Happy Holidays!

This will be our last post for this year, as we're going to be spending much of our time between now and the beginning of 2018 with family instead of being holed up in our crafting spaces.  We're hoping to continue the weekly posts after the holidays for our six regular bots to enjoy.  (If  you take offense at being called a bot, please leave us a comment to let us know!)

Knitting:

Stacey finished her second  Knit One, Crochet Too Ty-Dy Socks in colorway Cherry Cola 1233 sock!  Last week she had started the toe decreases, and now it's done, and it fits, and the ends are even woven in.

For the second sock, Stacey decided to re-knit the cuff as it was taking forever and was not very fun to pick up the ribbed stitches.  From there, the heel turn was completed, with only the three called for repeats this time!  Then Stacey attempted to attach the two halves of the sock, while trying to make the stitches look like knitting, which was not working.  After seven connected stitches and an hour's worth of crafting time, she gave up and went to work.  Later on, she had a thought, isn't this exactly what the kitchener stitch is for?  Why yes, it does seem to be.  More time was spent ripping this out, and then the kitchener stitching commenced.  Kitchener stitching 160 stitches takes quite a long time, but it looks good, and the sock is in one piece!

Woodworking:

Lee decided to use his new jointer and some of the lumber he purchased to make a new end grain cutting board. He made a cutting board in the past that we used quite a bit but it got chopped up a bit too much. He used a program called cbdesigner available at www.lastalias.com/cbdesigner/ to design the cutting board. The wood he is using on the cutting board is hard maple, walnut and padauk.

After jointing and planing and cutting the wood into the correct size strips they are glued together using Titebond III glue. Titebond III glue is one of only a few wood glues that is safe to use with cutting boards. 

The next step is to for the boards to be planed down flush again. It's a good idea to use a paint scraper, chisel or putty knife to chip off any of the solid glue before planing. The photo below is of the wood chips from the planer. It's interesting how the different types of wood produce different wood chips. The maple made nice long curls and the padauk and walnut were more like chips.

Now that the boards have been glued and planed we can cut them into strips, rotate them on end and flip then end for end to create the pattern. 

The board was a bit smaller than anticipated so we decided to put a border all the way around. With the border put on it has a nice size and heft to it.

It ended taking around 4 coats of mineral oil and 3 coats of mineral oil with wax in it. We used the Howard brand oil on our board. Lee took a video of him putting the oil on the board. It's widely agreed upon that this is the best part of most woodworking projects, especially when using exotic woods. 

All the sewing...

This week was dominated by Stacey's sewing projects.

Sewing:

Cross-back apron for Lee:

Stacey spent the weekend sewing up a storm.  She started with the cross-back apron mentioned last week for Lee, who had chosen this awesome Tula Pink Spirit Animal Lunar Otter N Chill fabric (affiliate link), which we have dubbed Space Otter.  The apron was super simple and straightforward to cut and sew and will work perfectly.

Tote bag:

Her next project was a Whistlepig Creek Productions #1144 Six Pack Stack Reversible Fat Quarter Tote, which has been gifted, and should have been received by the intended recipient.  The pattern was purchased from a local-ish quilt and knitting shop back in 2014, and was used in the first sewing class Stacey participated in, marking the start of her sewing adventures.

It is supposed to coordinate with a dark purple luggage set with bright blue and hot pink circles.  We're hoping that this goes well enough.  It was a bit of a struggle to find fabrics in the right color ranges, as they aren't the currently popular shades, but the proprietor of our local quilt store was extremely helpful in finding these fabrics.  I tried to offset the colors a bit to make the bag not seem to crazy, so the bright blue is on one side, and the pink is on the reverse.  The purple and black fabrics are a bit more mellow, so they are on both sides.

 

Stacey stopped paying attention while cutting at one point, and cut the pockets the wrong way in the fabric so they ended up shorter than the pattern called for.  The same thing happened with the straps.  She likes the look of the slightly shorter pockets, that seem to take up half the depth of the bag.  The handles are definitely still usable, but a few more inches on them would probably be better.

