Knooking and Bear Feet

Something kind of major happened to me this past week. I finally learned to knit! I already "knew" how, technically, but I hated it. It just didn't work for me. Crochet has always felt good in my hands but I just never could get comfortable with knitting needles. Every few months for a couple years I'd pick up a project and try again, but I've never made more than a dish towel and I've never enjoyed it even for a second. I'd get tensed up instead of calmed. Then I discovered knooking! At the risk of sounding totally dorky, knooking is like a dream come true for me. I've actually day-dreamed that knitting could feel like crochet for me, and that I could make knitted patterns without dealing with knitting needles, and--ta da!--it has happened! Knooking is making knitted fabric (interlacing yarn in the way known as "knitting") but by using a crochet needle attached to a cord. It turns out the exact same product but feels like crocheting instead of knitting. Which, if you're me, is totally fantastic. I used this blog, this blog, and this Ravelry group as references and used a locker hook as my first knooking hook. I knooked this hat for Worth by reading the tips at those links and holding the new hat up to a hat he already had for sizing. I'm ridiculously pleased with it and don't you make fun of me, dangit, because it's not every day that dreams come true.

Today I put down my next knooking project long enough to have a great day at an outlet mall with an old friend. She lives in Indianapolis so we met in between her city and mine for a fun day of catching up and fall shopping. I purchased what I thought were matching pajamas for my kids, who spent the day with their grandparents. Back at home, Worth wanted to put on his new pajamas right away. We allowed him to change and he immediately started stomping around, acting like a Big Scary Bear (this is a favorite Worth game already, which inspired the purchase of these pajamas) and admiring the bear faces sewn onto the feet of his new pajamas. Dorothy decided to put her matching pajamas on as well and join the fun. Sadly, however, she returned crying, having discovered that Carters unwisely manufactured pajamas that were almost identical in both sizes, but which lacked the novelty of bear face feet in the larger size. Curse you, Carters!

So I rallied my inner good mother (though she was a bit tired!) and rounded up some felt and sewed my own version of bear faces onto the feet of Dorothy's pajamas.

Now all the Big Scary Bears in my "den" are happy again.

More Aunt Stephanie's Room

The guest room is officially done! The neighbor girl who plays with Dorothy walked in, not having been in the room since we were using it for post-move storage, and gasped. It was so gratifying. And then she was so impressed that we had a whole room just for guests that it made me remember Anne of Green Gables and Aunt Josephine and I secretly vowed to invite her over to sleep in it sometime. It does feel sort of indulgent to have a guest room after we seemed so cramped with the four of us in our two-bedroom six months ago. I made up the bed with clean sheets today and am feeling that much more settled here. Ignore that the brass bed really needs to be polished. I augmented store-bought bedding (Target and IKEA) with homemade toss pillows and I sewed homemade bias tape along the bottom of a plain store-bought bed skirt.

In such a bright room I wanted bright photographs too. I painted old gold picture frames black, then snapped photos of the kids posing against a backdrop of the (uncut) curtain fabric. It's not like you'd walk in and notice that the photo backdrop matches the curtains, which is just as well, but the overall effect does help tie everything together in this bright and colorful room.

I wanted to bring some of the room's black accents onto the bed so I made one pillow using this terrific owl fabric I found online. It didn't quite work, though. You remember that Sesame Street game from when we were kids?  Which of these things doesn't belong?  It was totally this pillow. I thought that if just one owl could be orange then it would really make everything look harmonious, so I grabbed an orange Sharpie marker and colored one owl in. Let's hope the cat doesn't puke on this pillow because I have no idea how orange Sharpie would wash, but I love the way it turned out. Now the pillow looks like it belongs perfectly.

I also embellished the white pillowcases that go with the plain white sheets on this bed. I used more of the homemade bias tape (do I need a support group for my recent bias tape problem?) and some of the decorative stitching on my new machine.

My success in painting the hokey flowers on the thrift store rocking chair inspired me to try something similar on an old milk can. I bought this jug at a yard sale when we lived in Oak Park and kept it on our front porch at our last two houses. It was already black but was starting to look sort of pathetic and rusty, so I sprayed on some new black and painted on the flowers and our name. I may get tired of looking at my own unprofessional art work every time I enter my front door, but it shouldn't be hard to spray on over the decoration when that time comes.

Aunt Stephanie's Room

I've been working on the guest room, otherwise known as Aunt Stephanie's room.  (Stephanie was my college roommate, is honorary and beloved "aunt" to my kids and is my favorite and most frequent houseguest, hence the room is named for her.) The walls are a creamy yellow that look more or less intense depending on the light. I hung simple white shades in the window for nighttime privacy, then made slim curtains with tie-backs so they don't obscure the view. I love the crazy orange bird print, which is Pretty Bird Spice by Michael Miller.

