Receiving Blanket

When my children were babies I made my own receiving blankets. They weren't any cheaper to make, but they were thicker, larger, and I liked them perfectly square....better for swaddling a newborn. Now I make them as gifts for new babies in the family.

I start by cutting a 40 - 42" square of heavy flannel.

Then I round the corners with whatever is handy...... a small dish usually has the right curve. Taking the time to curve the corners really helps later when doing the machine stitching....no tight corners to navigate!

I fold the blanket into quarters and cut all 4 corners at once with a rotary cutter so that they match. Then I stitch all the way around using a simple scallop stitch standard on many basic sewing machines.

Then I trim away the excess for a neat, no fray edge. On this particular receiving blanket I added a small heart of handwoven fabric so that it would match the heavier blanket it was meant to coordinate with.

Sorry, no finished photo of this. I gave the blanket away before getting a picture.

Comfortable If Not Stylin'

Although I have knit myself nice sweaters and hoodies and I own a perfectly good robe, around the house when I'm chilly, I find myself most often reaching for my comfy, over sized, plaid flannel shirt.

This isn't my first. I've repurposed my husband's cast off work shirts before. It all started with one that he wore the elbows out of. I intended to use it as a "painting shirt" and cut the sleeves off above those worn out elbows. It wasn't long before I realized I had a really good thing going there. These flannel shirts aren't just comfortable, they are also comfortING, like a baby's blankie, they feel like a warm snuggly hug.

This time I have acquired a perfectly good shirt to make over. It's not even worn out yet! My husband weeded this one out of his closet saying that it was too small. With the additon of a bit of fleece bias binding (sleeves still needed to be cropped to a functional-on-me length), I've claimed it as my own......and the old tattered one with the cut off frayed sleeves can now retire with honor.

Hot Seat

When I spin I'm careful to sit in a chair that allows me to maintain a comfortable posture. If I don't, I pay for it later with back pain and migraines. When I first started spinning I bought a wooden chair and refinished it. It's still a good chair for spinning, but I have found it heavy and awkward to take along to the guild's weekly spin-ins. I've been searching for a lightweight, comfortable folding chair.

I found a plain, upholstered folding chair, the kind you can buy at most department stores. It was boring, but it was comfortable.

It required personalization.

And personality!

Now this grandma spins in style.

KaPow Colour

A jolt of colour in the form of hand dyed silk hankies. These are not the kind of hankie carried by grandmothers and used to wipe noses and dab at tears. These hankies are a form of silk preparation where silk cocoons are stretched over frames, layer upon layer.

I bought them at a local fibre festival over a year ago. Spinning silk hankies is a new experience for me.

I think I like it.

New Cross-Stitch Project

I used to do a fair bit of cross-stitch. One of my pieces even won a first place at the Chilliwack Exhibition in 1993. I don't believe I've done any cross-stitch at all in the past decade though. My passion for other fiber arts has left little time for this less creative, yet enjoyable and relaxing, hobby.

I say "less creative" because I find it very much like paint by number except with thread and needle. I don't have to draw the picture or choose the colours. I just place all those little stitches exactly where the charts tell me to using exactly the colours specified. Still, it is not without some measure of skill. Those thousands of tiny stitches do still have to be correctly formed and done with care and neatness.

Although I may find cross-stitch less of a creative challenge than some of the other things I do, it is still very relaxing and somewhat addicting in nature, and results in a spectacularly beautiful end product.

I've been admiring this particular kit for years now. I have seen it often in the Mary Maxim catalogue. When I saw it recently in a local department store, and for a reasonable price, I just couldn't resist its lure any longer. I thought I would put it away for "some day", but despite all the other things I have on the go right now, this little bit of pleasure snuck to the top of my list.....at least for a while. I put no time limit on these kinds of things. It could be years before I actually complete it.

Masters Monday - 2.27

The beginning of the dreaded argyle sock, 2 inches of 2x2 ribbing.

So far it's going pretty well. Hopefully success will stick with me through the colour work section.

Tribbles?

Although they may look something like tribbles, let me assure you they are not. They're just nice neat balls of combed wool, ready for sorting and spinning. If they were tribbles they would be multiplying at a much faster rate! I get, on average, only 6 of these small balls per hour.

Over the past year, combing only in the summer months, I have been slowly making my way through an entire fleece. It has a lot of VM in it so combing is the only way to go. As I was washing the fleece I dyed batches of it in an old crock pot in any colour that struck my fancy at the time. When I am all finished the combing I will sort it out into pleasing colour schemes before spinning.

