Oh la la!

This is a French seam.  Isn't it just perfect?  It's pretty and neat and shows no raw edges, and thus no fraying of the fabric.  This is my first time doing French seams and I am now quite enamored because in addition to all those great features just mentioned its also super easy.  It's basically just 2 seams.  The second one in-cases the first so that the raw edge doesn't show.  I would explain more how this is done, but there are tons of great tutorials out there already.

Wardrobe Refashion

Has anyone else seen the Wardrobe Refashion?  No, its not a spin off of Project Runway.  Its a website where a people have pledged to not buy new clothes for a certain period of time, ranging from 2 month to life.  They'll either make their own or buy used in order to escape the clutches of the fashion industry.  I am quite intrigued by this concept, but I don't think I currently have the time to make this sort of commitment.  It does inspire me to try and make more of my own clothes, as evident by the mini shopping spree I did on fabric.com recently...

I loved the cute little blue flowers on this fabric and think it will make a perfect summer top. (Oh summer, how I miss you...)  The flowers are hard to see in this picture but I assure you they are super cute.  I'm thinking the short sleeved option for McCalls 5388 will be adorable.  This may be what I do tomorrow with first day of my spring break. Though it looks like I'd have to get elastic for the sleeves, but that's a problem easily remedied.

My other potential spring break sewing project is making this green vine fabric into a skirt.

But the problem here is that I can't decide what kind of skirt I want to make.  I'm up in the air if I want to use the tutorial for a full gathered skirt from Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing (One of my favorite sewing blogs) or make a simple wrap skirt.  Decisions, decisions.

FOs and Shifting Focus

At last I have pretty new FOs to post!  My uptown boot socks are a success, especially because I learned how to cable without an extra needle.  I had not intended to do this at first, but after one row of trying to use a cable needle I realized that method was just too slow and cumbersome for a pattern with so many tiny little cables. I did mess up on the cable pattern. I didn't actually read the whole thing before starting (oops!) so I cabled to the back on Row 7 instead of two the front like you're suppose to.  Of course I didn't realize this until I had finished one sock, and didn't seem worth the effort of frogging when the results are still very pretty!

I used Plymouth Happy Feet, the same yarn I used for my Froot Loop socks.  I still love this yarn.  Its squishy, colorful, easy to knit with, and cheap.  My Froot Loop socks have gotten a little fuzzy, but have otherwise held up well and I wear them all the time. I expect I will get tons of use of these pretty cablely socks too.  

I strayed a little bit from knitting recently and made a skirt.  I've been spending a lot of time recently looking around at sewing patterns and fabric and decided that I should test out my rusty sewing skills and the pretty sewing machine my parents gave me last year with a simple project.  I suspect that this is at least partially a result of me imposing a yarn buying moratorium on myself to save money and use up stash.  Rather than actually saving money, however, I've just shifted the focus of my shopping from yarn to fabric.  Oh well, at least I have a pretty new skirt.   

I used Vogue 8606 because I liked the wide waist band on the skirt and pants.  The pattern is also nice because it only used one yard of fabric.  The fabric is a suede I picked up from Joann's.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  I wore it out Friday and I thought it looked great my black boots and purple cardigan, a la above. The fit is good, though there seems to be a bit of extra fabric in the front.  I'm considering making a khaki one for the spring and summer so perhaps next time I'll add some little darts in front.

Don't let anyone tell you...

...that the needle arts are for sissies.  See those little reddish dots below?  That's blood.  I pricked myself while hand stitching down the yoke of a skirt to the zipper.  I actually had no idea I was bleeding until I noticed those strange little dots.  Hardcore, I know.

More on the skirt as well as a finished pair of socks coming soon!

Progress

So I stopped my whining and did some knitting instead, and now my second uptown boot sock has a heel! In addition to having a heel, the gusset has been finished since I took this picture. I'm just a few inched and a toe away from having a new pair of socks. This will place me only one pair of socks away from my goal of having a pair of hand knit sock for everyday of the week.

It helps that in one of my classes the professor doesn't want us to take notes, weird but true. I see this as a perfect excuse to knit during class, and he doesn't seem like the kind of professor who would mind anyway.

For those for you familiar: yes I did take this picture in the law school library. Sometimes I knit there too. I can only take so much case law after all.

Winter Doldrums

I seem to be in a bit of a knitting funk recently, or maybe I'm experiencing some form of ADD. I could also still be burned out from Christmas knitting. Whatever it is I have not been doing very much with my knitting recently. Normally, I faithfully knit away at one project, sometimes two, and progress is fairly quick. Currently I have three that I've been switching between with the result being that I don't seem to be getting much of anything done.

This picture illustrates my current experience fairly well. It was taken around New Years. I have only done a few inches since it was taken, a very sad progress rate indeed.

The other two projects are a sweater and a pair of mittens. They are going equally slowly, and I am feeling equally un-enthused about all of them. These are all fairly old projects that I am trudging through since I'm not sure what else to cast on for. Hopefully, when the spring patterns come up I'll feel more inspired and excited about my knitting, but for now at least I seem to have the winter blahs.

A Quick Break from Studying...

As far as I can tell environmental law is even more confusing than tax, but since I think I've sorted out how the Clean Water Act works and I just can't stand the thought of reading the word "superfund" one more time I'm taking a quick break to present these socks, my one and only knit Christmas gift this year.

Knitting so many gifts last year was a pain. So this year I decided to limit it to one gift that I really wanted to make. Plain black socks were not the most exciting knit ever, but I think the recipient might get more use of these than if I had used a more fun color or pattern.

But also... I tired spinning! After spending a significant amount of time watching videos on youtube I was able to make my very first hand spun yarn. It's been washed and dried since this picture was taking, but is still waiting for me to wind it up and, of course, make something with it.