finishes!

I’m linking this post with Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday which, this week, is being hosted by Janet at Simply Pieced blog.

Last week, before I went away, I managed to get the binding on my teacher’s donated quilt and to hand sew it down. The trickiest part of the project then loomed – getting all the pencil marks out of the border. I’m not sure how long they had been there but my teacher intimated that it had been a while. I rubbed Amway’s LOC into every inch of that border by hand; it took ages. Then I put it in my front-loading washing machine, prayed and let the machine do its thing! An hour later, I hung it on the line – there was not a pencil mark in sight! Praise the Lord!

Sometimes I look at the binding fabric and wonder if I made the right choice. It’s a green and beige stripe; I think it’s a Debbie Mumm fabric. The green is very similar to the greens in the quilt but, because the beige stripe and the green stripe are the same width, from a distance it reads as a muddy light khaki colour!  Up close it looks fine but from further away: well, I’m not so sure. However, it’s done and I’m not going to change it – mostly because I didn’t have any other more suitable fabric here to use! The photo shows my first quilting of a curved line using my walking foot and following a pattern.

 

So, may I present K.’s finished quilt (remember, I didn’t make it; I only quilted the border, bound it and washed it). Unfortunately, the colours are a bit washed out -- the photo above shows the real intensity of the colours.

But wait, there’s more…

Yesterday afternoon, I joined the pre-cut binding strips and attached the binding to my Jacob’s Ladder Goes Barn Raising quilt. Last night, as mum and WM watched the football (rugby league), I sewed the binding down. This afternoon I sewed down the two sides of the label that weren’t held down by the binding.

So, for your further viewing pleasure, may I present another finish:

 

And in knitting news (drum roll please!)…

Last December I started knitting a bear for my great-niece at the request of my niece who bought the pattern and sent it to me. It was a very fiddly knit; lots of teeny-tiny pieces. When I pulled it out last week, I could not figure out where I was up to so decided to start at the beginning of the pattern and put all those little pieces together as directed (I had knitted them on a long train journey and didn’t have the things I needed to sew it together at the time). The head (seen left of photo ) seemed way too big for the body but I proceeded anyway!

Surprisingly, it came together much better than I thought it would. I sat in the hairdresser's shop last Friday morning (20 March) waiting for mum to have her hair set and worked on the legless bear  and left home (for the wedding) last Friday with a bear that just needed some final adjustments. On Saturday, by the time we needed to have lunch and get ready for the wedding, I had got it to the point where I had to add only one more eye and some paw prints on one foot. I procrastinated on that second eye for a couple of days – I really dislike embroidering faces on knitted toys – if the eyes are wrong the whole thing is wrong! the pattern called for buttons but I don’t sew buttons on toys for two-year-old children I prayed and took courage – and it turned out much better than I’d even dared hope! I am very, very pleased with how this turned out!

The greatest compliment came when my niece said “it’s Charley Bear” and my sister came to have a look. She almost reeled in shock when she realised I had knitted it! Charley Bear is a TV character for under-fours. Here’s a clip for those not familiar with the show (I have grandsons so I’ve seen it many times).

I’m hoping to see another quilted finish and another knitted finish before next weekend! Hey, when you’re on a roll … LOL

blocking is not for the faint hearted

Imagine a rectangle 102cm x 96cm.

Now think about 126 round-headed pins. Yes, that's right, one-hundred-and-twenty-six!

That’s how many pins I used to block my Blanket for Emily.

It’s knitted in 10ply (Aran-weight) Fiddle-De-Dee by Cleckheaton; a sadly-discontinued line of 100%cotton which is both machine-washable and machine dryable.

Because the blanket was knitted in cotton, I needed less pins than if it had been knitted in wool.

I could get away with one pin in each of those scallops because cotton doesn't have “memory” like wool does. Once stretched, it’s stretched. Wool bounces back to it’s original shape (if not stretched too far). Items knitted of wool may need blocking again after a few washes if they were not severely blocked the first time. Cotton, on the other hand, stays stretched.

As I was saying, this is a good thing.

Good because I needed less pins to block it and was therefore on my hands and knees for a lot less time than I might have been!

Good because my niece can wash and dry this many times and it should retain its shape (unless she stretches it more (by hanging by clothes pegs or some such)!

