Crazy about knitting

In the last weeks, I've been crazy about knitting. That is partially my friend L.'s fault, she introduced me to the group Crazy Knitting Ladies - which, despite the name in English, is mainly formed by brazilians. (there are some people from other countries, if I'm not wrong, and also a few boys, something rare in the world of knitting)

The amount of messages per day is immense - sometimes just people congratulating others for the works they've completed. Other times there are links for patterns, questions, and stuff like that.

I'm still working on my first knitting project, the brown bag I've already shown here. But since it's kinda big, it takes a while to finish. Actually, I was a little tired of working only on my WIPs, they're taking too long to be completed. So I decided to do something small and quick for A Make a Month. I was going to make a new sewing project, I have even drawn it - but the needles called me up! So there I went to look for a small pattern in Ravelry.

For those of you who don't know it, Ravelry is a community of people who knit (and crochet). It's a big hit, by the way. There you can find free and paid patterns, and I needed something free, easy and quick. I found lots of cool stuff, which I've added to the list of projects I want to make from Ravelry itself. This one looked like exactly what I wanted:

 

A pincushion! Isn't it cute?

The problem with this pattern (Peyote Pincushion, by Iryna Klionava) is that it needs a set of four double-pointed needles, which I didn't have (note the past tense - I've just received a package on the mail...). So I thought: the most important now is to a) make a project that finishes fast and b) uses something I already have, according to the rules for A Make a Month.

Which made me decide to make a simple little square, with a crochet yarn. That's right, I haven't even used wool. That yarn is so pretty, I wanted to use it no matter what. It's been here for ages! I thought it would be nice if I used it with the knitting board, but it really is too thin. For the pincushion, that was no problem!

I've used the needles my mom lent me and the Monalisa yarn. Look what it turned into:

I also had the filling (I have a big bag of that!), so I was only lacking fabric to make the internal part. If I had only put the filling in, it would keep coming out of the knitting holes.

It was then that I found out that I don't have plain fabric! I've started buying pieces of fabric for patchwork after I've had a few classes, and usually the stores make up kits of printed fabrics. I think they even make up kits with plain fabrics, maybe they just haven't caught my eyes... but the fact is that I wanted a plain white fabric, so the colors in the knitting showed up more.

Then I remembered: last year, when I visited a patchwork event, I've bought a fabric in stripes - those that come with large stripes of matching prints. When I got home and started looking more carefully the things I had bought, I've noticed that one of the stripes had a flaw in the print, and a dirty mark that wouldn't leave even after I washed it. At the time, I've called the store many times, but they said the fabric was sold out in the supplier's, and that I could go there and pick something else in exchange. The problem is that the store is across town, and for São Paulo that's a big deal! So that I gave up exchanging anything, I had already paid for the fabric, would I have to pay to exchange it?

Now guess the fabric color... that's right, white! So I cut exactly where the flaw was to make the internal part of my pincushion.

The fabric looks like regular cotton, also printed in white. The prints look painted over the cotton, which made the sewer pencil not to erase. Imagine if I had made this mistake on another project... I would not be happy with that yellow mark showing on my patchwork! Lesson learned, always mark the fabric on the wrong side (I should've known better...).

I've cut a rectangle, sewed by machine (YES! I've used my dear machine!) and left an opening. Turned it right side out, put the filling and closed the opening by hand.

I've also hand-sewn the knitting. Simple, fast and I've used lots of things that were stuck around here.

Does it get any better than that?