Thursday, June 26, 2008

Magic Looping

I finally just looked up what is Magic Looping and come to find out, I've been doing my own version of it for weeks! I can't afford to go purchase every size needle and every length available and in a moment of desperation I discovered a method that worked. It's definitely a great method if you like circs and if you're frugal.
Here's the "right" way to do it-http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/advanced-techniques
Here's my way-- I just pull the cable through between stitches so I have a loop between some stitches, I work the stitches like normal until it starts to pull, then I pull the cable through again. It helps if you pull it through closest to the side where you are pulling your yarn from (for me that's the right side). Because the placement of the cable is constantly changing, it doesn't stretch the stitches or anything.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Cables!

I just finished my first cables! I did the "criss cross cable" on a sleeper sac/ diaper cver for my newborn. I just dyed it green but need to wait for it to dry to take pics. These are great diaper covers cause they keep baby warm, keep in leaks, and make it very easy to change the diaper when baby's sleeping. I do wish I'd made it bigger though! Here's the pattern I used- http://knittingonthenet.com/stitches/crisscrosscable.htm



Kool Aid Dye


I've dyed a few of my wool knitting projects with kool aid. It does dye really well, it's unbelievable (although I wouldn't recommend actually drinking it ;-) So far, the two things I've dyed haven't come out well. The first, I tye dye'd and it just came out looking kinda weird. The second, I dipped in the dye and it bled onto the other color. The two colors were purple and green, so it made kind of a brownish color where they meet. I decided this time to dye the yarn before I made something with it. There are many instructions online for dying with kool aid but the easiest way for me was to fill a pot with water, place my kool aid in, put in my yarn (which I tied up cause I was going for a patterned kind of look), boiled it for about 10 minutes, let cool, dried, and voila! Brilliant but safe colors. I first dyed with the darker colors then moved up to lighter. You'll know if it's done when the water is clear. If the color is not brilliant enough, just add more kool aid.



For this one I used black cherry, then cherry, then orange.







For the next one, I used grape and blue raspberry kool aid.






For this one, I used lime and lemonade kool aid.


Monday, June 16, 2008

My Little Chef!

Cooking is also an artform, especially when you have as many food allergies as we do in our house! My son loves to cook, I mean LOVES to cook. He says he wants to be a chef. All he plays with is his cars, train, and my pots and pans and his wooden food. I try to make it a point to cook something with him everyday. Today it was gluten/dairy free brownies but we added a few leftover marshmallows and some sunflower butter (in place of peanut butter). It is soooo yummy!


Thursday, June 5, 2008

Not much time for sewing but...


For my newborn, I wanted to use only natural and organic materials. I purchased some organic undyed sherpa and hemp fleece from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cloth_diaper_supplies/ for around $10 a yard, and made my own diapers and baby blankets. The blankets were very simple, I got out my handy dandy rotary mat and cut myself out several layers. I took two at a time, straight stitched them together wrong side out, left a small hole, turned it right side out and stitched up the hole, and in a half hour I had the safest (and softest ;) baby blankets you can have for around $5 each.


For the diapers, I used the shape I wanted (I traced around a previously made diaper but you can find tons of diaper patterns online), cut it out, used the remnants to add thickness to the heavy pee spots in the diaper (the front for my boy but you would center it for a girl), stitched it in place on the wrong side, then stitched the whole diaper inside out leaving a small hole on one end. Then I took elastic and sewed it down around the leg openings and on the back. Turned it rightside out, stitched up the opening, and voila! A very inexpensive og cloth diaper. The extra remnants I had I made diaper liners with. You don't want to make the diaper too thick itself cause it'll never dry. Oh, and most importantly, I use a Snappi to keep it together. If you cd and don't have a Snappi- Go buy one! They're unbelievably wonderful! I've tried snaps and velcro and neither one hold up. Snappis or good old fashioned diaper pins are the way to go!