hmmm...

see that wreath pic i posted down there? yea, it's sideways...i do not have vertical blinds on my front door, and that's how i figured it out. oh well, still pretty, i think.

i have (again) decided to stop reading the newspaper (i read on-line) and listening to local news. i know that bad things happen every day, but once i've read them or heard them and those nuggets of information have entered the curlicues of my brain, i cannot un-read or un-hear them. i'm not in denial, really, i just want to surround myself with positivity and it's far too easy to get mired down in the negative.

instead i am working hard in the studio on some felted composition book covers, pink and green christmas ornaments for my silver tinsel tree and knitting this shawl. it will be 2011 before i am finished, but i am using it as reward knitting...when all of my other chores are complete i knit one repeat (about an hour for the twelve rows).

happy monday, my sweeties!

felt wreath...

excuse the washed out photo, folks. this is the result of the end of daylight savings time, leaving for work when it is still dark and getting home at sunset -- no good picture-taking light.

also, the wreath is a little smooshed from being sandwiched between the storm door and front door all night. imagine it a little more fluffed and it will be more accurate.

this was easy to make and only took about an hour. i used felt scraps that were already just lying on my cutting table.

i love it and now i want to make a million of them in every color in the rainbow...not like all of the colors of the rainbow in one...like this one.

happy tuesday, party people!

giving thanks...

early in october i set up my wares at a locally owned, fabulous store called recycled rose. the owner, sue, sells a super eclectic mix of handmades, antiques, florals and gifts. you name it -- she's got it.

in anticipation of the show, i had just finished a blanket made up of felted wool squares. it had an asymmetrical gees bend kind of feel. i loved it and hoped that someone else would too. turns out someone did...but not in the green colorway i had chosen. the admirer of the blanket asked if i did custom work and as i am always wont to do in those situations, i said, "yes."

truth be told, i don't really love doing commissions. normally, i work if/when the spirit moves me, on items that speak to me at any given moment (that's the beauty of also having a 9-to-5). commissions can feel like a homework assignment. this commission was especially weighted, too, because the sweaters my "benefactor" wanted me to use were her husband's...her husband who was deceased...and they were all 100% cashmere. she was very excited about the prospect of having a blanket using these otherwise unused sweaters. she came to my house the very next day and dropped them off. we decided to mix in a few of her sweaters too. i got very excited too, seeing how much this would mean to her.

then this happened...you know that saying, "life is what happens while you're busy making other plans?" yea, that was the universe's very thinly veiled message, "slow down, wallace family and spend time with each other."

but i did finish up the "quilt" last week and delivered it on tuesday. as i drove to drop it off i got more and more nervous. these were some seriously meaningful sweaters i just cut into a million pieces. was she going to like it? was it going to live up to the expectations she had?

i walked into her office and unwrapped the blanket and held it out for her to inspect. as her expression, she wore a truly beatic smile. it was a success. she said she was so glad to have the blanket for thanksgiving. we hugged.

i hope you had a blanket of love this thanksgiving...in more ways than one.

beaker bag instructions...

beaker bag

supplies

small amount of malabrigo worsted weight for contrasting color (cc) (reserve about 2 yards of this color for sewing together the bottom of the bag)

one skein of malabrigo worsted weight for main color (mc)

size 11, 24” circular needle

tapestry needle

scissors

gauge

not really important as this bag is felted/fulled…this is a “let go and let it be” project. go with the flow, knitter!

abbreviations

bo - bind off
cc - contrasting color
co - cast on
dec - decrease
dec rd- decrease round
k - knit
k2tog - knit two together
mc - main color
pm - place marker
rd - round
sm - slip marker
sts - stitches

directions

body of bag (knit from bottom edge up)
co 110 sts with cc. join for working in the round being careful not to twist stitches. pm for beginning of rd. k55 and pm to denote middle of rd. k every rd until piece measures 3” from co edge.

change to mc, and k every rd until piece measures 5” from co edge.

decrease round – on next rd dec as follows: k1, k2tog, k to 3 sts before next marker, k2tog, k1, sm, k1, k2tog, k to 3 sts before marker for beginning of rd, k2tog, k1. 4 sts decreased (106 sts). k 3 rds even. repeat dec rd and following 3 rds of straight knitting 8 times until you have 74 sts left.

k until piece measures 12.5” from co edge.

handle
on next rd, k10, bo17, k10, sm, k10, bo17, k10, sm; next rd – k10, co 17 using backwards loop method, k10, sm, k10, co17 using backwards loop method, k10.

finishing
knit above handle opening for 3”. bo all stitches. sew in ends using tapestry needle. turn bag inside out; with cc yarn sew bottom of bag using mattress stitch or whip stitch.

