It Pays to Pay Attention...

...to flyers tacked up on your local grocery's bulletin board.

Sure, usually it's puppies for sale, the local high school drama productions and musicals, and the like.  And then, there's the ad, hand-written in black Sharpie on cheap construction paper, that makes it worthwhile.

The one for the massive 50-cent sale being held on Saturday morning at the church-run thrift shop you rarely go to because the hours are so limited and unconventional.

Totally and absolutely worth it.  Even though it was a 22-minute hike each way and I'd already done my run for this morning before I left.  My feet are complaining, but my hands are so happy!

Check out the loot...

Destined for yarn reclamation, from left to right: 100% cotton, women's large, long-sleeved; 100% merino, men's large, long-sleeved; 100% cotton, men's XL vest.  The merino is the real find, of course, since never once have I stumbled across cashmere, but I'll take what I can get.

Destined for my wardrobe: on the left, a long-sleeve scoop neck, content label missing--but it feels like a high-quality synthetic, too shiny and slinky to be cotton.  On the right, a turtleneck tunic, long sleeves, knit from a fine-weight acrylic boucle.  It's incredibly warm without being heavy, and it's very, very, very soft.  Out of season now that it's finally spring, but I see myself wearing this a lot.

Finally, a shirt-dress I will never wear, both because I've never been a shirt-dress person, and it's too small to boot.  But that fabric!  I just fell in love.  I'm not sure what the fabric wants to be yet, but I will save it from its wretched shirt-dress fate.

I need to find out how often the church has these sales!

Over a Year Later...

...I can finally talk about this project again!

It was a Knitty sub, kindly rejected.  It was re-purposed into an Anticraft sub, which was accepted, but didn't fit the theme of the last two issues before the hiatus its on now, so I'd have had to sit on it for probably at least another year, and I just didn't want to do that!  (They were very sweet and understanding when I asked to pull my submission, and I will certainly say that I look forward to submitting again when they return.  Come back, Anticraft, come back!)

So here it is, at long, long last: Drusilla, available for sale.

Much credit and love to both my models: my friend and coworker Jessica for the Knitty version (top) and my friend and fellow blogger Kara for the Anticraft version (bottom).

Drusilla is a rectangular lace shawl based on a complicated edging pattern that I dearly loved, but found difficult to memorize and nearly impossible to work correctly.  I set out years ago to use it in a shawl, but it never quite worked, and this time when I turned to it again, I simplified the edging to make it far easier, but in a way that still maintains the spirit of the original.  And what better way to show off a lovely edging than to put it on both sides of a stole, and make the center a simple mesh?

Want one of your own?  Here, let me help with that.  If you end up making one, be sure to let me know, either here or over on Ravelry, I love to see what people do with my designs!

The Embroidery Obsession Continues...

...with the completion of the third kimono in the series, which I have dubbed "Purple Pinwheels."

So named because each of the spirals uses a shade of purple and another color, and of course because I crayon-tinted the background purple, or really, a strange hybrid of Wisteria, Purple Mountain's Majesty, and Plum.  Gotta love Crayola color names.

The elephant in the room: the border fabric is wrinkly.  I'd intended to use a light blue fabric to echo the two blue spirals, but the color just wasn't right.  While pawing though my scraps for alternatives, I found a long, long, wrinkly strip of fabric that was once the bottom of a tiered ruffle skirt that I decided to shorten.  I sliced off the gathered top seam and ironed the hell out of the strip, and this was the best I could manage.  The color was too perfect to pass up for a few wrinkles!

Now that that's out of the way, take a good look at the reason this kimono took me almost two weeks where the others both took only a few days:

Nothing but heavy chain stitch as far as the eye can see.  (Well, back stitch border as always, but that took me less than ten minutes, it doesn't count.)  And of course to get the spirals neat, I had to work both colors at the same time, as opposed to leaving a channel for the second one, which would have made working heavy chain stitch nearly impossible anyway.  I am officially insane now, I'm never ever doing a piece entirely in this stitch again.  Even though I really like the way it looks....

Kimono #4 is in the planning stages, but finding a complementary color palette that also meshes with a border fabric that I already have is proving problematic.  In the mean time, I'm working on finishing the needle book I started to give me some relief from the miles of heavy chain stitch, expect that one in the next few days!

Will I ever get back to my knitting again?  Who knows, stay tuned!

Totes for Tots

While I have no children of my own as of yet, I do have quite a few in my family to craft for. My one and only sibling, my dear, dear brother, has already produced five charming offspring, a set of triplets first, followed by twins.  The twins are less than a year old, and I haven't made a darn thing for them yet (they're too young to care!) but for the three-year-old triplets I have produced, over the years, blankies, various amigurumi animals, beanbags (a very big hit on our last visit) and a play mat for said bean bags.