Good because this particular cotton can be dried in the machine which, in the weather we’ve been having, is almost the only way to get the washing dry!

I love the way that blocking evens out the puckering that occurs while doing entrelac in stocking stitch.

So, may I present another finish for June? A blanket for Emily (details on Ravelry). The photo was taken while the blanket was still blocking (and before the ends were sewn in) inside on a very wet winter’s day without flash because that washed-out the colour. The lights were on which, of course, gives a yellow cast to the photo. The yellow is more lemon than the photo shows but I couldn’t get the right tones by editing.

The ends have been sewn in now but you don’t need another photo, do you?

Five finishes this month! I hope I can keep this up for the rest of the year next month’s 2013: Year of the Finished Object challenge.

knitting books

Welcome to my four new followers! If you came in from "Grow Your Blog", here's my "this is me" post. Thanks for dropping by.

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I received only one stitching-related book for Christmas. It is The Knitter’s Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters: Basic Designs in Multiple Sizes and Gauges, by Ann Budd.

There are several patterns in the book I like. I have only shown you details of the patterns but I have provided links to the garments where I could. If you are not a member of Ravelry, I apologise that you can’t access some of these links.

Alpine Tweed By Jared Flood (from his website)

Fibonacci Rings by Ann Budd (Ravelry link)

Cable Love Henley by Ann Budd (or here for Ravelry link)

India Print Henley by Anne Hanson (modelled here by my blog friend Jocelyn, from Knitting Linguist)

Feather and Fan Flare by Ann Budd (Ravelry link)

I don’t know if I would wear either of the first two, I am too well endowed to want to draw attention to my bust area (says she whose Westall cardigan has lace panels you-know-where) but I certainly can admire the designs.

DD borrowed French Girl Knits (by Kristeen Griffin-Grimes) from the library. I have fallen for a couple of the patterns, particularly Anjou and Celeste.

 

Have you seen any new-to-you stitching books lately?

drum roll please!

I have some finished objects to share with you.

The first is a Christmas present for our grandsons. Their grandad, my WM, is a keen gardener and Older Grandson particularly loves helping with the watering so I thought this “I Spy” book would be fun for them. Cloth books are appropriate because Younger Grandson still chews things and cloth books are more forgiving than cardboard!

I have a part-finish: today I completed the backing for the Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt. I plan to get this basted in class next Monday and quilted next week; that will mean another Christmas present done and dusted!

And now for the biggie!

Drum roll please!

After twelve months of on-and-off knitting, hundreds of ends to secure, 5.50 metres (220 inches – a little over 18 feet) of i-cord to knit and attach, my intarsia blanket is finally done!

Specifications

• Dimensions:  1.0 metre x 1.75 metre (40” x 70”)
• Yarn: 8ply (DK) acrylics
• Needles: 3.50mm (US 4)

Here are some close-ups of the striping pattern (which I love) and the multi-coloured i-cord.

Last week, I posted about my current WiPs. Here’s the list:

1. Christmas Angel – almost finished
2. Cloth Book – finished
3. Christmas Tree Embroidery #3 – a small amount of progress
4. Baby Blanket – at least 40 rows knitted; I am working on the seventh 32-row repeat (I’m not sure if I’ll need 10 or 11 repeats)
5. Very Hungry Caterpillar Quilt – backing finished today
6. Intarsia Blanket – finished
7. scrappy blocks – 16 blocks made: there will be a post about these on Sunday

At last, I’m making some progress!
ETA linking up Thank Goodness it's Finished Friday

happy mail day

Yesterday an unexpected parcel arrived in the post. I was very curious when I recognised the name of the sender; why was I receiving a parcel from her? I hadn't entered any "soft and smooshy" give-away that I could remember.

Had she decided to contribute to the donations for Australian Inland Mission (one of the April Charities of the Month over at Knit4Charities)? That didn’t seem likely so I hurriedly opened the packet and read the enclosed letter.

Here’s what I received:

Thanks, Anorina, I love it – all the more because it was totally unexpected!

It’s almost too pretty to stick pins in!

reality check

It's my own fault really. Not understanding the technology, I shouldn't have assumed; I should have checked the list of devices that I could use to read ebooks from my local library.

