Shapeshifter Shrug - Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of the Shapeshifter Shrug.  I am almost done I can almost feel how cozy this will be.  I have completed both parts of the shrug, the left and the right. (In case you missed it, here is Part 1).

The next step is to connect these two halves with a knit stitch called the Kitchener stitch.  There is no way to easily explain how this stitch is done, but I can tell you that the blog The Purl Bee does it with some great instructions.  Basically, you are taking a blunt needle and the same yarn and weaving in the stitches that are on the needle and holder (those are called "live" stitches) to create a stitch that looks like the knit side of your work.  This creates a seamless join.

I had to have the instructions up on the screen the entire time I did this and had the computer cursor on the step I was doing each time.  This took concentration and a quiet house. (Sorry Vince, no TV and no talking!)

Here is the work-in-progress from last week.  Once this was complete I weaved in the loose ends and took a break for about a week.  Ha, the next step I wanted daylight and plenty of time so I waited until the following weekend (this weekend) to block.

Blocking is something that you do at the end of a project to make all the hard work you just put into knitting look fabulous.  This means that all the stitches that puckered and all the curling get smoothed out for a professional look.  I did this step when I knitted the Lace-Up Fingerless Gloves for Christmas last year.

I start out by laying out a towel on the floor.  I measure and arrange (by stretching, if necessary) my shrug to the dimensions that look good to me.  I chose 23" wide.  I took safety pins and stuck them through the edge and into the rug. 

I then used a spray bottle to generously mist the fabric.  I used my fingertips to massage the mist into the fabric and to ensure it is evenly wetted.

I then stretched it to my measurements and pinned all the way around the shrug.

Next, I covered it with a second towel and placed books on top of the entire surface area of the shrug.  I up-ended two TV snack trays and placed those on top of the books along with a box and a bin.  I used whatever would evenly press down on the fabric.  I will come back and check on this in a few days.  It is ready when the fabric is fully dry.

Last week I went button shopping.  I changed the pattern a bit and did not make it as long as the pattern was originally written.  As a result, I did not need as many buttonholes as planned.  Instead of 20 buttonholes, I only needed to make 18.  That being said, I needed 18 buttons.  I thought Joann's would have just what I needed, so I headed there and I discovered two things:

1. That Joann's did not even have 18 of the same button (unless I bought two bags of the bag-o-buttons and those are plastic and are not going anywhere near the shrug that took me a month to knit).  Yeah, I'm snubbing the bag-o buttons.
2. That even if Joann's did have that many buttons in a button I liked, it would've cost me a fortune.  That is even taking into account using coupons.  Nice buttons were priced anywhere between $2.99 to $8.99.  Some had only one to a card and some had up to four on a card.  

So, I went looking on the internet and there are several online stores that had some great buttons that you could buy in bulk, but they were still too expensive.  I then got a Eureka! moment and went to eBay.  

I found a lot of 50 flower-shaped white mother-of-pearl shell buttons for a total of $7.05.  That is with shipping.  The only thing is, is that it's coming from Hong Kong and will take 4-6 weeks.  Hey, I don't care, it is still in the 90's here in Florida, I can live a bit longer without the shrug. 

I love eBay!  

Black Diamond Necklace

I'm not one to flip through fashion magazines and say, "Ooh, I have to have that!"  I do enjoy thumbing through and getting inspiration, but I won't spend the money on any of it.  I guess I'm just too cheap!  

So, when I last looked through one, I saw this necklace that was pretty pretentious.  This necklace was a black diamond necklace with a black diamond "frog prince" as a pendant.  This necklace was so expensive that a price must be requested.  I went to the website, aaronbasha.com, you can view Mr. Frog Prince as an enamel pendant or diamond encrusted one.  And they still don't give a price.

I thought, I got something at home that would look just as nice, and I can save about $15K. Does anyone remember my Tickled Pink Necklace from last year?  Well, I know now that I could have made that necklace so much easier if I just asked someone how to do it.  I work with a few ladies that know how to piece jewelry together so they told me what I "could have done".  Well, better late than never.

I decided to deconstruct the Tickled Pink Necklace to make my new one.  I bought some almost black eye pins, took out my tool kit and went to work.

I first took all the pink nugget stones off of the existing necklace.  I was going to only place two stones on each pin and make a chain of those.

I had to buy pins that were really long, so I ended up using one pin to make two links.  As you can see, I may have learned what to do, but not really how to do it.  My final link has some pretty crazy looking eyes and the post is no longer straight.  Hey, good thing I'm not charging admission for this!

I made a length of this before I really thought about how I was going to affix my centerpiece onto the necklace.  

