Project Progress

Robert Benchley once said: “Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing.” Yeah, that's me, and what led to my foot dragging about a few things that then led to it being a stressful week as I could no longer put them off (multiple tries before rental insurance document successfully uploaded to renter's portal, getting over dread of seeing NP re suspicious moles, etc.). Still, I actually got quite a bit done on the "fiber" front.. Sometimes it doesn't seem that way because I am doing small bits on more than one project, but I have managed one finish and marked major turning points in others. Let's start with the leftovers from the antique quilt. To refresh your memory, above is what I had to work with, more than I wanted to just toss, less than would make for an easy way to use them.

Pieces overlapped, pinned and ready for stitching

Zigzag stitching hardly shows

Several of you suggested I make a needle case, which I thought a great idea. I fitted the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, overlapped slightly and zigzagged together with white thread. Nothing fancy here. Not terribly pretty either, but I forged on. After squaring up, I had a piece 11" x 15". Way too big for a traditional needle case. But you know what I really need? A needle case for my circular knitting needles.

I took up knitting as a teen, and once my mother saw how into it I was, she found a beautiful zippered case for my growing collection of straight needles. It had one wider slot that would hold my first circular needles, bought so I could make a poncho (it was the 60's, what can I say?). But once I discovered Mobius scarves that required different sizes and lengths of circular needles, and started finding sweater patterns requiring them too, my circulars no long fit in my case. I've been stuffing them in the front pocket of the binder where I keep patterns, and although it sort of works, a separate case for them would be much better. I spotted this piece of hand-dyed fabric left over from my business days with friend Judi, and decided why not? Matching old with new would perk things ups a bit and the hand-dyed tightly woven fabric would make a sturdy lining for my case.

I decided a layer of batting would be a good idea and sandwiched a piece of Thermore between the patched together outside and the lining folded to create pockets. I found a piece of red twine for a closure and caught it in the line of stitching down the center.

I finished the edges that holds the whole thing together with the same blanket stitch I used on the tote bag. 

Front

Messy back

And that's it! Here's the front and back - again, not the prettiest but very functional. I may decide to run another line of stitching down the center of one side - some of my needles are packaged such that they would fit in the smaller pockets that would make - but I'll wait until some of my circulars currently in use are freed up and ready to store. 

So that's my finish. A partial finish could be that I completed the back of the red sweater (which unlike the other two sweaters is knit in four pieces that will be sewn together later). Lots of curling in this unblocked piece so it was difficult to get it arranged, but there IS a little shoulder/neckline shaping at the top, but not much - it's a drop shoulder design. Sitting on it is the crochet basket which, once the base was completed, magically started up the sides with the change of a stitch. When I worked that first row, it felt a lot like when I made my first coiled fabric bowl on faith and found that the slight tipping of the flat base made the sides appear. As for my other knitting projects, the Autumn Wave sweater is past the yoke "wave" pattern and sleeve stitches have been put on waste yarn for later while front and back are now joined and worked down an inch or so. The Watermark sweater continues its slow progress but I was excited to get out the measuring tape and realize I'm only a few inches from starting the ribbing at the bottom. Now that cooler weather has arrived, I'm very anxious to get these done so I can wear them! 

THIS is Different

I've been waiting all summer for this plant to flower. I'd wintered it over inside because it still looked so good right up until we were due for a freeze. But the blooms on it were such a dark purple that I couldn't really see and enjoy them unless I was right next to them. As August went on, I saw that it had half a dozen buds so I waited anxiously for the flowers to reveal themselves. To my surprise, this first one is a lighter, prettier purple than last year's. Looking forward to enjoying these into fall. Still waiting for the zinnias to show buds but the geranium continues to put out blooms.

Also different, this cluster of delicate pink blooms that showed up in the big pot by the front steps. When I first saw the clump of leaves, I nearly pulled them as weeds, but then decided to wait because they didn't quite look like any weeds I'd been been removing from this pot. Very glad I didn't but I don't know where these came from, just like the violas that have taken root out of nowhere. What a lovely end of summer surprise.

An update on my fawns, who showed up again this week . . . but with mom! I'm relatively sure this is the same group I was worried about when I saw the doe limping so badly and the fawns showing up on their own later. I'm going to go with that and am very relieved. Also relieved that our weather has turned fall-like with some rain that has cleared the wildfire smoke from our skies (although fires still burn north of me). It has allowed me to go back to daytime walks while the sun is still up!

