Works In Progress

So Im still working on the knitting bag and the bear. The knitting bag has kind of hit a wall though. I cut the plastic canvas into the pieces I needed and stitched them together to make the box shape. I sewed the plastic canvas box into the bag. The side looked floppy so if you look on the right I experimented with stuffing it before sewing the sides. I dont like how the stuffing turned out. I didnt even do the other side. I didnt finished sewing around all the sides because it bothers me how its turning out. I think I am going to undo all the box and take it out of the bag. It is sort of making the shape that I want but I dont like the weight of the plastic canvas and I dont like how even when I line the bag I will probably be able to feel the plastic canvas. If I pad the plastic canvas it will add even more weight just to solve something I dont like. I think the plastic canvas will work for other bags that wont require so much of it, such as just making the bottom stronger but I dont think it works for this bag. Tomorrow we are going shopping and I am going to go to the craft shop searching for something that will work better. A stiff interfacing that I can double up or perhaps my foam idea will work. There has to be something out there. So this is how the bag is looking right now until I come up with a solution.


This is the inside of the bag with the plastic canvas in it. When I cut the shape I also dont think I cut it wide enough because I wanted it to fit tighter in the bag on the sides and ends. So this will be something to keep in mind with the next thing I try.


This is what Horace looks like at the moment. All his pieces are pretty much done. I think I just have one ear left to knit and then I can start piecing him together. Some of the pieces, well actually all the pieces are strangely shaped so it will be interesting to see him come together. I will also be looking for plastic pellets and eyes while craft shopping this weekend so Horace can come together and be finished.


It finally warmed up around here a bit today. The sun was shining and the snow was sparkling. Victoria had fun throwing snowballs while waiting for the bus to pick her up for school.

Today is Valentines day so the girls had lots of fun getting stuff from their friends. We gave them their stuff early so they are still enjoying their gift from us. This was Victoria's first year of having Valentines Day at school. She had fun putting her name on a bunch of little cards to give her classmates. She got annoyed at me at home after school because we just handed out cards while most of her classmates handed out treats and she felt we should have done the same. I guess we cant win hehe. Megan came home with a bunch of stuff from her friend Brittany. The inseperable two. You wouldnt believe the big gift bag of things that she gave her. Megan gave her some stuff too but not like this. She was very excited. I got a big heart shape box of chocolates from Joe when the girls got their things a couple of weeks ago and we are going to a surprise place for dinner tomorrow night. Victoria will be with us, Megan is off to a friends house of course but I am dying to know where this secret place is going to be. I am giving Joe a super massage on the weekend which is always a good present for him hehe.

On Wednesday we went up the road to Samaritan House and put a $5 deposit on Megan's orange velvet chair. I wanted to get that done so that no one could come and take it. I feel better now that all we have to do is pay it off. Megan is too. Victoria is excited that she will be getting Megans pink chair. Now I just have to do a big clean out of Victoria's room to make a space for the chair. I cant wait until she gets Megans organizer so we can get her room looking neater.

Megan's dad arrived in America this week. He is here until April so at some point they are coming to visit. Megan told him that she has the week off school next week so they are talking about maybe coming then. We will have to see what happens. She is very excited. It will be very weird seeing them together. She is nervous about being with just him because she doesnt know what to talk about. I told her that she has to just deal with the awkwardness at first and the more time they spend together the easier it will get.

Well I guess thats about all I have to say. I have my fingers crossed the I will be able to solve my bag issues with one trip to the craft shop. Here's hoping.

Its Cold Outside Today

I think today is a staying inside and snuggling under a blanket day. The highest temperature forecast today is 12 degrees F, for those of you Celsius people that is -11. The lowest temperature is suppose to be 1 degree F which is converted to -17 degrees Celsius and this isnt even taking into account the wind chill factor and it is very windy and snowy today. I had to go to the store this morning for an emergency toilet paper run and it was pretty cold when the wind was blowing in your face. We do have to go to the store again later to pick up a few things we need for the week and possibly have some pizza for dinner. I think I will run there hehe.

Horace is coming along nicely. I have nearly finished knitting all his parts. He just needs the soles of his feet and his ears. Some of his body parts look a little confusing right now but Im sure they will make sense when they are sewn up. He cant be fully finished until I get some plastic pellets for his insides and some eyes.

The knitting bag has just been sitting there begging me to do more to it. I will have to work on it in the next few days I think. Its getting so close to the end.

The two Pavlovas turned out really well. Everyone just loved them. I didnt even get to bring any home. I was lucky I got a piece for myself. Several people now want the recipe. I think I will end up having to make more Pavlovas in the future especially seeing how Megan didnt even get any.

Megan survived her Girl Scout camping trip and apparently had lots of fun. She cant wait to go camping again April. You would catch me camping at this time of year hehe. They didnt stay in tents though. They stayed in a log cabin with a fireplace. Does that count as camping?

