Bits and Pieces

It's been an odd week, but a busy one.  We've had a lot of rain -thankfully rain and not nearly as much snow - but so much rain that it's just been puddling, with standing water all over the place. It's been quite funny watching the chooks decide whether they thought the puddles or the snow was the lesser evil.  Most decided wading was better than the snow - funny birds.

I finally rinsed out the solar dyed fibre experiment .  Well, mainly rinsed out.  The excess dye just kept coming and I was starting to be concerned about fibre felting.   The colours in the photo are just a tad more saturated than in real life.   I'll have to do more research into Lac recipes and how to get red instead of purple.  I can get those purples with Logwood and Cochineal as well.  Good reds are much more difficult to find.  The Madder though, yielded a nice red colour with the solar dyeing.

I've started quilting my daughter's quilt.  The centre log cabin blocks are stitched in the ditch.  The bulk bamboo batting only had washing instructions, (wash after quilting) and no quilting instructions.  From doing a bit of web research, it seems that a number of the bamboo battings need to be quilting no further than 2-4 inches apart.   I decided to go with the 2 inches, just to be safe.   It was easy with the blue quilt as all the stitch lines were 2 inches apart.   The wonky log cabin blocks are fine as they are narrower than 2 inches, but the wonky stars in the corners needed a little more fussing with as the odd shapes have somewhat less equal dimensions.   It's going to take a little longer to quilt this one up, but it's still a lot faster than hand quilting.

The cat is undicerning about what quilt he sleeps on.  He did however choose the quilted blue quilt over the plain log cabin top.  Once the layers were together, it no longer mattered to him, which quilt he occupied.    He seems to like sleeping on the treadle sewing machine when it's open.  He can survey the room easily and still gets the heat from the woodstove!

I wound off a new warp for some tea towels with 2/8 cotton.   I'd been dithering over 3 different projects.  I printed out the specs for 2 of them and decided on project number 3.  I proceeded to wind the warp for project number 1.   It's not so bad, but of course my excitement to quickly dress the loom has slightly faded.  Mainly though, I realize that getting the quilt finished has to take priority.  Once it's done, I have several little project bags to make as presents and then I can dress the loom.at my leisure.

The dark blue fibre which I've been spinning on the Mazurka is almost finished and the bobbin is just about full.  I thought I had another lot of the dark blue, but all the other blues I can find are substantially lighter in colour.  I may  ply this with a lighter blue of a similar weight.    We'll have to see what I can come up with.  It's a little to fine to ply back on itself.  I find that with the singles are very fine, self plying tends to end up with tangles unless one is very careful.

In other news, I may never get a chance to keep my new white mittens clean.  I've put them in a safe spot and cannot find them anywhere!  I'm quite sad about that.

Crossed off the To Do List!

Yesterday was my son's birthday.  Instead of a cake, he asked for an apple pie.  It was yummy.  He also wanted chicken pot pie for dinner so it was a pie sort of day.

I've been itching to put another pair of socks on the needles.  However, I decided my foray into multiple sock projects hadn't been horribly successful.  While I finally finished up the socks I started  while on holidays, I still had the colourwork socks on the needles.   So I dug out that project bag and started knitting.   Being sidelined with a horrible cold helped enormously.   I was at the round and round part of knitting the foot and couldn't believe how much I accomplished while not realizing it.  Yesterday the last toe had been grafted and they are now crossed off the to do list.

The double Irish Chain quilt is done!   It would have been finished yesterday but my last filled bobbin was empty.  I know, I could have filled the bobbin and finished the binding then.  I was tired and decided it would be better to wait a day than risk making a mistake.   In the end, it took less than half an hour this afternoon to finish it off.  I should give it a quick rinse to get the basting spray and chalk lines removed.   It will need a good once or twice over with the cat hair removing brush as well!  Then it can be wrapped up and ready to become a gift! 

Next on the list is a quilt top I made several years ago and set aside for my daughter.  I gave it to her when she got married but still haven't gotten it quilted.   Hopefully, I'll get this one done before Christmas as well.  Of course I had the backing all ready to go years ago, and do you think I could find it?  Nope!  I've several different bins marked fabric.  I'm betting it's in the one one the bottom which I couldn't get to.  Today I purchased new backing fabric and will wash it up this weekend.   It's prettier that the old backing, which was simply plain black broadcloth.  This one is purple clouds and stars.  I love this pattern and wish I could remember how I made those wonky Log Cabin squares!

All your quilt are belong to us!

