midnight knitting

letting go

2011-01-12T20:33:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned before, I have boxes lots of my mother's old fabric and I've been trying to figure out what to do with it all. Last January, I decided I'd like to make a bunch of quilts and give most of them away, either to friends or charitable organizations. I was mildly productive and finished five quilt tops over the year. I'm choosing very simple patterns so I can power through and get through all this fabric as fast as possible.

I sent two back to the US with my step-mother, where batting and backing fabric are much less inexpensive (in Switzerland, batting is about $30CHF for one quilt and the cheapest cotton fabric still runs about $15/yard). The plan is to have her church ladies tie and finish these quilts and give them to people that need them. We'll see what happens.

This quilt top is the first I sent back and I had a hard time parting with it. It was a last minute decision, right before I took my step-mom to the airport. Thus the bad photos. But this is what the my project is about. Letting go and giving back.

If anyone loves one of the other quilt tops I post here, let me know and you can probably have it.

red dress for Annabelle

2008-10-15T20:37:00.001+02:00

I started this sweater over 18 months ago when I was pregnant, kinda hoping I might have a girl to wear it. I had a boy instead, who I love dearly. But I continued with this project to give to my niece who was due a couple weeks before my son. Well, it took me over a year to finish the darn thing, what with the sleepness nights and two children demanding my attention. After months of good intentions, I finally pushed through this last summer and sent it off a couple weeks ago. Luckily, I made it big, so it should be just the right size for this coming winter.

This was my biggest and most compicated knitting project to date. At times, I thought it would never end. It takes a lot more stitches to make a whole garment with size 3 needles than with size 7 (my usual). Plus, I completely redesigned the back to incorporate some cables to match the front. This took some complicated calculations to insure the dimensions matched the front, particularly the armholes. It was a satisfying project. I hope little Annabelle loves it (or at least her mom does).

front, obviously

back, obviously

my son modeling it with his dinosaur

my son holds still only for moment to watch the cat dash under the bed (see the tail?)

my son in tears: "Enough already! I don't like being a model and I don't want to wear a dress!"

baby sleep sack

2007-12-05T21:50:00.000+01:00

I decided to quilt a sleep sack for my boy. I have the Halo Sleep Sack and it does the job, but I just don't like looking at it. I made a pattern from my existing blanket sleeper, but the end result turned out a little smaller than I planned. He just won't have much wiggle room. I pieced together the top from scraps. As an experiment, I handquilted the top and machine quilted the back. I was lazy and didn't baste or pin, so it's a little kittywampus. But I like it and it wasn't very hard to make.

hand quilting on right, machine quilting on left

here's the front

here's the back

test run

winter hat

2007-11-20T15:16:00.000+01:00

see the cable flowing into the earflap - that ain't easy!

Ever since I moved to Switzerland, I've wanted this hat. I see people wearing similiar hats all the time, but I could never find the exact right one to buy. So of course, I decided to make it. I wanted this cable pattern with this shape with earflaps. This is such a basic design, but I couldn't find any usable pattern. So I made up a pattern, using my head size and gauge to graph out where to put the cables and earflaps. The hardest part was figuring out the decreases so 1) the hat shape looked right (still not completely happy with it - I wanted more pointy) and 2) the cables still looked right over the decreases. I undid several rows of the decrease at least six times to get it right and I was pretty satisfied with the result. The cables don't abruptly end but flow nicely in the top of the hat.

My favorite part is the earflap (see above). I wanted the cable to continue down the earflap, instead of having ribbing at the bottom of the hat and doing the earflap in stockinette like every other pattern I've seen. So this meant I had to reverse the cable (since you knit on the earflap after knitting the hat, knitting "upside down") and figure out where I was in the cable pattern so it twisted properly. This took four tries to get right. I was very proud of myself. It's kinda pathetic what makes me feel accomplished these days. Small victories.

yes, I look ridiculous posing here,
but I had to show off the tassels

I might still add some decorative edging and a tassel on top. But it's cold here, so I had to stop knitting and wear this thing.

my baby, my knits

2007-10-21T22:35:00.000+02:00

is there anything better than your baby in your knits?