Well Im going to go get under a blanket with some hot chocolate and stay warm.

The Bear Has A Head!

The mint green headless bear now has a head and he feels much better. Last weekend I dropped him off at the yarn shop and she found a place for him to sit so he would get noticed. I also got to see my bear who is sitting in the window just waiting for me to take him home. He is very cute.


I have been working on two projects this week. I unraveled yet another jumper this week. This was one that I have owned for a few years. I bought it second hand and have never worn it. I figured out that its the yarn and the colour of it that I liked more than the jumper so unraveling I went. It is a very pretty robins egg blue. It is currently being knitted up into the Horace Bear pattern that I bought several months ago. I think he is going to be very cute. It is a very speedy project especially with the yarn Im using being so chunky. He is going to be bigger than the original Horace but I think I like that. Thats the good thing about knitting toys. It doesnt really matter what yarn you use to make it in because all it does it change its size and give it a different character.

The other project I have been working on is the felted knitting bag. I felted it last Friday, stuffed it and let it dry for a few days. It is currently waiting to be shaved before I attach the handles. I was talking to the yarn shop lady and she gave me some excellent tips on how I can make my bag more solid. She gave me a big stack of plastic canvas and told me how you use it so your bag will not be so floppy. I knew you could do it I just could wrap my head around exactly how. I am very excited to try this out and see how it works. Essentially I want my knitting bag to sit in a rectangular box shape. Then it will be lined and hopefully have a zipper if I can find one that goes with it and is long enough. Its getting there slowly but surely.

The other night I was having trouble sleeping. You know when you cant switch your brain off and every position doesnt seem comfortable. So while trying to fall asleep I came up with a brain storm on what sort of design I want to do with the green wool I just unraveled. Its all based on this clay pendant that I found on Etsy. I would like the lady to make me a button with the same picture and use that to close the bag. This pendant has a green background and a cute bird on it. I would then embroider the same bird but bigger in the light blue that its painted in, onto the bag. Thats my plan anyway. Sometimes when doing these things the plan changes as different things come up or different ideas are discovered.

Yesterday I went to my knitting group. There was a new lady who had come because she wanted to learn how to knit. It was just me there that day so I was teaching her how to knit. She was very new to it all. She did a pretty good job by the time it came to going home. She was very determined to get it and never gave up. She said I really helped her so that felt good. I havent really taught people how to knit before. It was weird because now I just do it so it was hard to find the right ways to explain it so it made sense. I think she will get it with practice. We have a meeting on Monday night and she might come so I would love to see her progress then.

Tonight I just finished making an Australian dessert to take to Victoria's story hour tomorrow. I am going to be reading the book Possum Magic to the kiddies. In the story it mentions a dessert called Pavlova. I told the ladies at story hour that I would read the book and make some Pavlova so the kids can try something that is in the book and also Australian. I also have to read this book about Kangaroos that I found so we have more than one story. They are then going to do some crafts with some Australian animals in it. Its always nice to share a bit of home and its a good excuse to eat Pavlova. I dont think mine will be as good as my friend Nerida's but I think I did pretty good making it from scratch. I ended up making two of them because there is a morning and afternoon story hour. I think the leaders and the librarian are more excited about trying the dessert more than anything. Megan is just bummed that she is off on a camping trip tomorrow and probably wont get any hehe. Fingers crossed all goes well tomorrow.

More Unraveling And A Pre-felted Bag

Well I finally finished unraveling the green jumper. I took a long time but I think it will be worth it. I did get alot of wool out of it. There were alot of breakages so there are alot of little balls but when felted it wont even matter. It will just be a hassle weaving in the ends when it comes time. I just have to figure out now the type of bag that I want to make with such a colour.


Here is the knitting bag that I have been working on. It is in its pre-felting stage at the moment. I am hoping to felt it tomorrow because I am anxious to see how its going to look. Once the wool has felted up to my liking I will then have to make the decision to either make it a rounded bag or more of a rectangle shape. This will affect how I shape it while its drying. Hmm should be interesting. I am felting the pink handles and the bag separately and then sewing the handles on. The bag actually looks more teal in person than it does in this shot. I just noticed how blue it looks in this photo.


Tomorrow I need to finish of the mint green bear. He has been waiting all week to be put together and tomorrow will be the day. Poor little guy just wants to be in one piece. He has to be all ready to hopefully be taken to the yarn shop on the weekend.

Some New And Exciting Stuff Just For You

Ive been sitting here playing around with some stuff on my blog tonight trying to figure out how to put links to other blogs on my page. Well in my search I stumbled across this program that you can put on your blog so that put can subscribe to your blog and every time I make and entry it will let you know in an email so you know as soon as something happens. So if you look to your right and scroll down a bit you should see a subscribing box. Try it out and see if it works. Let me know if it works and if it doesnt. If I didnt do it right and you arent receiving your alerts let me know and I will see what I did wrong. I will have to do some more posting this week so we can test out this new little toy.

