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.

still here, still stitching

I’m sure you quilters know that moment when you lose the love for a project. It’s when the end is almost within sight but there are still some hours to be put in. Well, at least that’s how it is for me.

Actually, I don’t feel like that very often – perhaps because my quilting is usually fairly straight-forward although, as you may have noticed, I am becoming more adventurous.

I still quilt the “old way” – I knot the strands on the back of the quilt and hide the ends in the wadding. My good friend, Cindy, who blogs at Delighted Hands, suggested I try taking small stitches at the beginning and end of each line of quilting and then cutting the threads. Well, I tried that method – I really did. I even tried it in class. My teacher and I discussed it and we tried three different methods but the stitching just pulled out! So I went back to the old way.

Now that is usually not too bad but this time I set myself a real challenge. My Wonky Quarter Log Cabin quilt is made up of twenty 12” blocks. I decided to accentuate the wonkiness by echo quilting around each block. That wasn't too bad – mostly I just had one pair of ends to sew in for each of the twenty blocks.

It took a while to decide on a way to quilt the blocks themselves and finally I settled on radiating lines, carefully avoiding the diagonal through the centre of the block so as not to draw attention to the fact that different width strings don't meet at the diagonal. I chose to do three radiating lines either side of the diagonal – that’s six lines for each block or twelve ends to be sewn in – for twenty blocks.


The first two blocks took three hours to mark up and sew, and that didn’t include sewing the ends in. I still struggle to move a twin size quilt under my machine even though my machine has a 9” harp space. The weight of the quilt drags and catches and I am still learning how best to handle the quilt for the more intricate types of walking foot quilting I do (yes, walking foot – I don’t have a good grip on FMQ and am nowhere near ready to use it on my quilts).

I did get faster with each block but I still estimate that I spent about thirty hours quilting this project and sewing all those ends in. When I thought I was almost done and realised I was only 40% of the way through, having completed only eight blocks, I lost the love.

But, I am the kind of person who likes to finish what I start and today I sewed the label on that baby!

And, guess what? I found the love again. I really, really like the quilting; especially the way I’ve extended the radiating lines into the top and left side border – a stroke of inspiration.

As usual, the back includes my signature panel made up of “left over blocks” (I actually had to make the blocks for the back as DD and OG had only made nineteen of the twenty blocks needed for the front – see this post for the full story).

I’m linking this post with Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday which is being hosted at My Quilt Infatuation. Why not pop over there and see what other people have finished this week? Perhaps you also have something to contribute.

I’m hoping to be back soon to show you a couple of mum’s completed blankets but spring is just three days away and it’s very tempting to be out in the garden!

Until then, may your stitches bring you much joy.
Lynne

Something Old, something New – July edition

What a month June turned out to be: five days staying with my mother, three weeks with bronchitis, another three-day trip away to tutor two knitting workshops (“stranded colour knitting” and “using slipped stitches for colour and texture”) and hosting a couple who were billetted with us for four days! Needless to say, not much sewing happened during the month.

My stats show that less and less people are signing up for Something Old, something New each month; in fact, less and less people are visiting my blog period! I am tempted to stop the linky party right now but I need something to keep me working on my old projects – they have a way of wearing me down after a while! Just knowing they are there, in the background, whatever life throws at me, makes me want to get them finished! So, Something Old, Something New will continue, despite the fact that I seem to say the same thing -- “almost no progress” -- every month!

In June, my “Something Old” project was to have been a pair of curtains I started way too long ago. Those poor old curtains never even made it out of the cupboard! What little time I had in front of the machine (not a lot when you’re coughing ‘fit to bust’) was spent working on the Country Houses quilt, which had been my Something Old project earlier this year. I was working away on it, making reasonable progress, when I found a small hole right on the seam line of one of the central blocks! I had to unpick some quilting, and open the backing and wadding (it’s a quilt-as-you-go project) to access the seam in question. I really didn't know what to do so I took it to my quilting teacher. I hadn’t been in class for weeks because I hadn’t wanted to share my germs so it wasn't until the very last day of June that the hole was repaired! (Sorry, I forgot to take a photo and the repair is almost invisible!)

