Sewing for the wedding

I did get to spend a little time sewing before Laurie's Wedding. I bought most of my outfit from my belly dance studio and from renaissance festival last year, but I needed a chemise of some sort to wear underneath the small corset, lest I show my lovely stomach the entire time. I love to belly dance, but we cover up after we dance, so wearing the corset sans chemise was not really something appealing to me. I went to Jo-ann's and bought a yard of cotton fabric, which I thought would be enough for a little shirt. Well, when it came down to it, there wouldn't be enough fabric for sleeves, so I kinda designed something sleeveless that still covered everything necessary for the event.

Basically I decided to use a tutorial I had used before for circle skirts and make the fabric square and put a circle in the middle of it:

After figuring out how wide I wanted the hole to be, I just folded the square fabric twice and laid a piece of paper with the outline of the quartered circle on top. Using some fabric chalk, I traced the circle and cut. I added a strip of leftover fabric from a previous project and some that was left over after making this fabric square to the circle to create a ruffle effect by using a simple drawstring.

I think it turned out rather nicely with the rest of the costume (which included the solomon's knot shawl -- not particularly visible in any pictures, but hey, if you were there it looked nice!)

Here's a picture of myself and the bride -- my lovely friend Laurie who I've known since high school: 

My first sweater... and a few other things

So, after finishing some of the smaller projects I have been working on, I decided a little while ago to finally get down to making an actual garment. I decided to use up my small stash of Lion Brand Thick and Quick in Claret. The sweater took about a week to complete, since the yarn was so bulky, and I really enjoyed working the horseshoe lace pattern. Here's a picture of the finished sweater:

I think I may give this to my mother if it fits her well. It's a beautiful sweater, but the color doesn't look that awesome on me seeing as I have red hair and incredibly pale skin. My mom, on the other hand, has a bit darker skin than me and brownish-blonde hair, so this dark red color would look really nice on her.

I have also managed to finish up a few more things over the past month. I finished up the Wine Pathways Hat from Once Upon a Time:

Also not the greatest color on me, but for some reason I do have a lot of red yarn in the stash. That's probably because my family looks good in red and/or likes the color -- my dad certainly does! That's the color of his truck and uniforms at the place he owns.

The Chestnut Windsor Warmer and Solomon's knot shawl also can be added to my list of FO's for the year. The little cowl will also likely be a gift for someone, though I used the shawl for part of my costume for my dear friend's renaissance themed wedding.

The Windsor warmer was done at half the length recommended in the book (125 sts instead of 244 sts), mostly because I only had a little yarn left in my stash to do the project.

The shawl was worked by chaining 42 solomon's knots, and working in a triangular pattern until, well, I ran out of yarn. This created a kind of trapezoidal shawl since there wasn't enough yarn to make a complete triangle, but it will work for a beach or belly dance wrap!

Updates

So apparently I have been knitting more than I have been blogging. So here it goes: Over the past month, I've managed to get several projects finished, so I'll probably try to spread it all out over a few posts instead of putting them all in one.

After finishing the shrug, I was able to finish up two regular guy hats, which is only half way through the hats I need to make since I gave one to my store manager, Cody, who left us to go to Cartersville during a random changing of the management that occasionally happens at work. Here's him enjoying showing off his new hat:

The other one was shipped to Travis, my brother-in-law who lives in upper New York state. I really like the hat pattern. It is very simple, and a great "brought this in my purse to work on it during lunch" project. Though, after making two of them, I'm going to move on to a different pattern. I still have to make a hat for Lee at least, thought there will be enough yarn to make probably about two more hats, so I may as well! I also LOVE the yarn -- Lion Brand Wool-ease -- very soft and springy.

I also was able to finish up my first knitted shawl, Autumn flies. I really like the color, but it did end up really small. The pattern was very simple, each like written out individually, so it was really easy to understand. I did have to bind off a few rows short, though they were just stockinette rows. Even cutting the pattern a little short, I ran out of yarn only a few stitches from the end, and used another type of yarn in a very similar color to finish up the bind off -- Yes, bask in the glory of my willpower to NOT buy more yarn to finish up the last 10 stitches of a project ;-). Huzzah!

Progress is relative...

So I have been knitting (and crocheting!) more than blogging it seems. I've managed to finish several items in the past month or so, however I have been buying more crafting supplies. I know, I know, this seems to be counter to my goal, but inevitably, I knew I would have to buy more stuff to finish a few of the items on my list. It all started with this shrug I was working on....

It was a lovely shrug, and the lace looked great after blocking, but as I added the ribbing, there was a problem; a project-breaking problem. The skein I used to make the lovely shrug, was, in fact, deficient of yardage to finish the shrug. To solve this problem, I could use yarn from my stash. However, the only other white yarn in my stash was the TLC Essentials yarn -- yarn that was used to make pillows, yarn that was scratchy -- scary scratchy. The other solution was to break my vow to buy more yarn-- and buy more yarn. So, left with the choice to finish a garment with scratchy yarn -- scary scratchy yarn -- or just buy another skein of caron simply soft that could be used later to make, say, a yoga mat bag, I chose the latter.

