still here, still searching, still crafting (a little) – only a little doped!

Family history research is a very absorbing hobby – absorbing of one’s time, that is!

In the past couple of months, I have added over 400 people to my extended family. I try to include the parents and siblings of all my blood relatives’ spouses. Families with ten or more children are not uncommon among the working class from which my ancestors come so the numbers add up quickly.

So, if you’ve been wondering why I’m not reading and commenting on your blog – or writing my own – my computer time is almost totally devoted to family history research these days!

I’m not one for resolutions (and it’s not New Year) but some self-discipline is called for and I am now going to limit my time spent on family history research each day. I have friends who deserve my attention, followers that expect somewhat regular posts and craft projects that need my attention.
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There are photos coming but they have all been taken with my iPad so I apologise in advance for the quality!

Ah, shingles; yes, I was diagnosed with that mysterious virus four weeks ago. I spent the first week doped up so high I couldn’t walk a straight line. I was taking anti-viral medication and a daily dose of125mg of heavy-duty pain-killers (pregabalin for those who need to know such things) for post-herpetic neuralgia. But the good news is that the rash has almost completely disappeared and I am down to 25mg (one capsule) of the pain-killer a day so I’m thinking relatively clearly and almost ready to drive my sewing machine again!

I have been doing some crafting. A week after I was diagnosed I was supposed to teach a workshop on knitting with variegated and hand-painted yarns. I worked diligently through my fog to prepare for that workshop but, alas, it didn't happen; there's no way that I could get my befuddled mind into gear and teach! But samples were made, ripped out and made again.

Why do my mitred squares never come out square? This one will be ripped out!

I even managed to knit a whole dropped-stitch scarf in a commercial variegated acrylic yarn that I’ve dubbed the “brussell sprout” scarf because of the colouring.

In theory, knitting this scarf should have made the blotchy tendencies of this yarn less obvious but, unfortunately, this scarf is still so blotchy the pattern is almost completely obliterated!
 
If it wasn’t acrylic, I’d consider over-dyeing it. I’ve been successful in dying white acrylic yarn but I’m not confident that I can get colours dark enough to overdye this one!  Never mind, the scarf will still make the journey west to Mudgee next week when I tutor a workshop on “knitting with dropped stitches”.

A new project, called the “Mudgee Wrap”, has also been started for the same workshop but there isn’t much to show yet.

I haven’t been courageous (or foolish) enough to use my sewing machine while taking painkillers with that famous warning: “This drug may cause drowsiness. Do not operate machinery.” The idea of sewing through my finger is not at all appealing! But I have paid for classes so attendance is “mandatory”. Bring on the hand stitching…

In the past month I have made quite a few hexagon “triads” from scratch (the photo shows my intended layout although not the final position of the “blocks”)

– which basically means I have drawn and cut hexagons from 4” fabric squares, basted those hexagons and joined them in sets of three to create thirty of these:
  
There has been some humming and hawing over setting these triads but in the end I have decided to go with my original plan and have stuck with my “Dutch cap” shapes which I talked about in this post. In reality, there is quite a lot of fiddling around to create these shapes because each diamond is added separately to the triad then the diamonds are joined together.

So far I have made only one. I hope it will get easier with experience, otherwise I’ll be ripping them all out and looking for an easier setting!

So that’s my last four weeks summed up. Not much to show for it but I am supposed to be taking it easy and concentrating on getting better. The thing is that I just don’t feel “sick” and most of the time forget that I have been ill.

Onwards and upwards, as they say! In other words, back to my Mudgee Wrap which I ambitiously hope to finish in one week!

snippets from the craft show

Last Sunday,  DD and I went to the annual Stitches and Craft Show held at Darling Harbour, in Sydney. We were already tired from the sock workshop the day before (yes, it went well thanks). DD had missed the Show last year due to giving birth to Younger Grandson and I had missed most of it due to looking for a sewing machine on my first day’s visit and teaching knitting at the Guild stand on my second day’s visit.

DD and I went to quite a few “workshops”. I don’t know why they call them workshops – they are “talks” or, in some cases, product demonstrations. The first talk we attended was about embroidery hints and tips (and products). DD wanted to go home as soon as it was over – she was already raring to get at some handwork! Inevitably, one of us gets all excited and wants to go home within the first hour of being there!

