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 . . .

 

Slow Summer Wind

Kind of an odd week as I look back and am not sure of how I filled the time. Knitting, of course. I do two rows each day on the Watermark cardigan, first thing after breakfast, a little reading, and every other day some yoga. I've learned that this is how I actually get things done creatively rather than plopping down in front of the computer first to check mail and favorite sites. It takes 20-30 minutes to complete a row, depending on its complexity and if I have to track down where I'm missing a stitch. I'd completed row 58 I think when I took this picture. All that pattern lace makes this look and feel so luxurious.

There were days when I could have squeezed in some studio time, but I've put the tote bag on hold as I think through how I want to construct it. Questions like should it have a lining, and will it be deep enough if I create a bottom by sewing across the bottom of the sides? Straps too need contemplating as well as how to finish around the top. I'm almost there. In the meantime, I finally got over avoidance of seaming the crochet cardigan together at the shoulders. I'm always uneasy when facing a technique I've not done before. In this case, it was suggested to use a slip stitch for the join. Ok, it can't be that hard. I used those Clover Wonder Clips to hold the pieces together. Boy, do they work slick for something like this.

I don't think I've ever used this method to seam my knitting or crocheting, but it work like a charm. It left a perfect clean flat finish on both the right and wrong sides, and it was easy to line up the stitches on the panels and run that slip stitch through them. Sides seams are next, clipped and ready.

It's been very hot here, smokey too. and that smoke really has an affect on my overall mood which starts leaning towards feelings of doom even though no forest fires are threatening me. I've only gone out after the sun has gone down and it has cooled off a bit, and had to resort to wearing a mask a few evenings when I wanted to get a walk in because the air quality was in the high moderate range or unhealthy for people like me range. Several days I just skipped it. I do have air conditioning but have been trying to use it sparingly because I'm pretty sure it pulls in outside air without a lot of filtering, and I've discovered that I am quite comfortable sitting in front of a fan most of the day as long as I've cooled off the house overnight. So not any sitting on the deck time. However, I can look at my container garden blooming from my livingroom, and out beyond that, everything looks fairly lush. I'd noticed a while back that one tree - the one the arrow is pointing to - had developed some small green berries on it, a first. I wondered if it was a mountain ash tree which is common in this area, showing off red berries later in the year that often make a mess of sidewalks when they fall off!

However, the berries have now turned purple, and I'm getting a laugh watching the robins and even a squirrel land on the long bouncy branches to feed. I'm thinking it may be an elderberry tree. My mom always got a faraway look in her eyes when elderberries came up. She had fond childhood memories of picking them for jam. What do you think they might be?  

 

Muse Still Up To Her Tricks

Wellll . . . . my week of seclusion did not go as well as it has in past years in that I struggled to settle on a single focus. I knew that I'd be knitting on my Watermark Cardigan every day, and I did. I'm now on row 42, bearing in mind that every other row grows longer by 8 stitches so takes longer to complete, and have started on my second ball of yarn. I've looped the handles of the big tote bag where I keep the yarn and knitting in progress over the arm of my office chair which is working well as I concentrate on the pattern directions laid out on my desk. Things ARE moving a bit quicker as I finally memorized how to do those left and right "make one stitch" increases as well as mostly memorizing the sequence of the pattern stitches on the row I am working on, having to look at the pattern less often. Still, I'm making a few errors here and there leaving me with not enough stitches upon completing a row, and having to backtrack to see what I've done wrong, sometimes unknitting to the spot, other times being able to fudge in a stitch where it is missing when I knit the next row. As the pattern designer says, we all make these errors - even she - and rather than beat ourselves up over it, think of any visible ones as design features. Sound familiar? By the way, I've left Venetian tiles hanging on the wall where I pinned it for photos, right next to my computer, and I've just noticed that the color of my yarn is nearly identical to the green in that quilt!

Beyond the knitting, I felt I should do something in the studio but couldn't decide what. Early in the week I'd finished the last panel of the crochet cardigan, scanned the directions and realized it recommended a light blocking before attaching the front panels to the back panel. In a recognizable procrastination move, I decided to get that done before starting anything else, crawling around on the floor as I smoothed and stretched the panels to size. I'm getting too old for that much crawling around and getting up and down from the floor - I paid for it with a lot of stiffness and soreness the next day!

