Yippi-kai-yay!

I have always wanted cowboy pajamas. Don't ask me why. But I can't wear button up pajama shirts because I always feel like I am being choked. Again, don't ask me why. But I found this wonderfully tacky red fabric with cowboy heads on them a while back and made myself some pants (aka Loungewear). They are so deliciously cowboy too! They have their names next to each cowboy (Slim, Tex, Leroy, Luke, etc.)! My 5 year old niece is going through a MAJOR horse phase and she just LOVES these pants! Every time I am with her and wearing them, she will point to the different cowboys and ask, "What is HIS name? What is HIS name?" And I am STILL kicking myself because a few weeks ago I found some PINK fabric from the same designer with cowGIRLS on it (Josie, Mary Jo, Ellen, Liz, etc.) and I DIDN'T (can you BELIEVE it?!?) buy any. That is why it is always best to be an impulse buyer when it comes to fabric. I FIRMLY believe this! I will see fabric and have a small stroke in the store and snap up a LOT of it (lately I've been limiting myself to 1/2 yards for the stash and I think that is very healthy, but I also believe in buying YARDAGE because I won't know IN THE STORE what I'm going to do with it but I know some day I will have an idea and will use it and it will be FABULOUS in whatever I do with it--I often will sit up in the middle of the night out of a dead sleep with the "inspiration" and make some notes--it's also useful to keep a pad and pencil next to your bed for this purpose. I'm sick. I know. And I'm also done with this parenthesis rant!) So anyways, I was loitering in Hobby Lobby with the gift certificate that my late grandpa Maynerd gave me for Christmas burning a hole in my pocket and I happened across this HORSE fabric from the same designer and bought 1 yard of it. In a way I'm glad I passed on the cowgirl fabric because my niece loved this EVEN more! And thank goodness for little girls because they are short and you can make a pair of pants for them in under 1 yard! I bought a pattern and made them about 4 sizes too big in the waist and just cinched them up with elastic and hemmed them up by at least 5 inches because I have a feeling that she will wear them for a long time! She was so excited as I was cutting them out and it was a lovely opportunity to show her how to lay the fabric out, how to read a pattern and the cutting diagram, etc. She will be a sewer. I have a child's sewing machine that I bought when she was 3 months old with a real needle and everything and I'm just biting my fist for the day I can give it to her when I'm assured she won't majorly injure herself! And now she has her own pants and she is able to recognize letters and words and now I'm going to make HER tell ME what the horses' names on her pants are! And it felt so good to sew again! It had been awhile and it was a JOY to sew on my mother's Elna machine because it corners like it's on RAILS!

I Heart Cannibals!

We all went to my grandpa's house this weekend to collect the things we wanted for ourselves before the auctioneer got there to appraise everything. I came home with far more things than I can find homes for, but I will always treasure them. One thing in particular was this pile of scraps we found in the trunk in Grandma's closet. She had cut these pieces off of old clothes and I so wish I could ask her where they came from! There is a sizeable piece of needle tatted lace, some crocheted lace on some cotton fabric (I wonder if it was a pillowcase at one time), a lace collar that has hook and eyes still sewn on (what would have been hooked onto it? And WHO has a neck that small?!?) and a beaded yoke or headband. Most of it is machine stitched onto the accompanying fabric which makes me wonder exactly how old it is. And the airy lace at the far right is one big circle. It seems to have been stitched in gores, but I'll bet it was just cut off the hem of a skirt. So now I am just THINKING about what I could do with all this. I spend a lot of time just THINKING how to utilize raw materials. I'd like to incorporate them into something I'll use and will always remember that these pieces belonged to my grandmother, but I want to preserve them as well. These need to be made into "underwear drawer items". You know, something very pretty but kind of fragile that you put jewelery into or fragile things and then you put them in your underwear drawer. That's where the women in our family always keep things like that because I swear the underwear drawer is the safest place in the whole house! That beaded yoke/headband is disintegrating though. They are pearly glass beads stitched onto some stiffened crinolin and the crinolin is cracking in places. I think I will cut the beads off and use them for some Perdita wrist warmers. I'll have to see how many pairs I can get out of the beads, but that would be a nice gift for my sister and mother and sister in law and cousins and aunts, but I'll have to see how many beads are required for each pair. Oh I just LOVE starting new projects! And maybe I'm just sentimental, but I believe in carrying things with you from people in your life or from your past. I will have to get out some pictures, but I wonder if that yoke/headband wasn't from her bridal veil?

Tres Chic!

Ok, ok, so I started a new project. Hard to believe, eh? I ran across this Le' Slouch pattern online, was instantly enamored of it and spent the next 12 hours racking my brain taking mental inventory of any worsted weight in my stash. I remembered I had 2 skeins of Colinette Prism just WAITING to be made into something fabulous. I was a bit nervous because the pattern called for 200 yards of yarn and each skein had about 120 meters. I thought for sure I'd have a dreaded runt of a ball left over for the scrap heap, but I finished this hat in under one skein AND under 24 hours! I still have one skein left if someone I know wants a hat like this. I also have that skein of Mango Moon I bought not too long ago and maybe that would make a cute hat for someone! I really like this pattern and I've been thinking about making a hat for my niece from the yarn left over from her sweater. I couldn't follow the matching beret pattern to save my life, but this hat looks like it is shaped similarly and it would not be at all difficult to put some cable panels in amongst the seed stitch!

