Knitting Update

The purple yarn denotes where front and back body joined

Several of you commented on my last post regarding the pieces of the antique quilt I had left, the suggestion being I could turn them into a needle case. Brilliant! I'll get right on it, I thought. but you know me - I seldom get right on anything lol. And the week has gotten away from me so all I have to show is progress on my Watermark Cardigan. I'm still very pleased with myself that whatever else my happen, I knit those two rows every day. Slow progress but steady progress, as you can see how far down the body under the armholes I am - about half way to where the ribbing will start. 

The only other thing to report is a bit sad. I'd come downstairs to find two beautiful fawns right by my deck. I seldom see them that close. Where's mom, I wondered, looking up and down the space between my place and the green belt - nowhere to be seen. That's not good, I thought, wondering if something had happened to their mother.

I decided to go upstairs and grab my camera to see if I could get some pics. By the time I got back down, the fawns had moved closer to the greenbelt and mom finally appeared. But I soon could see that she was not alright. Limping heavily, hardly able to put any weight on her right front let. But she continued down the way, fawns following. Was she hit by a car, attacked by a predator? I'll never know. And I probably will never know if she healed or not, and if not, if her fawns could survive without her. 

Tote Intimidation

Apologies for the very out of focus photo. Right side trimmed, ruler placed to trim the left side.

This happens to me more often than I like to admit. I decide on a project, excitement builds as I get out pattern, fabric, whatever, and then at the first or so decision to be made, I freeze. A simple project turns into something I can't face because for a variety of reasons, I can't take the first step. That's a bit of what happened with my idea to turn the antique quilt remnant into a tote bag. As I stood assessing what I had to work with, I eventually would have to make some cuts, and there'd be no going back after that. So many questions I couldn't answer at the moment shot through my mind. But as the weeks went on and I kept going back into the studio to stare at it, I continued to think about those questions and the first cuts, and worked out answers so I could proceed. Folding the piece in half as it would be in the finished tote, I checked where my limits were on each side (since the piece was not perfectly squared up) and chose to make those border buds my guide two up, two down.

My only question as I placed the ruler for the trim on the left side was, will this leave enough for straps. It did, perfectly. Did it pain me to cut through the applique flower? Yes, a bit. But that was part of what intimidated me about working with this remnant, and I soon got over it.

I had a better piece with that same flower on it that was perfect to make a pocket out of. The top would need to be bound though, along with one side of the tote top - the other side had the original binding still intact. I had the perfect white muslin in my stash that I folded like commercial bias tape and could stitch down in one pass.

Since all these pieces are quilted, I opted for my machine's buttonhole (or is that blanket stitch?) setting to both sew the pocket in place and edge-finish the straps. Key to remember is that this tote will not get heavy use. I found a subtle variegated blue thread in my stash of King Tut cotton threads very similar in color to the blue applique pieces. 

The pocket fills in an open space on this side and works better than if I tried to just stitch the flower onto it. Trust me, I did try to make it fit while it still had its curved stem in place, but I couldn't make it work. Fine - pocket it is and the stem got trimmed away. It couldn't be centered because I didn't want to overlap the leaves on either side. Still, I love the way this looks.

I decided against lining this, again because it's a quilted piece and won't get heavy use as well as because of that one edge that was already bound. I realized I could sew the sides up using a French seaming technique that would encase the raw edges while also giving some heft to the sides. I decided I had enough room to sew across the bottom ends to form a box at the base.

Still a bit flimsy as totes go, but I'd noticed on the Staples promotional bag I'm keeping my downstairs sweater knitting in that it had binding sewn over the side and bottom creases which I think helps hold it up. Hmmm . . . I decided to do something similar by sewing a little pintuck over my edges. 

It does help, not as much as I'd hoped but I still think it was a good move. 

On the flip side from the pocket side, I suddenly saw another gap that could be filled with a remaining applique piece. This one was cut with one side of original binding and boy, did I want to make it another pocket.

Try as I may, I could not find a way to sew it anywhere keeping its pocket shape. Regretfully, I faced facts and trimmed it down, leaving a small allowance of the white background it was sewn to in order to use a zig zag stitch to attach it without stitching on the actual applique. Almost looks like it was always there. Only thing left to do was sew on the straps, which were amazingly the right length just as they were trimmed off the remnant.

Shipping bag in background, quilted tote much better

Now for the test run. My Autumn Wave sweater yarn has remained in it's original tyvek shipping package and I've been anxious to get it transferred to a more suitable bag. Perfect!

And that pocket sewn to the outside is just the right size to hold needles and any other small items. My "new" tote bag may be a little tired and worn in places but so am I - lol. A week's worth of work well worth the time spent. I still can't believe that the person who gave me this remnant didn't think it was very well done. The more I worked with it, the more I admired the workmanship.

This is all that was left over. There are still a few pieces I couldn't find a place for on the tote that I'm loath to toss out. I'm thinking maybe I can cobble together a small accessory bag or something. Waste not, want not . . .

 

Smoke and Knitting

Taken from my front steps - what "unhealthy for sensitive groups" looks like

It's been on national news for days so you may know about the devastating fires along the northwest part of Spokane WA. That's a little over an hour's drive away from me, maybe 70 miles as the crow flies, so not endangering me per se. However, the prevailing winds funnel the massive smoke plumes right into our valley, so air quality has been dicey. I think we also get smoke from some of the big fires in Oregon. My friend Sherrie has a daughter who lives in a safe part of Spokane and put up an excellent post summarizing the magnitude of the event. So rather than me reiterating, I'll just direct you to her post here.

