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what I’ve been up to
Posted on | July 29, 2010 | 8 Comments
The zinnias had a lasting effect.
After the natural colored mohair, I had to spin some COLOR!
I’d say I definitely found it! Merino/bamboo, about 800 yards of heavy worsted. No idea what it’ll be, definitely something girly!
After clearing my bobbins, I forced myself to get back to my MIL’s Parcheesi.
I finished the last square yesterday – now to knit 22 short strips for in between the squares. Sigh. I am already so over this. But Grace is right, if you make yourself work on that project you’re sick of, once you get started you realize that you really do like it and with every row, you’re one bit closer to being finished!
*PSA* Miss Babs, who dyed the gorgeous yarn I’m using for the Parcheesi Afghan, has had an unimaginable disaster. I don’t know what you can do, but I just bought a few ounces of her merino/silk (25% off! no fire damage!) in an effort to make us both feel better! My heart goes out to her.
And then you can move onto the next project! I got perfect gauge for Ravensong. Perfect. Gauge. That never happens! (I swatched with the white leftovers, since I don’t wind yarn until I’m ready to use it. I’m also a bit nervous about winding the 1,000 yard skein of mohair.)
I think this will be a fast knit (on US 8s), which is good because I really need to finish the Fair Isle Cardigan AND I want to knit a slouchy cardigan from handspun (maybe two) AND I suppose I should get started on those Christmas stockings if I want to use them this year. But – no pressure! I’ll get done what I get done. And it’s only August (almost).
So yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing. You?
sunday scenes
Posted on | July 27, 2010 | 14 Comments
Sunday I felt like getting high.
Let me tell you – those liquid balloons will do the trick, too.
I couldn’t stop at one balloon.
Pretty soon I had a balloon family and a cluster migraine to match! Once I came down, that is.
oooh, look at the little hitchhikers! Acrobatic devils.
I blame my altered mental state for the shattering Monopoly loss. The boy uses Legos to designate his properties, otherwise he’d never collect rent (it’s hard to keep up with the game and text your girlfriend at the same time). I lost my entire fortune to the Menorah that was Boardwalk.
Poor kitty never gets to play.
This stuff really shouldn’t be legal.
zinnia socks
Posted on | July 21, 2010 | 24 Comments
Every summer, I plant (by which I mean, SB removes all the weeds that have grown during the winter and preps the bed for me, and I go outside, decide what flower seeds go where, and sprinkle them about. It’s a great arrangement, I highly recommend it!) a cutting garden of zinnias, sunflowers, cosmos, and various other flowers that may or may not bloom.
The one flower I can count on each year is the zinnia.
This year, I happened to knit socks that embodied all the zinnia colors, thanks to the dyeing geniuses at Koigu (the colorway is P632).
Aren’t they a perfect match?
I know Koigu is not the sturdiest sock yarn out there, but I’m a sucker for the colors.
I put these in the gift box after finishing, but I do believe they’re staying with me. And yes, I realize I’ve said that about several pair!
at times like these
Posted on | July 19, 2010 | 15 Comments
I wish I had a motorized skeiner! I thought to take a picture after I’d already wound off 100 yards, so it was truly a PACKED bobbin! I bought the fiber at SAFF last fall:
Two 4 oz. balls of mohair bought with blending in mind, but a few weeks ago I had the urge to spin natural fiber and grabbed them from the closet. (right now I have more fiber in my closet than clothes, it’s probably a 2/1 ratio). The first bobbin of white spun so easy, it drafted like butter and I was finished in no time. The second bobbin of light brown was an entirely different story, I couldn’t believe they both came from the same farm. But I muscled through and finished it last week.
1,000 yards, probably light sport weight, that I’m thinking of using for Ravensong, from A Fine Fleece. Swatching will commence (and be the deciding factor), once I’ve cleared a few other projects from my plate.
Of course, the two 4 oz. roving balls couldn’t spin up equally and I had 48 yards of the white leftover. The white definitely has a better sheen to it than the light brown, and it’s softer. Must have been a better fleece!
