Vampires and Other Rants

This summer has been a great reading summer for me; I went through the Harry Potter series again (in honor of the last film’s debut) and attacked several books on my “To Read” list including Dune, The Hunger Games series and Twilight.  I’ve always enjoyed a good Sci-Fi/ Fantasy read, and as a chronic middle school teacher, I thought it would be good to read some teen literature.  While I found The Hunger Games to have some vivid, assertive characters and an engaging story (albeit written for a teen reading level) Twilight was pretty bad.  Really bad.  Let me rephrase that, it was like word-vomit.  I’m left totally astonished that Stephanie Meyer could take a potentially interesting idea for a story (vampires) turn it into utter garbage, get it published and develop an international following!  I’ll leave the excessive story bashing to other reviewers (there are some hilarious ones on Amazon, which you can find here) but my main issue with the book is that it is an example of poor writing, with a limited vocabulary, transparent attempts at foreshadowing, under-developed characters and a boring, predictable plot.  (I also disliked the book’s insipid “heroine”, Bella, and found her relationship with the vampire, Edward, eerily similar to the Police song “Every Breath You Take”; complete with bad boyfriend flashbacks from my own horrible dating history!)

Moving on…

Vampire Knits

At the same time that I picked up Twilight at the library, I also checked out Vampire Knits by Genevieve Miller, a collection of vampire-inspired knitting projects.  Some of the patterns are Twilight-specific; mittens modeled after Kristen Stewart’s mittens in the first film, knitted totes with expressions from the book (“Be Safe”, “Team Edward”, “Team Jacob”) etc.  Others are more loosely inspired and range from the ridiculous (blood type beer cozies and a “Got Blood? pillow) to the sublime (scarves, hooded capes and socks).  My favorite knit was the Lore Hoodie (featured on the cover) by Cirilia Rose. 

The sweater is knit flat, from the bottom up with the sleeves worked separately in the round (cuff to underarm) and then attached with decreases evenly spaced across the garment as in the yoked variation of raglan shaping.  The ribbed border is knit separately (which felt like it took forever, since you're knitting 90 some inches of ribbed border) and then seamed on all around the front edges.  The leaf lace pattern was really simple to knit, and was outlined in a chart (yay!).  All in all, the sweater-coat would be a good first sweater for the beginning knitter.

I knitted the small size and started with 7 skeins of Di.ve Autunno yarn (100% merino, in color 25761) but realized when I got to the hood that I needed a few more balls to finish the project.  So, I did a few searches on the yarn with the horrible realization that this particular color was not only not being manufactured, but also was impossible to find (admittedly, I brought this on myself, starting a project with a smaller amount of yardage than the pattern called for, and using yarn that I bought 5 years ago).  Fortunately, I found that WEBS Yarn was still carrying Autunno yarn in a similar color (25762) which I used to complete the sweater.  I split the hood with every other row in the new yarn, and used it by itself for the ribbed band.  You can see the slight difference in shading because of the different yarns (which my camera didn't pick up) but I don’t think it looks unpleasant. 

Apart from the “do I have enough yarn panic?!” Di.ve Autunno was wonderful to knit with (why, oh why is Cascade discontinuing it?!).  The wool is so soft on your hands that it almost feels like knitting with clouds, although you may split the yarn if you aren’t careful.  (I didn’t have too many problems with this, but a beginner knitter might.)  The finished sweater is relatively lightweight, but warm, and soft enough that you can wear it against the skin without itching or scratching.

The button loops were crocheted and then sewn on to the garment (the pattern calls for them to be 5 inches long, but I found that to be too long, so I knotted them) and the buttons were from Color in Stitches, Inc.; I saw them at Stitches Midwest over the weekend (they have some fantastic designs and materials). 

Halloween Quilt

Searching through my stash one day last fall, I came across a Halloween print featuring children dressed in a variety of costumes: vampires, cowgirls, pirates and princesses!  It was so cute, that I thought it should be put it a whimsical, child-like quilt!  At the same time, I was working through Coffee-Time Quilts (by Cathy Wierzbicki), a quilting book featuring coffee-inspired quilts and quilted projects as well as coffee related recipes.  I happened across the Cappuccino Crossroads pattern (pg. 28) which features blocks of print, Nine Patch blocks and Rail Fence blocks.  The original pattern features four fabrics; a print, a light, medium and dark.  It seemed that this could be the perfect pattern to use for the Halloween print, except that my fabric stash didn’t include enough of one particular color way for all the blocks.  For this reason, I chose to break the quilt up into sections of green, orange and purple.

To keep the quilt from becoming too much of a color-splotion, I bordered the blocks with a sparkly black over which I hand appliquéd the “Trick or Treat” and the Halloween objects.  I printed up some patterns using Microsoft Word’s Cooper Black font at 400 pt. for the text, and then surfed the internet for fun Halloween images.  These patterns seemed to work really well, and (best of all) were free!  To finish them, I did a blanket stitch around the edges in different colors using DMC embroidery thread.  (In hindsight, I would have done the appliqué on the black strips and squares before sewing the border on to the quilt; the border seemed to be distorted perhaps because of the tensions I put on it when doing the hand sewing). 

The quilting was done using a free-motion foot, and features pumpkins and leaves on the body of the quilt, and stars on the borders.  I had the idea for both designs from The Free Motion Quilting Project (a fantastic blog by Laura Day) which has a wide variety of free-motion designs and tutorials in varying difficulties.  I’ve really come to enjoy free-motion quilting, except that when I’m at it for too long, my back really hurts (not sure if this is because my sewing table is at the wrong height or if I have a bad chair). 

The binding bias tape is from a striped green and black fabric (courtesy of my mom’s fabric stash; guess how big it is!  Hint: the sign over her stash reads “She who dies with the most fabric wins”).  I’ve lately found myself making all the bias tape bindings for my projects; I think they give a more original touch than using Wright’s and sometimes it’s cheaper (if you find a good sale fabric).  Once you’ve got the knack for cutting the strips for the tape, it becomes a simple matter of sewing them together, and then slapping it on the quilt! 

I suppose that before I call the quilt finished, I should stick a label on it (although I kind of want to wait to title it until I know what I’m going to do with it).  This has been drummed into my head for years by my mother and her quilter/appraiser friend; knowing who, where and when a quilt was created adds to its value.  However, once the binding is done, I’m not very motivated to add anything more to it.

The backing fabric features a purple Halloween crow print (the crows have little hats and carry pumpkin buckets!) and the same star print as is used for the cat applique.  Both fabrics are thanks to my mom's stash again (she has so much fabric!).  It all makes for a finished quilt of 59 ½ inches squared Haloween fun!