Decision Made!

Today has been spent doing little things… waffles for lunch, blogging (yup, you get two for the price of one today!), a bit of tidying, a bit of shopping, a bit of sewing, and a decision made.

Late yesterday, I decided to go out to FabricLand today to pick up some of the heaviest batting I could find. My ironing board desperately needs a new cover. The one that was on it had a hole and each time I’d iron, I’d snag my iron in it. That is no longer the case!

I had enough of this blue fabric, and still some left over, to make a new ironing board cover. The up side is that it’s so much more cheerful than the old blue/grey cover that was on it.  Ironing might actually be fun now!

All in all, from the moment I left the house to the moment I tied the cover to the ironing board, the cover took me about two hours to make. That included driving to the store, poking around, driving home, tracing the ironing board to make the pattern, to cutting everything out and sewing it up and threading a string through the casing! Not bad at all, I think!

As I alluded to in the title, I’ve also made a decision. I will be ordering the yarn for John’s new sweater but in the meantime I want something else to work on, something that almost qualifies as instant gratification. I know what it will be… something that is almost (but not quite) practical knitting. John desperately… and I do mean desperately… needs a new pair of slippers. I made his slippers in October of 2010… two and a half years ago… almost a year ago, I blogged about the fact that both our slippers had started to wear out (I don’t wear mine anymore because of the holes). I guess it’s about time he gets a new pair, wouldn’t you say?

I’m starting to feel really sorry for him…

 

You can also see the holes in the elbows of his sweater. It really does look as if I’m being a neglectful wife, doesn’t it? So, yes, slippers are definitely in order!

 

I’ll just go and cast on now.

Stitched!

Yesterday turned out to be quite a productive day! I made a tote bag, and a clutch purse, painted my nails, and then got bored and went to bed early. Oh, and I went for a short walk, something I do intend to do more of once my poor old knee gets better (smacked it on the corner of my desk at work… twice… same knee… hurt like…. well, you know!)

The tote bag was made over two days, actually. On Saturday, I put together the base of the bag and sewed the outer bag to the base. Yesterday, I made the inner liner and put it all together.

Fits in a purse!

Unzipped

Tote bag

A pocket for some spare change

I don’t know if it was me (probably was) or the pattern instructions but it didn’t come together easily. The outer bag did but the inner bag certainly gave me some challenges. Even though it was cut to the same size as the outer bag, it was smaller than the outer bag and I had to fiddle with it to get it to fit. Next time (and there will be a next time), I’ll cut the inner and outer bags at the same time. That should guarantee they’ll fit. I’ll also be putting it together in a slightly different order than the author did in the tutorial. All in all, though, I love this bag and it will be living in my purse (which needs cleaning out…. or replacing).

In case you want to make your own pocket tote, you can find the tutorial over at Sew Mama Sew!

Once that was out of the way, I decided to try my hand at another little sewing project I found on Pinterest. This one is a gathered clutch purse. Again, though I like the finished product, it didn’t come out exactly like the pictures on the blog. Was it me or the pattern? Probably me.  I did catch one mistake I made; the lining pieces were to be 5.5 x 9″. When I started piecing everything together, I realized I’d cut the lining pieces 5 x 9″. When you have two pieces of lining that need to be the same size as the outside, two pieces that are 1/2″ short makes your lining 1″ too small. That’s huge! There was also one part of the tutorial that I didn’t quite understand; that resulted in the zipper looking a little different than in the original post.

 

I really like it, though, and I can see myself making a few more of these as gifts. Again, I would probably change the method of making this just a little next time.

With my ever-growing stash of fun fabrics, I can see myself having a lot of fun with fabric choices. Want to make one for yourself? You can find the tutorial over at Noodle-head.com.

Incidentally, I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you that there are only 3 days left until the contest for the shawl closes. Comment on any post on this blog to be entered for your chance to win the Metalouse shawl.

Repaired!

It didn’t take long at all. Once I got the sleeve stitches on the needles, it only took half an hour or so to reknit and cast off the cuff. After the first one was complete, John commented that I really didn’t have to do the second cuff; it was fine, after all. And, besides, who’d notice? Then he looked at me.

“Oh right,” he said, “you would.” That’s when he stopped talking silliness.

All in all, it took just over an hour to repair and reknit the cuffs. There’s a little bit of a pucker where I joined the new yarn; I anticipate that will even out after the next washing, which will be soon. John’s sweater should be good for another few years. He’s happy; I’m happy!