Some “workshops” we attended together, some we went in two different directions. I attended a talk given by Reece Scannell and Kathy Doughty (Material Obsession) about the use of colour. It was only when Kathy took over for the second thirty minutes that I remembered the camera in my bag.

The final workshop we attended was Saffron Craig talking about her latest designs.
(Sorry about the hassle with the camera, Saffron, and thanks for allowing me to take and publish this photo.)

The hat in front was made from a Saffron Craig fabric by Nicole Mallalieu (You Sew Girl).

BTW, I don’t have permission to publish the photos of the quilts here, sorry. You can go to the two posts on Di’s blog (here and here) to see the photos which she has permission to publish. This is the link to the Quilt Guild of NSW website to see the prize winning quilts.

DD and I made the mistake of going to look at the quilts at 3:30; we had been at the Show since 10am. It was too much. Next year we are going for two days!

I'm back!

Today life returns to something resembling "normalcy".

My sinuses are still not completely clear but that is normal for me! At least I can do something other than sleep or sit with my head as still as possible. Thanks to all those who sent good wishes and prayers my way during my fight with acute sinusitis.

I have been away from home the past two weekends: the first we travelled to Armidale to my niece's 21st birthday. The second, this past weekend, I went to the biennial camp of the Knitters' Guild of NSW (Inc) - there will be a separate post about that; all I need to say here was I had a great time!

In the week between Armidale and the Camp, we had my mother staying with us. There were visits from DD (mum's eldest grand-daughter) and the Grandboys, a visit to my MIL, a visit to my brother and his family, and a special birthday outing - the subject of another separate post (I need to have something to write about! LOL)

I must be the world's most boring daughter because while mum was here she had time to read two novels: The Tin Ticket (the central character of which is my dad's great-great-grandmother: a convict originally from Glasgow, Scotland) and The Drovers. Mum really loves Australian novels so once she started reading she couldn't put the books down.

The truth is that while mum was here (and reading), I had to finish knitting some samples for Camp. I had knitted samples and written patterns, but I had to test knit the patterns! Let me tell you that is not as easy as it sounds; my brain knows how to do entrelac and it was hard to follow the pattern word for word so some mistakes were, unfortunately, found over the weekend!

I foolishly also thought I could knit a short-sleeved jumper in two weeks! Who am I kidding? I did about twenty percent of it, I suppose. Which, in the end, is just as well, as I have decided to rip it all out anyway. It is being knitted in Moda Vera "Bamboo Wave", which is textured (thick and thin) yarn: 60% bamboo and 40% cotton. I have gauge for the jumper but it's still too loose and drapey - and given that cotton drops a lot, I have decided, after consultation with another knitter whose skills I admire and trust, to rip it out (and, maybe, start again).

The jumper is the Morning, Noon and Night Sweater (Ravelry link - third photo) by Gwen Bortner, in her book Entree to Entrelac. I was quite happy with most of it (apart from the slowness of entrelac) but, as explained, it must be ripped out -- when I can bring myself to do it.

I have also been knitting on my garter stitch blanket (since I came home, happy, but exhausted, from Camp). I am just past halfway with that.

What you see here is approximately 40 inches wide and 45 inches long. The top edge is on a Knitpicks cable, ready for me to knit in the other direction. The bottom is on the 4.5mm circular needles I am using to knit this DK blanket. I got bored with one row per colour so I am now knitting a Fibonacci sequence: 1-1-2-3-2-1-1-2-3-2- etc. Yes, all those ends are still hanging out but wait till you see what I do with them!

There has also been some sock knitting - again the subject of another post.

Why so much knitting? It was the only craft I could cope with for the last month or so! And even then the pattern needed to be fairly simple! I knitted in front of the television for up to five hours a day, staring straight ahead - moving the head as little as possible!

