Socks!

So, without a sewing machine, my sewing has been very limited. However, I have discovered that a large number of people in our study abroad program knit. (For example, there are eight of us in my neighborhood. Seven of the eight can knit.)

So, I wanted a project that would take a while, but not be too expensive. Enter a pair of socks! Now I don't really like wearing handknitted socks, because I prefer my socks to be stretchier. So I made them for K, who is not as picky about socks as I am.

I used a random pattern off the internet, which I have now lost. It was a super simple toe-up pattern where the toe was just increases and the heel was done with wrapped stitches. I have to admit I wasn't a big fan. I prefer the slightly more complicated but nicer looking heel I have done on other sock patterns. The main issue I had was that the socks, when not being worn, look so incredibly strange. They look fine worn, though. It's odd. Anyway, without further ado, here are the pictures!

The last two pictures are much more accurate color-wise. It was a lovely variegated yarn that I found at a local yarn store, which I thought was a little local place, but I have since found another branch of it, so I think it's a chain. Sigh.

I have another pair of baby socks almost completed, which I made with the leftover yarn.

Baby hat!

Readers, I must confess, I have not been sewing. I have been writing papers like there's no tomorrow. I have written one, have one mostly complete, and have two or three more to go. Then I have five finals, and then the semester will be over. Then maybe I will have more time to sew.

In the mean time, though, I did complete a little knitting project. One thing I love about knitting is how portable it is. I can knit without looking, and it's much easier to whip out a knitting project and knit a few rows while waiting in line (or at the doctor's, where I spent two entire hours on Monday!). I can hardly knit at all because of my joint problems, but occasionally I do still knit things.

Here is one of them!

 Nope, it's nothing fancy, just a little baby hat. It's made in a 2x2 rib so it will be nice and stretchy, but the fuzziness of the yarn means the pattern is totally lost. That's ok.

This picture, although blurry, gives a better idea of the color. It's black with many little specks of color all through it--nice and vibrant!

I spent hundreds of hours knitting these baby hats in high school, so now I can knit them without a pattern in a short amount of time. This one took two hours to knit, and many half an hour to weave in the ends. The weaving would have taken 10 minutes with a yarn needle, but I did it at school in between classes with a pencil!

This little hat will be given to my aunt who works in the mother/baby wing of a hospital to be given to some baby there. Apparently they are always on the lookout for hats that aren't pastel colors!

Sweater photo #3

  
I wish the word wrap wasn't gone on texted photos!
You can see the cable pattern a little better here.

Sweater photo #2

  
The sweater arrived in the mail at K's house today.
He took a few photos with his phone for me.

Sweater photo

  
Sorry...this is all I've got.
A better picture will come later.

And...failure. Sort of.

As I mentioned in the comments to this post, my knitting all-nighter didn't quite work out as planned. I did get everything I wanted to get done done before I went to bed, but I underestimated how long the sewing together would take, and I forgot about the neckband. So the sweater wasn't finished by the time K and I left campus to go our separate ways. This is a perfect example, in my mind of the point that anything worth doing is worth doing right. I shouldn't have gone to bed before the sweater was done, or I should have gone to bed at a normal time.

Oh well. Not much I can do about it now, and the sweater is now done, and it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. I took a crummy cell phone picture to text to K, and promptly forgot to take a good one, wrapped the sweater up, and taped it into a box. So I will make sure to get a picture of him wearing it, and in the mean time you all will have to content yourselves with phone pictures. I'll upload it soon.

Quick update

The front of the sweater is completed! I'm working on one of the arms. I'm trying madly to finish it in time to give to K before he goes home for Christmas break, but I'll have to see if that happens--I'm also afraid of hurting my hands/wrists right before finals.

I'll try to post pictures soon, but I've lost my camera, and after a stressful (but fun) extra credit project involving 37 cell phone pictures, I'm not in a hurry to take and upload any more, at least not for a while.

Thanksgiving Goals

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Here are my goals for the Thanksgiving weekend:

1. Do my Greek extra credit project.
2. Write my humanities paper.
3. Watch at least some of the TV show Firefly with my sisters.
4. Finish the back of K's sweater.

