A New Project Bag...and some more handspun, of course.

I had an idea for a new project bag a couple of weeks ago, and finally got around to making one! I wanted a flat bottomed zip bag with a patchwork design on the outside. I made a prototype and decided it was too small:

It just fits a yarn cake and sock in progress. 

I had enough squares cut for another one like the small one, and I cut a bunch more matching fabric to make it bigger. Then I decided I needed to use some really cute owl fabric I had picked up and found some coordinating prints to go with it. I finished the owl bag earlier today and will finish up the second one tonight or tomorrow.

This one is much roomier and comfortably fits 2 skeins of yarn. And it has a handy dandy handle. 

 Pretty, pretty yarn sitting in the bag.

I've finished 2 more skeins of yarn for the shop, but the lighting has been terrible so the pictures aren't totally accurate:

Organic Merino dyed by Two if by Hand in colorway Exhausted

I'm going to rename it "Caribbean Cruise" for the shop. 

Merino/Cashmere/Nylon dyed by Two if by Hand

This skein is much more forest green in real life...hopefully the light will be better tomorrow so I can take better pictures!

In knitting news, I'm still working on the sweater for Seth's dad. I started a sleeve today and I'm hoping to make some good progress on it tonight. I also finished the first sock that I posted a picture of in my last post. And I'm almost to the heel flap on the second. I'm confident they'll be done by the end of the month. 

Your sweater is looking great (again)....I can't wait to see the finished product! 

Love,

Liz :)

1160 Yards of Handspun

That, my dear, is what I've been working on for the last week basically non-stop! A customer asked me to do some custom spinning for her...12 ounces of BFL and spun fairly thin for maximum yardage so she can hopefully knit a sweater with it. I finished it on Wednesday and ended up with 1160 yards of light sport weight yarn. It was dry this morning and I reskeined, labeled, and mailed it. But, I snapped a few photos first :)

Spun from Funky Carolina BFL Combed Top.  

Colorway Lily...beautiful greys, silvers and blues. 

It's going to make a really beautiful sweater! 

I don't have much to show on the knitting front. I'm still working on the sweater for Seth's Dad...but making quite a bit of progress. I did finish a Hydrangea Neckwarmer the other day, but it's still drying on the blocking board. I'll try and get pictures of that this weekend! 

I've done a wee bit of sewing, and am plotting and scheming about some bigger tote bag projects. I got a fat quarter pack of all the Heather Ross Far, Far Away 2 fabrics for Christmas:

I. LOVE. THEM. All the fabric is a cotton/linen blend so it's much sturdier than regular quilting cotton. 

I've been itching to cut into them, but also spending hours online looking through other people's projects to decide what to do with them! I also received an Amy Butler pattern book, which as TONS of cute bag patterns in it. 

For my first project, I thought I'd do something small and simple. 

Origami Bag. Isn't it adorable?!

Close up of the owl and cat. 

This particular pattern has directions for 5 or so different sizes, and I'm going to give some of the larger ones a try once I get some bigger zippers. The directions were really clear and easy to follow, which makes me hopeful for some of the more complicated looking bags in the book! 

Your sweater is looking great, by the way! And F's house looks awesome! Nice work! 

Oh...and one more exciting thing (or, at least I thought it was exciting). A pair of mittens I knit ended up on the Three Irish Girls blog!!! I did a little happy dance when I saw that :) 

Alright...off to do some spinning for the shop!

Love,

Liz :)

Secret Knitting REVEALED!

Merry Christmas to you, too!! Hope you guys had a wonderful day with lots of time with family and good food :) Little Charlotte is looking so grown up all of a sudden! I love the hat you made her...adorable! Also love the naughty/nice pictures of the vest. hehe.

Are you ready for the Christmas Knits to be revealed?? Make sure you are sitting...there are a bunch.