I want to put out a brief message to my local peeps: If you know anyone or hear of anyone, or if you yourself, would like to de-clutter and have an old sewing maching sitting around, taking up space, please let me know. My antique machine is probably not worth what it would take to service it, and I’ve learned that while hand sewing a quilt top can be kind of fun, trying to finish the quilt by hand is laborious and not fun at all.
Which is a big hint as to what project I’m trying to finish next!
sparkler creations
Posted on | July 16, 2010 | 10 Comments
Have a great weekend! I’ve been so busy spinning this week that I haven’t taken any pictures, but I’ll rectify that over the weekend! Tootles!
can you guess where I’ve been?
Posted on | July 13, 2010 | 19 Comments
Yep, the annual family beach trip to Cape San Blas, Florida! Which, I’m happy to report, is oil free.
We had lovely sunsets,
beach bonfires (boys and their poking sticks!)
and fireworks!
It only rained one day, which was the perfect time for me to do this:
Yeah, you can pretty much throw out everything I said about not having room, money or time for another hobby. I went to the LQS (isn’t that cute?!?! Quilters say “LQS” like we say LYS!!!) the Friday afternoon before we left for the beach and you should’ve seen those ladies’ faces when I told them I wanted to hand sew quilt squares together on the beach. They tried to mask it, but they thought I was insane. I’m sure they had a good laugh when I left!
But I did find time to stitch, and sewing cotton squares together was easier than trying to knit wool on a Florida beach in July! I don’t think those ladies knew who they were talking to!
I finished it! Have you ever seen such wonky squares!?!? I have to laugh. I’ve debated ripping and redoing the whole thing on a machine – you know, with a seam guide – but I’m not going to. This is my first quilt. It’s hand sewn. I love it for its wonkiness, and I’ll be buying the backing material this week. I’m thinking a blue backing with red trim, and I’m planning to hand tie it, so the sewing should be minimal and will be done by machine if mine still works.
Vacation was fun, but I’ve missed you guys! I haven’t even opened Bloglines because I know it’ll be overwhelming, but I can’t wait to see what y’all have been up to!
cleansing the pallet
Posted on | June 30, 2010 | 12 Comments
In my last post, I mentioned having some failures, so let’s get that out of the way real quick.
My Boutis project isn’t going to work – not surprising really, since I tried to use an embroidery pattern instead of a Boutis pattern.
You can see the raised areas where I stuffed the flower petals and leaves, but other than the center stem line (that I added to the pattern), there aren’t any other raised areas to bring the design together, and the design is too small to modify each and every flower and leaf stem. I just don’t think it’s going to work. Which makes me a little bummed, but I enjoyed the stitching, it was good practice, and I will definitely try again – next time with an appropriate pattern.
A pattern like this would’ve been a better choice, although I’d have to add some lines in the flat (empty) areas of the design.
The above pattern and the earlier embroidery pattern came from a book of patterns that was brought to a guild meeting as a “I’m cleaning out my closets, please take these” give-away.
It has some really cool patterns – for quilts, embroidery, hook rugs, cross stitch, you name it. The pattern for the knitted counterpane afghan was missing, I imagine that’s why the book was purchased. The copyright is 1963, and I just located the companion book on Amazon – how cool that it was written by Rose Wilder Lane – Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter!!! Yes, it’s been ordered – for less than five bucks! Woot!
I will be ordering a book of Boutis patterns as well, at some point. I’m trying not to get too far into this quilting thing because I can see where this is going (yesterday I spent a scary amount of time looking at quilting blogs) and I have no room for a fabric stash! NO. ROOM.
Of course, I’ve cast on a new project to cleanse my pallet.
Behold the colors for a Parcheesi Afghan for a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law! (shoot, I hope she doesn’t read this. Did I tell you guys about being “outed” to my MIL about my blog? A friend was on a plane with my MIL and was knitting, they struck up a conversation, MIL mentions that I knit, friend mentions that she knows me and proceeds to pull up my blog on her laptop and show MIL!!!! Color me surprised. My own mother doesn’t know about the blog! Anyway. It’s all good.)
