Winter Hats

I am always looking at color combinations that I see around me - in nature, on houses, interior design, you name it.  I know it's a little early for winter hats, but there are a couple of color combos I had to try out and a hat is the perfect sized project to do it!

Fat...Fluffy...Fabulous

Since my last update about the fox stole, I have made several changes.  I figured since I was redoing the tail, I might as well try something different with the feet too, which were looking a bit unnatural to me.

It was getting much closer but
the tail and feet
were still a little too stubby...

Longer feet and tail but
somehow the tail looks WORSE...

After the second redo, I was happy with the feet and pelvis, but the tail was still not right.  I decided to try something different this time, and I'm really glad it worked.  Rather than take out the entire thing, I detached the tail from the body, fixed it (by decreasing at a less rapid rate so that it looks more elongated) and "surgically" reattached it to the body!

Fat...Fluffy...Fabulous
Finally!

Baby Boy Quilt

Instead of a term paper for my women's history class (Spring 2006 I believe it was), I opted for an art project and that is when I made my first quilt.  It was a simple "Around the World" quilt, which consists of an arrangement of plain squares.  Now that I have a sewing machine again, I am excited to try a more complicated block quilt.


My friend Amber is having a baby boy in October, which gives me the perfect excuse to piece together a 20-30 block mini-quilt.  I already had this unspeakably adorable hot air balloon fabric, which I picked up from the Marden's store in Waterville, Maine.  The rest of the fabrics are from the local craft store here in Vermont, Knits & Bolts.  A brand new top-quality nonstick ruler made quick work of cutting up the squares yesterday.

I soon realized the 1/8 yard of each fabric was more than enough for two quilts - the second one will be up for sale.  I feel like a genius of efficiency!

Fox Stole Progress

Here is a quick image to show where I am going with the fox stole.

The slant is formed by
decreasing on the right every rs row
and increasing on the left every ws row

I've done and redone this much over and over, but reassuringly it gets better each time.  I am pretty happy with the top portion now, but a proper fox tail should be fat, fluffy and fabulous.  I'm not seeing that yet.  So I had to take a break from it this past weekend. I now prepare to start all over again, looking forward to the results...

Packers Pillow

Way back in February, I showed you this Green Bay Packers pillow I was making for my favorite Cheesehead!  My sewing machine is finally up and running, so here is the finished project...

a very late Valentine present!

 











Ned loves his pillow!



Summer Stripes Boatneck

I finished it awhile ago, but here for your viewing enjoyment is my Sirdar Summer Stripes dk sweater!



My sister and I have a saying.  Well actually we have many, but here's one that I want to share.  You know that certain item of clothing that you always turn to lately?  You just got some adorable new jeans, and even though you wore them to last night's barbecue over at Suzie's, tonight you're going out to dinner with Jane and she wasn't at Suzie's, so you go ahead and wear the same jeans.  These are what we'd call your 5 out of 7 day jeans.  Well this is now my 5 out of 7 day sweater.

Copyfox

Oh, the life of a struggling artist.

It is always a good feeling when you receive a request from someone who wants to commission a project!  Recently Like a month ago, a girl from Tucson messaged me on Etsy about trying to recreate this chunky knit fox stole.

Eugenia Kim for Anthropologie:
nearly 300 big ones!

One thing I've had on the back burner of my to-do list is learning amigurumi (the art of crocheted or knitted dolls).  Most use crochet over knitting, as it makes a sturdier fabric.  However, I will always prefer the look of knitting over crochet.  The fox stole has given me just the push I needed to perfect this new skill!