I made a thing

This should not surprise you. I make things. Not as many lately as usual, but still a decent number of Things get Made. In this case, I made a cowl.

I had been considering making one of these cowl things lately. San Francisco is an excellent place for the wearing of scarves, shawls and cowls, so I thought I kind of owed myself one. But nothing really seemed to come together. Then one day I was in Michael’s looking for cheap Halloween baking stuff, and of course I wandered through the (nowhere-near-the baking-stuff) yarn section, and happened upon sparkly yarn, and that’s how this cowl was born. The pattern is the Scalloped Cowl from Lion Brand, because I wanted something with a lace pattern.

Before we go any further, let me just note that this cowl indicates that I may be losing my mind. I’m not sure what got into me that I made a random impulse purchase of bulky, mohair-containing yarn with sequins. I don’t like any of those things, normally. Yet here it is. And so now I have a cowl that I am actually rather fond of, yet which I am allergic to, that I can only possibly wear on a mountain when it’s freezing outside over a turtleneck. Luckily it’s only 18% mohair, but my fingers itched and turned red for the entire three nights it took to make this. I really ought to block it, but I’m going to have to wait until it’s colder again, so I can bear touching it!

I think I might make this pattern (I liked it) again in a not-so-bulky yarn, perhaps the fuzzy Rowan Alpaca Cotton I found last year that I’ve been dying to try. It’s the only “haloed” yarn that I’m not completely allergic to, and I would love another cowl in maybe a nice soft gray.

Meanwhile, life continues here. We’ve been sort of alarmed/interested by the Occupy Oakland protests going on just a few blocks from our house. It’s gotten a little messy since this past weekend.  I’ve seen both the San Francisco and Oakland versions of this now, and they are very different from what I can tell, even down to being essentially about different ideologies and problems. I do wonder how long this is going to go on – who will get exhausted first?  The protesters or the police?

Halloween fast approacheth, and I have no costume this year. It’s true. I’ve just had too many other things that I’m worried about. I am making gingerbread this week, and the pie filling I made went off well. My carved pumpkin met an untimely end when it essentially collapsed onto itself, as hollow pumpkins will do. I also went to the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival a weekend or two ago, and got my fill of junk food, craft booths and giant pumpkin carving contests, so that will have to do for this year!

Hopefully I will finish my the chevron-baby-blanket-that-will-not-die soon, and I have made a couple of surprise gifts that I’m dying to show, just because they amuse me so much.

The Mom Quilt – Finished!

Dear Mom,

Your quilt is finished! When the rain lets up, I’ll roll it up in a plastic bag and put it in a tube with a dowel rod to hang it on and mail it to you. I feel terrible it’s more than a month since I promised it to you, but it’s not like I haven’t been late before. I consider it a family tradition! And I have been working on it very hard. I didn’t really expect it to take this long!

You might have to iron it a little with low heat when you get it, but it’s pretty indestructible at this point. One reasons I find quilting with silks like this so interesting is that it gives the impression of being a delicate sort of thing but as I’ve said before, silk is not really delicate. Most of the silk I’ve worked with is tough – I’ve broken sewing machine needles and when I embroider it forces me to use leather thimbles and needle grippy things  or I dent my fingers. Plus the overall project, because it’s quilted so densely, is extremely sturdy. You’ll see. It’s a thick piece of work.

A few weeks ago when you wrote me, Mom, you said you didn’t see how I had enough patience to do this. Truth is that it doesn’t take me any patience. It might be weird, but I can’t sit still long enough to hand-hem a pair of pants, but I can spent 50 hours hand-quilting. It doesn’t feel like tedium, and I don’t get impatient. I love sitting down and putting stitches in this fabric. It’s fun. I even ripped out quilting I didn’t like in some places and started over. I’ve definitely found something that I love to do.

