“Distribute gathers evenly” is, I guess, the sewing equivalent of “repeat last row 239 times”? Short and concise, but takes forever. And on top of that it’s super difficult to do it really evenely. Or maybe it’s just me. Opinions?

It’s Pyjama Party day over at Did you make that?. Karen hosted a pyjama sew-along over the last month and today is the big reveal. She did a fabulous job of going through the steps in great detail. Although I have now finally reached a skill level where I can make a pair of basic pyjama pants by myself (I still messed up, see details below, but yay! nevertheless) I immensely enjoyed her posts and did learn a few things on the way.

My version is made with bright red cotton velvet (not pink as it appears in some of the pictures). The colour is hard to photograph, especially with the gloomy weather we’ve been having.
I used the pattern from Weekend Sewing. I had made this pattern once before with good results in a light cotton. I don’t know what went wrong this time. First, I couldn’t get the serger to not make wavy seams. Then it was enormous. I had to take it in quite a bit, which I did with the sewing machine because I just couldn’t bother with the serger anymore and it went a lot better. They are still rather huge, but I don’t care, they are super soft and comfortable. Next I would like to make a pair in some light cotton.

And my bedtime reading? I am currently reading Bill Bryson’s “At Home” on my Kindle and a biography about Fouquet in a paperback edition. This is not light reading and I really have to push myself to get through it. It’s interesting, but well, it’s a biography about a 17th century Superintendent of Finances, and it’s over 600 pages in small print, and it’s in French… In any case, I hope my pyjama pants are still going strong once I will have finished with this book, it might take a while.

So, I am in again. I wish I had more sewn items, but oh well, it’ll be fun to play anyway. And I don’t want the challenge to be all about accomplished seamstresses in beautiful dresses, someone has to represent the jeans and (badly sewn) T-shirt section of our community, right? :p

‘I, Julia of juliavaconsin.com sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ‘12. I endeavour to wear 2 me-made items each day for the duration of May 2012′

Challenging myself a bit more with 2 items this time. 1 is too easy, I am wearing hand-knit cardigans almost every day anyway.

Two projects are close to being done here. My Midsummer Night’s Shawl only needs two more rows. Those are very very long rows, but still.

And all the knitting on my Featherweight Cardigan is done. I just have to seam the sleeves (which I knit flat), weave in the ends and block it.

So close….

If there was only one blog you could read which one would it be? It’s a tricky question and as interests shift, my favorite blogs tend to change as well.

But here are my top blogs of the moment.

If I only could read one sewing blog, it would be Karen’s Did you make that?
She not only inspires with her sewing and knitting projects, she’s also up-to-date with everything that happens in the sewing blogger community. So, as long as you follow her, you are likely to not miss anything important going on. She also updates super frequently and has a wonderful writing style.

If I could only read one cooking blog it would be David Lebovitz’s. In addition to the wonderful recipes, I adore his adventures as an American in Paris. He tells them so wittily and, of course, I can relate to a lot of them. Also great writing style in general. Very much unlike me….

To choose just one knitting blog is much harder, but I guess I’d have to go with the Yarn Harlot.

And guess what? I couldn’t come up with a favorite crochet blog. I am reading several, but there’s not one that does stand out like this. None, that I couldn’t live without. Maybe I am missing something here. Do you have one? What other interests do you follow via blogs and what are your favorites?

I just keep falling off the wagon with this blogging thing, do I? I think these days, in order to be read, you really need a very good blog, and I just can’t/want/need to provide that.
So, instead of making up goals and stuff and not following through with them, I am just going to go with the flow and post whatever I feel like from time to time.
Call me lazy if you want, you’re probably right.

Anyway…

Here are a couple of pictures of what I’ve been working on recently:

So, I knitted today, sorry. My daughter begged me for something to keep her Barbies warm (honestly they need it, with their miniskirts and tiny tank tops and all).

That means, the spell is broken, the attempt has failed. I need to leave on a trip in a couple of days and I really want to just take a pair of socks. The (crochet) shawl I am working on is kind of getting big:

I don’t want to take that with me. And somehow I am more of a monogamous crafter in relation to crochet than in relation to knitting. I just don’t want to start anything else before the shawl is done.

There’s also been some sewing. I made a cover for my brand new kindle. The pattern is from Pink Poodle Bows on Etsy. It was very clear. But I still managed to mess it up a little. The pockets are upside down. Unless you put the Kindle on the left side of the cover, but it should have been on the right (but then the pockets face the wrong way). I will make another one after my trip, probably just with one pocket.

Crocheting potholders for 9 days straight is not being an advocate for outstanding or beautiful or innovative crochet, is it? Quite the contrary, it’s so predictable. But they are useful.

Now I have all the potholders I need, I am moving on to something more interesting. Here’s the start of the Midsummer Night’s Shawl from Interweave Crochet, Fall 2011.

This should take a while. I am itching to cast on something mindless, like a sock, knitted, of course. I really miss being able to watch television or read while my fingers just do the movement. I can’t do that with crochet, I always have to look where I have to put my next stitch. I don’t want to cheat on my initial plan, because I just know the knitting would take over again, because it’s just so easy to pick up and go round and round (or back and forth, that works as well). I’ve read of people on Ravelry saying the exact opposite regarding both crafts, that crochet was easier to pick up and put down and more mindless and such. So maybe it’s just me? How to you do it? Can you watch television or even read while crocheting and if yes, how do you do it? And with what kind of project?