A Linear Shawl

See it on Ravelry

Stripe Study Shawl by Veera Välimäki

Madelinetosh: 1 skein Tosh Sock (the red, no idea what colorway)

Malabrigo: 1 skien sock weight (I think the colorway is Parchment?)

4.5mm needles

26 days to completion (whew, that’s a lot of garter)

Best. Scarf. Ever. Except for about the last three or so stripes. The last few stripes are about as fun as licking a cactus. The rest of it is quiet zen and the short rows keep you interested (short row stripes? Who would have thought? Clearly, not I). The garter stitch does begin to grate after a while but it wasn’t too bad.

And once you block it? Malabrigo and Madelintosh are so lusciously soft and bouncy that I just want to curl up in my shawl despite the whole spring thing.  Thankfully, I’m in Oregon and we have a very vague relationship with seasons so it will see at least some wear over the next few months.

 I’m also glad I knit it on 4.5mm’s instead of 4mm’s. Granted, I did this because I was lazy and didn’t want to dig through my needles but the loose fabric is really lovely. Maybe the extra .5mm wouldn’t have been a revelation but anything that saves me digging I’m going to endorse as a good choice.

Oh, and I’m working on a pattern inspired by this sweater seen on Esme and the Laneway:

Stinking cute, no? I’m thinking that it will be a perfect shrug for summer evenings. I’m knitting up the first one in a fluffy, deep teal alpaca (yummy). I also think I’ll be going for a lace edging instead of plain but we shall see…

Sewing is Cost Effective (for once)

I love people that start sewing because they want to save money. Love them. Sure, you can get by with inexpensive materials and such (and who among us doesn’t wander both LFS* and the internet looking for deals?) but really, I don’t think its all that much cheaper compared to big box store clothing. Outside of supplies, you also have to get a sewing machine and all the other bits and bobs. All told, a general ouch (even if you go my way and run off with mom’s hand-me-downs. Hooray for second hand sergers!)

Now if you want to get into a quality conversation, I totally will agree that it can be cheaper. I make much nicer things for $30 than you could buy for $30. So there. They usually last longer as well because they were constructed properly. I still own my very first skirt from high school and it’s still in good condition. the same could not be said for similarly aged store bought skirts.

But today, the world is good because today I fulfilled a need by crafting, making a more useful item than the store bought version it is replacing, AND for less than it would have cost to buy new. Oh, and it’s made of scrap fabric. I believe that this means I win.

My year-old vinyl wallet has snuffed it. There was much lamenting (o.k. not really). I poked around on the internet to find a cute and reasonably inexpensive replacement. Apparently, cute wallets also mean gigantic wallets you could beat people with which is a problem for a girl accustomed to sticking her wallet in a back pocket. Nor would any of these wallets fit into my favorite purse of all time, which is a mere 6 inches wide (and made of Oregon license plates. Again, I win.)

Even on Etsy there was no proper wallet to be found in my student price range. Enter the Toasty Phone Clutch-a-ma-bobber!

It doesn’t slice, or dice, or have a new lemon fresh scent (I suppose it could, if you really wanted it to). But it holds my cards, cash, and phone on my wrist so I don’t even need a purse when I run errands. My keys also clip onto the silver fob there and my headphones stay neatly wrapped around those white buttons.

I love this thing. LOVE. I’m whipping up a few more to put into the Etsy shop (which has been dormant for some time after I’ve been regrouping after graduation).

They probably need a better name though..

*O.K. knitters have the LYS (local yarn store) but why have I seen no abbreviations for local fabric stores? Am I just dense? I’m making one up anyway, so there. Density and all.

Status Report: Douglas Adams was a Secret Quilter

Day 15

See, SEE? The squares are real. They’re all there. All bazillion of them. I have evidence. The Cutting of the Borders has yet to commence but (apparently) it is acceptable to fold your fabric so you are cutting three layers of fabric at once, rather than cutting 100 inches in a straight line. I mean, duh. Only a silly person would think that you would cut such a HUGENORMOUS piece without folding.

And who’s got two thumbs and is a silly person? This kid!

But this silly be-thumbed kid also has a stack of setting squares, so things are good.

Day 16

I got organized today and made a block assembly station (in my head it is the quilting battle station, but that may be the caffine talking). If it sounds impressive, well, prepared to be underwhelmed:

It works though; I am now the proud owner of not 5, not 8, NOT EVEN 10 squares but TWELVE! (Pardon my internet yelling. I got excited).

Twelve whole squares are mine. That’s about 29% of my blocks. In two days. BAM.

These things are kind of like potato chips. I sit down to make one and woops! There’s half a dozen. Or maybe it’s a little more like Tetris because you get a little lost in the squares (I swear I didn’t just spend 4 hours at this machine).

In my mind this has also become the Don’t Panic quilt because there’s 42 blocks. Yep, the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is a quilt.

Makes sense.