plenty of sewing time

Just popping in with a short post …

Mum is doing well; she has improved physically in the week she has been here which is a good sign. She is no longer stooped and shuffling; being undernourished will do that to you! Instead, she is eating very well and has regained her usual stride. Yesterday she even worked out in the garden with WM for a couple of hours.

Her biggest interest is reading and she spends hours absorbed in books. This frees me up to be in the sewing room so I am getting quite a bit done.

A couple of weeks ago, my quilting teacher donated a partially completed quilt to Caring Hearts Community Quilters – all I had to do was finish the quilting, make binding, attach it and sew it down. I have done all but the last task, so no photos until I show you the finished project!

My Jacob’s Ladder Goes Barn Raising is quilted. Life is so much easier when I think about the quilting before I pin baste; then I can position the pins out of the way of stitching lines. The quilting was done in no time but it seemed to take almost as long to sew in all the ends! You can’t see it here (because the photo is pre-quilting); I sewed diagonal lines about 5” apart through the centres of the squares that make up the diagonals.


The binding is cut and waiting for the strips to be joined.


I have also been knitting! Shock of shocks!!

In the past three days, I have worked on Crinkles Hoodie by doing a three needle bind off on the shoulders and starting the first sleeve (the photo, which is of the back, is really not worth showing but I know you like pictures! LOL)


Last December, I started knitting Charley Bear for my great-niece who will be two next month; I began on the train on 16 December and haven’t touched it since. On Monday, I stuffed the body and head. I am so not enjoying this! There are so many fiddly little pieces to come, of the type: CO 4 stitches, K 2 rows, increase either end of next row, knit 1 row. Bind off! I have no desire to be a toy maker! The head is on the left; it seems proportionally too large for the body!


And I’ve finished a pair of small women’s socks which were started on 21 February. The second sock was cast on 6 March.


My current reading is varied, but includes 100 Days of Real Food by Lisa Leake. She started a blog a few years ago and it led to a book! Our copy only arrived yesterday so I’m not really in a position to write a review just yet. It certainly is an interesting read.

There are some advantages to having had to cut back on my away-from-home activities, at least for a few weeks! ;-)

Linking up with WiP Wednesday and Yarn Along when they go live.
         


PS Is anyone else having trouble with Firefox working very slowly or is just us?

saying goodbye to pink

It hasn’t been a very productive month, sewing-wise, for me. In the middle of the month, my uncle, who has been researching my paternal family for many years, sent me some information from a distant relative that neither of us has met. At first I only glanced at it, then I decided to read it, then I compared it to the information I had in my family tree. I was hooked! I spent all my days working on my family history – refining and adding. I’m an “all or nothing” kind of gal; when I get involved in something I don’t do it by halves; and so (almost) the rest of month passed without a stitch of sewing!

I did, however, do some knitting! Don’t fall down in shock! Last Saturday, I had to attend a meeting of the local branch of the Knitters’ Guild (I was tutoring on ‘planned pooling’) so knitting was needed! I cast on a sock during the meeting and finished on Friday afternoon. I don’t normally knit during daylight hours but I had dropped a couple of stitches and couldn’t see by the poor light in our living room to pick them up so I had to do it while the sun was shining! And, as luck would have it, the sock is knitted in Moda Vera Noir (a sock yarn) in the colour way “pink mix”!

 

I say “luck” because pink was the colour for this month’s the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. At four o’clock yesterday afternoon, I settled into my sewing room. I had told myself that I would spend an hour cutting and sorting but that just depressed me – after two weeks away from my sewing room (I didn't even attend class last Monday because I had a raging headache) I just wanted to sew. Knowing that it was the last day of ‘pink’, I decided to use my pink crumbs and have some fun. I started out with the intention of making 4.5”  squares and just started sewing crumbs of roughly the same length (on one edge) together. Then I sewed those pairs to other pairs and, in the end, decided I would just sew them together “free-form style” (a knitting term; I guess it’s just a form of crazy patchwork!). I deliberately cut things on strange angles – nothing mattered to me except stitching straight lines (so everything would lay flat at the end) and making sure I had a minimum of a quarter inch seam allowance (some seams are a bit wider wider)!

