When is a Heel Not a Heel?

When it's knitted on the wrong side of the sock.

I've made great headway today on my Welsh Flag Socks. I finished the leg, turned the heel and started the gussets. Then came the realization that I had knitted the heel on the wrong side of the sock.

This is the side that the heel should have been knitted on.

This is the side I knitted it on.

Tomorrow, I will be ripping the heel out and reknitting it on the right side. Tonight, I'm pretending this sock doesn't exist and that I still know my front from my back.

Til next time. -Erika

Procrastalympics 2012, Live from Philadelphia

Last night marked the opening of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London. During the opening ceremony, thousands upon thousands of knitters cast on their projects for the 2012 Ravellenic Games on Ravelry. I signed up a couple months ago for Team Final Frontier. I was excited! I was pumped! I was...taking Qualitative Analysis. I was a little preoccupied for about 10 weeks while I was writing the longest papers of my life.

I finished up the course on Tuesday. It was perfect timing. The course was over and I had 17 days to knit a pair of Welsh flag socks. I had managed to find the illusive main colour, Regia Nation Color in a white and green stripe that had been long since discontinued. All I needed was a beautiful rich red for the contrast. No problem, right?

Well, not normally. Unless you are a procrastinator like me.

I found myself sitting, watching the opening ceremonies without the contrast colour. Oh yeah, and without the needles I needed. And without a pattern. Yup, totally unprepared. So I stopped at Loop today and found a ball (only one...they only had ONE!!!!!) of a lovely blood red Spud and Chloe Fine. Phew!

So, I have the yarn. I have the needles. I found a pattern. Time to cast on! In between blog updates, you can follow my updates here.

Til next time! -Erika

The Value of Art

I've seen some memes floating around Facebook and Pinterest the last few weeks about the value of art. More specifically, about understanding the value of art. My friend Little Miss Arty Pants posted about the issue of people haggling prices with artists at shows. This has been an issue at one time or another among artists and crafters I know who regularly do shows. I want to put my two cents into this issue.

When you buy something from an artist or crafter, you are buying something that is unique, that is only available from that person. That person has put time and effort into every aspect of the design, the execution, the packaging, the marketing, the sales and the follow-up. A lot of times, they are the entire company.

To ask an artist or a crafter if they can give a better price on a piece is an insult to their ingenuity, their creativity, their passion and the hours of hard work and dedication they put into each and every piece. An artist's creativity is their livelihood. Please remember that there is value in that livelihood.

Til next time. -Erika

Easy-Peasy T-Shirt Blanket

If you're like me, you have a ton of t-shirts that are kicking around that you never wear, but you can't bear the thought of letting them go. One way to save them while actually making use of them is to sew them into a t-shirt blanket. There are a lot of great tutorials online and books available with information on sewing t-shirt quilts and blankets. One book that I highly recommend is Generation T.

This is a pattern I came up with when I realized that the t-shirts I had available couldn't be cut to even sizes without losing some of the logos. It's a fairly easy pattern that could be finished in a weekend at most. Cutting the t-shirts will take the longest.

I did run into a small technical issue while I was working on this tutorial. My serger died. I don't know what I did before having a serger. I'm thinking that I'll be finding out in the upcoming weeks. So, unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish the sample that I had planned.

What You'll Need

• 10-15  t-shirts (you may need more or less depending on how large you want the blanket to be)
• Fabric shears
• Rotary cutter and rotary mat (not necessary but it makes squaring off easier)
• Ruler or tape measure
• Thread in a coordinating colour
• Water soluble stabilizer

What You'll Do

1. Cut your t-shirts apart, separating the neck and sleeves from the body. Then separate the front from the back along the seams.

2. Decide how wide each strip will be and begin cutting your pieces from the t-shirts. I cut my pieces 12 inches wide. If you aren't worried about everything being squared, the length can vary per piece. At the end, you will even up the edges of the blanket.

3. Once all squares are cut apart, lay the pieces out in strips, like the picture below. 

4. With your serger or sewing machine (or by hand if you have more patience than I do), sew each long strip together. To make it easier, pin each piece together with water soluble stabilizer to keep the material from stretching and puckering as you sew it. Whether you have the seams facing in or out is totally up to you.

