A girly tote and new hat pattern.

As promised, shown is a photo of my grandmother's name embroidered (by her) in the quilt shown in a previous post. Ima Jean understandably went by plain ole Jean. ha. The embroidery seriously amplifies my love for the quilt many times - such a special reminder that the entire thing was handmade by my grandma.

It would be so very fun to make a quilt one day - pretty sure I would act selfishly and make it for myself (and Mr. Casey, of course). ;) Sara Leah and I had big plans for some quilting last winter / spring. Her grandmother had even volunteered to hold some quilting sessions and show us the ropes. We shamefully never took advantage and now Sara is living in Cincinnati, which will just make it a tad more challenging to craft together. I still have high hopes that we will manage to find some time to quilt one day - maybe cutting and piecing the top piece on our own and meeting up for a weekend to do the actual quilting. We shall see.


On another note, this is a little tote bag I made back in September for a coworker's birthday. The pattern is once again from Amy Karol's, Bend-the-Rules Sewing book. I slightly changed the dimensions of the pattern, but kept it the general size, which is really the size of a smallish purse. The fabrics are 100% Kelly - bright and funky - so I knew it would be a hit with her.

It's hard to see in the picture 'cause I'm certainly no photographer, but there are three different fabrics - one for the outside, one for the inside and one side of the straps, then the last one makes the other side of the straps and a pocket in the inside. I took another photo of the bag hanging, but can't seem to locate that one.

The lining is cotton flannel - a light color, so it doesn't show through. Amy suggests in her book to use cotton flannel in place of the various interfacings called for in most patterns, and so far I love it. It's a natural fiber, gives good structure and brillianty handles heavy washing and drying. For even more structure, I've also heard people talk of using a heavier weight fabric, like a cotton fleece, but haven't tried that yet myself.

Once again, I had much frustration at the very end of this project with the turning and flipping of the inside / outside pieces to be right-side out, lining-in. It wouldn't have been quite so bad, but this time I had handles to really throw me off. When everything is turned wrong-side, you insert the handles and sew around the top, then turn/flip through a small hole you leave. Well, the first attempt was really amusing - the handles somehow ended up on the inside of the bag. Good grief! It was so sad I had to laugh. This all naturally occurred around midnight on the day of her birthday, so I was pressed to finish and get it to her the next day at work. Of course, it wouldn't have been the end of the world if this didn't happen, but I was SO close, so had to give it another try.

After much thinking, the second try produced handles in the right location, but flipped the wrong way - the fabric I meant to be on the outside/top on the shoulder was facing into the shoulder. Ugh. My brain just doesn't turn and flip. I feel that it should, but it just doesn't. Now closer to 1am, I decide that while I'm not exceedingly happy with this result, Kelly won't know what my original intentions were, so I decide to just go with it. The truly sad thing is that I tried to write some notes to myself for next time, but I feel pretty sure that I could make the same mistakes all over again - it never really clicked, since like i said, no brain flipping and hardly any turning. Oh well.

For me, knitting is quite the confidence booster when compared with sewing. I guess there are just fewer foundational things to learn. With knitting, you learn the knit stitch and the purl stitch and everything else is just putting those together in different combinations to make some sort of pattern. Of course, I've never tried anything as challenging as say, a sweater, that has to be fitted is so many ways - the length, the neck, the torso, the sleeves. Gives me hives thinking about it, actually. Taylor is great at taking these leaps without so much as a blink - check out this sweater she recently finished for Marley (so cute!). Not sure if she's added the wooden buttons yet that Marley picked out in a NYC button shop - one is an etched Minnie Mouse, of course. :D

This hat was knitted for my stepdad's birthday and is so handsomely modeled by Senor Casey. Sometimes I forget to get a pic of things before wrapping and shipping them off, so was proud of myself for snapping this before it headed out west. Since my mom and Peter live in Oregon and have frigid winters, I doubled the yarn to make the hat extra thick and bulky and warm. It was also my first cable pattern, so finally used the cable needles purchased way back when. The pattern is from a book Angela picked up at the library - pretty sure it's this one. There are several fun cable patterns in this book, and I'm finally getting to the point that I can kinda make my own hat patterns - just doing a little math can translate any pattern to something you can use. I hate to even say this, but the key really is checking your gauge with a swatch, especially when you double your yarn or use a different weight yarn as I always seem to do.

Ok, so more on all that later. Maybe I'll do a pattern converting post for a hat one day to demonstrate. I could actually use a hat for myself - not that it really gets cold enough here to wear one, but you know, for traveling to cold places and such. ;)

Next, I'll post some pics to update on Ang's crafting. She has finished a couple of scarves - at least one that has already been gifted, so pics can post, and she just started a kickass embroidery project that I can't wait to post - might have to wait until after the holidays for that one - I have no idea if her sis knows about this blog.

Coolio.