My baby boy is finally here and almost 3 months old already. He needed a sweater and I couldn't find anything I liked. So I frantically rush knit this Baby Yoda Sweater in sporadic 10 minute increments spread over three weeks (even a bit while he nursed on my lap - that was complicated). I love it and I love him in it. I wish I had knit more for him during my pregnancy. Time is fleeting.

pink, baby

2007-07-04T11:09:00.000+02:00

I'm not having a girl, but lots of my friends are. So I can throw my pink passion into some baby quilts. Here's the first in the series (for Astrid, who inspired me to start blogging):

Jacob's Ladder pattern in pink and green

Per usual, I accidently cut two solid green squares too small and didn't have any extra (I tried piecing tiny bits together, but it was hopeless). So I couldn't complete one of the patches. But this turned into a happy accident. I simply appliqued a four-clover (see below) in the substitue patch, giving a break to the symmetry of the piece and a little extra personal touch.

lucky four-leaf clover saves the day

I'm also using these small projects to practice my machine quilting skills. I was hoping that machine quilting would be so easy and quick that it would lure me away from the ridiculously time-consuming, but irresistably lovely hand quilting. Well, it certainly is quicker but so much harder than I expected. I'm a sloppy sewer and I have a bad habit of pulling the fabric where I want it to go, rather than letting the machine do most of the work. This is diasterous with machine quilting, which requires that all layers be fed at the same rate. So after a couple rows I realized that the top was bunching up in places. It wasn't so bad that I needed to rip it out and the errant fluffiness decreased significantly after washing. But I realized I have a lot to learn before I attempt a full-size quilt or quilt any design besides straight rows.

all pinned and quilted

one quilt down...

2007-04-24T00:42:00.000+02:00

color, color everywhere

Hooray! I've finally finished hand-quilting my mother's quilt (the back story is here). It didn't take 100 years, only 100 hours or so. I started last August and last week I finished the last square. I am so elated! After the final stitch, I jumped up and did a victory dance. Of course, my fingers may never be the same, permanently calloused it seems.

I'm not using this quilt on the bed,
but how else can you take a quilt pic?

I love the look of hand-quilting and I get giddy just admiring my work, as amateur as it is. It's partially the look, but the stitches are also a physical representation of the time and hard work that went into it.

the lovely bumps creating by hand quilting

1 of 24 log cabin squares, shadow quilted

a little wobbly, but at least at semi-regular intervals

I've got two quilt tops waiting in the wings, but I don't know if I can do it again. My friend is having her queen size quilt handquilted in only a month by some lady in Utah for $80, apparently the going rate. As disturbed as I am about the sweatshop level hourly rate this lady is charging, I am tempted. Perhaps she's a speed quilter (but even at 5x my speed, she's still sorely underpaid). Perhaps she pays undocumented workers half her rate to do the job. Perhaps little elves come in at night and do all the work while she sleeps. Perhaps I should just quilt my quilts and let the mystery be.

On a final, slightly melancholy note... per the cliche, working on my mother's quilt has made me feel connected, connected to her, connected to the quilting community, connected to a quilting tradition. The only thing that makes me sad is that I don't yet have anyone to which I can pass on my quilting (or any of my other domestic skills). I'm saying this with shameless gender bias, assuming that neither of my boys will be interested or at least too busy playing sports or climbing mountains. Even if I had a girl, there's no guarantee she'd be interested either. Perhaps quilting makes its own connection, in its own time. I'll hope for that.

baby on the way

2007-03-18T21:09:00.000+01:00

I'm 5 months pregnant and baby knitting is in full swing. Last year I bought one precious skein of this Rowan big wool for 25 francs. This year I realized that I couldn't even make a baby sweater with this amount so I forked out another 25 francs so I could make this little number. It's sweet and cosy. I can't wait to snuggle my baby in it next winter.

discontinued

2007-02-12T09:53:00.000+01:00

What happens when you impulsively buy yarn on sale then wait a year to use it? You realize that you don't have enough yarn to knit anything but a doll hat and you can't buy more because the stores don't carry it anymore.

Thus was my predicament this with yarn (and will be with many more yarn balls waiting patiently in my craft room). This is the third sweater I tried with this yarn, prematurely running out of yarn on two previous projects. On this project, I realized after knitting the front, back, and half of the first sleeve that the yarn was running precariously low. After a few hours of lamenting the prospects of frogging yet another failed project, I had an idea - short sleeves! Not quite brillant but pretty useful in this case. It worked like a charm, leaving only the tiniest bit of yarn left over (see above pic). However, this design choice turned this unisex sweater into decidedly feminine attire. Perhaps this is a sign? I think I'll add some embroidered embellishments to girl it up even more.

This sweater has an even longer story, which I'll elaborate on in an another post...

sugar, spice & everything nice

2007-02-12T09:37:00.000+01:00

I finally finished my sweater interrupted and I couldn't be happier with it. Yea!

I love America

2007-02-02T14:44:00.000+01:00

So my little case of homesickness has produced this patriotic number in just one month's time. The applique wasn't nearly as bad as I expected; I could get about 3 stars done in one TV show. Of course, I still have to quilt it.

