More stitchin'

You know how I said that sometimes, it's not necessary to spend the extra money, and wait the extra time, for Spoonflower fabrics?

Well, sometimes it is.

This set is for my sister's birthday.

 Can you guess her name?

I'm safe posting these here because she never reads the blog (and I'm mailing them in a day or so anyway, because her birthday will come while we're in SoCal).

That is the 11th pair of Pitter Patters slippers I've made. I am so over the slippers. Unfortunately,I have one more pair to put together. Then I'm done with them. For real. And, for the time being, I'm done sewing. The machine is put away, and the rotary cutter stored, and all the pins picked up off the floor. At least until after we get back from California, and maybe not then either, because I have another trip shortly after that, and there won't be time for sewing.

But first, we have to get out of South Dakota. I've been watching the long-range weather forecasts, and so far, it looks like our departure date coincides with a window of mild (for here) weather. We'll keep our fingers crossed, because this is the view from my office. Those drifts are 4-7' deep. It's a whole lotta snow. A whole lotta snow that can, and will, move around if the wind comes up. It doesn't matter what the groundhog saw, spring isn't showing her face around here for a loooong time.

Stitchin' and remarkably little bitchin'

It got plenty cold here last night, but not as cold as was predicted. We didn't get to -30 (F, air temp), so I couldn't try the Magic Water Trick. But here's a sample, from Minnesota:



We only got to -24, which isn't cold enough. Darn.

Inside, where it's nice and warm, I've been sewing.

These are not Spoonflower fabrics, mostly because I didn't have time to design anything specific for this recipient, and also because there are lovely, commercially produced, coffee-themed fabrics, that cost far less than $16 per yard (I love Spoonflower dearly, but if there's no reason to wait 10 days and pay extra, then there's really no reason to wait 10 days and pay extra).

 I have to admit that the bloom is off the slipper rose- I'm fairly bored with sewing them. However, they are so adorable, and I do have a few more gift-pairs to sew. The little flat bag is a new notion- a sort of variation of the larger fabric box bag. I like how it came out.

 Just in case you couldn't see the print in the other pics- the light fabric is covered with Coffee Words, all in Courier, it looks like.

And I've been knitting. Here's the Noro Mitered Square hat.

This one might almost be masculine enough for a Guy. Maybe. What do you think?

At any rate, my cold is better, and my house is warm, and I'm enjoying this bit of time off, so I'm not complaining about much of anything today. I'd better enjoy that while it lasts.

Caramel Fail, Bag Win

So, I messed up a caramel recipe. Again. I found the picture of Chocolate Dipped Caramel Pecan Bars irresistible, so I tried them the other day.

The first step- the shortbreadish crust- went fine.

 The toasting of the pecans was hunky dory as well.

It was the *cook the sugar, syrup, and water until it changes color* that flummoxed me. The first time I tried a recipe like that (the salted caramels), I cooked too long and the caramels ended up like the Sugar  Daddy suckers of my youth (great flavor, but tooth breakers fer shure). So I watched this recipe very carefully, and as soon as I thought the mixture was *a light amber color*, I removed it from the heat, and added the cream.

 My light amber and their light amber were obviously different shades. The caramel didn't harden enough to stay put when the bars were sliced. We weren't able to cut them into triangle bars for chocolate dipping without the topping dripping off the piece. Instead, I just drizzled chocolate and salt over the rest of the pan. We're slicing and eating as we go, which is fine (this stuff is amazing!), but it's definitely not finger food. (Full disclosure: most of these high-carb things I'm making this year, are being given away. However, I do eat a little bit of each one... and I still can't run... I'm going to pay a price for all of this indulgence).

So recipe writers: please please please include a goal temperature for your sugar boiling stage. Or at least an amount of time for the boiling. This color matching thing is obviously not working for me.