I finished with a rectangular piece of fabric (15” x 9.5”) that is made up of about 70 pieces of fabric! It will go on the back of a quilt – at least that’s the plan till I suss out the situation in my quilting group: will a truly modern quilt be acceptable? The next piece of ‘crazy’ patchwork will have even more odd angles – the ones I’ve cut here barely show in the finished piece! The bottom right side is looking really good! That’s what I was aiming for!

So it’s goodbye to pink sewing for now (I will knit the other sock – I don’t like Second Sock Syndrome! Besides, sometimes my tension/gauge changes if I leave too much time between the first and second sock).

Autumn began here today so I’d go for for red, brown, orange or yellow as the colour for March! But Angela, who hosts the challenge, lives in Florida and there’s no chance she’s thinking of Fall now! I’ve just checked…

…it’s yellow!

 

Are you participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge? Even if you’re not, why not pop over to Angela’s blog and see what other’s are up to with their pink scraps.

knitting progress and the Grab Bag Challenge

As is my usual custom, I sew during the day and knit in the evenings when WM and I watch television. I also got plenty of knitting time on two train trips in late September/early October – one of nine hours to collect DD and the Grandboys for the conference; the other (of eight hours) after spending a few days with DD and the Grandboys at the house my sister had rented for two weeks for her annual vacation.

I seem to be making fairly good progress – but that’s probably because I’m knitting relatively simple and smallish things in order to use up the yarn in my 'grab bags' as well as my two tubs of sock yarn!

Socks for Someone #5, started on 1 July, were finally finished (grafted and ends sewn in) on 9 September. They are made from Moda Vera Noir “Pink Mix” using my generic sock knitting pattern for women on 2.25 (US 1) double pointed needles. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have a photo of the finished socks.

Socks for Someone #6 were cast on 5 September and the knitting was finished 9 October. The grafting was done a few days later when I had time to do it during daylight hours. The yarn is Moda Vera Noir “Olive Mix”; pattern and needles as above. These socks were a bit on the small side so I will make the next pair slightly bigger.
 
Socks for Someone #7 were started on 10 October. I am knitting them in Moda Vera Noir, colour-way ‘Laguna’. I have not knitted this colour before and was looking forward to seeing how it knits up. Overall, it’s a lovely shade of green, more like the first photo than the second.
 

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Now, on to my Grab Bag Challenge – in which I grab a pre-packaged bag of yarn, find a pattern that works with that weight and amount of yarn and knit! Each of the “grab bags” contains smallish amounts of yarns that were donated to me. My challenge is that I have to use all (or close to it) of the yarn contained in the first bag I grab. I’m not allowed to read the labels or swap for another bag unless I don't have the appropriate needles available!

The first of the Grab Bag Challenges I have to show you is a shawl I have called “Taupe Buffalo”. This is because it was knitted in Lincoln Yarn Buffalo, colour-way Taupe. The “Lincoln Yarn Company” is now defunct as far as I can tell from my internet searches. The balls  of the yarn were labelled “1 oz” – the Australian wool industry has used the metric system since 1971 so that makes the yarn more than forty years old!

I managed to get eleven repeats of the pattern from the amount of yarn I had.

The original pattern, Springtime Bandit by Kate Gagnon Osborn (Ravelry link), had only four repeats of the pattern so mine is considerably larger, a great winter shawl for an average-sized woman. I didn’t have enough yarn to finish the edging as in the original pattern. I should have done one less repeat of the body pattern but misread the instructions – then didn't feel inclined to rip out the last twelve rows! It looks okay and the unknown recipient won’t know the difference – I’m sure the fact that it’s keeping her warm will be far more important!

