First 2012 finish

I can't believe it's this far into the year before I've finished a project. Work is taking up far too much of my time and energy!

I finished my hat, based on the pattern by my sister-in-law. I think it's sweet. The pattern called for tassels but I received a pom-pom maker for Christmas so I made pom-poms instead.

But it's a tad to small for my large head. I've promised it to a friend who seemed quite happy.

I really liked making this but I'm not sure about the yarn (a bamboo blend). It's soft but that softness makes it slide off my head (well, that and the fact that it's too small). So, I'm going to try to find the color in a woolier yarn.  I'm itching to start another hat, though, I really enjoyed stitching this pattern.

New projects

I'm still working on my crewel piece but in between, I've begun a couple of other projects.  The mass of pink yarn above exactly matches my new winter coat. So, while it's not exactly ideal for the pattern, I'm using it. The pattern is a teaching pattern designed by my sister-in-law and I'm test driving the instructions.  It's a really fun hat to knit.  It goes all different directions, from a vertical cabled side panel to a side-to-side knit central portion for each half of the hat, finally ribbing.  I've got one half done, to the right on a holding needle. The second half is on the circular needle.

This piece has an interesting history. The materials were collected by a woman I met last spring. Jane was the kind of person I wish I had been able to spend a lot more time with and get to know a lot better. Smart, witty, an artist and art lover, definitely someone to know. Sadly, she passed away shortly after we met. Generous friends sent me some of the gorgeous fabrics she'd collected.

Amongst them was this piece of broiderie persé--applique using existing printed or stitched fabrics, following the contours of the design.  The original embroidery is on silk and the ground is quite fragile. She had basted this piece to the brown velvet ground--there are several other pieces of the embroidery I may use to add on or fill in. 

A young woman who grew up with Jane as a neighbor is getting married this spring and I'm going to complete this applique and make it into a ring bearer's pillow for the wedding.  Afterward, I'm going to disassemble the pillow, which will necessarily be fairly small, and remake it into a larger pillow for a sofa or a chair, as a wedding gift.

It's coming along nicely. I've found threads that match the embroidery pretty well for the applique.  I plan to edge the outline in a metallic thread to finish it off.  The silk ground is so fragile it turns under easily. It also sometimes frays and shatters a bit. Some of the embroidery threads are loose and I'm tacking them down as I go.  I really like projects like this where I feel connected with past stitchers, in this case Jane and the unknown embroiderer who stitched the original silk flowers and leaves.

While they're silk and a bit more formalized, the floral motifs are very reminiscent of the crewel I've been so immersed in lately. 

No crewel this week, but a couple of knit finishes

I made this leaf shawlette for a gift.

As much as I could get into the photo with it flat.

A preemie cap for charity.

I'm still making ornaments. Front and back.

Knitting

No crewel to show this week. I'm starting to write my paper. I'm still in the "what goes where" sorting stage, trying to figure out what I want to say and what I have to say. Gathering my illustrations and organizing them in the document. I'll send it to the instructor once I have some bones in place. The fleshing out will, hopefully, come later.  I should have kept better track of where I read what.

I've been knitting on the leaf shawl and have three repeats done now. Four to go.  I noticed that my tension loosened considerably after I had completed the first repeat. Oh, well.  I have written the pattern in a notebook so I can flip pages as I go along so starting and stopping is painless.

I've made progress, too, on the chemo cap. It's very soft and will be nice.  It's my doctor's office project these days. More of that to come in the next weeks, so more progress on the cap.  Since it's just knit (and knit and knit) it's easy to put down and pick up. 

WIPs and FOs!

I had a busy weekend. I completed my first afghan rectangle for the Legal Loopers project and began the second. I completed the entrelac section in my diamond tote and am back to working rows. The stripe pattern from the top repeats and then the base is knit. It seemed to balloon up in the entrelac section--I'm very happy to be bringing it back to manageable size with the knit rows.
I've shown two of these before but this photo is better. Here are the three Japanese pastries I made from kits sent to me by my niece. They're now hanging on my office file cabinet.
On our way back from the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair on Friday, we stopped at Village Needleworks in Westmont. I picked up this painted canvas keyfob and stitched it Friday night and Saturday morning. Mostly it's floss but I found a sparkly blue mystery fiber to add to the floss for the water. It will be a Christmas gift.

