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www.inthebeginningfabrics.com
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This Lily Pond bag — started and finished in a one-week period — has convinced me that I want to be (for now, at least) a Small-Project person. Small in size. Small in scope.
Which is kind of funny, because my one concern while making my “Huntington Hobo” bag, designed by Pink Sand Beach Designs, was that it was going to be too big. Tom saw the cut-out pieces and said, “That’s going to be huge. You’ll be able to fit both cats inside.”
As if that’s something I would do.
Luckily for Toby and Emma, the bag magically shrunk during construction although — come to think of it — one of them would still fit. But its cat-carrying capacity is neither here nor there. What’s important is: I love this bag. It’s exactly what I wanted.
Here’s my hobo bag hanging out with Phoebe at work.
Wednesdays Are UFO Days
Decisions, decisions. I have two equally worthy UFOs sitting here. One is a knitting project (scarf). The other is a sewing project (purse). (And not the recently-begun Lily Pond purse, either. This is a house of many purses.)
I think I’ll go with the scarf…if only because it’s more seasonally appropriate. Plus, it’s almost finished. This is a three-skein scarf, and all I have left to go is that ball in the photo. I pull things like this out of the UFO treasure-trove, and I think: sheesh, what was the hold-up here? I mean, it’s so close to done. I suppose something more important and/or compelling came along…but really, is that any excuse?
To show my commitment to finally finishing, I have actually purchased blocking wires with which to block this scarf. Usually I block knitting projects by using 2 million T pins. But something has changed in my process lately, and that something would be Emma. Emma and 2 million pins would not be a good combination. Emma and blocking wires will be problematic enough.
My “Huntington Hobo” purse pattern, by Pink Sand Beach Designs (which I ordered from henriettashandbags.com), arrived way before I was expecting it. I kind of wanted to drop everything and get started on it right away, but I reminded myself that I had other priorities and I made myself wait.
Still, there’s waiting, and then there’s waiting. As in, I’m waiting until after dinner to have dessert, so I’ll just eat one cupcake right now instead of all of them.
(I decided to use a different colorway of Lily Pond for this second attempt at my Lily Pond purse…)
So, mostly I’ve been sticking to my predetermined schedule for the past few days, but there’s also been a cupcake’s worth of purse-making going on.
Wednesdays Are UFO Days
What with Emma’s help and all, finishing these socks was a breeze!
These are for my mom — she looks great in these colors — and here Toby is, standing guard over the socks to make sure that they get to my mom without further…assistance…from Emma.
Project details: The yarn is from Kaffe Fassett’s Design Line for Regia. Sock-making instructions came from “Sensational Knitted Socks,” by Charlene Schurch (highly recommended as a first-sock, and beyond, knitting book).
Astonishing news! With the completion of these socks, I only have two more knitting UFOs. One of them will probably be next week’s UFO. The other one, I’m going to have to take a hard look at, and decide if I want to finish it.
In the crochet category: only one UFO. (Oh, and I still have to make Hello Kitty a dress.)
In quilting/sewing UFOs: three UFOs. Except one of these doesn’t count, because it’s one of those projects where I’m just as happy having the quilt blocks. I don’t plan to ever make them into a quilt. That means only two UFOs, one of them a big one, as in: lots of work, not sure I want to do it. The other one: easy!
So, it’s not like there are no UFOs, but the list is getting substantially shorter. There is light at the end of the tunnel!
The Lily Pond Bag (Part 2)
That zipper that I was spending so much time thinking about? I got it installed.
And…that might be the last thing that went more or less as planned. Here, the bag is almost done…
…but to get to that point, there was a whole lot of fudging going on. In particular, the metal ring and fabric loop construction is seriously flawed. Worst of all, though, the bag doesn’t hang well (not enough structure, I think), it’s smaller than I thought it’d be, and the panache I was hoping for just wasn’t there.
I pondered the situation for a few minutes. Should I try again with this design? My heart wasn’t really in it, so…no. Did I still want some kind of Hobo Bag? Yes. I had not lost my interest in the Bag of Great Escape.
This being late at night, there was nothing left to do but to turn, once again, to the internet, even though it had failed me in my previous search. I don’t know why I didn’t see this pattern when I looked the other evening. It’s pretty much what I had in mind from the start. I especially like the bottom-corner details on the bag. And, it has the all-important zipper. I have a good feeling about this. I wasted no time in placing my order.
Now I just have to find something to do while I’m waiting for my pattern to arrive later this week. Times like these are the reason we have UFOs.
It’s closing in on that time of year when my feelings can generally be summed up as: Dismayed By Seattle Weather. The gray, the wet, the gloom, the dark.
To combat these feelings, I decided that I should make a summery Lily Pond purse. This is kind of overdue, because my goal has been to make a purse from each of my fabric collections…but I was designing my Frolic collection right on the heels of Lily Pond, and what with one thing and another, my Lily Pond purse never got made. Even though I had a pattern set aside for it and everything.