I also discovered that its very easy to add links to your favourite blogs and I figured it out all by myself. So also on your right just below the new photo of the crazy girls you will see a list of other blogs that I frequently love to check and see what they are up too. Maybe you will find you enjoy reading them too. Its always great to read other knitting blogs and discover that I am not the only one who has this obsession hehe.

On a knitting update, the headless bear now had a face. He just needs and ear and to pull himself together hehe. The green wool jumper is nearly all unraveled as well so things are moving along nicely here.

Unraveling

Megan recently went through her clothes to get rid of some that dont fit her. I went through her pile of stuff and found some jumpers that I decided to keep and unravel for some free yarn. Ever since she got this jumper I have been eyeing it up to unravel. Yay for not fitting anymore.

So this is what the jumper looked like before.


This is what it looks like now. It only took me a day to unravel it because it is pretty smooth yarn. I think because they are the colours of her room I am going to reuse this yarn and make a cable pillow to hopefully put in this chair that we found at Samaritan House up the road. Fingers crossed that no one had bought it yet because we havent put our deposit on it yet. It is an orange velvet wing back old fashion sink into chair with wooden legs. It would look so cool in her room but it needs a pillow to go with it. If Megan gets this chair then Victoria can have Megan's old chair which she has been eyeing up for years. It is a fluffy pink velvet chair.


I must be in an unraveling mood because I spent yesterday unraveling a 100% lambswool jumper that I found at Samaritan House when we found the chair. I also got two other woolen jumpers but I think they have been felted alot already and are multiple colours so they will have to be felted some more and I will just cut them up and use them. I debated back and forth on whether to do the same thing for this other one but decided to take the plunge and just unravel it. I just love the colour of this yarn. Its like a bright grass green with little flecks of light blue and cream in it sparingly. Its very thin yarn but I think it will make up a great bag once I get it unraveled. It is taking longer than the other one because its wool and its thin. The yarn tends to break easily and you have to kind of take your time. It will be worth it in the end I think. I will take a shot of it when its all unraveled. There wont be a before shot because I was too excited to start unraveling to stop and take a picture.

I bought a sheet of felt on the weekend to finish of my headless bear. For some reason there must have been a rush on sheets of felt this week. It was very odd. There were all these spots where colours use to be and no felt. I found three different colours and no brown. So I picked black and just hoped that it will look good as well. The pattern did call for black anyway so it cant be too bad. I will have to sit down and finish his ear, do his face and finish off putting him together this week. I want to take him to the yarn shop this weekend.

Before all this unraveling started I was working on my knitting bag that I mentioned in a previous post. The main part of the bag is all made up and I am very close to have the handles done. Then its on to the scary process of felting. Its exciting but scary at the same time because you just never know what exactly is going to happen even if you do sample tests. I have high hopes that all will go well.

So with all that going on Im sure there will have to be some shots of finished projects during this week. I'll keep you posted.

Im Surprised Its Finished

On Saturday night I finished my mother in laws crochet blanket. I didnt realize I was so close to finishing it. I put it on our bed to measure how much further I had to go to finish it and realized that it was at the perfect size. All I had to do then was weave in all those ends. That wasnt fun but I was watching a movie while doing it so it didnt drag on as much as I thought it would. So something that I thought I still had alot of work on is now finished and being used. I like using this blanket on our bed as well. I have actually slept much better the last couple of nights with it being on our bed. I think its because it has some weight to it and it just stays in place all night and keeps you nice and cozy.


I must be in a finishing off old projects mood because after I finished this blanket I pulled out the teal knitting bag that I started quite a while ago. I have one and a half sides and the handle left to go before felting it. I really hope this turns out the way that I want it too. I think I will have some wool left over to use on a small project or two so that would be nice. I am thinking about putting a zipper on this bag because its suppose to be for toting a knitting project around. I have never put in a zipper in my life but how hard can it be hehehe. I am also trying to figure out how I want to do the inside. I had a look on Etsy and found some great material to use for lining this bag. I am trying to figure out how I want to go about making the sides and ends more solid. Any ideas of what I can use? I cant use cardboard because if it got wet it would be ruined. Perhaps I will have to go to the craft shop and look around. Perhaps a kind of thick foam put in before lining would work. I hope to think of something good because I might like to use this idea for future bags.

I found a great pattern for a bag I would love to make today. I would love to make it. I think I would do the handles in a different stitch because I dont think garter stitch would stretch too much. Here is the pattern, http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/en/visoppskrift.php?d_nr=98&d_id=54&lang=en
Isnt it cool? I love the colour they used as well.