Combing Apron

I've been combing wool nearly every day, and every day my clothes have been covered with VM (vegetable matter....the grit, grass and occasional bug that falls out of the wool while its being combed). I've been using a lap cloth, but that only gets what falls into my lap. The remainder finds its way onto my shirt where it clings like burrs to a dog's hind end.


I found some inexpensive denim and a bit of "grunge gingham" for contrast, (the gingham that has a beige background instead of the traditional white), and set to work making myself a long, wide apron with a tall bib. Problem solved!

I actually had enough fabric to make TWO of these aprons, so rather than have it go to waste or have it sitting around for years waiting for another project, I went ahead and made the second apron. I wonder if anyone else could use a full coverage, heavy apron? Maybe a trade of some sort?

Masters Monday - 2.26

Argyle Practice

I worked up a bit of an argyle swatch this week in preparation for knitting the argyle sock for Level II. I think it turned out very well, although I see some areas I will need to work on.

I have a 1954, Grace Ennis, argyle sock pattern. The gauge requirement is 10 stitches per inch. I lucked out and got gauge on the very first try using size 2.25 mm needles and Lang Jawoll sock yarn purchased locally.

To do the motif I've been picking up the new yarn from under the old at the colour change, and the technique hasn't been leaving any holes, but there is some irregularity where the two colours change, particularly on the right leaning slants. In that area I end up with the old colour looking a bit loose and sloppy and the new colour being a bit tight and distorted.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to alleviate this problem?

Summer Spinning

During the summer months some of the members of the Chilliwack Spinners and Weavers Guild gather together during the day, on a weekly basis, to spin and enjoy each other's company. This week we were in Agassiz spinning in Lynn's beautiful garden.

Lynn has a gazebo that provides some shade even if we end up chasing it around the yard. The shade that is, not the gazebo!

It only looks like Lynn's beautiful dog is about to eat Bunny. He is just watching intently for his favorite toy to be thrown.

In an effort to escape the heat and burning rays of the sun I have backed myself into one corner of the garden where I'm combing and dizzing hand dyed wool in preparation for spinning.

Hand-me-down Knitting

Way back in March of 2005 I posted this picture of my Great Niece Isabella on my blog.



She was the recipient of the "Beribboned Eyelet Baby Sweater" and the matching accessories that I designed myself. Of course babies growing as they do, she wasn't in it for long before it was outgrown and had to be tucked away.

The outfit is enjoying a second go-'round, this time on Isabella's baby sister Olivia.



Isn't she sweet? And looking so much like her big sister did as a baby!

Masters Monday - 2.25

DONE!

I've finished the vest for my second level of the Master Knitters' certification.

I chose this Plymouth yarns pattern as a basis for my vest. I even purchased the pattern, but then found that my chosen yarn was not a good match even though the stated gauge on the ball band claimed it would be. I ended up completely reworking the pattern with Sweater Wizard software so that I could use the basic style of the vest but with my own gauge.

I finished the button band yesterday and did the long, long stretch of tubular cast off today. That done, I sewed in all the ends and then headed out for matching buttons. She's complete and I love her......except for one little annoying detail......the collar seems odd to me. It is really tall and left as is it won't lay nicely.

BUT, all is not lost. When I fold the collar once to the inside it lies nicely, like it was made to be worn that way. It's warm and snuggly.


Of course it's summer here right now and the weather has been beautiful. Much too nice to be wearing an extra warm vest. That's actually a good thing. I won't be tempted to wear it before I have a chance to hand it in for evaluation.

Upper Fraser Valley Knitters

Yesterday was the second meeting of the Upper Fraser Valley Knitters. After sending out a meeting reminder the previous day I was a little concerned when a large number of emails came in from members saying they couldn't be there due to other commitments.

I thought I would be sitting there all alone in a great big meeting room so I invited (okay, begged) my daughter to come even though she didn't have a babysitter for Kaylen. Officially children are not allowed at the meetings (unless they are old enough to be knitting), but I felt this one time was an exception.

After a while ladies started to trickle in, a few of them stopping by on their lunch hour from work. Eventually we had 8 members and one little pint sized "visitor" present. We chatted, knitted, and passed around our latest finished creations.

The next meeting won't be until September when everyone is back from vacations and summer commitments.

Masters Monday - 2.24

It's been a very busy week! I had hoped that I would have the finished vest to show this week, but I just didn't have the time. I did get most of the collar done though.

That is a whole lot of ribbing! 14 inches of it with short row turns at the ends of each row.