felting/fulling
i have really good results in my washing machine using dawn dishwashing liquid. i use the lowest water setting and a hot water wash cycle with a cold water rinse cycle. some suggest not letting your machine spin when felting. i always let the machine spin and i also put most of my felted items in the dryer. this purse, however, will dry very well flat on a dry towel.

here is a picture of the bag before felting:

see that little bit of orange at the very top of the handle? that's where i ran out of the main color of the malabrigo, got too lazy to rip out the last two rows so i could have enough to cast off with, couldn't find yarn harlot's instructions for binding off without using any yarn and decided to use some of this yarn instead. of course i knew that it would felt at a different rate than the malabrigo. it ended up okay...not great, but okay. i felted the bag twice so it's extra dense. (there's a joke in there somewhere...ya know, all, "i like my felted bags like i like my men -- dense")

please note, these instructions have been knit ONE time...not test knit by anyone other than myself, and i may not have the nomenclature or abbreviations down, although i do think a medium/beginning knitter could figure them out. please e-mail me using the button above if you want these instructions in a Word document. and let me know if you make this bag...and please send pics that i will post.

have a great weekend, wool-ites!

harder than it looks...

instead of doing all the things i was supposed to do this weekend, i decided i was going to try my hand at writing a knitting pattern. i started with something simple...a fulled (aka felted) handbag. fulling hides a multitude of sins so i figured if there were any mistakes they wouldn't be too noticeable. also, i used malabrigo worsted weight yarn in two colors leftover from the wrist warmers. that yarn is so fabulous that nothing made out of it can ever turn out badly.

last night i finished everything but the casting off and sewing up. once the bag is done i'll take pictures (before and after fulling), double check my math and post the instructions.

this bag is in a shape i haven't seen before (in my limited experience) and it's a cross between the much loved buttonhole bag and the stripey bag from one skein.

of course, in the name of full disclosure, if the finished product is a bust, i'll post that too.

and the winner is...

kim! the prize is still yet to be determined, but knowing her like i do, i think it will have to incorporate the colors purple and green and have a flower-y theme.

thanks to everyone who played!

double plus good..

what's better than discovering a pattern you've lusted in your heart for for over half a decade exists?

well, i'll tell you...buying the $16.95 pattern for one single, solitary dollar.

priceless.

w.b.w.

you know when you have so much you want to tell your best friend and the words get all jumbled up in your mouth in the telling and your friend has no idea what you're talking about and your hands are wildly gesturing and eyes are blink, blink, blinking and your cheeks are flushed? that's how i feel right now.

i found a dress a day. i've been reading erin's archives with relish and clapping my hands gleefully under my chin like a little girl with each entry. did i mention that she's also a lexicographer?

oh. my. gosh. next to vintage dress patterns i have almost that many dictionairies. i heart dictionairies with a crazy passion. oh, and dress patterns. so the two of them combined is like a weird nerdy girl swoony cocktail of happiness.

and then she put me right over the edge...

she posted this pattern for which i have been searching for the vintage precursor to for years. i wish i was exaggerating, but i. am. not. it all started with a now defunct website where "members" posted pics and project notes of their sewing projects. somebody made the vintage version of this wrap dress and i became obsessed. now, thanks to erin (we're on a first name basis, doncha know?) i learned that butterick reissued the pattern.

i can hear you now, "why, heidi, did you not know that this pattern was reissued? don't you go to the fabric store more than your husband actually knows about?" oh, dear reader, your question is so wise, but you must understand...i don't troll the pattern books, because most modern patterns leave me cold. even though a photograph on the pattern envelope might give me a better understanding of the fit and ease of a given pattern, i don't get weak in the knees looking at a photo...give me a drawing (ala the above pattern) any day and i'll buy your pattern right out from under you.

so, one guess as to what i'm going to be doing this weekend? looks like my to-do list just got a little bit longer.

five year old me...

halloween 1970...5 year old heidi and her award winning, albeit moldy, kindergarten pumpkin. my mom made that clown costume. my sister becky's is matching, but in green.

i wish i knew who or what i had my eye on...

sock-ettes...

it seems oxymoronish to call these sockettes when they measure nearly twelve inches long, but "men's peds" doesn't seem quite right either.


i made these for nathaniel with 1-1/4 skeins of regia sock yarn on size 1 double pointed needles. i'm sure for folks with feet of normal size (smaller than a man's size 12) it would have taken just one skein.



i used a pattern from this 1950s vintage pattern book, gifted to me from the wonderful lesley (who, by the by, needs to get on the bandwagon and start a blog)!