More Intimidation

The crochet cardigan has been waiting patiently for me to add the finish stitches around the armholes, fronts and neck, but it required learning a new stitch plus "guessing" I was adding the right number of stitches "evenly" along all those edges since the pattern didn't give exact number and placement. I indeed was feeling intimidated. But eventually, I had to face my fears, look up how to do that new stitch since it wasn't in that booklet I've been referencing, and trust I could get the right number of stitches everywhere. The new stitch was a little tricky because it required going in from the front behind the "post" and back out the front while the next stitch did the opposite. It's a clever way to make a finish that looks like knitted ribbing. I often think that crocheters feel like the red headed stepchild of yarn manipulation so are constantly working to make their results look more like knitting that is held in higher esteem. I really like this ribbed looking edging. 

Here's it is finished and how I hope to be wearing it - over sleeveless tops and dresses. I'm of an age when cap sleeves look better than short sleeves on my arms, and I'm hoping this will help extend my current wardrobe. I learned quite a bit making this cardigan and, like with my knitting, stay interested in working on projects because there ARE new things I have to master. And apparently that's a good thing as we age, according to this tidbit I ran across:

What the hands do for the head

A Mayo Clinic team followed around thirteen hundred older adults and found that the ones who made things — knitting, quilting, that sort of thing — were meaningfully less likely to show signs of mild cognitive impairment than the ones who didn’t.

That’s an association, not a promise, and we’re not about to suggest a scarf is medicine. But it makes sense when you look at what knitting actually asks of a person: planning, counting, sequencing, catching your own mistakes, holding a shape in your head that doesn’t exist yet. Plus two hands doing different jobs at once.

Here’s the part we didn’t expect. A Harvard neurologist who studies this makes the point that the benefit lives in the learning, not the doing.

When I bought the kit for the crochet cardigan, I also bought a kit for a crocheted bag. Before I forget all my crochet skills, I decided to move it up the priority list and am hoping for a relatively speedy finish. The kit included this ribbon "yarn" which is worked double using a really big crochet hook, hence my belief this will go quickly. You make the base in the round first, something I probably haven't done since I tried a doily pattern from my reference booklet when I was first learning back in the 70's. And I learned yet another new trick of the "magic ring" that the first stitches are made in which allows you to pull up the stitches tight into a ring, leaving no hole in the center as other methods do. It's been a bit tough going, pulling that doubled ribbon through the tight big stitches, but I can see this will make a very sturdy bag.

On another note, I had a birthday this week. Nothing special this year, just not feeling up to my usual tracking down of a take-out dinner and bakery dessert or going someplace special to spend the day as we are still dealing with enough smoke that I shouldn't spend time out in it. However, I did remember that I'd bought a box of fudge brownie mix on sale when I had a chocolate craving, then left it there because I'm constantly trying to get my weight down. Well, birthdays are great excuses for splurging so I bought some icing like you put on German chocolate cake and baked it up. Good lord, what a sweet treat! With a banana and plain yogurt on the side, it's been my lunch all week.

I did make one other splurge with a trip the day after my birthday to the local yarn shop that carries Marlabrigo yarns. I'd been looking at one in particular via their website and was teetering on the edge of treating myself when an unexpected birthday check from a brother arrived. He said he had a feeling a needed a nudge to do something special, so off I went. I bought more than his check would cover, but it was the deciding factor in my taking the plunge. Enough there for a sweater I have the pattern for (the "buy with intent" method) plus an impulse buy of a single skein of the variegated one called Fire Agate, the colors of which kept calling out to me as I studied the various choices on the wall (might have been my choice for the sweater except there was only a single skein which I'm thinking will end up a scarf or shawl). Susurro yarn is particularly soft as it is 50% Mulberry silk,25% Merino wool, 25% linen. This color reads a beautiful dark brown but changes to something almost dark purple in different light, which the store owner attributes to the silk. Longtime readers will no doubt remember that I have a difficult time passing up anything with silk in it! This is going to be so lovely to work with and then to wear, but I have three other sweaters on the needles to finish first. Still making steady progress on all of them but this new yarn waiting in the wings . . . THAT should push me along - lol

 

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!