I did a fair bit of stitching on my Alabama Chanin Car Jacket over the weekend. Prompted by the photo I posted a couple of weeks ago of the wrong side of the back piece I’m working on, I went on a hunt to find the last one I’d taken…
Wow.
I hardly worked on that project at all in 2020! Not only were we slammed with the overall weirdness of Covid, but Ali had just moved into a new house at the end of 2019, learned that she was pregnant, and had a business to keep afloat (an endeavour that wasn’t mine, but I did numerous things to help). Kate & I bought Ducky and that renovation kept me busy. I had an epic baby blanket to knit! And other stuff.
Anyway, it looks like the last snap of the back I took was at Kym’s in October 2019 when I drove to Michigan for our Mini AC Weekend!
I like to photo the back because the stitches are so much more obvious. Here’s the same thing as of yesterday afternoon:
And here’s the front:
The top image is from April 7th, and the bottom is yesterday.
I couldn’t resist putting it together with a sleeve:
The end is really nowhere in sight — there is so much left to do — but this is really motivating! This piece is more than 2/3 done — I’ve finished stitching the two top sections, and have a good start on the bottom. I’m confident that the other pieces will go a little bit quicker and I’m excited to baste the layers together for the other back piece… SOON!!
I also started making my crocheted circles into hexagons and joining them together.
I’m working from the bottom, so that’s the bottom row — just over half the width (it’ll be 15 hexies wide x 21 hexies tall) (I think). I made progress since taking that photo, and have only two more hexies to work before starting the next row. I’ve been working the circles in order and slipping them onto stitch holders, but I could only find two, so you can see the third row stacking up in the top photo. I need a little more order, organization & control than that, so was happy for the weekend and time to work out the JAYGO method again. I’m super clumsy and some of this pretty sketchy, but oh… it makes me so happy. The colors & combos are wild, technically they shouldn’t all work together, and yet… .
Yesterday was the official beginning of The 100 Day Project…
…and that will take us solidly into MAY!! Doesn’t that sound wonderful? I’ll be posting most of my updates on IG (I am @vicki.knitorious), but won’t be able to resist sharing here now & then, too.
I spent yesterday morning getting my workspace somewhat cleared and set the scene.
Background in a nutshell: This is my Alabama Chanin Car Jacket, the project I chose in November 2017 when Kym & I attended a 3-Day Workshop at the Alabama Chanin Factory in Florence, Alabama. It wouldn’t normally take 3-4 years to finish a project like this, but I sort of went off the deep end with the embellishing. I’m thankful I chose the jacket and not the coat!!
When I left off last May, I was working on the first back piece. I wasn’t surprised to find a needle stuck into the fabric on the side, but I was surprised to find that it was threaded and still attached! I don’t remember specific circumstances, but I’m thinking that this was put away in haste, though it was all pretty neat and organized. Anyway, here’s the big picture:
The top third is done. The middle is about half-done. The bottom has a good start. The middle section got some attention yesterday.
Before & after. I stitched, cut, beaded & appliqued a “flower” (trying something new) and finished beading around the big circle where I’d left off (you can see the needle that I’d left behind in the top photo).
Close ups:
Looking forward to making progress!
My goal is to work on this project for at least :20 each day. It doesn’t seem like much, but even on my busiest days, I can carve out 20 minutes, and usually it will be more. Yesterday, I listened to a 40-minute podcast while I did most of the work… and I have quite a few audio books in my queue!
This included learning how to take apart my sewing machine to dislodge stuck fabric. Turns out you’re not supposed to “reverse” with a walking foot? I’m sure I did that all the time on my old machine. Hm.
Ali & I also went for our first pedicures of the season. I’m usually a bit more predictable/traditional with red polish, but this is fun! Ali declared, “That says ‘VACATION’!”
And with that in mind, I cast on a project that’s more portable for vacation. This is another Garter Yoke Baby Cardi for a new baby in the KC&T family. Sonny came a little early and spent his first week in the hospital, but he’s home now… and I think he needs a sweater for spring! I love my little honeycomb stitch markers (and especially the cork-topped glass vial that they came in) that I got at Wool & Honey last October when I visited Kym in Michigan. I can’t exactly remember the yarn right this second, but I realized that I bought the yarn there, too!
“Finishing” by A-line Tunic had mainly to do with the bottom edge. I didn’t necessarily want to hem it, but it needed something. My in-seam pockets are the best I’ve done, so far, but are still an inch or so too low and I feared that if I actually put something in them, they’d peek out the bottom. I took my cue from an Alabama Chanin Alina tunic that I purchased a while back during a sale.
Basically, I cut 1.75-inch strips to add to the bottom, turning up the seam and top-stitching it in place. Essentially, it adds about 1.25 inches overall, gives a bit of heft at the hem and just looks more finished.
The sleeves (mine are elbow-length) are finished the same way on the Alina tunic, except it’s a narrower strip and lightweight jersey was used there.
I still want to fell the seams of my A-line Tunic by hand. I did some and then took it out — running into difficulty around those pockets, where the seam wants to go forward and I want it to go backward. I think I’m just going to have to go with the flow!
Ali & the kiddos came over for a last get-together before departure — Kate to Scotland on Tuesday, and Rusty & I to Mexico on Wednesday — and it began with a video chat with Maddy!
