Sleeper of a Bag

This project is from Martha Stewart and while I don't know if I'd say "it's a good thing" I would certainly say "it's not too bad at all." I did have a lonely pillow cases around, so I can't think of anything better than to make a bag with it.


I got this project done in one evening with no seam ripping and no frustration. Yay! The one thing I wasn't too sure about was what to do with the diagonal edges of the pillow case that are inside of the bag. I debated about whether they should be sewed up too but in the end decided for less work and left them open. This leaves a couple of pockets (large and flimsy pockets, mind you) inside the bag and there's no harm in that.

Materials:

• lonely pillow case
• sewing machine
• thread
• straight pins
• ruler
• chalk
  

Travel Tissue Cover

I've found a new and fantastic source of patterns! It's a blog called Craft Leftovers and it's got lots of great ideas for what to do with scraps of things you might have in your craft stash. Aside from the wonderful patterns, great ideas, and being based on a premise of using whatever happens to be laying around, the projects are fairly small and quick to do.

Here is my first finished project from a Craft Leftovers pattern (okay, it's actually the second, but the first was done as a pattern tester for the site so I won't reveal it until the pattern is posted):

They're Travel Tissue Covers! I made one for a friend and one for me. Now I must say, they look like a very simple sewing project, but for a novice sewer like me, there was plenty of frustration that went along with this project, not the least of which was the machine coming partially unthreaded without telling me causing the seams not to sew up properly and me having no clue why. That of course ended with a lot of ripped stitches, swearing, and all sorts of other untoward behaviour. But in the end I got them done and I think they'll work just fine. Making the second one went a lot smoother but still involved ripping out stitches.

The first one I made required some hand stitching in the final side seams where the folded over sections meet. It was just too tough for the needle I had to get through the fabric. But fortunately, some miracle happened with the second one and the needle slid through that section with no problem.

One thing that the pattern doesn't mention is that in the end, after making the final side seams, the whole thing gets flipped inside out. This is very important to know so that the fabric you want on the outside actually ends up being on the outside

I've found that the bottom lip of the opening puckers a little, nothing too serious, but enough to annoy my perfectionism when I was making the first one. I accepted this fact by the time I go to the second one.

Materials:

• 2 pieces of 9" x 6.5" fabric (I used gold satin for the linings, red crepe satin for one and some shimmery stiff purple for the other)
• Sewing machine (though you could hand sew)
• Thread

Bernat Tulip Dishcloth

After the "Feather and Fan" fiasco, I gave the tulip dishcloth pattern on the same Bernat label a go. It turned out much better. It is a good size for a dishcloth and actually feels really good. There was an error in the pattern with the stitch count in one row, but because of the symmetrical pattern, it was easy to spot and fix. Thank goodness, because I would have been really ticked if neither of the knit patterns on that darn label worked out!

Here's a close-up of the tulip detail:


Needle Size:
5 mm

Materials:
Bernat Crochet Cotton

Feather and Fan dishcloth

This is my first completed knitting project. The first project I started is a bag, but I'm still working on that. Hopefully I'll be finished and posting about it in the not too distant future.

This is from the Feather and Fan pattern from Bernat. It came on the label of the yarn. I must say that I suspect the pattern has a glaring errors. This cloth is very small and would be of little use for dishes because of it. The picture on the Bernat label shows a wider cloth with more feather and fan sections. I was not impressed with this one. But it is working out well as a TV screen duster.

Needle Size:
5 mm

Materials Used:
Bernat Crochet Cotton

I can knit!

Thanks to the Knotty Hooker a.k.a. Emily RugBurn , I can now knit (well, this was actually a few months ago, but you get the idea). She showed me the basics and then introduced me to knittinghelp.com, which is a great how-to resource site, complete with super clear video instructions.

Being a crocheter first, I was having a hard time knitting with the yarn in my right hand. That's the way Em does it. I tried for a bit to do it this way but found it incredibly awkward and unnatural which made me the world's slowest knitter. It also made me tense up my hands so they would become sore and stiff very quickly. Luckily there's the Continental knitting method, which involves holding the yarn in your left hand. I switched to that and away I went!

Here's the first bit of knitting I did:


I followed the free Cable Scarf pattern (#60053) from Lion Brand (you need to sign up for a free account to view the patterns).


I didn't finish the scarf, since I was using a yarn that I wouldn't ordinarily use for a scarf and I didn't really want a cable scarf. This was just for practice, to get my knits and purls down!