WIP Wednesday, February 1, 2012

..... February. I thought January would never end and yet I'm surprised to see February here so soon. What's up with that?

This week I have more exciting things to post about for WIP Wednesday. First a stitch marker, one of a pair, that I made to go along with a test knit that I can't show you. It's sparkley and gold and silver and red and very Gryffindor. Plus I used little bitty jump rings and nothing bad happened. This could be the beginning of a beautiful thing.

Waaaaaaay bigger than life sized.

So, the test knit. I can't show you. I can't tell you anything really, except this is fingering weight yarn and a typical sock skein in the 450 yard range should make this when it's published. The beads I bought on Monday, thereby making Spike a little late to preschool (so sorry, education system!) are artfully draped over the top of the yarn cake.  I put special effort into my staging as you can tell by the random crap in the background including my can of seltzer and distinct lack of ability to see the knitted object.

I mean... it's in this picture.....

Shhhhhhhh.....

When my hands need to go and I don't have the mind power for a chart, I'm still picking up my two-color not-noro striped scarf. The yarn is Lion Brand Amazing and I have to say, it's a good name for the yarn because it IS.

Colors are Rainforest and Mesa. It's for my husband to own and for me to steal borrow. I mean, for my husband.

Last weekend we rearranged some furniture and took out the futon that has been in the yarn room for a long time. It went upstairs to the playroom so I could bring in my sewing table!!!!!

It folds up for sleeping as well. Paul found this by the side of the road. It is in excellent condition and I'm really excited to sew. 

Now with TWO screens. You guys. It is made of win.

We also reorganized the stash a little bit.

.... and that's it for today!

Hello, Mr. Turtle

In September's Potions class in the HPKCHC, the topic was beautifying potion and they were accepting repairs and sewing projects. I decided to repair a stuffed pillow creature that my mom made for me when I was a baby named Mr. Turtle. My turn-in post is here.

Well that doesn't look so bad.



GAH!



That doctor (Doctor FRANKENSTEIN) should be sued for malpractice! (Sorry Mom! ;) )




Mr. Turtle just wants to go outside without shame. Or even stay inside without shame would do.



The supplies: a 99 cent pillow from Ikea and a pile of cotton flannel scraps of fabric.




First I cut apart the shoddy stitching holding parts of Mr. Turtle together that didn't belong together. Then I ironed 1/4inch hems down on the back side of flannel scraps to patch the holes on the top (less of a mess) side of Mr. Turtle. Then I pulled his old stuffing out and threw it into the trash, and stuffed the Ikea pillow into the giant freaking hole left behind by clipping the sutures of Dr. Frankenstein. I then pieced two panels of flannel scraps on my sewing machine to cover the giant holes, and used more single-piece patches to finish the job.

It took sixteen patches, hand-sewn with a needle and thread, to close all the holes. That is a LOT of beautification potion!! Hand-sewing is not a skill I am proficient with so I made up my own rules and made it as sturdy as I could.

Behold!

Mr. Turtle's new back



Mr. Turtle's new belly



Hand-stitched, obviously, but it came out better than those Frankenstein sutures!



The two machine-pieced patches actually ended up overlapping a wee bit on Mr. Turtle. Double application of Beautification Potion ensures that the ugly will not shine through.



He's still smiling, but this time he means it.



Peace

WIP Wednesday September 29

It's WIP Wednesday, which means time to pull out everything I've worked on in the past week and show off my progress.

Wow... that's pretty awful! Okay - upper right corner is Mr. Turtle. He is a pillow creature my mom made out of a ruined bedspread and socks when I was a baby. For this month's Potions class we're supposed to beautify something, and I'm beautifying Mr. Turtle by taking out the frankenseams he's acquired, replacing his stuffing, and patching his holes.

The two blue cylinders are just under my spindle, which doesn't really show a lot of spinning progress but it's there. Unfortunately the singles on each tube (yes, those are toilet paper tubes, I am so classy) are pretty different thicknesses. I don't know what to do about that. My big plan of the moment is to eventually create a proper 3-ply yarn with two plies of the blue "colonial top" and one ply of the tussah silk I got this past weekend. I'm a newer spinner so any advice is greatly appreciated!!

Squirrel mitten is representing down on the bottom there... no progress since my last picture actually.

The purple bizarro shape is my Mythos Cardigan. I finished shaping the front finally because I needed the longer needle cord for my Quidditch sweater, which I realized I forgot to add to this picture. I have only managed a few rows since last week anyway. Mythos is coming along, but will be set aside for a bit to catch up on my deadline knitting now.

Finally, yet another square for the secrety group blanket thingy is in there. That's actually finished but I threw it in anyway. I realized I needed another pattern to use my squares for Flying homework this month so that I'd have three different stitch patterns and had to think fast!

Overall, not a lot of visible progress here, but I did finish a few things - details to come!