The rocking chair was a thrift store find, $12.00, and it was your basic old wooden rocker with an awful, dusty cushion. I ditched the cushion, painted the rocker black to tie in the picture frames and curtain rods, and free-handed some orange flowers on the top. I love the way it now looks like it was made for the room.

For most of the rooms in the house I've chosen a group of favorite fabrics as a starting point and this room was no different. The Michale Miller Pretty Bird fabrics appear on the lamp shade, the pillows (here and more to come), the bedding (stay tuned), and the curtains. Gluing homemade bias tape on lamp shades is slightly addictive because it's so fast and it looks good.  Now I've got my mother doing it too. The funky candy dish was a vintage eBay piece because I just had to--how could I do a room in orange but not have something made out of that crazy fiery retro glass? Other bits of this room are still in progress and will be done soon--so if you're thinking of visiting me and staying in my guest room, pick a date!

Bins for sewing projects

Now that my new sewing machines are in I've been inspired to organize my sewing supplies and make room for the extra machine. When we moved in to this house I just plopped my sewing stuff into a corner in approximately the same configuration I'd had it all in our last house but that wasn't really working here. One of the things I need is child-proof storage for projects I'm working on currently. I sew in our family room but store my fabric downstairs, so there has been some needless schlepping and pile-making without a good system in place for dealing with this. I'm hoping these buckets do the trick. I covered the labels on some old kitty litter totes with scrapbook paper and fabric swatches I've printed off the internet. I laminated and attached them with Xyron adhesive, but glue and clear contact paper would work too. I love these buckets and have used them for many purposes (and blogged about it once before) and I think this should help keep me operating smoothly and with reasonable tidiness.

I also made similar labels for some empty plastic pretzel jars. The jars are just the right size for holding trim, and they look kind of pretty with their new labels.

A new machine

This is what I was working on when my sewing machine died--toss pillows for the guest room bed. The room is now painted and cleaned out but I'm still working on the details.

This is an upcycled vase for the guest room. I found it at a thrift store, classic in earth tones but with a chip that I'm sure is what landed it in someone's donation pile. I painted it, using a contrasting color for the raised pattern. I'm not much of a painter, but I don't think this kind of project requires a look of perfection. Now it matches the colors I'm trying to tie together in the scheme for this room. I clear-coated it in Triple Thick Gloss Glaze to make it shiny. This stuff is kind of addictive. The first time I'd used it was on our eggs. It brushes on so beautifully and it dries hard and it seems to be durable. It's much thicker and less messy than spray versions I've used in the past. Any kid art project (or goofy vase paint job) will look more professional with a coat of gloss-glaze, right?

Last but not least, I've moved on the sewing machine issue. I did two days of obsessive internet research and decided that I actually needed to replace my broken machine with two inexpensive machines.  Buying a new machine that would sew over thick materials and provide lots of stitch options was cost-prohibitive, but I got the best of both worlds with much less expense. I ordered an inexpensive computerized machine that does lots of decorative stitches and a vintage machine from eBay that offers few options but will sew over anything. The two machines together cost less than one really good machine, and if one of them meets a terrible Worth-related accident (or any other malfunction) it won't leave me without a machine at all.

The eBay dealer who listed the vintage machine actually posted video of this sewing machine stitching over crushed aluminum cans. Wow! I'm not sure I'll use it for that (ha ha), but hopefully this machine's decades of stalwart performance won't be destroyed by a project like pillows with thick cording, which I suspect is what did in my last machine. The vintage machine should arrive today; the computerized machine came in earlier in the week. It's...computerized. Sewing with it feels like driving an automatic when you are used to a manual transmission. Some bond between the operator and the machine is missing. Hopefully I'll learn to like it better. The stitches, at least, are nice. It has many more options than I've had before. I tried it out (above) by stitching this little vine pattern onto a plain white drawstring bag that new sheets came in.

New life for old towels

I debated whether or not I should do this project.  Having to keep track of specific hand towels for a specific bathroom seemed like a bit of a hassle.  But after living here for a few months and establishing a routine I realized that the downstairs bathroom towels already get thrown in with the kitchen laundry and returned to the same bathroom so there was no reason not to spruce them up a bit if I wished. I took three basic hand towels and bleached them to freshen them up and remove stains. Sorry, I know bleach is not the most environmentally friendly thing but neither is buying all new towels, and using a bit of bleach now and then seems way better than resorting to something like those horrifying new Kleenex hand towels, the existence of which makes me wonder how it is that some people have a) money to burn, b) no concern for the amount of resources they are using and waste they are producing, and c) never apparently heard of their washing machine, which is generally an excellent tool for keeping hand towels clean.  Anyway....sorry for the rant.

Back to my bleached towels.  I ironed scraps of coordinating fabric from my bathroom curtain project (same bathroom) to make long, turned-under strips, then sewed them over the decorative strip on the towel.  The ironing and sewing took only minutes but the towels now seem to make my bathroom look really pulled-together. The towels themselves don't match each other but since I only use one at a time it doesn't matter. I'll definitely do this for my other bathroom too once I get around to painting it.

