Sprucey Lucy FO, Sewing, and Baby Socks

Last night I finished up the Sprucey Lucy socks, which means I also finished my first pair for the 52 Pair Plunge III!

Pattern: Sprucey Lucy Socks by Wendy Johnson (My Ravelry project page.)
Started: June 1, 2009
Completed: June 16, 2009
Yarn: The Yarn Bearer Uber Sock, April 2009 Sock Club shipment with the theme of “Falling”
Needles: Knit Picks US 1 (2.25mm) DPNs
Notes: I changed the heel to a short row heel because I find they fit my foot better. The yarn was great to work with! First time I used this yarn, I made a Marlene sock that I ended up not liking and frogging. Then I decided to use it for this pattern, but I used US 0’s and knit the medium size. I didn’t like the fabric I got with US 0’s, so I frogged what I had and went up to US 1’s (2.25mm) and knit the small. Worked out much better and I love the socks! The lace pattern was easy to memorize, but it wasn’t until the leg of the first sock that it really flowed for me. If I hadn’t put these socks aside to knit Hey Teach, these probably would have been done a lot sooner. Took me 3 days to knit the second sock, but almost 2 weeks to do the first one! Ah well, sometimes I get side tracked 🙂

Pair 1 for the 52 Pair Plunge III! 🙂

On Monday, I finally decided to fix the strap on the purse I made a few weeks ago. When I made the bag, I didn’t think about the size of it and how only having one strap would make it sag in the middle while I’m carrying it. The sagging in the middle was making the D rings for the straps to turn and start damaging the fabric. I needed to do something about this, so I decided it needed two straps. Monday I finally went to the fabric store and got a set of four D rings in a 1/2 inch smaller size so that I could make 2 new straps and attach them to the bag.

This is what the bag looked like before with only 1 strap.

I used my seam ripper to get the tabs on each end out and sewed up the spot where they had been. Then, I used my seam ripper to open up where the new straps should go and I sewed together two new straps and four tabs to hold the D rings to the bag. Once those were all put together (with interfacing and all that jazz), I sewed the tabs with D rings in place, then sewed the straps onto the D rings. Since the initial tabs were sewn into place between the inner lining and outside lining and I wasn’t willing to take it all apart to make it perfect, I had to hand stitch the parts where the tabs were to make it look right and not gap in those places. It probably took me about 2 hours total to do between doing laundry, but it’s done now and I absolutely love how it turned out. So much better then just having the one strap!

“New” bag, now with 2 straps instead of 1!

Right now, I’m just working on a pair of baby socks I started. There’s no intended recipient yet, I just wanted to use up some left over sock yarn. I think I’ll get these finished up before starting something new.

Little baby sock, just started the heel.

I want to start Hey Teach over again, but I also want to cast on for the Lacy Ribs sock. This would actually be the second time casting on for the Lacy Ribs sock since I frogged my first attempt because I thought it might be too bulky in my shoes, so this time I was planning on knitting the foot in stockinette and the leg with the pattern. I didn’t bring Hey Teach with me today, but I did bring the yarn for Lacy Ribs, so I’m guessing that I’ll get started on that first since tonight is knit night and these baby socks shouldn’t take too long to finish up.

This past weekend on Sunday, we washed the walls in the house with help from Alita, Karen, and Than. Without them, there’s no way we could have done it! Thanks for the help!! There was a leak we found from a pipe that had bulged and burst when we were turning on the water for the first time, so now the kitchen has a nice hole in the ceiling that needs to be fixed, but at least we found it now instead of after we moved in. Matt and his dad were able to find and fix it, thankfully. The house is currently getting painted and this weekend, I think we’ll start to move stuff over to the house. Things that we don’t really need and can live without for a week or more. Oh the joys of home ownership and moving! hahaha 🙂

Happy Mid-Week everyone! I’m still trying to figure out how it’s already the middle of June. Where does all the time go?