My next Grab Bag Challenge project was a scarf which I called “Courtelle Garden”, because the yarn consisted of 63 grams of Patons Courtelle 5ply (sport) which is 100% acrylic but quite soft. It’s a pretty colour that cried out to be knitted into a light and lacy scarf. Thepattern for the Plymouth Vizions Garden Scarf by Nancy Queen (Ravelry link) seemed right for the job given that Vizions (by Plymouth Yarn) is predominately man-made, being 68% rayon, 3% nylon and 29% linen. Below is a detail photo; the photo of the whole scarf didn’t work!
 
This was followed by two more shawls, both knitted from a now-discontinued yarn bought long ago from K-Mart: a soft DK weight blend of 70% wool and 30% nylon, called “SportsKnit”.

The first was made from two balls of neutral colours using the Hippy Hippy Shawl pattern (Ravelry link) by Gabrielle Vézina on 4mm (US 6) needles. I had intended to use all four balls of yarn but realised that I didn’t need to; the shawl was quite big enough in just two balls. If I had known that at the beginning, I would have knitted this by changing colours after every two rows. As it is, I don’t like it so I think I’ll over-dye it. What do you think?
 
The second is made from cream and gorgeous blue yarns using the Zebre Striped Shawl pattern (Ravelry link) by Brenda Lavell. Unfortunately, I forgot to switch my needles to 5mm (US 8) before starting this shawl so the fabric does not drape as much as I would like. I finished knitting this shawl while I was holidaying at Scott's Head, with my sister, mother, niece, niece’s partner, nephew, DD and the Grandboys. (I didn't take any photos because I didn’t have a camera with me and my iPad didn't have enough storage space at the time)!

With both of these shawls, I just kept knitting till I ran out of yarn! Because they are ‘donation’ shawls, they will fit someone!

The next ‘grab bag’ I drew had 3 x 100g skeins of Panda Soft Crinkles, a now-discontinued 100% acrylic 12ply (bulky) yarn.

I decided to knit the Weekend Hoodie (Ravelry link), a free pattern from Lion Brand Yarn. It’s the first time I’ve knitted a sweater in pieces in a very long time! Ah well, it’ll give me a chance to practise mattress stitching the seams and three-needle bind off on the shoulders! One thing’s for sure, it is not a weekend project unless one knits all weekend and does nothing else. I’m knitting mine child size and only completed the back during the weekend with evening and travel knitting! The front took me another three evenings! I’m obviously a slow knitter! The crinkly yarn doesn’t do much for my tension either!

That’s it for my bi-monthly report. The good thing about knitting is that I can take it anywhere with me (unlike my sewing machine). Since WM and I will be away for most of the next two weeks, it’s very likely there’ll be quite a bit of knitting happening; especially given that we will be travelling over 1600 kilometres (1000 miles) while our dearest friends, visiting my mum, then DD and Family.

Tomorrow, WM and I are off on the first leg of our vacation at three different locations around the state. We are travelling by train to Kempsey where we will be met by our dear friend and transported to their acreage near the town of Bellbrook, population 356!

I’m off to pack; I need clothes, toiletries, books, iPad, chargers and stitch-related items: knitting -- Socks for Someone #7 and Crinkles Hoodie – and my Dutch Cap Hexies (English Paper Piecing); seen in this post (scroll down).

See you in November!

Home again!

We arrived to a cold, wet, miserable day in Sydney. Our train was 45 minutes late getting into the terminal but we didn't have too long to wait for a suburban train to take us home. MIL was waiting for us at the station which was lovely. We had lunch together then she left, WM went to get the cat from the boarding kennel and I unpacked! Isn't that the worst part of arriving home?

Last night WM and I worked on our travel blog (you can find it over here if you'd like to see some of our photos). We are one day away from having it completely finished!

I did work on my hexie project on the train but didn't do anywhere near as much as I expected. This was partly because the lighting wasn't strong enough for me to see my stitching, and partly because there were views to watch, meals to eat and excursions to be taken as well as a blog to keep updating! However, it was always meant to be a long term project so I'm not at all concerned -- it is ready to go any time I have  the urge for some hand-piecing.

