Textile Tuesday

In which I do my best imitation of BrooklynTweed's wonderful photography!

I have become obsessed by playing with linen stitch. So much so that I am developing a kind of 'knitted weave' - 

such as twill:

The structure of these stitches makes for wonderful bags - such as this 'mini-clutch', lined with fabric and finished with magnetic fasteners.
And chevron / herringbone:
This one also lined with fabric, but finished with a zip...
Product shoot photos completed today in class. Not only will these be used for my assignment, but also for the dual purpose when I get around to uploading them to the store. I love that my studies are teaching me skills I can use immediately!

And these are a little fun:

I am not sure whether to call this one "feed me" or "Laaaaaaaaaa"...
But this one is definitely called "C is for clutchie, that's good enough for me..."

It's my party and I'll brag if I want too...

I had so much fun last night at Mandy and my joint birthday party that I forgot to take pictures, but luckily, Lara had the camera out and there are some photos up on her blog..

Unexpectedly, presents were given, and I just have to show them off...

From Candy - who not only knits, but also bakes (she supplied the yummy fudgilious gluten free cupcakes last night - oh, and also the live entertainment in the form of her 6yo son!) and quilts, I got this gorgeous handmade needle roll - in my colours, and also to suit DPNs and circulars, as Candy has noticed that I don't often use straights.

This folds in half and rolls up to about the size of a paperback. I'll have to hunt through the stash and notions to find the DPNs and fill 'er up!

Lara (and, I guess, Mark as well) gifted me this gorgeous swishy yarny goodness from her recent trip from New Zealand (hence the guys with the face paint and the tongues out on the card!)

There was also a bamboo crochet hook and a "sock knitter travel bag" - both from a 100-yen shop (aka- $2shop) Lara found in kiwi-land.

The soon-to-be-joining the ranks of bloggers, Sally (who was there with hubby David) gave me a little tools and notions bag with a couple of extra goodies inside - a metal needle sizer with a gauge square, and a touch of luxury - a skein of caramelly coloured cracksilk haze. I think I can understand why this might be addictive!

Kate gave me this cute little silky bag with some rowan botany and some yummy eucalypti dyed yarns, which I think she said was done by some clever member of the Blue Mountains Knitting Guild.

The card is by one of her favourite artists, and I love the way it co-ordinates with the rest of the gift.

Mandy was so excited to have a party, she made some cute little goodie bags to take home - these were plastic noodle boxes with easter eggs, bubble blowers, balloons - and toothpaste sample :)

We all got so excited about the goodie bags that we wish we had gone with a few more good memories from kiddie parties such as preparing some ubiquitous fairy bread!

Ness was also in attendance last night - and I'll use this opportunity to show off the book I received while at dinner the evening previous.

Knowing my love of books, Ness spent quite a bit of time at Borders, and decided that it was near impossible to get me a knitting book I didn't already have and grabbed this one instead.

All is good because I fancy myself a bit of a bossy boots!

Now - I have mentioned by fancy-smance knit-picks, but not that they were also a gift (albeit one I got early!)

Originally, these were to be my gift to myself, but Tuffers needed inspiration so he ended up paying for them over the phone for me to pick up. When I got to the shop he also had organised a $50 voucher for Tapestry Craft. I have decided to spend this on extra bits and peices to expand my knit-picks set - which hopefully will come in rather soon...

I did spend a bit of time looking at the yarns at Tapestry craft and fell in love with Jo Sharps Alpaca Kid Lustre - but because there is a slightly higher mark-up due to the store location etc etc... it was rather expensive and in order to make a garment I would have to add a substantial about of my own moollah to the voucher. I did a bit of searching on the net and found out the knittery.com is having a sale on all their Jo Sharp range, so bought all they had - each ball being just shy of half the price of the same yarn in Tapestry Craft. This was my present to myself and I am using the yarn to play around with colour - my holey argyle is coming along nicely, but working from nine (yes, 9) balls of yarn at once makes it a stay at home project. I have taped a whole bunch of zip-lock baggies together to try and stop some of the inevitable tangling...

all in all - not a bad haul for this chickadee!

Grizzly explained...

So from memory, I said a Grizzly was a twice the size of a Malamute, chocolate brown, soft and fluffy...

Doesn't leave you with much... How about if I told you that the Malamute is a personality that lives on LucyLou's sofa...

Okay.. its a threw for a carch... (if that confuses you, google Kath'n'Kim) That just happens to look like a it once lived on the back of a Malamute...

Tuffers wanted something similar for our couch, only bigger, fluffier, and chocolatier. This was the result...

After cruising through a few homewares stores that had dreadly expensive, yet inferior products, I convinced Tuffers that I could make one better for a similar price. After a covert trip to a Lincraft store in Canberra (Tuffers did leave his sunglasses on the whole time we were in there - egad, a big manly fellow like him couldn't be caught in a fabric and craft store!) Tuffers chose this lucious chocolate faux fur, and this beautiful thick tan polar fleece for the backing.

Step two involved aquiring the use of a sewing machine. LucyLou has been looking to replace her Malamute, so she was happy to help me out with the pinning and sewing of the Grizzly.

There were a few issues...

Hiccup #1 - The Grizzly has a definate grain/nape. And being glossy and fluffy that stuff sure is slippery. While we were trying to lay the polar fleece on top of it for pinning, we found the nape had a tidal effect on the fleece - it kept ending up about a foot further east than where we wanted it.

Hiccup#2 - Polar fleece is stretchy while Grizzly is not. We had trouble pinning while not distorting both fabrics.

Hiccup#3 - we didn't bother to tack the two fabrics together. We just pinned, crossed our fingers and went straight to the machine....

Hiccup#4 - Lucious Grizzly and thick polar fleece ends up being quite chunky. Perhaps if we had something to manufacture rugs, it would have coped better than the domestic sewing machine - it had trouble pushing the chunky layers of fabric through so we had to pull the grizzly through the machine.

Hiccup#5 - Lucious Grizzly and thick polar fleece in two metre measures is incredibly heavy. Due to the amount of fabric trying to fall to the floor, it was impossible to sew straight seams. We had to set up a card table next to the sewing machine in order to hold the excess weight of the Grizzly.

Who knew four straight seams could be so difficult???

The final product, however, is wonderful. Tuffers saw it for the first time today, and is currently curled up underneath it on the couch, with Pierre on his lap and Max at his feet. However, I will bite my tongue next time I tell Tuffers "don't spend money on that, I can do one twice the size with nicer fabric for the same price if I had a sewing machine..."