Knit = Machine enemy

Last night while I was sitting at my sewing machine contemplating why it hates Knit material sew much, I thought I should start logging the music I listen to. Yes, that was one of those thoughts that came out of the blue. I don't pick music to sew to, I pick music to fit my moods. Last nights playlist
Pentaphobe- Sawdust
Queen of the Damned Soundtrack I'm not sure if I have the explicit version or what. I bought the soundtrack like within months of the movie coming out.
12 Tales-Various Artists



It never fails, my machine just can not stand anything that has more than a slight stretch to it, especially knits. It's okay with some of the cotton fabrics that have a bit of give to it. I thought I was humming along nicely but low and behold, nope. I don't know how many times i've ripped thread out because of the HUGE gap of missed stitches. I pulled out the manual and read over it several times. I took all the suggestions, make sure using correct needle size for material, change needle to new and sharp, adjust top tension thread, adjust pressure foot, adjust bottom tension, check stitch width and so on. I've done all of those things and still skipping some serious stitches. I wanted to wear the shirt in public, like to work, but nope, not gonna happen. UGH! I should know all this, everytime, never fails, knit + my machine= knit fail. I think I might pull out the other machine and give it a go with knit and see how it reacts as well as making sure it works. I have yet to plug in the other machine and test it. Maybe it's not just my machine, maybe it's all the Sears Kenmores. I'm not going to do anything more with this shirt. It was a good practice run and I made a few more adjustments to my pattern, like lowering the neck about 1/2 inch and I need to lower the arm holes by a 1/4 to 1/2 inch as well, for just a smidge more room. I also need to widden the shoulder some, about 1/4 inch. I added a strip of gathered knit material to the front like a flounce, it'a about 4 inches wide. Next time I decide to do a shirt like this, which I will because I have several other knits I wanted to use, I will try to use my alien ruffler foot attachment.





How come it seems I use more material(i do) to make a copy of a shirt than the actual shirt? The other shirt fits me fine and it's not even a knit material, it's some kind of blend material cotton/polyester I think.




I've finished all the little pattern weights that I made. I can't wait to use them on my next project. I found a couple of my floral sew on embellishments and glued them to the top to give them a little more interest. They are very plain right now. 1 of those PW's has 6 ball bearings from a vehicle, well cleaned of course. The bearings I believed are called hub bearings, they are part of what keeps the wheels turning. Ask my hubby he's more technical when it comes to car talk. I know it, just not all the correct lingo, I just know what it does and where to find it, most of the time.




Here is a quick shot of how I reinforced the top edge of the tapestry that we have hanging on the wall. It's actually one of those printed throws, we decided to hang it up instead. I took it down to wash it and noticed that small holes were forming where it was tacked at. It's a relatively heavy piece to be hanging by a few tacks and i'm suprised that the holes weren't bigger because of it's own weight or the cats trying to climb it. I wished I had black felt but I didn't and I really didn't feel like trying to dye the felt so I left it as is, besides, it's on the back side. I cut the felt in 1 and half (1.5") inch strips and then sewed the strips end to end till I had a long enough piece to reach from one side to the other. I zigzagged stiched the top of the felt and the straight stitched the bottom of the felt. I have yet to hang it, i'm short. I need to pull the couch out and stand on the back of it or get the step chair which is taller and use that. I just don't want to pull the couch out but I probably should to do the cat toy round up.





I love Halloween. I have Halloween decorations that never get put up. I have skulls hanging around all over. LOL! I think Skelanimals are to darned cute! I saw this in the Halloween fabric section and just had to have a piece. I think i'm going to make a bag and a shirt using a hand drawn picture and applique techinque for Halloween. I also think I want some more of this fabric, as well as this totally awesome skull fabric that was there in the same section.

Done with Muslin shirt

I'm done, woot woot, i'm done! Deciding that I didn't want to take the shirt apart to make it my pattern and deciding to do another one with the other markings. I have 2 sets of markings on my shirt 1st draft copy, original lines and my thought I needed to make adjustment lines. The back is still a bit big around the neck area and I know how to fix that, a pleat instead of a dart. I used to have a shirt that had a pleat at the center of the back neck area. I added more pintucks as well as extended a few pintucks I already had to the front and then attempted a half arse dying in dark green, except I didn't use a lot of green or prepped the material before dying. Opps! so here is the shirt. Despite it's flaws, i'm okay with it, and I could even wear it in public and not feel to bad about it.