While messing around with that, I suddenly had a lightbulb moment of what I could work on the rest of the week - making a couple of tote bags to hold my various knitting projects. I've had that piece of antique quilt the person who'd cut it up to make a jacket had sent me for quite awhile, finding it difficult to let go of my anger at her, and not having a good idea of what to do with it, until now. I think I was inspired by Angela Walters who did a video not too long ago of how to turn quilted panels into baskets and totes (watch the video here). So I got it out, folded it this way and that, and decided there was enough for a bag.

But I did notice a large area with some light brown staining, very typical of old textiles, and remembered I'd bought a product quite awhile ago which is supposed to remove that sort of thing without damaging the textile - Retro Clean. I'd meant to use it on some heirloom handkerchiefs but as usual, had not got around to it. There was an area I could cut off to use as a test piece to be sure it truly did not disintegrate or fade an already aged quilt so got to work. 

The directions said to soak for 24 to 48 hours - I was NOT expecting it to take that long - and preferably to set it in the sun to keep the water warm. Ok, if you say so. Even though it's very hot here, the water was cool when I brought it inside after the sun went down. I decided to skip that part on the bigger piece. It did seem to lighten the brown area but not harm the fabrics in any way. Time to soak the large piece for the full 48 hours, followed by rinsing and washing (by hand). Although I think I can still see some staining it is definitely almost gone. And in wetting this piece of old quilt, I immediately could spot tiny seeds here and there in the very thin layer of cotton batting. In fact, the batting was so thin that it had shifted in some areas to leave places of no batting at all. Another bit of evidence to the old age of this quilt.

So much for whipping up a quick tote bag from this already quilted remnant. However, I also had in mind a couple of tote bag patterns bought ages ago and once again, never made up. Time to hunt them down. These two I found right away, hanging on a cork board. Technically not totes but I thought the Two-Hour Tulip Purse made in the largest size would be perfect to hold a knitting project. I'd seen it made up with a flap at a quilt show and thought it would make a perfect purse, hunting down the pattern locally, but I now have plenty of serviceable purses on hand. Better it be a tote bag. But I laugh at the "Two-Hour" designation. I know darn well it will take me longer than that!

What I really wanted to find though was a tote pattern that used that black plastic screening and as a sample showed, combined with batik fabric. I pictured myself picking up purchases at quilt show vendors and tucking them into my see-through bag, so bought the pattern and the batiks the sample was made with. I still have those batiks, but do you think I could find the pattern now? The muse apparently thinks it's funny to hide things from me. I searched in so many places, through piles again, and in drawers, and in old pattern keepers, as well as in binders where I'd filed ideas and patterns for clothing and other items. As I scanned the labels on the spines, I felt the muse nudging me to open the binder labeled "Mariner Compass" where I've filed so many ideas for mariner compass blocks and quilts. Now why would that tote pattern be in there, but shrugged and took it down. Ohhh, the muse had decided to give up where my Judy Mathieson Mariner Compass books were! When I was hunting them down expecting to find them among the other titles on my shelves, it never occurred to me to look in this binder. It has pockets in the front and back covers and there were the books, one each in each pocket. Thanks muse, but now give up that tote pattern!

By now the week was pretty gone and I settled into a weekend of watching multiple motorcycle races, deciding to be content with what I HAD gotten done, disjointed as it was, and the daily knitting. I think Allen would be ok with this. I'd changed my computer wallpaper to this picture of Allen such that when I fired up the computer each day, I'd see him smiling at me and reminding me to not dilly dally too much here but get to work creating. That's all he ever wanted of me, to be happy making things and making progress on them more days than not.

Off And Running

Olive Knits' 2026 and final Knitalong has begun. The complete Watermark Cardigan sweater pattern downloaded Tuesday night and I dutifully printed out the relevant pages and marked my size-specific numbers throughout. The next day, July 1st, I cast on and started knitting while I waited for the inaugural zoom video recording to drop, and watch it I did while continuing to work my way through the first 4 rows of the pattern. It was taking me a bit to navigate through unfamiliar or seldom used stitches but I could still manage while listening. Much of that video was introductory, things she'd already talked about in e-mails and on a special Tips and FAQ page on her website. Still, there were a few helpful things to hear and a reminder that instructional video clip links are sprinkled throughout the pattern. I'm working on this upstairs next to the computer so that I can quickly access any of those links as I progress (and I definitely have looked at a few of them more than once). I also got the explanation behind the advertising that this was to be a 4-day event while also saying it would last all month. Apparently, previous knitalongs were indeed conducted over 4 days, but she got so much feedback about knitters getting stressed trying to keep up that she decided a slower pace was in order for this last one while keeping the 4-day time for consistency sake. Anyway, every Monday of July she'll be holding another zoom meeting to take questions and see how it's all going for participants.