She also cut the corners at the bottom to make the box shape a little bit too large, a misreading on her part.  This error actually lines up the bottom of the pockets with the bottom of the bag when it is standing up, which has been perceived as a vast improvement in the look of the bag.

The bottom seam where the bag was turned right sides out was hand-stitched using the ladder stitch technique.  Look at this, you almost can't tell it was hand-sewn!  This shows a marked improvement in Stacey's hand-sewing technique since she started sewing a few years ago.

Stacey's cross-back apron:

Stacey then worked on her own cross-back apron, which she managed to cut out with the print upside down.  C'est la vie.  There wasn't enough fabric left to cut it out again, and it's just going to get messy in the kitchen anyway, so she just went with it.  Since the project was already mucked up, Stacey decided to try out some different stitches on the various seams of the apron.  The bottom hem was just a straight stitch.  The outside seams were done with the seam/overlock setting.  The armhole curve and inside strap seams were done with an S curve stitch pattern, which, in hindsight, may not have been the best idea as the clipped edges in the curve are not fully sewed down.  That can and will be fixed if needed in the future.  The top front seam was done with a rolled hem to encase the edge.  All-in-all, it fits and it'll hopefully prevent some clothing stains from kitchen messes, exactly as intended.

Slouchy headwarmer:

The next sewing project this week was the Patterns for Pirates Slouchy Headwarmer, which is one of their 2017 Holiday Freebies.  Stacey whipped this up out of remnants of the girl scout green lycra.  This project took about 20 minutes, including the hand-stitching at the end.  This is a super easy and versatile project, as it can be worn as a headband, hat, messy bun hat, or a cowl.  As usual, the tutorial from Patterns for Pirates is excellent.

Knitting:

Stacey continued working on her second Knit One, Crochet Too Ty-Dy sock in the Cherry Cola 1233 colorway, and managed to get to the toe decreases.  The stitch-marker is where the sock was last time it made it into a blog post.

Cross-stitch:

Dorothy now has a dress, and there's a rainbow on the Wizard of Oz block of the 2015 Story Time Sampler pattern from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery.

Woodworking:

Lee spent some time in the workshop making a new crosscut sled. The old one went with the table saw it fit when he returned it to his father. The new crosscut sled has some improvements over the old one. This one features a stop block with a tape measure, two T slot tracks and an insert where the blade meets the front rail. The stop block is used to make accurate repeatable cuts without having to markup and measure each piece. The two T slot tracks can be used to clamp your material to the sled so you don't have to hold onto it or to attach a miter gauge that can be used to cut angles. Lastly, the replaceable inserts are used to get a clear view of where the blade will cut. When lining up your material to be cut its important to know where the blade will hit the front rail, the old sled got a little worn out which led to not knowing where the blade would cut without lining up each piece to the blade itself. Now if it gets a bit off, the insert can simply be replaced. 

A sock in pieces and a shed

This week we put a lot of our crafting time towards projects to make our lives easier.  Stacey has been watching The Great British Sewing Bee while she works on her cross-stitch project, and Lee has been watching Star Wars - The Clone Wars while playing video games and watching woodworking videos.

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Cross-stitch:

Stacey finished the top banner and the frame for the Wizard of Oz block in the 2015 Story Time Sampler pattern from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery.

Knitting:

Stacey continued to try to fix her first Knit One, Crochet Too Ty-Dy Socks in colorway Cherry Cola 1233 sock.  She decided that ripping back short rows is not fun, and picked up the stitches from the cuff and the stitches from the foot, and removed all of the heel rows in the middle.  While this took quite a bit of time, the sock looks salvageable again.  Yay!

Sewing:

We are constantly searching for towels to wipe our hands on in the kitchen.  We'll go to grab one we put down two minutes ago, and poof, it's not there.  Where is it?  On the other side of the kitchen or on the other person's shoulder.  The worst part is that we normally have three kitchen towels floating around at any given point.  The solution to this problem is not more towels of course, but to make aprons that we can wipe our hands on that are attached to our bodies so they can't grow legs like those pesky towels.

