Crafts

So much for project monogamy. I still have only the toe of the second falling leaves sock done, because I’ve abandoned it in favor of…a snowman cross-stitch?!? (I’ll update the picture when it’s time to scroll it again.)

See, I saw a picture on someone’s knitting blog (can’t recall whose, sorry) of their abandoned and rediscovered cross-stitch, and I thought, “hey, I’ve got a few really nice abandoned cross-stitch projects, maybe I should just get one out for when I finish the socks.” And then it got hot, so I didn’t feel like knitting a wool sock. And now I’m obsessed with snowmen.

Don’t worry, I’m sure it will be abandoned for another year or two soon, but I may as well take advantage of my current interest in the project and get as much done as I can before then! And then, I promise, I’m back to one project at a time, starting with that second sock!!!

I finished my candy corn socks today! This makes 6 pair I’ve made for myself. We won’t talk about the three (or four?) pair sitting on spare needles/stitch holders in various baskets around my craft room! There should be enough stripey yarn left to make a hat to match Carrie’s sweater and socks, I just need to find a pattern I like. Carrie seemed to be pretty amused that we had the same socks on this afternoon. After I took this first picture she came and sat in between my legs so she could stick her feet out straight next to mine. Then she “helped” me take some pictures of our feet. A couple came out pretty well considering I was holding onto the camera for dear life!

To celebrate finishing a project, I picked up another project that’s been in the “current” list for almost two years: the woven tumbling blocks table runner. I sewed the borders on tonight, tomorrow night I’ll start sewing the binding on. It’s almost embarrassing how little work was left on this when I abandoned it…

I also finished upgrading the crafts section of the site. I think all the links will work and/or redirect automagically. If you notice something broken, leave me a comment and I’ll fix it. It’s definitely a lot slicker, and updating things will be so much easier now!

Makes for a colorful knitting entry, no?

From left to right: Carrie’s striped vest, Carrie’s cabled poncho and Andrew’s sailboat sweater.

The striped vest turned out to be a really cute way to use up stash yarn. I think I could make about a dozen more of these and still have leftover yarn. Stash diving is fun – I was pretty proud to start a new project that was free!

The cabled poncho is something I actually finished last May, but I never blogged about it or took pictures of it. I was looking for something to throw over a little sleeveless dress Carrie was wearing the other morning, as it was going to be hot later but it was a bit chilly when we started out. This was peeking out of a pile of mostly finished stuff in my craft room, so I grabbed it and off we went!

The sailboat sweater was a gift for Carrie’s newest cousin. I finally got to meet him on Sunday, and what a cutie! I hope he likes the little fish on the sleeve. Every kids’ sweater should have a surprise on the sleeve.

Finally, I’m stuck with what to do next. Actually, I’m working on a really quick project that I sort of “owe” somebody, but when that’s done I don’t know what to do. I have a couple of socks-in-progress that I could pick up and do something with:

The purple one is really too small, so I’d have to rip it out to before the gusset increases (it’s toe-up) and add another inch. I even tried it on my mom’s foot, figuring I could finish them for her if they fit her, but no such luck. The orange one is probably fine, but I abandoned it for some reason I can’t remember. There are two others I know I’m going to rip out completely so I didn’t even bother taking pictures. Or I could start a new pair of socks entirely. Or I could pick another square for my Aran afghan. (Oops, I just realized I never posted the pictures of finished block #7 for that. Oh well, it’s too dark now.)

See, this is the problem with working on one project at a time. The pressure to pick the next “perfect” project is just too great. Sigh.

Remember the doll bassinet I mentioned making for Carrie? Well, it’s done! I still need to make the little toddler-sized diaper bag to go with it, but all things in good time.

Some of the neat details are that I actually quilted the blanket and stuffed the pillow – the pattern called for each of those to be one layer of batting and two layers of fabric. I also skipped sewing a piece of cardboard into the bottom. That would make a well-constructed, washable project completely un-washable, plus when the cardboard inevitably got bent it wouldn’t look so great.

I started a simple stripey sleeveless sweater for Carrie to wear for the spring and summer. It actually went so quickly that I finished the back in two days. The benefit of no sleeves is that I can’t succumb to second sleeve syndrome. And the best part? I dove into my stash and came up with the yarn! Yep, if I keep doing stripey projects like this and the bunny, I’ll have knit through my stash in, oh, maybe 73 years?

