Digger is complete!

Sorry for the prolonged silence!  Somehow time just got away with me, I have been knitting but since many of the projects are intended as gifts, well, I just can't discuss them here.  I can tell you all about the latest project for Destructo though, I am quite proud of it.

This jacket took a really long time considering the size but I kept stopping as it made me nervous.  You know how it is, the knitting project is scary so set it aside for awhile as you work on something you have far more confidence in yourself  at making and then get back to it on a particularly good day self-confidence wise (is that even a proper word?).  There were a couple of new techniques in this project for me, of course the intarsia but also sewing in a zipper, yikes!

Destructo-boy seems to love it and I am pretty happy with it myself so it was well worth all the trouble.  For the zipper I first tried to hand sew it in but was not keeping even tension on the knit fabric so it was bunching up kind of funny.  Since I just wasn't happy with that I ripped out the seam and re-pinned the whole zipper so I could make an attempt with my machine.

Ah, the magic of a walking foot!  I went really slowly and carefully as I sewed with the machine and it did a much better job than I did by hand.  All I had to do was whip stitch the floppy edge of the zipper tape down and fold down the upper cut off edged of the zipper tape.  I think it came out beautifully if I do say so myself!  It was just a little strange to sew on a zipper without the zipper foot on the machine.

Another obstacle were all the ends to weave in, even with doing a Russian join at each color change on the striping part of the jacket there were still floppy ends that needed to be woven it.  Well, I suppose I could have just trimmed them but I thought they would look better woven in farther away from the edge of the jacket.

I must say I think it is awesome of the company to provide the pattern at no charge upon request, you don't often find companies willing to do such a thing.

Digger progressing, slowly

I am loving this jacket, it just seems to be taking awhile to finish up.  I suppose the fact that I am into endless stripes up the shoulders and into the hood doesn't help with the boredom!  Destructo-Boy certainly loves it, every time he sees it while I am knitting it he pets it and asks if it is for him, too cute!

I won't lie, the intarsia was very intimidating but once I got started on it I could begin to see the sense in it.  I still feel a little rough on what to do when switching colors, like how much tension to use.  However, since it hasn't fallen apart I will assume I did it correctly if not perfectly.  For the lettering I used the stranded technique rather than intarsia and it seemed to come out pretty good, no puckering on that part.  I kind of mixed the two techniques on the construction vehicles and that may be part of the issue with the puckering.  Not sure, but I will definitely do this technique again and maybe not mix them up to see if it looks better that way.

Another new technique for me on this project will be the zipper, I have never installed one on a knitted project before.  There is some sort of fancy way of doing it I have read notes about that involves putting holes in the zipper prior to knitting it into the garment.  I'll figure it out when I get there I suppose!

A different kind of Christmas village

I have been debating starting one of those ceramic house village collections for quite awhile now.  The ones by Lemax at the local Michaels always seemed kind of, well, a little cheesy to me and roughly made.  However they are affordable which can't really be easily said about what I was really considering, Dept. 56 houses.  There was even a store of theirs locally where we could go and look at all the different villages they carried.  I think we ended up in there every Christmastime looking and wishing we could afford to start a village.

Now that Mister Vonkysmeed's employment status is more stable I decided to definitely start a collection this year and had even researched a local store that carries Dept. 56 villages for me to go look again.  Then I ended up on the LEGO website to request a free magazine subscription for Lil' Miss and one thing led to another until I discovered this,

LEGO Winter Village Bakery, 10216

Yup, LEGO has gotten into the Christmas village business and they have a new customer in me!  This is the third year they have produced a new building and with Mister Vonkysmeed's blessing I have ordered all three buildings to get us started.

With these buildings we get the additional fun of assembling them together as a family, always a good thing in my book!  Additionally they are not made out of fragile porcelain as the other villages are, always a bonus in this family with young kids and a 'bull in a china shop' kind of hubby!

Starting on my second quilt

fiesta de los muertos by Alexander Henry Fabrics

Since I have special ordered the fabrics off the internet I suppose I really do need to get this gift done for Mister Vonkysmeed for Christmas!  He has always been a huge fan of Oingo Boingo and has had a box full of old concert t-shirts sitting in the garage for years.  I thought it was a shame for them to be sitting in the box and suggested using them in some sort of project instead.  He agreed to this idea and I discovered a wealth of information online about t-shirt quilts.  To make sure I actually got this done I promised him a Christmas gift, and now that I have the fancy interfacing on hand and have ordered fabric I really need to get started on it!

The fabric is really amazing, part of the folklorico collection by Alexander Henry fabrics, they will definitely work with the assortment of shirts I have, 99% of which are black and at least half say Dia de Los Muertos on them.  The confetti fabric  seems almost custom made to go with Oingo Boingo!  I'll be using it for the sashing and binding around the shirts themselves, the fiesta de los muertos fabric will be used for the back.  I think I'll be using my new quilting book, The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman to figure out how to piece the back together.  I think I may go get a few pieces of solid fabrics to work with the patterned fabrics on the back, maybe even for the binding too, I'll have to get started piecing and see what speaks to me.

The interfacing I have is amazing!  Unfortunately I have no idea what it's called or where to get it, my friend The Quilt Master bought it through a friend of hers for me.  It is essentially a very thin cotton with the fusible stuff on one side of it.  What this means is after I fuse it to the shirts they will continue to be soft and flexible instead of stiff like regular interfacing but still stable enough to cut out properly.

Now wish me luck as I go off to start cutting and fusing!

Poor Me...

Feeling down and sorry for myself, that would be me lately.  Why?  No reason in particular it has just been hard to want to do much of anything.  Oh, I am still knitting but I just feel tired and yucky all the time, thus why I have been neglecting my blog here.  Hopefully I'll get back to normal soon.  At least the house is fairly clean though!  If I let that go I get anxious on top of everything else so I do keep that up.  Sorry to complain but if not here than where?

I have been working on the knitting slowly but have totally neglected the scrapbooking, which makes me feel guilty and so I neglect it even more.  Notice a vicious cycle there anyone?!  I like to have big blocks of time when I scrapbook and I just haven't been able to set any aside to devote just to that so to the backburner it goes.  Knitting is much easier to pick up and knit for a few minutes before having to do something else so I almost always makes a little progress daily on one project or another.

I'll be back next week, hopefully with more energy and some fun knitting to share!