Beginnings and Endings

 A little slice of my world this week....

: My latest quilt is done and off to my friend Gael to quilt for me. Ahhh, what did folks do before the long arm? I'm so excited to see it quilted!

: Quilt design iterations done. Time to start thinking about the next one.

: Home made bread and cream of mushroom soup (old old vegetarian cookbook). Heaven.

: Little projects to catch up on. More monster patches are in order.

: Re-knitting the eaten sweater. It feels so good to have yarn in my hands in the fall.

: I've been dreaming about a Schoolhouse Tunic for me. Anna Maria Horner LouLouthi voile on sale made it happen sooner rather than later. Can't wait to dig in!

–Cassandra

Friday Finds: Well Mended Wardrobe

Hello folks!

My little boys wear out the knees and elbows in their clothes so fast it would make your head spin. Luckily I've discovered fun tutorials to get some more use out of these torn garments. Hopefully I can share with you some of my creative mending next week. For now, here is a link to a great tutorial from Gabrielle at Design Mom to possibly start you off on your own mending adventure.

Photo courtesy of Design Mom

Have a great weekend!

Cassandra

On the Mend

I am not, by nature, a long-haul knitter. I like mittens, anything for children and the occasional grown-up sized sweater on large needles. In 2008 I finished a knitting project that seemed like it would never end... an afghan. It was a request of my husband, how could I say no to my guy? Luckily, I found a pattern that was "patchwork", like a quilt, and was able to knit squares and assemble later. It made the project much less daunting because I could stop and start in-between other small projects. Here is a lovely photo I took a couple years ago for my ravelry page:

After a few years and a few nice comments and fav's on ravelry... well, lets just say, the old fella just ain't what he used to be. There are some holes, and a bunch of pilling. It's really sort of sad.

Yeah, this is more of what it looks like now. An embarrassment:

So, I know the job ahead of me. I purchased a restora® sweater brick and found some of the leftover afghan yarn in my stash. This week, I will take on the slow, tedious job of bringing the afghan back to something a little closer to it's glory days. All those hours of knitting and seaming, they can't be gone in a matter of a few years. This crisis deserves my attention.

As always, this sort of thing gets me thinking. How can I have a knit-by-me item that's been around long enough for this sort of mending? At times, it seems just like yesterday that I learned to knit. All those dropped stitches, purls where the knits should be, and all of the other mistakes made by a new knitter that require fretful trips to the nearest lys. I've come a long way over the past 7, or so, years. This project was one of the first ones that I was really proud to say I made myself. It took a while to get to the point I'm at now, but I'm so glad I stuck with knitting and worked through my frustration. Any of you readers who don't think you have the patience to learn knitting, think again. It just takes some time and then like magic, it is second nature.

So, this week while I'm on the mend myself (from something minor, no worries)....I will spend quality time with an old friend. I think I've been crafty naval-gazing for enough of my posts now! My next post will be project related...I promise!

– Cassandra