In the midst of my pain and woolly-headedness, I just couldn't face sewing so there has been very little of that. In fact, I have only used my sewing machine twice in this past five weeks; once to do the block which was the subject of this post, and on Monday last week when I went to sewing class for the first time in three weeks. I attempted to make another block but I have either lost my ability to sew in straight lines or perhaps I never had it in the first place! Either way, patchwork is dependent on cutting and sewing accurately - the more seams there are, the more accurate one must be! Much, much more accurate than one needs to be for dress-making! And I have discovered that I am not accurate enough!

Sadly, these two blocks were to be sent to So Sarah Sews to be sewn into quilt tops for girls in the foster care system who have been doing it tough. I really wanted to be part of this, but just felt that my work wasn't up to scratch. I had to write to Sarah and ask to be allowed out of the group -- I feel bad for letting her down but I'm sure it will be easier for her to make two extra blocks than to make mine fit! I could make new blocks, but Sarah wanted them by 7th October - two days from now; she lives in the USA and I live in Australia so it was never going to happen for me!

Having been away from my computer since before the trip to Armidale, I have spent hours since I came home from Camp trying to catch up with other people's blogs. Since there are 165 blogs on my Blog Reading List, this is no mean feat. I spent three hours today reading all and commenting on some of the posts that were published three days ago and two days ago, so another few hours should find me caught up.

I cannot set even weekly or monthly goals - they seem too daunting; I will just have to take things as they come for the next little while.

So now, I'm off to re-acquaint myself with Jan, before she forgets who I am entirely!

a letter to my quilting friends

Dear Quilting Friends

I haven't given up quilting but I do have two full day knitting workshops to tutor in the next three weeks (17th September and 1st October) so please bear with me if this blog seems heavy on the knitting content at the moment.

Quilting posts will resume soon!

Lynne

upcoming workshops

Thanks C. for sorting out my UFOs! LOL

Here is my tutoring schedule for the rest of this year and what I need to do to be ready for each workshop:

20th August    mini-workshop: no sew grafting
sample needed - will probably take about half an hour to knit and graft two squares

17th September    all day workshop: socks from the toe up
sample needed - plus I need to make sure I know I can do it!

1st October   all day workshop: entrelac
samples already made from former workshop, but I would like to make some more!

I don't have time to be employed elsewhere; so much to do, so little time!

Last night I had a strange dream - the strange effects of provisional cast-on

I dreamt that my [ESL] students and I were knitting provisional cast-ons! And, even more strangely, we were listening to the news: someone was in danger and our knitting could save them! [And then I woke up - the English teachers' pet hate at the end of a text!!]

Bizarrely, when I finally went back to sleep [two hours later] I dreamt about knitting again!
So, what's with the provisional cast-on? Last weekend I attended a lace workshop tutored by Raelene for the Blue Mountains branch of the Knitters' Guild and I learnt provisional cast-on. I've tried it before but became frustrated by the stretching apart of the provisional stitches when knitting the first row - apparently this is normal [the stretching not the frustration]. We knitted several repeats of a feather and fan stitch pattern and then learnt how to knit a border without breaking off the yarn from the body of knitting! Traditionally, lace knitting [and knitted lace] is not sewn together because sewing doesn't have the elasticity of knitting; however, it's easier to write patterns where x number of pieces are knitted and then sewn together. Knitting the border on is easy and I don't understand why it can't be part of the pattern explanation. Anything that involves less sewing up would be welcome by most knitters, I would think!

After the Guild meeting, we were shown the correct method to block. Blocking is essential to lace making - sometimes lace looks like nothing until it has been blocked but then it's revealed in all its awesome glory! Hint: If giving [not "gifting"] the lace project to a non-knitter, block it several times so that it is more likely to hold its correct size and shape.

Two things we didn't learn [and I wished I'd known to ask]: the best way to sew in ends and if there are any special techniques for joining in a new ball of yarn. Of course, the best way is to avoid joining yarn at all - buy yarn in big skeins!!

Since the workshop, I have cast on a scarf in white 3ply baby yarn (on 3.75mm needles) as a gift for a dear lady's 80th birthday. I'm knitting the horseshoe print stitch pattern from the Harmony Book of Knitting Stitches. I have not yet decided what border pattern I will use. Each pattern repeat [8 rows] measures about 28mm and I have done 15 repeats since Monday so I think I will easily finish and block it by 20th October. This is what it looks like so far.