birthday books

I had my birthday a few days ago. Would you like to see what my mum gave me?

Proof positive that I am still into knitting! LOL

Quilting Adventures in Knitterlanda quilting sandwich

PART 1: THE FIRST ATTEMPT

 DD and I tried to put the three layers of our floor quilt together almost as soon as we had sewn on the borders and taken photos.

When we attended the workshop in early April, the teacher suggested we stretch out the backing and pin it to the carpet. This worked really well; even if WM did wander through and say: "Are you sticking pins in to carpet?" At least we could say "the teacher told us to!" LOL

All was going fine till we started pinning the three layers together - we kept pinning to the carpet! We tried to solve that by sliding a ruler (24" x 6") under the layers and moving it as needed but of course the quilt was no longer flat.

We had decided that it was time to start all over again using my cutting/blocking boards underneath when GS#1 woke up (he'd been asleep less than forty minutes). We had to get the whole lot off the floor; we were working in the living room in an open plan house: pins and fourteen month old toddlers don't mix!



PART 2: SUCCESS

This time we used the boards we usually use for blocking our knitting. They are sold as 'cutting boards' but I can't remember the last time I used my original one for that purpose.

WM assisted by bending 150 straight pins into curved pins for us. We didn't need anywhere near that many but once he was on a roll, he just kept going until he had done three-quarters of the pins I had bought.

An hour and a half later we had successfully made our quilting sandwich. We rolled it and that is exactly how it has remained; but that's another story.

No pictures, sorry - you've seen the top and the back, except for the wadding there is nothing new to see.

going? going? gone!

Some of you may have seen my now deleted post about WM's internal debate: his father was ill, in fact he was dying, and poor WM was trying to decide if we should go away to the holiday house we had rented for a week. MIL said we should go - we were only going to be two hours drive and/or a phone call away if needed.

Then my father-in-law died. And the question arose again. Six children and their mother discussed the funeral arrangements.

And finally a decision was reached. The funeral is to be held the day after we return from our week away - WM needs this break very much. He is an extrovert who normally recharges around people but he was hanging out to just "get away". Thank you MIL for your decision.

And so we are gone from home and staying here:

advertising photo from http://stayz.com.au/6667

So today, when I should have been at work, I am relaxing at the beach with my husband. DD, SIL and GS#1 will join is for a couple of days at the end of our stay.

hunting for Easter eggs

DD, now 25, still expects the Easter Bunny to leave eggs for her to find. This year, the Easter Bunny left an empty carton taht had once contained eighteen eggs.

GS#1 participated in his first Easter Egg hunt (with a little help from his grandmother).

Here it is! (under his left hand)

Found it, now what do I do?

How many are there?



Which one will I choose?



This tastes funny!



Yum, could I have some more please?

of sticks and stringsand related things

Late last Monday night, I cast off this scarf. I could have used another ball of yarn to make it longer but I've had enough of it! Seven weeks to knit one scarf - bah humbug!

Although there were no purl stitches in this scarf, it knitted like there were; all that moving the yarn forward as if to purl in order to slip stitches was just as slow as actually purling the stitch. The pattern is the Corrugator Scarf (designer's Rav link) and is, after all, a variation of a rib pattern.



There has been some progress on these toe-up socks but knitting sock yarn on 2.25mm (Size 1) needles is always going to be slow. I have knitted the one short row heel (no holes - yay) and am working up the foot. I haven't yet turned the second heel because I need to concentrate to do it and my house has been populated by DD and GS#1 for the last three days.



Add caption

Last week, the postman delivered these:

This is a reprint of the original; not the updated version (I didn't realise that when I ordered it)

I bought this for DD - she wants to make some money while she is a SAHM

A couple of weeks ago, I dyed this acrylic 8ply (DK) with Australian made Landscape (acid) dyes. Don't ever let anyone tell you it can't be done!


Much to my dismay, it took me two hours to untangle the yarn and wind it into a ball. I wish I knew why some of my dyeing projects become so tangled!

So, there it is: proof that I do still knit, read about knitting and dye some of my own knitting yarn! LOL

ANZAC

Ninety six years ago, on 25th April,1915, soldiers from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed on the beach at Gallipoli in Turkey. They were defeated but they hung on, obeying orders; and showing the true grit and mateship for which our nation is reknown.

Today we commemorate them and all Australian and New Zealand men and women who gave their lives serving our country.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

Lest we forget.

Happy Easter

Maxwell John

Note: This post has been edited from the post I originally wrote this morning due to a change in circumstances. Apologies to those who had already read my previous post.