5. Once each long strip is sewn, pin the strips together and sew them. If you sewed the strips on a sewing machine, I recommend opening the seams when you reach them. If you used a serger, just serge right over the seam and the serger will finish the edge.

6. If you any uneven edges, measure the shortest strip and square off the edge using a rotary cutter or scissors.

7. To finish the edges, I simply ran them through the serger. The edges could easily be finished other ways, like fringing or binding. Let your blanket and your personal style guide you!

8. If you used water soluble stabilizer, wash your blanket to remove it.

That's it! Simple, quick and useful, my t-shirt blanket has come to be an absolute necessity in my house when it's too warm for a quilt but cool enough to have a little something on me at night. I've made one for my godson and I've started collecting shirts for a Queen size blanket. Hopefully by then, my serger will be working again.

If you make this, let me know! I'd love to see how your blankets turn out. Til next time!

-Erika

I Looked to the West

Last night, I flew from Philadelphia to Greensboro. I was just beginning to let slumber settle into my head when I glanced out my window and was immediately woken by what I saw.

Out in the West, above the softly tussled blanket of clouds that laid over the Earth, there was the faintest trace of the Sun in the new night sky. It was lingering there on the horizon, like lips leaving the gentlest of kisses on the forehead of a sleeping lover. The red of the horizon faded into a palette of orange, green, purple and blue before finally becoming the inky black velvet of the night, adorned with thousands of little diamonds that showed the history of the Universe.

It was simply beautiful.

Altering T-Shirts: The Beginning

Like a lot of folks I know, I have a fair amount of t-shirts. They end up accumulating over time and before I know it, I have more t-shirts than drawer space. Or closet space. Or basement space. Or outer space.

When the collection gets a little out of control, it becomes necessary to bring it down to a more manageable size, say just slightly smaller than the room that held ENIAC. One could make a donation to the local Goodwill or have a yard sale.

Or instead, one could make them into something awesome and useful. So how does one decide what to do with those shirts that don't make the cut? I think about two things.

1. First I decide how much I want to keep the shirt. What does it mean to me? Why am I considering taking it out of rotation? Once I know the answer, I separate out the keepers.
2. After separating the keepers from the donations, I decide what I want to do with them. Often the decision will be made based on whether I want to keep wearing the shirt and whether I can do anything with the current fit.

After I wrestle them away from my dog, there are a lot of possibilities for old t-shirts. I've made purses, place mats, shopping bags, tote bags, pillows, blankets, dog beds, skirts, scarves and new shirts from old t-shirts.

In my next post, I'll give you directions for making a super simple t-shirt blanket. You'll need about 10-15 t-shirts, a ruler, scissors or a rotary cutter and a sewing machine or serger (or enough patience to stitch it by hand.)

Until next time! -Erika

What to Drink on the Hottest Day of the Year

I cannot stress enough how important it is to hydrate. I've already written about my recipe for lemon water. Today is the hottest day of the year here in the Philadelphia area. The high today was over 100 degrees, with high humidity that made it feel even hotter. I caught myself feeling dehydrated today, so I feel the need to take this moment and remind everyone how important hydration is, especially on days like today.

As I type this, I have a pot of tea steeping in my kitchen. That pot of tea will become some lovely iced chai tea before the evening is out. In the meantime, water continues to be my friend. I still feel a little dehydrated from earlier, even though I've been drinking nothing but water since I got home.

Remember folks, the last thing anyone wants is to be stuck in line at a bridge opening on the hottest day of the year with nothing to drink. If you're going to venture out, go prepared. And hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!

Here's the recipe for Iced Chai Tea

• 2 tbsp of rooibos chai (mine is from Teavana, but you can use any kind of chai tea, just double the amount of tea to steep)
• 8oz of hot water
• honey

Bring the water to the recommended temperature for the tea. Add the water to the teapot with the tea, allow to steep. Once it's done steeping, while the tea is still hot, add honey to taste. Let cool to room temperature, then place in the refrigerator until cold. Then drink up!

Super Comfy Lovey-Dovey Tattoo Sweater

A few weeks ago, I was perusing my favourite Goodwill and found a really cute oversized sweater that met two of my very important criteria for good fashion: it was comfortable and it looked good.

