Your very own Kappa Ka-Quilt

Chad Ocho-chino (Fox news style) is being all sessy on Dancing with the Stars, and I just outlined the ladder for all the pages in the 2010 FW Cats program, but I really wish I was working on finishing my first quilting endeavor - my Kappa t-shirt quilt.

For Christmas this past year, I asked Eddie's mom, Sarah to help me make a quilt out of all the Kappa t-shirts I will never wear again. So, a few weeks after Christmas, we went to Van Buren and got all the necessary fabric, quilting accessories and tools in order for me to get started on my first quilt. I already had the sewing machine as it was a gift from my grandmother, but Sarah bought me all the fabric, a few cutting patterns (I'm not sure if that is the right word for the clear acrylic squares that you use when quilting), and some backing to make the shirts a little sturdier.

The first lesson of quilting I learned is that your iron is your best friend. The second lesson I learned is that measuring even a fraction of an inch off can mess up your entire project. And the third, most important, lesson I learned is that sewing machines are bitches. Mine never wants to stay threaded, I'm always tangling the bobbin and I can't figure out what all these sewing machine terms mean. WTF does tension mean? Except for the fact that there is tension between me and my sewing machine, I can't really apply the term to the work I am doing. 

So I begin cutting up all my old Kappa shirts that I never want to wear again. Sleep on them, yes. Wear, no. I'm cutting them in 12.5 x 12.5 squares, so that once they are sewn into my quilt, they will be perfect one foot squares. I'm saving the front pieces of the shirts for a special quilt square where I will merge them all into one. I cut the backing into 12.5 x 12.5 squares also, and using my new best friend, Iron, I affixed them all together. 

I cut out stripping to go between the panels, and I cut those at a predetermined width (decided upon by the VB quilt shop) and at the 12.5" length like my squares. Once I have three squares sewn together with stripping in between them, I sewed a continuous strip across the top of all of them. Then I can start all over, creating a new row of 3. 

Overall, there will be 12 squares in my finished quilt -- 11 whole t-shirt squares, and one square with all the front pocket pieces sewn together. Check out my progress! 

As soon as I get my sewing machine back from Nanny (I surrendered it back to her so she could make a curtain for her kitchen window -- look for a post about that later) I plan on finishing it up so that Eddie's mom can take it to get quilted. I can't wait to use the finished product. At least then my expensive-ass t-shirts will get a little more use then they would in a drawer somewhere.

Let your freak flag fly in Fayetteville

Did I know how today was going to turn out when I woke up this morning? No, and let me tell you why I love that.

I grappled with the option of going out or staying in last night. Of late, it would be pretty typical of me to stay in, grab some knitting and plant on the couch for the rest of the night. But I went out, hung out with a drunk friend and had some pretty eye-opening conversations. So I woke up this morning with big plans to clean and lay low for the entire day, but my best-laid plans went by the wayside and I ended up enjoying all Fayetteville has to offer.

The Farmer's Market started on the square today, so me and the dog baby headed downtown to check out what they had to offer. Suzie apparently did not feel like being an a$$ hole like she usually is, and was super friendly, precious and well-behaved. So much so that I was able to take her to lunch with me, and she sat next to me and shared an order of French fries.

Then I went to the baseball game and watched the Razor-bats (as I cleverly coined today) beat the Kentucky Wildcats (maybe??) 10 to 1. Or at least I think that was the final score, I had a few beers in the sun, and we all know what that does to the memory. Now I get to go hang out with some friends I haven't seen in forever.

What a beautiful day! These days are the reason I live in Fayetteville, and furthermore, are the reason I still love living here. Good people, good food, good baseball and precious pups. I really couldn't ask for more.

CURRENT KNITTING: I started working on the smocking part of my new sun dress. It doesn't look good. 321 cast on stitches and one row of shoddy ribbing after a glass of wine really makes me disappointed about the start I got on the dress. My bible, the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Needlework advises to knit one 3x1 ribbed piece twice the desired width of the complete project. So, without knowing the elasticity of a finished piece of smocking, I measured an already smocked sun dress and based my measurements off of that. So after I did all the math, casted on, and knit that difficult first row, I figured out it was FUBAR-ed and I set it down and went out. We'll repair that later.

I finished a hat for baby Ellie, who I get to see this upcoming weekend. It looks a lot like her hat that I made for her when she was born, in that it is knit in garter stitch with the same line of yarn in a different color. Only this time it isn't going to have a flower on the side. This time, I am including a felt cut out of something, and I am affixing it with embroidery thread and probably some fusing backing.

I am concerned that the hat itself is too short for her noggin, it looks like it might be, and I have no idea how big babies' heads are. Hell, the last hat I made for her I measured on a decorative gourd. I need to borrow someone's baby for measurement, anyone know a 3 month old baby willing to be my guinea pig? You will get to see a photo of the finished product on Ellie. Hopefully she will have a few chances to wear the hat before she outgrows it. I know there isn't really much need for a baby beanie in the California sun.

Stealth

What a busy week I have been having! I have been anything but stealth. I've had plans every night this week, which is extremely different than my "one social event per month" calendar I am used to. Tuesday night's stitch and bitch was exceptionally remarkable. I took my big girl knitting project, the sock, and I hope that impressed a few people. It is working up very quickly, and I need to go ahead and finish it while I am still motivated to make its mate. Check it!

I had to go to stitch and bitch by myself since I know a whole bunch of flaky knitters who didn't want to go, but it is so easy to make friends there, that it didn't really matter. So I got there, pulled out my sock, grabbed a glass of wine and everything fell into place. I hung out with some other girls who are planning on going to Wakarusa (which I bought my parking pass for yesterday...finally) and we did some amazing brainstorming of knitted things that would be useful at a giant hippie music festival. We went through projects like water bottle slings, summer scarves, koozies and landed on knitting ourselves a smocked dress to wear.

Loosely based on a baby's smocked dress in Kristin's Aware Knits book, we are going to knit a smocked banded top, and then the plan is to pick up stitches along the bottom and knit the rest of it to a desired length. We will have to come up with some way to include straps, but as I develop this semi-homemade pattern, I will post some photos or sketches. Look for the completed project next summer (realistically).

My favorite development at stitch and bitch this week was a new project reveal - a stealthly project which I am not at liberty to discuss. I will just post this photo and let you draw your own conclusions.