To a new blog!!! Are you not excited for me?

you can now read all about my crafting mishaps here:

http://angipantsdesign.blogspot.com/

Visit soon and often!  Also don't forget to leave lots of comments.

So it is the night before my friends wedding, and everyone is exhausted.  There is still so much to do.  Bri's mom still has 8 hours or so of work to do on the my and the Matron's dresses, Bri needs her beauty sleep, and I have to make a pair of earrings and some poof purses.  All of this needs to be done before 9:AM when we all depart to Log Haven for the ceremony.

Oh, and the Ring Bearer's pillow hasn't even been started.  Since it appeared that I had the simplest and quickest tasks to accomplish that night, I volenteered to make the pillow.  Bri and I had a quick consult and decided that she wanted a white satin bottom (material left over from her dress), a maroon top (material left over from the Bridesmaids dresses) and then lace all over everything (lace left over from her dress) with bows in each of the four corners (ribbon left over from the trim of the Bridesmaids dresses).  Her mom and her had also found an antique silver box to hold the rings in that they wanted to somehow put on the pillow, and the finace's brother (the ring bearer) has down syndrome, so the box had to be fixed on there good!

I pack everything up and head for my parents house.  I find out that none of the sewing machines were working, so I had to sew the whole thing by hand.  Also, there wasn't enough of one peice of maroon to cover the top of the pillow, so several peices had to be peiced together.  At about 4:AM, it was finally done.

My best friend got married last week, and I had the great honor of being her Maid of Honor.  As part of my gift to her, I decided to make all of the bridal party jewelry.

Little did I know the feat this would be.  Bri wanted something very romantic and simple.  Her theme was romantic renaissance (just look at her dress!) so I also had to make the peices match the theme.

The original plan was to make everyone a pair of earrings and a necklace, with the exception of the Matron of Honor (Bri's older sister) who didn't have peirced ears and requested an ear cuff, and the two young bridemaids as everyone thought they didn't have peirced ears.  So I needed to make 5 necklaces, 2 pairs of earrings, and an ear cuff.

So I finish up Bri's peices in time for her to use them in her bridal pictures, and finish up my peices sortly after.  The cuff took a few days of playing with, but that I once I figures out the design I wanted, that went together quick.  That left the last two necklaces for the bridesmaids, which I was just going to string up real quick.

A week before the wedding, at the bridal shower, Bri and I realize that one of the bridemaids has peirced ears.  No problem, I had brought all my supplies with me to UT and had a week to put something together.  Once I had finished that pair a few days letter, I thought all was done.  The only thing I had overlooked was forgetting to order earring backs when I ordered the posts.  So I told everyone to bring backs with them to the wedding (and then I go and forget to bring backs!).  The day before the wedding, during rehersals, the youngest bridesmaid asked if she too needed to bring earring backs.  Turns out she too had her ears peirced.  So after the rehersal I rush home to make earring for her, make the ring-bearer pillow (another entry), and some poof purses for the Matorn and myself.  Needless to say I got 2 hours of sleep the night before the wedding!

I regret to say that I did not get pictures of all the peices I made, but I do have shots of the brides set and my own.

Here is a shot of her necklace and earrings:

And here is a close up:

And here are my peices:

For the two Bride's Maids I made them a simple 4mm glass pearl necklace and some small earrings.  The earrings had a CZ post with a 3mm pearl followed by a 4mm pearl dangling from it.

Happy June!

Found this on the Knitting Fiend:

1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, liposuction and air conditioning.

2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog box turtle has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britney Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans…

Re-post this if you believe in legalizing gay marriage.

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While you’re at it, why not link and trackback to the other knitblogs who posted. That way we’ll see strength in numbers.

So I have been working harder than a worker bee to finish the cardi wrap.  For those of you sitting on edge of your seat, I did get the wrap to my aunt before the 12th.  This is just a summary post.

For the sleeve, I continued with the vanilla edging.  Also, I mentioned the different notes I wrote out for the sleeve, well they came out perfect.  The width of the sleeve was just as called for in the pattern.

I probably could have done with more blocking, but figured it would unblock in the mail.  So I gave my aunt detailed instructions on how to make it pretty on her end.

Sadly I didn't get a chance to take pictures of myself in the wrap before I shipped it off.

