Sewing tricks and csm grafting socks

 I sent in my volunteer availability to Westfield for the next couple of months, and got my building assignment already.   Since I'm in the Misener house, which means a great woodstove for cooking and baking, I decided to make myself a new work dress.   I've several dress lengths of 1860's prints from when a local store had put them all on clearance.  I got a couple of them on sale for buy 1 yard, get 2 free, and they were already reduced to begin with.

Anyway, I chose the blue one, not because it was my favourite print, but because I looked in the bag and I already had purchased the thread and notions.  That was a no brainer.  

I was trying to find my pattern, which already fits.  I obviously put it in that pit of despair known as a "safe place", and not my pattern file, so I'm redrafting a pattern.   Last week was a write off for getting anything worthwhile done, but today I picked it back up.  I was only able to get a fit that I liked by using an amscye dart, which I've not seen on any photos of that period of garment.   A bit of searching though, came up with instructions on swinging the dart to  a waist dart.   I wasn't sure about doing this, but I bravely cut the first dart and although I had to make it a tad longer, it worked a treat and the muslin now lies flat.   I'm hoping that it fits as nicely.

This is a toe that I just grafted closed with a kitchener stitch.   It's a lot more grafting with a cranked sock than with a hand knit sock.  In this case, 36 stitches on each side to graft together.    I'm not that fond of grafting but it's easier on the cranked socks because you have to do it from the back.   The stitches are held in place by waste yarn rather than needles, and there is no need to make sure you're picking them up on the correct side like pearling or stockinette side.   You do them from the backside and it's just stitching through the previous stitch and the new stitch, previous stitch and the new stitch, until you're one.

The downside is that there are things to get in your way.   If there isn't enough contrast with your waste yarn, you can't see the stitches to pick up.  If you don't have enough light, it's also difficult to see those stitches.  Plus, you have to be careful not to pick up the waste yarn when you're grafting the live stitches.   On the upside, it's pretty easy to do and I found it easy to get the tension pretty close so it's difficult to see where you've grafted.

Another downside is that it sort of looks like a hungry worm monster which wants to eat your arm when you don't get it stitched up quickly enough.   Once the seam is closed, I'll just pull out all the white waste yarn and the sock will be done!  Otherwise, that partially grafted sock could be inspiration for nightmares!

Summery projects

 I'm waiting for a parcel.   It's my birthday present and is supposed to arrive next week.   I just got the tracking number so the estimated delivery date is probably correct.   However, once in a while when I order things, they come early.  My fingers are crossed that this is one of those times.  We're also taking a family trip to Dundurn Castle.  I've been before but it was a number of years ago.  This time we'll be taking my daughter and her husband, so it will be fun.  I bought the tickets online.   I got a barcode for a ticket.   I used to be able to save my ticket stubs as memorabilia.   Barcodes just don't evoke the same memories.

I used an old sheet to fit the bodice pattern of Sew Liberty's Hinterland dress.   Then I found this piece of fabric which was enough to cut out the dress for a wearable mockup.  I've no idea why I purchased this, except that I remember it being crazy cheap on sale.  It's nice enough but not normally my style.  I do however, have a similar fabric but in blue stripes which I do like.   Once I know of any other changes need to be made to the pattern, I'll use the fabric I really like to make a second dress.

The Hinterland has been pretty easy to fit and assemble.  One of the hints was to use masking tape to mark the right side of the fabric.  Usually I use tailor's chalk, but it hasn't stopped the occasional  mistake.  But with the masking tape, I've had no issues at all.  It's now my new go to for making sure I have the right sides of the fabric marked.  Because it's green low tack painters tape, it hasn't left any residue yet.

My old but really nice Pfaff sewing machine is being cranky.  I haven't been able to get the tension set properly.   It probably needs a tune up, but since I have several old black Singers and an old Kenmore which all work well right now, I'm just using one of those instead.  This is mainly because I need some new socks, so that means a trip to the yarn store.

I found a skein and a half of this Paton's Lace yarn.  It's acrylic and a little fuzzy, so it acts a bit like mohair, getting caught up on itself.   I made a scarf on the floor loom a while ago, and had no problems.  This one though, I put on the rigid heddle loom and had to fuss about a bit to figure out how to weave it without having to unstick the shed every throw of the shuttle.   I found it needed a lot of tension and very easy beating, just gently placing the weft rather than pushing it down.   It's much faster now and I'm enjoying weaving it.

The rippenkopper cotton/hemp tea towels are still on the table loom.  I'm still not enjoying the 3/1 twill and having to use a stick shuttle..  But if I can weave them off, I have a fun tea towel project to do next.  I'm not sure I have allowed enough loom waste to do them on the floor loom, but that would be even easier.

The weather has been either hot and dry, or cool and wet.   Our pond almost dried up because we had no rain for so long.   Then it rained, and rained and rained.  The pond almost overflowed!   When conditions get hot and dry during the summer, our grass goes dormant.  It may look like it's dying, but it's just turned off until it rains.   And rain it has.   We even had a whole day of steady rain.  We couldn't remember when we last had a rain like this.  So after days of rain on and off,  the grass is green and the garden has gone wild with growth.

