A Serger Makes the World a Better Place

I was at Value Village last night with my dad, a rare treat since we usually don’t get to go anywhere together and just spend time hanging out. We had a great time going to Cash Converters and laughing at the junk, remembering the good old days before it got really bad. Then we went over to, like I said before, Value Village and wandered around.

I hit up the pattern section while my dad headed towards the mens clothes and household items. I found a few cute patterns for $0.69 a piece and thought that my night was made. A nice Simplicity shift dress? Score! I walked towards the back of the store where my dad was supposed to be and I found him huddled in a corner texting as quickly as he could.

All I have to say is thank goodness for large, scary looking dads because if not then I might not have a serger right now! Apparently there was a woman pacing around peeking around him at the serger waiting to see if he was going to take it or not. He was, he just needed both hands to carry it and he couldn’t text my mom at the same time.

It’s a Hobbylock 776 by Pfaff. The poor little thing is filthy dirty, someone didn’t bother taking care of it. The knobs are encrusted in dust, as is pretty much every single other piece of machinery. Not to mention the lovely pile of fabric lint that we found hanging out in the bottom of the machine with a few dead bugs. It’s nothing a good vacuuming won’t fix, though, and in fact I think it’s almost ready to start dabbing at it with the brush to get the last of the dust out, then it needs to be oiled. Oh and it needs a new lightbulb, too. Otherwise it seems to be in working order, or will be once we get the thread jam fixed. There’s thread wrapped all around several moving parts and it’s restricting their movement.

As for my hand, well, it’s still really sore, but I have pretty much resumed normal use of it. I think I’ll wait a bit before I start to knit again, perhaps another week, the scary thing about it was that I was unable to use my other fingers, it affected such a large portion of the muscle in my thumb. Thank goodness that it’s over, though, because I have things to serge!

(Ever wonder what I like to sew on? It’s a Bernina 1630 and I love it dearly. It’s an awesome little workhorse and hasn’t failed me yet. Except for that time I used bad thread without realising it. My mom uses it too, but prefers her Elna, no idea what the number is. Now we have 3 machines, one vintage from the 40s/50s and a serger! Score.)

Knitting Can Really hurt

Remember all that knitting I did before and after Christmas? It finally caught up with me in the form of a repetitive stress injury in my hand.

It started out in my thumb and moved to the rest of my fingers within a day or two. I stopped knitting sometime last week, I tried crocheting because I can hold the working yarn in such a way that it doesn’t hurt… much. And you know it’s bad when I’m desperate enough to start crocheting with non-thread weight yarn. Yuck.

Sewing is an impossibility as well, if you need both hands to knit (and to a lesser extent, crochet) then you need both hands and, why not, both feet to help out.

And now that I’ve thoroughly hurt my hand typing this, I’m going to go take a couple of Advil and stare begrudgingly at my wrist/hand brace.

Kitties, Knitting and Cookies!

Phew! After a crazy month of knitting I had to take a break and do something a little different. Something… delicious. You see, Santa was very nice to me this year, he brought me my very own KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer in Green Apple!

I’ve made cookies, breadsticks, pies and a cake from scratch. It’s a beast of a machine and I’m in love with it. Tonight I made peanut butter cookies, but mistakenly used the wrong recipe. In my defense, though, they all look very similar and it was a well-used page that was torn out of my mom’s favourite cookbook. There was 1 cup of peanut butter to 2 1/4 flour. They tasted so floury that I threw them out and started making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. They’re chilling in the fridge right now.

I’ll leave you with a picture of Garfield snapped with my new camera. If it appears off it’s because my monitor is off. Really off.

garfy1 150x150 Kitties, Knitting and Cookies!

Two Turn a Square Hats

From the pattern Turn a Square. The orange, brown and green one is my fathers, the blue and green one is my brothers.

The pattern was amazing, it`s my go-to beanie hat.

Christmas Knitting

I’ve been frantically knitting since the end of November to try and finish all of my Christmas knitting. I’m starting to wish I’d started back in July.

What I’m Knitting/Have Knit

  • Two hats for my brother and dad, both knit from the pattern Turn a Square. Amazing pattern by the way.
  • Another hat, this time for my sister. The purple, pink and white yarn above is what I’m using. I found it in the discount section of Walmart unlabeled, I think it might be Satin Sport from Bernat, but I’m not sure. The pattern is All Day Beret. It’s not something I’d pick, lace to me is knitting that looks like something, not just lines of holes, but my sister requested it. I’m actually enjoying the results, the pattern is simple and works nicely with the colours in the yarn. Best of all it’s a relatively quick knit!
  • My mom is getting a pair of wool mittens, knit from the yarn on the right. The pattern I’m using is Tweedy Mittens, I’m barely a few rows in, though.

I’ve spent less than $30 on enough yarn to knit 2 more pairs of fingerless gloves, a headband, a scarf (or gloves, I’m undecided.) Not bad for presents for four people, well maybe five because I’m going to make myself a present, of course. But since I’m the knitter mine comes last.