In the Studio Part Two

Wow, it's been a while since I posted. But with the past month I've had it's not surprising. Here's a quick recap before I move on to new things. Since July 2nd:

• Got a dog
• Mr. Cleaver turned forty
• Released the Smocked Tank

• Tour de Fleece happened and I have about 600 yards of handspun yarn
• Turned 28
• Saw the final Harry Potter movie
• Helped write and turn in our major funding application at work
• Took a business trip to Buffalo and spent inordinate amounts of time in the Philly airport

• Saw an Elvis Costello concert
• Released Alaria with Quince & Co.
• Submitted a potential project packet to a knitting mag
• Painted and revamped my studio
• Knitted a design for another knitting mag to be mailed off today
• Had a giant BBQ in my backyard with over 30 friends and a live band.

Whew! and I thought summers were supposed to be slow!

I'll post about the BBQ later this week, but today I wanted to show off my newly revamped studio space.

As you may recall, when we moved in, the first floor bedroom looked like this:

In the early days of moving in, we stripped the wallpaper and I'd been using it as a studio in this configuration.

While the hearts and bears stenciling was an improvement over the baseball wallpaper, I still wanted an update. So my big birthday request was to paint the studio (I ended up with a much bigger gift than that, but more on that later this week).

There was a heat wave the weekend of my birthday, so we waited to paint until the next weekend.

Steinbeck was very helpful and only stepped in paint once.

The color is Yolo Colorhouse Water .02 - a fantastic blue that looks at alternate times of day anywhere from periwinkle, to lilac, to grey. The trim is the same Air .01 as in the living and bedroom.

The other major change comes from hanging things on walls, particularly the addition of the pegboard.

Pegboard makes me feel so organized.

Some other notable items - the original Ms. Cleaver portrait by Sharon Barto and three old knitting magazines courtesy of Bristol Ivy.

I still want to put some kind of yarn storage on the wall to the left of the loom, crates or hatboxes maybe and eventually all the carpet in house should be replaced, but other than that, I'm pretty darn happy with how it turned out and I can't wait to start making stuff in there!

Introducing: Alaria

photo © Carrie Bostick Hoge

Yesterday, I had the absolute and distinct pleasure of releasing a pattern with Quince & Co.

Every since this Maine-based yarn producer opened up shop literally up the street from where I work, I've been a hugefan and when the opportunity arose to publish this shawl pattern with them, I leapt at the chance!!

I still can't believe that that's my shawl up there. It's more to do with Carrie's photography than anything else, but man, I love the Quince photos.

photo © Carrie Bostick Hoge

One of my knitolutions for the year was to design a shawl and I knew I wanted to do something ocean-inspired, without leaning on my usual oceanic blues and turquoises. (Not that I've given up on those). When I picked up these skeins of Tern and saw the colorway was called Seagrass, that settled it.

Alaria (the name is from a genus of seaweed) flows between three simple lace patterns reminiscent of aquatic foliage. The shawl is a traditional triangle shape and all lace work is done on the right side rows only.

The sample was knit in two skeins (about 440 yards) of Quince & Co.'s Tern - a fingering weight silk/wool blend. It blocks beautifully and the silk gives it just a hint of sheen. (I will note that when I knit the sample, it used up all the yarn except for a teeny-tiny amount, so depending a knitter's gauge, it could sneak into a third skein).

As designed, the shawl is a great size for throwing over your shoulders or bunching up as a scarf, and should a larger shawl be required, additional repeats of 24 rows can be easily added to the first and/or second lace patterns.

photo © Carrie Bostick Hoge

You can queue up the pattern on Ravelry, or purchase the pattern via Quince & Co ($6 USD).

My Apron Collection

A few weeks ago, Casey of Elegant Musings asked for fellow bloggers to join her in a blog tour of Cherished Collections and having previously mentioned my "wicked apron collection," and made no secret of my love of aprons, I jumped at the chance to share my, wait for it....... aprons as part of the tour.

I'd like to say my love affair with aprons began in my middle school home economics class, when our final sewing project was a simple bib apron. In true 90's style, my featured sunflowers and was sadly lost in my first post-graduation move after college. But in truth, my apron obsession probably came because I lost that apron and needed a replacement.