Stacey likes the look and the idea of the currently popular cross-back apron, so she decided that is what she would make.  After lots of sorting through useless pins on Pinterest, and attempting to mock up her own version, she came across Cynthia Fong's Linen aprons for the whole family pattern at fabrics-store.com.  Ann Martinson's comment on the post helped her figure out how the apron is supposed to fit, and she determined that the adult size listed would work for her.  Lee, being 6' tall, needs some adjustments to have the apron fit, which was easily done based on Ann's explanation.

Here are our drafted patterns, drawn out on tracing paper.  Aside from the adjustments made for Lee's apron, both also had the armholes raised up by 7", as we're not fans of low cut armholes.

Maybe next week we'll have one or both of the aprons finished to show you.

Woodworking:

While not specifically woodworking, our next project was woodworking-adjacent.  We assembled a shed in the back yard to store the lumber cart and other things that simply take up too much room in the garage workshop but are still needed, and should be nearby.  Saturday was a balmy fifty-ish degrees (as long as you were in the sun, which we were not), so we figured it was the perfect time to get this done before winter fully kicks in.

Some gift making and a sorry looking sock

Hello!  Yes, it has only been a week since our last post!  We hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving (or Thursday) last week.  We had the opportunity to spend the day with Lee's family, playing board and card games, and enjoying a delicious feast.

Cross-stitch:
Stacey finished the Alice in Wonderland block in the 2015 Story Time Sampler pattern from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery and began working on the frame for the Wizard of Oz block.

Knitting:
Stacey went forward with a plan to pick up the stitches in the extra heel wedge in her Knit One, Crochet Too Ty-Dy Socks in colorway Cherry Cola 1233 sock and cut a stitch from the center of it, then unraveling the stitches and grafting the remaining sections together.  This of course, did not go as planned, as there are now long sections of unknit yarn and a few dropped stitches.  The sock is once again in time-out.

Sewing:
On Thanksgiving day we had played a few rounds of Uno with our six year old niece, who was struggling with her cards and kept dropping them on the floor.  In an effort to make game time easier for her until she's able to easily hold the cards in her hand, Stacey sewed up a Card Kitty from sewcanshe.com.

The steps were a bit vague on sewing things right or wrong sides together, but the photos were able to clear that up in each step.  She did align the bottom of the first pocket pouch one inch below the line, and apparently its supposed to be the top of the first pocket one inch below the line.  By the time the mistake was realized, it was too late, so the interfacing sizes were adjusted and the remainder of the sewing was completed.

She did follow the advice of one commenter to use a glue stick to hold the velcro in place before stitching instead of pinning.  This worked really well.  Another thing to note, though it didn't come into play for this make, if you make this card holder and use cardboard or another really thick interfacing that might not go through your machine well, you should add the velcro to the top of the back piece (about half an inch down) before stitching the front and back together.  An alternative would be to use iron-on velcro.

Woodworking:
Lee created a desk-side cup holder for his dads birthday. His dad has trouble keeping his cup on his desk. We thought a cup holder that he could attach to the side of his desk would help. It is made out of some walnut that was laying around in the garage. It looks way bigger than is necessary, but we did sneak into his house to measure the cup he normally uses. The cup holder was finished with some Tung Oil.

He also made progress on the bottom section of a bookshelf. All of the boards have been sanded up to 120 grit and had pocket holes and shelf pin holes drilled.

Lee also got a new tool. He ordered it back in May and it finally showed up. The tool for those who don't do much wood working or are just interested in learning is called a jointer. 

The point of a jointer is to give you a clean flat surface that you can reference against to do further work on the piece of wood. The picture on the left is what the wood looked like before running it through the jointer and the picture on the right is the after. Once a board has a nice flat surface on it you can run it through a surface planer to make the other side flat and parallel. 

While we were out shopping we stopped into the Woodcraft store. They have some really nice lumber in that store. We picked up some padauk which has a distinctive orange color to it and a couple pieces of hard maple. The plan is to create a couple cutting boards or wooden wallets with the lumber.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope you are all having an amazing Thanksgiving Day if you're in the U.S. or an awesome Thursday everywhere else!

