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

 

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 . . .

 

Venetian Tiles All Bound Up

Venetian Tiles (Stack n Whack pattern) 31" x 30-1/2"

Well, I said I was going to set my mind to finishing this little quilt this week and I did just that! The half-inch binding with the seam and turnover having to fall right on the edge of each side of a stripe was stressful to pull off and left me with more turned to the back than necessary to be caught by the machine stitching done from the front. And the weight of the fabric (think Kona or heavier) made for bulk at the corners leaving me with less than perfect miters. But as I've said before, this is just for me, to toss over the livingroom trunk, and the real showcase is those beautiful kaleidoscope blocks. 

I did steam it, hoping to pull out a bit more texture, but the quilting is still difficult to make out. I'm sensing a lot of shouldas, couldas about this one: should have used a different batt, could have used more visible thread, maybe should have done a single fold binding. And maybe someone can explain to me how a symmetrical top measured a half inch shorter in one direction. But it's still really beautiful. 

Traveler's Journals Done!

When last I posted, I had the outer covers of the Traveler's journals done and had started working on the actual journals and pockets to slip under the elastic that will hold them in place. I didn't want to put just plain paper in the journals, so printed up some papers with lines, others with dots and a few with graph paper. All had to be cut down to fit, which a guillotine paper cutter makes quick work of. I also used this to cut the scrapbook paper I used for covers.

It was suggested to use a running stitch to bind the signatures with their covers together if your signatures pages were not all the same height, i.e. incorporating leftover papers from other projects or sources, but even though all my papers were the same size, I still used this stitch. So easy starting at the top going in and out to the bottom, then working back up to the top, all gaps getting covered by thread.

Here are the journals ready to go into the covers, two for each.

And yes, just like in quilting, I dithered over the right color of thread to bind each journal. 

Now for pockets. Awhile ago I saw this nifty way presented by Karen Abend to put together a group of envelops to make a pocket booklet. You can use as many envelops as you want, but I chose 4 for each booklet. Start with two envelops, flaps open, pointing at each other, with one face down. 

Moisten the glue on the flap of the envelop on the right before slipping the flap inside the left hand envelop. You can use a little glue stick if necessary.

Now fold that right hand envelop back to the left so it lies on top of the first envelop. Press the fold with a bone folder or something similar since the flap is now folded in the opposite direction from where it started. Repeat with another envelop, slipping the flap into the opening of this second envelop. When you've added all the envelops you want, the flap from the first envelop can now be flipped over and tucked into the last opening, securing it all together.

I'd been giving a lot of thought to what I'd be putting between the covers and I wasn't particularly happy with the way the instructions wanted you to add a third item by tying a piece of elastic around the signature and then working that elastic over the center of a signature already under  one of the two elastic loops already attached to the cover. The eyelet holes were plenty big to accommodate another length of elastic so I added one - now I had 4 pieces of elastic to slip things under.

This works well and helped to fill up the space in the spine once I added everything. The pocket envelops went in the center between the two signatures. The fourth elastic could hold a memo pad or some other item one might want to add to the book.

Here's a look at the center of the pocket book where the blue elastic runs to hold it in place.

As you might imagine, as much as I really liked how these were turning out, I was so ready by now to be done with this project that I nearly skipped adding closures.

But a traveler's journal like this really does need a closure to hold everything together and I defaulted to my favorite soft journal closure that I learned from Michele in Wisconsin when we were trading books - see hers here. I found perfect buttons in my grandmother's collection and made simple loops from elastic. Really pleased with these.