I picked up another bib apron from ebay, in blue gingham, which I still use, but it was then I discovered the adorable half apron, of which I have now amassed eleven. I used to have an even dozen, but I passed one featuring a chicken off to a friend.

My first, and still on of my favorites, also came from ebay and features adorable pockets in fishy fabric, which I later recreated the shape of for a Christmas gift, when I lived in Chicago.

Surprisingly enough, only one of my collection is one I made (yellow gingham),  with most of my apron sewing skills having been put to gift-making.

A good chunk of my aprons have come from antique stores, where I grabbed them for around $5-6 dollars (black & white and embroidered pink). At least one has come from a garage sale (grey gingham with chicken scratch). A few I can't recall where they came from.

But my most precious one are the ones that have been given as gifts, including the Christmas bells from a roommate, the green hostess apron from a knitting friend, and the rose hostess apron from a co-worker- perhaps my most precious one, because it was her grandmothers. As was the plain white one I embroidered with Raggedy Ann.

And I use each and every one of them, because as they become dusted with flour and sugar, they become all the more cherished to me.

Meet Steinbeck

It's been a bit busy around the Cleaver household for the past week, because on July the 2nd, this guy joined our lives.

Meet Steinbeck (formerly know as Drake). He's a 3-year old shepherd terrier mix, we adopted via Lucky Pup Rescue. This handsome fella came all the way from Texas to live with us.

They say it takes a few weeks to a month for the dogs true personality to come out, but thus far we've discovered that Steinbeck is a 60-pound cuddle muffin, who wants nothing more than to sit on the sofa and be in your lap. Which is just fine with me.

IN just a week, we've pretty much fallen in love with this guy, as for what he thinks of us??

Time will tell. :)

Introducing: Smocked Tank

Since I first started publishing knitting patterns in earnest back during the spring  of 2010, I've had a significant backlog of items that I came up with and knitted way back when and am only finally getting around to making patterns for them. (See Exhibit A.)

While the Smocked Tank isn't the last of the backlog (there's one more to go), it did take the longest from incubation to actualization. I hope you'll agree it was worth the wait.

I first knit this idea for myself in June 2008. So, um three years later, here's the finished product. Graded for  bust sizes 30 (32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48) inches/ 77 (81, 86, 92.5, 97, 101.6, 106, 113, 117.5, 122) cm.

Knit in the round from the bottom up, the tank is very fitted, with curvy side shaping and is finished off with i-cord straps.

The tank utilizes 455 (495, 525, 585, 620, 670, 700, 720, 765) yds of worsted to aran weight yarn with a significant silk, bamboo, or rayon content for drape and sheen. Knit to a gauge of 18 sts and  24 rows = 4”/ 10 cm in Stockinette stitch on size 10 US / 6 mm needles.

The sample was knit in Berroco Ultra Silk in 6138 Lilac; 98 yd/90 m per 50g/1.76 oz skein; 40% Wool/ 40% Nylon/20% Silk, which has since been discontinued.

So if you need a quick summer knitting project, with a bit of a romantic flair,

the pattern can be queued up here, or downloaded for free  via the links below:

Seals of Approval

Okay, so I think this weekend's sewing project snags the title of the oddest thing I've sewn in my adult life.

Now, when I was a kid I used to take my Grandmother's sewing scraps and use Scotch tape to make outfits for a stuffed bear at her house, but I never imagined that my supervisor at work would ask that I would make a seal bikini, but he did and here we are.

The swimsuited seal and her bowtied beau are the unofficial mascots for my company. The "Seals of Approval" if you will. You can't say we're without a sense of humor.

It all started with this photo of the view out of one of our office windows (not mine unfortunately), that I doctored up as joke

and it led to this:

So, what's the oddest thing you've ever sewed??

OOTD: Making it Work for Me

Remember a few weeks back when I said this sweater wasn't my favorite, but that I'd probably wear it a ton anyway? While I still think it isn't the most "me" thing I've ever made, I have been wearing it a lot, and as the frustration of making it has worn off, I've grown to really like it. It's cozy and very versatile.

