mum’s blankets

Yes, I'm still here though I probably don't have many followers or readers left!

My life is full of crafting -- there are quilts to make and knitted blankets to complete.

Most of you would know that my mum, who has dementia, came to live with us in March. She can still remember how to do garter stitch but not how to cast on, cast off, change colour, count rows, or fix any problems that may arise during knitting (like dropped or split stitches). Therefore I have to do all those things for her. Consequently my days are filled with the usual household chores and attending to her needs for food, drink and entertainment (largely knitting) while also trying to make some quilts myself (more about that in another post but don't' hold your breath!) 

Afternoons, when WM is home from work, are filled with gardening (oh, you want to hear about that too, do you? Again, don't hold your breath). We are slowly turning what used to be a jungle into a cottage garden on one side of the house and a native garden on the other side -- closer to the bush. Gardening is both our shared time and our therapy time. 

Evenings, after dinner, are mostly spent in front of the television with WM and mum, while joining together the strips that mum knits,. Man! she can turn them out faster than I can turn them into blankets! I had to stop knitting borders in short rows of six to ten stitches, all that turning of a heavy blanket was slowing me down too much so I had to teach myself how to make mitred corners so I could knit the borders long-wise. None of those blankets are in these pictures – you’ll have to wait for the next time I write about blankets to see those!

In this post (written in July, I can hardly believe it), I showed you the first of mum's two blankets. The first was knitted in squares which I had to sew together (Never again, I like hand-sewing but joining squares that are not square is painful!) The second blanket was made of strips that went crosswise on the blanket.

The third blanket was also knitted crosswise but this one, unlike the previous, was knitted in cool colours in left over yarns from other projects.

   

By the time we got to the fourth blanket, I pushed it a little harder and managed to get longer strips – but not quite long enough to make a full length blanket so, no only did I have to knit the strips together, I also had to knit other strips on each end to get the blanket to a reasonable length.

By now, mum was on a roll with the knitting and seemed to be progressing quite comfortably with longer strips so I had her knit strips that are fifty stitches wide by 300 garter ridges long (in 8ply/DK acrylic – wool would be too heavy on metal straight needles; she doesn’t understand how to use circulars which she used to handle quite easily). And thus we have blankets #5 and #6.  (I know, they look like the same blanket but they’re not; they are, however, made from the same yarns).

Blanket #7 is on the floor on one side of my knitting chair. Blanket #8 is on the table between my chair and WM’s chair. Blanket #9 is in progress but we’re back to crosswise strips. I bought a different brand of yarn and, although it is still ostensibly 8ply acrylic, it is much thicker and harsher to work with than the yarn in the previous three blankets. Thinking of the weight on mum’s wrists on those stiff metal straight needles, I have reverted to crosswise strips; of which five are needed – strips #3 and #4 are on the needles at the moment (she always has two strips in progress so she can be knitting one while she waits for me to deal with the other).

 

As you can see, there is no time for my own personal knitting. I have knitted one sock in eight months – yes, one sock; not one pair, one sock!

 

But it’s still knitting and some (unknown) people will be blessed by the blankets which WM works to buy the yarn and mum and I craft in a joint project.

 

See you sometime with my works in progress! And in the meantime, may your stitching bring you joy.

Something Old, Something New – February edition

If you are visiting this challenge for the first time, welcome;
you can read more about the basic idea on this page
and/or you can click on the link to read the January edition.

Here we are in February. I don’t know about you but January just seemed to fly by. Summer holidays are over (although summer isn’t) – the kids are back in school and most of my activities start up again this week.

I didn’t achieve as much as I hoped during January; the reading bug bit and I spent more time reading than crafting.

One thing I’m already appreciating about the Something Old, Something New challenge is that, because there are only two "set" projects a month, it’s completely doable yet keeps me moving forward.

So, firstly a review of January’s goals:

For the “old” part of the challenge, I aimed to complete a flimsy from 48 crumb blocks I had made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2011 and 2012. In January, I wrote a post about my process; here’s the flimsy:

I love it! It turned out much better than it looked like it was going to. Working with other people’s scraps (as I often do) can be a big challenge but this one came together really well.

For the “new” part of Something Old, Something New, I decided to learn how to do shadow (aka illusion) knitting. This is a relatively easy technique which can have spectacular results.