 Over the past several days, I've been working on the quilt.   I marked the Double Irish Chain blocks in two stages, so I wouldn't get too confused with the patterns.  Quilting on the treadle sewing machine went fairly quickly, but it was a whole new use for those shoulder and arm muscles, so I ended up having to take breaks.  Every time I wasn't working on the quilt, and one time when I was, helper kitty was "helping".  Each of these photos was taken at a different time and there are more!  He really seems to like that quilt. He is the ultimate project manager!

The Great Machine Quilting Adventure (and grey yarn update)

We pickup this story from when  the Double Irish Chain quilt was ready to baste together.  I had purchased an obscenely expensive tin of spray basting adhesive.   I lined the diningroom in old newspapers in order to protect the furniture and flooring.   I spent a couple of days trying to research the ventilation requirements and possible health issues with the spray.   I didn't find anything screaming out at me.  Finally, I got up the guts to spread out the bamboo batting, spray it and apply the quilt backing.   I was totally amazed.  There was no obvious odor, virtually no excessive spraying and the fabric was easy to reposition on the batting and still held tight when patted back down.  I flipped the batting, sprayed and put the quilt top on.  To my horror.. no really, exasperation, there were a couple of wonky bits on the border which I couldn't smooth out for anything.  I let it sit for a day or two while I tried to figure out a suitable solution.  In the end, there was only one.  I peeled the quilt top off, setting the batting carefully aside as I'd heard that the sprayed bits can stick to themselves quite nicely.   I ripped that quilt top apart, resewed a few blocks, reassembled the top, squared it up properly, remeasured the borders, trimmed them up and sewed them back on.

   In all, it only took a good part of a day to get back to basting.   When I plunked that quilt top on the batting, the original light spray of adhesive still held!   I was impressed, but I wanted to be certain, so I peeled back various corners and gave the batting the lightest of quick sprays anyway.  That poor quilt sat on the dining room table for several more days while I tried to figure out what to do with quilting and fiddled with the treadles tension, which seemed to not want to be happy doing free-motion work on my samples.   In the end, although I did get the tension worked out, I decided to do the centre part in diagonal straight machine quilting.


I was ready to mark it and go.  Then last night, as I wandered past the quilt, the light hit it in a certain way and I knew exactly how to quilt it.. not plain straight line diagonals, but some of them will be interlaced and some not.    This morning I started marking the quilt out and this afternoon, I started quilting.    I need to reconfigure the work space to give the quilt a little more support but otherwise the treadle is working beautifully for the quilting.  There are a few wobbly bits of quilting here and there but it's getting better and I'm sure by the time I've finished machine quilting the next quilt, I'll be loads better.   I'm not sure I like the blue quilting thread on the beige blocks, but I think I'd dislike a lighter thread on the blue blocks more, so not much to do about that.   

Grey wool update -   Yep, the 1 lb of grey roving is spun, plied and waiting for a project.  I've been spinning stashed roving lately, to get some of it used up.   I think I'm down to almost needing more roving, so mission accomplished there.  However, now I have an interesting assortment of skeins to use up!   If I'd thought ahead for this grey, I might have kept the grey as singles.  Half way through the last bobbin, I realized I had a nice amount of similar grist singles stashed away, which may very well have worked as weft with the grey as warp.  None the less, it is spun and worked up quite nicely.   Next time, I'll have to remind myself to actually write down the yardage after I count it though.  Not sure why I bothered to work it out, if I wasn't going to write it down.. sigh..

Some spinning , knitting and a trip to Kingston

Last week I vistited my friend Suzi, who is also a spinner.   I took my Mazurka spinning wheel and we sat around for a fun few hours, spinning and eating warm cinnamon buns, just pulled from the oven.   They were made with whole wheat flour, so we deemed them healthy for the morning!  I dug up a bit of roving that I dyed last year to play with.   It's spinning up beautifully and the deep blue is quite entrancing.   Of course I've put the rest of the roving away properly and can't find it for anything right now.  Most frustrating because obviously, there is someplace I've  hidden miles of gorgeous blue dyed roving!

I finished the mittens on Sunday.  I imagine these will be sturdy and strong.  I don't find them scratchy or harsh, but they certainly don't feel soft or delicate.  The Clun Forest is a down breed, known for it's strong, springy fibre.  I'm pretty sure these mitts would be able to take some machine washing without felting.  They're that sturdy.

windfarm in the fading light

We went to Kingston for the weekend.   We headed out first thing Friday morning and got to the city in time to do a bit of a driving tour and a quick walk by the lake.  The wind was pretty ferocious by the shoreline and it was cold.  We didn't last very long, but it was so nice to be out of the truck and walking.   There is a huge wind farm across the bay, but the light was fading and since my mittens were still not quite finished, my hands were too cold to be fiddling around with the camera for too long.