A little happy accident caused the stripes to go horizontal, just like the flag. I hadn't designed this on purpose and only noticed it once it was all sown together. This only happened because I drafted my pattern horizontally instead of vertically (not realizing the consequences). This meant that the blocks would all be turned 90 degrees to the right, thus causing the stripes to go horizontal. Yea!

patch-tastic

2007-01-17T17:36:00.000+01:00

The miracle of speed-piecing and lots of midnight quilting has surprisingly yielded a whole quilt's worth of squares in just 2 weeks! (OK, I admit that I still have many hours of applique left to lose my mind over.) The moral of the story is... pick the right pattern. My last quilt top took over 3 very long months to piece together and almost made me give up quilting before I'd even really started. But now I'm encouraged.

Per usual, the fun part was the endless planning in Powerpoint and Excel, creating all sorts of numbered diagrams to make speed-piecing possible for my "random" pattern. Here are a couple samples:

I don't recommend trying to figure out my system. I barely understand it myself and have to decipher it every time I reference the diagram.

patchwork complete...

2006-12-27T13:14:00.000+01:00

...and the work has only just begun. Many hours of basting, quilting and finishing remain. I may just pack this away for the next generation to finish.

where the wild things are

2006-12-26T20:38:00.000+01:00

Max is Max for Halloween

My first handmade costume for Max...
and maybe my last - that was hard work!

Stoffe, Stoffe, und mehr Stoffe

2006-08-12T15:12:00.000+02:00

I remember why I quilt - because fabric is fabulous. I was just browsing this Swiss site, Cotton & Color, and they have the most beautiful collection of prints I've seen in a long time, maybe ever. In the "old" days, I used to frequent the low-end shops like Joann's and Michael's looking for $3/yd bargains and I quickly got bored with the selections. Occasionally, I'd venture into a specialty quilt shop and treat myself to 1/4yd of something fancy that I'd never use, only admire. But after spending an hour browsing this site, I desperately want to buy, buy, buy! I must resist. I absolutely cannot let myself buy any new fabric until I use all the fabric I already have. To this end, I foresee many one patch quilts in my future.

multiplying like rabbits

2006-08-11T17:13:00.000+02:00

In an effort to use all this fabric as quickly as possible, I've started more quilting projects, obviously with no hope of ever finishing any of them. And I worry: what if I don't have a child interested in carrying on the tradition? It's sad to think after I'm gone that the remaining 100 kilos of fabric might just be thrown away. That's why I quilt, to keep the chain going.

Anyway, here's my second project, a Card Trick pattern using fabric I bought at least 8 years ago for a quilt that's long since been forgotten. So I had to "make it work" and squeeze every last bit out of that yardage to maintain some cohesiveness. I finished the last square (number 48) two days ago and am desperate to look at new fabric. So instead of sewing it all together, I've pulled more fabric out of the mystery boxes...

48 finished squares ... red, white & blue

I've decided to make a patriotic quilt, to help me remember my homeland. I'll try to have it done for next July 4th. The planning stage is fun, i.e. requires tedious calculation and sketching. I have an Excel spreadsheet to calculate required yardage and adjust sizes. I also scanned all my fabric so I can make quilt diagrams in Powerpoint with the swatches and test out different variations. Here are the final two contenders:

option 1: random placement of reds

option 2: orderly placements of reds

To the untrained eye, these may appear to be exactly the same. OK, they look the same to me too. But there is a subtle difference. In the first, the four red prints are "randomly" placed to give it a more country, scrappy feel (to achieve this "randomness" I spent an hour in Excel figuring out a layout that ensured no print would appear next to itself). In the second, three red prints are used in the same places throughout the quilt, to give a more orderly feel. Option 2 is much easier to construct, but I think I like option 1 better. If anyone actually reads this blog, I'd love to read your opinion.

chaos ensues

2006-08-11T15:30:00.000+02:00

As you can see, quilting has overtaken my life and my house. My idle knitting hands dug out boxes and boxes of fabric I inherited from my mother in 1991. As far as I can remember, she only ended up completing one quilt before she died. It was for me, a gorgeous black & white Irish chain (I was really into 2 Tone ska at the time and obsessed with b&w checks - so sweet of her to use this as inspiration). I never use it for fear of ruining it. But when our family went on a road trip after my mom died, my dad used it to make a bed in the back of the van for us kids. When I discovered this several hours into the trip, I had a complete meltdown, sure it would be destroyed by my two brothers over the course of the two week camping trip. Under my careful watch, it survived and now enjoys a quiet life in the linen closet.

my mom's 2 Tone Irish Chain

Anyhoo...my mom left behind 30 scrappy log cabin squares and enough fabric to keep busy several generations to come. She didn't leave any patterns so I have no idea what she intended to make, which makes me little sad. And I hardly know what I'm doing, having only made simple tied quilts and two pieced baby quilts to this point. But the pre-made squares were a good starting point. I don't know the story behind these squares, but they were an absolute mess - weirdo color combinations, the strips all catawampous, the squares all different sizes (I found this strange because my b&w quilt, by extreme contrast, was so precisely made). It was impossible to piece it together without first partially dissembling several squares and adding new fabric in to make them a uniform size. I wish I had taken pictures along the way. Six squares were so small, I couldn't even use them in the quilt. Then only by accident did I properly arrange the squares in the Straight Furrows style.

accidental straight furrows - yea!

