She lives!

I've said more than once that I can't believe how time gets away from me.  I opened an Etsy shop and then fell off the face of the earth; or so it seemed here among the cobwebs on my blog. The shop has done quite well actually, mostly selling e-reader cases made-to-order. They've been quite popular! Check them out. Then a few rounds of colds and a couple weeks with Mr. R out of town, then a few more rounds of colds, an extra day at preschool each week, and a weird two-day rash all brings us to the beginning of December already.

And now the mad rush to complete all my projects by their own respective deadlines begins! I need to have all my machine sewing done by the time my family arrives (7 more days, hooray!) since either they or Scooch are taking over my studio. Then I have a few hand sewing projects I'd like to try. I'm hoping to don our tree with a bit more than a string of lights and two ornaments this year.

I have been able to squeeze a few selfish projects in the mix these past couple months.  Shannon on luvinthemommyhood had a cowl knitalong, and after reading about it for a while, I just had to knit one up myself.  I went with the Stockholm scarf that I found on Ravelry.  It was a relatively quick knit, and I wear it all the time; around the house, to the park.  Scooch even crawls up under it so we're both wearing it. I'm not crazy about the colors, but they're what I had on hand, and it's warm.

Now, I know I've complained about our laundry situation here a time or two. Ahem. Lucky for you, that complaining was on the blog that my family reads. Aside from not being able to get soft laundry (no dryer, hard water, don't use fabric softener, etc), our washer has a tendency to turn things grey. I'm not talking just a dirty tinge. I'm talking nasty dark grey. For example, Monkey's washcloths. They are white with colored bindings. I only use them to wash Monkey in the bath. They come out of the wash white around the edges, and almost black in the center. So nasty. You'd think I scrubbed Mr. R's tire rims with them. So, some new washcloths were in order. I plan to make a tutorial for these at some point, but for now, here's the finished product.

I have some other things in the works as well. Here is my To Do List which must be completed, at different intervals, by December 24:
  -Complete a certain pair of stuffed items for two boys for Christmas
  -Make stockings for said boys
  -Finish any custom orders from Etsy (currently 2)
  -Make a sweatshirt for Scooch
  -Make ornaments for our mini tree (all of our holiday decor is in storage in the US and last year I was too deep in post-baby-sleep-depro mode to care)

Oh, and I forgot to add that, along with that list up there, we're going to Scotland for a few days right before Christmas, and Mom and I are baking half her usual load of goods once they arrive. Even half her usual load still means we'll be baking from sun-up to sun-down from the moment she arrives until at least Christmas day. Busy busy busy! I love busy for a change.

And this is something I'm thinking of for future blog posts. Instead of one a day, maybe one a week. Not sure yet whether I want to be that personal on this blog. Several of these are pretty can-of-worms type topics and I don't know that I want this blog to be that.  I might just play around with the safest topics.

hand-knit scarf, literally: tutorial

My first tutorial!  I made this scarf this weekend and thought you might like to see how I did it!

Even though it's a knitted scarf, you won't need any knitting needles, just your fingers.  It's super easy.  I completed the knitting in about an hour, while watching tv.  Once I got into the groove of it, I didn't even need to look at my hands anymore.  

What you need:

• one or two t-shirts
• scissors (alternately, you could use a rotary cutter, cutting mat and ruler)

Start out with an old t-shirt or two, depending how long you want your scarf.  I used two tops, and ended up with a scarf that, when laid around my neck, almost touched the floor.  I had two maternity tops that had seen better days.  I laid them out flat and just started to cut strips, discarding the hem. 

I wasn't terribly careful about keeping the strips a consistent width, I figured it would add character to the scarf.  If you wanted to have even, consistent strips, you could cut with a rotary cutter on a mat with a ruler.

When you've cut up both shirts, you're left with a bunch of looped strips.  You'll need to cut one seam off each piece in order to get flat strips. 

Now you'll need to piece them all together into one long piece of 'yarn'.  I didn't document this part in photos, because there is a great tutorial here on how to do that.  While you're there, check out her tutorial for knit bracelets, too clever!  When I pieced my yarn, I alternated colors.  I wish now I had been a little more random so my stripes were more uneven. 

Once all your pieces are strung together, wind it all up into a ball to make it easier to work with.  While you're winding the ball, tug on each section of fabric a little to make the fabric roll and stretch out a bit.   This will allow for greater stitch definition.

When I started my scarf, I tried it on 4 fingers, but didn't like the way it was looking.  It was a bit too thin for me, so I went to 6 fingers.  Weave the yarn in and out of your fingers, starting at your left pointer finger.  Once you get to your right-hand ring finger, come back the other way to get all your fingers covered.  You'll end up with the yarn coming from the ball laying behind your left pointer.

To work your first row, bring that yarn to the front, around your left pointer and lay it across your fingers, above the cast-on row.  Take each stitch from your cast-on row, and pull it up and over your finger, and over the yarn laying in front of your fingers, starting with your left pointer.  Continue with each finger.  Now bring the yarn back across your hand again, and work back the other way.  Here's what the cast-on and first completed row looked like on 6 fingers (if this is unclear, please refer back to this bracelet tutorial):

Now, I could have just borrowed someone else's hands to make this a little easier on myself, but since I was the only one home when I wanted to work on it, I had to use my own.  Photographing this by myself must have looked pretty funny.  Luckily I have a remote on my camera to make it a bit easier.  Here's how I did it with my own hands:  I could still move my pointer and thumb, so I used those to work the stitches on the opposite hand.

Now, sit back and get into a groove, and knit away.

Looking good!  The fabric that comes off your fingers is wider and shorter than what the finished piece will be, so keep this in mind when determining how long to make it.  I just kept going until I ran out of yarn, since I knew I would be at least doubling the scarf around my neck.

When you're set to finish, you'll want to bind-off.  You'll work from right to left, so you'll start with the stitch on your right ring finger, if you kept with 6 stitches.  Slide your ring finger out of the stitch, then slide that stitch onto your right pinky.  You now have two stitches on your pinky.  Grab the bottom stitch on your pinky and pull it up through the stitch you just put on your pinky.  Now we repeat this again to bind off the next stitch: Slide the stitch off your right pinky and put it onto your left pinky finger.  Pull the bottom stitch up through the top stitch and off your finger.  Continue like this until you have just one stitch left on your left pointer finger.

Slide that last stitch off and weave it into your stitching to keep it from unraveling.  Trim off any extra ends.  Here's what the front looks like when you're finished (the part that was against the back of your hands).

And here's the back (the side that was facing out while working):

Now tug on the scarf, like you did when winding your yarn into a ball, and you'll see the stitches readjust themselves.  The fabric will lengthen and the spaces between the stitches will disappear.  The fabric will roll so your scarf will look like a long tube. 

Tie it around your neck and go show it off!

If anything is unclear, please let me know and I'll do my best to help. Hopefully my tutorials will get better as I do more of them. *smile*