the pattern was so easy, and worked up so quickly, i've already started on a second pair, in a different colorway of regia. hopefully his feet will not grow to a size 13 before i'm done.

finally...

after making one scarf i decided i was ready for socks.

i got this book. i bought the recommended yarn at a now defunct local yarn store (LYS) and tried the simplest pattern in the book. i cast on no less than eleven times because i didn't yet understand how to knit in the round. but besides that, wow! that pattern was hard; a lot of knit two purl one-ing was going on and i gave up.

then i saw this post and fell in love with the yarn and dear miss alicia said she had made them using a pattern from a martha stewart magazine. but i already had the blue yarn from the cast off (pun intended) vogue socks so i made the ones from the martha stewart mag with the blue. and, never being one to take a hint, i decided to try the vogue pattern again with the new neopolitan yarn. either i was daft or that pattern is poorly written, but i ripped out the entire thing -- even after i turned the heel. cast on with the neopolitan yarn for the martha pattern, finished one sock and then took about eleventy billion years to even cast on for the second one. when i did, this happened. i thought maybe it was a sign. i thought maybe these socks were never meant to be. but i perservered and now look...

the first sock probably took two weeks to knit. the second one took less than a week. but all together it took me almost a year to knit this one measly pair of luscious socks.

and in my copious amounts of free time, i made this for my honey. please welcome "lovebot 86."

whoa nelly...

my co-worker is out on maternity leave for the next six to eight weeks so the number of folks i assist has gone from two to four and a half (someone doesn't need much assisting...they're not 1/2 a person). so my work week has gone from a relatively laid back 40 hours to a whopping 55-60 hours. cuts way down on crafting time...not to mention, cooking, cleaning, sleeping, spending time with family and friends time.

but this weekend i did manage to make it into two of the stores where i sell my wares on consignment. i dropped off a dozen tissue holders and two junk bracelets (think cracker jack prize meets vintage sparkle meets jingle jangle bling) to recycled rose in kirkwood. and then i dropped off ten sets of my fabric cards to subterranean books in university city.

it's an odd feeling turning over your goods to semi-strangers and asking them to care for them and sell them. it's a feeling i can get used to though, as i'm not so good at self-promotion. both of these consignment opportunities came to me through friends who gave me an in and to both of them i'm mighty grateful.

it made me think about a lot of the cliches attached to success...

1) success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration....

2) it's not what you know, it's who you know...

3) you need to be in the right place at the right time...

4) the squeaky wheel gets the grease...

i've worked hard, on and off, at making a go of selling my art, and when it comes right down to it, i like the act of creating a whole helluva lot more than i do selling. i'm pretty much a hermit at heart. although to the outsider, i seem at ease with myself and can speak relatively calmly to most people i meet without sounding like a total moron, inside, i am a blubbering mess. so the interactive part of selling can get me in a real tizzy. i think there are a lot of art patrons that enjoy the interaction with the artist almost as much as they enjoy the art itself. so i don't have the chance to make a connection with those buyers. i do tend to sell more to people who know me or who are at least acquainted with me; i suppose i am missing that boat in a consignment setting, but it's a trade-off i'm willing to make for my mental health.

i ran into a fellow artist at a bead store last week and she asked me if i sold a lot of stuff from my blog. the answer was simple, "nope, never, not once." i've posted pics here and not ever had a nibble. i even made a sister blog that was just about the selling of the stuff and didn't sell one thing. i don't know why. i don't even have a guess. i suppose i could try one of the on-line artist shops for selling. it all seems like a tremendous amount of work (the pictures, the posting, the e-mails with the potential buyers, working out the payments, the packing, the shipping, the waiting to see if the item arrived safely and meets the buyers every expectation, dealing with the returns if the item is not what they expected...on and on..and on). ugh...it could give the queen an ulcer already.

i mean, it all seems entirely overwhelming and i think it would even if i didn't also have a semi-stressful full-time day job.

so i continue to create and make and give and ponder what it all means (i do that quite often, in case you haven't noticed). perhaps all it means is that i have to embrace my own limitations. maybe it means that i am meant to create in obscurity until my death when my son will unearth my trove and unleash them on the world to great acclaim. but most likely what it means is that i will keep on putting time into making treasured items one precious stitch, bead, tiny glued piece of paper at a time and share them with the people i love the most.

slippery...

ice on the holly tree...january 13, 2007

i took a trip to garden ridge last night to purchase some baskets to house my ever-growing yarn stash. the baskets were buy one, get one 50% off. so, of course, i got two. i never imagined that there would be enough yarn to fill both of the baskets. and of course, there was yarn enough and a few skeins on the side.

