Cashmere. One Hundred Percent.

If this blog were an indicator of real life a person could conclude that all we do around here is knit.

I can assure you that is not the case.

The vast majority of my crafty, creative time has definitely been usurped by work and chores and meal preparations, so most of my sewing has gone the way of the leaves on the trees.Knitting is just such a great stop and start activity. If I leave a sewing project mid-completion it takes me forever to get back around to picking it up. The biggest challenge with knitting is the ridiculously long list of things I want to make. The list is so long that I find I don't even know where to start once I cast off one thing and want to cast on another.
Oh the endless choices.
I had no trouble deciding to cast on this hat, though. The minute I saw them on display I could barely stand the thought of living without one. My friend Heidi wrote the pattern for The Hannah Hat. She also sells the yarn, which she hand plies of 100% recycled cashmere garments.
There is no softer yarn in all the world. Knitting with this yarn was the most luxurious experience I've ever had with yarn. I wish I were joking because I never thought I'd be this way about yarn. I never saw the words yarn snob headed my direction. But there they are. Visit Pepperberry Knits and snag a skein of this yarn (keep checking back...she sells out quickly this time of year)for yourself. One skein of the sport weight yarn will be the perfect amount for knitting The Hannah Hat. There are three variations on the pattern, too, so you can make your dream hat.

What's that you say? You don't knit? Well, that's no problem. She'll knit one for you!

Now does anyone have a suggestion for the perfect toddler cardigan? I can't make up my mind! I'm using Lambs Pride Bulky and I have 440 yards available.

For Little E

My little nephew turned two recently and I couldn't resist knitting him this little hat and mittens set. I used my striping skills here and almost couldn't put this set in the mail. Amelia really loved the "glubs" and asked me specifically to make some for her. Now that I've got my bazaar sewing done for the year (for the most part) I'm on to a full on knitting and sewing bonanza for my own family and friends!

I'm determined not to let this holiday season sneak by without a full on handmade celebration. Especially now that I have a room dedicated to making!

If you are on my Christmas list and you don't like handmade gifts you'd better let me know now....

Hat: Inspired by Holli's Ravelry instructions found here.
Mittens: Easy Mittens Pattern here.
Raveled: here

studio sneak peak

Seeing as I'm right in the thick of preparing for Holiday bazaars my studio is a mess. I'm not a clean and organized crafter at all. I have a bazillion projects going at one time and I feel like a complete scatter brain trying to decide which project I'll work on next. Luckily things tend to work out once I sit down to get started. All the choices kind of fade away and I focus on the medium I'm most drawn to in the moment. This method makes for some pretty big messes while I sort that choice out, so you get to see glimpses of this little room.

I'll show the whole room once the recently salvaged hardwood floor is installed (!!!). Let's remember where we started, shall we? Here you can see The Mail Man installing an old multi paned window as a light cover. After this photo was taken he sprayed the glass with a frosty paint to mute the light and hide all the concrete and wiring. It's tough to take a picture of when the light is on. An unfinished basement room with concrete walls and a busted up concrete floor. If you look closely you'll notice that the walls are actually old doors. The Mail Man slavaged basically ALL the supplies and materials for this room. He had a bunch of old wood doors that he'd been wanting to use this way and this funky little room provided just the right setting. The doors were painted a cornflower blue color and installed as wall and ceiling coverings.

An old wall mount ironing board was slavaged from our 1905 house kitchen and installed just at the right angle for me to turn from my sewing machine and iron whatever I'm working on. I covered it in Denyse Schmidt's County Fair line to coordinate with the original yellow cupboard door and the blue walls. The arch windowed farmhouse door was also salvaged and the glass was sprayed to hide the storage space behind.

My "fabric Books" are perhaps my favorite thing about this room. One wall is flanked by two long, narrow book shelves, which I've used as fabric storage. The fabric is wrapped around comic book backer board to keep it rigid. Now I can pair fabrics quickly and easily by pulling out the "books" and arranging them however I need to.

The wall of thread.

A favorite corner on the shelf above my sewing desk, which was installed acording to MY measurments. There is also a tall cutting counter top with lots of drawers for storage and an overhead cupboard. He also measured the counter top to fit my short height, so I could cut comfortably. The cabinet bank actually came from the kitchen when he remodeled this house before we moved in. These two spaces are COVERED in fabric, notions and patterns at the moment. They'll have their day in the spotlight...just not now.

How lucky am I? Our house is not big. There are a million other things we could have used this space for, but now it is a dedicated craft room just for me. I try to share, and I have also been told I'd dang well better keep the mess in my own dang space. I think I can handle that. For the most part.

A Garden in Review

I pulled the last of the produce from the garden this week.

I am planning a roasted beet and goat cheese salad for dinner tonight. Tomorrow also marks the end of our Farmer's Market, so we'll head over in our costumes and purchase our winter honey and potatoes. We may grab a big bag of carrots if there are any to be had, and we'll say good bye to our friends who have helped feed us this past 6 months.

Come February we'll start our seeds for next year's garden and hopefully get it in the ground a few weeks earlier this time. We have plenty of seeds left over!

