Little Flower Bookmark (new pattern!)

Hello again! Since mother's day is coming up I decided to remake one of my favorite knitting gifts and write up a pattern for it. It's these adorable little flower bookmarks!

Super cute, right? They are also easy and quick to make, although I do make them a bit more complicated by sewing a felt backing with embroidery onto the leaf. Either way though, you can easily finish one in a day--perfect if you are scrambling for a nice present!

even more food!

I'm back with some more food updates! Basically, I just want to show off the vegetable pot pie I've made. I love pot pie, and it's such a great dish because you can basically put whatever you want in the filling. For this pie, I had potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms. It turned out great!

more cooking!

I've been doing a very good job, if I say so myself, of actually cooking! I do tend to repeat meals, and so I thought I'd show some of my favorites.

Lentil curry is a great meal for perpetually broke a graduate student like me, because it can be made entirely from long-lasting ingredients, and is quite filling. Mine does have coconut milk in it, which I store in the freezer to make it last longer. Otherwise the curry is just lentils, carrots, and potatoes, on top of rice.

Patchwork Sewing Kit

This pattern is one that I admired for a long time before making it, being uncertain of my patchwork and quilting skills. But after making a small quilt for my dog a while back, I decided I should give it a shot!

First cooking forays!

I moved into my apartment--and that means I actually have to feed myself. So I've been doing some cooking, and I'm pretty happy with it so far!

I've made breakfast potatoes, peanut curry, and some other things, but what I'm most proud of are my cinnamon apples in a skillet:

And my scones! I made scones for tea today, and they turned out great. Homemade scones fresh from the oven are the best. Also it is exciting that my oven actually works--it's a bit sketch.

You can see my pretty mug in the last picture--polish pottery is one of my favorite types of ceramics, and it holds up extremely well.

Anyway, I'm pretty proud of myself so far. :) Now I just have to keep it up!

vintage card catalog!

My dad is a big garage-saler/antiquer/&c, so he sometimes picks up cool stuff for me instead of things to resell. Or I claim them before he can post them to ebay. Either way, I end up with some pretty awesome stuff.

His latest find is this adorable card catalog, made by Globe and with a patent of 1900. It's over a hundred years old, but has held up pretty well! All the drawers were present, and all but one still had the locking filing system inside. And he got it for only 4$. :D

Flannel napkins

Continuing the new apartment theme of this summer, I recently made a set of flannel napkins. I was inspired by this pattern--I think that flannel napkins are possibly one of the coziest ideas out there. But I did my own slightly more perfectionist-y process for the mitered corners.

patchwork key fob (+ pattern)

My younger sister was staying in some dorms for a summer program recently, and requested a key fob. So I decided to make one, of course! This key fob has a key ring on one side, and a clasp on the other, so that it can be both clipped inside a bag and folded to fit around your wrist. I'm keeping this one, but another is in the works for her. These would make wonderful gifts, as they are small and quick to make, but very practical.

Tea Cosy

One of my perhaps lesser-known addictions is tea. I love trying different types, drinking it while doing research, and when just relaxing with a nice book. And of course, I love collecting various tea-related paraphernalia. :)

Because of my hoarding instincts, I have a few different teapots. But right now, my 2-cup Price and Kensington is getting the most use, so I figured I'd make a few tea cosys for it. And since both turned out pretty cute (at least in my opinion!) I figured I'd also share the patterns with any other knitters who'd like tiny tea cosys for their equally adorable tiny teapots. Here is the first one:

This tea cosy requires minimal knitting skills, as it is knit flat and then seamed up. And it's a great project for beginners, as it is knit entirely in seed stitch with some minimal decreasing at the top.

It is also super easy to whip up in a few hours--so it'd make a wonderful gift (perhaps with a matching teapot) to a recent graduate or as housewarming present. :)

I hope you enjoy, and I will be posting the pattern shortly--look for it in a day or two!

handkerchiefs!

Some of my favorite things to hand sew are handkerchiefs. Although they aren't perhaps the most practical, they are very relaxing to sew, and I always feel a bit charmingly old-fashioned doing so.

The usual contents of my purse--wallet, sunglasses, handkerchief!

Birthday Present!!

