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May 1st, 2012 | by Jessie | Hi guys! I made this quickie over the weekend and thought I would share it. Actually, you’re not going to believe this – but I picked out the fabrics Friday morning at my favorite local quilt shop and had it fully completed by 8 pm that night. Fastest start-to-finish completion ever!
I knew I wasn’t going to have much time with my friend’s baby shower being two days from then, so I was intentional about keeping it simple. I found a focus fabric at the quilt shop and chose fat quarters from the same fabric line to coordinate. I cut the strips of printed fabric at 3” x 10 1/2” and sewed them into longer strips, some 3-long (end to end) and some 4-long. I put a 3-piece strip next to a 4-piece strip and staggered the longer one so the seams wouldn’t match. Then I trimmed it even with the 3-piece strip on both ends – yes, it wastes some fabric doing it that way, but it’s easy. I put white sashing strips between the printed fabrics and added a white border to set off the colors. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!
I cut the striped print length-wise and width-wise to vary the look. Subtle, but more interesting, I think.
Here is the back. A colorful city-scape.
What really sped up the quilting process in addition to using a non-marked meandering pattern was using spray adhesive to baste. I had never used it before, and for the life of me, I DON’T KNOW WHY IT TOOK SO LONG! Sorry for the shouting. It saved me so much time. It was extremely easy not only for basting purposes, but also during the quilting process, I didn’t have to slow down and remove pins as I went along. Spray basting baby quilts might be my new thing. Lookout! I think I’ll be looking into more economical quantities of spray adhesive, though. The one I bought at the quilt shop was something like 3.4 oz. and I only got through 2 1/2 baby quilts before it was gone. And that particular one had a SRP of $15.99. It still saved me maybe an hour or more of time per quilt, so I didn’t mind too much, but hopefully it’s more cost effective in a larger can.
Here is a close-up of the binding. First of all, I think striped fabrics are so cute for the binding even when they’re not cut on the bias. Secondly, I have also been on a kick of using my sewing machine to attach the binding, both to the front and back of the quilt. At the last retreat I went to, my friend Mandy told me she does most of her bindings that way (unless the quilt is for a show or otherwise has a lot of handwork in it). She showed me an example of a binding she had machine stitched both ways. It looked nice and tidy, so I tried it too, and that said, I might not tack by hand again! At least not for baby quilt. It is another time-saver. To finish the binding this way, I sewed the double fold binding to the back of the quilt first, with raw binding edges running along the edge of the quilt and then when that is done all the way around, flip it to the front and sew from the front side, just catching the folded edge of the binding. From the back, it can be hit and miss – sometimes stitching into the binding itself, but it’s really not a big deal. At least when you aren’t a perfectionist. Here’s a full-disclosure shot of the back:
I guess in an ideal world, one wouldn’t be able to see the stitching for the binding at all. But I say, it’s for a baby! Babies aren’t usually snobbish about such things.
February 28th, 2012 | by Jessie | Inspired by a friend who overdyed a skein of her yarn in a crockpot using Kool-Aid (she didn’t like the original color), I decided that would be a fun project to try with my son Jett.
Jett kept asking for a scarf. Well, actually he kept attempting to wear a really long, frilly red scarf of mine – clearly too big and too feminine for a 5 year old. I asked him if I could knit him a scarf and he responded with an enthusiastic “YES!”
I had two skeins of this yarn I had bought online and didn’t have any specific project in mind for it:
This is Pastaza yarn by Cascade, a 50/50 blend of wool and llama. I thought it would be a great base for dyeing. Evidently, Kool-Aid (and other acid dyes) works only on animal/protein fibers (including human hair).
I read several online tutorials and watched several YouTube videos on Kool-Aid dyeing and in the end used an assortment of advice from different sources, all of which I’m too lazy to document here.
I gave Jett the job of choosing the colors/flavors of Kool-Aid to use on his scarf. He desperately wanted to use mango (orange), and then also picked blue and green for the other colors. The blue Kool-Aid we had on hand was Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade. That was mixed with Lemonade to create the green color. I added a small amount of Tropical Punch (red) to each color to deepen the hue a bit.