One FO and Two UFOs

I've posted this little bag before but I finally figured out a closure for it and now it's done, done, done! I had planned to add a handle, perhaps bamboo. While the flower is pretty well centered, it seemed to me that the bag needed to be taller to be balanced. But I didn't like it when I experimented with handles in the store.

I took it to the Homewood Guild and the suggestions I got there were all for soft handles--cords and drawstrings. But I felt they would take too much off the top, so it sat another month until I was cleaning this weekend, putting away some beading supplies. What I ended up doing was sewing large gold-colored jump rings all around the top edge and stringing the cord through them. A soft closure but in better visual balance, I think.I'm working on a project that's a gift so I can't show it here. I'm also getting back to some ufos. I began the washcloth above after the other two I did for holiday gifts. This one, though... I ripped that third section out at least four times. The washcloths are a series of eight short-row sections and I put a life-line at the end of each section--and I'm glad I did. I ended up ripping back to the lifeline twice! I finally just put the thing away. This time when I picked it up I was back on track and completed two sections this weekend.This little tree is another random project. A few years back I made a bunch of stuffed shapes from printed and tone-on-tone fabrics. Trees and pumpkins. Some I beaded and most of those are done and gone--I have a paisley tree with a bit of beading on it but I'm not sure it's done yet. I found the beading tedious so I stopped.

This year I found the stuffies and I picked this one up and just began stitching it with random chain-stitch tendrils in the two colors. It's also tedious and surprisingly time consuming but I like it so I keep going. I'm finding this color combination pleasing.

Finished Objects

Sitting does have it's advantages; I'm getting some things done.I added a lacy edging tot he bottom of the pin doll's skirt. I took some perle 5 that I found nearby--sometimes it pays to not be neat and put things away. I had a crochet hook to hand, too, and made up a lacy edging. I am so much happier with it now.

The lace is a simple one. I crocheted a chain long enough to fit around the bottom of the doll's skirt. I added three more chain stitches for the first single crochet, chain one, of the next row. I skipped the fourth chain from the hook, sc in the next chain, chain 1, skip next chain of the first row, sc in next chain, keep up the sc, ch 1 across. At this point I joined it into a circle.

I could have joined the chain row but it's so easy to get that twisted. By joining after the second row, it was much easier to keep it from getting twisted. The last row was picots. ch 4, slip stitch into the 3d chain from the hook, ch 1, dc in first ch 1 space. Repeat *ch 4, ss into 3d ch from hook, ch 1, sc in next ch 1 space* across. Join at the end, stitch in the two ends, slip stitch the lace onto the doll (or handkerchief or purse or whatever) from underneath using matching sewing thread. Voila!I finished the cable hat. I've just barely begun the scarf. The yarn is really nice, but I did not see it in Knit Pick's newest catalog (the kit was several years old). The hat went quickly--I'd do it again.I also finished the first washcloth. Along the way I lost one of my knitting needles and substituted a double-pointed steel needle that looked about the right size. I put tape on one end to keep the stitches on. This was the easiest of the washcloths, but I really like the spiral pattern. I'm approaching the half-way point on the next washcloth, but the last time I tried knitting I ripped more than knit so I just gave it up. It's #2 in difficulty. I'm doing them in order. Next I'll cast on for #3, but first I think I need to get another pair of bamboo needles. I like them best with this yarn. (I think part of my problem with the second cloth is that I'm using harder to manage cable needles that are slippery.

I didn't do much embroidery this week, I'm really enjoying the knitting for now.

WIP-land

To stave off boredom while sitting last week, I began a whole slew of projects that I'm rotating between, sometimes a row or section of one then moving on to another. I'm restless.This is a hat, knit with cables in an Alpaca yarn--very soft. It was a kit from Knitpicks from my stash. This is a lacy washcloth and below is another. I have cotton (also from Knitpicks) for a third...which is perfect since the pattern book has three different patterns. The cloths are knit with short-rows. You can see I've learned my lace-knitting lessons--I'm using markers and lifelines, even for something this small. The good thing is that I've learned enough now to be able to figure out where I went wrong and fix it. The not-so-good thing is that I go wrong way too often. This is the completed flower from the needlebook I began way back when and then let languish. I've begun the second flower.
Last is an easy but slow pillowcase project. The first one came to me stitched, with the second stamped case and a few tangles of green floss and perle. I'm using those threads along with some more greens from my stash to satin stitch the leaves. I'll need to get to a store for the variegateds used for the flowers and for some thread to use to crochet the edgings. What color do you suggest I use? Variegated greens is an obvious choice but I'm just not so sure...

