Timmy's Stocking (an old unfinished project)

I made Ethan a stocking, and finished it about two years ago.  It's a pretty intricate cross-stitch from the Dimensions Gold collection.

I started on a stocking for Timmy but put it away a while back and it's still not done.  It's a Dimensions Gold pattern too.  Timmy asks me about it every Christmas, and I really need to get it done this year.

Ethan's Blanket is Done! And he loves it!

I finished Ethan's blanket at about midnight on Christmas Eve.  Whew!  I stayed up working on it until 4am from Monday through Saturday.  And it got done.

Here's a photo of my Christmas Eve table.  I inherited my great-grandma Cromar's gorgeous china and flatware, which I used on Christmas Eve. 

Christmas Update: Sydni's Hat and Ethan's Blanket

Sydni's hat is done!!  It turned out much nicer than my first attempt at this hat pattern.

I machine quilted Ethan's blanket, and it was easier than I expected.  I think it looks pretty good.

Here it is before I added the batting and backing:

Here it is after I sewed on the batting and the backing:

One last task: I need to bind the edges of the quilt.  I'm going to do it in the cream skull & crossbones material.

Ethan's getting two Lego Pirates of the Caribbean display boats for Christmas, a lamp, and bed sheets.  His bedroom is going to be really cute when it's all done!

Christmas Projects Update

Here's a quick update on my Christmas projects.  I've lost time because: a) I've been sick, b) I've had to work overtime at work, and c) I've been really sick.

Cross-stitched bread cloth
I haven't even begun this one yet.  I may not get to it!

Nativity pillow
I still haven't begun sewing the quilted border for the pillow.  I may not get to this either!


Hats for Sydni and Brynn
First I worked on Sydni's red hat.  I got cocky and figured I could do fair isle (multi-color stranded) knitting without reading the techniques in my knitting books.  And when it was done, it wouldn't fit over my head!  The flowered design was too tight because I didn't use the right technique.  I actually broke a strand of yarn trying to get it on my head. 

I decided to do better with Brynn's purple hat.  I studied the multi-color knitting techniques in my knitting books, and decided to use the two-handed method.  In this method, one color is in your left hand and you knit it continental style.  The other color is in your right hand and you knit it english style. You just knit the right color according to the chart.  I'm proficient at the continental style but the english style is new to me.    I'm not very good at this two-color method yet; the two colors end up puckering funny in the finished project.  So I still have some learning to do.

Here is Brynn's hat, when I finished the knitting.  I made a smaller bulge at the top of the hat, and knit the ribbing at the bottom of the hat more tightly so it wouldn't flare out like the red one.

After the knitting was done, I added the embroidery.  Here's the fully finished hat.  You can see how the multi-color areas pucker:

I am working on a new hat for Sydni, since I don't like the way the red one turned out.

Jen's Washcloths and Towel
I finished Jen's towel and gave it to her last weekend.  There were only 3 washcloths and 1 towel in the box.  I have a lot more yarn, but I've been too busy with other things.

Ethan's Blanket
Ethan's blanked is a pirate around the world blanket.  I finished the around the world part; next step is to add the border panels around the edge, then put the pieces together for quilting.  I am going to do machine quilting, rather than tying.  I tied a really nice quilt with inferior yarn one time, and the yarn frayed the first time I washed it. It really ruined the effect of the quilt.  So I will try machine quilting.  This project is still a surprise.  He doesn't know he's getting it!

Bottom line, I've still got a lot of work to do.  I'm on vacation until Jan 3, but spending all of Friday out with Craig for our anniversary (12 years!) and hosting a Christmas Eve dinner on Saturday.  I was going to go all out but Craig kind of reined me in.  I really want to use my great-grandma Cromar's gold-edged china and gold silverware, but that means a lot of hand washing, so I'm going to play it by ear.  If I'm still eager to use the china on Saturday, I will!

Juggling: work vs. projects

This week I was made a team lead at work.  The twist: my team members are in China!  I'm excited but it will be challenging, since I'm new to leadership and the Chinese team members are new to web development.  Next week I work all week, but after that I'm taking 2 weeks off for Christmas!  And I think they only get one day off for New Year's, since they don't celebrate Christmas.

It boils down to this: I've got a heck of a lot of training and setup to squeeze into one week.  I'll be working a different shift just for Mon-Thurs next week: 2pm - 11pm.  The good news: I will have the whole morning to work on Ethan's quilt while he's at school (it's a surprise).

