Thursday, February 12, 2015

Getting crafty with rosettes

I don't really consider myself a crafty person. I do my knitting and sewing of clothing items, but that's about it. Not long ago, I spotted this Rosette Art book at a local boutique/gift shop at half price and I was mildly interested. I'll admit, I probably would not have been as interested if it was sold at full price. What caught my eye was the mobile on the back cover. It gave me the idea to make a flat 2-dimensional quasi-mobile that I could use as a hanging over the bed in a guest room.

The book provides some printed card stock paper, both scored and not, to make quite a few rosettes. I also bought some additional paper because I wanted some more designs. It suggests buying a bunch of supplies, but I improvised with stuff I already own. I used white glue instead of a glue gun, and I used the end of a letter opener as a paper scoring tool. Luckily, I already own a paper cutter. The only tool I did buy was a one-inch hole punch since I figured there was no way I could cut one-inch diameter circles that looked good. I used fishing line to hang the rosettes from a wooden stick. I attached another stick in front to hide the holes and knots where the fishing lines attach.

The hanging definitely looks DIY, but in a nice way. Here's the bedroom where it hangs. The rosettes sort of echo the circles on the quilt.

Monday, February 9, 2015

FO: Driftwood Tee

This is the Driftwood Tee from Interweave Knits Summer 2014. I made mine quite a bit longer, and I added some waist shaping. It's knit with a bit of positive ease since it's lightweight and the yarn drapes well. I wanted a little more detail at the top so I decided to add in a slice of the openwork pattern on one shoulder. I put it only one one shoulder to keep with the asymmetry theme. My quasi sleeves were a bit too wide and flared out too much so I scrunched them in using an edging of one row of single crochet followed by a row of reverse single crochet.

I love the yarn -- it's Batiste by knit One, Crochet Too. It's 50% merino/30%linen/20% silk, feels luxurious against the skin and has a mild tweedy look. This particular color is called "lipstick" and there's a good selection of colors. This may become one my favorite DK weight yarns. I think the sweater is wearable in all but the warmest summer days.