cool stitched stuff

Before I post more photos of more cars (yep, another car show this weekend), I thought I'd post some really cool needlework. Mostly not by me. This is my sister-in-law, wearing a sweater she knit over a lacy top she knit (her show-n-tell is mostly wearable) holding a sashiko pillow by our niece. three at once.This is a runner my sister made. I adore the bright colors.Here are a couple of close ups.My sister also made this cute veggie tales quilt.
On Friday night I made this mari. Step one for a temari ball. The center is shredded paper from my office shredder. In a knee-high nylon with a run. It's bigger than I intended but I made some choices I'll make differently next time. I began with black wool, then some thinner navy wool yarn. That was fine. I topped it with random thread--mostly in peaches and greens. Very pretty on the blue wool but, hmmm, when I went to wrap the white top layer, I began to see the error of my choices. I ended up using two spools of white thread for the top layer, just to cover up all of those dark colors. I've learned.

Now I need to decide what to do with my big fat mari. I spent some time browsing in my book thinking about what I like and why I like it.

Odds and ends

This is my first holiday gift of the season. I missed the Christmas party with my EGA chapter last week because of my cold. Before I headed home from work that night, I gave a friend who was going my presents to share and she gave hers to me. I love morning glories, so this is perfect! She lined the tin, too, so it will make a nice storage box for needlework tools.

She accompanied this with tasty treats: spicy-sweet almonds and candy coated pretzel sticks. I've been noshing on both and enjoying them. Over the past couple of weeks, my carry-along project was knit washcloths. The first one is square. The second is more of an oblong. I started out to make a hexagon but then began thinking about an oblong for back scrubbing so I made it as long as I could before running out of yarn.

I'm on a roll with these washcloths. My mom used to knit them endlessly and I can see why. I finished four rows while waiting during the mammogram process earlier this week. It kind of feels like something from nothing.

Winter!

Winter weather has blasted into the Chicago area. On my ride home yesterday I encountered rain, sleet, snow and a bit of tiny hail. Mostly sleet. Today is very windy and snowish (not really snowing but almost) and the temperature is dropping.

The conference is over. It went well and people were happy. Now there's the huge aftermath, clean up, pay bills, gather forms, document continuing education credits, and catch up with things set aside for the conference. And I just want to go home and sleep.

I still have my cold. It's eased quite a bit but I'm really dragging. Today I got my annual mammogram and took myself out for a Mexican breakfast afterward. Whinge over.

I'm chipping away at it all, slowly, and making some progress.

During the conference, I knit. (I'm mostly stuck at a registration table, with no place to plug in my computer, or running around checking on this and organizing that. I need something to occupy me in the odd quiet moments--something that I can pick up and put down in an instant. Simple knitting is perfect.)At the event, I worked on a new, small entrelac bag to be felted, this with the leftover yarns from the first bag I made. At home, I worked on a washcloth. Good, easy mindless knitting. I love these colors (Lily Sugar 'n' Cream).

Back to Reality, more or less

I've been diligently working. This weekend I felted things. First I prefelted my entrelac bag and then I stitched in the casing to hold the spring-frame closure--this technique worked really well and I'm glad I did it this way. Sewing the casing to the unflattened knitting would have been a nightmare. I then tossed it into the washer and drier again and it fulled up very nicely. Here it is, still damp, with the twisted and felted handle. Once it's dry I'll assemble it.Then I felted two wool sweaters, kindly given to me by Myrna in Wisconsin. I'd mentioned I thought I'd check the resale shops up there for wool (since there doesn't seem to be any down this way). She had found these at similar shops and gotten them to unravel and reuse the wool (she's much more dedicated that I am!). Instead she gave them to me to play with.I threw all the wool into the washer and washed it on hot--I'd never felted in the washer before and it worked okay. This sweater gave off a lot of fuzz (which I dutifully saved for needle felting!). I should have put something on the sweaters for scale--but they went from women's size to small child size. Each felted differently--in the top sweater the beige wool didn't felt too much, but the colored did. In the bottom sweater, the beige fulled tightly but the blue in the collar and cuffs didn't and still retains some of it's stretch. I'm not sure what I plan to do with them--I just kept seeing things using fulled sweaters (the proper term) and wanted to try it. Now that I have my sweaters, the ideas have fled. I'm sure they'll return sometime.As I was packing for vacation, I ran across this ufo. I designed and stitched a bunch of these cutwork ornaments, must have been a couple of years ago because I couldn't find a previous blogpost about them. I had this one drawn onto the fabric and the thread with it. I'd just barely begun to stitch the buttons on the snowman when I stopped. Since it was small, I tucked it into my bag and actually made a lot of progress while in Wisconsin. Here it is, all stitched, with the lining, backing and cotton batting to finish.I began a new entrelac bag since we've been home. This one is smaller than the first, done with a blended yarn which may not felt as tightly. I'm using one colorway of the yarn (I forgot the ball band today, sorry) and letting the colors flow. Each "square" is 8 stitches picked up and 64 knit--takes about 15 minutes. A nice project for small corners of time.