I did spend some sewing time at home practising my curved piecing

and in class (after repairing the hole) on foundation piecing so at least some progress was made on my Something New techniques!

My crafting plans for July are as follows:

1. Something Old -- repair the first pair of 4ply (sock weight) socks I ever knitted: they were for WM and I dropped a stitch while grafting the toe; I have had to rip back several rows to find that stitch!
   
2. Something New -- sort my yarn stash, decide what's staying and what’s going then update my stash records on Ravelry! (There’ll be a separate post about this so no photo here)
3. Works in Progress -- sew in the ends of the pair of socks I finished knitting this past weekend (Socks for Someone #4); it took me eight months to knit the first sock and less than a week to knit the second! They were completely finished on 1 July.
   
4. Something Old -- graft the toes of the Tidal Wave socks I started a long time ago (the original pattern can be seen here on Ravelry). According to my Ravelry notes, the socks were in hibernation because they were possibly too small (too short?) but it's time to get them off the needles and move on!
   
5. Something New -- shadow knitting: I’m currently making a scarf which has the illusion of a piano keyboard (Ravelry link)
6. Works in Progress -- sew in the ends of my Nouveau Log Cabin knitted blanket (seen in this post about knitting)
7. Something Old -- finish the Country Houses quilt (you’ve seen this often enough – no more photos till it’s finished!)
8. Something Old -- knit one fingerless mitten (man size)
   
9. Something New -- a new quilting technique for me: Bargello
10. Something New -- cast on Socks for Someone #5 (I always have socks on my needles) -- I cast on last night while I was wastching television; I didn't have enough light to cast on navy mitts (the colour in the photo above is nowhere near dark enough) and I can't sit there doing nothing!
    

I have decided that I will do all ten of these things in July, which is quite ambitious considering how little I usually get done! Some of them are only little projects  so I think it's possible to get it all done... I have listed them here in the order I plan to do them but, who knows?!

What about you?
How did you go with your plans in June?
What are your plans for July?

Remember, your “Something New” project can be to start something new or learning (or practising) a new technique! (This month I'm doing both!)

Please link the URL of your specific blog post here so others can come and check out what you’re up to!

What a week it was!

Last Monday, 1 July, DD and Younger Grandson had to come to “the big smoke” to see a cardiac specialist.Tests were done and the all clear was given! Hurrah!

On Wednesday, after seeing the specialist, WM, DD, YG and I headed north for a few days with the family to celebrate YG’s birthday. Little did we know the trip would take nine long hours – we arrived just before 1:30am! Just as well I had thought to ask SIL to collect our room key for the motel so we wouldn’t disturb the owners with our late arrival!

Thursday is the day the boys attend Day Care, so we three adults spent the day near the beach. The sun was shining but it was very windy. This is a view of Back Beach from the headland.

We saw some dolphins playing near these rocks but WM was unable to get a photo.

We tried to spot whales but we just didn’t see any. DD and I had almost given up and taken shelter in the warmth of the car when WM informed us that a whale had been sighted by a local who had told him where to look.

With renewed enthusiasm, we braved the cold – I wore WM’s fleece pullover which was in the car and DD wrapped herself in a small quilt (as best she could). At first we thought we were just imagining things but then we saw a whale breach! Wow! How exciting! WM wasn’t fast enough with the camera for that event but he did manage a couple of photos.

What do you mean you can’t see anything? How about this then?

We spent Friday with DD and the boys. We had a picnic lunch in the park near the playground. In the evening we went to SIL’s parents’ place to celebrate Younger Grandson’s birthday. There was food and drink and conversation but the most important thing to the little guys was this (made by their other grandmother):

YG wouldn’t blow his candle out so OG lovingly obliged!

On Saturday, WM and I went whale-spotting before heading out to DD’s again. Much to our surprise and delight, a humpback whale swam in much close than the ones we had seen two days previously. Taking photos is always a challenge – especially with a big lens and no tripod – but the memory of that whale just a few hundred metres away will stay with us for a long time!

In the early afternoon, WM and I had some one-on-one time with OG while YG had a nap.