Pattern: Hairpin Lace Cardi Wrap from Stitch Diva
Yarn: Lion Brand Micro Spun in Lilac and accents in French Vanilla

Notes: Microspun likes to unravel and split.  This wasn't a big problem on the loom, but I noticed a few strands managed to work their way free when I was crocheting the different strips together.  A side note on this, before I wove in the ends, I made sure to tie a small knot at the tip of the end of yarn.  This prevented the yarn from unraveling, hid the ends better, and kept the ends worked into the lace better.
The only changes I made to the pattern was to increase or decrease the width of the strips to 1/2" incraments as my loom didn't have a 1/4" width.  This worked out perfect, if I decerased to, say, 2" from 2 1/4" on one strip, I would increase to 2 1/2" from 2 1/4" on the one above or below it.  That was the combined width of the two strips together was still 4 1/2".  I did this for the sleeves, with the added alteration of changeing the # of loops at a certain width.  You can read my notes on the sleeve alterations in the previous posts on this project.

I can't wait to purchase and try the skirt!  I am also looking forward to the free pattern coming out in Interweaves Crochet magazine!

Pattern well done, Jennifer Hansen.

As a P.S. to this entry, I had to give this pattern to my aunt, as her name from her first marriage was Jennifer Hansen!  What a quink-a-dink!

I have decide to offer my services as a Knitting/Crocheting tutor.  I love to teach, and there are plenty of people wanting to learn these skills.  I recently taught some of my young cousins how to crochet, and loved the experience!  So... If you are looking for a tutor, I am your girl!

I would prefer to stay in South Orange County (California), but am willing to meet half way in Coffee Shops if the student is not in South County.  I work during the days, so lessons would have to be evenings and weekends.

I charge $30.00 hour and provide a knitting kit of needles and yarn (if necessary) for the first lesson for an additional $20.00.

You will be whipping out scarfs and sweaters in no time!  For the slightly more experienced knitter, if you have any pattern questions, I will also be happy to help.

Please email me at chicapants@gmail.com to set up a lesson time and place.

 

Thanks All!

I am determined to give this cardi-wrap to my aunt before March 12.  Think I can do it?  It looks like it will be tight.

So I finally finished "the big one" that really long lenght of loops.  And, silly me, I miss counted and divided wrong and ended up doing TWICE the length required.  I thought it would never end!

So that was finally finished.  By that time I was so egar to finish at least one aspect of the wrap, I went ahead and crocheted the outside edge.  I decided the wrap needed an accent color, and that color was going to be French Vanilla to match the hat!  See how great my "out-of-the-ass" planning works!

So, without further adu (wait, okay, that is spelled correctly) here is the finished wrap portion of my cardi wrap!:

Lovely, no?

This will definitely need some blocking.

And onto the arms to change it from a wrap into a cardi wrap!

I took a small break from the cardi wrap to make a hairpin lace hat. I have been cranking on the wrap, and just finished the last strip (the dreaded strip D!) for the body last night. Since my loom is now empty, I decided to take a break and play around with the loom. I experimented using two colors for a bit, but will have to wait until I have more time to experiment further. I did get it so the center crochet was a different color than the loops, but it was stiff and I was worried about the loops pulling out and making really small loops and really big loops. Anyway, here is a picture of my hat!

Ever since I figured out how to crochet around a post to make the stitch stand out I have been playing around with this feature. What do you think?

I did two small strips at about 1" width. I did the same # of loops as there were stitches on the hat, but went up a hook to compensate for the lace tending to be tighter than standard crochet stitches. I then used a special (special = made-up on the spot and it turned out lookin really cool) stitch to attach the lace to the hat. Brava for me, I say!

Hopefully I will get some time this week to crochet all the pieces together and start on the arms.

I am having such fun with this project!

A few notes on the pattern:

My loom I bought from Joann's only increases in 1/2" increments from 1/2".  So I went through the pattern and did a little tweaking on the width of my strips so it would still come out the same size.  For example, I made the following notes on my sleeves:

For Strip A:
First 84 loops @ 3 1/4
Next 21 loops @ 2 3/4
Next 21 loops @ 2 1/2
Next 21 loops @ 2 1/4
Last 19 loops @ 2

I changed it to be:
First 84 loops @ 3 1/2
Next 21 loops @ 3
Next 42 loops @ 2 1/2
Next 19 loops @ 2

For the other strips, I added or subtracted 1/2 “ here and there so the final dimensions should actually come out the same as the pattern!

Since this is all still in theory, I will have to let you know how it comes out.

So this is my new project. The top one is done in Hairpin Lace and the bottom is Knitting. I just bought this pattern and a loom from Joann's so I can learn how to do Hairpin Lace.

Stitch Diva has a ton of free tutorials on learning how to do Hairpin Lacing. I printed them all out and stuck them with the pattern so I would have a good go-to guide for this project. I bought some Lion Brand Micro Spun in Lilac for this project. I can't wait to get started!