My first attempt was less than spectacular and getting a good photo was more of a challenge than the actual knitting.

Here is what looks like a striped piece of knitting:

and here is the checkerboard shadow/illusion

 Pretty amazing, isn’t it?

However, it became very obvious to me when I was about halfway through this piece that smaller needles than usual were required to obtain a good result; otherwise  the areas of stocking stitch (stockinette) are too obvious and break up the illusion in the pattern.

I used 8ply (DK) weight yarn on 4mm needles. Since I have a very loose tension, I need to use smaller needles than that to get gauge at any time – why that didn’t occur to me before starting this sample I don’t know! I’m not teaching this workshop until July, so I have learned something to be sure to tell my students and I still have several months to improve my own technique!

Now, onto February’s challenge:

By the ‘rules’ I set for myself (you can create guidelines that work for you), my “old” project has to be something I have not worked on in more than three months.

I began my Country Houses quilt in 2011 and worked on it through the year.  I originally intended it for a single (twin) bed but it’s much too big for that so I’ve been trying to make it fit my queen size bed (which is where it was photographed and you can see it’s way too long and too narrow -- two rows have since been removed). It occurred to me recently that I could just turn it into a wall hanging and hang it opposite the front door. Now I’m not sure what I want to do with it but I know I want to get it out of my UFO pile!

Therefore my “old” project will be to take Country Houses at least to binding stage!

My “new” challenge will begin in the class I attend at my LQS: we decided last year that we would be working on the technique of foundation (paper) piecing. Because I have not done any, I have nothing to show you of my own but I’d like to try this block designed by my friend, Cindy, at Tops to Treasures. The link is to Cindy’s tutorial for making this block.

So how about you?

Did you work on an old project in January and/or learn a new technique?

Do you have an old project you will be working on in February?

Will you be learning a new technique in your chosen craft or starting a new project?

Link here with the URL of your blog post so we can all visit and see how you went in January and what you have planned for February.

2013: The Year of the Finished Project – October edition

During September I came to realise two things: one about me, one about my lack of fore-thought!

Firstly, I am addicted to my iPad. Seriously! If I pick it up in the morning and start using it, I can still be on it when WM comes home at 2:30pm. Whole days have been spent (wasted?) browsing the internet, reading blogs, reading emails (and not even in answering them, sorry) and playing games like FreeCell, Spider Solitaire and Jumbline 2: Star Tower. I will now no longer allow myself to turn my iPad on until after lunch. Hopefully, by then, I will have started on some crafting project, and be keen to get back to it!

As for my lack of fore-thought: I have come to realise that it is a very good idea to check the calendar before deciding on how many projects can reasonably be completed in the month! This may sound obvious but I have gotten into such a habit of listing six or seven items that I just didn’t think about my schedule in combination with how much work needed to be done to complete each project!

I didn’t allow for the fact that I would be gone for one weekend teaching at The Knitters’ Guild of NSW biennial camp. I didn't allow for the fact that one of the two classes I was asked to teach needed a great deal of preparation time in writing notes, preparing patterns, knitting samples, etc. In fact, all the preparation, knitting and so forth, swallowed up most of a week!

I didn’t allow for the fact that we had a Conference at church for the last five days of September or for the fact that we would be billeting people for those five days. Preparation for those visitors in terms of making the spare bedroom habitable (we have been de-cluttering!) took more time than expected!

Basically, I really only had about fifteen days of “normal” life during September and all of the projects I listed for the month needed a great deal of work on them to bring them to completion. I did have the sense to realise that number seven wasn’t possible so took that off my list in the first couple of days.

Here is my September list and how I fared in my progress towards finishing:

1. Scrappy Log Cabin quilt (50” x 60”) – goal: quilting and binding
   – finished 4 September (see this post)
   
2. Westall cardigan, aka as “Cardigan for Me” – goal: get it done and on my back
   – I didn’t get it finished but I did pick up the stitches for the first sleeve, and knitted the sleeve cap twice. I wasn’t happy with my short rows (they looked very messy) so I did it all again. Eventually I got the sleeve done to the elbow where the lace pattern begins. This requires concentration so I didn’t get any further!
   