 

Wrapping Up, On To 2026

I made one last push of completing something before December was over and finished knitting the replacement sleeve for the eyelet cardigan. However, I couldn't quite make myself actually remove the offending sleeve and stitch in the new one before New Year's day. When I did get around to it, it was much more difficult to remove the whip stitching than I anticipated and a lot of picking and tugging managed to make my thumb joints cry out in rebellion. I had to take several days off to rest them before adding on the new sleeve, and then another few days before I fixed the places along the side seam where I hadn't caught enough of the knitted edge in to hide a run of knit stitches. But that's all done now, the sweater soaked, blocked and drying. I'd tried it on before wetting it and was a little disappointed in how it looked on me - not as long in the sleeves or body as I'd anticipated, not the slouchy casual sweater I saw hanging behind the counter at the yarn store. But as I was laying it out to dry and taking some measurements, I realized it had grown quite a bit, measurements in all directions more like I was expecting. The blocking is suppose to relax things, soften them up and this really needed that. Hoping it will be more the sweater I envisioned once dry.

Pushing me along to finish the cardigan was my antsy-ness to start on another pair of socks. I bought this yarn the same day as I saw that cardigan and got the pattern for it, and have worked on the cardigan for the better part of the year, even though I'd wanted to dive into this luscious blue yarn with hints of purple and teal. But while I'm ok with having more than one quilting project going at a time, I've always worked on just one knitting project at a time, so there was much incentive to finish the cardigan so I could start these. I'm using the same pattern as I used for the grey wool socks and hoping there is enough yarn that I can make these knee high. I've rolled it into two balls so I can knit on each sock until its ball runs out, and checked the gauge last evening. It's a thinner yarn than the grey of the other socks and I'm experimenting with increasing the size of the needles so as to match the gauge. Gotta tell ya, going from heavy worsted yarn worked on average size 8 needles to fine fingering yarn on needles the size of bamboo skewers is quite the transition. But at least, off and running in the new year!

Speaking of things knitted, I've had a lovely warm lambswool cardigan bought a very long time ago that I pull out to wear around the house with a turtleneck or flannel shirt once the weather gets wintry. And the last time I went to put it on, sometime before Christmas, I noticed to my surprise and dismay, that I'd worn some holes in the elbow regions. But I can mend that fairly seamlessly I think, and have searched my yarns and crewel threads for one that is a close match to the deep cranberry of the sweater. I believe I was wearing this when I was still working at a paying job, which would make it at least 35 years old, so I guess it has actually held up pretty well. No way I am going to ditch it now - mending on the way!

So here it is, the new year, so I was surprised by a late Christmas package arriving on Saturday and delighted by its contents: a "bento box" of specialty teas and these Amy Tan books. Oh my goodness, the Chronicles has such beautiful drawings on every spread, and Amy's writing about her nature excursions and observations in her backyard strike a chord. The journal is just blank pages with room to note day, time, location, weather so that you can draw your own bird observations, and is prefaced with Amy's suggestions for supplies and procedures. Not sure how much I'll use that as in MY backyard, the birds flit so fast among the trees I often can't figure out what they are and I'm not interested in putting up feeders. I do have the occasional humming bird dip into my deck flowers but they too are so swift that I can't even get a photo of one. We'll see . . . 

And now it's time to announce my yearly Resolution Word, one that came to me as I worked on the Joy Banner: Realign. Day after day, I was surprised at how smoothly that project went because I'd been away from that kind of sewing for so long and my memory reminded me of how rusty and fumble fingered I'd been on the last few. Not so now, no hesitation as I moved through the process from one step and skill to the next. At some point I felt a subtle shift inside, hard to explain but basically a feeling that if this was going so well, I should keep going, get back to doing this kind of work. Thus the idea of "realign", and upon checking the definition, I found this one that captures my feeling: To put back into proper order. I have no lack of sewing projects waiting in the wings but they partially wait because I've expanded my interests to include so many other types of crafts and art. I enjoy them all but I can't shake that feeling that the proper order of my time spent needs to move the sewing/quilting up the ranks. And after a year of feeling so low on energy, so many draggy days and a real effort to get things done in spite of my good and helpful resolution word(s) of last year (see below), I'm experiencing a drive and energy going into January that's been missing for awhile. I surely hope it lasts. Happy New Year!