Kindle, my Christmas gift from my husband, is not one of them!

The Book Depository, my favourite online bookstore (because it has free shipping to Australia), also does not sell ebooks that can be read on Kindle.

I rarely buy books - the exceptions to this are gifts and craft books: I prefer those in printed versions so I can look at them over and over, in colour. Yes, I got one craft ebook for Christmas - I read that on my PC because the screen is larger so I could see the images in full colour but I would have preferred a "real" edition! (BTW, I'm not being ungrateful - I chose all four of those Christmas gifts myself and the ebook was the only format I could get of that particular book)

I had pictured being able to carry several books when I travel without the bulk of actual books. But I never planned on buying them: that's what my library membership is for, especially now I can download both audio books and ebooks (without leaving home).


So, what will I do with my Kindle?

Happy 75th Birthday Mum

Some of you may have thought that I have been a bit quiet on the Textured Knitting front lately but I was working in stealth. Sometimes my mother reads my blog.

Last week was mum's 75th birthday and this was my gift:

It was knitted in Bendigo Rustic [colour Aran!] 8ply and I used a little over three 200g balls. It was started on Wednesday 21st April but some days no knitting was done - days when I just couldn't face the cable needle again. There are a lot of cables in that jumper, believe me! Two trees of life on the front and back plus two on each sleeve.

Moss [seed] stitch diamond panels on all four pieces plus the lobster claw cables.

Phew - textured knitting indeed.

I started it in the round but then realised I would have to knit back and forth above the armholes. I decided to knit the sleeves flat because I figured I could seam it more easily that way. Remember the child's sweater that found its way to the frogpond? It was the trial version for mum's jumper. Was the child's version worth knitting? Well, I did do short row shaping and a three-needle bind-off for the shoulders so some of the lessons I learnt were applied. Also the lesson of not adding the sleeves one row to one stitch was carried through! [And that child's sweater was almost finished on the trip home so you'll be seeing it here fairly soon!]

The knitting was finished on 31st May. It sat for a few days while I waited for some dry weather to block it [that never happened; it rained all week]. While I waited to block, I contemplated it - I thought the neckline was wrong but DD tried it on and it looked okay. On the eight-and-a-half-hour trip to my parents' place, I seamed it and sewed in all the ends. Mum never blocks her knitting so she wouldn't notice but I sure can so please don't look too closely!!! I wasn't happy, something was niggling away at my brain, but I couldn't put my finger on the problem.

Mum loved the jumper [sweater]. She was so excited! As soon as mum tried it on I saw it - the neckline was too low in the front and way too high in the back! But no-one would let me take it apart to fix it!! :-(

So mum has the jumper and I have the pain of knowing it's not right!! She'll wear it one cold day and find it uncomfortable and, because we live so far apart and she thinks I'll never know, she'll never wear it again. Or, worse still, she'll try to take it apart and correct it herself! I hope not because I've used techniques [three needle bind off, knitting in the round, mattress stitch] that she's never heard of let alone used!

Superficially the jumper looks great and mum is really happy. Just remind me to get my hands on that neckline next time I visit them!!

Happy birthday mum!

Clapotis

[edited 30 September to add photo]

Well, I've succumbed. I know I'm not the last person in the knitting world to cast on for Clapotis, but am I the last in blogland?

Anyway, I'm making 'that wrap' for a friend's 50th birthday present. Lion and Lamb was out of my budget for gifts, as was Merino et Soie. I settled on a beautiful handpainted 8ply NZ wool yarn from the Montage Collection, colourway 'Lavender'. I really liked another colourway called 'Copper' but it had a lot of orange in it, and orange is one of those colours you either love or hate, and I can't recall seeing my friend wear orange in the 27 years I've known her. The purple/blue/maroon combination of lavender is a lot safer - if she doesn't like it she can always give it back to me and I'll give her the money!

Here is one unballed 200g and one already balled - unfortunately it's not a centre pull ball! It's so difficult to take photos of purple! The red in this photo heads more towards purple than the red-brown shown in this photo.

I've joined a small Clapotis KAL [with Georgie, Tinkingbell and RoseRed] just for fun; it'll be good to share the experience with others.