I'm finished the actual collar section so the short rows are behind me. Six more full length rows remain, each of these going from the bottom of one front edge all the way around the collar and back down to the bottom of the other side. Long, long rows with five buttonholes that need to be evenly spaced. I'm still working out what the exact spacing needs to be.

In preparation for that spacing I knit Swatch 20 last week, which focuses on spacing buttonholes evenly. I still have to sew in the ends and tag this swatch.

The remainder of this week was caught up in a whirlwind of activity. Besides babysitting our granddaughter, shopping for a new fridge, and doing some sewing for a gift that needed to be mailed, I spent the better part of weekend with the Chilliwack Spinners and Weavers Guild at Minter Gardens. The first day I spent combing wool. Although I would have liked to continue with that on the second day, it's tiring work and my shoulder had had enough. I switched to spinning for the second day.


Our location was shady and comfortable on an otherwise hot day. We were part way up a beautiful meandering path through a serene section of the gardens. The small brook behind us provided peaceful background music (in between the more rowdy jazz numbers performed closer to the gates).

I did find the time to walk around and take a few pictures. The big attraction at the gardens on Sunday was the Car Show. Hundreds of unique cars nestled into a scenic background.


It was a lovely weekend. I was very glad to hear that the guild has been invited back to demo again next year.

Masters Monday - 2.23

Although it may have seemed like I neglected working on my Master Knitters project last week, I actually did do a bit, but I never had time to blog about it. So today we have a 2 for 1 feature.....two weeks of Master Knitter, Level II progress in one post.

In the first week I struggled mightily to do the side seams. I ripped those seams out so many times that I frayed the length of yarn used for seaming.....twice. I kept having troubles with the mattress stitch going astray and being off by a half stitch.

Eventually I made sure I had it all lined up first by basting it loosely at the obvious design elements using a smooth crochet cotton. After that the seaming was easier and when I was done the smooth cotton was easy to remove, although I had to pull it out one stitch at a time.

I'm not completely happy with the seam. The pattern all lines up perfectly, but the 2 knit stitches that are seamed together are kind of flattened looking compared to the other ridges. For the patterned section this was the best I could do. When I did my preliminary swatching I determined this was the best location within the stitch pattern for the seam. Otherwise I would be seaming a changing stitch arrangement which would be way harder! In "real life" knitting (as opposed to having to design according to the course requirements) I would have done this vest back and forth from front opening to front opening, eliminating the side seams all together.

Same sort of problem with the 1x1 ribbing seam. It looks flattened compared to the other columns of knit stitches. This was once again unavoidable if I wanted to use a tubular cast on. Ideally 1x1 rib would be seamed between a knit and a purl stitch so that the seam would be hidden "in the ditch", but tubular cast on results in an odd number of stitches making it necessary to seam the ribbing using half of the selvedge stitch on each side.

The remainder is THIS week's progress. I've seamed the shoulders using short row shaping and then a 3 needle bind off. I have also picked up the stitches around both armholes and knit the armhole bands ending in a tubular bind off.

I'm now working on the shawl collar. It will be a very deep, warm, neck hugging collar that is shaped with short rows and ends below the bust line. It is consuming alarming amounts of yarn!

If I don't run out of yarn I'll be back next week with photos of the finished vest.

What type of buttons do you think I should use?

Oh. Which reminds me. I also did one of the required buttonhole swatches this week. I wrote up the pattern and everything. I just have to make up it's tag. Photos of that next week too.

Just Like

Simple pleasures.....

......sharing a love for simple, comfortable footwear with a wee little granddaughter.

A Bloggable Bit

You would think from the lack of activity here on the blog lately that I haven't been involved with creative pursuits that were worthy of blogging about. In actual fact I have been so busy creating that I haven't had a moment to blog about any of it. Several of the projects are top secret for now so I can't reveal them yet, but this one is bloggable. (Spell check says "bloggable" isn't a word. What does it know, hmmm?)


This bright splash of yarn is the beginning of an afghan for my 24 year old son. He will be moving out of our home in a few months and I wanted to give him a house (apartment? Condo? Basement suite?) warming present.

This will be a tartan afghan in the "Cunningham" plaid from the Australian Woman's Weekly book, "Easy-to-crochet Tartan Rugs". Our name is not Cunningham, nor are we of a heritage with customary family tartans, but it will make a beautiful afghan and a bright yet masculine spot in a bachelor pad, and quite possibly an extra blanket when needed. My son picked the particular plaid himself. He liked the simplicity of this one and it's primarily red and black colour scheme.