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Previous Resolution Word Posts:

• 2008 - Freedom
  2009 - Calm
  2010 - Focus
  2011 - Refocus
  2012 - Balance & Harmony
  2013 - Perseverance
  2014 - Explore
  2015 - Fearless
  2016 - Light
  2017 - Endure 
  2018 - Refresh
  
  2019 - Wing It!  
  2020 - Go! 
  2021 - Finish 
  2022 - More 
  2023 - Continue
  2024 - Organize  
  2025 - Resist Less/Fear Less 

 

Did I Make It?

Click on picture for a larger view of the stitching

Yes, I did! At about 5:00 p.m. Christmas, I put the finishing touches on the Joy Banner and hung it in the living room, followed by getting out the Christmas trump topper and a few decorations - instant Christmas! If memory serves, there is a tradition somewhere of waiting until Christmas Eve to put up decorations which to be honest I've never tried until this year. But I kind of like it! However, I listened to so much Christmas music while working on the Banner that I got Christmas song-ed out. Wouldn't have thought possible! So let me walk you through the finishing touches starting with decisions about where else to put quilting after stitching in the ditch along most seams (I just quilted up the middle of the checkerboard and not along all the horizontal seams). There were those almost triangular areas above the arch at the top, and to carry out the holly theme I decided to quilt around the holly template used to do the applique below. Note how I also quilted close to the edge of the holly and bow appliques - a really nice touch.

I'd been puzzling over the outer border, whether to add any quilting in it or just let it go since it wasn't very wide. But I had holly leaves on the brain and decided to quilt a string of them around the border, no marking and with the same gold thread - yes, getting daring because indeed I'd wondered if I should do it in a less visible green thread. Really hard to photograph metallic thread and the thread didn't really pop off the border - I used the YLI thread this time since I'd be doing free motion quilting and I didn't trust that old Coats metallic thread to hold up to that. The Coats metallic was a bit flatter which I think catches the light better. The leaves are wonky, the only non-precision thing about this quilt but I'm fine with that. Be sure to click for the larger view.

Time to bind. I'd mentioned in a comment on the last post that I didn't think I had even a small sleeve in me for hanging this quilt. I'd been thinking tabs and decided to see how much binding I had leftover. Believe it or not, I had exactly enough left to make three tabs (two pieces right sides together, sew up each side to make a tube and turn). I've perfected this method of cutting binding slightly wider than 2 inches so that when turned to the wrong side it overlaps the stitching line enough to be caught when I sew it down from the front by stitching in the binding's ditch. All I needed to do was fold each tube in half and position the raw edges even with the edge of the quilt edge, then turn the binding over, pin and stitch. It worked very well. If you click on the photo for a larger view, you should be able to see the nest of metallic threads that have been pulled to the back for burying.

17" x 32"

And here we are - a joyful, joyfully made, Joy Banner to enjoy now and for years to come!

It's nearly New Year's Eve so I also wish you a Happy New Year full of wonderful projects and surprises. 

It's A Pillow!

At long last! I'm not sure why this project threw up one challenge after another, a project that was supposed to be "quick and easy" (a sure way to jinx myself). I thought surely this very old block would be happy to become something and be out in the light of day. Perhaps it was just as happy between the folds of fabrics in the darkness of a drawer. Regardless, out in the open it now is, and you see it in the chair in which it will reside. A very nice match. 

I was following directions saved from a quilting magazine and with penciled adjustment cutting dimensions for a 16" finish in the margins. Very faint as I've had this for quite awhile. I decided to ink over the pencil marks and must have read one number wrong because when it came time to add the quilted bound block to the pillow base, I suddenly realized the top to bottom measurement must not be right. Instead of being 16 plus seam allowance inches when folded in half, it was 17 plus seam allowance inches. How could that be? Was I accounting for the fullness of the pillow form with the extra inch? I mulled this over for several days, believe it or not, such is the brain fog I often have to deal with, before I shook myself and said, "That's not right - just trim off the excess and amend the notation in the margin." Yeah, stop pretending I meant to do that!