None of them are sewing, as I don't feel like packing up my machine to take it home. On Monday or Tuesday I'll post to let you know how I did.

What are your Thanksgiving goals--sewing or non-sewing related?

Cables!

K's sweater is progressing slowly but surely. I've done about 12 inches on the back, and the shaping starts at 14 or so. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed having a portable craft project. The cables are also easier than I had expected. Cable charts aren't so scary! I'm glad I just jumped in and went ahead with the project.


The picture isn't showing the color right--it's actually a darker blue. In fact, the yarn is this one, which I got from Fabric.com. I couldn't get the cables to show up without the flash, and the flash washed the sweater out a little. Oh well. The sweater also isn't quite flat, so some of the cables look a little more uneven than they actually are in real life.

Knitting!

I haven't knitted anything in years. It's made my hands hurt too much. However, I've wanted a portable craft project for months now, and so I'm going to give knitting another try. Especially since K asked me to make him something, and what can you really sew for guys? Pajama pants? Boring.

So the next project on my list is Vogue Knitting's Men's Cabled Crewneck. Have I knitted in years? Nope. Have I ever done a cable? Nope. Have I ever read a cable chart? Nope. Does that stop me? Nope. Seriously, this project looks challenging but not awful--certainly easier than Fair Isle, and I make my brother a Fair Isle sweater years ago.

We'll see how this goes. I ordered the yarn (navy blue) from Fabric.com yesterday.

(Note: You unfortunately and annoyingly have to make a free account to download the pattern, but you can see the picture without one.)

I want to knit...

So, I'm starting my third week of college now. Still no sewing, but I've figured out why. Sewing on a machine isn't social. It makes noise (especially if you have a machine like mine), you're usually facing away from people, and you can't look at them. It's also not portable and takes a fair amount of concentration.

You know what does none of that? Knitting. It's easy and doesn't take your eyes, if you pick the right stitch pattern. It's essentially silent, it's extremely portable, and you can sit wherever you want and look at whatever you like.

I want to knit. I used to be a knitter--freshman through junior year of high school I knitted nearly constantly. I knitted while reading, watching movies, studying, you name it, I had a project going. Mostly I knitted baby hats for a local hospital. I logged over nine hundred hours knitting those suckers. Then came carpal tunnel, or something similar. The last stitch I knitted was two weeks before Easter of junior year. I can honestly say I've mostly gotten over it, but there really is a little hole in my life, and sewing can't fill it. There's nothing quite like knitting.

The temptation to take knitting up again has never been stronger. My wrists have been so much better over the past few months--they now only hurt after several hours of writing, chopping, typing, or whatever. I've switched back from thick kindergartner pencils to regular mechanical pencils, and I'm able to write with ball point pens again. I just know, though, that I'll wreck my wrists again if I start knitting. Someone talk me down from this ledge!

Hello and Welcome!

Hi there, and welcome to my blog! A few words before I actually start posting projects:

1. I thought I should explain the title. Fil is French for thread. A means (or can mean) of. Sewphie should be obvious--if not, my first name is Sophie, and I replaced the So with Sew. The entire title makes up the word "philosophy," and anyone who knows me knows I love philosophy. All credit for the blog name goes to my beloved mother, who thought it up. People who know me are probably wondering why there is French in the title, when I speak German and Latin better. The answer is quite simply that I liked the puns.

2. This is a general warning: If you are looking for a blog where close attention is paid to detail and things are done with great care, this is not the right blog. The two phrases I utter most often while sewing are "Oops!" and "Oh well--good enough." My objective when I sew is to make things I enjoy wearing, and I find I can do that without them being perfect. This means I don't fix things that I don't think people will notice. It also means I skip about 90% of the basting!
Same also goes for readers who think that people should be taught to sew correctly, whatever sewing correctly means. Most of my sewing abilities stem from the fact that I am good at following directions. I was taught a little bit of sewing by my mother and then I just decided to branch out. In other words, I sew in a slapdash manner. The majority of my projects have worked out fairly well so far, I think:And yes, I am aware that last sweater is knitted. But I knit (or used to--I don't knit anymore) in much the same slapdash manner I sew in. Plus I thought the picture was cute.