And thus the shrug was complete:

And I learned a great lesson about blocking lace:

One skein of yarn is not so bad to add to the stash, but then I had a conversation with my friend and dance partner Stephanie. Stephanie and I had been planning on auditioning for the Student-Teacher-Troupe Night at the Red Light Cafe with the studio at which we take belly dance lessons. We wanted to do Menni, a sword dance that they taught at the beginning of the year. We both love the dance; it's very cute, sassy, and fun. When we were discussing the costumes we would pick out (both of us being a little strapped for cash), Stephanie said she could not imagine dancing that dance without the costumes that the troupe members wear: a pink and green crocheted number with a halter top and fringe belt.

I though about it for a while, and I had made a halter top from a pattern on ravelry, but it was much to stretchy and the cups were not close enough together. So, I decided I would try to make a pattern that would work in a yarn that had less stretch in it. And I was successful! So now, in order for us to have costumes that match (and don't look totally insane -- yeah using all my stash yarn that's all different colors and weights probably wouldn't work for something the public is going to see) I had to buy more yarn. I did end up buying a LARGE skein of black Red Heart supersaver and a smaller one of pink -- our costumes will be similar to Nazeem Allayl's, but pink and black instead. There is a solid reason for buying large skeins though -- the fringe belts will be long -- like from our waist to almost our ankles long, so I'll need a LOT of yarn to make them long enough (and will hopefully use all of it!)! Also, I didn't just buy red heart for just any reason --for this type of outfit there are certain things you need for it to work:

First, the yarn cannot have a lot of stretch to it and it has to be pretty sturdy when crocheted in a hdc to support the weight of some coins and other decorative things (cowrie shells!). Second, you don't want it to felt -- it still needs to have the crochet texture. Third, as stated before, I need a LOT of it, so it wouldn't be too economical to buy expensive yarn. With that said, I wouldn't make a sweater out of the stuff, but it will work just great for this halter top and fringe belt!

These outfits are still a work in progress, and I don't want to spoil the fun, so I'll post a pic when they are all complete -- cowrie shells, coins and all!

Finally done!

I finished up David's scarf last night and sewed in the ends/blocked it today! I'm glad this is finally done, it certainly took long enough (2 years -- yikes!). Here's a pic:

I really like how it turned out. Despite the yarn being a poly/acrylic blend (Yes, good old Red Heart Eco), the scarf is really soft and will be nice to wear (and easy to clean!). Blocking really helped the pattern look more tight. Here's a picture before blocking:

And a close-up of the stitches after blocking:

 I am really (REALLY) relieved to have this finished. I think I'm pretty done with scarves at the moment -- too much repetition over much too long a period of time. I only have 1 more scarf already in my queue, so at least I will have a break from scarves for a little while. Now if only I can finish the shrug before tomorrow night (yeah, right!).

Making Progress...

Things are going along pretty well. I managed to get hat #2 finished (Janelle's hat). I decided to make the brattleboro hat from New England Knits instead of the slouchy hat I made before, and it turned out really nice. Here's a pic:

Since Valentine's Day is only a week away (yikes!), I am going to focus on getting David's scarf finished. It's slightly over half-way done, so there's a lot of time I'll have to invest to get it finished. I've also cast on the sagebrush shrug that will use up the white caron simply soft I have stashed away. The pattern is super easy so far. Well, there were a few things I had to learn first before I would classify it as "easy", namely that stitch markers are REALLY helpful, and maybe casting on a project at my friend's house during the superbowl is not the best time to do it when you need to have an exact number of stitches on your needle. So yeah, you do learn something new every day! Here's a pic of the shrug so far:

I would like to get the shrug done before Valentine's day as well, since it will look really nice with the dress I plan to wear, but the likelihood of me finishing both on time is, well, minimal at this point. I can always dream!

Oh, and I thought a "before" picture would be nice for the blog since it does document my progress with minimizing the amount of crafting clutter I have laying around, so here goes nothing (be warned, it is very scary!):

Getting things organized!

Over the past few weeks, I've gone through and documented all of the yarn I have gathering dust in my closet. I've decided to donate some of it (the stuff that is about 20 years old in a color I will probably never wear), but the rest I have assigned an appropriate project via ravelry.com. Yarn will be my first priorty, as I only make accessories with them, and will need some time to accomplish some other goals I have, namely preparing for the 5K David, Chip (his brother), and I are planning to run towards the end of February AND practicing for the studio show in March -- did I mention I LOVE bellydance? Oh, yeah, and there's the whole "find a job that isn't the one I have right now and preferably uses my Master's degree." Hunting for a job is just... fantastic.. right?

Many of the first projects I will be working on will be birthday hats that David promised his family, but does not have time to finish. Hats are fast, and I'm mid-way through my second one. That leaves.... lets see... 3 more to go. Maybe four, depending on how much yarn is left over. I also plan to finish David's scarf before valentine's day... it is about time, I've only been working on it intermittently for 2 years.