The hexie project bag I was working on before I went away is almost finished. In my last class before I went away, I lined the bag and joined the two pieces together with the casing. All it needed was the casing to be hand-stitched down. I took the project away with me but I didn't touch it. It was too difficult to sew in a moving motor-home and I was too tired in the evenings to sew (or do any other form of craft)!

I took three knitting projects with me: yarn and needles for the bed socks mum had asked me to knit, Emily's unfinished baby blanket and an almost-finished pair of socks. The last two projects never saw the light of day! The bed socks are finished but I didn't get them done in time for Beulah's birthday so they are still with me (mum gave Beulah something else). What's that? You want to see them...

Here is one.

They are both finished but I only put one on to take the photo with my iPad. They are knitted cuff down in Moda Vera Marvel (DK) on 3.75mm double-pointed needles to a pattern I modified from Wendy Johnson's Lacy Ribs Socks (Ravelry link). This is the link to my Ravelry page. My modification was to add a rib of mock cabling between the lace; I think the mock cabling should have been done every fourth row instead of every eighth; what do you think?

Anyway, I have four loads of washing to do -- one is on the line (it's a cloudless, mild winter day today), one is in the machine and two are still on the laundry room floor! Then I'd better go and help WM in the garden -- it is overgrown with weeds due to three months of concentrating on the Renovation Project (no, it hasn't rented yet!) followed by our three week absence!

And I still have over 500 blog posts to catch up on! :-(

progress is being made

The 16th, being exactly in the middle of the month, seems like a great time to share progress on my January focus list.

So far I have worked on only three of the eight items on my January list. 

But I am happy with that, considering I had house guests until 9th January.

I have cast on another pair of socks -- these don't interfere with my Year of the Finished Project. Plain stocking stitch socks, single-coloured garter stitch squares, class samples/projects and rainbow scrap quilting blocks are exceptions and are not counted as new projects.

You will no doubt notice that the toe of the first sock has not yet been grafted. That's because it's easier to cast on for another sock while in the car than to try grafting while in a moving vehicle! 

Socks make great travel knitting: they are small and easily transported, they don't lie in my lap when the temperature outside is over 35°C (95°F), and because they are knit in the round on dpns are only ever sixteen stitches from the "end of the row"!

Many of you would have read that my first "finish" of the year was to "frog" (rip out) a baby sweater I started in November 2011 because I thought the head hole was too small after I knitted the collar on. That's one thing off my Focus list, even if not the way I originally intended.

My "big" knitting project is the Westall cardigan that I am making for myself. I planned to be up to the waist shaping a few days ago but had to extend that deadline to yesterday because the cotton/acrylic yarn, while knitting up into a nice soft fabric, is hard on my hands so I can only do a few rows before I have to take a break.

knitted from the top down, back and both fronts at the same time

I did reach yesterday's deadline and have started the waist shaping but I'm beginning to have my doubts about having this finished by the end of the month! Nevertheless, I will persevere, I will soon be up to the plain stocking stitch part of the body so it should go a little faster then!

And on the quilting front, I started thirty-two square-on-square blocks last Friday and finished them on Monday (I had no time for sewing over the weekend). I only needed thirty-one but it doesn't hurt to have one extra, just in case. Yesterday I sewed the blocks into rows and the rows into a flimsy, so I have met my goal for January for this project and need to turn my attention to other projects while I think about the borders for this one.

I think I'll use a thin blue solid inner border but I'm not sure about the outer border. Strips (piano keys) with corner stones?

Time to baste this baby, I think. Eight months in the waiting pile is long enough!

So, how about you? How are you going with your January goals?

Linking up with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced (hosted by Lee).

works in progress (or not)

Warning: poor quality photos – I had to use my iPad because my camera batteries were all flat!
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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!