For a learning year I'd say we did pretty well for ourselves. We didn't harvest as much of everything we planted and some things didn't work out at all, but in the end we got a lot of food from our three Square Foot Garden boxes.Here's what we ended up with in our own backyard:

8 Roma Tomato plants (really yummy for sauce and bruschetta)
4 Grape Tomato plants (great for snacking and salads)
3 salsa tomato plants (more acidic than the others...good salsa)
2 Brandywine Tomato plants (always great for slicing)
2 Pickling cucumber plants (not enough to do anything with)
4 broccoli plants (these ended up being huge and took too much space. I got 3-4 heads of broccoli and then pulled them. Next year they'll have a new location.)
Several Pea plants (we'll get these in the ground earlier so we can have more peas before it gets hot)
Spinach (One planting did yield some gorgeous spring salads...more next year and add a fall planting!)Romaine Lettuce (awesome! why didn't I do a fall planting?!!)
Green Leaf Lettuce (awesome! Again...why no fall planting?!!)
6 Bush Bean plants (this was enough for a meal sized serving every couple of days...more next year.)
8 Pole Beans (these followed up the peas and we didn't get the peas planted early enough to then plant the pole beans early enough...no harvest this year.)
2 Eggplants (Plenty of eggplant for us! We ended up with about 8-9 fruits which we used for a couple simple casseroles and some Baba Ganoush. Divine!!
1 Jalapeno plant (awesome yield! I was able to make stuffed jalps, lots of salsa, and freeze about 12 peppers for winter salsa making.)
Beets (I did a Spring and a Fall planting of Beets. The Spring planting was terrible because I was watering too frequently and not long enough. The Fall planting was gorgeous and yielded about 12 beets. I'll plant more next year! We love pickled and roasted beets.)
4 Flat Leaf Parsley (HUGE yield. It's still going strong and I'm thinking I'll go ahead and dry some in the oven for winter use.)
8 Italian Basil Plants (Just about perfect for us. I made several batches of pesto for the freezer and used it in bruschetta and sauce.
1 Peach Tree (We planted a peach tree last year and had thousands of tiny peaches on it this year. We thinned most of the fruit to give the tree a chance to produce and it worked! We had small fruit, but tons of it, and it was soo tasty!)
1 pear tree (Same story as the peach tree. We had less fruit, but about 6 or 7 gorgeous, delicious pears.)
3 apple trees ( We have three grafted apple trees in the yard. We're looking to do some espallier training with them against the side of the house, which we'll learn about this winter. We still aren't getting much fruit from the trees yet, but we did get 4 Golden Delicious apples and MMMMM, MMMM they were good!)The cantaloupe, regular cucumber, carrots, and bell peppers didn't work out this year. I'm looking forward to adding those crops as well as potatoes for 2010. As much as I loved growing a garden this year, I'll be honest, when the summer growing season ended I was glad to be done for the year. The square foot gardens are the way to go, though!!! So much less work than rows of dirt that have to be weeded and managed. This garden was about as low maintenance as a garden could possibly be, and I already miss the food. Next Spring will be here before I know it, and I'll be ready to go again.

Holli Hand Knit

I almost didn't put my name in running to win this hat because I really wanted it way too much. I knew I'd just feel sad that I hadn't won. Imagine my surprise when I stopped by Feeding the Big Guy and saw my name as the winner.

I did a happy dance for a good long time that afternoon and then all over again when the hat arrived on my doorstep. It's spent a good amount of time on my head since it arrived and when I'm not wearing it I'm admiring it.

Oh to knit with such precision and perfection. I aspire.

Thanks for the Love

You guys are the best bloggy friends a girl could ever ask for. Thank you so much for the enthusiasm on the Sketch-A-Long. I'm working hard to get the pattern ready for testing. My studio was involved in a small flood this past week, which has slowed me down considerably.

Luckily The Mail Man is the handiest guy around. He never once complained as he dismantled the entire room he'd just finished building so he could replace all the plumbing behind the studio walls. Thanks to plastic bins there was no lasting damage, just a huge mess he had to deal with right about bed time. He replaced the plumbing, installed a new water heater (surprisingly unrelated to the flood) earlier in the week and then re-installed the walls, cabinets and countertops yesterday morning. I restocked and re-organized everything last night.

There will be photos soon. I'm just not quite ready for the final reveal. I can tell you this, though. I call him The Mail Man for a very good reason. He delivers. The studio is rockin' cool and I can't believe it's all mine. Now back to getting things organized and drafting that pattern!

Hope your Monday is lovely. Mine is off to a great start already!

Self Portrait Session -Hadley-

I find pictures like this on my camera constantly.
Every time Hadley sees it sitting within reach she starts shooting. She takes pictures of things like the computer screen, her sister, the wall, and herself. I thought these were pretty cute. Check out her teeth and her bubble blowing skills.

Sketch-A-Long

Meet the sewhappyJane Sketch-A-Long!

Finally out of my head and into reality...

This little artist carrying case has been a loooong time coming and I get so giddy everytime I look at it.

This one was made for a birthday gift last weekend. Hadley was so sad to give it away, but she did, and I've promised her another one is on the way.

A zipper pocket for holding the wide and varied assortment of mediums every artist needs. No confining slots dictating the use of only skinny things! A pocket to hold a pad of paper with the finished artwork stashed behind and a velcro tab to cinch it all up and hit the road.

Hello Sketch-A-Long. I love you.

(If you'd like a sketch-a-long of your very own or know someone who would...e-mail me. We'll talk about a custom order. If you're interested in test sewing the pattern please let me know! I need testers...)