Second Apron Completed

I was going to put off making my next apron but then I found this apron challenge at tie one on and after looking at a lot of the aprons I decided to make one after all. I had bought two pieces of this material from the charity store and I wasn't sure if I would make a purse from it, or use it to line a purse or make an apron.

I started off by cutting one of the pieces in two. I cut 4 strips from one half. Three were the same size so I could get 2 ties and the neck strap and the larger piece was to add to the other half to make it longer.

I was thinking that my sewing machine seems to give me no trouble when I'm sewing things that are not very important (like this apron because it is for me) and then this happened.




I cut a piece from the second piece of material for the bib and sewed it onto the ready bottom half. I hadn't thought to measure how long the neck strap needed to be, so of course it was too short. I turned it wrong side out again, opened both ends and added a piece to each end because the stripes were going the other way and I wanted it to look symmetrical.

Cough, cough. I hadn't thought to measure how long the neck strap needed to be, so of course it was now too long. I took one added piece off and sewed one end of the strap to the apron. Then I realized that it didn't really need the second piece either (had I shrunk since I tried the strap?) so I took it off too.

This is the completed apron. I wish I knew how to take a good picture of an apron.

I Started A Craft Journal

I finished the main piece of the Isabeau purse. I didn't have much yarn left so I was planning to use some other yarn for the sides and the rest of the main yarn for the handle. I pulled out all of my yarn stashes and imagine to my surprise when I found a small ball of what looks like to be the same kind of yarn. I think that there will be enough to do the whole bag. When I tried to make a pattern to use for the lining, the newspaper just started to pull up. As it is basically a rectangle I will just draw it on the paper instead. I bought a piece of flowered material from a charity store to use as lining.

I finished the second snowflake. I found the picots annoying to do for some reason. The pattern for this snowflake is here. I should have used a bigger hook.

H's socks are on hold as I still haven't received the measurements I need. I saw H's s-i-l in the store and she reminded me that autumn is coming, so I said that I could start her socks and continue H's later. She already had bought the yarn. I started them with a bigger needle than the pattern called for but I will start again and use the men's size as it still looks too small.

I started a craft journal. This blog is for projects too, but the journal is more for needle sizes, number of stitches I finally decide to cast on, any changes I make in my sewing, etc. This is the page from the apron I'm making.

Isabeau Purse

I haven't been following my rotation because I suddenly had the urge to knit a purse. I 'm not really a purse person but I want one or two. So I've been working on the Isabeau Purse. I'm using a thinner yarn than recommended so I added an extra pattern repeat and knit more rows than the pattern had. I hope I have enough yarn to do the main piece. I probably will have to use another color for the sides and strap. The red thread is just a life line because I had to undo so many rows, so many times. I changed the bottom from seed stitch to stockinette because I thought that it would knit up faster as I wouldn't have to keep undoing stitches. I've been doing so much K2 P2, I'm sure I'd start doing it instead of K1 P1.

I was crocheting R's second snowflake when I noticed that the yarn was a bit darker and felt different but I thought that it just this bit of the yarn. I had done a few of the longer points and then happened to turn the snowflake over and the reason revealed itself. Some of my hair was being crocheted along with the yarn! (You can see it left of the uncrocheted yarn.) I don't know why it wasn't obvious from the front side. I had almost finished undoing it before I thought to take a picture.

H's socks are almost of equal length, so I'll have to wait until I hear what the finally length should be before continuing.

Introducing Stacey

Meet Stacey. I guess you can see that you can't see her. 'Ahh,' you are thinking, she's shy. No, guess again. Hiding? Not that either. Cold? Nope. Modelling the ribbing on the sock? No way!




This is Stacey trying not to fall out of the tree while she is laughing. The answer is, she is trying to embarrass me. 'Why, why on earth would she want to do that,?' probably popped into your mind. Well I bought her a while ago. OK Stacey, quite a long time ago, as I wanted to make this sweater because it is so cute, but didn't have a doll for it. So I purchased her from a charity store but haven't yet made any clothes. She wants to be out and about but she can't because she's not wearing anything .

It's unlikely that I will actually make the cute sweater but as I would like to try knitting some lace, and I have absolutely no use for any, I thought that I would make a small doll scarf. And as she can't wear a scarf without some clothes under it, I'll have to make some of those too. The first thing will probably be a skirt.

By the way, the picture also shows how far I am on the ribbing for H's first sock. I don't know how much ribbing I need to do, and H is on holiday without a computer, well his wife, the one who will send me the measurements, is without the computer, so I started the second sock, which is only 3.5 cm long. I was listening to a podcast where the speaker said that she names all of her knitting. I thought that was a fun idea, and decided to name these socks Selanne.

First Apron Finished

I finally finished the bay pouch. I had changed to smaller needles and knit a rib cuff around the top of it but it wasn't really long enough to tighten like a longer rib would have and also it was too tight to get the phone in easily. I had been trying to think what else to do with it when it came to me that seeing I'm going to be putting the i-cord on it anyway, what if I weave it through the top. I googled for an eyelet tuturiol and then did a double yarn over eyelet.

Though yesterday was snowflake Monday, I only searched for more snowflake patterns because I wanted to get the first border row done on the Xmas lapthrow, which I did. I started SS's pj bottoms but the needle kept skipping and once again I wanted to throw the machine out of the window!

I washed and ironed the first piece of apron material to see how I could cut it so that I would get the pieces out of it that I would need. After cutting it out I decided not to put a pocket because I never use them anyway. I made two small loops for the the other end of the neck strap to go through so that it could be adjusted to the wearer. I had to sew them by hand because they were so small.

And here it is finished.