn’t end up an orphan. I also plan to use this wave pattern for a hat.
A British art student knit a Ferrari for an art project.
Check the story here.
Also, from Lauren’s website you can tell she’s a knitter. You can see some of her other knitted projects in the “works” section.
I got my Kelsey Letterpress the other day. I did some cleaning. The guy who gave it to me said something had broken off but he didn’t know what it was for. Hmm. So after playing around I discovered it’s the chase latch – a vital piece. Hopefully he has the broken off piece because I’m either going to need to repair it or make a new one or this press is useless.
He also dropped off 2 trays of type yesterday. Cool stuff. I can’t wait to be able to actually use this thing!
I should sign up for that letterpress workshop at the Center for Book Arts.
I just finished knitting Rusted Root. Yay! I started it in early may and then didn’t touch it for a month but I was determined to complete it today.
The well..almost is because I need to sew in the ends. And, I think I might want to make it longer which will mean frogging the bottom ribbing and doing another inch or so of the main pattern before I do the ribbing again. I also am not sure I like how the sleeve are. I think the bottom is too loose, but a little elastic might help. I’ll have to show my mom and see what she thinks. Either way I’m excited to have it done. I have a ton of things I want to knit but I wanted to finish this sweater first.
I needed to use my mom’s Huskylock serger last week for the skirt I’m working on. Then I discovered the foot controller was busted. I took it to the Viking dealer to be fixed. They didn’t have the part in stock so I’m waiting for it to come in so I can use the serger. Patience is not one of my virtues.
Inspired by the lovely handmade books from misshawklet, I decided to try my hand at book binding. I checked a few books out from the library to learn how to do the chain stitch binding. So this isn’t the most perfect book, but now I know how to make it better next time. Obviously the cover stock isn’t cutting it for a cover. It will be much easier when I have access to a real paper cutter and such.
My friend wants to make a dress in a similar shape a Chanel dress that Sarah Michelle Gellar wore the 2007 Chanel Resort Line show. So we started searching for patterns and finally found a Burda pattern that will do the trick with some modification. Yay.
So while I was doing some searching I came across the website for Burda Style – http://www.sewopen.org It’s a sewing community started by Burda that offers up open source sewing patterns. They happen to offer the one we need too! And it seems like it’s a pretty cool community. I just joined and we’ll see how it goes. I’ve had the itch to start sewing lately. I also found out from their about me that their offices are in the same building as etsy.com. Interesting.
I just bought and cut some pink brocade to make a knock off Luella skirt. It should cost me $25 rather than $1500, and I only had to do some slight mods to a New Look pattern. Too bad my sewing machine is in NJ. A couple of more weeks and we’ll both be in the same state!
I tried my hand at crocheting jewelry this week. At first I was trying to crochet onto some hoops but that wasn’t going well, so I ended up just freeform crocheting. My initial attempts were using 99cent 32ga wire from the crafts store, which gave me an idea of what stitches and hooks to use. Then my 
sterling silver dead soft 30ga wire arrived on monday. I also bought some (too expensive) pink tourmaline beads at the bead shop.
Here is the final product. The box is about 4″ square to give you an idea of scale. I used a G hook and prestrung my beads. I really like the organic feel of crocheted wire, and since you can only buy sterling silver wire in 1 oz spools (I got mine from artbeads.com) I still have plenty more wire (and beads!) to play with.
These are a gift for a friend who told me that I should make Lorene originals rather than copying some stuff I saw in a jewelry shop. Although the necklace I liked was $5000! And, yes I am still planning on making my own version of it.
I just wound my skein of Colinette Jitterbug into a ball. I seemed to remember people saying things about it being short yardage or something so I measured it on my yarn meter while I wound. I ended up with 321yds, which I thought was a lot more than what it’s supposed to be. I just checked and they say 267m which is 291yds. So I weighed it and it came in at 118g..that’s 18% more than it should be. By weight it should be 343yds, but I know my scale needs to be recalibrated. I got a bonus 30 yards!
I’m going to make some Jaywalker socks with this yarn, after I finish up Rusted Root. I’m about halfway done with the sweater.
I’m in the process of switching all my websites to a new host. For some unknown reason the background here is missing. I’m trying to fix it so please bear with me. Thanks.