I used wide-mouthed canning jars to mix the colors in:
In the meanwhile, I had wound my yarn into a longer skein by wrapping it around two chair backs spaced a good distance apart. I tied the skein in several places to secure it together and then let it soak in water with a little wool wash for 30 minutes or so.
Next, I placed the jars of dye into a larger pot on the stovetop. I then submerged the yarn into each of the three jars. Since I personally don’t LOVE the color orange, I tried to make blue the dominant color and therefore stuffed more yarn into the blue dye.
I manually moved the non-submerged yarn back and forth between the jars to make sure that every part of the yarn was dyed. I turned the burner on high and then turned it back down so the temp would be just shy of boiling. The water level of the larger pot only came up half-way on the jars just so the water wouldn’t interfere with the dye baths.
After heating on the stovetop for several minutes (maybe 30?), I noticed the color was removed from the dye bath and had fully absorbed into the yarn.
I turned the burner off and waited an hour or so for everything to cool down before rinsing the yarn in the sink. I was a little surprised that none of the dye rinsed out or bled.
I gently squeezed the excess water from the yarn and left it to dry overnight.
And then I wound it into a center-pull ball (I bought myself a ball winder with Christmas money).
And then I faced a dilemma: what was I going to knit? I didn’t have a lot of yardage (132) and didn’t know how I could knit a scarf with that – even a kid scarf. My solution was to knit him a neck warmer, but Josh pleaded with me not to. So I used the un-dyed skein of the same yarn and alternated it with the Kool-Aid dye job and came up with this:
It’s basically the same pattern as I’ve made for what seems like the 5th time (Noro Striped Scarf). I didn’t make it very wide, though, since it was for a little person.
I was happy to have it done and presented it to my lovely, lovely son.
He tried it on for about 2 seconds and threw it down on the floor and said it was too itchy and walked away.
And ya know what? It is kind of itchy! I’m sure it’s itchy X 10 when you are 5 years old. So I really don’t know what I’m going to do with it now.
That’s the end of this tale, but my Adventures in Dyeing would have at least one more chapter. Stay tuned… =)
December 1st, 2011 | by Jessie | 
My brother and his wife Morgan got married on July 2nd of this year. They conceived a child approximately 7 to 10 days later, but that is beside the point (of this post)! As a quilter, I see milestones such as weddings (and pregnancy announcements/births) as opportunities… for myself! I can be pretty self-centered – in a giving way? – about life events. Quilts, quilts, quilts! In related news, I’m a nerd-bomber.
I remember as a new quilter over six years ago, getting a free “Jacob’s Ladder” quilt pattern, and saving it, thinking it’d be a perfect quilt for when Jacob got married. He would have been 19 at the time. I was planning ahead!
I didn’t forget about the Jacob’s Ladder pattern, I just didn’t think it was special enough for the wedding quilt. I found a pattern that I did like in an issue of Fons and Porter’s Love of Quilting magazine called China Girl, which is a more modern take on the very traditional Double Wedding Ring quilt (here’s an example). I followed the basic block directions but I changed the size and layout as far as the border is concerned. I should have kept better notes, but this quilt finished in the 80ish” square size. Which, seeing the quilt spread out on my kitchen floor (above), makes me excited because that means in the future I’ll have room to baste an even bigger quilt on my new kitchen floor! I had to go to my in-laws’ house to baste this quilt because I didn’t have 80 square inches of floor space at the old house. And hopefully someday I won’t have to worry about that nasty floor-basting business because I’ll have a long-arm quilting machine. Ahhhh, someday.
Morgie’s sister was very helpful in suggesting colors she thought Morgan would like and that really helped; I started planning the quilt and buying fabric in March. I started cutting the fabric just before a quilting/crafting retreat. I spent the entire retreat sewing tiny pieces together and by the end of the weekend retreat, my quilting friends still had no idea what the final quilt would look like, that’s how little progress it appeared that I had made. But even tiny pieces when sewn together make bigger and bigger pieces until finally blocks were constructed and the quilt top was done.
