2013 Crafting Album

I've been really bad about documenting any of my crafting for the last year. I'm trying to get better about it again because I've found it useful to be able to look back sometimes. Hopefully, things are settling into a rhythm where I can update again more frequently. I've got about 4 or 5 posts in my head that I want to do. We'll see. Anyway, here's the highlights of 2013.

January

Bamboo newborn sweater and booties for a friend's baby shower. Both patterns (Ruby Slippers and Matinee Jacket - my favorite girl sweater pattern) are in Vintage Knits for Modern Babies by Hadley Fierlinger.

February

 Stone carving class at the February Regional Waldorf Teacher's Conference at Shining Mountain School in Boulder. (It's an owl.)

March

 A baby quilt for Clarity, my first experience with crazy quilt foundation piecing on muslin and with free motion machine quilting

 During the worrying about Clarity time I knit this headband, a knit hat, and two pairs of booties. (Which she eventually wore a couple months later)

  

 

 Baby sweater and stuffed alligator (upcycled from an old sweater) for our newest nephew, born in April.

Hopefully, I'll get the sweater pattern posted at some point.

April

April was the month with no projects that needed to be made so I just used up leftovers.

 Modern Baby Bonnet from the Vintage Knits book (leftovers from the baby sweater)

Vintage Pixie Hat and Matinee Jacket (sized up to a 2/3T) from, you guessed it, Vintage Knits for Modern Babies. (sport weight Lamb's Pride Superwash left from Quentin's sweater)

May through August - busy having baby

September

Quick knit on the drive up to Mitchell, NE and back one day with Mom and the girls to go to the Brown Sheep Fiber Festival. It has turned out to be Willow's favorite hat and I've made several more to sell with leftover bulky yarns.

October

I quickly made a whole bunch of things in October for the annual boutique (1st weekend of November) because Mom had been worried that she didn't have enough stuff made. Apparently, she had spent the last four months watching her dear granddaughters as a help to their mother. :)

 The ubiquitous Matinee Jacket

Upcycling wool sweaters to make dragons!

November

First foray into doll making. Mom started commissioning me to make these little bunting babies for the extra large quiet books she makes.

.December

Clarity's stocking

Willow's 18" dressing doll, Josie

Willow slippers (upcycled sweater and pre-made sheepskin/suede soles)

Dad's handmade journal

Hat and cuddle doll for cousin Emmett (Wil had to model the hat.)

Cloth storage bins for Andy and Aimee (with some canned goods)

Knit shawl for Aunt Debbie (Q made the shawl pin and I'll post the pattern soon)

Graduation Presents

For my students' 8th grade graduation, I bound a book for each of them and Q turned a pen for each of them and we made a set for me as well. I, of course, was a little distracted when they were finished and didn't take pictures before giving them away. I wanted to document them though so here's my book.

I knew I wanted to use elastic to keep it closed but Q came up with the ingenious solution. I cut a small slit at either side of the binding, about a quarter of the way down, and used my loop turner to pull a piece of elastic through. (The elastic was cut slightly smaller than the book's circumference.) I lapped the ends and hand-stitched them together then tugged the elastic until the seam was hidden in the binding. The biggest trick was making sure there wasn't a twist in the loop before I sewed it.

Most of the book was blank pages (8 sheets of printer paper folded in half per signature) but the last half of the last signature had a picture of the class followed by a short story, "Call Me Chicken" by Joseph Tauer. Getting those formatted so the half sheets printed on the right part of each page to provide the correct order when they were folded in half was quite challenging for my spatial skills.

Here are the other four paper patterns. I made two of each color for a total of ten books.

Q found the "Vertex" pen kit and we chose it because it was a fountain pen, had a weighty feel to it, looked cool, and has a magnetic cap. He turned the kids' pens out of black walnut scraps that we already had but he made mine out of curly leaf mahogany, since I thought it was pretty in the store. :)

He also added a neat little stripe detail at each end of mine.

Madly talented, isn't he?

The students really seemed to like the books and they didn't even fight over who got what color, so it was a complete success.

Been a while...

Hello to anyone who checks this blog. It's been a while since I posted - first Christmas came and then that was shortly followed by morning sickness. I'm pregnant! I'm now at 11 weeks (due date is August 28) and so far I've been exhausted and nauseous for most of the time, leaving little inspiration for blogging. I think I may finally be turning the corner, so, here's hoping.

Below is a little photo tour of the last couple of months. :)

Reversible knit earflap hat for my 6 month old nephew

Pajama pants for the same nephew (I still need to get a pic of Q in the shirt I made him using the robot fabric as accents. I had to make him something with it, since the robot fabric was originally bought for him!)

Handmade journal for my dad. This was the second book I've ever made. It's also the first one I made using fabric for the cover. (Note: Be careful to not stretch the fabric at all when you're gluing it to the davey board because it will shrink as it dries. I think it's only noticeable enough on this book to bother other bookbinders and me though.)

Binky in a box on Christmas Day

Marbles asserting his bossy, brazen kittenness. None of our cats are normal but he's the weirdest yet.

I made egg drop soup for the first time (before morning sickness hit) and it turned out really well.

Bookbinding

After learning to do Japanese stab binding with the class this year the handwork teacher (also a parent in the class) and I decided it would be really neat to step it up next year and do hardcover binding using signatures so the books could open up flat and have flexible spines. The woman who worked with us at school, the super talented Annah James agreed to host a class over the summer and I spent two 2 1/2 hour sessions last week learning this new technique. I gave the book I made to Q and we're probably going to add a leather strap to close it. I'm very happy with how it turned out and have a lot of ideas of what I want to do when I make another one.

I didn't really mean to make a book quite this thick. Next time I want to add a more elaborate stitch pattern on the binding too.

The signatures (groups of paper all folded together) mostly white and cream with a few sheets of black, gold, red, and silver interspersed. Q sometimes uses a white art pencil for sketching and it will look really good on the other colors.