Falling for the New

Do you ever fall head over heels for a project? The color, the pattern, the fabric or fiber? Sometimes it’s a quilt, sometimes it’s a fabric, other times it’s a sweater (usually a sweater, not something small like a scarf or hat). For the knitting infatuations I’m using Ravelry to my advantage by queuing or favoriting the project, then doing some research by looking at projects made by other people. What did they think of the pattern? The yarn? I’m also trying to use my stash listing to link to these projects. The last two sweater pattern I fell for are still in my queue, and though one required purchasing a back issue of Vogue Knitting, both are tagged with yarn already in my stash.

Quilts often get drawn up in Electric Quilt 6, and good notes are taken so five years down the road I won’t think it was something designed by me. It’s great fun to resize the blocks and use my own colors and fabrics. I’ve scanned my own fabrics a couple of times, but find it easier to find the images online and just import them. The Electric Quilt website has tips and links for doing this, and they also have lots of free fabric libraries to download. Sometimes I stalk fabric online for a while before purchasing it. I thought I had waited for a good price on a quilt kit at an online store only to discover that the discount was only that the kit no longer included a backing. Fortunately I was able to find the same backing online and even on sale—this was one of those fabrics that really wanted to be a backing: XOXO The Cat by In The Beginning, with hilarious notes from the cat.

Machine knitting is still very appealing, though the blanket that I thought was going to charity is now the cat’s. The piece was over 40” wide on the machine (and it was knit very tightly), and I used basically all of the wool that was the same weight for a length over 30”, and once it was removed and blocked, it is much smaller than the minimum size requested. It shrank almost 7” in width alone.

By doubling some 14/2 linen, I machine knit some great washcloths that have just a bit of scrubbing power, and are more absorbent that I would have guessed. I was contemplating trying to make some felted boxes on the machine, but after re-reading the pattern realized that they will probably be too bulky, as they are knit with bulky yarn doubled. Browsing Ravelry I found a cute pattern for a worsted weight spinning bag that looks like it can be converted to a flat piece and seamed before felting.

De-Stash Projects

I have a bad habit of taking a small project and talking myself into making several of them, turning it into a much larger project. Sometimes it’s a practical idea, especially for gifts, like the three Boo the Bat amigarumi toys knitted for my three great-nephews last Halloween (note: after looking at the picture I remembered a 4th one went to my sister.) I took it a bit further with the 40 placemat project for Meals on Wheels (finished way early!) for this Thanksgiving. This had double points since it was such a great stashbuster—using up small batting scraps and fabrics.

Continuing on, last weekend 20 cosmetic bags for charity used up the largest pieces of upholstery samples from my SIL and the last of the gross (144 in the box) of turquoise blue zippers gifted to me by my FIL. Next up is a batch of quilt tops from some large fat quarter bundles that must have been a really good price some years back.

On the knitting front, I have made eight charity scarves from washable wool, using my Bond knitting machine. It’s a good way to try new techniques, and using up yarn that probably would not have been loved in sweater form by anyone in my family. I learned to skip needles for better drape after the first one came out a bit stiff (but still very wearable). The fabric knits up with a slight ribbed appearance, though when one of the first scarves was wet blocked, the tension evened out and it disappeared.

One small scarf/kerchief knitted as a triangle was a success, with interesting patterns from the sock yarn. I started from the long edge and decreased on both sides as I worked. The next attempt was to knit a larger one sideways, but I’m just not getting the increases to take. I foolishly plunged on trying to knit one half, starting from the center, but hadn’t done my math and came to the halfway point of the yarn way too soon, so will have to practice on some other yarn and try again later (was attempting to start from one corner edge, with increases on one side until the full width of needles or the yarn halfway point was reached).

Yesterday I brought five pieces of garment fabric to my ASG meeting and four of them found new homes. Most of it was rayon, one piece of silk, all of them older than my son. I have a collecting bag for Project Linus going too, and a project box collecting pieces for next year's ASG national project making drawstring bags for the troops.