So my friend Claire finally finished her Ravenclaw HP scarf, and decided that it was still missing an embroidered house patch. :) Guess who got requested to make one for her birthday present?

I told her I would try, but embroidery is not a skill of mine. Still, I'm giving it my best shot! So far it's going pretty well, but I did start with the easiest part. If nothing else, I'm sure this project will help improve my satin stitch!

Spinning adventures

So I have been enjoying my summer so far--soon I will have to start studying for placement exams for the fall, but for now I've been occupying myself with knitting, crocheting, embroidering, and spinning!! Spinning is a highly addicting hobby. I keep falling even deeper into it.

For instance, here is my first fleece-cleaning adventure:

New Pattern on Ravelry!

Hi everyone,

I have been very busy attempting to get into grad school for next year, but I managed to post the pattern for my Solidarity Mittens today. These mittens are the ones I knit for my mom last christmas. They were inspired by the WI capitol protests in February 2011.

This is a picture of my mom and I protesting together. :)

Christmas Present

Well, Christmas is over and I finished a lot of handmade christmas presents!

For my grandmother, I knit some mini christmas stocking ornaments. I loved this gift, as I just knit them throughout the year whenever I wanted a small, easily finished project. And I think they turned out adorable!

[ravelry]

Thread Bags

Recently I've been having a lot of fun making a few bags out of thread--DMC perle cotton, to be precise. I love to knit and crochet with thread, but these bags have been extra fun!

[ravelry]

First Ever Quilt!

I made my first quilt! It's quite small, about 2.5' x 3' and intended for my dog and kitty. They both adore blankets and I figured this way if it turned out super bad it'd still be okay, because animals tend not to be too picky.

The quilt is hand-pieced and hand-quilted, and made entirely from my cotton-prints-I-found-in-the-remnants-bin collection. It's backed with a plaid flannel that I think is especially sweet because it matches both my black and white dog and my black and white kitty!

Here is a pic of my puppy, Maggie on her new quilt:

Baby Presents!

One of my cousins had her first baby, so I made her some presents and thought I'd share.

First I knit her this pink blanket:

[ravelry]

I made it with Plymouth Encore yarn, so it could be machine washed. I think it turned out well!

My Loom is Warped (+ knitting patterns in the works)

I am so excited! Tonight I finally managed enough courage to warp my new floor loom. Everything went perfectly well, actually--I was expecting a huge fiasco. I'm really glad I got a rigid heddle loom first though, as I definitely felt like I would have had no idea what to do had I not warped ever before. I am making a sampler right now with various twills, and if it goes well then I will start a scarf!

I've also been very busy with a variety of knitting patterns. I have fallen in love with angora yarn, and so volunteered to make my sister a pair of angora/wool blend mittens. I'll post the pattern once I finish test-knitting it, but so far the verdict is they are quite cute. I've also been working on a pair of flip top gloves for myself, and another pair of gloves and mittens for myself. I may have an addiction to gloves and mittens.

Anyway, I just had to share my success with my loom--I'll have those knitting patterns and pictures of the things I'm making up soon!

Scissors (+ free sheath pattern)

I love scissors. This is because I spent all of my very first sewing projects incredibly frustrated with really bad scissors I grabbed out of our family's desk drawers. I would look at sewing patterns online and think, "how can people actually cut straight lines?"

Then I got my first pair of actual sewing scissors. Suddenly, cutting fabric actually worked! My edges no longer looked like I had chewed them off! It was magical.

Anyway, yesterday I upgraded my scissors yet again to a pair of bent gingher shears. I chose gingher because I've always loved my gingher embroidery scissors, and they were on sale for 50% off--I have a hard time passing up such a good deal! But using these wonderful new shears has really put me in a scissors mood, so I decided to sew a little sheath for my embroidery scissors, and share the pattern.

Needlebooks!

I am a big fan of needlebooks. I like to embroider, as I find it relaxing, but I like to make "practical" things--thus needlebooks. They're also super cute. :D

Anyway, these are two needlebooks I've made, one cross-stitch and one felt with embroidery.

I made this for my mom for mother's day. She doesn't embroider or sew, but she wanted one. I used a pattern (modified) I found here and found this tutorial helpful for putting it together. It is made of 28 count linen with cotton for the inside and wool felt to hold the needles.