A bit of our new place...

Still working on some of the decor, but here's the basics...

The dining room and kitchen:


The patio:



The living room (as you can see Sakura has already claimed "her" section of the couch):



Next up: pictures of the office/craft room.

Moving Day!

As soon as I can wrangle Alex out of bed... moving day will commence with the aid of three good friends.

Photos of the new place to come...

acquiring antiques...

My birthday was last Wednesday, and since my mother works and we live 2 1/2 hours away from each other, she came down today for the holiday and for my birthday.

She brought me my trunk:



And as you can see, I'm already filling it with light things that need a home for the move. Light light things. Because even though it's not a particularly heavy trunk, it is still 3 1/2 feet long and not the easiest of things to maneuver.



For my birthday, my mom and her boyfriend found this antique wooden sewing case for me:



The top opens up for small trinkets:




And the whole thing folds out for different levels:




Good thing, too, because my big plastic make up case I use as a sewing box is getting kind of crowded. This will be a nice flat place to store patterns and doo-dads.

And lastly... Hiroki being cute:




We have a week left until we move, so this weekend when I start packing up boxes Hiroki is going to go bonkers. Whenever we used to pack some things up (even an overnight bag) he seemed to think we were leaving him. And then he got used to going with me to my mother's house for the occasional weekend, so now packing means he's going to see grandma and he bounces around excitedly.

shawl down, vest to go

Finished the Shipwreck Shawl in 10 days. Not so sure about the outcome, but it was pleasant to make.

Pattern: Shipwreck Shawl by Knitting Harpy
Yarn: Premiere Yarns Festival Mix Fiber (also known as... whatever the hell the factory had left) 3 skeins of what I suspect was some kind of wool fingering weight yarn with 359 yards per skein
Modifications: Knitted the entire center section with US#3s instead of US#4s, then as the outside grew I used US#6, US#8, US#10.5, and US#13. For the last section of the outside I only did about 5 rows instead of 14 before binding off.

The inside circle pattern doesn't pop out as much as everyone else's does. At first I thought it was because I used variegated yarn, but I've seen a lot of variegated yarn examples on Ravelry that still show up. Maybe once I get it framed against a white wall in the new apartment (I intend to use this as an art piece, now a shawl) it'll look fancier.

I've had a thing for lace shawls lately, but since I never wear them, I'm taking a break to knit up a Four Seasons Vine Lace Vest, a free pattern from a Classic Elite Yarns Webletter. Using an angora/lambswool mix I recycled from a thrift store sweater and dyed over with Kool-Aid.

I like it, so far, and might even get to wear it since winters here only call for so many days of full-on sweaters. A wool vest is the perfect warmth and easy to take off when I get inside for class.



Speaking of life outside knitting... we move in two weeks! My mother and I managed to fit my grandmother's cedar chest she got for her married life into the car on the way home from Michigan this summer, and when we move I'm sticking it in the craft room to store my fabric and such.

My 20th birthday is this Wednesday, and my mom hinted that she and her boyfriend found something special for my craft room when they went antiquing. So that something will also be there once we move in.

And since I have a day and a half left of being a teenager... I guess I need to think of something stereotypically angsty to do tomorrow.

traveling stash enhancement

A few new yarn shop adventures. Two summers ago we visited Yarn Company, which I liked, and Uptown Fibers. Because of construction, Yarn Company is only open Thurs - Saturday, so we didn't get there.

We visited Uptown Fibers and my mother found a yarn she liked for a shawl.



I'm going to make the Malagash Square Shawl with it. This yarn is kind of hard to photograph because of the shine. It's a variegated blue/green plied with a steel silver/grey. There's some fluffier less spun pieces in there that make this a very interesting texture knitted up.

Then we were at Craft 2000 and all their yarn was on closeout. I found this random yarn called Festival Mix Fiber and got it. Apparently this name is applied to any random discontinued yarn manufacturers have on their shelves, because I have found a million different examples of this label and none of them are anything close to what I have.