Last Thursday, 14th April, my father-in-law saw his heart specialist as he had been feeling quite unwell. The decision was made to put in a new pacemaker as the old one wasn't doing its job. That was to have happened on Monday 18th April.


FIL was admitted to hospital but was told that the operation was to be postponed and the pacemaker would be fitted on 20th April. On Tuesday 19th April, while still in hospital, FIL suffered a stroke which left him paralysed on the right side and unable to speak clearly.

He was having all kinds of intervention therapy for a couple of days. On Friday 22nd April, youngest SIL arrived. She works in aged care in a coastal country town in northern NSW. She took a look at her father and told MIL that, in her opinion, he wasn't going to get any better.

Youngest SIL has the "power of attorney" for both her parents (because of her experience in the industry). After discussion with her mother and with reference to her father's expressed wishes prior to going in to hospital, all treatments were stopped. FIL was moved to a private room, and given oxygen, morphine and antibiotics - in other words, he was being kept comfortable.



All six of his children, most of their spouses and many of his seventeen grandchildren have been in to see him. He has slept through most visits.

This afternoon, at approximately 12:40, FIL passed away.

Maxwell John, rest in peace. We love you and will miss you very much.



taken by WM on 1st September 2010

17 January 1929 - 23 April 2011

Good Friday

In Jerusalem that day were two mothers, both grieving for their sons...they prayed that God would be merciful.

One mother, Mary, watched as her son died... The other mother welcomed her son home, saying, with grateful tears in her eyes, 'Barabbas! God has answered our prayers!'

Another man more important than the mission. Jesus died on Barabbas' cross ... our cross.

from Power of Your Love by Geoff Bullock, 2000. (p.171)

entrelac workshop

I have recently facilitated two workshops for our group of the Knitters' Guild of NSW.

The first was held on 19th March - we did squares of entrelac in garter stitch, which meant there were no foundation triangles and the participants were able to concentrate on learning how the squares "interlock".

one in two colours, one in a variegated yarn to show the difference yarn choice makes

The pattern was copied from a book, now out of print, by Brenda Horne (a member of the Knitters' Guild of NSW) called "Enjoy Entrelac Knitting".

Some of the participants finished their sample squares for homework. I gave them a pattern for six inch squares - DD knitted hers 10 inches square so she could use it as part of a blanket (afghan) for Wrap With Love and in the process began to truly understand how entrelac works.

DD's 10 inch square for Wrap With Love

On 16th April we had our second workshop. This time we knitted foundation and side triangles as well as squares. the participants had the choice of knitting traditional entrelac in stocking stitch or knitting a "garterlac dishcloth", pattern from Dave at criminyjickets. (Thanks C. for giving me the link).

Note to self: I really should have done one in two colours so that the participants could see the structure.

I really like tutoring; I am a teacher by profession but I also am a teacher by passion and gifting.

Quilt Class 101

I stumbled across this blog on the weekend. I followed a link from a (quilter's) blog I've never read before and found it.

I've decided that I would like to play along.

New classes are posted online on Wednesdays (why, that's today; *whaddya know?).

Rebecca, of the Chasing Cottons blog, has already posted the first two weeks of the 'course' - but that's okay; it's online and I can catch up easily enough.

*translation of my Aussie slang for my overseas friends: "What do you know?"

Quilting Adventures in Knitterlandborder and backing

As DD says, we may have "the enthusiasm of beginners" but we are both very happy with the way our Sampler Block floor quilt is coming along.

After we put the blocks together with the navy sashing, we tried the yellow for the border but it didn't work. So, we auditioned all the fabrics we had. Only the navy was suitable for the border. The matter seemed settled but I didn't want to use navy - it would be the same as the sashing, only wider.

On Friday we went to the Big Box Store to buy some more fabric to make a border. We found a few that "might work".

A customer approached us to offer advice: "use only dark colours because the edges get so dirty". That advice seemed logical given that GS#1 loves the finished floor quilt and the finished top. He uses them to play "boo" and drags them around the house. He pushes and parks his car on the finished top like that was its sole purpose. These quilts are floor mats for babies. One of their purposes is to stop Grandbubby the Second (and subsequent Grandbubbies should there be any more) from bringing up milk on the carpet; as well as being somewhere warm and cosy for a Little One to lie.

During their lifetime, the quilts will no doubt be used for many things - capes, playing peek-a-boo, building cubby houses; all the things that young kids' imaginations can make them. And that's just how I want it to be. They certainly are not precious items, to be stored somewhere for the "right time".

But I digress. Back to our shopping expedition...