We have not been very active on the crafting front, and have done almost nothing as West Mitten Crafts this summer and fall.  The cool weather of winter has begun to descend on us here in Michigan though, and it has brought along some crafty mojo.  Hopefully, that'll mean we have lots of things to share with you in the future.  In the meantime, here's an update of what we have been doing.

Health:
We have been working on improving our health this year, which has been going well.  We've been eating less, moving more, staying hydrated, resting, and listening to our bodies.  We're using MyFitnessPal to track what we eat.  We each have a Garmin Fenix (5 for Lee and 5S for me), which we are thoroughly enjoying.  I love all the data at my disposal, and seeing how we progress in so many different ways keeps me motivated.  We started out walking, then used the NHS C25K podcast (yes, I know I'm not in the UK) to learn to run, and by week 7 we were drinking the running koolaid.  We also do the Recommended Routine from the bodyweight fitness sub-reddit, but haven't been doing it so much since we finished C25k and started running about 5 days a week.

Cross-stitch:
The adorable 2015 Story Time Sampler from Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery is still a work in progress, but will not be completed this year.  As for the read-along, I've listened to or read The Great Gatsby, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and The Lady of Shalott.

Knitting:
I finished my modified Hermione's Everyday Socks pattern by Erica Lueder out of Cakewalk Yarns Footsie in the Betty colorway.  These fit really well, so I'll continue using Cat Bordhi's Sweet Tomato Heel and the Asymmetric Wedge Toe by Reena Meijer Drees.

I loved my last pair of socks so much that I immediately cast on my next pair out of Knit One, Crochet Too Ty-Dy Socks in colorway Cherry Cola 1233.  I made it 3/4 of the way through the second sock, then tried to compare the socks to figure out where to start the toe, but they didn't match up.  It took me about half an hour to figure out that there's an extra wedge in the heel of the first (completed) sock.  So these are in time-out until I find the urge to cut the yarn somewhere in the middle of a wedge and hope I can put it back together properly.

I woke up one morning itching to knit a chunky hat, so I did.  I followed the Big Chunky Comfy Hat pattern by Erica Kempf Broughton and knit it out of Lion Brand Hometown USA Tweeds in the Kansas City Wheat colorway, which doesn't seem to be an available color anymore.  Does this project sound or look familiar to you?  It didn't to me, but when I added it to my projects page in Ravelry, I ended up logging this hat as Big Chunky Comfy Hat 3, as this makes three identical hats that I've made.  I guess I really like this pattern and colorway combination.

Crocheting:
Lee asked for some new slippers, as the ones I made back in 2011 aren't quite the same size.  This pair was sized up a little bit from the Simple Chunky Cable Crochet Slippers by Tamara Kelly, and was made out of Lion Brand Scarfie in the Black Royal colorway.  I really enjoyed being able to make a cable pattern in a crocheted project, as I hadn't seen that done anywhere else before.  Unfortunately, the long gradients in the yarn made the slippers opposites colorwise, but I think I'll end up using some of the leftovers to make some fingerless mitts for Lee, which should accentuate the mis-matchy effect to the point that it must have been intentional.  That'll be my story anyway...

Gardening:
Lee made this handy compost sifter, which allowed us to sift out two of our compost bins, which gave us plenty of finished compost to add to our garden beds.

The peppers did awesome this year, I guess they didn't have enough sun where they were planted in 2016.  I grew some carrots, which were amazing.  The flavor of fresh carrots is so much better than store-bought carrots.  The beans didn't do as well this year as last year, I'm not sure if its because the seeds are old (and I did not store them properly).  I only planted larger variety tomatoes, which did better than the large variety last year, but they definitely aren't as productive as those crazy cherry tomatoes.  The cucumbers were good too, but I enjoyed the lemon cucumbers more last year, probably because they were little and cute and yellow.  My blueberry bushes did well, but I only got one harvest in, the birds were getting to them as they were ripening.  I'll have to put up some netting next year.  The replanted asparagus that we took from Lee's parents did awesome this spring, and this fall we started seeing itty bitty asparagus stalks coming from the new plants.  I bought some hardy kiwi plants and strawberry plants, but they didn't grow.