The one thing that did not catch me out, caused me no issues was making the pillow form. It only required about one third of the bag of fiberfill and is still quite puffy - and yet fit right into the adjusted 16 inch outer pillow case. What will I do with the remainder? More pillows? (I hardly need more. . .) Try my had at stuffed animals again? (Not feeling it . . .) Into the closet for now. Needless to say, I'm glad to have this project behind me, pleased with how it looks.

Zentangle Break

3" x 3" accordion sketchbook

Back in May, the Zentangle people offered a 21 day "Be Well" series which I was interested in but didn't want to do at the time. I just recently took a look at the video from day one and saw that all the tangling would be done inside a leaf-like shape set on the diagonal. I've been doing a lot of my Zentangling in one of my commercial sketchbooks but didn't think it would work well for this. I also didn't want to use up the individual tiles I have on hand. I got to thinking that placing those leaf shapes in an accordion style book might be just the ticket and I thought I had something I could trace around to make those shapes uniform. Yeah, I'm a LOT about uniformity.

So I took a break from my house cleaning for company to make a simple and quick accordion book. Well, nothing I make is quick but at least it would be simple. I took a look at a couple of videos in my Handmade Book Club to refresh my memory about folding and joining strips together, and I was off. Quick calculations showed that cutting an 18 x 24 inch piece of mixed media paper would give me strips that would fold into 8 panels, and three strips joined would give me the number of panels I would need and a few extras. With the video instructions in mind, I just folded that big sheet in half, then folded the sides to the middle and used a blunt knife to tear along the fold lines. I'd only need three of the four strips.

As I started folding the strips, I momentarily puzzled over the fact that the panels were turning out to be rectangles instead of squares, the planned dimensions for my book being 3" x 3". Oh yeah, dividing the width of the big sheet of paper into fourths yielded strips 4-1/2 inches wide. Oops . . . I quickly trimmed off the excess 1-1/2 inches and continued folding. More scraps for another project. Does this sound like quilting yet? ;-)  The two small rectangles will be used to join the three strips. The bone folder run over the folds makes them crisp.

To make sure I joined the strips correctly - valleys and mountains in proper order - I paper clipped where I'd be adding the joining strips on the back. The rectangles are folded lengthwise and that fold positioned flush with the end of the adjoining strips. My bookclub directions showed this done using PVA glue but I wasn't keen to deal with the messiness of glue and was happy when I remembered that I had Scor-Tape on hand in a half inch width which was just what I needed. Accordion booklet almost done. 

I wanted to attach some kind of cover on the first and last panels for stability but didn't need anything particular thick or heavy. I decided to look through my various papers, settling on this mulberry paper one. Does the design remind you as it does me of trees? Again, I didn't want to fool with glue so cut 3 x 3 inch squares of Scor-Tape from a 6 inch square sheet. Scor-Tape is sort of a one and done tape meaning you have essentially one shot at getting your item positioned correctly before the adhesive makes it impossible to remove. Fortunately, the mulberry paper lined up without a hitch and along with the Scor-Tape, stiffens up the mixed media paper just enough to work as "covers". The bone folder comes in handy to burnish for a good adhering.

Now to draw the diagonal leaf shapes on the panels. There's the thing I thought would work well to draw around, some kind of end plug from packaging that begged me not to throw it away. Hopefully you can see now why I thought an accordion book would work well.

I penned the title on the first panel (and as an after thought added my initials chop after I'd taken the picture). Each day has a theme to meditate on (day one is Embrace not Erase) and a related quotation so I am adding those in the negative space around the leaf shape. To be honest, I wasn't too excited about this first zentangle and less excited with the way mine came out but at least I've started!

When filled, it can be displayed open to show off the undulating zentangle designs.

I like this small 3 x 3 inch little book but accordions can be awkward to work in. I need to find a bit of decorative elastic I think to wrap vertically around it to hold this closed when I'm not working in it and to hold together the springy pages not in use when I'm trying to zentangle on a panel - it's already proven to be an issue. And wouldn't you know it, no sooner did I finish this up and readied myself to complete the remainder of the cleaning and straightening than I got word that my company has had to postpone their arrival. So a relaxing weekend I wasn't counting on in a mostly clean and picked up house!