Lady Purl Designs

Apologies for the crappy iphone pictures, but I misplaced the battery charger for my camera, so it's not in working order at the moment. I will post actions shots of this beauty soon to come though. ^_^ This is my Autumn Hew Shrug, to keep me warm in my super cold office. Kind of missed the mark on the whole autumn thing as it's about to snow any second, but whatever, it's gorgeous. The original pattern is here: HEW , but I added some obvious changes. I used contrasting colors for the body of the shrug and the collar, and I made the collar this pretty lacy leaf pattern. It's also sparkely, but the pictures don't do it justice. Here's a close up of the leaf pattern: I also just finished this little baby from Debbie Stoller's new book Superstar Knitting . I didn't use nearly as fabulous yarn, but I love the way it turned out. It's pretty intense with all the cable work when you look at the back of it.

My it was my boy's birthday this week. We went out to one of the greatest restaurants in Milwaukee, County Clare, my treat of course. He got the bangers and mash and I got the chicken pot pie. They were both de-licious. ^_^ I knit him a sweater for his birthday. It's the Retropolitian Cardigan from the "Son of a Stitch 'n Bitch" book. It was super easy and a fast knit. Took less than 2 weeks, but I had to wait to post this until the boy's birthday :D. Bread pudding with whiskey, creme, and cranberry sauce! @.@ OMG YUMTASM.

This is what 20 hats looks like. I wish I had all 40 of them to stack on top of one another like this, but I already sold the first 20 (and didn't take pictures of like 10 of them! GOOD ONES ARGG!). Here's what they look like separately: And as one big mass lump of yarn. Each hat was a different pattern, slightly different in size, most were different colors, and all were made up as I went. It was fun, but I don't want to knit another hat for quite some time.

Polly Amour, performing at Stonefly Brewery in Milwaukee, to "White Rabbit" by Jefferson's Airplane. (Note the skirt from this post ) That's all that you get if you didn't make it to the show ^_^. And if you still want to see Polly in all her awesomeness, her next show is October 30th at The Times Theatre. Come to support and maybe you'll get some sugar ;}. And by that I mean I'll give you some trick or treat candy, duh.

Now that we've got that out of the way, look what I just finished! I also spray painted my dress form, but I need to figure out a way to fill it with something that won't make it heavy as all hell. I don't have enough fabric scraps to fill it all the way, and even half full was crazy heavy. I wish I had some of that foam insulation stuff that expands to fill an enclosed place and then hardens... but I don't, so I've been working with it as is, and that's unacceptable. Here's the skirt, I think finished. As finished as I can make it I think :P I'll probably post an action shot of me wearing this when I have the whole thing put together.

So I need to alter my Red Queen skirt that I reconstructed from the bridesmaid dress, but I couldn't very well do it with I was wearing it, and I was afraid I'd screw it up if I just tried to cut it and put in a zipper while it was off. So this happened. I bought a roll of paper tape, which I used all of, to make a dress form. . . It looks like I'm naked. Or one of those wooden pose-able art dolls. :P After my boyfriend cut it off me I reinforced it with more tape. I still need to spray paint it, fill it with something, and get a stand for it. It still works though. ^_^ More pictures when I finish.

HOLY CRAP: First, let me say: This is the sewing machine and stuff I got to work with. Needless to say, I was a little overwhelmed by all the little contraptions that came along. I have no idea what any of them do and I was freaking out because I couldn't figure out where the regular straight stitch foot thing was. I eventually found it, and after reading through the entire sewing machine manual, I felt comfortable with getting on with my project. PROJECT: I totally had this idea before they did it on Project Runway. I got this bridesmaid dress about 1-2 years ago. Anyway, it was at an out of business sale, so it was like $5. I used it as a Halloween costume last year, but it doesn't actually fit (it fit when I bought it, damnit >.<) *sigh* so I thought what's the best thing to do with a too small gaudy bridesmaid dress? Make an awesome skirt for my next bombshell performance, of course! So I essentially had no pattern to work from, and only a few online tutorials to

Social life at bay? ...Yeah, that works. I've actually been very busy the past week, but despite all that I have been knitting one hat a day (or very close to it). Why, you ask? Because a restaurant in Racine called "The Soup" is owned by an awesome lady that wants her employees to look top-notch in knitted goodness. And she came to meeeeeeeeee. ^_^ She's buying all of these (she wants 40 by opening, which is in a few weeks [yikes]) so I'm going to do what I can. Some of these I've knit a while ago and don't wear myself, so I decided to give them up for hat adoption. She already has a number of them that I had lying about. Here's some of my old ones mixed in with my 5 new ones. This was one of the first hats I ever knit, but I think it looks like something you wear under one of those helmets of chain mail. :P Hat #1. Hat #2: Turn-a-square hat. Hat #3: Green Lace Slouchy Hat. Made it up as I went and I love it. Older hat from the yarn I got at Sheep and

I know it's been a long time since I posted anything, but it's not as if I haven't been knitting. I've actually been doing quite a bit. I knit this awesome cardigan from Interweave knits, called Amrosia. I knit it with KnitPicks Comfy Worsted yarn, named "October." So I named it my "Charming October" Cardigan. There are little clasps in the front, which I kind of like. They were a pain to sew though. Then there's this little guy who is in the works. It will be a hat that has the British flag on it. And ear-flaps. And a yarn mo-hawk... Yep. It's what my friend asked for, and she said she will wear it with pride at her Brit hubby's side :D so more power to her. I also went to "Stitches" the knitting/yarn vendor convention. 800+ yarn vendors! It was amazing. I didn't buy much, but I'm sure that is for the best, because I'm poor. I got this nice sock yarn and spent days searching for the perfect pair of socks to knit wit