it's a dangerous thing letting your spouse actually see the yarn that has amassed in your stash. i could see kelly scanning the situation and mentally noting that both baskets were full. i suspected that his mind was already working on processing that fact. in a bold, decisive, preemptive move, i stated, "i'm not going to buy anymore yarn until some of this is used up."

now some may say that my declaration was asinine...there's no way i can go on a yarn diet until a project is finished. but i beg to differ. i can do anything that i put my mind to.* so to help me accomplish my goal, i arranged the baskets in order of project to begin next.

i put the purple sweater that will never end on the top of one of the baskets so as soon as i finish my legwarmers that will never end (can i say how much i hate knit 1, purl 1 rib? it really slows down my already turtle-like pace!) i will take up the purple sweater and get it off the needles for good. then there are the neopolitan socks that i really do want to wear before the weather gets warm again. how hard can one sock be to finish? one is already completely done! then there is the yarn for many, many felted bags and those always work up so easily and use up so much yarn. one of the baskets is bound to be empty by the end of february, right?

but here is the conundrum...this weekend i will be spending quite a bit of time in the car. i can get a lot of knitting done in the car. with some straight lite up needles i could knit in the car at night. problem is, all the yarn i have is for projects that are worked on circular needles. you see where i'm heading right? do i get a head lamp and work on one of the existing projects on circular needles or do i get a bit of yarn and lite up needles to work in the car at night?

i imagine kelly reading this post right now...he is asking the computer screen why i can't just nap in the car like "normal" people.

*kelly and i had been married for about a year. i wanted to start a family, but kelly was concerned about expenses and how we'd be able to afford another mouth to feed. he told me if we could save up $2,000 that we could start our family. at the time i was working at a department store making a little bit more than minimum wage. i also got a hefty discount. i'm sure kelly thought that the challenge would be more than i could achieve given the fact that i often left work with purchases. oh, but he was wrong. a little less than 6 months later i had managed to squirrel away more than the $2,000. never say i cannot rise to the occasion.

a spark of creativity...

fabric cards...vintage and new fabrics.

jumping the gun...

when you're trying to have a baby, one of the worst things you can do is TELL people you are trying to have a baby. i believe it actually works against you, the telling, as all the folks kindly, but persistently asking you every other day if you've conceived, is enough to put you off feeling frisky ever again. not to mention the stress and the pressure ("s & p"). oh, the s & p!

then, once you have a bun in the oven, the worst thing you can do is tell people too soon that you are expecting...we all know what risks this scenario can bring. more s & p.

so when i wrote to you dear readers on friday that my weekend would be jam-packed with creativity and the production of fine handmade items, it was tantamount to telling you i was trying to conceive and then that i had very recently conceived. lots of s & p.

there WAS a great gathering of ideas, supplies and a general cleaning up of the creative space.

there WAS the creation of a fab desk calendar here with this great gal after a breakfast here (are we the last two st. louis residents to frequent this restaurant? because it was crowded with all manner of slipper-clad, pajama-pant-wearing, suspiciously uncombed diners who seemed to think that this particular breakfast food was a cure for whatever had happened to them the evening before).

there WAS a steak dinner and last minute christmas shopping (we still have not visited all the family my side of the wallace clan has to offer!)

there WAS a brief visit to see my gram while she recuperates from some nasty knee surgery.

i DID make some homemade donuts.

and...i made two sets of fabric cards. it's like saying i'm a little bit pregnant.

bitten...

the creativity bug has bit me hard and it's like there's a rash all over my body that needs to be scratched. when this happens i know that i should just call off work and stay home and get it out of my system, but that wasn't in the cards today.

instead, i filled my office bag with tear sheets from magazines and printouts from the internet in hopes that while my boss is at his business lunch, i will be able to get some ideas down on paper. when they're loose in my head, organizing the plan is all but impossible. concrete drawings and descriptions make the concepts feel real and doable to me.

i'm thinking in spring colors now -- jewel tones are so 5 minutes ago. i've seen some fabulous things that have planted a seed in my imagination and the germination is about complete. hopefully on monday i'll have a few new things to share.

of course, there will be more of the oldies but goodies. fabric cards will be back as will more brooches (with an added bit of pizazz). and i've set a goal for myself to create at least three new purses (knit and/or recycled felt) each weekend (the embellishments are going to be even bigger and better). and, i'm seriously thinking about jewelry again. i know, i know...that's a big list. but when the wave hits you, you have no choice but to grab your surfboard and ride straight onto shore. hopefully, you'll swim out again and catch another sweet curl. (are you tired of the surfing analogy yet?)

anyway...

if you're one of the folks patiently waiting for a brooch from me (hi, angelica and kim), chances are your patience will finally pay off this weekend.