SpinnySpinny

No, not mine. Stop that already.

DH’s sister-in-law is pregnant so I’ve started pulling out baby fabric and patterns. And collecting more, of course. I was making baby clothes for someone else a few years ago, but it’s been stuck in the back of the closet for a while. We don’t know yet if it will be a boy or girl, but from shopping through pattern catalogs there are still way more girl patterns than boy patterns. In the baby department, even more so. I’ve bought a few to fill holes in the collection but tried to keep it to things that could go either way.

In the meantime, there are other things to do. I made a double-sided blanket, more an oversized changing pad, of flannel and tablecloth vinyl:

I did one of these a couple years ago and it seemed like a neat idea, something to keep around the house for the visiting infant. I don’t know how practical it is because it never really got used. Maybe this time I’ll find out.

Here is a picture, for a few more (and larger) you can go to the regular page: Dillo and Feorlen Get Married.

My jacket is navy dupioni with paisley tie twill lining. Instead of the suggested fusible interfacing I used organza. There is one snap at the waist, covered in a round black frog-type knot. Using all silk means it weighs nothing. The dress is blue rayon of some sort, very much like another I have in purple Tencel. It is fairly heavy but drapes well.

How could I not have heard about this? 2009 has been declared the International Year of Natural Fibers. These sorts of things are decided years in advance, in this case in 2006. The intent is to promote natural fibers, particularly small-scale fiber production that benefits textile producers in developing countries, by encouraging expanded and new use of traditional textile fibers.

Wow. Does this mean I’m cool now?

Simple things can be very satisfying. I needed a bag for for the new cheese board (a piece of slate, must be no longer trendy because it was on sale.) I had the perfect fabric for a protective sleeve, thick cotton flannel, except I had already made it into a half-baked pair of test pants that I’m never going to finish. Out came the seam ripper and I pieced together a couple pieces. A couple more seams later and it was done.

So there’s some extra random seams where they might otherwise be unexpected. One more UFO disposed of and a needed object constructed. I’d consider that a success. After the past month of dealing with jackets it was a nice instant-gratification project.

I was at a conference this weekend and, knowing there would be some amount of sitting around listening, I took knitting. One of the other participants, who for reasons I will get to momentarily obviously does no sort of needlework, commented on my project. It’s a dumbed-down feather and fan scarf that takes no thought to do. I am pattern-impaired when it comes to knitting and incapable of memorizing anything but the most simple of designs. If I have to count to more than four in any particular sequence, I will lose it. I use tons of stitch markers too. So while it is indeed a lace pattern, it is a most totally stupid-simple one.

Later at dinner I ended up sitting next to him and he noted that he was surprised that I was paying attention to the sessions while I was knitting. He assumed it took all my concentration. But somehow at various points I managed to say something completely intelligent and relevant.

I haven’t been taking this project to the office, although now that I’ve gotten past the re-used part of the yarn I should. It was taking quite some effort to fix the amount of twist in the yarn due to my weird knitting habits. But there are several people at work who knit in meetings, enough that people have figured out that it is possible to knit and pay attention at the same time. That is nice. I have a bunch of meetings this week, too.