…so yeah, I finished the mittens and got them sent off to my youngest grandchild. They were pretty close to the same size (always a plus!).  I’m not sure they ever got worn or if they fit as I got zero feedback on them from the parents.  But, I got them finished and delivered as promised.  We visited recently and they were in the midst of a move, so we helped out with that.  The kids’ other grandma was helping out (big time!) and as we were sorting through the mountain of STUFF that needed to be put away and or donated/tossed, she came across one of these mittens and threw it into the trash pile.  I picked it up and considered it for a bit – thinking maybe I’d just take it back home (we live 5 hours away so don’t get to be part of their lives as much as I wish we were) and keep it as a memento, when she suggested I just put it with the laundry and maybe the other mitten would eventually turn up.  So, I did that.  So, yeah, kind of a sad knitting story, but that’s life, right?

In the interim between blog posts, I’ve knit a few “iterations” of Hannah Fettig’s Early Morning Beret.  I really like the nice decreases on that pattern.  The picture I have here includes a couple of hats that I just made up as I went along, and one EMB (top left) made of leftover Cascade 220.   I can’t remember who all I gave these hats to now.  (That will teach me to procrastinate getting the blog post done about them.)  I like the decreases on the Early Morning Beret the best, and will likely be adopting that as my go-to decrease now.

Anyway, nice fun relaxing knitting during a not-so-cold winter.  We kind of forgot to have winter here this year, so the inspiration for digging in to a nice warm winter knitting project never materialized.  I blocked these hats on some dinner plates. 

So, what I have REALLY been busy with of late has been not so much knitting – although that’s always a constant – but rather card-making and scrapbook making.  I feel like I have fallen into an abyss of beautiful papers and ribbons and glitter and glue.  After working in this medium for a while now, it’s starting to make sense of course why it all appeals so much.  I have always been drawn to ‘piecework’ – even knitting kind of falls into that category at times especially making accessories like hats and gloves.  But I’ve sewn for as long as I can remember, quilted (loved crazy quilting) and bits of pretty paper are actually quite similar to bits of pretty fabric.  So, the journey continues, and now papercraft is included in the “and things” part of my handcrafted projects.

I do need to get busy making some socks again.  I have another pair of Fiber Trends felted clogs marinading on my needles too, so there will still be knitting to post.  I’m going to be doing another Baby Surprise sweater soon too.  May do a step by step on that one.  I’ve been thinking about doing that for some time now…mostly so I have something to refer back to for the next time I make one.

This is one adorable little mitten. I hope it isn’t too small. Pattern here.  So, I guess I can say I am officially 50% done with this project – because I even have the thumb finished.  And look – there’s another lizard on the thumb! And of course the inevitable OOPS on the palm pattern, but oh well.  They’re still pretty cute, and if I don’t make any errors on the right palm – then that just helps tell them apart, right? 

Did you ever get that assignment in elementary school?  I remember dreading starting the new school year, for fear of getting that assignment – because we rarely did more than ride our bikes to the local swimming pool and back home again during summer.  “All” the other kids (well, you know, when you’re a youngster it seems like ALL of them!) had such interesting stories to tell of how they had spent the three months since school got out and now.

There was ONE summer that I ended up with a story to tell.  It was the summer before second grade.  My family had gone to one of the local lakes with friends of ours, and while the dads were out fishing in the boat, the kids and moms stayed on the shore to swim and take in the sun.  My brother swam out to where it was deep water, and since I’d learned to swim that summer (sort of!), I decided to swim out to where he was.  When I got there, I tried to stand up – and sunk.  The next few minutes (seemed like an eternity) were spent panicking and drinking a lot of the lake while I nearly drowned.  My auntie (my mom’s best friend who was like our auntie) and mother came to my rescue.  It was a terrible experience.  But!  I could not wait until school started because NOW I had something to share if we got that assignment  “What I did on my summer vacation” – I’d nearly drowned!  Now that was worth reporting!

Well, sure enough, we got the assignment.  In second grade, we wrote our stories, unlike first grade and Kindergarten when we were just TELLING them.  The teacher then had some of us read our stories.  I felt so special when she asked me to read mine.  The kids were all very impressed, and I sat back in my seat feeling kind of like nobody could top THAT story!  Then Gregory Martin (I think it was) got up and went to the front of the class, and started telling everybody that the SAME THING had happened to him.  Now how likely was that, I thought?  I didn’t believe him.  I thought he was just making that all up because he thought it sounded like a neat thing that was a good story to tell.  I felt the wind going out of my proverbial sails – and no longer was my story the most outstanding “what I did on my summer vacation.”  Someone ELSE said they’d done the same thing.  Heck.

