Scarf in process

Originally uploaded by illusionary_one

On the train and working on a scarf for Miss Fish’s Christmas gift. Listening to “Singing in the Rain” and enjoying the scenery going by.

Started it in plain stockinette, but frogged it around 5:30am since I didn’t like how it looked. Trying out a “diagonal stripe” texture now.

Good news! I have been accepted as a vendor for this year’s SCRAP holiday bazaar and bakesale. I’ve heard that it was somewhat competitive this year, so I am very honored to be chosen as a participant. I was a vendor in 2005 and loved it, so I am looking f0rward to being part of it this year as well.

Last month, my workhorse of a sewing machine finally bit the dust, so I took the opportunity to purchase a new sewing machine as well as a serger. Wow! After fighting with my old machine for years, the new machine is like a dream come true. All I have to do is design now. It even attaches buttons! The serger is a great deal of fun as well. I am still working through an inventory of retired sweaters, and the serger makes working with those a breeze.

I’ve picked up a few new collections of vintage notions, and have spent several nights organizing my inventory. The buttons are even divided by color now, and I’ve acquired some fun zipper pulls that I can’t wait to use.

When I’m not sewing, I am splitting my time between two knitting projects. The first is a shrug from yarn Cat brought me from her trip to Italy in September. The second is a pair of fingerless gloves since I’ve always liked them but never had a pair. Easy to tell a gal who was weaned on Madonna and Cindy Lauper.

A yarn shop near my office is going out of business, and I swooped in and bought 10 skeins of this very fun blue variegated yarn named Papyrus. Very fun texture. I’m making it up as I go along to knit myself a little tank top for summer. Experimented with cabled diamonds for the bottom edge. I still need to determine what type of collar I want for it, but at the rate I am going, I think I have at least a week or so before I need to make that kind of decision.

A sweater that should have taken me 3 – 4 months dragged out to 7+. It was designed for Lola, who sleeps nightly with a Pirate Johnny Depp pillowcase. I also made her a beaded knitted pirate skull wristlet.

This was my first attempt at intarsia. It was knitted in the round, which added an additional level of complexity to the project. The pattern is the bastard child of a number of other patterns I’ve happened upon, and I adapted the intarsia patch myself. My calculations were a bit off on the collar, and after three attempts (and subsequent unravellings) I gave up and just knitted it with enough elastic strung along to whip the collar into shape.

Wouldn’t mind making another one of these for myself if I could only find the time.

Little scarf pattern I whipped up as a Christmas gift for my mom. I am teaching myself cable knitting, but do not have the attention span for another sweater just yet.

Need to get the pattern written down because I’ve had a few people ask for the pattern.