Later WM took YG to the playground near the beach for some one-on-one time.

OG was given the chance to go too but he chose to stay at home! He likes to play games on the iPad, especially if it’s Grandmum’s iPad not mummy’s!

While DD was preparing dinner, OG helped Grandmum with her hand-stitching. Just look at that concentration!

All too soon our wonderful few days were over and it was time to make the long trip home.

Roll on October – I miss my grandsons already!

Where, oh where, can she be?

Hello. I’m still here. Just quiet on the blogging front.

Well, except for the hours I have spent reading through the 500+ posts I had in my Feedly list when I came home. I have only left comments on a few posts when I had something I really had to say but, for the most part, I have just skim-read and moved on. Some people have suggested that I just skip those missed posts and start afresh but I would hate to miss the post I needed to read! I would feel awful if I missed the news of a joyous or tragic event in my blog-friend’s life! I am now down to 238 posts so I’m getting there! I also have dozens, if not hundreds, of emails that need answers – I will get to those in due course, I hope!

When we got home from our vacation, I had an email from a member of Lost Cousins, a family history site of which I am also a member. That sparked my curiosity about something in my own family history and there I was, off searching around my own ancestry. In those two weeks, I re-established connection with some “lost” cousins and have had some delightful and informative emails from my second cousin in England so have really been distracted from my crafting and other pursuits.

I’ve also found a site called Deceased Online, which doesn’t sound terribly exciting but is a good site to find the location and date of the burial of English ancestors (for free) and further information, like who else is buried in the same grave (for a fee). I have been lucky enough to find a few of my ancestors or blood relatives on the site – they are adding more and more information every month.

I am focussing my attention on one set of my great-grandparents and their descendants. I am working from their eldest child, through their descendants (and so on) and am finding some very interesting (to me) facts. I just love the hunt and the thrill of finding small scraps of information! Some of which leads to other areas of inquiry.

I have sent emails to other members of Genes Reunited who have people with the same names on their tree that I am researching in my own tree and have had quite a few answers – most not relevant but it’s still good to get a reply.

I have used another site called Curious Fox (a site for ancestors in Britain and Ireland but you need to know where they lived specifically) and had some answers with some new information which, as I’ve already said, is very exciting.

There has been some crafting. I have been working on some hand-stitching which I have now dubbed the “Dutch Cap” quilt because of the shape of the paper-piecing I have designed.

Since I started cutting out hexagons on the train trip home, I have achieved this much (22 “triads”)!

My sewing machine was serviced while I was away but I have not yet taken it out of its case! I need to do so soon if I am going to have the binding sewn on the Earth and Sky quilt before the end of the month! I also need to do a small amount of sewing on another project so I can call it finished too!
There has been some knitting but I’ll leave that for a separate post.

So, don’t write me off – I’m still here, and The Year of the Finished Project linky party is still alive and well.

I’ll be back soon with the promised knitting post!

double knitting workshop

On Saturday, I tutored a two-stranded double knitting workshop for the Blue Mountains group of the Knitters’ Guild of NSW.

Double knitting can mean one of three things:

1. a term for the weight of yarn; in US it’s called DK (double knitting), here in Australia we call the same weight 8ply
2. using two yarns together to knit is sometimes, incorrectly, called double knitting
3. a technique whereby a two-sided fabric is produced

It is the latter technique which was the subject of my workshop.

This is the sample I designed and knitted in DK pure wool (unblocked); the participants were given this pattern in the workshop. The finished size is 10.5cm x 12cm (4” x 4.5”) so it could be used as a coaster.


Below are the other samples I have knitted. The first is also in DK wool. I can only take credit for the knitting of this one; it was designed by Elizabeth Evans (Ravelry link). Ravelry tells me that I knitted this back in 2010.

The other side is a beige teapot on a blue background.

The second sample was designed by Laura Ponce de León as the Cubic Scarf (Ravelry link) but I felt it was too thick to wear as a scarf here in Australia. Perhaps in climates where it gets very cold, one could wear it as a scarf. Also my knitting created a very dense fabric which didn’t have the drape I prefer for a scarf. I intended it to be a bib for Older Grandson (who had not yet been born when I started it in 2010) but being 4ply (fingering) acrylic it had zero absorbency, something I soon realised was needed in a bib!

