One Year Anniversary

Cate's Crafts turned one year old yesterday. I meant to write a post, but I sort of forgot. It doesn't seem like a year has past already. I'm happy to report that I feel pretty successful with my stated goal of improving my "grown-up" wardrobe. I've got plenty of shirts to wear to work, although I would like to add a few more long sleeve button ups to the mix. I've got cute outfits to wear on weekends, and date nights. It seems like it has been a couple of months since I've looked into my closet and despaired because I had nothing to wear. All in all, I'm going to say I achieved my goal. 

Looking forward into the year to come, I think I'm going to be doing a lot more home decor sewing, I need pillows, curtains, a duvet cover, ect so look for posts like that. I'm also going to be doing a fair amount of wedding-focused crafting, for example, today, I am making paper flowers so you will see a post about that soon (and for more immediate pictures check my Instagram).

I also am going to be focusing on my fiance's wardrobe. I no longer feel like a ragga-muffin when I leave the house, but his clothes are in a pretty sad state. He has a tendency to get attached to particular clothing items when means that he wears them to bits, but then he keeps wearing them because he doesn't want to get rid of them. It is, frankly, embarrassing when he goes to his mom's house in pants that are full of holes and a sweater that got shrunk in the wash. I want to tell her over and over that I am capable of dressing him better than that. Of course, just because I make him nice things won't mean he stops wearing the tiny sweater because he likes that sweater, but I can at least try.

Catching Up With Christmas Gifts

So wow I am behind on my blog right now. I think I mentioned in previous posts that Fiance and I were in the process of moving. Moving is not conducive to writing or crafting. But things are starting to settle down; the beginning of the year madness of work is calming, we have our new apartment mostly set up, we have internet hooked up, things are getting organized.

I was going to do a separate blog post for each Christmas gift that I made this year, but since it's been so long since I posted and I'm feeling rather behind on projects I'm just going to put them all in this post, sorry, but it will be a bit long.

In the past, I've stuck to just knitting gifts, but this year I did a bit of sewing too. The first two projects that I completed were quilted casserole carriers for Fiance's mom and sister. I used the free pattern provided on Sew Desu Ne. I used a fat eighths bundle for the top of each carrier and a yard and a quarter of cotton for the bottom and handles. The bundles actually left me one square short for each carrier, but I made up the difference with fabric from the bottom.

The blue one was for my future sister-in-law, this is what the top of it looks like when laid flat. All of those triangles were a breeze with the rotary cutter that Fiance's Mom got me for my birthday.

I also made one in orange for my future mother-in-law. This is what it looks like when it's folded up to carry a dish. I am really pleased with the way these turned out and when I get some free time I think I am going to make one or two for myself as well. P.S. the handles aren't as long as they look in the photo, it's really difficult to take a picture of your own arm without getting a really skewed perspective. 

Continuing with gifts for Fiance's family: I always make stuffed animals for his nieces. I typically pick a theme and make all four stuffed animals fit within it. This year's theme was safari animals. I was going to make a zebra and a lion for two of his nieces, but I couldn't figure out how to send them to Costa Rica without it costing both parties an arm and a leg (taxes on packages are weird down there apparently). I did make an elephant and a giraffe for the two girls in Idaho. 

I did add eyes to the elephant, I just forgot to take a new picture after doing so. It's a bit creepy looking without them. I used this pattern, but I left off the tusks. I'm pretending it's because this is a female Asian elephant and they don't have tusks. It totally wasn't because I didn't have any white yarn and I was too lazy to knit tusks. Nope. That's not it at all. 

The giraffe came from this pattern. I like the look of the pattern, but boy did working on this remind me that I hate doing stranded color work. Not that it is particularly difficult, I just don't find it enjoyable to knit. Also, I forgot to add Mr. Giraffe's ears. Oops. This project took me way longer to finish than I thought it would and by the time I got to the ears I was just so done. Oh well. I think he is still cute. 

And speaking of projects that took way longer than they should have:

Before Fiance and I moved away from all our friends I loved nothing more than decorating for holidays and having people over. I had a great deal of pride and joy in our handmade Christmas decorations. I made us stockings and an adorable (if I do say so myself) advent calendar of tiny mittens and socks. My finished project is pictured below. My mom took one look at it and said she wanted the same thing for Christmas. That was three years ago. Then we moved and I lost interest in all things cute, decorative, or Christmas themed. Losing interest in something I loved so much really should have been a red flag that we needed to be back among friends. But I did try to make mom her advent calendar. By Christmas last year, I had made her three red mittens. By Christmas this year, I had made one green one. I actually knit the rest on Christmas day at her house because I felt so bad that I just hadn't been able to get myself to work on them more. So now she has twelve mittens. Maybe by next year, I can finish the twelve socks although she says she is happy with just the mittens and decorations for her tree. 

