Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Easy scarf tutorial

Now, be warned...when I say easy, I mean easy. This scarf doesn't even involve any sewing! My dorm made these for homeless people as part of our service challenge. (It's my school's 125th anniversary, and we've been challenged to perform 125,000 hours of service this year.) This scarf was fun to make and very easy. It would be a great project to do with a youth group or a bunch of small children or anywhere there are a lot of people who don't know how to sew.

You need: fleece, a pair of scissors

Step one: Cut two long rectangles of fleece. The idea is for them to be the same width, but it doesn't have to be exact. The ones in my photos aren't, and you can't tell. Our experiments showed that a width of about a foot is good, but again, pretty much anything over 6 inches will work.

Step two: Starting along a long edge, cut slits into the fleece. These slits should go slightly less than halfway across the fleece, through both layers.
Step three: Do the same thing on the other side. Make sure that you don't cut across the fleece so far that you get two short scarves. (This is why it's good to not cut all the way to the middle.) Step four: This is (in my opinion) the hardest step. Start tying the strips you just cut together. Tie one from each layer on the same side. A single knot will usually suffice, but if you have long strips you might want to try a double knot. (My RA liked them better will two knots; I liked them better with one.)This step can be a little tricky because the fleece will twist around and it can be hard to tell which strips go together. Luckily, it's not that important--if you make a mistake, no one will be able to tell once the scarf is done. (Unless you accidentally start tying strips from the same piece of fabric together and wind up with a scarf that suddenly splits into two pieces!)

There are no more steps--once all the knots are tied, you're done!

This is the second scarf I finished. They were all the same color, so I didn't bother to take a picture of the first one.
(Sorry for the less-than-optimal photo quality. Cell phone pictures, what can I say?)

Sunday, November 27, 2011

What a productive weekend!

To recap, here were my goals for the weekend:

1. Do my Greek extra credit project. --Not done, but the weekend's not quite over yet!
2. Write my humanities paper. --Done, a first draft, anyway. I need to go talk to my professor and see if I'm missing anything.
3. Watch at least some of the TV show Firefly with my sisters. --Done! We watched over half of the first season. (Yes, that's a lot of TV in just a few days.)
4. Finish the back of K's sweater. --Done! I even started the front.

So, 3/4 isn't bad, and I'll try to get my Greek project done today.

Major projects I did that weren't originally on my list:

1. Finish setting up the new tank for B's gecko. The gecko is now in a 125 gallon tank instead of a 15 gallon one. B and I only had about 45 minutes of work left, but we'd been putting it off since the summer. Finally, that UFO is checked off my list of things to worry about.
2. Read Aristotle's de anima. I had gotten through book I and part of book II. Now I'm done.
3. Go camping with Teresa and my father. We went on a short one-night camping trip, during which we did very little, but we hiked and birdwatched and had a campfire, as well as sleeping outside in 45* weather.

All in all, this has been a very successful vacation, I've managed to balance work and rest well, which I'm often not very good at. I feel way more relaxed and ready to tackle the last three weeks of school!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Thanksgiving Goals

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Here are my goals for the Thanksgiving weekend:

1. Do my Greek extra credit project.
2. Write my humanities paper.
3. Watch at least some of the TV show Firefly with my sisters.
4. Finish the back of K's sweater.

None of them are sewing, as I don't feel like packing up my machine to take it home. On Monday or Tuesday I'll post to let you know how I did.

What are your Thanksgiving goals--sewing or non-sewing related?

Monday, November 7, 2011

Cables!

K's sweater is progressing slowly but surely. I've done about 12 inches on the back, and the shaping starts at 14 or so. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed having a portable craft project. The cables are also easier than I had expected. Cable charts aren't so scary! I'm glad I just jumped in and went ahead with the project.


The picture isn't showing the color right--it's actually a darker blue. In fact, the yarn is this one, which I got from Fabric.com. I couldn't get the cables to show up without the flash, and the flash washed the sweater out a little. Oh well. The sweater also isn't quite flat, so some of the cables look a little more uneven than they actually are in real life.

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