Then, as I mentioned, I basted the quilt and began the quilting process in the basement of my in-laws’ house. I would drag all of the kids there and hope that they would play nicely while I could get some quilting done. It took a lot of those trips to complete the job, but it paid off… the quilt was done before the wedding. In true “me” style, I was clipping threads and snapping a few quick pictures on the way out the door to the rehearsal dinner.
Here are some close-up pictures I took just recently when I borrowed the quilt to take it to another quilting retreat… this time for show & tell. =)
(back of the quilt)
![2011 11 18_0132_edited-1[6]](http://nothinggetscrossedout.com/arts/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/2011-11-18_0132_edited-16.jpg "2011 11 18_0132_edited-1[6]")
November 16th, 2011 | by Jessie | A long, long time ago…
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.
Whoops! Off track. Let me start this again.
A long, long time ago…
I posted out of pure excitement that I was about to begin a sweater project for myself. The pattern was named Paulie <—Ravelry link (need an account).
Well, it is done and I have the finished photos for you today, my friends!
And that’s the last picture of my head you’ll see. Taking pictures of your own project while wearing it isn’t an easy thing to do.
I have more pictures posted to my Ravelry project page along with a few pattern notes.
The reason why I named this puppy Shades of Gray is because I had the hardest time getting a matching skein of the gray yarn. I made the medium size and ordered enough yarn according to the pattern directions, which for the kind of yarn I chose ended up being 2 skeins. I was WAY short of having enough to finish, so I ended up ordering from 2 different vendors in an attempt to find a somewhat close color match and then sending one super-different looking skein back. I love hand-dyed yarns, but they can be difficult to match, so it’s good to buy more than you think you’ll need so the skeins can be best matched from the get-go. The difference in colors in my sweater is noticeable, but it isn’t that dramatic. A person would have to be looking for it to see it, I think. In the end, I really didn’t care too much, because I made it and I’m the one who has to (gets to) wear it.
I would love to make another one of these someday – but DANG! – the yarn gets expensive, yo! When it was all said and done I spent about $85 on the yarn, $6 on the needles, $2 on the buttons, and I guess even more for the shipping plus return shipping of the off-color skein. AND, I got to spend months knitting it! WIN!
But seriously, it was fun, and when you consider knitting as a hobby, you don’t look at it in purely economical terms. I mean, buying a cardigan at Kohl’s for $10 would be cheaper, yes, but knitting is an enjoyable process for me and I got to make it just the way I wanted it.
November 8th, 2011 | by Jessie | I hereby motion for the the Board (you) to recognize this, the month of November, the year of our Lord Two-Thousand and Eleven as my one year knitting anniversary.
When I began to knit, I felt much like the character Happy Gilmore in the movie of the same name when he registers for a golf tournament and says: “I’m a hockey player but I’m playing golf today.”
Except of course, in much more crafty terms: “I’m a quilter but I’m knitting today.”
I felt like a foreigner in a foreign land when I first started knitting. It was a land in which I’d never heard the language; my hands fumbled the needles and yarn awkwardly: clearly I didn’t know my way around. New people, new places, new abbreviations, new techniques and new terms.
But it was a friendly land with helpful people and unlimited [online] resources. These two things helped me acclimate to my new surroundings and eventually I began being productive in this new land.
And now I don’t want to leave.
I was in crafting limbo when knitting came along; it really filled a void that was left behind when I had to put all of my quilting supplies in storage. I love to keep my hands and mind busy as I’m watching tv or otherwise sitting around, and knitting was the perfect, compact hobby for that.
And recently, when we were in housing limbo, I started a project that I will show you today. That’s another thing about knitting: it’s so easy to start a project and put it on hold. It’ll wait for you in a small little bag until you’re ready to pick it up again. Handy!
So, back to the project:
Here is the Ravelry link: Felted Messenger Bag. I included pattern notes on my Ravelry project link (along with a few more pictures): Limbo Like Me.
For you non-Ravelers, some pictures:
I knitted a big, big, oversized bag (mostly) according to the pattern linked above. I put my laptop on top just to show scale.
And then I felted it, which means that I put the wool bag in the washer in hot water and washed it for several (12?) minutes, checking on it every 4 minutes or so. I didn’t plan it this way, but after it was felted, it was a perfect fit for my laptop!