Let's start with the slippers:

Knit For: Joe

Pattern: Felted Loafer Slipper by Lorilee Beltman

Yarn: Malabrigo Chunky

Modifications: None. These are knit in chunky yarn held double and then felted. It was definitely challenging trying to figure out how big they needed to be without having the right size feet here!

I ordered leather slipper bottoms to hopefully prolong the life of the slippers.

Knit for: Desi

Pattern: Felted Clogs by Fiber Trends

Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Ravelry Red

Modifications: None. Yarn held double throughout the slippers. 

These ones also have leather bottoms.

Next Up: The Mittens

Knit for: Kaitlin

Pattern: Eugenia's Mittens by Mollie Woodworth

Yarn: MadelineTosh Vintage in Isadora

Modifications: None. This is a fabulous free pattern on Ravelry. Mollie made these mittens and a bunch of us expressed interest in the pattern, so she kindly wrote it up and posted it on rav.

Knit for: Jacky (my BIL's fiance)

Pattern: All the Water by Kristen Kapur

Yarn: Three Irish Girls Springvale Super Merino in Slight of Hand

Modifications: None. I made the medium/large size and followed the pattern exactly. 

Knit for: Seth's Mom

Pattern: Portland Mittens by Carrie Bostick Hoge in "New England Knits"

Yarn: Three Irish Girls Springvale Super Merino in "Slight of Hand", "Illusion", and "Smoke and Mirrors"

Modifications: I had a lot of trouble getting gauge on these mittens. I ended up going down several needle sizes and did the cuff on size 3s and the mittens on size 5s. According to the pattern the thumb should have been the lighter teal color, but I thought it looked better as matching the main color. I'm definitely going to be making another pair of these...they fit awesome and they were a super easy knit once I figured out what needle size to use.

Now...there should be one more pair of mittens on here. Except I apparently forgot to take a picture of them! I made a pair of felted mittens for my Dad and will post a picture here once I get one. Oops.

And, last but not least...The Hats:

Knit for: Jonathon 

Pattern: Koolhaas by Jared Flood

Yarn: Madelinetosh Vintage in Jade

Modifications: None. Love, love love this. Seth will be getting his very own Koolhaas probably sometime next week. Poor husband got neglected in the knitting department for Christmas.

I love the way the top decreases look on this.

Knit for: Matt

Pattern: Family of Ribbed Hats by Joelle Hoverson from "More Last Mintue Knitted Gifts"

Yarn: Madelinetosh Vintage in Terrarium 

Modifications: None. This was super easy and super duper fast. And...the beauty is that it fits pretty much any head because it's so stretchy. 

I do have the sweater for Seth's dad to finish...the goal is to have it done by the first week in February when we go back for Jonathon's wedding. I have about 1/3 of it done, so I should be able to finish...I just need to really concentrate on only knitting that for a while. 

We had a really lovely Christmas, and I'll post more about that later :)

Love,

liz :)

More Spinning!

I've been doing a TON of spinning lately to make sure I have a nice selection of handspun for the next shop update. I'm aiming for 6 skeins and 5 are done already. The 6th should be done either today or tomorrow and then I have a custom spinning job to start (a whole pound of pretty, pretty fiber!).

During all of this spinning I realized I clearly have a new obsession: Two if by Hand fiber

Everything for the next shop update is spun from their fiber. I can't help it! I order, it ships quickly and arrives here all lovely begging to be spun up. They do a fabulous job dyeing and their choice of fiber bases is outstanding.

I think this next skein might be my most favorite. ever.

Merino/Cashmere/Nylon (80/10/10) in Two if by Hand's colorway "Comfort me with Apples" 

I wish you could reach through the screen and squish it. It's amazingly soft and squishy! 

I think I'm going to order some more of this for myself and knit some socks or mittens out of it. How fun would those be?! 

It's actually broken up into 2 skeins because I wasn't able to fit all of the yarn on one bobbin. 

Next up:

Falkland wool in Two if by Hand's colorway "Crucio"

While not as soft as the MCN...the Falkland spun up really nicely and is surprisingly soft.

