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.

Piecing in Knitterlandlessons learnt

 

1. Just because you're piecing scraps doesn't mean the 'rules' don't apply!
2. Don't stretch the fabric while sewing and/or pressing.
3. Press, don't iron!
4. It's better to square the work up as you go, not wait until the piece is the finished size.
5. It's better to press the work thoroughly - from the front as well as the back - before squaring up.
6. Seams need to be the same width, not fluctuate widely (in the same seam).
7. Beware the curving of seams as you come to the end of the seam, especially when piecing longer strips.
8. Working with the grain of the fabric instead of pulling against it will result in less curved seams!
9. Stitching small pieces of scraps together ad hoc (and pressing each seam) takes just as long (possibly longer) as if you'd cut the pieces deliberately!
10. Two small pieces the same width can create funny angles when sewn together if care is not taken to match edges carefully and keep the seam straight!
11. Any piece with a non-square end, will not be square when attached to another piece. This is okay, if you don't mind weird angles.
12. Small pieces less than one inch wide are liable to disappear when seams are sewn.
13. It's probably better to cut all those thread ends as you go rather than wait till the project is done.
14. A small project, only 18 inches wide and 24 inches long, made from dozens of small pieces has many seams and therefore takes much longer than you anticipate!

close up detail from lower left side

A good project for learning some valuable lessons and a useful top created. Now I just need to wash the flannelette fabric I bought today for the backing (no wadding on this one).

Knitting is a learning process

Even when one has been knitting forever, one can still learn something! Like:

• It's possible to create 'ladders' using circulars. How you may well ask? I wish I knew!!


• Finishing the top of a hat at 24 stitches then threading the yarn through the stitches and pulling tight gives one of two results: either there is a small hole at the centre of the hat or the hat puckers at the top. Neither of these is ideal when making berets!!


• Patterned fabrics - e,g, lace, eyelets, etc. - may hide a multitude of sins: like my uneven tension!


• Even though the finished size of an object doesn't matter because it's going to charity and it's bound to fit somebody, a gauge swatch is still a good idea!

And how did I learn all this? Yesterday, I cast on for a beret. I use size 3.5mm and 3.7mm needles with 8ply/DK yarn because I know I'm a 'loose' knitter. I knitted the band in K2, P2 rib on the smaller needles, then changed to the larger needles. The resulting fabric is too floppy, there are a couple of ladders [that were created by some unknown force], there are 'holes' where my tension is uneven and there's a hole [or puckering] at the crown.

The question is: to frog or not to frog? Now, as regular readers would know, I usually have no qualms about frogging; if I don't like it, I rip it out - right there and then, no questions asked!

I had such high hopes for this beret. It's knitted in two skeins of my hand-dyed yarn. The yarn is pretty and the beret was meant to be too! When it was 'finished' and I looked at it closely, I just felt sick to the pit of my stomach. I was totally depressed! Yet, I don't feel inclined to rip out this beret. So, I guess I'll leave it to sun itself beside the frogpond while I think about its fate!