Completed project: roman shade

I have finally, after 8 months, completed the second (and last) roman shade for our dining room. As mentioned before, I am really, really horrible about finishing projects. This project was especially bad because the construction of the first shade did not go smoothly. I bought the wrong amount of fabric so the construction of the second shade went even worse - I had to buy more fabric and piece it together to make the second shade. Ugh! I don't think I will ever learn the measure twice, cut once rule. Somewhere between finishing the two shades I spent time scouring the web and every hardware/window treatment/craft store in town to find a cord anchor that 1)was small enough to fit in the window frame and 2)wasn't plastic. I finally found them at The Brass Handle in Edina for something like $2.

Chemo caps

Mini has organized a chemo cap drive for the Children's Hospital in Boston. I think it is such a sweet thing to do! Visit her blog if you are interested in signing up. The hats are very simple to make. The pattern says it takes about an hour. I'm a slow knitter, it took me about 2.5 hours. Oh well, it was time well spent!! Here's the first out of four:

Completed project: garlands

I finally got around to making some garlands after being inspired by the Ga-Ga for Garlands flickr group months ago. I made the Valentine's one yesterday and it was so cute that I went on to make the St Paddy's day one today. I'm supposed to be working on completing a cat tree and a roman shade today... but I figure I have the day off from work, I should be able to squander it however I want. Right?




Both garlands are just under 34 inches long with a few extra inches of bias tape on each end. They'll fit a standard size window or door.

The garlands are super simple to make. I used 1/4 inch double-fold bias tape and the equilateral triangles - 18 of them for each garland - are cut from 4 inch strips of fabric (using the 60 degree line on my ruler). Just place 2 triangles right sides together and stitch 2 sides of the triangles using a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Clip the points and turn right side out. Iron and then stay-stitch the triangles together, overlapping each triangle about 1/8 inch, along the the raw-edged side using a 1/8 inch seam allowance. Stitch the bias tape on and you're done!

Completed project: baby hat II

I just finished knitting this baby hat for a relative's brand new baby boy:



I used this great pattern. I substituted a knot on top for the curly-cue thing. The knot helps hide some of my boo-boos in those last few rounds of decreases.

CardBoy

I just finished constructing a CardBoy. I found a link to the pattern on the always inspiring Rag & Bone blog. He is super cute, and not too hard to put together. The eye and date panels were a little tricky, be sure to use a super-sharp exacto knife to cut them out and think about using a tiny hole punch to get nice round corners. Enjoy :)

Update: Sewing DISASTER

I figured out how to correctly adjust the tension while quilting with my Bernina 830 - the bobbin thread needs to be threaded through a hole in the arm of the bobbin casing to adjust the bottom tension. I tried this and it works much, MUCH better. So the problem was not with my sewing machine, but instead my lack of knowledge. I would still recommend getting a Bernina 830 over any other model of sewing machine. Happy sewing everybody!

WIP: Anastasia socks

Here's one of the Anastasia socks after 3 episodes of the Sopranos. Some people measure time spent knitting in hours, I measure it in TV shows. You should notice that I didn't get very far. Although it's not a terribly complicated pattern it was apparently too complicated for me to get right the first three times I tried it. BUT I am now on row 16 of the pattern and things are looking good. Well, the pattern is looking good AND it is fitting, but I'm not so sure about the weird pooling/striping of the yarn. Oh well... I'm sure it will grow on me.

Anastasia socks

I decided to start the new year by knitting a new pattern - Anastasia socks. This is obviously only the beginning, I haven't even gotten to the eyelet part of the pattern yet. I'm very happy with how the yarn is knitting up so far, but I'm afraid that there may be some pooling once I get past the toes. I modified the pattern a tiny bit. The pattern called for a 2.25mm needle with 60 stitches, I'm using a 2.75mm needle with 64 stitches. I *think* this will fit me, unless the eyelets add a gigantic amount of stretch to the finished sock... the ugly anklet socks I knit were 68 stitches on a 2.75mm needle and they fit perfectly.