Slainte!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

I wanted to make something green and obnoxious to take to work tonight for treats. I was going to make frosted shamrock sugar cookies the day before yesterday but I lacked both the time and strength. I had a moment of inspiration this morning when, hungry and scrounging for a before-slumber-snack, I happened upon a box of lemon pudding mix. I then rummaged through my cupboards and found a lemon cake mix and Voila--Lemon Bread! I baked them in my festive green bread tins I bought at the Liberty store in London (I STILL have the shopping bag!) and I even added green food coloring to the batter as added craic! This is a recipe from the family cookbook my mother compiled in 1995. It's official title is the "Cook's Choice" cookbook, but we lovingly refer to it as the "White Trash" cookbook! It is a simple recipe and really should be considered more of a pound cake than a bread.

1 small box instant lemon pudding mix

1 box lemon cake mix

4 eggs

1/2 c. oil

1 c. water

Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Pour batter into 2 greased bread pans and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until knife comes out clean. Mix together 1/2 c. sugar and 1/4c. lemon juice and drizzle over loaves while still in pan.

I went to a local charity based second hand store the other day in search of piles and stacks of knitting needles (they're never there when you're actually LOOKING for them) for gifts/prizes at the next Knit Night. I didn't find any but I bought a big bag of lovely wooden spools of thread, two funky zippers, and a darning egg for my collection (honestly, what DON'T I collect?!). I could think of no greater backdrop today than my Aran sweater that I purchased at An Tuirne on the Aran Island of Inismore and you can STILL smell the lanolin in the wool! I am working up the courage to knit one for myself soon! If my apartment ever catches fire, I will be wearing this sweater as I run for my life!

Kottou Cardi

I finished my niece's Kottou Cardigan earlier in the week. This sure was a cute little pattern, but it's knit with Koigu yarn on size 4 needles so you never feel like you are making any progress! And I must admit I was a bit worried about the sleeve shaping. The entire lower portion is knit in one piece, then folded to make the asymmetrical flaps and THEN stitches are held and picked up on both the front and back. The shoulder/upper sleeve seams don't have to be sewn because they are bound off together with a three needle bind off which means that the only seams to be sewn are the lower sleeve seams! Yesssssss! I hate sewing seams. And I was pretty sure as I was knitting a huge rectangle (the lower portion of the back and front sides) that I would run out of yarn and of course I had already thrown away the labels with the dye lot numbers on them when I wound the balls! I did have some left over though for the scrap stash. All in all, I am very pleased with this little sweater and I just saw my niece this weekend and she will have some room to grow into this little project!

Pictured here is the first of a pair of Mrs. Beeton wrist warmers that I started at Knit Night over at Brenda's the other day. We watched Borat and I think I was the only one actually working on something because we couldn't bear looking away from the movie! That is my hand in the picture (Summer, my usual hand model, was not here tonight) and it is quite tricky holding still AND taking the picture. These knit up quite quickly, but I must admit that I'm not mad after Rowan KidSilk Haze yarn! It's kind of like knitting AIR! It was hard to keep the stitches joined on the three needles so I always had a bit of a ladder at the junctures. These are cast on with beads strung on the KidSilk Haze for the first row and then the Shibui Izu is used for the main body. A second set of scallops is knit with the Silk Haze and then joined to the main body with a three needle bind off. The Izu yarn was just lovely to work with! I see they have a line of variegated superwash sock yarn. Hmmmmmm. I might have to acquire some of that!

Oh, and did I mention...

...that it is flipping WINTER?!? The entire state quite literally shut down towards the end of the week AND I got my car stuck in my own driveway TWICE in as many days. But the sun shone today and things are up and running again. I do like winter, but I don't like being shackled by it! I stayed in all last night, not by my own volition, but because I literally could not get out! But as long as the Earl Grey holds out (I did run out of milk for it though!) and the heating pad on my chair functions and a smelly candle is burning nearby and a pile of knitting sits in my lap, I can weather any storm! I am thankful that we never lost power like the hundreds in the area who did. I remember losing power in the winter all the time as a kid but it just seems so much more serious if it happens nowadays. I can remember being stranded with my friend's family on our way home from sledding and we invaded the home of a relative of theirs in Ventura. We got into her cedar chest and sat around a card table with blankies wearing crocheted slippers and old sweaters and playing go fish all afternoon while we waited for power. Back then it was just accepted that winter could be cruddy and you would lose power every now and again. We haven't had to worry about that for a long time it seems.
And here is the Kitty Pi and it's new owner! He chewed on it at first and played with it and rolled around with it a bit, but he wasn't in the mood for sleeping. I hope to get a report that he was found curled up in it!

Kitty Pi and Other Felting Adventures

I finally washed my Fuzzy Feet and they are nice and thick and fuzzy now, but I had to wash them no less than three times in our crappy washer. I was felting my Kitty Pi (below) with it and I figured out I could bail some of the water out of the washer and poured a kettle full of boiling water in to replace it to make the water good and hot. I am quite pleased with the results and I'm sure my feet will be too once these are dry.

This frumpy pile of knitting will be felted into a Kitty Pi as a gift for a sick kitty I know. And did I mention that I used up EVERY LAST BIT of my Cascade 220 that I bought for that felted purse? I feel that was a good investment because I got 2 purses and a Kitty Pi out of those 6 skeins. And it's always a good feeling knowing that you won't have leftover yarn festering in your scrap pile: too little to really use for anything but too much to throw away.

I ended up washing this twice and then blocking it on my round Tupperware with some bedsheets wrapped around it. I still think it could shrink a bit more, but we'll see how it 'fits' him first. I'm taking it to the invalid shortly and I hope he likes it!