Tag Archives: Scrap Sunday

Scrap Sunday: The 2 months wrist warmers

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As you might remember, shortly after giving birth two months ago, I started a quick and easy knitting project: wrist warmers for my cycling friend and midwife. Mid project, I decided to keep them for myself and make her a pair out of silk as it will be even more delicate. And who would deserve a delicate gift more than the woman who took care of me and the baby during pregnancy and after birth ? Plus, considering how long this was taking me, a woolen gift would not be appropriate anyway.

Soooo, 8 weeks later, the quick and easy project is finally finished 🙂

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Considering that the pictures have just been taken by a 6 year old who could barely hold up the camera, I think they are great. If you now even imagine a little bit of cool dark red nail polish and maybe, lets say, the sophisticated hands playing the piano … then the pictures are really amazing, no?

The yarn is a left over of my great woolen jumper from my favourite jumper designer atelier alfa (I have already bought the next pattern, I am just waiting for Mr Reflux to stop vomiting on me. Well and to give me time to knit more than a pair of wrist warmers in two months)

IMG_1739(Pathetic – I know – to post pictures from old projects! Clearly I am not able to produce enough presentable items these days)

The pattern is Gansey Wristers by Kallipi Aronis who has clearly had the time to put on that nail polish 🙂 Great pattern and I have already started the silky version.

Scrap Sunday: A little something

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See, I told you I was going to post before the new year and none of you believed it!

I have a little something to show you. I made it out of the content of one of the advent calendar bags:

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But lets have a closer look:

IMG_4373A piece of polyester strap material, a pretty woven ribbon, a key ring and a strange clip thingy. At first, I wasn’t sure what this random selection of small pieces was all about but then I realised: A key fob! That’s what I was supposed to make. Well, the key ring was a pretty strong clue 🙂

And the clever person I am I figured out all by myself how to do this. But as the person who has recently poured dry pasta into the bechamel sauce rather than into the pot with boiling water next to it, I  confirmed with wise old internet before getting started.

And voila , five minutes later I had a beautiful key fob and a perfect little Christmas present to be sent to a friend in Italy:

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I am not sure if it is a very practical size for a key fob. It is quite long. But I was immediately thinking of something my mum had mentioned during her last visit: It is apparently getting more and more difficult to have a good individual marker on your luggage. All suitcases traveling round and round the conveyor belt at the airport seem to have red ribbons. So this fob might work quite well, maybe with a bigger ring to slide it around the handle.

Or it could work well as a wrist strap for a clutch. I was actually already trying to find these clip thingies but I don’t know how to even call them. And surprisingly ebay doesn’t know them as clip thingies.

I guess whilst the new year is still faaaaar away, lets not go crazy postingwise and I will just take the opportunity now to wish you all a “good slide into the new year” (That’s what we say in German before the 1st of January) :)!

 

Scrap Sunday: Which one is which?

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This week I can not actually show a finished project, I will need more time but here is at least a picture to show you how well I am using up scraps 🙂

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As you can see, it is not quite enough at the pointy end but I will manage.

As you might remember (or not), I have dedicated my Friday sewing class/club to Scrap Sunday (in order to actually be able to post on Sunday) but as almost everybody else is making a skirt I also wanted to make one. So I am using a fabric that I bought about a year ago in my typical fabric shopping manner:

I go to the shops to buy fabric for a certain purpose (in that case something for my children) and then suddenly something completely different catches my eye. In that case a beautiful burgundy corduroy. So I thought a meter might not be enough (for a possible short dress), 1.50 might be better. Just to be safe. And as it is so beautiful, I then bought 2m as you never know.

So, since a year I have almost a meter of scrap waiting for another purpose. (Is 1 meter x 1.40 really scrap?) – time for a skirt.

And as in my Tuesday fashion course we have been talking about godets (extra piece of fabric, to add volume), I thought some kind of cute patterned fabric might just give a simple corduroy skirt this extra kick. And for that purpose, unfortunately a tiny fat quarter bought on my trip to Oxford a couple of weeks ago seemed the perfect match. I think it is a bit too precious to be used for such a purpose. So, I was really thrifty when it came to cutting. And I even consider to keep this tiny piece here but I can not yet imagine it could be used 🙂

IMG_2691(I used the inch side of my cutting board to make it look more dramatic)

Because of my still secret big project, I will really have to keep the skirt project out of my week and will only work on it on the Fridays, so we will see how long it will take me, but just to give you an idea, this is how I want it to look, well, 8 of these panels.

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Scrap sunday – The challenge

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One of my new years resolutions was to stop buying yarn without any reason and to try using up my stash instead and so far I have done fairly well. I did buy a few balls here and there but they were for specific projects and and are more or less used up. Unfortunately, I did not apply this to fabric buying and so I ended up with quite a bit a lot of fabric. If I really like a fabric, I tend to buy more than required, just in case…. and as I don’t even throw away the smallest bits, I ended up with boxes full of fabric.

Anyway, I have decided to step up a gear and to set myself a challenge, well actually a double challenge:

I will use my friday sewing class to not only use up some of those little bits and pieces but also to think of new ideas (I mean new to me not to the world, “thinking” includes stealing “finding online”) of how to use up all that scrap fabric and yarn.

To put a little bit of pressure on myself, I am now introducing Scrap Sunday where I will post about it. We will see how long this challenge lasts and how easily I will remember to write a post to a certain deadline. I do work better with deadlines, but the joy of motherhood did make me a tiny bit forgetful….

But back to the actual topic…

what was that again? Oh yes, Scrap Sunday.

So I will post every Sunday. Something about Scrap. Might be the recent project (I made in my Friday Sewing class). Might be something knitted. Might be just a link to a brilliant tip I found online.

So this friday, I took tiny pieces of the fabric that I had left from this skirt to make a little birthday gift for a friend who’s birthday was in June (I said, I am good with deadlines)…. and I failed spectacularly (too busy chatting discussing design ideas if you really need to know)

So let’s talk about that next Sunday and let’s get that series started with … tadaa

The knitted bow

It is probably a well deserved beginner for this series as I have really done many of these. You can use them to decorate children clothes or put them on a hairpin, Alice band or crochet chain and they look super cute. This is also why I encourage people in my knitting classes to knit one of these as their first project. They give you a quick sense of achievement 🙂

I mainly use DK yarn and cast on 20 stitches for my “standard” size. I knit in garter stitch (occasionally moss stitch) for about 20 to 24 rows, cast off, weave in the ends, wrap some yarn tightly around the middle and voilà.