However, this Old Port Carryall bag came out really really well. I did some quilting on the pocket,and I would have done more on the rest of the bag, but I ran out of the fancy schmancy matching quilting thread. So I went with quilted pockets only. I used wide double fold bias tape for all of the edging, rather than cut fabrics. That worked very well and looks good. However, my friend Cassie, from knitting, and I confabbed on the handle construction of this pattern, and we decided that we didn't like it (it's difficult to do, and looks awkward on the inside). So I just used fabric handles, sewn in place, covered with lampwork buttons.

The zipper pull of the little bag is another one of my lampworked beads. 

And the whole set came out perfectly!

I think I'm done with slippers for Christmas, but I might sew a few pairs for next year. The Big Tub 'O Knitted Things (which holds more than knitting) is just about empty.

Any Old Port in a storm

Note: Oops, I forgot it was Thursday. I'll post the Thursday Tab paper doll tomorrow. Sorry.

Remember the huge section of patchwork quilt top that I got at my friend Lorah's auction (the same one where I got the horse quilt)? Well, I decided to see how it would perform, cut up and sewn like regular fabric.

I'd say it performs just fine.

Inspired by my friend Mary, I bought a couple of old sheets at the Salvation Army store, and used one for the lining (though I didn't find any nice flowered sheets, just white and off-white- $1.50 for enough fabric to line 10 bags... not a bad bargain). This Old Port Carryall bag isn't quite as self-supporting as the first one I made from the Spoonflower What Knitting Needles? fabric, but that's because the outer shell isn't canvas. That said, it's sturdy, and pretty, and certainly practical. I especially like the bias pockets.

Speaking of Spoonflower (as I often do, these days)

My sample swatch of the primary colorway of the What Knitting Needles? camo fabric arrived. Once again, my reds turned into oranges.This looks fine, but it's not what I had in mind. I'm going to have to ask the Spoonflower folks for a formula for a red that prints true so I can use that in my designs. This fabric is available for ordering now, but be aware that the reds that show on the file won't print out red.

What knitting needles bag?

In anticipation of the delivery of the What Knitting Needles? fabric from Spoonflower, I ordered the Aunties Two Old Port Carryall bag pattern, along with some other patterns, from  Keepsake Quilting (who delivered my order in pretty much record time).

I had to take the Fearless Fair Isle galley proofs to the FedEx office in Aberdeen yesterday, so I ran a few errands while I was up there, including picking out a lining fabric for the knitting camo (I could easily have designed and ordered coordinating quilting weight cotton fabric from Spoonflower, but that would have taken another 2 weeks for delivery, and though I am batty about Spoonflower, I am not so batty that I want to use $18 @ yard fabric as lining). I found this fantastic stripe which is part of the Sedona collection, by Laura Berringer, for Marcus Brothers, at the quilting/fabric/sewing machine store. It doesn't have all of the camo colors in it, but it matches well enough.

It's a little brighter in tone than the camo, but overall, is an excellent match.

I didn't take pictures of the bag construction, because those processes belong to the pattern instructions, but it was an interesting project- fiddly, and certainly not a quick-sew (it took me all afternoon and most of the evening and one broken needle, to assemble the bag, ). And since I used fabrics and batting (instructions for that method included), rather than pre-quilted fabric, it took even longer- not to mention that the canvas twill camo is heavy, making assembly an even slower process. But...

It's beautiful, no?

The bag is quite sturdy- it stands up without support, and is about 15" x 13", with 4 nice deep outer pockets (it was supposed to have inside pockets as well, but I didn't want to have to sew through all that extra bulk).

The handle construction is interesting (cotton cord inside a cloth tube, though I used several pieces of clothesline because I couldn't find the right size of cotton cord), and I'm not entirely sure that I attached them to the bag correctly (there was handsewing involved). Another photo or two of that step would have been helpful in the pattern. But overall, the bag went together very well, and I am extremely happy with it.

It's fully lined, with no raw edges showing inside or out. BTW- the matchy matchy striping there was purely accidental. The other side didn't line up at all.

And it's about 5" wide, which means there is plenty of room for whatever knitting project I want to carry.

And I made it.