This also had to be put into 2 skeins

The last skein I'm working on for the update is Merino/Silk and it's super shiny and soft...it should be really lovely when it's finished. 

Only a couple of more days....and then I can finally post about all the secret Christmas knitting that's been going on!! Everything went out in the mail on Monday, and although the post office lady only gave them a 75% chance of arriving on time everything has made it. Phew. 

Well, I'm off to make some progress on a pair of socks, finish up that skein of yarn and head to a neighbor's house later for drinks and cookies!

Merry Christmas!

Love,
liz :)

Last Minute Crafting

Talk about being down to the wire with gift making! Especially since everything needs to fly across the country. I finished the last knitted gift on Friday morning, but decided on a last minute sewing project that ended up taking all day.

All the cousins in my mom's family pick names for Christmas and this year I have Lily. I have it on good authority that Lily is getting a Nintendo DS for Christmas and I thought she needed a case to hold her ds, games, and power cord. Lily loves horses, so I found some horse fabric at the quilt store and got to work. It took several prototypes that didn't quite work out (lucky I actually had a ds here to test it out!), but I finally got one that worked.

Cute, eh?! 

 Way better than some plastic store bought case, right?

The drawstring bag to keep her charger in. Because, well, I always misplace my chargers...so I thought it would be nice for her to have a place to keep it.

The ds case is big enough to hold a game case, too. But then I woke up at 4:30am Saturday morning and had a brilliant idea for a case that could hold 3 game cases like this. I only have a crappy phone pic, but it turned out really cute. 

It has elastic inside to hold the 3 game cases, then it folds up and ties. 

I also finished another skein of yarn for the shop (actually 2 more skeins, but 1 is still drying): 

Nymphadora on Finn dyed by the ladies at Two if by Hand

It will be listed in the etsy shop during the next update (Dec 29th at 11am Pacific Time), and will be named "Perfectly Purple" 

That's it for now, I think! Back to the spinning wheel....

Love,

liz :)

Scary Gingerbread Cookies

Seth wanted desperately to cut out the gingerbread cookies. So I let him. Scary, I tell you. First, he decided he would cut out shapes using a paring knife....which was taking FOREVER. So, I made him use the cookie cutters, and he decided to improvise a little.

A turkey. We have a flock of about a half a dozen. Very festive according to Seth.

"Nearly Headless Nick" from Harry Potter.

Gingerbread man with hole. There are several of these. I was informed that when they are decorated he will have blood dripping from his wound. Again, very festive.

You might wonder what this is. I kept seeing weird shapes like this and then realized that Seth was just taking the scraps and throwing them on the baking sheet.

An ice climber. Obviously. 

An elf with a club. 

I'll be sure to post pictures after they are decorated! 

I'm very close to having my Christmas knitting done and I have a couple more projects I can share! 

Seth's office does secret santa each Christmas and he had one of the other doctors this year. She wrote on her little questionnaire that she loved scarves, and clearly a store bought one just would not do. 

Pattern: Circle & Stripe Scarf by Leigh Radford from the book More Last Minute Knitted Gifts

Yarn: MadelineTosh Vintage in Dahlia 

Modifications: None. I used exactly 2 skeins of the Vintage and the scarf ended up about 60 inches long before blocking. 

All the employees at the office have stockings and they do smaller gifts throughout the week and the big gift at the Christmas party. Since tea was also on the list of "likes", we bought a ceramic travel mug and I knit a cup cozy for it.

For the cup cozy I cast on 32 sts, joined to work in the round, and knit 2x2 rib until I was happy with the length. I used some MadelineTosh Rustication Worsted. 

I also finished a couple of skeins of handspun yarn...both from the roving from my last post.

Enchanted on Merino/Cashmere/Nylon spun from Two if By Hand roving.

Miss Granger on Shetland also from Two if By Hand roving.

Well...I have 2 more gifts that still need to be knit up! Yikes. Back to the needles....

Love,

liz :)