I cut out another of this same pattern but this time in a lovely lavendar jersey knit. This material is soft and airy, I think I wanna make the rest into a dress or nightgown. I have a pattern that I bought to make a shirt from but now I can't seem to find it. UGH!



I can't believe it, i've reached 100 posts. WOOHOO!

Slow Progress

Not sure what to write other than I HATE MY DEPRESSION! I hate the stress that occurs daily in my life and spend hours daydreaming about a vacation away from my husband and teenage daughter and sometimes the cats are also included in that daydream. Honestly, I prefer my kitties to my family right now.

I have not finished that apron. I had planned on finishing this 2 weekends ago, well it didn't happen and last weekend, same thing. I had plenty of time, just no mojo. Sigh, I think what has made it bad is that something just wasn't feeling right and made things just seem so off. I did get the pockets finished and they are ready to be sewn on. I also finished the straps and attached them as well as the ruffle. When I got ready to put the pockets on, that's when it really hit me that something just wasn't right. Somehow, and this probably happened because at the time I cut this out, freehand, I was using the carpeted floor as my table. I did not cut identical sides, one of the sides was about 3/4 inches off. I found this out when I finally folded it, after all that work too. I was just gonna forget about it and not bother to try and fix it but the more I looked at the more it said FIX ME! So I ripped out the edging in the area that need to be cut down and trimmed to match the other side, marked the new sewing line and that's as far as I've gotten. I think I may sit down tonight and get this done, might take me a whole 30 min to an hour to make the change sew it, reattach the edging and maybe change the strap so that's adjustable instead of one size fits all. Crossing fingers.

I was going to post a picture of the pockets by themself but it seems I haven't downloaded them and they are not on my camera, I must have accidentally deleted them, crap. I do have a couple of pics that kinda show the pockets.

This is my kitty Guinness, he loves getting up on my sewing table and hanging out when I get up to get something. Here he is holding down the apron when I was attaching the ruffle.


This is him holding down my handmade seem presser and in this pic you can see one of the pockets are done minus the strawberry button.


Here's his close up. He's spoiled rotten.


This photo shows the apron all sewn up except for the pockets. The pockets have their strawberry buttons attached and I was trying to place them. I'm sure you can see what I mean by the "OFFness" I was talking about in this pic.



Here is a little throw pillow that i've been meaning to make for a sometime now. I've had the pillow and the material but just didn't get around to it until about 2 weeks ago, just before all my mojo ran out the door and left me hanging with unfinished work. I've had this material for years, probably since the late 90's. It's a heavy knit and I still have probably about 4yds of it left, I think I bought like 5yds of it when I got it and it's 60 inches wide.
Front:

Back:


So this has been the extent of my creativity the last few weeks. I hang my head in shame because the ideas don't stop just my mojo. I have noticed that when I do manage to blog and complain that I haven't finished something it helps just a bit to tweek me some to get something done as long as it's not to complex. Complexity lately melts my brain into mush.

Pics of custom requested beanie

Here is a pic of the hat I made for the person mentioned in previous post. Now I just have to get it in the mail and send it out. Punxsutawney Phil said we had 6 more weeks of winter so I have time.

It's another hat

I finished another hat. YEAH! I used bulky cream colored chenille and some grey glittery fun fur. Since the fun fur stuff is kinda stiff and itchy, I didn't incorporate it into the whole hat, just the top portion and left the brim chenille soft. hehehehe!

Ice Princess Hat:



Close up:



another close up/sidish view:




Now that I'm done with the hat, I can start on a scarf or maybe that pillow i'm thinking about making or I could just do both at the same time, since it will be 2 different sized looms. I also want to learn to knit socks, but they seem very intimidating. I also want to learn how to do other stitches with the looms and perhaps even make my own. I picked up some double pointed knitting needles a couple days ago and some cute yarn and a couple of the free patterns that are hanging up. I picked up this one for crocheted fingerless mitts that is very cute that I want to attempt. Not sure what I want to do first, knit or crochet. I guess I could start them all and just work whichever one I want when I feel like it.

Vacation Creations

I have pics of the stuff I made over my Holiday/Vacation. Unfortunately one of the hats I made, I didn't get a pic of before I gave it away to my coworkers 1yr old daughter. I was going to get more of the yarn I used but Hobby Lobby was out. I hope they get some more in cause I want to do another hat in that color. It was originally going to be for my 5yr old niece but the hat just seemed to small. Since Hobby lobby didn't have the original yarn, I had to find something else.