So, I got out the pattern a few nights ago…and I still liked it, but it wasn’t what I felt like making. What I now want to make is something like the great purse I saw a woman carrying a few weekends ago. It might loosely fit in the “Hobo bag” category. Kind of round, kind of slouchy, slung over the shoulder. Roomy, but not huge. Simple, but with a little panache. A purse that says, “Phoenix, here I come,” and “Seattle, call me when the sun’s back out.” With this image in mind, I searched the internet for a pattern and came up empty. The main sticking point was, I want my bag to have a zipper. I saw patterns with the right shape, but with a button closure. Or they had a zipper closure, but the shape seemed wrong.
As I frowned at my computer, I had one of those moments that I often come to regret. In which I think: I’ll design my own bag! How hard can it be?! (Pretty hard, I’m guessing.)
Here’s where I started. Emma inspects the supplies and disapproves of the distracting packaging.
The paisley fabric is for the purse. The dots are for the lining. There’s a zipper. (Which has two zipper heads…I didn’t notice that until after I bought it. Almost seems to be asking for trouble.) And two metal rings might be involved.
The pieces have been cut out. The green rectangle will be a very simple interior pocket. The narrow strip…that’s going to be a key design element.
I sewed darts in the bag pieces and lining pieces. The pocket is ready to be sewn to the lining. The narrow strip has gotten even narrower.
Here’s a detail of a dart. Not because it’s so impressive or anything, but because it’s the first dart I’ve sewn in years. I’ve been trying to remember the last dart I sewed, but it’s lost in the mists of time. This dart, however, has now been duly recorded.
I’m spending all my time now contemplating the zipper. I think about it before I fall asleep at night. I awake each morning thinking…hmm…about that zipper… I’ve put zippers in things more recently than I’ve sewn a dart, but every zipper still feels like a brand new adventure. The thing is, if this doesn’t work out, I can always try again. Or buy a pattern. There’s a thought!
Wednesdays Are UFO Days
This should be an easy UFO. One pair of socks. On each sock I just need to knit a little bit more of the foot, then the toe.
Things go much faster when you have a personal assistant.
Emma has volunteered to finish one of these socks for me.
This one. She’ll just take this ball of yarn and get to work.
We’ll see how this goes. Anyone who’s been following along knows that Emma likes to leave her distinctive mark on projects. (See pom-pom, and Pinky.)
Wednesdays are UFO Days, and Sometimes Wednesday Happens on Friday
I have to go back, back in time because this was done almost two weeks ago, before I went into the four-day Frolic quiltmaking frenzy. I meant to post it last Wednesday, but…well, best laid plans, etc.
Here’s the finished purse which, in this view, doesn’t look any different than it did back here. Back then, I was worrying about the slippery lining fabric. My fears about its slinkiness were justified. It’s like it had an aversion to itself…I’d match two edges of fabric and before I could pin it together, one edge, then the other, would shimmy around like it would really rather not be touching that other edge, and it definitely did not want to be precisely matched. The whole time I was dealing with the slipperiness, I was thinking wistfully about all of my excellently behaved quilting fabric. Also, less is more — in terms of caffeine — when working with shiny, slippery fabric.
Not to go on and on about the unruliness of this fabric. A professional would say: I pinned the fabric, sewed the seam, and proceeded to the next step.
So! That’s what I did.
Oh, but the next step was adding the magnetic clasp. That was not without its issues…but let’s just skip over the details and say: I installed the magnetic clasp.
The last step was hand-sewing the (extremely slippery) lining into the purse. Easy, really.
When things go this smoothly in fact, it seems like there’s no excuse for a project to spend months in the land of UFOs. I’m sure it will never happen again.
And the fact that it’s finished in time for Quilt Market is thanks to Carrie Peterson, long-arm quilter extraordinaire, who always does a beautiful job even under impossible deadline pressure. If it weren’t for Carrie, there’d be a Frolic quilt-top at Market, instead of a Frolic quilt. Now if only she’d get a website, so everyone could see more of her work!
I finished binding the quilt today, and here it is, all folded up.
Maybe I should fold it a different way.
Maybe I should take a look at the backing fabric.
Probably, everyone would like to see a detail shot of the binding.
OK. Time to let go. Goodbye Frolic quilt. Have fun at Market.
When Toby saw what Emma had done to Pinky, he came to us with some concerns. After discussing it, Tom and I agreed that Toby could have a lightsaber. I picked one up for him at www.animalswithlightsabers.com.
It’s a deadly weapon, and Toby has promised to use it for defensive purposes only.
Remember, Toby! Defensive purposes only!
With great power comes great responsibility.
Ever vigilant.
Emma has been keeping her distance.