In this outfit, I paired it with another "out of my comfort zone" piece, the very red Red-Fox dress.

I fell in love with the dress, and bought it even though as a red-head (ish- auburn really) I've always avoided red. My last attempt at styling this dress I shared didn't quite work for me, the red/black was just too harsh methinks, but this "southwestern" take is a much better fit. The turquoise necklace hints at it, but if I had cowboy boots, it would be really southwestern.

Necklace: from my Mom

Cardigan: made by me

Dress: Red Fox by Shabby Apple

Belt: from my Mom

Shoes: Bass Outlet

When you end up with items that aren't in your usual style, how do you make it work for you??

Sorbetto and Soft Serve

Mags and I got together for some sewing fun on Saturday and had a surprising role-reversal, in which she worked on a detailed wrap-dress and I whipped out two shirts (and a muslin for some pants, which need a lot of work), one of which ended up as a pajama top because the fabric was crummy, and then there's this one:

The Little Folks voile was the perfect weight and drape for this top. The pattern is the Colette patterns freebie, Sorbetto, which has been making the sewing blog rounds for good reason, as it's quick, easy, and flattering.

A few pattern notes:

• With some careful cutting, I got this out of less than a yard of 54" fabric near the top end of the size range.
• I added about 2 inches to the hem when I cut it out
• Like others have mentioned, the bust dart could probably be 1/2 inch lower.

I think this pattern would look great in a silky solid too. Pretty much anything drapey will work well.

In other ice-cream related news that I'm mostly posting about for my brother, at Maggie's instistance I grabbed a Blizzard at the local Dairy Queen (DQ) this weekend (and supported a local dog rescue).

For the first time in 15 years.

I've avoided DQ's for the the past decade and half due to a overload on an extended roadtrip through the heartlands with my Grandparents at age 12.

So how was the break fast Blizzard? Not bad.  Not great. But not bad.

Just don't make me get the "Hot Eats" ;)

Off to the Races

I've been reading the Sew Weekly for a few months now (even won a pincushion!), but as we know, I am far from the fastest sewer ever, so I've yet to participate in one of the challenges, until today.

This week's theme was "At the Races" and was to be a garment inspired by the Ascot scene in My Fair Lady.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYMSvyqHHwA]

I had already planned on making this tie-neck blouse, but I made one small change to fit the challenge. When I think of the Ascot Scene, I think of how Eliza looks all lady-like and demure, before busting out "C'mon Dover, move your bloomin' arse!" So I took this demure blouse and added a little secret.

Very bright pink buttons that you only catch glimpse of beneath the tie. Buttons, that depending on the light, look either magenta or the hottest of hot pinks.

Oh and we're supposed to wear a hat, so here's the cloche again.

The Facts

Fabric: About $3-4 worth from Denver Fabrics Pattern: Burdastyle Ute - Variation B Year: modern Notions: 5 pink buttons Time to complete: two days First worn: June 2011 Wear again: Yes!

Total Cost: $8-10

I like this pattern a lot, but if you're not familiar with shirt construction, the directions are a bit vague, particularly when it comes to attaching the tie collar (the best part). I'd also recommend using more smaller buttons, than the fie large ones the pattern recommends.  There appears to be some pulling at the buttons in the photos, which would largely go away if there were less space between the buttons (though I'd probably sew this with a tad more ease a second time around too).

I like that this shirt is both dressy and cool, and I'm going to get a lot of wear with it this summer.

Reveal # 1

So here's the first of those projects I teased in the last post. As Leigh guessed, I was crocheting in raffia - specifically, the leftovers from the Carmel Clutch.

I've been toying with the idea of crocheting a a straw hat for a while and  it really kicked in when I discovered this hat on Ravelry. I decided I really needed a straw cloche.

Crochet isn't particularly my strong suit, but the whole thing came together in about a week, and I only had to redo the brim three times!! (For construction details, see my Ravelry project page.)

I finished it off with a wide striped grosgrain ribbon and a whip-stitched brim.

Now if it would only get sunny enough to require a sun hat!!