I also showed the workshop participants this teeny pincushion/needle-holder I knitted as a prototype in December 2012. It is knitted in the double knitting technique but in a single strand of sock weight yarn on 2.00mm (US 0) needles.
 
I am thinking I will make a bunch of these (perhaps a little bit bigger) for my classmates Christmas gifts in 2013. Don’t be fooled by the size of the photo. That is a Size 8 embroidery needle.This one is a perfect size (4cm – 1.5”) to fit into my embroidery kit which is contained in this cute little tin, which itself is about 10cm x 6cm (4” x 2.5”).

Now I’m hooked on the possibilities of double knitting – a reversible hat, a bag, and a drapey scarf.

Would it be possible to do it in entrelac?
What  about lace? The decreases may be an issue!

So many ideas – so little time! So many UFOs/WiPs to complete!

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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?

"Grow Your Blog"

Hello

Today I am linking up with a very exciting concept - thanks Vicki (2 Bags Full) for initiating this.

My name is Lynne. I started my blog in January 2007 because my friend had one and it sounded like fun! Unfortunately my friend has been lured away from Blogland by little tweets but I'm still here - six years later.

When I started my blog, it was called "Too Hot to Knit? Never!" I was, and still am, an avid knitter. I knit almost every day, regardless of the weather. My mum, who taught me to knit, considers knitting to be a private, winter-only activity but I must be a bit rebellious -- I knit in public and I knit all year round (even if it is 46.5°C -- 115°F -- outside like it was on Friday 18th January.)

Myrtle Leaf Stole -- knitted for DD's wedding, January 2009

In March 2010, I went to a craft show with my DD and my then three-week-old Older Grandson. One of the sewing machine companies invited people to "make a block for Haiti" -- DD and I both did and we were hooked.

I used to sew my own clothes back in the seventies and eighties and have owned a sewing machine since I was seventeen. It was nice to use one one of these quiet, fast machines. DD has had a machine since she was nineteen but has hardly touched it.


We came home from that craft show so excited and a week later were at the chain store buying fabric for our first quilt -- a floor mat for Older Grandson to protect the carpet from his inevitable spills. We didn't know how much fabric to buy - so we bought one metre of seven colours: that's right -- seven metres of fabric for a one square metre of quilt! We had very little idea of what we were doing but we were enthusiastic -- and cut 2.5" strips with scissors! The top was finished that first weekend but we had no idea what to do next!


Fast forward a year, and another caft show, and we met a lovely quilting teacher called Elizabeth. She invited us to join her "sit and sew" classes -- they were right over the other side of the city, an hour and half's drive away, but did that deter us? Oh no! In the first class, which fortunately went from 10am to 4pm (consdering the time taken to get there and home again), we basted and began quilting that first top! In the next couple of weeks I had the quilting (in the ditch -- very slowly) finished and the binding on -- our first quilt was done!

During that first class we also worked on a layout of blocks we had made following instructions on Elizabeth Hartman's Oh Fransson website. The quilt was called "Modern Sampler", the link will take you to the updated pattern. This quilt was made from the same seven fabrics (with the addition of five more for added interest; you'll notice we left the two yellows out of the final quilt).

We even had enough fabric to piece the backing! I am still using scraps of that fabric in my scrappy quilts.

And so it came to pass, that my blog became "Never Too Hot to Stitch". I also dabble in embroidery, hand-stitching (paper piecing), counted cross-stitch and crochet. As my blog description says, I am an "Australian knitter who is learning to make quilts". I've also been known to talk about my family, in particular WM (Wonderful Man -- my husband to whom I have been married for 35 years), our only child (DD) and our two grandsons. 

Older Grandson will be three next month

Younger Grandson is now eighteen months

If you're new here, welcome -- feel free to look around. 
And if you're already a regular visitor -- welcome back. I'm really honoured that you would visit my blog.
To all of my followers, thank you. I really appreciate each and every one of you.

Pull up a chair, let's take some time to stitch and chat!