Don’t be fooled into thinking that because you can’t see all those ends that I’ve already hidden them. They’re just tucked under the edges. But that’s because I’m planning on sewing them into the seams, really!

And although I am trying to stick to doing one project at a time, after I started the sweater for Carrie I got the yarn I had ordered for a Mother’s Day gift, so I’m switching between those two for now. Luckily, the mystery project is pretty small, since I only have a couple of weeks to finish it!

I also finished the June cross-stitch and brought that and November to the framer’s for stretching the other day. I’m on a roll for finishing things, and it’s a lot more fun than having tons of unfinished projects haunting me from my knitting bag. Now I just have to get up the nerve to pick FLAK back up and see if I need to rip the sleeve back…maybe after I’ve finished another couple of projects…

I’m trying to work on one project only, forsaking all others, until completion do us part. So far it’s been working: in the past week I’ve completed my sockapaloooza socks, Carrie’s bunny, the November cross-stitch (I finally found the chart), and a little repair to a hole in one of Carrie’s sweaters. I’m working on another square for my Aran afghan, then I’ll finish up Carrie’s doll bassinet, and then I’d better do the June cross-stitch. After that, who knows? But definitely something that’s already been started. It’s a little tedious at times, but I was starting to worry about my lack of attention span on any one thing, and I have so many projects in various stages of being almost-done it’s starting to get ridiculous. Plus, I started all of those projects with the intention of having a finished object at the end, and some of them have been dragging on (or have been completely ignored) for years.

That’s one way to clean my craft room, right? Just finish everything in there? Actually, there are at least four finished things in there that either haven’t gone to their new homes or should get moved to Carrie’s closet. No wonder the place is a disaster.

For Easter this year I had decided to get Carrie a set of playsilks and a few shaker eggs – the rhythm instrument kind, not made by Shakers! The site where I ordered the playsilks has a number of other really nice toys, including Stripes the Bunny. (Actually, Stripes must have sold out, because I can’t find the link anymore. Luckily, I saved his picture to my computer!) I couldn’t justify buying something else for Carrie, but I do have lots and lots of scrap yarn bursting out of my craft room…

So I picked up a crochet hook and extra yarn from her cousins’ sweaters, and look! A giant bunny!

This colorful bunny contains yarn from the fun flower sweaters, the patchwork sweaters, the just ducky sweater, the little star sweater, and Carrie’s poncho. I think there are a couple of other projects represented there, but they escape me at the moment. The bunny is an inch shy of two feet tall and he’s super floppy, and Carrie seems to like to drag him around by one ear. (Poor bunny!) I think if I made another I’d make a few changes, but I’m pretty happy with how it came out – I even figured out how to make his hips and shoulders jointed so he can sit and give hugs!

I think I’ve figured out something profound. I really hate doing the same exact thing twice. Now you may be asking yourself, how could I possibly knit if I don’t like repetitive things? But it’s a different level of repetitiveness. I don’t mind knitting two stitches, but it’s like pulling teeth to knit two socks. Or two sleeves. Or, for an example which may or may not be sitting in my knitting bag right this very moment making me feel guilty, sewing the second sleeve and side seam on a baby sweater which is otherwise finished.

I figured this out as I was (finally) working on Carrie’s snoopy pajamas this afternoon. (Possibly instead of sewing that last seam on the baby sweater. If such a sweater actually exists, that is.) Since they’re footie pajamas, the first thing I had to do was pin and sew the toes to the bottoms of the legs. The first one was fun, the second one I did just to get to the next step. The shoulder seams were fine, because they’re little. Then came the sleeves. Again, the first one was fun, the second one…I dilly-dallied for a bit, clearing off the ironing board, checking ahead in the instructions, fondling the footie fabric I bought with the neat little bumps on it…and then I realized that I would never get to use the fabulous footie fabric unless I sewed the evil second sleeve. It didn’t help that every seam had to be double-stitched either. I seriously considered putting the project aside, but then I might have had to go downstairs and sew a second sleeve into a hypothetical baby sweater instead. I decided that was marginally worse. I pleaded and bargained with the pattern, begging it to let me do any other step first, but it wouldn’t budge, so I had to finally just sew the blasted sleeve in.

It’s odd that I can manage to live with a toddler while having such an aversion to this kind of repetitiveness, since we read the same books over and over, sing the same songs over and over, and have the same conversations over and over. I guess maybe this second fill-in-the-blank syndrome only extends to crafty things.