Tomorrow will be a complete loss project-wise because Adobe is having a big company party in Salt Lake City tomorrow night!

Update: The Pirate Blanket

I have been stealthily working on Ethan's pirate blanket.  It is going to be in the around-the-world pattern.  I'm still strip-piecing the center right now.

Making a pirate lap/quilt for Ethan

I walked into a cute fabric store in town to get some material and found a cute new line of pirates material for quilting.  I didn't buy it right on the spot, because i  wanted to consult my patterns at home and buy the correct yardage for my projects.

http://www.kikiquqilts.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=68_199_309_763

I went back for the pirate fabric on black friday but the store was closed.  Instead, i went to a fabric shop in American Fork.

I am going to do an around the world style.

Pillows for Stevie's kids for Christmas

I know this isn't strictly knitting, but I thought I'd throw it in.

In my family, we draw names for Christmas.  I got my sister Stevie, who happens to have 5 kids.  I thought I'd make pillows.  My friend, Amanda Wilding, taught Timmy's Sunday school class a couple of years ago, and made a cute embroidered Y pillow for him.  And he loves it!  He carries it around everywhere and actually rubbed off the embroidery and  I had to re-embroider it for him.  So I thought Stevie's kids might like pillows.  I'm making one for Ethan, too.

First, I shopped for fabric.  I found the cutest little quilting store right by my work.

I started by embroidering the squares.  I free-handed the Y's and the kids' names, but I got an iron-on pattern for the girls' butterflies.

Then I added a border to the embroidered squares and completed matching patterns for the backs of the pillows.  Measuring everything exactly (and twice) is really important, as well as ironing, at each stage.

At this point I added batting and some spare cheap fabric and quilted the squares.  I'm not sure if it makes a difference.

For the girls' butterflies I covered some rope with fabric and sewed it together.

Then I squared them up and sewed the backs to the fronts, right sides together, with the ropes in between. I didn't put a rope around Adam's pillow, because the first pillow was hard.  But then I figured out how to change the position of my needle and the ropes got easier.  I left a space to stuff the pillows (I only have 3 of the 6 done to this point). 

Once the pillows were stuffed, I sewed that extra space together.

I've got 3 more to finish up.  And I might fill in Stevie's boys' Y's with some kind of embroidery pattern, but I'm not sure I'll have time with all of the other holiday projects I have going.

I Finished Ethan's Sweater

Ethan's sweater project was my first sweater project since Timmy was born (he's 9).  The others were baby sweaters and didn't turn out so well.

So I guess it should come as no surprise that I had to rip out parts of the sweater 4 times to get it to turn out.  First I was knitting with a twist (I think the abbreviation is Ktbl) and it wasn't sitting right.  Then when I got to the yoke (join of sleeves and main body) and started the main pattern area, it took several rows to get the hang of it.  
So I ripped it back to the beginning of the yoke and started over.  This is what it looked like at the yoke:

Then I tried it on Ethan and it was too short!  To make it longer, I ran out of yarn and had to order some more.  It's a good thing the online yarn shop published their lot numbers and they had some left!
When I had knitted my last row and bound off the last of it, I started weaving in the ends.  Then I had to sew the neck down on the reverse side.  However, it was late at night and I wasn't paying attention, and I sewed the neck down on the outside!  The next morning I went to unpick it before I left for work.  And I clipped the wrong thread.  The sweater ended up with a big gaping hole!  I think I cried right then and there.  So I ripped it back to the start of the hole and worked the last few rows of the pattern and the neckline again.

Finally, I got the thing finished again and sewed together the underarms and the neckline.  It looks so good on Ethan!  The first day it was done, he put it on and wouldn't take it off.  However, when he started playing ping pong with it on he got warm and took it off.  Now he things the sweater is too warm and won't wear it.  I'm going to try to get him to wear it to Thanksgiving dinner, but I don't have high hopes :(

Sweater for Ethan

I made 3 baby sweaters years ago when I first started knitting, but they didn't turn out so well; the sleeves were too long and the waist was too short and one of the sweater's bottom edge curled up.

I'm going to try again.  I'm going to make a sweater for Ethan.  Here's a link to the pattern:

I got Drops alpaca light grey yarn.

 

There are two important things to take into account when knitting to a pattern: the pattern measurements and the knitting tension.  I have to make the correct # of stitches per inch, so the designs on the pattern and the shape of the pattern is correct.  I also have to make the sweater the right size for Ethan.

We'll see how I do.