This is from a few days ago

I generally use airnow.gov to monitor the air quality so I know if it's safe to take my walks since I have respiratory issues. It may be hazy and in the moderate range most of the time but the last few days there has been little wind to clear the smoke out. Good for the firefighters, not so good for moving the smoke along. The fires (yes there are more than one) are far from being contained  let alone out so this no doubt will be what the rest of our summer will be like - heat and smoke. 

Sleeve stitches on waste yarn, back joined to front to knit the body

So not spending time outside, masking up if I do, and glad for my knitting projects to keep my mind off the feeling of doom the smoke and news about the fires has hanging over me. I'm happy to report that I stuck to my goal of knitting on my Watermark Cardigan knitalong every day in July. Well, almost every day. On the last day of the month, I was set to tackle a major part of the pattern where you remove the sleeve stitches onto waste yarn for knitting later and join the fronts and back at the underarm of the sleeve to knit the rest of the body. But I soon realized something was amiss with the directions - I had directions for the pullover sweater inserted here instead of the cardigan. I e-mailed support but it was late on Friday and figured I wouldn't hear back until Monday. Dang!

Rather than mope, I decided to grab the Autumn Wave sweater sitting right there next to me and substitute knitting a few rows on it to keep to my daily knitting until I heard back about the wrong page of directions. Here you can see the wave pattern emerging beautifully. Then with corrected directions in hand, I did the sleeve divide and have knit a couple of inches down into the body now. I watched the wrap-up zoom session and was encouraged by how many participants were at the same stage as I am, and still awed by those who were already done and showing off their finished sweaters. Well, I'm sure they were sitting there knitting row after row each day whereas I usually knit just two. I'm guessing if I keep that rate up, I won't be finishing this up until late September, maybe longer. But it will NOT be languishing!

One last thing, when stepping out on my deck to water plants, I saw a lot of movement in what is another one of those buckthorn trees down the way. If it was a bird, it was a big one, but after watching for a bit, I realized it was the squirrel again, so I grabbed my camera, cranked up the zoom and tried to get a shot.

One thing that kept confusing me was I could see light flashes through the leaves that turned out to be its tail and body. He wasn't crawling along a branch but was hanging upside down and stretching out to reach the berries! 

Incoming!

I want to say "don't ask" but I'll try to give some sort of explanation for what's in this package from yet another Danish yarn company.

I've returned to an obsession I've had off and on over the years: yarn and knitting patterns. Add to that the trend for so many in the knitting community to have Youtube channels where they share what they buy and make, often along with critiques and helpful hints. I've mentioned before that there are several of these knitters I've started to follow, learning so much, and I kept hearing about Drops Belle yarn. Never heard of it but soon learned it was a cotton/linen blend with apparently good qualities. I started hunting for it and couldn't find any U.S. distributors. That's why I ended up at Rito where they were having a ridiculous sale on an already reasonably priced yarn. There was a bit of tariff to pay but I still wound up paying around $2 a skein - a fraction of what I pay for my wool blend yarns. Risky doing this sight unseen on the recommendation of strangers, but I decided to load up. 

I'd been looking for a very long time for a cotton/linen blend yarn for a mobius shawl, so that was the main reason I wanted to get some of this. It's another cotton yarn that is not twisted but which construction is called chainette. It seems to make for a sturdier yarn - cotton does not have the same strength and "stickiness" that wool does. Picture's a bit blurry but perhaps you can spot the chaining.

There's also some viscose in the blend, exactly what my mobius pattern was recommending.

I ended up choosing four colors - 4 skeins each of the off-white and chocolate, 10 of the lilac and blue. The 4 skeins of off white should be what I need for the mobius shawl, but not sure what I will do with the four chocolate at this point. The others should be enough for a short sleeve or 3/4 sleeve top, and I've already picked out a pattern for the lilac. But starting on any of these is way down the road. Just couldn't pass up that incredible sale.

Another incoming was this picture from my favorite nephew. I'd given him the Tetris quilt when he showed an interest in it during a visit. I could tell he would not only take good care of it but actually use it too as he asked questions about if it could be washed. He has a fiance now who decided it should be placed on the back of their couch and I'm so happy he sent me a picture of it - perfect!

The last incoming is new information on that berry-filled tree behind my place. Pat took issue with me calling it an elderberry and with good reason, so I did more research, finding a plant identification site on-line that would scan my photo and give me a name. It came up with a kind of Buckthorn, which I must admit was one I'd seen when doing some searching before and wondering if it fit. Now I went to Buckthorn specific sites including this one if you're interested, and started adding up the evidence, starting with this thorn-like protrusion at the end of branches that gives the tree its name.

I'd not actually got up close to the tree before this but needed to in order to check out the leaves. One variety has smooth edged leaves while another has slightly serrated leaves. I thought mine were smooth until I had one in hand. 

Between the wind blowing and the birds making noise showing how upset they were that I was messing with their tree, I struggled to get a good shot of the third thing that identifies a buckthorn - white lenticels on branches, which is what I think is on these branches. Added up, I think what I have here is a Common Buckthorn. According to several sites I studied, there are different kinds of Buckthorn, some native to an area while others are considered invasive and are being actively stamped out. Not sure of the situation in my area. No matter the variety, the berries are toxic for humans but a feast for the birds and a very large squirrel that I caught feeding on them as well. Mystery solved!