While I was trying the sweater on in the dressing room, I kept thinking that it was cute, but it needed a little extra something.

I thought about it for a day and decided that what I wanted was a sweater that had edge, sparkle, comfort and wearability. After some consideration (and some perusing the local craft stores) I came up with my design. I call it my Super Comfy Lovey-Dovey Tattoo Sweater!

What you'll need to make the SCLDTS:

• A sweater (the one I used was an oversized cardigan that I purchased secondhand)
• Foil iron on transfer (I used one that I had in my stash of a traditional sailor pin up)
• Iron on patches (I used some sequined roses purchased at a local craft store)
• Stretch sequin ribbon
• Invisible thread

Keep in mind that these are more guidelines than instructions. What you want and where you want to place things is personal preference, so have fun with it! Remember, there is no wrong way to do this.

The first thing I did was to decide where I was going to place the iron on transfer. I used I put on the sweater and placed the transfer slightly to the left of the middle of my back. Follow the directions with the transfer to ensure the best results.

After that, I decided where I was putting the sequined roses. I placed two of them directly over my shoulder blades,  evenly spaced from each other. The third rose went on the shoulder of the pin up. (Come on, every pin up needs a rose!)

The sequined ribbon was sewn to the pockets of the sweater using the invisible thread to give it a little more sparkle. Remember, everyone, sparkle is good!

 

There are a lot of things that could still be done with this sweater. Changing the buttons, adding some more sparkle, dyeing parts of the sweater....ideas are still running through this little head of mine. Until I decide what else I want to do, I'm pretty happy with the way it came out. I'm definitely looking forward to cooler weather so I can wear it. Heat waves are not conducive to cute sweaters.

Take a look! And love my dog!

Tomato Soup in a Test Environment

I have awesome work friends. They graciously volunteered to test my tomato soup recipe and give me some good, honest feedback. The people I work with are good to each other like that. One of my co-workers routinely brings in some pretty amazing baked goods for us to try. I guess the reality of the situation is that we're an office full of guinea pigs who are willing to put our tastebuds on the line to help each other succeed.

Hungry....hungry guinea pigs...who REALLY just...love success...so much.  Mmmm.....

But I digress.

Three of my friends tried my tomato soup and gave me some pretty good feedback.

First review - Said it was really good. It was so good, in fact that her fiancée ate half of the sample I provided to her. And HE liked it too!

Second review - Said it was good, a little thin in consistency and needed more pepper and basil.

Third review - Again, said it was good. Consistency was fine, but needed more garlic. We played around with adding some garlic powder and pepper to it and the added garlic helped to bring out the basil more.

My friends are nothing if not honest. So now I have some ideas for how to tweak the recipe. Time to take that information back to the kitchen and work on Tomato Soup V2.

A Soup to Share with the One You Love

Tomato soup is easily one of my absolute favourites. Hands down. A good, and I do mean GOOD, tomato soup will warm you from the inside out, like a full body hug. It will make you want to push the bowl to the middle of the table and insist that everybody try some. It is hearty, inviting, perfect as a chilled side during a summer picnic or as a meal on a cold winter's eve. Tomato soup is a staple in my diet.

Until recently, I had not ventured far beyond the soup-in-a-can variety. Then, I went to Marisol in High Point, NC, and had the most. Amazing. Tomato Soup. Ever. It was rich without being overwhelming, aromatic with an interesting combination of flavours....mmmm, just thinking about it makes my mouth water....slurp!

From that moment on, I was hooked. No longer could I eat the poor substitute-in-a-can. I became obsessed with finding the perfect tomato basil soup recipe. I needed to not only find it, but make it my own.

Now, one thing I need to point out here. Folks who know me already know this, but I am not a professional chef. Far, far, far from it. I do not claim to know a lot about food. What I know is what I like. What I like, is the tomato basil soup from Marisol. When I am tweaking a recipe, it is entirely possible that what I will come out with is a pile of ick, but every so often, I come out with something that is absolutely delicious. That is my goal here.

Today, I decided to be adventurous and begin working on a tomato basil recipe. I found a recipe for La Madeline's Tomato Basil Soup. I am using that as my starting point and changing it to suit my needs. Where it will end up, well I don't know just yet.

Until I do, here's a teaser.

Til next time! -Erika