Tag Archives: fabricstash

Flash the stash (fleece version)

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It’s been an enjoyable weekend. Last night we went to our first hockey game in years and had a good time. Unfortunately our local team didn’t win but the visiting team did deserve their victory, in our opinion.

Today, friends came over for a potluck lunch. The theme was Asian, because it’s Chinese New Year so I thought that was appropriate.

I made General Tso’s tofu, rice and stir-fried vegetables, our friends brought potstickers and soup with noodles, and we had two desserts as well. Our monthly potlucks always leave us stuffed to the point that we often don’t eat dinner!

I used the recipe from Nora Cooks for the tofu and it worked out well.

This evening I spent a couple of hours in my sewing room. I pulled all the fleece/chenille/jersey knits out of the cubbies and sorted them all.

The photo above shows it all dumped on the floor!

That massive pile is made up of (a) remnants that I brought home from work (when we get to the end of a bolt and there’s less than a metre left, we roll them and discount them by 75%), and (b) remnants from projects that I’ve made, which means that those pieces are odd shapes and sizes.

Once I had sorted them, the chenilles and knits went back into their cubes and the fleece was heaped on my cutting table. I then took a look through my sewing patterns to see whether I could Frankenstein an actual garment from it all.

I reckon this might work:

View C with the short shaped hem, pocket and hood instead of collar. I’ve made this pattern more than once now so I’m familiar with it. Can you see the back and front in the large check with the sleeves in the smaller black and white and the hood and pocket in red? Wacky maybe.

I’ve also grouped some pinks together, and some red/black/white, and the peace sign print with two solids, with a view to making something usable. I think the pinks would make good PJ pants.

I’m too sleepy to actually start sewing tonight but the next chance I get I may start on that buffalo plaid sweatshirt idea.

Fabric stashbusting

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My latest FO is a wonky basket crocheted from strips of jersey knit fabric. I made something similar not long ago, but this one burned up the last of this $3/metre fabric that I bought years ago.

Cutting the 2″ strips was quick thanks to my rotary cutter and ruler, but snipping a hole in each end of the strips and joining them took a couple of hours.

I ended up with a 2lb ball of the blue/brown and a smaller ball of the red/orange. With hindsight, I should have cut the strips lengthwise instead of crosswise and they would have curled the other way, leaving the colourful right side showing.

Whilst I didn’t follow a pattern, I was inspired to use the stitch pattern from Toni Lipsey’s Jessie Stash Basket, which alternates a single crochet in the back loop and a waistcoat stitch. The base of my basket is 14″ across, so I can fit a lot of stuff in there.

I probably should go easy on the big hook crochet as my right wrist, which I broke three years ago, has been aching again. I think the worst thing is opening cans, with the twisting motion that entails, but this kind of crochet comes second.

I worked today, but had three days off over the weekend. It was lovely but also frustrating as I intended to get going on a sewing project but kept overthinking it and never even started it.

Yesterday I took myself off on a mini road trip as I had something I wanted to pick up from a friend in a town 40 minutes drive away, so I took a picnic and made the most of it.

I had a homemade London Fog, a bag of yarn to wind into balls, food, water, my beach quilt and an extra sweater. It may look gloriously warm in these photos but it was around 10C and the slight breeze off the lake meant I needed to stay wrapped up.

Thanks to my workplace being closed on Sunday, it’s a short week and I only have three shifts rather than four. Wheeeeeee!