Mikknit

I get in a funk every winter, and here I am again. I’ve been knitting, but have been generally dissatisfied with what I’m turning out. I got the Peace Fleece sweater down to the bottom edge, bound off, and realized that it was way too big in the chestal area. After some consultation with Abby at Borealis, I’ve decided that I need to take another inch out of the armscye before the underarm increases start. I’ve ripped it all the way back to the underarms (boy, was that fun), but not any farther. It’s been about a week and a half and I just don’t want to think about touching the sweater still. I’d planned to work on it on Sunday but when I went to my spinning group I got caught up in spinning sparkly wool and forgot about the sweater. So there it sits. Maybe I’ll get to it sometime this week.

I also whipped up a new pair of the Fiber Trends Felted Clogs, a pattern I love. My old ones were apparently being held together by the dirt on them and fell apart when I washed them. Bugger. So I made new ones out of purple and lime green Cascade 220 and I just don’t love them. My old ones were made in Lamb’s Pride and they were thicker, cushier, and just looked nicer. I suppose part of the problem could be that I’m felting in a front loader, but I’ve worked out a wash routine that works well for felting. I’m going to take these to someone else’s place and give them a wash in a top loader and see if they’re magically perfect afterwards, but if they’re not I’m going to make a new pair in LP.

It hasn’t been all dissatisfying projects and bad outcomes here, thankfully. I’ve finished the first Gentleman Sock and it fits and looks wonderful. I’m about 3″ into the second one, but it’s going slowly. I like to read blogs while I knit, but this isn’t good knitting while reading material - I have to pay just enough attention to it because of the twisted stitch pattern. Chris is going to be out of town a bunch over the coming month, so I suppose there’ll be plenty of movie-watching time to work on it. I just need to pick out some good, semi-brainless movies to watch!

I’ve also been doing a little sewing - Grace wanted a new dress, so I whipped up the t-shirt dress out of Kwik Sew’s Sewing For Children (I love this book, as well as their Sewing For Babies and Sewing For Toddlers). The style’s a little outdated, a dropped-waist dress, but I shortened the bodice a bit so the bodice would at least land at her waist, but I prefer the look of an empire waist on this sort of dress. So I’ll be making her a new one (or several! Her other dresses in this style get a lot of wear), and probably an outfit for her birthday (less than a month, oh my gosh!). I also hemmed a bunch of stuff that’d been sitting since September - flannel pants for both kids, stripy velour shirts for both of them, and velour pants for Arlo to match his stripy shirt. Yes, I do indeed have a lot of velour, why do you ask? Gods, you don’t want to see my fabric closet. Or maybe you do? I don’t know. My sewing room’s a mess, but I can at least see the desk now. I got some shelves from IKEA to mount on the wall behind the desk, maybe I can get some stuff up there and out of my way, then clean up a bit before posting a picture.

Today, though, the kids and I are going to the fabric shop with my mom. She needs to pick up her sewing machine from the repair shop and I need some PatternEase (interfacing for pattern tracing), as well as some elastic and maybe some more fabric (shut up. I DO need more fabric!). And lunch at my favorite Vietnamese place for sure. Mmm, Pho. My tummy’s growling now.