IFO (identified finished objects)

Just a quick post because I have someone coming here today to show me how to load my quilting frame properly and how to get the right tension on both the upper and bobbin threads on the machine. Yay!

Yesterday afternoon I grafted the toes on these bed-socks.

DD is wearing them over her ordinary socks but they fit just fine.

The pattern was modified from the “Lacy Rib Socks” in Socks from the Toe Up by Wendy D Johnson. I knitted these cuff down (my preferred style) on dpns using an hourglass heel (that I learnt from Lynne Vogel in The Twisted Sisters’ Sock Workbook). They are knitted in the 2011 soft version of Moda Vera Marvel 8ply (DK) on 3.25mm needles. (Marvel is now a much harder acrylic yarn and I don't like it anywhere near as much)

on and off the needles

Last month I didn’t do much sewing but I definitely knitted!

a black beanie ( no photos – sorry)

a cowl which I designed on a train while taking my mother to Strathfield to meet her country train – it’s hard to see but it has a textured zigzag pattern

a blanket for a local animal shelter (approximately one metre – 40 inches – “square”) – unblocked because I don’t think animals care!

a pair of socks for mum (Baby Mock Cable - which look so much better than this photo shows)

a pair of “plain vanilla” socks for me (Patonyle, purchased 2008)

four sample socks for the workshop I gave on 16th June

a single repeat on these socks (pattern: Ribbed Ribbon Socks from “Socks from the Toe Up” by Wendy D Johnson)

and 40 rows (8,000 stitches) on this blanket (not 80 rows - 16,000 stitches as stated on my progress report – I counted the ridges and doubled twice but some thing told me that couldn’t be right!). I have added another 26 rows (5,200 stitches) to that this week.

And to think I nearly frogged it when I was just past that pink stripe!

I frogged this blanket (which wasn’t working for me).

On Thursday night I cast on and knitted twelve repeats of Wendy D. Johnson’s Lacy Rib pattern on a bed sock for DD.

I think there are two problems:
1) the toe shaping isn’t quite right for DD’s narrow feet and there are too many stocking stitch rows before the pattern begins
2) I’m knitting DK weight on 2.75mm (US 2) needles; I think the fabric is too tight for bed socks and I need to go up to 3.25mm needles (which DD has and therefore I couldn’t use them in the first place)

What do you think?

missing in action?

I have been busy this past week. My mum arrived on Friday 22 June to stay with us for a few days.

On the Saturday we visited my brother and his family.

On the Sunday WM and I celebrated Younger Grandson’s first birthday with mum, MIL, DD, SIL, Older Grandson, Younger Grandson, DD’s bestie (the boys' godmother) and SIL’s two sisters.

Younger Grandson opening presents with his daddy and daddy's two sisters

On Monday I went to my sewing class (mum stayed at home and enjoyed the peace and quiet), then took mum shopping in the afternoon.

Tuesday was Younger Grandson’s birthday so we had DD and the Grandboys here all day. SIL joined us for dinner.

the grandsons have arrived!

Wednesday was mum’s last day with us so DD and the Grandboys visited again.

We stayed up late on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights watching the tennis. WM and I don’t have pay TV so we can only watch the tennis while it’s on from 8:30pm. I taped Lleyton Hewitt’s game on Tuesday night and we watched it on Wednesday morning before the family arrived. The Australian tennis players didn’t do very well this year; all but one was out in the first round, and Sam Stosur, who won the US Open, was defeated in the second round. Very disappointing.

Meanwhile, I have been knitting. I finished mum’s socks but she wouldn’t model them for me.
She only tried on one but she says it fitted perfectly!

I have also been knitting on the other one of these.

And this morning I cast on a cowl to knit while on the train, taking mum to Strathfield station to catch her Countrylink train. I plan to get it finished while watching the tennis tonight. It’s hard to concentrate on turning a heel while watching tennis so the socks will have to be a non-television activity, at least until the heel is done.