New Shop Post Info

Have I mentioned I'm opening a shop for my knitting patterns and selling knitting related bags? I'll still post here for general crafting and such, but wanted to let you know about the other blog too.

You can find me at the Windy Prairie Designs blog.
Thanks!

Fox Hollow Finish!

I finished my Fox Hollow quilt this week. I cut six simple blocks (6x11") from each of 13 FQs. I decided to leave out the cute cheater FQ and use it for something else. The backing is a simple green dot and the binding is Kona Cotton in pink. The quilt is 63x72". Amazingly, I was able to quilt this on my Singer Featherweight 221. I sewed down either side of the seams about 1/4". I hope that this is enough; I'm a bit of worried that I needed to do a line down the center of each block. I'll have an expert quilter (aka, my mom) look at it and see what she thinks. I think it turned out great.

Now that the weather is getting chilly, the finished "Living Room" quilt is getting nightly use during reading time. I have fabric to make another and am still waiting on the Mastermind quilt (still at the quilter's).

Here's the fabric for the next quilt. It is Rocket Scientist and fits so well with our family. I'm thinking of adding in some solids (red, blue, green). I still need to figure out what to do with it. I was thinking of pluses or something other than blocks, but can't decide. The text is really cute, and the numbers are a countdown.

I have been reading my new book: Sunday Morning Quilts. I don't have many scraps yet, but the book is great.

On the knitting front, I have finished two sweaters: Plucky Primo and Aran Cashmere. So happy to be knitting more productively again. I still need to finish up 3.5 skeins of Sundara before the end of the year for a KAL.

Sewing up a storm

Lots of new FOs, of the fabric nature...

-1 scrappy pillowcase from a stripe from Connecting Threads and the leftovers from my Ten Little Things binding. 9/10/2012

-3 Mastermind pillowcases 9/14/2012

-3 Mastermind journal covers 9/17/2012

-a scrappy Mastermind wall hanging for my husband's office (my sneaker toes for scale). I used the remnant of the grey fleece from the Ten Little Things quilt. 9/19/2012

And for a big project: first days of fall, cooler temperatures, and a finished quilt. Pretty awesome.

This was hand-quilted weeks ago, but I had to wait to get a walking foot to finish it. The binding on this was much easier to sew on, now that I have a bit of experience and the correct tools to work with. Finished size 68"x84", 9/23/2012.

I actually finished another quilt top using the Mastermind fabric using a modified Turning 20 pattern (9/14/2012). I forgot to take a picture of it when it was done, but here's a bit of in-progress.

Currently, the quilt is at the long-arm quilter's house. I should have it back in November. I hope it looks great. The pattern was pretty simple and hope that the fancy quilting will spice it up a bit.

I also cut out the pieces for my Fox Hollow Quilt and picked out the binding (pink), backing (sage dots), and batting (warm & white) this past weekend. Trying to maximize my FQs. I decided to use the 13 (4 solid, 9 pattern) to make a simple brick pattern. Each piece is 6x11. I prewashed my fabrics. There was a lot of white and red in a few of the pieces and I wanted to see if any thing would run (it didn't). I'm saving the cute "cheater" FQ for another project. That pattern wasn't squared up on the fabric and it annoys me to have warped lines on an angular project. This quilt will be a bit smaller than twin size. I'm thinking I'll either hand-quilt again or have it machine quilted.

Once this quilt is done, I am planning on starting either a king-size (probably in blues) or a queen-size picnic quilt (in reds, greys/blacks, or greens.). I think that will be my 8th quilt (4 baby size, 3 twin). I love the larger sizes. They seem much more useful, but I'm going to have to figure out the quilting part (i.e. long-arm or buy a machine that I can use for free motion). I don't know if I can hand-quilt those big sizes.

More Fabric, more quilting, and sock knitting

I've been working on hand quilting my "Living room" quilt for the past two weeks. I decided to do diagonal lines on the blue and green blocks and squares in the browns/tans/striped blocks. That took me about a week. I was stumped about the border and then settle on two simple straight rows of hand quilting. The border will be 6" and I did the lines at 2 & 4" from the edge. I like how it looks and was simple to do. Next up: trim the extra backing fabric and batting, sew on the binding, and then decide on whether to sew it down by hand or machine.