We had to make our decision and get out of there. GS#1 tried to climb out of the trolley (shopping cart) even though he had the restraint strap done up! He was getting more and more irascible which made it difficult to make a decision. We finally narrowed our options down to three choices and eventually, after much umming and ahhing, chose this: We weren't 100% convinced it was the right choice but, as I said to DD, we can always turn it into drawstring bags if we decide we don't like it.

But we did. I would have liked a wider border but I had bought (precut) cot wadding so needed to keep the finished size to 50 inches. Unfinished, this one measures 50.5 inches so I think I got the maths right! LOL

This is the back we pieced. It's time to move on from these fabrics and work with something else so we used as much as the front fabrics as we could. Unfinished, the back is 54.5 inches. The rest of these blue and purple fabrics will become pieced drawstring bags - no quilting needed!

And what of the yellow blocks, you ask? Stay tuned!

a force of nature?

Was it a tornado? A whirwind? A hurricane? A cyclone?

Those of you who are parents or grandparents will no doubt recognise a similar scene duplicated in your house. This video (the first I've taken using my still camera) was taken from my knitting corner.

Guess who came to visit? LOL



GS#1: 14 months old



some thoughts on blogging

It's hard to remember that just a few weeks ago, I had not blogged for more than seven months due to working on my mother's family history.


my great-grandparents' wedding register entry 1889

 Some of you may have noticed that I have been posting daily for nearly three weeks. This has been a surprise to me; I never dreamed I would have something to write every day. Daily blogging may not continue forever, I am after all "blogging without obligation" but, for now, it's just how it is.

concept from http://www.tartx.com/blog/?page_id=233

At one point, early last year, I starting a second blog called Quilting Adventures in Knitterland. I transferred three posts from this blog to that blog then abandoned it. I didn't want my life scattered across two blogs!

For a long time, if I had nothing knitterly to write about, I wouldn't post at all. Then I added dyeing to my crafting repertoire and started writing about that.

hand dyed acrylics 2008

When I became interested in patchwork, I started writing about that too; but all the time I had in the back of my mind that this was was a knitting blog and the content had to be mostly about knitting.

our first patchwork purchases 2010

Now that I have returned to blogging, I have a new approach to my blog. Something along the lines of: "It's my blog and I'll write what I want to".


It's given me a new freedom to write about things that catch my fancy - whether they are craft related or not.

crocuses in his autumn garden

Knitting remains, and will remain for the foreseeable future, the primary craft in my life - mostly because it's portable and can be done even when enjoying television or conversation, at home or in public. Therefore knitting will still feature on this blog, but not every day.

Horseshoe Lace stole designed and knitted by me in 2007 from 3ply (light fingering) wool for a dear friend's 80th birthday

And, at the end of my blogging life (whenever that is) - this blog will remain exactly what a blog is: a web-based log of my interests, my family, my home, my life.

playing coy for the camera

Welcome to my world; I hope you find it a little bit interesting.

on gauge swatches

Someone, somewhere, at some time, worked out that before a knitter starts a project, he/she would be advised to knit a "tension square", the name Australians use for a "gauge swatch".

Most commercial patterns, especially those for articles where size matters, strongly recommend taking the time to knit a tension square.

As a knitting tutor, I wholeheartedly agree. Why spend hours knitting something only to find that after all that "work", the article is the wrong size!

Why then, did I spend five days knitting exclusively on my stealth project only to decide on Day 6 that it was too big? Because, as usual, I was in too much of a hurry to get started on my latest Great Idea. I had all the confidence of a New Project and the fumes of Pure Wool Yarn urging me to just get knitting! I did take the time to prepare a chart for my Great Idea. I knitted and ripped and knitted and ripped; sometimes it felt like I was taking two steps forward and one step back.

But, folks, it wasn't worth it. Late on Day 5 I weighed my yarn. I had 98g left of a 200g ball. What I had knitted was close to the right length I had hoped it to be at this point. At bed time I lay my knitting on the footstool. It was one of the first things I saw on Day 6. And I had to admit, it was just too wide! I wanted something narrower and much longer than I was going to be able to knit with the number of stitches I had!

And so I frogged. This is not the first time I have said it - a gauge swatch is Really. Important. (especially when designing your own knitting) *sigh*

toe up socks

After my post last week about socks, in which I explained that getting socks that fit my feet and are the right length for my legs has been quite challenging, despite the fact that I have successfully completed lots of pairs of socks, I bring good news on the sock front (although this pair isn't for me). I am working on a pair of toe up socks.

the yellow does change like that - it's not just the photo - I think they had trouble with the dyeing process)

I have never knitted toe-up socks before but plan them to be the central pattern of the workshop I am teaching in September so thought it was time to give them a go.