It's a fingering or maybe even a lace weight yarn in variegated deep pinks. I can't find yardage amounts for it, so I'll probably measure it out on my skein winder when I get home and figure out how much is there. I'm thinking of making a Shipwreck Shawl out of it to hang on the wall for art.

traveling through

Friday my mother and I started our annual roadtrip to Michigan. This year we went through Memphis first and then Michigan. Which means of course we visited Graceland and between Memphis and Michigan was a lot of Amish country.

Stopped in Shipshewanna today, where they have an AMAZING fabric store called Lolly's Fabric. We probably spent an hour just walking around. Seriously, they had more fabric than I have ever seen before tucked into every crook and cranny and shelf. And everything was $5.95 a yard. They also had some beautiful fat quarter combinations and kits. I kind of wanted to just roll around in all the fabric, it was just overwhelmingly amazing. I got my first quilted pattern (for a table runner that I'm going to use as a wall hanging in our new place for color) and a few fabric sticks to accent what I've got at home.

There was also a really nice yarn store with a side bead shop and garden/herb shop called D'Vine Gallery.

In all our antique shopping, I've seen 3 vintage spinning wheels, all Saxony style. The first was in good shape for $125 that I should have bought. The second was absolutely beautiful with a distaff and obscenely gorgeous finish, but it was $325 and a little more than I should spend on a first wheel... seeing as I can't yet spin. The third was in kind of crappy condition for $115.

Unfortunately I have passed on all of them thus far... but there's still the trip from Michigan to Florida and lots of antiques in between.

I also found several vintage yarn winders that were beautiful, but for now my little home made rough one is fine. If I win the lottery, it will definitely be on my list of things to acquire.

And while in the car I started and finished an improvised design for a shawl for my mother's neighbor. She's a sweet elderly lady who has always gone out of her way to send me cards and such for birthdays, graduation, etc.

Kind of hard to get a good picture in a hotel room, but here it is:

FO: Vernal Equinox Shawl

I started this June 30. And continuously worked on it until earlier today. This thing took over a month of TV knitting. But it was kind of fun, even though in the end it took about an hour to get through 2 or 3 rows of the charts. It's HUGE. I even left out a clue and it's width is bigger than the length of a full size mattress.

Yeah, that's right... I used my mattress to block this thing because I didn't have a big enough space anywhere else.



By the time it dried there wasn't a whole lot of sunlight left for outside photos (and Alex wasn't home to take modeled pictures, as I wasn't about to do a self-timer rushed photoshoot for the neighbors to watch).





And though I have usually avoided knitting shawls because I don't wear them... I think I'm going to have to start wearing them. I like knitting them, I love knitting lace.

The original plan was to knit up some lace shawls to use as artwork to hang on the walls in our new place. This one, however, might just be worn.

Pattern: Vernal Equinox Shawl by
Yarn: 2 different colorways I dyed from yarn I recycled. It's 100% wool (though it's really light and the shawl isn't really warm to wear). Probably around 800 yards?
Modifications: I didn't do clue 5, I wasn't sure I would have enough of the red to finish it. Regardless... it's still huge.




And some cuteness for the road. Sakura frequently sleeps like this, the little hussy.

five days in which I make two dresses

Monday I got overly excited at Walmart and bought a pattern and some fabric. Which turned into this:




What a hot fricken mess. Like the awkward girl who made her prom dress the night before even though she'd never touched a sewing machine in her life. The fit is pretty terrible, perhaps because those damn lanky models on the pattern have no hips and I have enough hips to choke a horse.

So I gave it another go yesterday and ended up with this:



Better. I took the waist up and decided short cutesy sleeves are never going to be a good idea for me.



That is 200 inches of unhemmed skirt right there. Waiting to get back to JoAnn's to pick up bias tape to match the neck and arm openings. So much easier than what the pattern called for -- lining the bodice and flipping it inside to finish the neckline/arms. Which is fine and dandy and nifty... except it made the bodice of the red dress lumpy and horrible.



