27 June 2008

The sewing machine sees some action

With all the knitting (and spinning) I do these days, the sewing machine has been feeling a little neglected. So I decided to do a quick little project for the house. I'm making cloth napkins. I went to my local box store and got 3 yards of fabric and found some fabric in my stash and made these:
So far I've only made one of each pattern. I've got 15 or so left to sew. The part that takes the longest is ironing down the edges. For those of you interested, I cut squares 14" x 14" and folded over the edges a little more than 1/4" (just eyeballed it) and ironed it, the folded again and ironed it. I did this on all 4 edges then just sewed using a straight stitch on the machine. I think I may try the next few with a zig zag, but then the corners always look a bit wonky. We have about 50 or so paper napkins left in the house and then we're not buying anymore ever again!! I spent about $8 on fabric and will have 20 or so napkins that should last a few years, even with my feral sweetie. Yay going green!!!

In knitting news, I finished the presto chango baby sweater:
The center panel can be taken off and replaced with another panel.
I made a straight stockinette center panel as well. This is a gift for a friend from grad school who's having a baby very very soon. I'm going to babies R Us on my way back from dropping my sweetie off at the airport so I think I'll pick up a rattle or something and send the package out early next week. All in all I'm pretty happy with the sweater, it looks like it's supposed to look, but I didn't really enjoy knitting it and it seems a bit stiff and thick for a baby sweater.

The other thing I've been knitting on is my nursing cover up.
I like this project a lot. It's coming out really nice. I just don't have a comfy place to sit and knit on it where I can place the chart somewhere I can see it. It's a bit of a balancing act right now with putting it on one of my legs and hoping no dogs tails knock it over. We desperately need some end tables! I just finished the first ball of hempathy (you can see the ends coming off the left side) and I think I have 4 or 5 more. It should make a decent size shawl/cover-up.

Usually I like to include some sort of cute picture of the dogs if I have one. Today though we have a somewhat disturbing picture of my sweetie with our younger dog, Trapper. Trapper used to be scared of my sweetie. I got Trapper just after my sweetie left for a year in Iraq. He's a nervous dog in general and it took a while for him to get used to being pet or touched at all. When my sweetie came home it took a good 6 months before Trapper started to realize that my sweetie was here to stay. Now, just over a year since my sweetie has been home, they're best buds. Trapper is still a mama's boy and follows me everywhere. But if the seat next to me is taken by Cooper, which it usually is at night, Trapper is more than willing to be a puppy pillow for my sweetie:

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