I finished sewing them up and attaching the elastic last week, but today is the first opportunity to shoot them with both daylight & willing photographer (Katie's home!)!
They are made from a single layer of Alabama Chanin Organic Cotton Jersey in Navy Blue, painted using the Large Paradise Stencil (which I cut myself), in a custom pearlized paint mixture. It's impossible to capture, but the paint has a slight sparkle to it… LET'S PARTY!! I had some random silver fold-over elastic and used that to finish them off.
I declare, from here on out, all my party pants will be palazzo pants!! I'm SO happy with how they turned out, and they are SO comfy… they will easily transition to PAJAMA PANTS when their party days are over.
(I have no idea what I'm doing in this photo.)
For full-on party mode, I have a sparkly shirt to wear but need another layer… and shoes.
I packed up my car last Wednesday — knitting, fabric, stencils, a few patterns, paints, airbrush, air compressor… some clothes (including my winter coat & some woolens) (just in case!) — and headed ’round the bottom of the lake to MICHIGAN and Kym’s house for our own stitching retreat!
My departure was a little later than I’d hoped, mainly because I had to paint some more swatches before I left.
I ran into some slow traffic in Chicago on the way… it never actually stopped, so I guess that’s okay? My calf muscle sure got sore from going back & forth between the brake & accelerator pedals! Michigan is in another time zone, so I lost an hour on the way, and arrived in Kym’s driveway at right about 6 p.m.
On Thursday, we headed north to the cabin.
Fields full of pumpkins!
We walked down to have a look at the lake, and on the walk back up (100 steps!), I photographed some mushrooms.
They’d both seen better days (or hours), but they’re super intriguing popping up through all that autumnal texture. We took a little walk through the woods, too. That little nature break was really great.
And there was stitching…
I was a little obsessed with my swatches, trying to figure out a plan for my project(s)…
We drove up toward Traverse City and over to Cedar and Glen Arbor for a little tour of the northern lower peninsula and a glimpse of the lake (through raindrops) from the other side! One of our stops was at Wool & Honey… what a nice little shop. I didn’t need any yarn, but I found some anyway. They had a lot of cute notions & things — especially enamel pins — and I sort of hit overload and had to back.away.from.the.pins! Besides a couple of hanks of yarn, I found some beautiful note cards and a small glass vial with metal hexi-shaped stitch markers. (I love that little vial.) And we had a great lunch at Art’s Tavern.
We headed back to Kym’s on Saturday, and on Sunday we got serious…
It was time to cut some of the things we planned to paint! Kym’s kitchen island also makes a darn good cutting table.
Meanwhile, I was also working on my Car Jacket.
Trying new things, such as COLOR! An entire spool full of Eggplant embroidery floss is a bit much, but a few strands… works pretty well. (Thanks, Kym!)
I’d focused a lot on the top third of this project at first, but it’s starting to fill in all over!
Oh my, that was fun! I can’t remember the last time I was at a fabric store like that — the focus was about 100% on fabrics and sewing. I found some great fabrics for (next) summer dresses for the girls, and for Christmas gifts for the some of the travelers in my family. And other stuff.
On Monday, IT WAS TIME TO PAINT!!
That’s a skirt under the Abstract stencil that I recently cut, and Kym is working on a dress panel with her June’s Spring stencil.
Everything was going great and just as we stopped for a break, my compressor died. It overheated, I think, and the (inaccessible) automatic reset button never reset, so…
…we went shopping for a new one! Kym got one, too!! This is a “pancake” model, where my other one was a “hot dog” << new random knowledge, and it has some nice features (quick connect hose, a place to wind the cord, a velcro strap for cord/hose management. I’m not sad.
We did more than this, big & small, but just for an idea… some of the stenciled panels for my skirt, and the front of a t-shirt for Kym. I love that Peace stencil!!
I’ll be dreaming up some ideas for this “rag,” too, inspired by some t-shirts I saw online at Alabama Chanin (but that I can’t find right now). It’s a fairly large piece of black fabric that was in a lot of AC fabric that I purchased from a private party a while back, but it’s not actually AC fabric — close, but there’s some spandex in there, too. Anyway, we used it to clean excess paint from the stencils and I love the way it looks!
On Tuesday morning, I packed up all my stuff again and headed home! It was a great drive back, and I didn’t even have to slow down through Chicago.
It was THE BEST combination of relaxation + creativity + productivity + wonderful people + also great food & beer (photo above at Bell’s Brewery). I met Tom, of course, though he was in & out all weekend with a curling tournament. He’s as friendly & easy going IRL as he looks in pictures! Speaking of pictures, Kym & I spent the better part of 5+ days together and didn’t get a single photo!
Well, we haven’t change a whole lot since we met for the first time, exactly 5 years ago, at Art Prize in Grand Rapids!
ETA: As of this post, I am exactly 300 comments away from 30,000 received on this li’l ol’ blog (299 now, with Mary’s, and 298 with Carole’s). I am sorry that I do not/cannot acknowledge every single one, but I do make an effort to thoughtfully reply when I’m able to or am asked about something specific — not saying that things haven’t slipped through the cracks now and then. Please know that every comment and interaction is truly appreciated. Anyway, that’s a long way of saying that there will be FABULOUS PRIZES (tbd) for the person who leaves the 30,000th comment, possibly by the end of the year!!! Stay tuned! And, as always, thank you for reading.
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