3. Scrappy Heart blocks – goal: enlarge all thirty and turn them into a flimsy
   – I didn’t get all thirty blocks enlarged, I have done a total of twelve, nine in September and three in August
   (show in the two pictures below)
   
4. Country Houses quilt – goal: get it off the shelf and on to our bed
   – this project wasn’t touched; I never remembered to measure it for the amount of wadding I needed! I only ever remembered when I was already in my LQS for classes!
   
5. Gift of Hope quilt #2 (24” square) – goal: backing, quilting and binding
   – finished 19 September (see this post)
   
6. Purple Cocoon Socks – goal: just get them done, they've been on the needles too long!
   – I finished the first sock on 19 September and cast the second one on at Camp on 20th September; I also knitted on the way to Conference one day but was too tired the other two mornings (the fourth morning I had to drive myself and have not yet mastered the art of knitting and driving at the same time!). I am almost at the heel of the (toe up)socks; I am still finding using the shorter needles of 40cm (16”) circulars quite clumsy – I much prefer dpns!
   
7. turn another set of blocks from the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012 into a flimsy – unrealistic and removed from list!

So that was September – not too bad considering my lack of time!

Now for October. Let’s see, I have not had any crafting time in the first three days and have my grandsons here from tomorrow night until at least next Thursday so there’ll be no crafting during that week. That leaves me about 21 days of “normal” life. Realistically:

1. Scrappy Hearts quilt – finish enlarging blocks, make flimsy, make backing, baste, quilt and bind!
2. Country Houses quilt – get it off the shelf and onto our bed!
3. Purple Cocoon Socks – to be finished
4. Westall Cardigan – sleeves to be finished
5. turn another set of blocks from the 2012 Rainbow Scrap Challenge into a flimsy

That seems reasonable for the amount of time I have.

What about you?
How did you go in September? Did you learn anything about yourself along the way?
What are your plans for getting those UFOs done in October?

Please link up with the URL of your specific blog post. Thanks for joining the party. Don’t forget to visit some of the other people who have joined in and leave a comment on their blog.

a blanket for Emily

If you’re looking for the May post for 2013: The Year of the Finished Project, it’s over here.

As you may know from this post, my eldest niece (my sister’s eldest daughter) had her first baby on 23 April. Being just two days before my own birthday, you could say she was an early birthday present.

This is the same baby I made the Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt for (because it is her mama’s favourite childhood story).

But I’ve gone a little less bright and a little more “pretty” for her baby blanket.

I didn’t start the blanket until the day after she was born, and then I ripped it out (too wide and wrong colour combination) and started again two days later. It’s not that I didn’t know she was coming, of course. It’s just that I didn’t know she would be a girl (although I had a feeling she might be!)

I was also being true to my own rules – no new knitting projects until others were finished – but a new baby is exceptional! They don’t come along in my family every day!

I have not been in the mood for knitting between saying goodbye to DD and the Grandsons, being sick, and working over at the “renovator’s delight” (henceforth known as “RD” -- there will be a post soon, I promise)!

But there’s nothing like a new baby to bring out all those craft-y tendencies!

I looked through my stash and decided to use up my Fiddle De Dee cotton (by Cleckheaton, sadly discontinued) because it’s a heavier weight (10ply/Aran/worsted) than the other cotton in my stash (we’re coming in to winter) and, more importantly, it’s machine washable and dryable! I don’t know that my niece knows such a thing as hand-washing exists! It knits up very softly although, being cotton, is quite hard on the hands when knitting for extended periods. I only had small amounts of each of four colour-ways, three skeins (150g) of lemon, and six skeins (300g) each of mint, a lemon/blue/white variegated yarn and an lemon/mint/pink/white variegated yarn.

The right combination and the right pattern were going to be important so an entrelac blanket it must be (hi Cindy! LOL). My first choice was to use the two variegated yarns but I didn’t like the combination so I settled on the mint and pink variation (of course! LOL)

Anyway, I hope to see Emily next weekend and wish her mama “happy mother’s day” for the first time. But I doubt I’ll have the blanket finished. This is where I was up to on Saturday afternoon; I’ve done part of the next tier since then!.

(Thanks Diane for the photo taken by iPhone during our workshop on Saturday)

If I had time to knit all day I might have got it done …

But there’s no way that was going to happen!

It will be sweet when it is, don't you think?

