Eleven Stitches

Mini Quilt Monday

Have you heard of Mini Quilt Monday?  There's a pool on Flickr, and the quilts there are pretty cool!  I decided to get in on the fun.  This week's contribution was simple, as I am recovering from a weekend with houseguests.  (It was a great weekend, though.)

I realized that I have a lot of polka dot fabrics, and I decided to put them together into a little quilt.

Last week's contribution was a little bit out of necessity.  The only way I could give away that Solstice quilt was to have a small version of my own.

It's now gracing my sewing room wall, and making me cheery whenever I see it.

Happy Mini Quilt Monday!

My First Successful Knit

I finished a knit dress!  Now, don't get too excited, hand-knitters.  It's machine sewn, made out of knit fabric.  (I would love to hand-knit a dress, but I haven't taken the huge amount of time to do it yet.)

I think there's a time after learning a craft where I switch over from wearing what I make because I made it to wearing what I make because I like it just as much as what I would buy in a store.  Eventually, the hope is that my craft progresses enough that what I make is better for me than what I could find in a store!  I love wearing my quilting-weight fabric dresses, but I'm not sure I would buy so many of them if it cost money instead of time. The store-bought dresses that I wear and wear are made out of knit fabric.  They're comfortable (like a big t-shirt), they look nice, and they don't wrinkle.  What's not to love?  I've been anxious to try to make my own, but there isn't that much availability of knit fabric that I would like to wear. Last week, Jody and I went fabric shopping in Philly.  I came home with four knit fabrics, in chocolate brown, sheer black, a pink print, and the yellow you see below.  They will keep me busy for a while!

Pattern: McCalls 5752, view B
Modifications: The dress was bunching up funny where the bodice met the waist, so I took it in about half an inch on each side, and everything worked out.  I also made an integrated camisole/slip so I could wear this dress to work and not get in trouble.

The notches to connect the dress to the waist did not seem to match up in a meaningful way, so I had to give this a couple of tries before it looked right.  I'm not sure if it was pattern error or user error!

I learned a lot by reading this thread on Ravelry.  In the past, I would stretch the fabric and sew it with a straight stitch.  That never was comfortable for me, and I couldn't tell where the seam allowances should be because the fabric distorted when it was stretched.  This time I tried zig-zagging all the seams (except gather stitches), and the result was so much better.  The fabric fed easily through the machine, and the seam didn't look distorted when I finished.

I really love how this dress came out, and I'm excited to have another comfortable, great-looking dress in my rotation.  You'll see more knits from me soon, to be sure!

PS.  I seem to have a repetitive stress injury in my elbow.  I think a bunch of things added up to cause the problem, and I'm being proactive about fixing it.  But there might not be too much knitting for the next week or so, as I'm certain that knitting was one of the contributing factors to the problem.

More Sewn Shirts

My knitting is still pretty boring.  I'm about to start the sleeve cap on my first sleeve of Betty, and it seemed forever to get to that point!  So in the meantime, let me catch up on some sewing.

Pattern: Simplicity 4122, View C
Fabric: Spoonflower's fabric of the week from a while back.  I love the pears!
Modifcations: I added a pleat to the bottom of the sleeves to keep them from being so flyaway.

I love, love, love this fabric, and therefore I love the shirt. I do think the design is a little boxy, but I forgive it because the shirt has pears on it!

And here's a second shirt.

Pattern: Simplicity 2927

I feel pretty good in this shirt, but both time I've taken pictures of it it seems to not be fitting me correctly.  Perhaps I'll have to take a look at it again.  In the meantime, I think it's a cute shirt and I love the color combination.

Happy Solstice!

Today, the sun actually peeked out this afternoon in New Jersey.  It's been a rainy month so far.  I thought the timing was especially appropriate, as it was my friend Becky's wedding day! Another weekend, another wedding.  Which means, another quilt.

I started and finished this quilt in a week!  Yes, it was an intense quilting week :)  The colors and pattern were inspired by Becky. She's a very green, earth friendly sort of person.  She and her husband chose today to get married because it is the summer solstice. The suns in this quilt are paper pieced, and the leaves are machine appliqued. I used a new batting for this quilt as well.  It's 50% bamboo, 50% organic cotton.  It was very soft and easy to use, and I'm sure I'll be using it again soon.

I have to mention that David was a great helper in the photo shoot this morning.  We were waiting for the rain to stop in order to take pictures, but the ground was too wet to lay the quilt on the grass.  He did a great job holding up the quilt so high for long enough for me to get some pictures.

I had such a fun time making this quilt.  When I finished each block I taped it to my wall, and I think it was a great inspiration to keep going.

With the exception of the borders and backing, all the fabric came from my stash.  It was fun to use up a lot of my yellow, blue, green, and purple scraps.

We had a lovely time at the wedding today, and we wish Becky and Kevin the best.  I hope they get to enjoy this quilt together for a long time!

Betty and Distractions

Here is the current status of my Betty Jean McNeil sweater.

I finished knitting the body, and I cut the arm and top neck steeks so I could try it on.  It's currently only seamed with safety pins!  It took me quite a while to get started on the sleeves, but you can see that I have finally gotten a little bit finished.

For some reason, I really was not interested in starting those sleeves, so much so that I knit a sock while I was procrastinating.

This is the first half of a pair of Francies.  I used some delicious Malabrigo sock yarn, and I'm sure the pair will be a favorite once it's completed.

The return of summer (sort of-- it's way too rainy here) has slowed my knitting progress recently.  I've been all about using my sewing machine.  More on that to come!

Kate's Quilt

Oh, hello.  I'm back from my blog break.  A few weeks ago I got a surprise (and welcome) promotion, and the excitement drove me offline for a while. But now school is out for the summer, and I've got some things to show you.

This past weekend, my lovely friend Kate got married! I was quite busy making a quilt for a wedding gift, and a dress to wear to the big event.  The dress still needs some photos, but here's the quilt!

Her wedding colors were hot pink and lime green, and she also happens to have a room in her house decorated in those colors and chocolate brown.  It's a great color combination, and it makes a fun quilt! (The colors are a little washed out in the sunshine, but in real life they're really bright.)

I admired Chawne's Blue Whimsy quilt top so much that I had to make a version of my own.  Since there is a lot of blank space, the quilt went together quickly, and I love the minimalist look.

I mainly used a new fabric I had bought for the backing, but I also pieced in some leftovers from the quilt top.  And the binding was those leftovers again pieced together.

This was a fun project to get me back into quilting again, and I hope the new bride and groom enjoy it in their home!