Down to the Wire

Just the gift wrapping was last-minute. Usually I don’t even do the wrapping, but we switched things up this year. One year I was finishing the binding on a quilt on the way to the Christmas Eve party. Yes, there were two quilts finished on Wednesday the 23rd. But it was a realization last week that one top was finished, the other was partially assembled, and with an empty quilt machine, I had decided that they were good gifts for two 4-year old great-nephews.

Making seven knitted gifts was very doable. Four were machine knit scarves. One skein of a subtle color changing mohair blend with just a hint of silver glint was knitted in stockinette, two skeins of kid mohair/silk blend with a simple pattern made by skipping some needles made a generous scarf from each, and one long striped scarf from two colors worked up very nicely by changing colors on alternate sides, and using a crochet hook to attach the carried yarn to the edge. The two cowls were made on circular needles with different patterns, and the lacy scarf had been started early enough—even after deciding to order a second skein of yarn.

And now back to regularly scheduled projects – plus some. I committed to making 10 squares for charity by January 1st, and knocked off 2 ½ squares in one evening, using double crochet. There is a large lace knitted shawl that needs to become my go-to project when I can work from the chart without interruption. A few new bundles of fabric are sitting and waiting to become new quilts (from fabric gifted to me, sorted into donation, projects and an up-for-grabs bag to bring to the next meeting.)

It’s curtains

The kitchen was repainted this summer, and the curtains must have been held together by cobwebs. The eyelet lace fabric was in no shape to go back up. So the kitchen has been free of curtains for several months. That is, one curtain and six valances. The curtains on the driveway side of the kitchen hadn’t lasted through the labs’ puppy hood, and it still is not practical to replace them.

Last weekend was time to get sewing. The large curtain was finished first and hung up, and the valances hung up as they were finished. I used a scrap of bias binding for the hem on the large curtain, and made binding for the rest from scrap muslin and my trusty Clover binding tool, as it made a nicer, flatter hem. The lining is stitched at the sides and the main fabric folds around the edges, and twill tape makes the casing at the top. I stuck to a simple gathered casing and dropped the original idea of box pleats. They're quite different, but they work with all the wood and tile in our kitchen, definitely an upgrade.

Christmas stockings were mailed off, and placemats for Meals on Wheels delivered, so of course I was twitching to start another stash reduction project. I was of course gifted more stash two weeks ago—what goes around comes around. It has been sorted for donation (largest pieces), two charity quilt bundles (fabrics for top & back for both), bags (3 finished) and giveaway. The new project is another Heartstrings quilt, this time using the pages from the small yellow pages that isn’t needed, in a rectangular shape that will make diamonds. I’ve sorted and cut navy strips for the centers, and blue, white, cream, red and gray fabrics for the rest of the strips.

Knitting and spinning have been happening two, one Christmas cowl is complete (done by hand), and a striped scarf knitted by machine just needs the ends woven in and blocking. 440 yards of stockinette in less than three hours, which included moving the machine carriage from side to side and crocheting in the trailing yarns over color changes. Also a airy scarf from two skeins of Rowan Kidsilk Haze done by machine in just over an hour. Two bobbins of the auction fiber are spun, and DH made me a new, heavier Lazy Kate so when I’m plying the eventual three bobbins the Kate won’t be pulling across the floor.

Charity Stockings

21 finished, and they'll go off in the mail tomorrow.

Plain

Fancy

Projects A-Flying

The October sewing retreat with the ASG group pushed me through several projects:

• Orca quilt binding – pushed myself to quilt it the weekend before, so just the binding to finish. It went off to the dorm before I could get a picture.
• 9-Patch swap blocks (the blue ones) – set on point, values giving a 3-d or Baby Blocks effect.
• 9-Patch X quilt quilted and ready for binding.
• Little Bear Quilt – leftover panel fabric from a swap, bears fussy cut and set into a square in a square – blocks ready for quilt top assembly.
• ASG Project – Troop Bags, drawstring bags that will be filled with goodies and sent to troops. After making 6 with given instructions using French Seams, need to re-write for serger, using a buttonhole in the casing.

Latest charity project: Christmas stockings for Toy Rescue Mission in Tacoma; 10 finished so far. Started with felt, and moved onto printed cotton (11 more cut out)

Spinning is still going slowly, though have finally learned to pre-cleaning dirty fiber (pulling out several yards and picking out the veg matter). Pulled out my spinning guide card and was surprised to look at how fine my spinning is now. I love to ply and prefer lighter yarns, but at some point will need to practice spinning thicker, and learn to be consistent at that weight.

Dyeing: Pale yellow yarn + red dye = red yarn (NOT orange, unless you pull it out of the dyepot early). Apparently even after re-reading the directions, I’m still putting too much dye for the fiber and getting very saturated colors. Forgot how much water dying takes (mostly in the rinsing). Does this justify buying beautifu hand-dyed yarns from someone else?

Knitting: Finally finished the Daily Sweater – took me almost a year from start to finish, with a couple of long breaks (doubt, summer heat). What I learned: don’t buy a yarn on sale unless you’re really happy with the color—it would be better to spend full price and get a finished product I love. Made two more kitty blankets for my sister's cats, finished with crochet edging.

I'll post about Christmas knitting next time...trying to find a reasonable number of small projects. Hats! Scarves! Gloves! Now that it's getting colder, I want warm things myself, and am also thinking about family...

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.

The Latest Fibery Addiction

The Bond Ultimate Knitting Machine has been on my radar for over a year. It didn't quite seem worthy of the investment, even with a discount coupon. But more than once I had been disappointed when either the sale was over or they ran out of stock at a certain online superstore.

Last week I caved, and there is no looking back. There was even a storage table the right length that already held containers of yarn, and it's in a room that can be closed off from the cat and left undisturbed. Finished so far: a sample swatch waiting to be stitched up into a baby hat, one large baby blanket center (planning to edge by hand with knitting or crochet), a dishcloth/swatch from cotton chenille, a charity scarf from sock yarn, and 4 washcloths waiting for a crochet edging (done in one piece with waste yarn in between.) The chenille swatch is helping me plan my first sweater, and the sock yarn scarf has me optimistic for other projects with lightweight yarns.

My week off from quilting-for-the-job gave me time to do some custom quilting on one of my own quilts. It needs some thread cleanup and binding before it's photo-ready, and it felt great to take the time to give this particular quilt the quilting it deserved. It's made from swap blocks from a group, with additional applique done on each block by me.