I’ll miss this quilt. I ended up liking it quite a bit, and the pictures just aren’t the same as seeing it in person. There is too much depth and texture to it to really get a good idea of what it’s like in a picture. But then again, I’ve been looking at this so long that I don’t see the picture for the details anymore. In a couple of weeks I”ll look at it again and see if I can see the flowers and leaves again. But I think I need some time away from it first.

Have fun with it when you get it!

Details:

Neutral oatmeal linen backing fabrics (2 layers), thin cotton batting, silk kimono fabrics from Ah! Kimono.

Needlepoint, Inc. silk floss and DMC floss (what’s that stuff made of?) for quilting.

Hand quilted/embroidered and machine and hand pieced. Hand bound.

Posts for this project:

Concave and Convex, Iris quilt: creating the quilt puzzle pt. 1, Iris quilt 2: fabric piecing technique, Iris quilt 3: putting it all together, The back speaks, The Mom Quilt – Finished!

Potholders and Bacon Fabric and more

FIRST, a shout out to one of my best friends who got married today. Congratulations Paula!

I have FINISHED finished my whole kitchen project. Everything I was going to do is done, and then some. I planned to make 2 curtains, 4 cushions and a potholder, and I made three curtains, six cushions, three potholders and a mixer cover. I just could not seem to quit. But finally, I’m putting this project to bed (until I decide to make coordinating placemats and napkins or something) (because you know I will). Without further ado, voila valance over the kitchen sink:

That window, if you can believe it, is 55″ wide. I love having a big window over my kitchen sink. I have a collection of little things on the sill. Next up, above and below, is the quilted cover I made for my mixer. It is made of linen with a pieced decorative element and bias edging. It took a long time to make because I did all the quilting as well as the piecing myself. It’s pretty heavy duty. I drafted the simple pattern – it’s constructed with one long piece and two side pieces.

Under that mixer cover is a KitchenAid complete with Alton Brown-esque flame decals. I’m now saving for additional attachments and more bowls and things for it. This thing has made a lot of bread in its four months at my house.  It’s really good at kneading dough. Now it’s really good at holding up a cover.

I also made three potholders. They are based on the two I own and like. Potholders, I’m here to tell you, are NOT quick to throw together. There are a lot of layers of fabric, the terry cloth I used tends to get caught in my machine’s feed dogs, and between the quilting and putting it together there’s a lot of time involved in the sewing. If you can’t tell, I’m pretty thrilled to be done! I’m also pretty thrilled with the results.

The Williams-Sonoma oven mitt I based these two on has a terry cloth lining that I’m quite fond of. I chose to emulate that for all my mittens and potholders. After all, I had leftover terry cloth from my bathroom wrap project, so why not?  In addition to terry cloth there’s a layer of thick fleecy felt in between for added protection. I made the oven mitts from more coordinating fabric not used in other projects, a floral and a stripe.

And now, maybe, you see where my “bacon” reference in the post title comes in. After cutting some of the striped red/pink fabric into bias strips, I realized it looked a lot like bacon strips.  This particular fabric’s honestly a bit bacon-y and pink for me, but I think as long as I’m not seeing it in long narrow strips it’s fine. I like it with the floral, anyway.

I know people think I’m slightly nuts for making all this stuff for my kitchen, but completing huge and complicated projects like this really it helps a lot with improving my skills. I think I did a pretty good job on these things – I can tell my abilities with sewing are really getting better, which makes me happy. Craft, unlike art or knowledge, is one of those things where you aren’t good unless you practice it a whole lot. In my opinion, most good art has some type of practiced craft as its root. For example the technical craft of piano is at the root of artistic piano playing. In the same way I can express more and do more with my sewing as my sewing craft improves.

Now onto something completely different!  Well, not completely different. Just not anything for the kitchen.

P.S. So yesterday morning (or was that this morning?) I re-read my last post and asked Jeff if I came off as a curmudgeon. He replied, “You’re opinionated.” I said, “What does that mean?” and of course he responded, “It means you’re opinionated.” He’s right. I am. I can’t help it. Hope y’all don’t mind too much