It's been a bit

Sometimes when my husband goes out of town, I sneakily redecorate.

This is my knitting corner in the dining room. The walls used to be 1970s green, because one of the walls is wood paneled, and I liked the retro vibe. Now they're stripey, and awesome. And that chair, a hand-me-down from Kevin's grandma, was sort of an ivory. I never really liked it. So I decided that despite never having done it before, I would tackle a total reupholstering. By far the hardest part was removing the old fabric. I swear, there were 1000 staples, and they were really, really in there. I came out mostly injury-free, shockingly. I used the old pieces as a pattern, and I even did piping. It worked. I have no idea how. Beginner's luck, I'm thinking.

See? Piping. I rock. I did that pillow as a practice for doing piping, and it's, well... not that square. But I like the fabric. Coral is my accent color throughout the room, because it's totally in right now. As my husband likes to say. Makes me giggle.

Once I finish the rest of the room, I'll show you that too. Oh, and knitting:

I have a pile of finished stuff to model, but we'll wait until a day when my hair isn't still wet.

New Pattern: Duck Hat!

You know you need a duck for next winter.

Because airplaning is so much more fun in a hat that flies with you.

This slightly nonsensical hat starts at the earflaps and works its way up. The wings and head are knit separately and sewn on. The legs and feet are picked up from the provisional earflap cast on and worked down. 

You'll need tan, green, brown, blue, white, orange, and yellow worsted-weight yarn. I used Cascade 220. You'll also need size 7 circular and double-pointed needles, a tapestry needle, stitch markers, a piece of 9 x 12 tan craft felt, and some toy stuffing for the head.

Buy the pattern on Ravelry! (No account needed.)

I love ombre.

And cupcakes. Case in point: 

Pretty, right?

I like to class up the usual barbeque.

Oh, you didn't know I sew, too?

Well, I do:

I made a baby quilt for my favoritest baby ever. My mom got this fantastic quilt pattern called Animal Alphabet, and it was so wonderful that I knew I had to have it, too. 

I got a new (badly needed) sewing machine for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. It can do free-motion quilting, which is something my starter machine could only dream of. Naturally, I promptly made a free-motion-quilted quilt.

With five of the cutest animals from the pattern. I enlarged them a bit to make them more awesome.

Free-motion quilting has a really steep learning curve. There may or may not be a couple of spots around the iguana that are less awesome than the rest of the quilt.

I did not point those out when I gifted the quilt.

But I don't think it matters, anyway. It's ridiculously cute. I kind of thought about keeping it for myself, but as I no longer require tummy time, it seemed silly. Next for the new machine: a swimsuit. Oooh, ambitious, I know. What is a new sewing machine for, if not epic failure? We'll see how it turns out. For now, wine and knitting. Just for a change of pace. 

Definitely not cocktail knitting.

I started a project that I've been dying to start for a long time. Like, two weeks at least.

It's Elysium from the most recent Twist Collective, and it's tricksy. That bit of blue right there is the product of a cocktail-free, tv-less two hours. I suspect that the hard part is over, though, and hopefully it's smooth sailing from here on out.

Here's the completed pattern:

The pattern is a shawl made up of these beautiful flowery lace squares, but I'm way, way too young to be a shawl-type knitter, or so I like to think. Ok, I made one shawl, a year ago. But it was so that I could learn to knit lace better. So it's acceptable, as a learning experience. Anyway. Here's my plan to make this shawl not a shawl. I'm thinking that I'll knit several flower squares individually, then cleverly seam them together to make a lacey swimsuit cover up. It works out in my head. Here's hoping it works out in real life!

In which we once again do not measure.

Know what I suck at? Measuring. Also, remembering to blog. But really, measuring. You'd think it would be easy. Apply measuring device. Observe numbers. Move forward with life. But no. I am incapable of successfully using any type of measuring device. Case in point: my lovely lacey tank top that I've been dying to knit since the last issue of Vogue came out. I've been sort of haphazardly knitting it over the last few weeks- on planes, in lab meetings, at lunch, whilst sort of paying attention to movies- and I'm finally close to done. Cast off the back last night, started seaming, and oh. Clearly, I either did not measure at all (not true), or once again, failed at measuring. The back is not long enough, and the armholes are sort of extra-long. I was thinking I could steam block the hell out of it to make it fit, and that kind of worked, but really? Can I not just accurately use a tape measure? Seriously. But regardless of the measuring, I also think that it's just a weird pattern. The curve of the plain part in the front is a little wonky, and it was hard work to make the lacey part fit in there. I can't tell if this was negligent knitting on my part, or if the pattern was off, or what. I feel like I knitted this whole thing when I was in La La Land, so I have no idea if I even for sure followed the directions correctly. At least it's pretty. Or grandmotherly. I've heard both.

This is the back. There are ends to be woven in, and at least one more seam to do. I suspect that it's far, far too warm for this piece of pretty, even though it's a tank top. Might just wear it anyway and be hot. Holy first world problems, right? 

Looks like a good morning to me.

Finally getting to start my lace-back Vogue sweater + sunshine + coffee =

happy.