I also picked up my black Oriental canvas design. It took me all my stitching time Saturday morning to do two leaves. Since my previous post I've also done most of one of the camellias. But, hey, progress is progress.

More Birthday Goodness

My friend Myrna is a knitter. Saying that seems like a real understatement. Myrna knits like she breathes. For me, knitting a washcloth is a major undertaking (I may show a lot of things here, but you'll notice they're all quite small).

She had told me she was sending a birthday gift for me. I was pretty overwhelmed when I pulled the above basket out of the mailing box. A treasure trove of soft goodness for the bath.
Each one is a different pattern.

The colors are vibrant and fun. (They'll fit right into our hot-pink and white bathroom!)

And just so hubby wouldn't feel left out, a cuddly hat for him. He's always chilled come winter and this will keep him nicely snug.Thanks bunches, Myrn!

This was in the post when I typed it, but disappeared upon publication. Hmmm... Lula sent me this perfect book. I really love dictionaries, encyclopedias and can spend hours browsing them. This is a dictionary, but of all needlework, fabric and sewing related terms. How cool is that?

It's not a definitive stitch book, but certainly enough to jog my memory regarding stitches I don't do very often. And it's small size, makes it easy to keep handy in my stitching supplies. Thanks, Lula!

Cooper's flock

When blogging around I always check out what Annie has to say at ModeKnit and at the bottom of this post, she mentions (and provides a pattern for) Cooper's Flock. Cooper was only here on earth for a short time and his mom has a blog, luc ends, where she talks about life, grief, healing, and knitting. Lucinda has a project going to knit baby birds for the hospital where Cooper was. More on this here. She's hoping that every baby having heart surgery can have their own birdie.

So I decided to knit a bird and made one up yesterday. Lucinda prefers the birds be knit in Blue Sky Cotton yarn because she believes the cotton will have fewer allergy problems than wool and she knows their dyeing processes and trusts it. My birdie, above, was knit in wool I had on hand. I hadn't read that part of the posting until today. I also didn't print a photo of the finished bird and once I saw it today I realized my tail goes a different direction, but mostly it's pretty close.

I've ordered some of the Blue Sky Cotton from KPixie. The bird was fun to knit and I plan to make some more.

Take a look at this!

Is my sister-in-law an awesome knitter or what? I found this sale cotton yarn and after having it for a few years realized I'd never do anything with it. SIL knits so I'll give it to her. Never dreaming... The minute she saw the yarn the gears began turning--it was amazing to watch. You could actually see the light bulb go on over her head as she began designing it in her mind immediately. She'd been teaching a top-down bias pullover/ cardigan and adapted that. She took my measurements and took off knitting.

The secondary colors were her choice and really spark the design. The dragonfly design is also her original design. She knows I'm quite partial to dragonflies. I'm just too pleased for words.

I think I brought the yarn by in April. She had me try on the sweater, on the needles, in July. And here it is, complete, for my birthday! (and it's not even a major birthday, just a usual one in the midst of a decade) I've completed the back of a sweater for myself and the front is languishing, half done, in a pile. I knit hats and scarves and posies and fingerless gloves--not sweaters or other big items. And not originals at all.

The front has a button band and I need to find the perfect buttons for it. I think the design is so striking I may stick with simple plain solid color buttons. But who knows what inspiration will strike in the button aisle!

Thanks to the best SIL ever!