And for the last of the handmade Christmas gifts, I made Fiance a red beanie. We didn't really exchange gifts this year because of the move, but it felt wrong not to give him anything at all and he needed a new hat. The ribbing and the color are inspired by the beanies worn in "Life Aquatic" although they aren't exactly the same. Last year I made a matching one for one of Fiance's best friends. I'm still waiting for a picture of them wearing the hats together. 

And that's it. End of the Christmas gift post. I think it's the fewest handmade gifts I've ever given, but between moving stress and work stress and a general lack of interest in anything Christmas I just didn't feel like making a lot this year. I'm confident that next year will be better, though. I'm already thinking of making some new decorations and trying to decide what the next animal theme should be. I am so happy that we are back to living among friends. 

Fixing a Sweater Snag

So, It's been a while since I've posted anything. The reasons are kind of three-fold, 1) I've mostly been working on gifts, and I can't really post about them until the intended recipient gets them. 2) I've been really busy with work and 3) Fiance and I are in the process of moving so most of my crafting materials are packed up and not accessible to me. Moving is all kinds of not fun, but Fiance and I are trying to find a two-bedroom so with luck I will shortly have my very own room for crafting in, instead of taking over the table in the living/dining room and that will be awesome.

I've only got three post topics that are available right now, and of those only one has photos on my computer, so by default today, you get a tutorial on fixing a sweater snag.

Last year for Christmas I made Fiance a sweater (ha ha, boyfriend sweater curse be damned). It's a nice gray wool, worsted weight sweater. It looks very handsome on him, but it's fairly unsuitable for work because it snags easily. I've just picked out a new sweater pattern in a fingering weight that I'm hoping will snag less because it will be a tighter gauge. In the meantime, I keep fixing the snags on his sweater. It's really not too difficult and it saves the sweater from being "ruined."

For small snags sometimes just tugging on the fabric around the snag and/or tossing it in the wash will even out the tension, but sometimes you get a doozy of a snag, and for that you need a smallish knitting needle (I used a size 2 double point because I had one laying next time me)

As you can see in the picture Fiance managed to pull a long snag and it created a ridge along the collar line. 

Step one in order to fix this to use your knitting needle to pull on the stitch next to the snag. This will pull the snagged yarn and help you create two snag loops. Basically, what you have to do to fix a snag is redistribute the yarn across the row that has been pulled tight. It's important to split your snag and distribute the yarn to the right and left of the snag in order to fix the whole row. 

And then you are going to go along the right row and just keep pulling at the stitches, leaving them looser and shortening the snag loop as you move.

You can see in this shot and although we started with roughly equal loops now the left one is shorter than the right as I've moved to the left.

And eventually, you will run out of loop altogether.

If you find it easier you can move your loop to the front of the sweater (for normal human being it will probably start out on the front, as close as I can figure Fiance must have put his sweater on inside out). 

And with a little bit of patience, your sweater will be healed! It took be about twenty minutes to fix the snag, and that was with a lot of stopping to take pictures.

Fiance is nervous about wearing the sweater while working now because he doesn't want to ruin it, but in this case, it was an easy fix. I'm just going to have to make him another sweater though because all his others are too short and they look silly. 

Bird Shirt

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I meant to keep posting over the long weekend, but I forgot to take my computer with me when Fiance and I went to visit his parents. Oops. I've spent the last week busily working on Christmas gifts. I want to show you what I've made, but I have no idea who reads my blog and I don't want to show pictures of finished gifts before the intended recipients get them. Instead, I guess I'll show you a shirt I recently finished. 

I had a really hard time getting a decent picture of me wearing it. Anyway, I'm pleased with how the shirt turned out. The pattern is McCall's 7193 view B, and the fabric is a polyester crepe from fabric.com. I found the crepe to be super slinky and difficult to cut out and work with. I actually hand basted every seam rather then just pin them when I was sewing it because pinning alone didn't keep it still enough. I normally don't like polyester but before sewing the shirt in a silk that would be three times as expensive I wanted to make sure that I liked the way it fit. I'm really glad that I made that choice.

I like the way the pattern fits, but after wearing the shirt for a day I would say I need to tack the top shut, it has a tendency to slid open a bit more than I want it to when I am sitting down (or maybe more accurately when I slump my shoulders). This will be a great date shirt, but it's far too low cut for work. I love the gathering at the sides, though, it's super forgiving across the tummy. Although I think it is a great shirt I don't think I like it well enough to make a silk version. 

