Home Made, Hand Crafted

Knocked out this shop sample Ric Raw Shawl in a couple of weeks (it would have been less, but I took it to a movie to get a chunk of it done and got the stripes out of order in the dark and then spent two days catching back up). It was a bit odd and felt overdone, but it wasn't awful to make and now it's been exchanged for a nice store credit that I promptly turned into a project bag because I am trying to get a full rainbow.

A rare sewing project, I was in a craft store looking for something else entirely and happened onto a quilting quarter with an avocado toast print that somehow found its way into my basket, along with a coordinating fabric and a spool of thread. I googled project ideas when I got home, liked the idea of bins but didn't like any of the patterns, so I made my own. I cut my quarters in half short ways then made them into box-bottomed totes, nested them, and hemmed them together around the tops. They are not perfect but they are cute and functional and I'm not entering them in the fair anyway.

Another imperfect-but-functional project was doing a kintsugi repair on a saucer one of the kids accidentally broke. I got it years ago for a couple of dollars at a flea market, and the little handleless tea cup that came with it did not come with it but I liked the dainty set (until a different child broke the cup awhile back). This made three nice big chunks and someone suggested that it might a good candidate for kintsugi, so I requested a kit for Mother's Day (what better gift than a fiddly project of fixing something I didn't break). It came with two little bowls to break and practice on and give me enough confidence to attempt my saucer. It's not difficult, per se, but it is slow. It's also lumpy by nature, but I'd been using it as a candle dish and it will serve that function for me. And I have extra repair supplies for other things!

My Middle has been very into domino runs lately, and found directions for origami dominos, so we spent half a Saturday folding about 70 of these together. They're simple, sturdy, will squash flat and then pop back up for use, and they also make a really pleasant sound as they fall. I have a book of origami paper that I impulse-bought in the check out line at Barnes and Noble years ago, that we barely put a dent in, so I may make some more for him.

My last finished project of the month was another shop sample, an OliveKnits cardigan. It's from her yearly "make a sweater in four days" collection, and I made it in seven, which isn't at all shabby.

And now I'm working on the project I went in the shop for, an addition to my Handknit Cardigans project, this one in purple. I don't have much purple clothing and I'm trying to rectify that.

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