And this bodice is not so lumpy. And I just happen to have a decorative stitch on my machine that matches the vines on the fabric. Which means of course I had to use it.



I did line this second one, but in my own little way. As in... I lined it for modesty but attached the pieces as I did the seams. So it's not perfectly clean on the inside of the bodice, but it's so much better fitting this way.


Pattern: McCalls 6027, the red dress is view B, the blue dress is view A

Fabric: red dress is basic cotton from Walmart $2 a yard, blue dress is calico print from JoAnn's on sale for $2.79 a yard

Modifications: Red dress I did what the pattern said. Blue dress... I ignored the pattern completely other than cutting out the pieces. I constructed it differently for the skirt and the bodice lining and did my own thing.

You have no idea how surprised I am at myself...

Yesterday evening I looked at my poor lonely sewing machine and realized I haven't even uncovered it in more than a month. I have a few skirts that I want to make... but not enough room right now to cut them out without causing stress and chaos for everyone. So I'm putting those off until we move and I have room, glorious room!

But small things I can do. And so I set about making a purse. A patchwork purse. Awhile back I bought two batches of those "100 squares of random fabric!" off of ebay. And got some pretty cute stuff. Among those 200 squares were about 50 that kind of matched -- they were the same pattern in different colors.


So that's the beginning of the plan and the mess involved.


And the finished purse, outside. It's a bit floppy because I like squishy bags, so pardon the microwave holding it up.


Here's the lined inside, complete with zippered pocket that is as big as one side of the purse for hiding girly things, plus two little pockets with the same patchwork material.



Little blue pocket for... cell phone maybe? Dunno, I wanted it.

Little purple pocket perfect for pens and such.


Pattern: None. Just kind of whipped it together. It's not a perfect cube, as the smaller sides are two squares wide at the bottom of the purse and decrease down to one square so the mouth of the purse is narrower than the bottom.

Fabric: The outside are squares I bought on ebay, no idea what they are. But it's one of those shops that has a million packs of 100 4"x4" squares on sale, so easy to find if you're interested.
The lining is some fabric I bought off WalMarts $1/yd sale rack when I first got my machine and wanted something to play with.

Time: Started it yesterday at probably 7 p.m. and finished today at 9 p.m. Probably worked maybe 6 hours on it, most of that sewing the patches together and picking out seams when hindsight led me to a more clever construction.

Overall I'm pleased. I was originally going to put a zipper on the top and I even put it mostly in... but took it out because the only other zipper I had that isn't destined for something else is only 7" and would greatly reduce the bulk of things I could fit into the mouth of the purse. Too lazy to go out and buy a longer zipper, this was a spur of the moment project that would have had its momentum broken by going out to buy supplies.

Thoughts?

Now only do I get room... but I get a WHOLE room!

With new jobs and financial aid for school in place (and the fact that the apartment complex we're currently in is turning into a shithole), Alex and I went apartment hunting for when our lease is up in September.

And we found a place we liked. And at the time... they were running a special that made a 2 bedroom apartment the price of a 1 bedroom.



And so... in 2 months time we'll be moving. To the above apartment floor plan. The second bedroom (on the right) we'll use for the computer desk... and a giant table with my sewing machine and knitting stuffs. Hello freakin' jackpot. I'd always dreamed of being able to have an extra room, and now we can. And it comes with an extra bathroom, too.

So for about $120 extra a month (split between the two of us), we get the following upgrades from our current place:
- extra bedroom
- extra bathroom
- screened porch
- outside storage
- dining room (yes... we currently have no dining room)
- washer/dryer in unit (we have our own now that we can sell)
- walk-in closets
- dishwasher
- double sink
- complex amenities like: pool, gym, basketball court, volleyball pit
- our neighbors won't all be drug dealers/unemployment collectors


I'm so excited. Now I just have to wait 2 months and 2 days to MOVE. And I'm going to start saving up for a sewing cabinet. Anyone have brand/model recommendations?