Linking up with Barbara at Cat Patches for the New FO challenge (on the last possible day!).

works in progress (or not)

Warning: poor quality photos – I had to use my iPad because my camera batteries were all flat!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the beginning of December, I published a list of my December WiPs. It looked like this:

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt
2. Christmas Tree wall-hanging
3. Cardigan for Me
4. Deb’s Diamond Blanket
5. Merlot Toe Up Sock
6. hexagon project bag
7. Scrappy Rainbow improv quilt

Then came the fiasco which was my packing of craft activities for my week away.

But I did manage to finish the second Merlot Toe Up Sock while I was away. Not having my basic knitting tools with me meant that I had to wait to sew the ends in till I came home!

I also mentioned that I took my appliqué heart blocks away with me instead of the hexagon project bag that was on my original WiP list. With stitching time on the train, at embroidery class last week and sewing class this week, I have managed to finish the appliqué on the last few blocks (three of which are shown here).

The ten-hour travel time also gave me a chance to think about the setting of these blocks. I am going to try setting them alternately with the four patch blocks I have made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and use the Rainbow String blocks for a piano-key-style border. Well that's the theory anyway!

An incredibly busy and tiring week followed my return home – I am so tired that I don’t have the energy for most craft activities and so fall back to my good old stand-by: knitting.

I have done a little on the right front of my cardigan.

But this lace pattern, as easy as it is to memorise, requires concentration. I can’t knit it when there are people around!

And so, I have been working on the Drop Stitch Scarf I started while away. I don't really have to think, except to count the yarn overs in one row out of four.

The scarf is progressing quite quickly considering my lack of enthusiasm for this project – the acrylic yarn is not pleasant to work with!

And so my list now looks like this:

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt (no progress)
2. Christmas Tree wall-hanging (today’s project)
3. Cardigan for Me (some progress)
4. Deb’s Diamond Blanket replaced with Purple Dropped Stitch Scarf (much progress)
5. Merlot Toe Up Sock (finished)
6. hexagon project bag replaced with appliqué blocks (finished)
7. Scrappy Rainbow improv quilt replaced with Scrappy Rainbow “hearts and four-patch” quilt

Just as well I realised at the beginning of the month that there was no way I was going to get all these finished by the end of the month. The list was supposed to focus my activities and, despite my swapping some projects for others, I have managed to stay focused and achieve some progress. At least I swapped and didn’t just add to the list – six or seven is the limit; after that I become overwhelmed!

getting organised on <s>paper</s> tablet

I have so many stitching projects "in progress" (read "started but going nowhere") that I have been feeling overwhelmed which leads to the easy option - fall back on the knitting and concentrate on one project! In this post in June and in this post in July, I listed many (but not all) of my WIPs. However, just knowing how many projects I had on the go wasn't helping me get moving on most of them any more than focusing on just one knitting project will see my sewing completed!

Privately, I tried listing all the things I needed to do to bring some of the projects to completion but that, as you can probably imagine, just made things even more overwhelming. Then, in the first hours of daylight last Thursday morning the solution came to me. What if I list each project and just the next task that needs to be done on that project? I could cope with just one thing, the next thing, couldn't I?

After trying my notebook app (which I love for taking notes and storing PDF files), a couple of spread-sheets and  the built in reminder app on my iPad, and rejecting databases as too complicated, I decided to type "lists" into the search box in the App Store. I found lots of interesting things, and even tried a couple but the app I have finally settled on is simply called "Errands" and, so far, it does what I need it to do.

It's a full application, not a lite version (another app I tried would only let me list 30 items in total). With this app, I was able to list more than 30 items which I chose to put in two folders -- "works in progress" (meaning I had done something towards starting the project beyond planning) and "projects to go" which are projects I hope/plan to start soon.

The app had a place for me to write the name of the project and some details if needed. I was able to assign  it a high, medium or low priority, and where necessary, set the date (and time) for its completion.

Then I was able to sort my projects according to priority, due date or just list them in alphabetical order (as seen here).

Or I could manually sort them according to my own personal criteria.

I could put a little star to tell me which projects I want to focus on and even have the app put an auto-star on the project for me (I have set mine to add the task/project to the focus tasks fourteen days before the due date but there are other choices). This then feeds into a folder called “focus” which is just what I need – something to help me focus on one task (not project) at a time. How can I not see what I need to be working on when it’s this clear?

I spent an hour or so on Friday morning setting due dates for my projects – this will help as they get closer and the app sorts them for me! Items like donation blankets and warm clothing don't need to be finished until the end of April. Likewise, all the quilts for Caring Hearts Community Quilting Group need to be ready to go by the end of March.