Skinny tube scarf knitted on Kniffty knitter flower loom out of the yarn my daughter originally wanted to make a larger tube scarf from but we only had 1 skein and it was a Joanns exclusive yarn.



Close up:





Skinny scarf made for my 5yr old niece. This stuff is heavenly super soft and luckily for me I still have 2 skiens left to make something for myself.



Close up:



This is the hat that I made for my 5yr old niece with the new yarn. I like this yarn but I had to couple it with another yarn to make it a bit thicker. I coupled it with a very soft black yarn. If I had 2 skiens, I could have just doubled it. Might try that some other time. The yarn is very cool, I think.



With the brimmed rolled up:





Here is a large scarf/wrap that I made using another Hobby Lobby yarn called Chocolate Souffle. I used the red loom, wrapping 3 pegs and skipping one.



Close up:




I am on a friggin roll here with these Kniffty Knitter looms. I started another hat using white bulky chenille and this silvery grey fun fur stuff. I'm calling it Ice Princess. The brim of the hat has none of the fun fur because it would be itchy, so just the main part of the hat will have it. I didn't want to go to bed because I wanted to keep on knitting the hat. I have other color ideas for hats and scarves. I'm also going to attempt to make a pillow out of one of the pattern books I bought, I just need a pillow form to put it on.

I made a boucle pom-pom while showing my daughter how to make them and decided to turn it into a scarf pin or just a plain shirt pin with some wire and shiny plastic beads, we'll see how that goes.

Finished hat 3

I'm almost finished, I just have to tack the brim down so it doesn't unroll and I'll be done with that tonight. So here are the pics. I added a little loose pom pom on top and I actually like it a little bit better now. I think the pom pom on top sets it off nicely.

Side view:


Top view:


Close up:


I'm fixing to start on my skinny scarf now, YEAH!

Home for the Holidays

With Christmas and New Years just days away and my vacation starting tomorrow. WOOHOO!

I did start on hat #3 and I just have to finish it off and I'm done. Honestly, I don't like it. I thought the yarn would be pretty but nooooooooo. Don't get me wrong, the yarn is pretty just not for this project and it's to delicate to painstakingly take it apart. I have decided that i'm going to give it to my youngest brothers baby's mama. MUWAHAHAHAHA!

I bought more yarn, something even more fun than the yarn I had picked out for my 5yr old niece. I also pulled out this ohhhh so extremely soft yarn by phentex that I got from the Big Lots store for a buck that I'm going to turn into a skinny scarf. Sometimes I can find good yarn cheap there, like the bulky black chenille I made my 1st hat from. I also bought myself another kniffty knitter loom (flower loom) and a kniffty knitter loom project book. I had a few coupons so I took advantage of them.


I won't be back until after the holidays and I really hope I have more projects to share. It's been so long that I've actually made more than a few things and still desiring to make more. It feels good but I just don't seem to have enough time in a day. I will over the holidays because this year, sadly, won't be driving to see family. My car is not in any condition to make the 3hr drive and I really don't want to risk it and plus, don't have the funds for gas and stuff. So, we are going to have a belated christmas (income tax) gathering. LOL! I will be at MY home for the holidays this year instead of at family.

Hat #2

I finished hat #2 and will start on a 3rd this evening when I get home.

Progress pics






Finished hat

I finished, I finished!

I think i'm liking these Kniffty Knitter looms. I finished my chenille hat Sunday night and started on another one using Lion brands Wool-Ease thick and chunky yarn in Wheat which I may be done with tonight or by tomorrow atleast. I'm so glad I finished that hat cause a cold front came in overnight on sunday and the wind was whipping monday morning. My new hat kept my ears nice and warm. So without further ado and sorry for the late post with pics









I have another color ready to go for another hat. I think I'm going to make several and send then as christmas gifts to my family.

Kniffty Knitting

I have a couple of the Kniffty Knitter looms. My daughter was the one that wanted them and okay, so have I but they are a bit expensive for my budget. We bought the small so that my daughter could make scarves or leg warmers or even a baby hat. Her first project was a hat. Here you can see a pic of her cat Lira sporting said hat (HOOK'EM HORNS)


She started on a scarf for herself but unfortunately she chose a yarn from my collection that I only had one of and it's a Joann's fabric exclusive type yarn. I'm hoping that when I go to Joann's on saturday that they still carry this particular yarn cause I can't even find it on the net. If we can't find it, we may just have to take apart all the work that she's done and repurpose the yarn to another project.