I

Ok, so Step 1 is done; necklace links are complete.  Step 2 is to attach or hang my new pendant.  Kj, don't kill me, but I took the bracelet you gave me for my birthday and took it apart.  It was a black diamond [rhinestone] flower on a hinged bangle bracelet.  It was a bit top-heavy and rotated around my wrist when I wore it.  I loved it, though, and knew that was going to be my centerpiece.

Isn't that the perfect flower?  Ok, so I had Vince take this task on.  I said, "Here, take this flower off the bracelet, but don't harm the flower." He came back having used some serious wire cutters with the flower off and the bangle detached.  There was no saving the bangle, though.

The backside of the flower had some gnarly jagged edges from where it was soldered to the bangle, so he took my Dremel tool (that Kj gave me one year) and ground them down to a smooth surface.

I made a bail out of a short piece of coated wire and two crimp beads.  As you can see in the pics of the back of the flower, there are holes.  I threaded the coated wire through the holes to make the bail.

From the front, you can't see the wire.  I then found the middle of the necklace and opened it up so it was two strands of links.  I removed a few links from each side and attached each side to the wire bail.

I will wear it to work or bring in it so the jewelry chicks can see it.  Maybe they can give me a better idea for the bail.  Otherwise, I love it.

All it takes is a magazine pic and the motivation to create a designer knockoff on a dime to have something "new to you".  Aaron Basha, you can keep your Frog Prince!

Ruffle T-Shirt

I've had this t-shirt dress in my closet for at least 10 years.  It is from the Gap and I wore it as a bathing suit cover-up in my early 20's.  It's hard to imagine having an article of clothing for that long.  Anyway, I have not worn it aside from pjs for years.  It was time to deconstruct it or donate it to Goodwill.

What did I decide?  To Deconstruct...by making this a t-shirt with ruffles.  The long length allowed me to adorn it with itself.  Does that even make sense?  I don't know but here it goes:

I cut it about where the waistline would be and hemmed the now t-shirt top bottom edge with a ballpoint needle and a zig-zag stitch with a contrasting color: khaki green.

I then took the bottom skirt part and with my scissors, cut it into one very long continuous strip as if I were peeling an orange.  I did not concern myself that the strip was not perfectly cut.  There were some fat areas and skinny areas and parts where the scissor cuts were a bit jagged.  I figured it would add some character.

Once this was cut, I needed to make this my ruffle.  There are a few ways to make ruffles:

1. Put sewing machine on the longest stitch and sew.  Sometimes this is all you have to do and the machine gathers it for you.  If not, then try #2.
2. Do #1, but have a double stitch.  Meaning sew one line then go back and about a 1/4" apart, sew another line.  Hold one end of the two threads tight then with the other hand slide the fabric away from the holding hand.  This allows you to gather the ruffle and make it as full as you need it to be.
3. Lastly, sew a zig-zag stitch over another, separate strong thread, making a channel.

I chose to do the 3rd way.  Here is a link (Sew 4 Home) to a site that has pictures of what I was trying to explain.  They explain it way better than I can. :-)

The zig-zag method is the second easiest (the first being #1 where the machine just does it for you).  I took the fabric strip and a separate spool of button thread and set the machine to the widest zig-zag.  I placed the button thread down under the presser foot, on top of the material and held it in place and stitched the zig-zag down the entire length of the material.  You have to ensure that you do not actually stitch the button thread.  You are just stitching over it to trap it under the zig-zag.

When I stitched a few inches, I went back to the beginning and tied the green thread and the white button thread in a knot.  This will ensure that the button thread is not pulled out from the channel while zig-zaging and ruffling. I sewed the whole length of the strip.

Then I held the opposite end of the button thread, where I ended, and slid the material down near the knotted end.  This was a long process because my strip was ridiculously long.  I did not want to run out of ruffle so I just did the whole thing.

The button thread will need to stay in the channel to maintain the ruffle until it is sewed in place.  Sometimes it can be removed, but if it is sewed over during the attachment step, then it will have to stay.  I took this now ruffle and adjusted it so it was nice and even.  I took this over to the t-shirt and pinned it, button thread side down, along the neckline of the t-shirt. 

I started pinning it at the back of the neck and where the two sides met in the front where the v-neck was, I continued it down the front.  I sewed it in place and...

How do you like it?  It is not perfect, but it is darn cute!  I will love this shirt for 10 more years!  Well, that is highly unlikely that ruffles like this will be in style continuously for 10 more years, but they keep coming back, so why not later too?

Sun Skirt

Happy Labor Day Weekend!  This is an easy-peasy project today.  I had this sundress that was a bit snug in the midsection and because of that, I never wore it.

