Reclaimed!

I started my courses almost three weeks ago. Wow, it’s so much harder than I thought it was going to be. It’s only hard because I have my little BB girl to care for who still needs me so much. Oh she is just growing way too fast. I can’t hardly believe we are in October!!!! My princess is turning 1 this month! Time has just flown by. I’m so excited to celebrate it. Expect birthday party crafts soon!

So my grandmother every once in a while will send me some hand-me-down clothes from her church clothing swap. She sent me a knit sweater that had a large collar that could be buttoned up to be a turtle neck and a thin cable pattern. I didn’t like it mostly because my head is round and it just doesn’t look right on me. Turtle necks make my head look bigger and rounder. It was a Cherokee brand shirt (one of those brands from like Kmart or Walmart or something) and man was I surprised to see that it was HAND KNIT! I got super excited! Finally, I could reclaim some yarn!! Woo hoo!! I suck though, I never think until it is too late to take a before shot. It took two or three days but I got it all into balls. I should have only had 4 balls but ended up with 7 because I had some problems trying to figure out how to unravel it. It was pretty complicated.

Reclaimed yarn

So I am now the happy owner of reclaimed 60% cotton 40 % acrylic yarn. It’s made up of two strand of light and a darker blue. Each strand is a 2 ply so I guess it’s a 4 ply ???. I  I have 2 large, 2 medium, 2 small, and 1 small ball is purely scraps I tied together. That ball is going to be wound into a magic yarn ball I have been making with all my yarn left overs. It is mixed with different weights, fibers, colors. I don’t know what I will make with it but it will be funky! I plan to show that off the magic ball next post I have a bunch of leftovers to add to it.

Projects that I have just finished are another hoodie made with Jiffy yarn. No picture yet. I am waiting to finish another one that I am working on with Bernat Softee Chunky. I want to compare results. I also (believe it or not) just finished last week my first two basic granny square blankets. I added a picot edge to it. For one of them I had enough yarn to make a matching hat. I love it, it’s so cute. Both blankets are to be donated to my hospital next month.

First granny square blanket with matching hat

In other crafts- Last month I sewed my first messenger bag. Isn’t it awesome? I love the fabric. It inspired me to make the tentacle appliques. The are carefully cut from solid fabrics and I used some heavy weight sew-in interfacing for the backing. The details are hand drawn. I love this bag so much. I use it to carry library books. I wish that I had used some thicker fabric. The entire bag is made of cotton, I would have had more use out of it had I used  some black cotton twill or something like that. Flip the flap and you’ll see I made pockets have room for a wallet, pocket notebook, and cell phone. There are also pockets for pens, pencils, knitting needles or crochet hooks! Inside the bag I made one large pocket with snaps to close it and snaps for the flap too. It’s large enough to fit my 14″ laptop so I put it there to take the pictures. I’m so proud of it!

Front of messenger bag

The pockets under the flap.

Soy escuchando: Wojciech Kilar / Mina/Dracula