Yesterday's other project was not nearly as satisfying.  I started painting the living room ceiling and it's falling apart!  Eek!  The textured finish on the ceiling is crumbling down on my head as I try to roll on paint. I would just scrape down the whole textured layer, but it seems to be stuck on quite tight in other parts of the room, and my bad elbow doesn't really like doing lots of work like that over my head. My current plan is use glue and wallboard compound to try to rebuild some of the textured ceiling in this part of the room, but I know I can't get the swirly pattern to match the rest of the room, and again about the bum elbow. Oy. The wallpaper was at least a known problem--this one was an unpleasant surprise.

More t-shirt embellishment

You'll only like this one if you, like me, are a fan of Mo Willems.  (It's for personal use, so I'm not trying to do anything evil here with copyright.) I cut out, ironed-on and stitched down a pigeon figure inspired by the book, then printed the word "drive" three times on printable fabric and ironed those on around him.  Dorothy likes this one too.

I had a hard time photographing this shirt.  It is another long sleeve tee like the ones in the last post.  I used different colored thread and the decorative stitches on my sewing machine to create a border around the neckline and waist.  The effect turned out pretty well and I think it makes this shirt look sort of mail order catalog-y, in a good way.  This was a really rewarding project because it was so quick and simple and made such a difference in the shirt.  I wouldn't try this with a dull needle--decorative stitches on knit need a sharp, fresh needle designed for knits.

I recently ordered this book on crochet motifs, mostly because I was a little short of the free shipping threshold when I was ordering something more urgent (how much money does Amazon.com make that way?  so brilliant!) and I really like it.  The little shapes can be the building blocks for any larger project one can imagine, but they are also fun little quick projects on their own.  I was feeling frustrated with our cheap, stupid (yes, I have a 4-year-old and I know "stupid" is a bad word) tea kettle because the stupid product designers made the handle out of some material that heats up so much when water is boiled in the kettle that unsuspecting, innocent tea drinkers get their hands burned every time they fail to remember that this stupid kettle isn't like every other kettle they've ever owned, and that they can't touch the stupid handle to pour the water out when the stupid thing whistles.  Tired of reaching for a potholder just to pour water (or failing to), I decided to crochet something decorative and insulating to stay on the stupid thing to avoid this problem in the future. I made one of the hexagons in the book and tied it right onto the handle at the points. The red and white wool matches my kitchen, so now the stupid kettle looks prettier too.  If anyone thinks that a person who repeatedly burns their hands making tea is a little bit stupid herself...well, no one asked you.

The kids and I are off on an adventure tomorrow.  The car is packed, the MP3 player loaded, and a basket is well-stocked with snacks.  We're headed to Chicago to visit my college roommate.  I used to travel quite often with just Dorothy before Worth was born but our preschool schedule and being outnumbered by my kids has kept me home more this past year.  I'm hoping that all goes well so we can make travel a regular part of our homeschooling experience next year. On this trip we're hoping to take in a St. Patrick's Day festival at the Irish Heritage Center and the children's museum.  I have used my mother's trick of wrapping small gifts in old newspaper to hand out to the kids at regular intervals to keep them happy in the car.  Some art supplies, a tiny backhoe that makes noise, books...I think they will be well received.

Some wearables

Happy birthday to my sweet niece!  I can't believe it was two years ago that I videotaped her amazing and beautiful birth at the home of my brother and sister-in-law.  I crocheted the flutter sweater as a gift for Maggie, and it looks completely adorable on her.  The bottom and front edges curl up on purpose in a really cute way. The pattern was easy, but it was such a start-and-stop project for me that it took forever.  I'd intended to give it to her for Christmas but couldn't find my hooks in the move, so it became a birthday gift instead.  I did it in a lightweight organic cotton yarn so hopefully she can wear it on in to warm weather.

I mentioned in my last post that I got some new tees to craft up for summer.  A friend pointed out that they are also very nice plain--which they totally are. These two shirts remained plain (and nice) all winter while I meant to do something to them but never got around to it.  These came from Target months ago. I finally took some time to embellish them this week, and here are the results.  On this green one I appliqued some owls on a branch by using fusible web and the zig-zag stitch. 

This one I was especially pleased with.  I used acrylic yarn left over from another project and machine stitched it to my shirt using a wide zig-zag, three bands around the neck, bottom edge, and each arm hole. Then I washed it, just to make sure nothing terrible would happen to it before I blogged about it.  :)

And while I was doing that--just so no one thinks I have more hours in my day than any one else--my house descended into utter chaos.  The kitchen came to look like it had never been cleaned, the girl fed yogurt to the boy in a messy and indiscriminate manner, and the boy "painted" my sofa with his yogurty hands.  There is, um, no place like homemade!