July 14th, 2011 | by Jessie | Last weekend I was looking around on Ravelry and noticed a project that I had added to my queue a few weeks earlier. I suddenly got the burning desire to knit it and to get started right away. Post-haste! But, it was Sunday night and I knew I wouldn’t be making the trip into an actual yarn store… probably until school starts back up again… so I decided to browse online for yarn. Well, browsing turned to buying… and four days later, I have my yarn to start this:
The pattern is called Paulie and I’m so excited to begin! Now I just need the needles I also ordered (from a different vendor) Sunday night. I didn’t have a pair of US 2 circulars lying around the house. Weird. Well, not that weird – being a new knitter, I didn’t think one should knit with anything smaller than a size 4 needle. I mean, really, that’s getting small.
I should also mention that I roped some other peeps into knitting this with me. Well, knitting at the same time as me on their own Paulies. Should be fun! I’ve never done a real KAL (Knit A-Long) before!
This, my dears, is my yarn. It’s exciting to look at it, to touch it, to smell it. I’m using Madelinetosh yarn, colors: french grey and candlewick. It’s Merino Light, a fingering yarn. And now that I’m looking again at the photo above, it’ll be pretty close to matching it, although – after looking at and imagining dozens of color combos online – I did not plan it that way. Maybe subconsciously?
Different angle, different light, somewhat different appearance.
C’mon, needles! Get here. I am planning to knit up a swatch to check my gauge, that’ll be a first for me. This yarn wasn’t cheap and I want to be able to actually wear the dang thang, you know?
In related news, Josh told me last night that he likes that I do old-lady things. I guess that means quilting and knitting. Obviously! What’s not to like? =)
February 21st, 2011 | by Jessie | I ordered my first skeins of yarn online a week or so ago.
They came in the mail Saturday!
It was a happy day.
As you can see, I ordered from Fabulous Yarn, which came recommended to me from a friend.
This will be my first time using this Spud & Chloe yarn as well. I’ve casted on my next project… and so far, the yarn easy to work with.
This color is called “Moonlight”.
I’m going to be knitting my first article of clothing. And only the most adorable article of clothing imaginable… a sweater vest!
It’s for a certain little boy pictured here.
Thanks, Heather, for the project idea, yarn idea & pattern! I hope I can pull it off!
February 17th, 2011 | by Jessie | 
Alright, guys, the more cowls I knit, the more difficult of a time I have naming them. Seriously… cowlgirl? And this is only the second one I’ve bothered to name.
Here’s the pretty cowlgirl:
Pure sweetness and light, this one. My friend Angela here is sporting her new cowl, a belated birthday gift from me. Angela and her hubby Marc are friends of ours who we met through assorted rad people. First they were Fong’s-friends, and now they are just friend-friends.
I wanted to tell you a little about the cowl. First, it’s this pattern called Stacked Eyelet Cowl by Ami Madison. That’s a Ravelry link, because… you all have Ravelry accounts now, right guys? Guys?
This version looks quite different than the ones pictured on Ravelry, though, and that’s not because I’m a total screw-up, it’s all about the yarn.
Speaking of yarn, you might recognize it from…
It’s the yarn from the Goodwill sweater! As in, I totally frogged the hell out of that Goodwill sweater.
The yarn is 100% cotton and it behaves differently from wool or wool-blended yarn. The cotton has some drape; it is not as stretchy or spring-y as the wool stuff. Not better or worse, just different. Cotton is less forgiving in that you can see the individual stiches better than wool. Mistakes are amplified! I guess, in that respect, it is worse.
Here are a few more close-up pictures:
I have PLENTY of this reclaimed sweater yarn left. I’m working on a plain scarf with it now, just in time for… spring!? Oh crap, what do knitters do when it’s warm? I have yet to experience knitting through the seasons, I imagine it’s doable. Is it considered the off-season? I’ve said it before… I have a lot to learn.
February 9th, 2011 | by Jessie | 
I call this one Cowl City.
I did not even know what a cowl was until November 6, 2010. Don’t ask me how I know that.
Ok, I’ll tell you: I was at a quilting retreat and two knitters were talking about a cowl and I was like, “What’s a cowl?”