After that, it was back to just riding the bikes to the pool and waiting for school to start – so when someone asked what I did on my summer vacation I said “nuthin’” and left it at that.  Oh, I imagine if we got it as a writing assignment, I figured something out.  It was after all an assignment.  But everything else sort of paled compared to the story I’d had for second grade and that Gregory Martin had swiped from me.

So, what did I do during the summer of 2011?  Nuthin’.  I didn’t even ride my bike to the pool – well, I don’t even own a bike now, so that’s probably why, and as for public pools – ewe.  Now that I’m “old” they don’t appeal.  I guess I did do a few projects this summer, but very little in the way of knitting.  Very little.  It seems I might actually be one of those knitters who becomes less inspired in the hot months.  Aside from a few dishcloths, and the ongoing stockinette stitch of Larch that I pick up occasionally, the summer of 2011 went by pretty much without anything accomplished knittingwise.

I did sew some.  I made MP a yellow shirt he’s always wanted.  Which didn’t fit.  We’re both dieting now though, so I may have him try it on again and see if things have improved.  It’s the same pattern I’ve used before, but he’d insisted was a bit too big, so I made it smaller.  I didn’t really like this fabric though, so I just considered it a “[not so] wearable muslin” and set to making preparations for the next yellow shirt I was going to make for him.  I actually dyed some fabric I had in my stash and it came out really nice.  So far, that is as far as progress has gotten on that yellow shirt – it’s still a nice piece of yellow fabric.

Besides the dishcloths I always have going, I actually DID start on my sweet grandson’s lizard mittens.  We went to visit the family this summer, and I had hoped to have all three kids mittens ready to give to them, but the four-year-old got a coloring project and a promise while the girls got mittens.  We had great fun coloring together.  I should have the first one completed soon – but it will be a “What I did this Fall” story because, as we know, summer is a thing of the past for 2011. 

More from the scrap pile. This little “hobo bag” is a shrunk-down version of a free online pattern for an American Girl size handbag. The pattern is almost as big as my doll in this case (she’s not an AG doll, remember?), so I used my copier to shrink the pattern down to about 50%. It came out just the right dimensions,and is very easy to make.

The dress is just a rectangle that I drew a neckline and armholes in, and then used bias tape for a drawstring at the top and to bind the sleeveless armholes with. I also cut another long rectangle scrap and turned that into a little belt to give it some shape.

The shoes were fun. I just traced the shape of her foot onto cardboard to use as a pattern to cut out a couple of layers of cardboard and  fabric. (The fabric you cut larger than the sole so you can tuck it underneath for a clean finish.  I used WonderUnder or Steam-A-Seam on a scrap of fabric and laid that over the foot-bed cardboard piece, then cut another upper half of the foot shape for the upper part of the shoe fused/glued them down…there was a lot of gluing involved getting it all attached to the insole.  After everything was all tucked in and glued in place, the other piece of cardboard gets glued on to cover up all the fabric ends tucked around the insole. The bottoms are covered with a piece of brown felt, and then I took some perle cotton and twisted it together and glued that all around the outside of the sole just to finish off the edge nicely. Someday I’ll photograph the process.

Dolls are so fun to sew for.  They don’t mind one bit if it’s too big or too small or you have to jab a pin into it to hold it on their body.    So, if you have a bodice pattern somewhere, add a rectangle to the bottom of it and some bias binding to the neck and you’ve got a little dress.  You can draw your own bodice pattern for her. Just need her measurements plus a little extra for ease and seam allowances. (See link below for a video on how that’s done.)

That said -  I did not draw this bodice myself – I used one from The Doll’s Dressmaker: The Complete Pattern Book.  This pattern had sleeves with it and I wanted sleeves so I copied and reduced one of the patterns in the book. My doll is Teen Trends “Deondra” (and it took me a long time to find that out as her only marking says 2004 Mattel, Inc.) She’s 17 inches – kind of a giant Skipper/Barbie type doll with ball jointed arms and legs. I finally found plenty to dress her in on eBay – but so far I’m not impressed with the choices. I’m “old” though – so that’s probably why. So, I’ve been making her things from scraps.

Anyway, this bodice turned out a bit too big, so I got a little creative with stitching it together and still the bodice had too much extra fabric in the front.  Scrap-sewing makes you pretty fearless. So, I figured this was one of those “design opportunities” I’ve heard about and forged ahead with what I had already cut out. I decided to see if I could take up some slack without gathers…and I got out the pin-tucking foot and the double needle and used up some of the fullness in the center front.  The back I just folded out the fullness.  Pretty cute heh?

Links of interest:

Video on YouTube how to draft your own bodice.