Not Just Knitting

Despite what you might think based on the name of this here blog, I don't just knit. In fact, in a move that's most uncharacteristic for me, I haven't knit a stitch in at least a couple days! But that doesn't mean I haven't been crafting during my time off. I actually put off my usual Thursday post until today so I could share some craft-related acquisitions today.

You may remember that last summer Rainbow did a virtual learn-to-sew camp and had a great time. We looked into another session this summer, but the groups are very small and all the sessions filled up quickly. So we decided to do our own thing this summer. She has a friend who wants to learn to sew as well, so we're going to have her over next week and revisit some easier projects. We are also planning to sew ourselves some Pepin totes, after Juliann assured me that the pattern was easy enough for a beginning sewist. We have some scraps and fat quarters in the house already, but we really needed to make a trip to the fabric store to get all the needed materials, and yesterday we did just that. Here is what we came home with:

The pairing on the left is mine for my tote. The exterior fabric is a black washed denim and the interior fabric (which is hard to see, so I encourage you to click on the photo to embiggen it) is from Ruby Star Society and is knit and crochet themed. The pairing in the middle is Rainbow's choice for her tote, a navy canvas for the exterior and a floral quilting cotton for the interior. The final pairing is of two quilting cottons that Rainbow is going to use for a new pillow cover (the easiest project from last year's sewing camp that we're going to do with her friend). Not shown but also acquired in yesterday's trip are denim sewing needles for my machine, interfacing, and webbing for the tote bag straps.

I've also been doing a fair bit of crocheting on my nephew's blanket, and it has grown quite a bit since you last saw it:

I have been changing colors at the beginning of a row when it looks like I don't have enough left in a skein to do another row, and you can see how much thinner the stripes are getting. I think I have decided to alter my original plan just a bit. I am a still going to mirror the order of the colors, but rather than having one dark brown stripe in the middle, I am going to reserve that third skein of brown until the end and use it for a thin border around the whole blanket. I expect that when I get to the widest point of the blanket, one 84-yard skein of yarn isn't going to get me a very wide stripe, so I will use the two skeins of the final color back to back at the center. I have already woven in some ends and plan to continue doing so as I go, though it turns out that with this pattern and this yarn, weaving in ends is rather simple. And I'm keeping the leftovers close by as I finish each skein; I think they'll be great for making some dish/washcloths.

Finally, there is, of course, spinning, which I've being doing a lot of lately. The Tour de Fleece starts tomorrow, and it would be great if I could get the current spin off the wheel by then and start something new tomorrow, but that's unlikely. I've completed two bobbins of the current spin -- the Southern Cross Rambouillet (the purple and orange) that I posted on Sunday -- and have started the third, but even if I finish the third bobbin of singles today, I'd still need time to ply, and that isn't likely to happen until tomorrow at the very earliest.

I guess it wouldn't be all that bad to start out the Tour with a finished skein on the first day!

It's going to be a hot and humid and potentially stormy weekend here, so I expect I will spend most of it hiding in the air conditioning. I also expect that I will pick up some knitting again -- because you all know if I go too long without needles in my hands, something has to be seriously wrong! I hope that whatever you have planned for the weekend, it includes ample time for crafting, be it knitting or something else.