Caleb Liam - First Completed Quilt!

It's been over a year.  If you've been following this blog at all, you've probably been wondering what happened to The Quilt I made for the new baby.  Well, here it is.

Quilting had been seriously difficult.  Seriously.  I tried to machine quilt in stipple, and ripped it all out.  I tried long arm quilting at the local store, and never really got a chance to try, and finally gave up.  Then, after another few months, I finally decided to give in-the-ditch a try on a sampler hot-pad from stash fabrics.  I gave in a cheater binding, took a deep breath, and began on the quilt.

Over a month later, I finally had the result.  I quilted on my home machine in-the-ditch for most of it, and then made a quick triangle-like pattern for the linking blocks that I repeated in the border.

The quilting ended up being a little bunchy on the edges, but a friend let me use her basting spray for the borders, which I understand is cheating, but it made such a huge difference and I absolutely mean to use it next time!  Besides, it was my first quilt, and instead of ripping it out for the third time, I decided to let it go!


I wasn't sure what to do about the label for a long time, since there are 3 other kids in this generation that I'm making quilts for, in order to catch up for all the new babies, and I wanted to include true birth dates, but also dates of completion.  I eventually decided on the design you can see below, which had the added benefit of fitting on scraps of Jelly-Roll strips.

I also used Jelly-Roll Scraps to make a scrappy binding, and I love that!

Anyway, let me know what you think!  And I can't wait to give this to the little one!

Baby Slippers (& Headband)

 Last week, I posted about the slippers I made for my lovely roommate when we first moved in.  Well, it's been almost two years since then, and right about now that lovely lady will be giving birth to her first baby, a little girl, and I can't wait to welcome her into the world.

Right now, Cindy lives quite far away, so I wanted to present her with something that would ship well, but also show love.  And then it hit me.

Of course.  Slippers!

After much deliberation, I decided on a baby-slipper crochet pattern that was vaguely similar to the one I had made for Momma two years before, and whipped it up so I could get it out in the mail.

But they were so tiny.  And small.  It needed something more.

After some more searching, I found a headband pattern that matched (enough).  After swapping out the flowers so they all matched, I packaged them up to ship off to the lovely new gal!

I hope she likes them!  And I hope they fit!  Everything always seems smaller than it should be when I make baby sizes...

Ravelry Project: Booties
Ravelry Project: Headband

Soft Slippers

Almost two year ago, now, when I moved in to my apartment in the heart of the Inner-City for the last bit of my formal education, my roommate and I began a great relationship.  We had known each other casually before moving in, and had a mutual friend who was to take the third bedroom, but she bailed, and we began a semester where we had far too much space, far too many police calls, and outrageous heat bills, and lots of fun.

That first week, when we were settling in and waiting for the real work to start, I was (as I am now) trying to use up my yarn stash.  I had recently completed all of my bridesmaids shawls, wasn't sure yet what to make for everyone else, and saw a cute slipper pattern on ravelry, so I whipped up a pair for Cindy.

Originally, I had intended to make one for myself as well, but life soon got in the way, and I worked furiously on other projects for the wedding, and never quite got back around to it.

The other day, I asked Cindy to snap me a few pictures of the slippers, which she gladly did, and I decided to post about them.  Don't worry, you'll understand the sudden relevance next week!

Ravelry Project

Linen Skirt

Unfinished Skirt at Stitches

This skirt is not actually made out of Linen yarn, nor does it use the Linen stitch, but it feels like Linen to me, and I like the name and texture, so it stuck.

I started this skirt back in October, after I got some yarn from Nicole in exchange for dog-sitting.  Following the Carnaby Skirt pattern, which is gorgeous, and I had been looking for an excuse to make a similar skirt, and here was this lovely yarn!

I added 4 stitches to the skirt to increase the length by one box-stitch repeat, and did 17 repeats of the pleats, but when I blocked it, it ended up being 6-8 inches too long around the waist.

I tried to fix this by only attaching one button, hoping that it would curve out and work well.  It didn't, but I wore it to the second day of Stitches WEST anyway, because I could, but never wore it again.

Until recently!

With the advice I got from my SnB-ers at Stitches, I decided to add some extra single-crochet rounds to the top to make it fit better.  The pattern had already called for two, so on going back, I started with the third, in which I did a single-crochet-2-together stitch in the center of each pleat.

I followed this with another single-crochet only band.  Then, on the next row, I did a single-crochet-2-together at each end, and also did a chain-1 and skipped a stitch to make an extra button-hole.  Ending on another single-crochet only band, I added the buttons, and I absolutely love the result.  Fits beautifully!

Ravelry Project