Each task can even have its own checklist within the notes section. Here are my notes for my Christmas Tree embroidery #2. These are the two thinks I need to do to complete this embroidery.

If I wanted to, I could have an alarm to alert me to the fact that a task is now due -- and there is a large choice of different alarm sounds! I could even choose what time I wanted to receive that alert!

The app has a logbook which records when tasks have been completed so I can look back and see how much I have achieved (or not) in a given time period! As you can see, when I took this photo I had only completed one task, and that was on Thursday afternoon – but give me a break, I only found the app and installed it on Thursday afternoon!

And the logbook tasks can be used to create another task for the same project. So, for example, I write that my next task is to cut and iron the binding for an I Spy quilt. I complete the task and check the box. I can then copy that project to a new task in the folder of my choice and change the task to machine-sew the binding to the quilt and set up a new set of time limits and priorities (if I want to).

I admit that it did take me quite a few hours to try different many ways of recording the projects I have underway and the next task needed for each of them but that was because I tried many different ways until I found the right app for me. This sounds like time-wasting but in the end, it should save me time. I like this kind of organisation – it helps me to see clearly what I need to focus on!

The only thing I would change about this app is I would love to be able to assign a different date to the next task and the due date for completion of the project. But this is not what the app is designed for so I’m asking a lot!

The app is very easy to use and the set up is so clear. The left side of the screen lists the folders available and the right side of the screen shows the contents (in my case, individual projects or tasks) in each or all of the folders. At the time this photo was taken, I had the “works in progress” folder open.

All in all, I'm very happy with the app so far (at the time of writing this post I had only been using it for about 24 hours). I'm not sure that David Mandell, the app writer, had craft projects in mind when he wrote the app but it's a comprehensive way to keep track of what has been done and what needs to be done and when! Best of all, it's a full app for free!

Thanks, David! I really appreciate your expertise. I, for one, would have no idea how to go about writing an app!

Ssshhh!

It's coming along! [Knitpicks Harmony circulars included for scale]



Because I think readers are becoming bored with the one topic of conversation knitting around here I have posted a special progress report in the sidebar.

We're back! & there's been some progress

We're back from our trip to Bingara via Nundle. There's a separate [photo heavy] post [comong] about Nundle so I'll just tell you about Bingara and my knitting & crocheting progress.

It was very warm for this time of year [over 30*C/86*F]. The sun shone every day which I thought was wonderful. I spent my time knitting, crocheting, reading [Down Under by Bill Bryson] and, of course, talking to my parents. WM and DD worked around my parents house and yard. At the end of three days, a new fascia board had replaced the old one on the front of the garage, a small area had been levelled and paved and now houses pot plants, the evaporative air-conditioning unit had been cleaned, disinfected and turned on [I told you it was warm], rampant ivy and a rogue climbing rose had been ripped out, a quarter of an acre of grass had been mowed [they usually pay someone to do it but the guy's father was going into hospital in Newcastle - a few hundred kilometres away - so he wasn't going to be around for a couple of weeks] and garden beds had been weeded. Busy, weren't they? I helped with some of it but preferred to spend my time with my parents and my knitting! Having two frozen shoulders can be a good excuse!! LOL

So, what progress has been made? The second sock was started on 1st October [my first goal for Southern Summer of Socks] and is now down to the heel turning. The baby's blanket has gone from 30% knitted to 70% knitted. I had four crocheted squares when I left home, now I have ten - or about 30% of a blanket. No photos because, in themselves, there is really not much to see.

Friday was dad's 80th birthday and we took him to the local RSL club for dinner. The dining room isn't much to look at - just a few laminated tables and plastic chairs - but the size of the meals was enormous and the food was well cooked. The calamari we had for entree was the most tender I've ever had and the grilled barramundi I had for the main course was really nice too [not overcooked and dried out like some grilled fish can be]. I was pleasantly surprised because I didn't know what to expect and my parents hadn't eaten there in over ten years so they didn't know either! If you're ever in Bingara, I can highly recommend the food at the RSL - it's not flash, not nouveau cuisine, just simple, straight-forward, honest-to-goodness food with huge servings. It's not all seafood either; DD had Hawaiian chicken schnitzel which she said was very nice.