Making stuff

 

New year, new yarn and new ideas! I was inspired by a friend to start collecting some more Noro yarn, and had a gift certificate ( thank you Margaret and Debbie!) so I had to use it .I had the idea to make another circular sweater after re-knitting my chenille sweater, so I thought I would play with the idea to use a raglan construction for the yoke and then pick up stitches around to make the circular body. I'm using a couple of colorways of the Noro silk Garden to make it more interesting ( and add more blue!) , and it is fun to watch the colors emerge. I'm inspired by the book "Knit, Swirl" by Sandra McIver, but I prefer to knit from the inside out and I wanted to be able to adjust sleeve length and try it on as I go, so I thought this might be fun to try.  I can always rip it out and re-knit if it doesn't work the way my calculations seem to indicate...Also I don't love the octagon look, preferring a smooth circle, so I'm scattering the increases. Should be interesting.

 

Meanwhile, my mother has a friend expecting twins, and as I already made a blue baby quilt, she wanted a girly one to match, so I dived into my stash and came up with this bold pink , purple and orange jelly roll race idea. The green squares provide a bit of contrast, don't you think? Here is the back first:

 

And then the front:

 

I quilted it with free-form flowers and swirls in the squares :

 

My studio is rudimentary now, with all the fabric in plastic boxes from Container Store. I wanted to put some sort of cabinets/shelving along the north wall for storage, but could not find anything the right size to store the boxes.I decided to go with Ikea's Billy system shelf units, which are 15 3/8 inch deep ( the boxes are 15 3/4 inch deep and 13 1/2 inches wide), and probably will have to take most of the fabric out of the boxes to store behind doors of the shelving.It will be a big project to sort and organize that when the shelves arrive, but it seems like the best way to deal with it.At the moment I can sit at the sewing machine and gaze out at the woods and backyard behind the house, so I think it will be nice.

 

I'm using the dining room and living room of the house for my studio, and while it is only 12 1/4 ft wide, it is a long space.Very different from my previous huge studio room, but as we have a big eat-in kitchen anf family room, there is really no need for a dining room or living room! So, I am glad to be making stuff again!