Dumbledore's Christmas Socks

Holy Wow! Two knitting posts in a row! I am on a role. Plus, I'm too broke to buy fabric, but I have plenty of stashed yarn, which may also be a contributing factor. :)

So, in my last sock post I said it might be a while before I did any more socks because it took me so long to finish that last pair. Yeah, I totally cast on another pair of socks, like, that same night. I was re-reading Harry Potter for the millionth time and Dumbledore's line about a good pair of wool socks being a great Christmas present got me wanting more socks, and I already had the pattern Dumbledore's Christmas Stockings by Erica Lueder all qued up, and I had some left over Madelintosh yarn from a sweater I made years ago. I was reasonably sure I didn't have enough in either color to make two socks, but between the two leftover bits I could get some nicely coordinated but not matching socks.

When I first wrote this post sock number one was done and number two I had gotten as far as the heel turn, but before this reached it's scheduled post date I finished the second sock. 

I'm very pleased with how they turned out. The sock pattern has two different charts that you can mix and match. I used chart A for sock one and chart B for sock two. They were a fun knit, and the yarn was great to work with. Merry Christmas to me! And now I really need to get started on other people's gifts. 

Knotty Gloves

Having finally finished that second sock of doom I managed to wip through another knitting project. I really should be working on Christmas knitting. We exchange gifts with Fiance's family at Thanksgiving because that is when we go out to see them, with Christmas being spent with my family, and I haven't even started making gifts yet. For the first time in five years I think I might just buy presents. * gasp *

Probably not though. Fiance is going to head over to see them early (I have to work Wednesday to get my holiday pay) I think I can manage to finish everyone's gifts while he is out of town. It's amazing how much knitting I get done when I am bored and lonely.

That was probably how I got through these gloves so quickly, Fiance was out of town for work when I made the first one.

I was really pleased with how it came out. That cable design was the perfect mix of interesting and easy, providing a fun break to the ribbing without making it into a long drawn out knit. I do wish I had make the fingers longer though. They always seem long enough when I am working on them and then too short when the glove is totally finished and on my hand. Oh well.

The first glove was so much fun that I finished the second one in fairly short order. I don't make gloves often because I hate weaving in all the left over ends from doing the fingers, but this pattern was just so pretty, I didn't own any gloves, and I had plenty of yarn left over from my lace cardigan. Don't be surprised if you see a matching hat soon too. If I get bored enough it might even be in time for Thanksgiving seeing as it is already snowing at my future in-laws house. I need to be prepared for the cold!

The pattern is Knotty Gloves by Julia Mueller, the yarn is Knit Picks Palette in the colorway Hazelnut.

Welt Pockets and Wool Vests

Anyone else ever have one of those weeks that just totally slips by you? I really have no idea what happened, I blinked and I missed it. Well, I have plenty of projects to tell you about, so hopefully I will do a better job posting this week.

My biggest project has been a fully lined wool vest with three welt pockets for Fiance. I had never sewn welt pockets before and I looked up a bunch of tutorials, decided none of them made sense and just made stuff up until I got a reasonable pocket.

It took me three tries before I got one I liked. I'm really glad that I decided to practise on cheap cotton first because the part where you cut a hole in your fabric is a bit scary.

The first one the welt didn't cover the pocket entirely, the second one I somehow managed to sew the pocket shut, but the third one come out okay and with a decent looking welt. I felt a bit like Goldilocks.

I'm pleased with how the vest turned out. It fits Fiance well too, but he didn't want to model it for photos. I made a size down from the pattern recommendations. Yes, vests are meant to button over layers of clothing, but I thought three inches of positive ease was a bit excessive. This size gave him an inch. It fits in the arm holes, but is a big snug across his stomach, so I might try grading the pattern a bit when I make it again.

I will definitely make this pattern again because it's the same one I will use for his wedding vest, but I'm going to make it out of linen for a summer weight. 

The only thing I'm not happy with is one of the side seams. I think I managed to catch some extra fabric when I was sewing it up because it tucks in at the very bottom. When I look at the inside of the seam though it looks fine. I used a ladder stitch to close the lining which is so quick and easy that one of these days I might just take it out and try and fix that tuck.

All in all, both Fiance and I are happy with the vest. The welt pockets were fun to learn how to do and the vest itself was pretty quick and easy. It took me two days only because I started it at a friend's house who has such dim lighting that I couldn't see what I was doing with the black fabric so I had to stop and finish it when I got home instead. 

The outer layer is 100% wool, the lining is Bemberg rayon, the pattern was originally Simplicity 2346 but I changed the pockets, and left of that tie in the back.