I think they described it as a neck warmer, which made sense to me. It’s a knitted tube. It’s the warmth of a scarf without all that extra scarf.
This one is purple and it’s like a big, soft, thick and warm necklace. Kind of.
It’s got a little bit of drape, which I like. And I love the honeycomb pattern.
And yes, it’s kind of dangerous, in a fashion-sense sort of way… at least if you are someone who never pushes the boundaries. And if you are a boundary-pusher, well, this is not dangerous at all.
You might even call this one safe. But I group myself in the former category and prefer to think of it as… dangerous. (Imagine my eyebrows rising, my eyelids narrowing, and my lips pursing.)
What I loved about this project is that it was easy and fast. What’s not to like about that? And when I say fast, I’m talking a matter of hours. Less than a day.
Here are the details:
The pattern is on Ravelry.com and it’s called honey cowl (<—Ravelry link which means you won’t be able to view until you sign up for a free account, which you should do immediately) by Madelinetosh. It has a short and longer version, of which I knitted the short. That’s all the yarn I had.
The yarn is nothing special, I picked it up at JoAnn’s. It was the first skein I bought to see if I could do this knitting thing and was about $3. It’s Vanna’s Choice by Lion Brand. And Vanna as in Vanna White, just so you know.
I knitted a second one in a light green color; I might show it to you one day if I ever fix it. I didn’t notice this until I was done, but I got off track and my honeycomb pattern didn’t stagger, which is glaringly obvious. I could fix it pretty easily, I’m sure, but who wants to fix old stuff when you could be working on new stuff? See my dilemma?
You should try to knit this today. Fun times! Or tomorrow, too… tomorrow’s good.
February 2nd, 2011 | by Jessie | 
I came across the Noro Striped Scarf on Ravelry.com – it was one, if not THE, most popular scarves on the site, and I was looking for my first project. The Ravelry page linked to Jared Flood’s Brooklyn Tweed blog, where he details the generic 1×1 rib pattern used to make this scarf.
Even though it is easy, as a total beginner, I still had troubles getting started. I fumbled around for hours it seemed having to rip out and start over several times when it just wasn’t looking right.
Here I will repeat the directions and provide a video showing exactly what worked for me, now that I have a few of these scarves under my belt.
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Directions:
Cast on an odd number of stitches. I would say anywhere from 25-45 stitches would work. The fewer stitches, the narrower the scarf will be obviously. I think I was in the middle range (35 or so) for each of the scarves I’ve made. The type of yarn and size of needles you use will also affect the width of the scarf. Experiment and see what looks good to you with your materials, just make sure you use an odd number.
Row 1: *knit 1, purl 1* and then repeat until the end of the row.
Row 2: slip 1 stitch purlwise, *k1, p1* repeat until one stitch is left and with yarn in front, slip the last stitch purlwise.
Switch yarn
Repeat Row 1 & Row 2 with the new yarn. Switch back to the first yarn used and continue making two-row stripes until you have your desired length.
Bind off.
Weave in loose yarn ends.
***
And here is a video for those of you who are visual learners:
Here are more pictures of the first Noro scarf I made in November, which I hadn’t even photographed until today!
A few words about the yarn: I used Noro Kuryeon yarn for this scarf. I used 2 different colors, each were variegated. I started with one Noro yarn and striped it with a solid charcoal Cascade yarn. After the first Noro skein was knitted up, I used the second (similarly colored) Noro variegated yarn and continued with the charcoal Cascade yarn throughout the entire scarf. This made the scarf slightly more affordable. Each skein of Noro was $9, but the Cascade skein was only $7 and it was enough yardage that I only needed one. So, $25+ for a scarf that you have to knit yourself isn’t exactly thrifty… but it was fun and (I think) pretty. Other Noro scarves that I’ve seen this pattern done in use 4 Noro skeins, 2 of each color. Since both are variegated and “self-stripe”, you’d end up with more color changes than mine.
If anyone actually uses these directions or watches the video for additional help, please let me know if you have any questions. I really hope it’s helpful even though I am not an expert and have LOTS to learn. Feel free to comment!
Pictures of my second Noro Striped Scarf.
Pictures of my third Noro Striped Scarf.
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