I had placed this dress in my box-o-tricks for when I went to a friend's house to use her serger (I used it to finish the sleeves from the Summer Lovin' Sweater).  It became a sewing party, with very little sewing going on (bottles of wine and sharp objects don't mix well, ya know?) so I only got to a thing or two and this dress never made it out of the box.

I decided to make this a skirt.  I lopped off the bottom below the breast cups; I figured, "Why not make it a longer skirt?"

I took it over to the ironing board and steamed a double hem.  I did not even measure, just eye-balled it.  It was not critical because I won't be wearing a top that will be higher than the waistline; it will be covered.

I sewed the waist line hem.  This fits as-is without feeling like it will fall down, but just to be on the safe, I wanted to have a cinch.  I figured out the middle of the back and went to the left about an inch.  I went to my button jar and found a cream button.  I attached the button on the outside of the skirt with matching thread.

Then to the right about an inch from the middle of the back, I wanted to place a loop.  I grabbed my embroidery thread holder and chose three colors that were found in the dress: sage green, light pink and yellow.  I cut about a foot of thread of each color, braided it, and tied it in a loop with a knot.

I sewed the loop onto the outside of the skirt, with the knot on the left and the loop on the right.  This way when it is buttoned, the knot will be hidden.

Once the back is cinched, there is no fear that it was slip down on me while wearing it.  I placed a dab of glue on the knot for good measure.

Viola!  The finished sun skirt!

Now, this is something that I will wear this weekend. I'm glad I saved this sundress from forever being in the dark.  Enjoy the day!

Shapeshifter Shrug - Part 1

I have been dying (no pun intended) to knit this shrug.  It is called the Shapeshifter Shrug from a knit book called Vampire Knits.

I bought this book for myself for Christmas last year and have been wanting to make almost everything in it.  The author states that it was inspired by Twilight but is not limited to Edward and Bella projects.  It goes into the history of vampires, werewolves, witches and all kinds of eerie phenomenon.  It is a great book to have in your library. 

I finally decided on the Shapeshifter Shrug which is a convertible garment that has buttonholes on one edge and buttons on the other to allow you to "shift" it into other forms such as a shrug, shawl, scarf or whatever.
It was originally knit in wool, but I decided to keep it cheaper and a bit less itchy by choosing Wool-Ease from Lion Brand.  It is an acrylic/wool blend; worsted weight in heather forest green.  I had coupons fowr Joann's so this so far has totaled about $12 for 5 balls of yarn (yippee)!

I'm knitting this on size 8 bamboo circular needles.  There are a ton of sts, so circulars are the most comfortable way to knit this garment, in my opinion.  I have to keep track of the pattern row and the cumulative row because I have to place a buttonhole every so often, so I am tracking this with two separate row counters.  High maintenance, for sure!

Another challenge with this is that it has a cabled look to it but they are achieved by yarn overs (yo) and decreases.  My history with yo has been a bit rocky (Aloha Maddie Baby Blanket) so I was being cautious this time by making flash cards of each row so my eyes only see that row.

Don't mind the stars over the cards; there is a copyright on the pattern so I cannot give it out.  I just wanted to illustrate my flashcards and how they are very helpful.

So here is the start of the pattern and a few buttonholes.

I just love the look of this pattern.  I have to use markers in this pattern so that I only perform the pattern repeat stitch on the stitches that are between the markers and work a garter st at the edges.  The marker set I'm using were made by my friend Crystal as a Christmas present.  They are polymer clay snowmen on jumprings with a post down the center.  How creative, huh?  I love them too.

As of today, I have completed up to the end of the pattern repeat and now I will do just stockinette st for awhile.  Here is another close-up of how this cool pattern has worked up:

Once I block this, the cross-over area will not be puffy or raised but will lay flat.  I am working everyday on this because I'm obsessed with it right now, so I hope to be done with it in a snap.

Stayed tuned!

Suede Beanie

I started and finished this project in 3 days.  Yes, 3 days!!  Let me start off by saying that I don't consider myself a crocheter and I feel when I start a crochet project, I have to relearn all the stitches again.  Thank you to my sister, Kathy, who had to talk me through the basics (again) so I could start.

My inspiration for this was a conversation about back-to-school shopping.  Vince's youngest daughter is starting high school and she had her shopping list written out with lots of detail.  On the list was accessories, which included a hat.  I asked, "What kind of hat?"  I mean, who knows these days?  She may have wanted a fedora or a ten-gallon.  She wanted a beanie-like hat, but not really a beanie.  I then asked, "A yamaka?"  Her reply was, "Yea kind of."  Okay, I had something to go on.

I went through my knit magazines and found one from a Berroco booklet called #225 - Scarves and More.  The pattern was called Kathe.  It was a crochet pattern and the yarn was Suede by Berroco.  The color I chose was a pink shade they call Annie Oakley (100% nylon) because I already had it in my yarn stash.  Yeah for using up stash yarn! 