This is only the beginning of the horizontal stripes in the mesh portion. When it is done I will be crocheting 128 afghan length crocheted chains. They are woven through the mesh portion to form the plaid.

I made one of these for my daughter and her husband years ago, but in a different plaid.

Finally Modelled

Finished and blogged about in early December of last year, I finally have the weather to show a modeled shot of Coachella.

Still haven't totally eliminated the visible bra strap problem. *sigh*

Look! We Made The Local Paper

Chilliwack's little rendition of World Wide Knit In Public Day managed to catch the attention of our local paper. Thank you Adian Chafe of the Chilliwack Times for stopping by to see what we were up to. And thanks for granting permission to use your photo here.

The overcast day turned out to be the perfect temperature for sitting around outside knitting. Not too hot, not too cold, and thankfully also not wet.


Although our local gathering was organized by the newly formed Upper Fraser Valley Knitters, announcements were placed in the local papers and we managed to attract a few knitters who had not yet heard about our group. In all we had about 14 knitters drop by throughout the day.

Thanks to Angie for generously providing the photos. I had quite typically brought my camera and then neglected to take any pictures.

We also had "branch" of the group gathering indoors as an alternative in case of rain, and for those who preferred to knit indoors. Louise not only headed that group, but kindly provided a photograph.

This is the project that will eventually be my souvenir of the day. A pair of cotton/wool blend socks knit toe-up, two at once, on one circular needle.


The stripes don't match despite my extensive efforts to make them line up. I'll get over it.

Mystic Forest Finished

(click picture for close-up)

27.85 ounces (797 grams) and 1663.5 yards of "Mystic Forest" my own custom blend of black superwash merino, bright green merino, and green firestar. It should be enough for an entire long sleeved sweater. The five skeins range from just under 5 ounces to over 7 1/4 ounces. Gotta love those giant Majacraft bobbins!

Newly Plyed

Four ounces of 2 ply laceweight spun on a spindle and plyed on a wheel. Roving hand dyed by Fleece Artist.

Masters Monday 2.22

This week my progress toward Level II of TKGA Master Knitter certification consisted of finishing the knitting of the right front and then blocking the back and both fronts of the vest.


Although I'm sure I'll have no problem doing the front bands and buttonholes, I'll be a good girl and halt the vest project for a bit while I dutifully do the buttonhole swatches that I haven't yet tackled. Several of the swatches in this level have to do with finding the best buttonhole for various situations.

I don't like overly large buttons on anything so I have always preferred the YO, K2tog buttonhole. I find it comes out a nice size no matter the thickness of your chosen yarn. However, as I'm finding out with each step of the program, you never know what you could do better until you give everything a fair try and do some experimenting. So experimenting with buttonhole options and doing the related swatches will be my self-inflicted assignment for the week.

Masters Monday - 2.21

No pictures. Brief post.

Working on right front of the vest. Looks the same as the left front did only "reverse shaping".

Being distracted by spinning and weaving.

Spindling Project

While I'm primarily a wheel spinner, I always have a project in progress on my one good spindle. It's almost always 50/50 merino/silk which I like to spin at a laceweight.

This is hand dyed fibre from "Fleece Artist". The spindle is bloodwood and ebony from "Spindlewood Co". Although I had just gone through a darker bronze bit which you see on the spindle, the braid is mostly the golden to rosy colour.

Masters Monday - 2.20

Level II vest, left front complete.

Last week I stopped short of the neckline/underarm decreases because I was having second thoughts about my chosen method for decreases. I was particularly concerned about the way the diagonal line of the V-neck would be crossing various areas of the stitch repeat. I figured I'd have to vary my decrease method depending on whether it would land on a purl or a knit in each row.

Yesterday it suddenly dawned on me that I really didn't need to obsess over the front neckline as much as I at first thought. The whole neckline will be covered by a shawl collar! Duh! The decreases still have to be neat and correctly formed so that they pass the committee's inspection, but they don't have to follow the stitch pattern as closely as I was thinking. Next up: right front.

Woven Baby Blanket

This little blanket was woven on a Beka rigid heddle loom using a 10 dpi heddle. The woven part is variegated Bernat Softee Baby in the "pink parade" colourway. The crocheted edge is made in the same yarn but in the solid pink colour.

The woven portion has a beautiful, soft drape. To improve the drape of the edging I used a relatively unknown technique for blocking acrylic yarns. I "killed' the finished edging by blocking it with steam before it was machine sewn to the woven section. Now it's as soft and flowing as the woven part.