In other things, on Friday I took a few minutes of my lunch break to go over to the thrift store a few doors down from where I work. I’ve found a few things there over the years, as any of my regular readers will know. This time, I came home with two pieces of fabric.

Since I’ve been having so much fun making the zippy pouches and other quilty type things, I couldn’t resist these fabrics. They’re so colourful! And cute! The blue piece is about 1.4 metres (.70 m wide) and the orange one is just over half a metre… all for just under $5.00. Now, I just need to find the time to do more sewing!

Instead of sewing, I have been knitting. The Metalouse shawl saw some progress last night; I have about 24 rows (give or take) left to work. Today, I’m baking. There’s Sourdough Rye bread rising and up next is Boston Cream Pie. I’ve been craving that lately, for some reason. There will be pictures!

Before I Head for Bed…

I did accomplish one thing I wanted to do today. I finished John’s recycled socks! Now, I can concentrate on the Metalouse shawl.

Done, done, and done! The details? I used 4-ply Patons Kroy on 2.5 mm dpns. The original sock was knitted on 60 stitches; I cut off the foot, picked up the stitches and worked my way back down the foot. As a result, John doesn’t have any extra socks to wear but I did give a pair of worn out socks a new lease on life. These would be the perfect wedding socks… “something old, something new”. I know, I’m getting silly. Almost time for bed!

Before I head for bed, though, I do have another small project to share with you. I must tell you in advance, though, I really don’t like hand sewing!

This is a thread holder, especially for those times you’re doing some sewing (with your sewing machine!) and you need a place to toss all those little bits of thread (the spools are in there only for photography purposes; they’re not being disposed of) that accumulate. The final seams, the ones that look so messy, really should have been hand sewn. I did 3/4 of one seam and was thoroughly frustrated so I did the rest by machine.

It is kind of cute, though. And it’s another finished item!

A Little Obsession

Yup, I’ve become a little obsessed with my sewing machine. Is this a bad thing?? The fabric I blogged about yesterday has been cut up and turned into a few little things.

 

The snappy bag with a zippered pouch turned out even better than I’d anticipated! I am REALLY happy with this little bag! The only thing I could critique was that the zipper pull was a little small, but making a beaded pull solved that little problem.

 

These were some beads from my stash; I probably didn’t make it the way it “should” be made but it works and I think it accents the bag nicely. Once I had the bag done, I did some online browsing and found another simple little project that I think will come in handy.

 

I have… oh… four or five pairs of reading glasses. Between here and work, I have glasses handy just about everywhere. None of them have cases, though (well, except for my new sunglasses).  This glasses cover, and the sunglasses cover below were both made using the tutorial I found over at Mommy’s Nap Time and both came together in less than an hour. It’s an easy pattern to customize, depending on the size of your glasses.

 

I may be making a couple more of these and may even customize one for my iPod Touch. I can honestly say I’m having a lot of fun but I have got to get some knitting done.

And then there’s the sourdough bread that won’t bake itself…. *sigh*

What? No Cooking??

It’s Saturday again. This week has absolutely flown by! All of a sudden, we’ve passed the middle of January and February is coming fast! I wish I could say I’ve made good progress on John’s recycled socks, but some evenings were spent watching TV shows on the computer with John rather than knitting. I did spend a couple of evenings in the recliner, though, listening to an audio book (One Second After by William R. Forstchen… scary stuff, but sure makes you think!) and knitting the heel on the second sock while John did research on the computer.

As you can see, there’s definitely been progress. I will probably have these finished this weekend. That’s my goal. I have a shawl to finish, after all.

Speaking of the shawl, I think I will change the original “rules” of the giveaway just slightly. Until February 14, anyone that comments on any blog post will be entered into the draw unless you specifically tell me that you really don’t want to be included. So, if you would like an opportunity to receive the shawl, be sure to comment.

Enough about the draw.

This week, I also made the trek across the road from where I work to visit the quilt shop situated there. I picked up a little more fabric for my growing stash of craft fabric. I refuse to call it quilt fabric as I don’t, and won’t, quilt. I do, however, like making the little snappy bags (as seen in this post); they’re cute and fun to make. I’d like to make one with a zippered pocket on one side and another one to use as a case for my glasses. Wow, do they ever have some gorgeous fabrics! It’s always a difficult decision and I have to stop myself from buying more than I can use.

Here’s what I came home with…

Aren’t they gorgeous? All but the orange fabric also have metallic gold accents. I’m so looking forward to creating something interesting with these fabrics. All I need now is some thread (I seem to be a little short on thread for some reason) and a couple of zippers. That means an outing today!