When it’s time to start a new square, I set five colors out on the bar and play with the arrangement until I find something I like. The purple is the center of each square.
Two of the six large squares are finished, and the third is started. It’s great mindless knitting and garter stitch always makes me happy, so I’m hoping this will be a quick project to knock out and put in the gift box!
twelve days
Posted on | June 28, 2010 | 18 Comments
Has it really been 12 days since I posted last? I spent last week in an allergy haze, saved by a z-pack, only to pull a muscle as soon as I started feeling better – which resulted in a neck crick that made me unable to look to the left!
Sometimes you just don’t want to get out of bed, ya know?!?
Especially when bed looks like this.
My sister finished my quilt! This is Mack’s favorite square.
I think this one is mine…
or maybe this one…
or it could be this blue one…
Who could pick a favorite square?!? I love them all! Jennifer has even more fabulous pictures on her blog – and I am so thankful! This is the best present ever, and totally makes up for the time she told me that our Mom had gotten me a fantabulous make-up kit for Christmas, filled with eye shadow of every color and lipstick that would make every 12 year old boy in a ten mile radius worship me – and it was a complete fabrication! Yeah, I was pretty bummed Christmas morning, at least until I opened my Barbie camper.
I especially love the butterscotch pudding squares and backing because I *for one* LOVE butterscotch pudding (the kind you have to cook, that instant crap is for commies)!
I’ll be posting a lot more this week, as I have some failures to report and some new projects too!
wordless wednesday
Posted on | June 16, 2010 | 8 Comments
new beginnings
Posted on | June 14, 2010 | 24 Comments
I’ve always loved making things. I credit my grandmother, who always had some sort of project going on. She quilted, she painted, she embroidered, she knit. She ordered kits that contained everything needed to complete a project and when I’d visit her, she put my hands to the task.
Many years ago, I went through a cross stitch phase.
This was the first project I completed, and actually framed. It reminds me of the Royal Albert Country Rose collection, which I’ve always thought was lovely and fine and so very British.
This is my favorite cross stitch project. I don’t remember the fabric gauge, but it’s pretty small. Sadly, this lives in a plastic tub in the closet.
I love the richness of the colors.
Part of the reason it remains unframed (I even have antique frames ready to go) is that I started this companion piece but never finished it. I flipped the design so the two women would face each other, and changed the colors from blue to yellow/gold/red, and … lost steam. To be honest, I doubt I’ll ever finish it. But, who knows, stranger things have happened.
Where am I going with all of this?
Last summer at our guild picnic, I saw a woman working on Boutis, a French quilting method similar to Trapunto except that the design is stitched through two layers of fabric and the stuffing goes in between the layers, creating a reversible design. I’ve wanted to try this ever since seeing it, and now that the heat and humidity have made knitting and spinning a real labor (it’s so humid that even sock yarn sticks to my needles) AND since my wonderful husband bought me Boutis & Trapunto (which quite honestly, fed my desire and provided good instruction, but I’m not wild about the patterns) for Mother’s Day, I decided that summertime was the time to stab myself with smaller, sharper needles than is the norm.
I bought cotton batiste, quilting needles, an embroidery hoop and dressmaker’s pencils. I looked at designs and decided to try an embroidery design because I have an inflated sense of ability and never like starting simple.
I traced the design onto the cotton batiste
and started stitching. I stitched and stitched. I’m about two-thirds done. I had to retrace the remaining design last night because I swear it faded! Good lighting is essential, but once you get the hang of it, it goes rather quickly.
I can’t wait to get it all stitched so I can start stuffing it! I’m worried that the batiste is too fine and the holes won’t close behind the stuffing. I’m worried that the design is too small and it won’t create the proper effect. (to see some lovely Boutis projects, go here). I’m worried that I will really love doing this and it will be the beginning of yet ANOTHER obsession.
But honestly? I’m having too much fun to worry much about any of that!