I've done a bit of fabric purchasing, for future quilts.
Mastermind Fat Quarters (Connecting Threads) for a quilt and 3 pillowcases


Bookish Charm Pack (Connecting Threads) for a hexagon project


Fox Hollow Organic Fat Quarters (Monaluna from Pink Castle Fabrics) for ??? I love the fabric and it was on sale. Every once in a while I need something cute in my life.


and a swatch with 4 quilt labels and a custom FQ from Spoonflower:

I love this so much because I made it with my kids. They gave me a list of things they like and I made a text fabric with it. I wish I would have set the block differently, but ended up with 3 full blocks and one that was split (top and bottom halves). I think I'll make each of them something using a block of the fabric

I have been making socks lately, but little progress on the sweater front. Still pretty warm here and not great weather for inspiring sweater making. It will be cold soon, and hope the mood will return then.

And now with the Catch-up Edition

Well, it has been a long time since I've posted anything here on this blog. Over a year!?! I have been busy writing knitting patterns: Spiralini

and Scraptastic.

Lots of knitting was done as well. Many sweaters, socks, toys, and accessories.

Last fall, I got back into spinning. Here's a favorite from Unwind Yarn Company (Falkland)

I knit with my handspun, which was wonderful. These are some socks from FatCat SW Merino:


And this summer, I got bitten by the sewing and quilting bugs. Crazy. When I was in high school, I sewed a lot. Lots of clothes, even a swim suit! Then I sort of stopped sewing during college (mostly) and didn't pick it up until I was pregnant 10+ years ago. Unfortunately, I bought a terrible machine that ruined sewing for me. It was a pain to use and made ever sewing project frustrating. So, this summer, I sold it and went back to an old favorite of mine. My mom bought a Singer Featherweight 221 in the late 1950's and it is now the machine I've been using. It is not big, but I love it so and enjoy working on it.

Here's what I have made so far:
a baby quilt out of a "Ten Little Things" charm pack.


I've been making a twin size quilt for our living room. Colors chosen by my 5 year old. That may sound scary, but he actually has a pretty good eye for color. I'm hand quilting it, but here's a QIP picture.


I made a pair of gift project bags from this tutorial. They are on their way to two knitters.


 I also have started making cute hexagons from my tiny scraps collection. I made a needle book out of felt and 1.5" hexagons from a tutorial.


There is also a bunch of fabric on the way from Connecting Threads. They have a techie line of fabric and one with books. Pretty much sums up our family in a nutshell. Pictures of that when they arrive.

I took a dye class as well. Fun!




Hopefully I'll be able to use the blog again more frequently. I think I started it when my oldest started kindergarten. Next week my youngest will be going to kindergarten. Time really flies!

I think I've realize this past summer that I want to be more "well rounded" in my crafting. I forgot how much I enjoyed sewing and that I'm actually pretty good at it. A bit rusty, but I know what I'm doing at that machine. Same for spinning. I spun some fiber 8 years ago, then finished it up last year. It was nearly an exact match for what I made before. Consistency. I sort of went crazy with my yarn purchases when I first was introduced to hand-dyed yarns and collected quite a stash. Now, I'm trying to avoid that pitfall with fabric purchases. I understand a need for fabric on hand, but also know that it is not good just to buy things because I'm having a bad day or without a project in mind. I also realized that I have a lot of sweaters, socks, and hats and really need to make other things that my family can use. Hopefully my hobbies will not feel like they are a chore to use up materials, but be creative outlets that make me happy. My goal is a usable supply of materials, just enough to inspire and not too much to make me feel guilty.

Sweater Fit Theory by Jane Tanner

I have noticed that some sweaters, often top-down raglans, end up producing ill-fitting underarm areas. Often there is a lumpy poof of extra fabric on the body, arm, or both. I often thought this was because I’m not very busty or because it was an issue with ease. However, even if I’m making the correct size for my torso, I still get these lumps on certain sweaters. I see them on other peoples’ sweaters too. So why are they there?

After looking over measurements and formulas for many different styles of sweaters, I think I may have come up with the reason. I’ll begin with two examples which don’t produce lumps and then look at one that does.