My mom had sewn together four of the blocks and I had to guess from there which order to put the rest in. After I sewed it all together, I noticed this cool diagonal effect of light and dark fabric, then learned that part of designing a log cabin quilt is selecting a block variation. This was very satisfying and I took the picture above to commemorate the moment.

all basted & ready to quilt

After figuring out where to buy batting and quilting supplies in Zurich (not an easy task for my pidgeon German), I settled into several nights of endless basting (yuck). Now I'm hand-quilting, which may take the next 100 years, and contemplating why anyone does this and why I continue to do it. Do I even like quilting? This is awful. I quilt while I watch TV and at my current pace, it takes approximately four TIVO'd shows to finish one square. I've finished two, so twenty-two more to go. Meanwhile...

sweater interrupted

2006-08-11T09:35:00.000+02:00

Perhaps you thought I had stopping knitting for the summer - too hot, too much traveling and swimming to do. But in fact, my new craft room has exploded and projects have multiplied out of control. It all began with one little piece of paper. As I neared finishing my latest baby sweater, I discovered that I was missing the last page of instructions. So there the unfinished raglan sleeve sat, mocking me, for over two months, waiting for me to find that page. Meanwhile...

spiraling downward

2006-05-05T16:42:00.000+02:00

This was so tedious, particularly since I knit as slow as molasses. I almost quit after 30 rows when I realized I was only about 20% done. I let it sit for a few weeks, then knit like mad watching episodes of 24. Now I love it and am so glad I finished.

ski hat

2006-05-05T16:18:00.001+02:00

This was a special request from a friend, who has trouble finding hats that fit. She gave me a sample hat that had a pattern she liked and some yarn. I searched for a pattern, but I couldn't find anything remotely similar on the internet, which surprised me because this type of hat is very popular here in Switzerland. I could find patterns with earflaps, patterns with pointed tops (only a couple), patterns with a fair-isle pattern (but mostly only two tone) but none putting all these elements together and certainly none using as big as yarn as I was using (US 10 needle). So I cobbled together several patterns and graphed out a pattern in Excel, which was rather fun. Then hoped for the best as I decreased at the crown, trying to make the pattern not get all goofy as the stitches merged together. I had to undo several rows, several times to make it look right, not so fun. But I'm pretty satisfied. My fair-isle technique is still terrible - I still spend lots of time adjusting the yarn tension after knitting and my stranding and weaving is sooooo messy (pic of inside of hat below). I have a lot to learn.

earflaps

2006-05-05T16:18:00.000+02:00

I made this perfectly fitting hat with earflaps (and matching scarf) to keep my small head warm this winter. I love it but I've been told it looks a little like an afro.

"buzy lizzy" sweater

2006-05-05T16:17:00.000+02:00

My first fair isle - not fun. My first attempt was so tight that I finally had to cut off the bottom half of the sweater and re-knit it. Now I tend to overcompensate and knit it so loose that I spent more time adjusting the finished stitches then knitting it in the first place. The smocking, on the other hand, was fun and looks beautiful. I learned a lot on this project.

cashmere is my friend

2006-05-05T16:10:00.000+02:00

Here is my second sweater, more complicated than the first. I was confused by the pattern, but soldiered on hoping that I had got it right. I continued until just a few rows shy of finishing when I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. So I frogged the whole thing and started over from scratch. It was worth it. The decorative stitching looked like a mess before and now it actually looks decorative. Yea!

The only "problem" is that I was seduced in the yarn store into buying cashmere, which is not particularly baby-friendly when it comes to washing. But it's so soft and yummy.

learning to frog

2006-05-05T16:05:00.000+02:00

A couple weeks after learning to knit, I attempted by my first sweater attempt. Unfortunately, I was too lazy to test my gauge, so it predictably ended up too wide and too short. So I contemplated that sweater for 6 months, without knitting anything else. With the encouragement of a knitting mentor, I eventually undid the whole thing and knit a whole new sweater, which is pictured here. I am now so satisfied and not afraid to frog. However, I made this sweater for my son and he cries every time I try to make him wear it. Why?

begin at the beginning

2006-05-05T16:02:00.000+02:00

Everyone starts here. Scarves, scarves and more scarves.