I tried a figure eight cast on - five attempts later, I still couldn't get it. I tried a provisional cast on using a crocheted chain - but I'd have to graft the toe and that seems rather pointless, doesn't it?

So I listened to my inner EZ - I unvented a cast on. I call it my two needle backward-loop-over-the-thumb cast on. It simply means that I used a simple looped cast on and put stitches on two needles alternatively. Deceptively simple and possible whether one uses dpns, two circulars or magic loop (all of which I have to master before September). This cast on (which I unvented) could be described as a figure 8 cast on with a twisted loop.

Now, I'm sure that when my Montse Stanley book arrives from England, this cast on will be in there.

But for now, I'm just chuffed with my own achievement (until I face the short row heels).

new knitting book

After attending the Orenburg Lace workshop with Galina Khmeleva, I ordered this book from the Book Depository. It arrived last Friday - now I can knit lace (if I wasn't so sidetracked by this new quilting enthusiasm)!

Caring Hearts Quilting Group

On Saturday and Sunday, a quilt exhibition was held in the grounds of the local museum. All the quilts on display were the work of members of the Caring Hands Quilting Group. They meet once a month to make quilts which they then donate to charity.

DD and I arrived at about 2:30pm on Sunday. We had wandered slowly past about half the quilts in the exhibition when it began to rain. Suddenly all the quilts were being whipped off the fences, the old farm machinery and other display items.

We were quite disappointed - not because they moved the precious quilts out of the rain, but because they then began to pack up. The exhibition was published as being open from 12pm to 4pm - so anyone arriving later than we had was "out of luck".

It was just as well that we had wandered around to the quilts out in the open first, then were working our way back to entrance near the main building. We did get to see most of the other quilts because they were hanging under the verandas of the main building.

The museum building was originally an inn on the old coach route and is built in a style typical of its time: a long low building with verandas all the way around.

On our way in, we saw an "I Spy" quilt; the attached sign said "complete kit available - $35".

a photo of a photo of the quilt on display

Now, I'm an inexperienced quilter but that seemed like a good price to me. I also know it would take me a long time to collect all the fabrics needed for an "I Spy" quilt. Really, only very small patches are needed and a lot of fabric could be "wasted".

So, I went to the sales tent. I asked about the kit. I got a printed pattern, all the fabrics to make the quilt and a plastic container to keep them all together.

I may be naive but I was surprised when she gave me the kit in the plastic container

inside the container - precut fabric squares, a green inner border, a bright print for the outer border and a "pattern"

the precut squares

the fabric for the outer border - so bright and cheery

It was only after I bought it that it occurred to me that there may have been only one kit available - and I got it just as they were closing!

I think DD and I have been hooked!

Quilting Adventures in Knitterland a satisfactory solution

I love it! Removing the yellow blocks has made a cool and elegant floor quilt for GB#2 (due early July).

And I love how it looks with the light shining through it.

Happy Birthday DD

Twenty Five Years. (Where did they go?)

DD aged 3

Happy birthday, Darling Daughter. I love you.

Quilting Adventures in Knitterland problem solved

As mentioned in my post yesterday, DD and I were having trouble finding a satisfactory layout for our blocks from the sampler quilt. The yellow dominated the blues - despite the fact that there are five times as many blue and purple blocks as yellow blocks.

 I stayed up late on Saturday trying to find a solution; drawing grids on scrap paper looking for the answer then trying the layouts with the actual blocks. At 2am, I called it quits and went to bed; I was cold and very tired (it had been a long day including the six hours at the quilting workshop, an hour and half's driving in each direction plus more quilting when we got home). 

First thing yesterday morning, I pulled those screaming yellow blocks out of the mix - the other twenty-five blue and purple blocks fell into place in less than five minutes (after a couple more hastily drawn plans on paper).



laid out on the floor because we have no design wall (yet)
ignore the navy sashing - it's still pinned on from Saturday

DD and I got some quilting time in the afternoon after our trip to the quilting exhibition (Wednesday's post) and have pieced two of the five rows of blocks together.

The two blocks second from the right look like the same fabrics in this photo
- they're not; the upper one has a strong geometic pattern in yellow; the horizontal sashing will separate the apparent tonal similarity

 DD thinks the resulting quilt might be a bit boring but I see it with a narrow inner border or binding in yellow so that will lift the whole quilt.

Just in case you think I've abandoned it, I knitted while watching the final episode of the current series of Midsomer Murders - the last episode for Sergeant Tom Barnaby (played by John Nettles).

And wouldn't you know it, the sock I was knitting was yellow!