I also printed out a handy guide to making a particular increase stitch that is made differently depending upon whether the stitches will slant left or right, something that is used here to widen all sections as one works down from the neckline. I simply couldn't remember the sequences so printing the directions with such good visuals was a smart move (you can see it above the regular directions page). The pattern isn't particularly difficult as much as it is complicated because of the neck shaping at the beginning (which I finished yesterday) and all that repeating lace pattern  (which I started today). I simply cannot work on it at the moment except in silence. Even background music would be distracting. Just look at all that text telling me what to do (using a bookmark to follow the proper line)! I have to say though, this is so well written and all the text is keeping things nice and clear along with all those stitch markers slipped on the needles. Green ones delineate the boundaries between front, back and sleeves while the orange ones delineate where lace pattern repeats start and end. The lace pattern is an eight row repeat and I'm only through half of it but I can already feel the rhythm and familiarity of it from making the gauge swatch. I'm starting to relax into it! Maybe soon I can even turn on some music while I knit. Not exactly running per se but I'm definitely off!

NOW We're Flying!

I've been pretty diligent this week, working on my two major projects - the crochet cardigan and the Venetian Tiles quilt. You might remember that the chirpie young lady on the cardigan video promised that it would "fly off your hook", but I wasn't finding that to be true at all. But with the back now done and the first front panel under way, it does feel more like I'm flying. The front panel is 45 stitches wide vs 109 on the back so that would be one reason why. The other would be that I am now so familiar with the repeat pattern that I'm not spending nearly as much time puzzling over instructions and counting stitches.

Also felt like I was flying on Venetian tiles as I machine quilted the four big blocks and 4 of the remaining cornerstones needing a thread color change. My machine quilting does not bear close inspection, stitches quite tiny and my less than steady hands struggled for smooth lines where I wanted them to be. And again, the thinness of the batting means one doesn't even see any texture rising from those 4 main blocks that aren't heavily quilted. Good thing this is just for me and the patterns of the kaleidoscopes are really what I want seen.

And then it was time to work on the binding. This is what I had left of the fabric that bordered the blocks to make sashing, and I hoped there'd be enough to provide the same burgundy edge around the outside. 

So this required a bit of math calculations, deciding that the binding would be a half inch wide, then figuring how wide to cut strips so that stripe fell in the right place, and finally, with that figure, was there enough fabric. Yes! A lot of seams but more than enough. On the left is what I came up with and used as a template of sorts to make sure I was cutting the binding in the right spot.

I had hoped to have the binding sewn on by the end of the week but it didn't happen. I still had to do a bit of calculation to determine where exactly to trim the quilt beyond the edge of the top. That strip will actually be applied face down, not as it is seen here, but my trial had it face up so I could see exactly where it would turn to the back. All this thinking tired me out! Best to take a few days off before actually trimming the quilt top and sewing on the binding. Priority for the upcoming week.

In a break between machine quilting and figuring binding, I took the time to cover with washi tape a box that saline packets come in. Washi tape is still a mystery to me, not really understanding how to use it no matter how many times I watch videos of it being used. Still, like any good crafter, I've bought more than one spool of it and rarely have used any of it. But I am a sucker for anything William Morris and could not resist buying a roll of this wider washi tape with one of his designs on it. 

It made pretty quick work of covering the box which I will either keep my rolls of washi tape or maybe linen binding thread in. I can see now I need to put a little more tape on it to cover the inside of the lid. 

Finally, I had a surprise visitor to my deck garden. It got quite cool last week, enough for me to turn on the furnace, which may be why this little frog decided to hunker down in one of my pots. If he hadn't moved as I watered the plant within, I don't think I would have noticed him in there.

 

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.