My mother wanted to give them "book" bags for their recent birthday, since they're going to be starting those darling little preschooler workbook/coloring book things.  Her contribution to the gift was picking out and purchasing the fabric; mine was making them.

I hadn't planned to do them all in one day, but the first one went so well (only 1 h 15m, including drafting the pattern from the book measurements) that I just kept going.  Pretty basic lined tote bags, with the same fabric used for all parts, light interfacing, narrow boxed corners.

All three fabrics are Debbie Mumm for Jo-Ann; the two boys got different Noah's Ark prints (that and Disney stuff being the overarching themes of my brother's family) and my sweet little niece got Bedtime Bears, chosen for this:

The bear has a pink teddy bear, and so does my niece.  Pink Bear goes everywhere with her, though usually gripped by its tail, not feet, but close enough.

I had these finished last week and in all the embroidery excitement I completely forgot to blog about them.  Fortunately I remembered today, because I still haven't finished anything on my to-do list, though the third kimono is only probably a day or two away from completion.  And the needlebook is started.  And I'd still rather start eight more projects than actually sit down and finish anything.  Good to know, I guess, that my terminal case of start-itis isn't limited to my knitting!

The Power of Deep Breathing and Turkey Sandwiches

I woke up today feeling less than ideal, and soldiered through work feeling no better.  I've been meaning to get back to doing yoga at least a few times a week, if not daily, so today seemed like the day to start over.

Fifteen minutes of that, followed by a healthier-than-usual lunch of salsa-and-turkey on sourdough, and a homemade fruit salad, I feel much more like a real human being.

What do you do to feel better on a blah day?

I Am, In Fact, Feeling Stitchy

Over at feeling stitchy, one of my new favorite blogs, there's a stitchalong this month.  I only discovered it this past Sunday, so it's a good thing the design isn't too complicated!  But as soon as I saw it, I knew that I had a plain shirt that was just perfect for a little embellishment.

The design is a little crooked and my stitches a bit uneven, because I was so impatient to get right to work that I didn't bother to do anything like, oh, use stabilizer or even transfer the pattern to the fabric somehow: I sat at my computer screen with the image up and eyeballed the whole thing!  So I really don't mind that it's not perfect, it's plenty good enough for a wearable that I stitched up in an afternoon.

As for why it's on the back and not the front, since I wear my hair up 95% of the time or more, I actually like the surprise of having a plain-fronted shirt with something kick-ass on the back.  People really don't expect it, and I like getting the compliments!

Totally off-topic: check out the awesome turtle hair stick!  My husband found this for me when he went with some friends to Chicago for a few days last year...I didn't even expect a present, and poof!--amazing carved turtle hair stick. He's so sweet.

Fit For Princess Peach

I named the first kimono "Green Tea", so I think I'll stay color-related and call this one "Super Peachy."  The original color description called for a saffron background, and I've seen "saffron" applied as a name to anything from deep red (for the color of the spice itself) to various orange shades to bright gold--the color my saffron rice turns out!  The pattern behind the flowers is supposed to be scarlet, and I liked that idea and wanted to keep it, so I started pairing different colors with the red floss I chose until one stuck.  Plus, I want each kimono in the series to be distinct, but related to the others--so using the peach from the flowers on Green Tea to tie it to this one seemed like a good call.

Compared to its predecessor, Super Peachy was fast to stitch...satin stitch can certainly cover a great deal of real estate very quickly.  The flowers and the scarlet patterning are all satin stitch; the flower edges and the outside of the kimono are both back stitch; and the flower centers are french knots.  Pretty basic, but very effective.

Ideally, I would have liked to use a solid color fabric for the border, like I did for Green Tea, but all the purple solids I have are t-shirt scraps, and using a stretch fabric wouldn't have worked with the lacing technique I used to mount the piece.  I could have waited until I had time for another trip to the thrift store, which is how I got the green border fabric, but in pawing though my stash I found this fabric, the favorite of a pack of purple fat quarters my mom chose for a commission I did for her recently.  I just could not believe how well the various shades in the fabric matched the floss colors I chose, so I went for it.  I'm very pleased with the result as an individual work, but I'm not sure yet how much I'm going to like it as a part of the series...especially if my next border is solid.  It might stand out too much!

The solution, of course, is to go for four pieces, two with solid borders and two with printed.  What embroidery monster have I unleashed on myself?

And I did something new here as well that I wish I'd done the first time--process photos!  I apologize for the inconsistency in color and lighting...these were taken at various times of day, and there's only so much that my editing freeware can correct.