Speaking of taking apart stuff. I decided that I wasn't real thrilled with #4 scarf so I took it apart and haven't decided if I'm going to restart with that yarn or do something entirely different with it. I decided that I really wanted to try out my new Kniffty knitter looms and attempt to make a hat. Ugh, unfortunately for me I don't have a lot of any one color which I need atleast 2-5(maybe even more) depending on the skein and the project. So I decide i'm definetly going to attempt this hat thing with thick black chenille. I'm going along just wonderfully and every now and then I hear this noise and I think it's one of the pegs because every time I hear it, it's right around this one peg. Low and behold, nope it was the thread BREAKING. I should know better about the strength of chenille. To much stress on the thread and it breaks. So here I am about a quarter of the way into the hat and fixing to finish up on the brim portion and I'm almost, so close, to finishing that part when SNAP I break the thread completely in 2. UGH! ! ! As I am taking apart the hours of work i've already spent, I find that the noise was broken threads and now have about half a dozen different lengths of chenille. Obviously my tension was way to tight so I start over using a lighter touch on the tension, so far so good. I might just be done with this hat by the end of the weekend, just in time for the weather to warm up into the 70's.

I've lost my energy

So I was really on this thing for making scarves. I have numerous color combos I want to do but I seem to have lost the UMPH to get them started or even finished for that matter. I'm working on #4 and have only done like 4 rows and I started it about a week ago. I need something, I just don't know exactly what it is. I'm tired of this funk. I'm tired of the whirlwind spurts of creativity that are gone as fast as they show up. I try to force myself to finish something when i'm not in the mood for it and I get frustrated over it, mess up or whatever. UGH!

Scarf Crazy

So I finished one scarf but not sharing pics cause it's a christmas present and if they saw it, they'd know it was for them. I don't want to spoil the surprise.

I have oddles of yarn, mostly the pain in the ass stuff to work with. I also have some red heart yarn that I've had for years. It's a lovely varigated color of purple and I bought it probably 10yrs or so ago and at that time only made a pair of slippers. I wanted to do a purple scarf and use the red heart yarn and came up with this.



It's definetly an interesting combination and I even added fringe. I was originally going to knit but the main purple boucle yarn (I think that's what it's called don't have the wrapper at the moment) didn't want to cooperate. I have a crochet hook that is a size 15.50mm, largest hook I have. I worked 2 strands of yarn in double crochet on this one. The only thing left to do on it, trim the fringe up.

After finishing up the varigated purple one, I was still on this purple kick. I have this extremely fuzzy fun fur stuff in purple with bits of silver reflections in it. I was going to pair it with a dark shade of purple chenille but it just wasn't working for me, the colors where way off. Instead, I paired this crazy furry yarn with 2 strands of thin black chenille instead. I had planned on knitting this as well but once again encountered the not wanting to cooperate syndrome. The yarn was way to fuzzy and kept catching and making it hard for the knots to slide. I figure, I'll crochet it with the big fat crochet hook. Worked out much better and atleast I can "see" with my fingers so I'd know where the next stitch went. I worked this one up in single crochet and added black chenille fringe to the end by pulling it through both corners of the ends of the scarf. I think my daughter will like it for it's fuzziness and that it's purple and black. It really is furry. The only thing left to do to this one is trim the fringe and lightly brush the fun fur up so it's even more furry.





This is the most creative I've been in a long time. I have other color schemes that I want to do. I've started now on #4 scarf using Chenille thick and quick prints with size 12.75mm (US 17)knitting needles. I normally use the 15mm (US 19)size knitting needles to make scarves with. I thought I'd try something different and a bit more challenging.

Knit and Crochet

I finished the knitted scarf I was working on as a christmas present. PHew! One down and a few more to go. I have about 5 different color combinations I want to work on. I started a new scarf last night but the yarn didn't want to be knitted so I had to resort to using the largest crochet hook that I have. The yarn combo I'm using doesn't like to slide over itself very well, so that's why the knitting wasn't cooperating. I think I like it using the crochet hook better. On the other hand the crochet hook is a bit awkard to use, it says it's a 15.50mm size hook. It's much bigger than what I normally work with so there is a bit of a learning curve, but it's interesting to use. So far I like how it's turning out, shouldn't take me to long to finish this one so that I can start on the next one. I was thinking of doing something in UT colors next but not sure yet.