Murney Martello Tower

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The sun over the lake was gorgeous though.  Actually the city of Kingston is particularly beautiful, with old stone houses everywhere, a restored Fort Henry, Fort Fredrick and Murney Martello Tower.  Unfortunately, it was the off season and they were all closed or we may have lingered on Sunday.  I was promised however, a trip to the area again in the spring or summer, in order to indulge in historical sight seeing!

I did manage to play around with a few different settings to try to capture the sunset.   There have been few enough sunsets at home of late.  The heavy, dark grey skies, just haven't been photo worthy back home.   These two were my favourites.

Weekend achievements

I almost ripped out that Clun Forest Mitten.  It's not nearly as soft as my usual mitten yarn is.   However, I realized that I wanted these to use in the barn.   The Clun Forest yarn will be hard wearing and durable.  I may dye them because white is really not a barn colour!  If I'm feeling energetic, I may knit up a second pair of mitts for myself, just for "pretty". Then I can wear the pretty mittens when I go to town.

I also finished up the quilt top.   It's just shy of a twin size, which should be a good size to practice machine quilting with and still be useful.   Lots of resources recommend not using a large quilt to learn machine quilting.   I'm not sure if using the treadle to quilt with, will change the learning curve at all.  Technology is sometimes quite cool and there is now a quilt basting spray: a temporary, water soluble adhesive which glues the 3 layers together so that no pins or basting stitches are needed.   While in the past, I'd have been dead set against this sort of short cut, I've purchased a tin of the spray because I just can't figure out where I'd actually be able to stretch out the quilt in order to hand baste.   I used to either tape the backing to the floor, then layer and baste or just set up a huge quilt frame, stitching the backing down first and then layering and basting.  I no longer have the quilt frame and taping to the floor just no longer seems feasible with our small rooms and carpeting.  Admittedly, crawling around on the floor to baste a quilt no longer really sounds like fun, so I'm giving the basting spray a shot.

Yep, more grey fibre spinning.  Grey like today's sky.  I think I need to spin something sunny, just as an interlude.

Knitting and piecing and knitting and sewing and.........

 The mittens are done!  The fleece was a variety of fawn colours from cream to the almost brown, with hints of grey.   Very pretty and the mitts knitted up easily.  The colour varigation is quite pronounced, although not as much as in the photo.    The recipient didn't mind.   It really didn't take that long to knit either.   The ribbing felt like it took the longest time to knit, although I doubt it really did. I loved knitting with that particular skein because it just worked so well.  It was soft, well spun, wasn't splitty or anything else hard to work with.   It just felt right.

Then I started on these.  Yes, I swatched.. I knit my first ribbing based on the swatch and it was too large.   I took away just a couple of stitches and now it's too small.  Obviously I changed my tension in there a couple of times.   I'm going to rip this out and start again, being more careful of my tension or adding a few stitches and keeping the tension at a bit of a tighter gauge.  As well, it's the Clun Forest fleece which I spun with a long draw.  It's very springy. I've noticed when I'm knitting it that it takes much more tension that most of the yarns I use.  I'll have to take that into consideration as well. 

Finally I realized that if I didn't get off my duff, iron the quilt fabrics, start cutting and sewing, I'd not have the Xmas pressie quilt finished in time.   I still may not as I've no idea how long it will take to machine quilt it when I've finished piecing it.   I had to run out and purchase a new quilting ruler, suitable for rotary cutting.  My old one is 15 or so years old and not only was too narrow but getting rather weary and worn.  I was astounded by the cost...$45 for one 8.5 in x 24 in ruler!   Luckily, it was on sale for 1/2 price..   I'm using one of the speed cutting techniques, cutting long strips,sewing them together in the required order, slicing off pieces and stitching them together to make the correct block.   It's saving a lot of time.   I decided upon a Double Irish Chain, which interestingly, one source commented that it's called an American Chain in Ireland.  I wonder if that's true? 

I actually wanted to use white instead of the beige, but the white I had was too stark.  While I think this beige is too pinky, it looks okay.   I'm piecing it on the treadle.  I know it would be faster going on one of the electric machines, but I'm finding the treadling very relaxing and still getting a kick out of powering the machine myself and not running up the electric bill.

More spinning -  More grey -  Looks exactly like this on the wheel.   While I've loved the end result, a whole pound is a lot of wool to spin.  We've had a lot of grey days and I'm just not appreciating the grey wool right now.