Sewing:
I sewed some girl scout green exercise pants, which fit surprisingly well, but I wasn't a fan of the rise or the waistband.

From the same girl scout green fabric, I made an armband using the Running Armband Pocket from Fehr Trade  to hold my phone, license, keys, etc.  This worked well for a while, but some combination of the fabric stretching out and my arm shrinking made me retire it.  It fits Lee now, but his gigantic phone is too big, so I'll have to make him another one.

I sewed up an adorable set of camping themed pillow cases using the Speedy Pillowcase pattern from the School of Sewing by Shea Henderson.  The main fabric is Tula Pink Moon Shine Forest Frivolity in PWTP054 Silver.  The contrast fabric is some unmarked brown batik fabric that I bought at the local quilt store and I can't find a match to it online.

While I'm still working my way towards a healthy weight and size, I'm not making myself any clothes, but I am working through the Patternmaking Basics: The Bodice Sloper class with Suzy Furrer on Craftsy, so I can (hopefully) make well fitting tops once I reach my goals.

Lee helped me make a pattern from a waterfall cardigan that I wear often.  The arms and back fit well, but the waterfall part doesn't drape properly so I was constantly fiddling with it and the fabric hasn't held up well to picking out stitches.

While not quite sewing, we reupholstered my office chair with Waverly Inspirations 100% Cotton Duck fabric in the Petal Black - Sunshine colorway that we picked up from our local Walmart's sewing section.  The pleather lining was chipping off bit by bit, sticking to everything.  I'm still finding little bits of the old lining in random places in the house.  We also replaced the foam on the seat, which made the chair oh so much more comfortable.

Woodworking:
I finally got started on a project that has been put off for too long. I've had the lumber for a couple months and finally got it planed down to thickness and cut to length. The picture below is just some of the wood shaving from the planer.

I also extended our living room bookshelf by three sections. The first two sections on the left was the original shelf. We made the original section to see if we liked the look and style of the shelf. After we had that section up, we decided to extend it out to act as a room divider. Having the whole shelf finished and in place has been really nice. There is tons of storage space and it provides good separation from the office space to the living room.

Since we have have started to exercise we wanted some equipment to make it a little easier and a bit more effective. We started out by making a parallel bar station. Originally there was a vertical 4x4 in the front center that we were using for inclined chest rows. It didn't turn out to be as effective as we had hoped. The construction of the station was fairly simple. I used 4x4's with half laps, a 2x4 in the rear to keep it from bowing out and some 1" pipe. 

As a level of progression in our exercise, we moved up from the standing chest rows to using the rings suspended from the ceiling to do the inclined chest rows. I used a single 2x6 @ 8ft to make a board that could be mounted to the ceiling. In order to make it safe and sturdy the board was cut into two pieces, one is on the ceiling and one is in the attic above the rafters, sandwiching them in. I made sure to use hardware that had a high weight rating. The weight rating seems to jump from 160 lbs to 350 lbs, there didn't seem to be an in between. Since I'm over 160 lbs, I went with the 350 lb rated hardware. It is a bit overkill but I'd rather be safe than injured. The eyelet hooks were fastened with a nut and washer that was countersunk from the top side. I also used some thread lock to keep the nut from coming off. 

Soaping:
We haven't done anything other than move the containers all of the supplies are in.

Shop Updates:
Hang on, we have a shop that we're supposed to be updating?  Oops!  Check out the sale we're running this weekend from Small Business Saturday through Cyber Monday.

Future Crafts:
We have been seriously considering trying to screen print our own shirts.  I have created two designs that we would use if we finally decide to get the necessary supplies to make this happen.  Let us know if you want to see us attempt to screen print.

With the cooler weather, we have been enjoying tea and cocoa almost every night.  We have been looking for some (reasonably priced) stacking mugs that we saw in stores this spring, but no one seems to have them anymore.  Our solution to this issue, of course, is to take up pottery and make our own.  I think this one's a stretch as far as learning curve and tools go, we'll see.



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