So, I start and right away something didn't seem right.  They have you chain 5, connect to make a ring, then do 6 double crochets (dc) in the ring.  Increase in the next round, etc.  I found that the hat was already curling in on the third row.  I did several rounds according to the pattern (and, yes, I even did a gauge swatch) and it was looking like the smallest hat in the word.  I ripped it out and moved up from a G hook to an H hook and redid it.  Still too small.  Hmmmm, what is going on here?

After a day of trial and error I decided that I'm going to alter the pattern to what makes sense to me.  Now, where do I get off altering crochet patterns when I can barely chain, is beyond me, but I was willing to try.  I did the ring again on the H hook and made 9 dc in the ring.  I increased like the pattern said to do for the first 5 rounds where the pattern was pretty basic: ch-1, dc, ch-1 in the spaces.

I'll admit, maybe 9 dc in the ring was too much because this was looking really flat and too loose on my head even though at this stage, I had the required amount of dc, ch-1 spaces as the pattern indicated.  I decided to do a few rounds without increasing.  Still too loose.  Okay, my next round I just did dc in the spaces and left out the ch-1: a little better.  I was feeling some confidence starting to rise up in me at this point.

My 12th round I did dc in the each space four times then skipped a space, then dc four times, etc.  I was hoping this would tighten it up a bit and it did.  Whoo-hoo, my plan is working!

I finished as how the pattern read with 3 rounds of single crochet (sc) in the back loop but moved up one more hook size to an I (it was really tight with the sc rounds on the H hook).  Okay, I'm admitting that I have no clue where the back loop was, but I worked into something in the back around each time.

Ta-da!  I say, not bad for my first, "let's wing it" project.  Crochet is so much faster and a bit more forgiving than knitting it.  I still feel more confident when I knit than crochet, but I do enjoy doing a crochet item every once in awhile.  

I am imagining this is how the daughter will wear it.

She is actually going to high school in another state, so this was her last week in Florida.  I finished in time to give this to her before she left for the airport.  Good luck, G!  I'll see you at Christmas!

Sweatshirt Bag

I bought this sweatshirt at a yard sale awhile ago.  I bought it with the intention of cutting it up, but was not sure how just yet.  Since I just finished the Aloha Maddie Baby Blanket, I found myself with nothing to do.  :-)

I am figuring out what to do about my Glace Shrug, so not to worry.  I do not think I have enough yarn to complete it, so I am trying a mixed media project with it.  It'll be ready soon, promise!

So, back to the project at hand.  I figured I needed a new project bag [insert hearty laugh here] so I wanted to do that with the material.  I've worked with sweatshirt material before, so a couple of traits of this material are that it won't fray when you cut it and the cut edges will curl.  That can be a good thing or a bad thing.  Knowing these things, I am going to play off them.

First, I cut the sleeves and hood off and trimmed it so it's boxy.

Then I placed the right-sides together and pinned them to sew the side seams.

I started the stitching about a half inch from the top and bottom.  This will help the material curl when washed.

I turned it right-side out and sewed the bottom ribbed edge together.  I then took one of the sleeves and cut it up the seam to "butterfly" it.  I trimmed the seam stitching off so that the material could lay flat.  I cut the sleeve into 2" strips.

I evened out the ends so they were straight with a rotary cutter.  I did not worry that they were not the same length.  I then sewed three strips to each other, end-to-end, twice.  These will be used as the handles.

I then folded each one the long way, wrong-sides together, and sewed each handle strip.

I positioned the handles on the inside of the top edge of the bag and arranged them so that they were long enough to be shoulder straps.  I did some measuring to ensure that there was a bit of a margin at the top edge to allow for the curling.  I sewed them in place with gray thread in a box with an X in the middle.  During this, I was coming dangerously close to running out of thread.

The bobbin had about a few inches on it so I had to wind some more of this onto the bobbin.  I was keeping my fingers crossed during this period!

Hold your breath...yes, I was able to finish with enough thread.  Phew!  (I even attached a few buttons on a pair a pants that had recently fell off with the remaining thread).  Here is an inside view of the bag with all the handles attached.

Once this was done, I was pretty much done with the bag!  I threw it in the wash so that you could see the rolling edge and broken-in look it had.  I could even use this bag as a hand warmer using the kangaroo pouch!

I pulled a ball of yarn out of the closet and gave it a new home.  I think of each project of yarn and a project bag as a hermit crab.  Each set of yarn is like the crab and the bag is it's shell.

Awe, look at how cute this hermit crab is!  The shell - fabulous!