Example 1: Elizabeth Zimmermann's EPS system uses a mathematical formula to plan for customizable fit. K is the term used to express the body stitches needed, calculated by multiplying your gauge by your body circumference. The body is 100% of K, arm circumferences 35%, underarm stitches 8% of K (there is some flexibility allowed in the percents, but I’m going to use a simple version here). On a bottom-up sweater, the yoke is created when 8% of K stitches are removed from each sleeve (35-8=27%) and twice on the body for the corresponding underarms (100-8-8=84%). The sleeves are then knit onto the body with the underarm stitches on holders to be seamed later. Mathematically, the EZ yoke is 84+27+27=138% of K or 1.38K. This produces a sweater without the dreaded lumps.

Example 2: Stefanie Japel uses a top-down method that increases to the full arm and full body circumferences. Mathematically this ended up being somewhere around 166-169% of K on her sweater (100% for the body, and 33-34.5% for each sleeve). This method also produces a nice sweater, without the lumps.

So, why can two methods get great results and be so different? Why are other methods making the lumps? I think it is because of a term I like to refer to as total circumferences (T). If I were to add up EZ's and Japel's total arms and body circumferences, they both come in around 166%-170% of K or 1.66K-1.7K.

• EZ’s: add the yoke percents 27+27+84 to the four sets of underarm percentages 8+8+8+8 for a total of 170% of K or 1.7 K. (If using the smaller percentages of EZ’s EPS method, you can get a T number closer to 1.66K.)
• Japel’s: yokes are typically 166-169% of K or 1.66-1.69K

Although they are constructed differently and are the extreme opposites for underarm stitches cast on, they both arrive at a similar T values. I have looked at sweaters that had no underarm stitches (0% of K), a few (1-2% of K), several (3-4% of K), and many (5-8% of K) and all seemed to fit into this theory.

The Math: Now look at a top-down raglan sweater:
1. Calculate the body stitch count for the sweater=sweater circumference x gauge=K.
2. Look at the number of stitches for the yoke before dividing for the body and sleeves. Add the underarm stitches you are to add four times to this number. Why add the underarm stitches four times? Because you are casting those stitches on to make the underarms on the body of the sweater (two times) and later they will be stitches picked up for each sleeve (two times). This is T (total circumferences stitch count).
3. Divide T by K. If the number is 1.7 or below, the sweater will fit nicely at the underarms. If it is over 1.7, it will be lumpy. The closer you get to 1.8, the lumps get bigger.

Example 3: the math from a lumpy sweater top-down raglan
1. A sweater with a gauge of 6 stitches/1 inch and a circumference of 37” would have 222 stitches=K.
2. Increase yoke to 370 stitches. Add 6 underarm stitches four times=370+6+6+6+6=394 stitches=T.
3. 394/222=1.77K (177% of K)
Result: this sweater did not fit as well as I would like in the underarm area.

Data Collection: Here’s where I’d like a bit of Citizen Mathematician Assistance. Look at your top-down raglans (or sweaters in general) and look for one with the lumps and look for one that fits well in the underarm area. Do the math described in the steps above and see if my theory works for your body shaping. I’m curious if this theory works for others or just my build. Perhaps for your shape you can wear something with a T of 1.75K better than a 1.68 with no resulting underarm issues. Or, perhaps you can go up to 1.72K will no ill effects. Feed back and comments welcome!

Conclusion: If this theory works for you, then it may be of use in the future. Before beginning a project, run through the calculations and see what kind of a T measurement you get. Does it work for your body type? If not, then make some alterations. Reduce or add underarm stitches or alter the number of stitches you need to increase to for the yoke. Hopefully the knowledge will result in better fitting sweaters.

Happy 2011 (the February Edition)

2010 ended with most of my goals completed. I did an accidental 10x10x10x10 of projects: 10 sock pairs, 11 hats, 11 sweaters, 11 shawls).

I also designed a new hat pattern Arboretum. I love how the cables turned out.

For 2011 my goals are:

• 11 pairs of socks, 11 sweaters, 11 accessories (hat/mitt/scarf/shawl/wrap/etc)
• use more of my handspun yarn and at least one skein of fingering weight/sock yarn per month
  
• continue to record yarn knit using knitmeter.com and keep track of how many yards I’m bringing in
• read more

I've started using Shelfari and am doing more audio books. Great for knitting time.