These are slicing tomato plants that my son in law started for me.  I don't think we've ever had fruit starting so early in the season.  The cherry tomatoes or maybe grape tomatoes are also fruiting already.   I've been harvesting zucchini already.  I staggered planting the green beans to hopefully have a continuous harvest.  However with the rain and heat, the second planting has almost caught up with the first.   I have space for a 3rd row of beans.   The potatoes I forgot to dig up last fall, have survived the winter and are growing like crazy too.   So yay for that! 

We found a fly strip that works.  It's a sticky paper, but it's not gloppy, doesn't drip and actually catches the flies.  Since we live in a rural area, there are flies.  There are so many fewer in the house this summer because of this new fly strip.   That makes me happy.

 

I Made A Thing!

 I haven't done a whole lot of sewing lately.   With being locked down for months at a time, then distancing and it taking 2 years for things to open back up, I had no real need to sew.   No historical clothing needed.   No real life clothing needed.  No crafty things to make other than some masks and things like that.   

Finally I bit the bullet and ordered some patterns.   The indy patterns I purchased come as PDFs, which means no shipping charges or waiting for them to arrive.  The downside is that you have to print them out.  I'm sure there is a printer that does the large architectural copies, but I've only really found easy access and superb service from a smaller print shop, that doesn't have those capabilities.  As well, a couple of the patterns seem to only have the print at home option.  Since the print shop does an amazing job on those, always spot on for sizing, quick and at an acceptable price, I cut and paste or tape each little bit of the pattern to make complete pieces.  Not my favourite job, but better than waiting for items to ship and hope they get here in good shape, or arrive at all.

So far I've most of a new skirt made and an apron which just needs a few inches of hand stitching to finish it. There are a couple of t-shirts, a new historical dress, 2 new skirts, and some dress/tunics on the list, with fabric ready and everything.  

 However I needed a small purse for an outing, so I also made this.  I'm ticked off at myself, for not adding pockets in the lining.   I always do that for all the bags that I make, so I have a place to store my keys, and change for easy access.   I'm pretty happy with the overall results though.   However I'm not sure I like using it.  When I add my phone to it, it's heavy.  Yes, the phone is a big, old clunker, but it still works so I'm not feeling the urge to upgrade.  But I don't feel the weight in a cross body bag.  No time to make a new one though, since I need it today.  I guess that is the ultimate test though, if it does what I need it to do, when I need it.

New socks on the needles, even though I didn't plan on knitting any more.    I needed something to do

while I was watching the telly, so grabbed some sock yarn and started knitting.    The yarn is amazing!    It's soft, superwash, has an amazing colour and knits up beautifully.  It's quite fine and has a nice twist, so would have show a fancy pattern nicely.   However, I ended up just knitting a plain vanilla sock, which I almost never do, because I didn't have time to find and print out a pattern.   I had to restart the sock twice.  The first time because the yarn is so fine that I needed to add a few stitches to the cast on.  The second time because a needle slipped out when I was taking it to use as some busy work when volunteering and I couldn't pick up the stitches as they were too small.  However the third try is a charm.  I did an eye of partridge heel which is pretty.   I had to add an extra 6 rows to the heel flap to get it close to square.  It's still not, but it does fit when I put it on, so all is good. It's Host Garn Highland yarn.   So soft!  So pretty! These are definitely not chunky boot socks!

 So I was told I had to do practically nothing for a week.  No spinning, no weaving, no banjo, nothing repetitive or requiring strength.   In between reading, and more reading, and reading some more, I made handkerchiefs from scraps of quilting cotton.   My daughter had made me one for Christmas and it is lovely to use, so I whipped up a couple more.   Of course hers was a panel square with a chicken on it.   I decided not to spend anything on these, so they are just plain fabric bits that I had on hand.

 I found these chicken tea towels at the local box store.   I purchased two of them, and cut them in half.   I put a heading at the top and hemmed the two needing hems about the same size as the bottoms of the towels.   When I added the header, I made sure they were all the same size.  I think they make a cute valance for the kitchen.   I had a curtain rod but it had decorative ends which stuck out farther than the space between the window and the cupboard, so I had to get a new curtain rod.   It cost more than the curtains did.

 I was finally able to spin a bit.   This is superwash merino, blended into rolags on a blending board.   Whenever I use the board, I recall my introduction on how to use one, when a gal was doing a demo in one of the spinning classes.   She took all sorts of fibres and slapped them on the board, packing them in until it was overly full.   She pulled off one single huge batt, which looked wonky and horrible to spin.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out why anyone would do that or want to spin something like that.   Then I found a video showing how to pull rolags from the blending board.  This makes smooth, easy to spin and very pretty rolags,which I enjoy spinning.  So many different ways of doing things in spinning for sure!

We have a second chimney in our basement.  It was slightly damaged and needed some repair but I haden't been able to find anyone to do it since we first moved here.  That is until a couple of weeks ago when I noticed an ad in a small advertising booklet which came in the mail.   The repair quote was reasonable, but it turned out that we couldn't use the old woodstove that we already had.   Nor could he hook up the cookstove that I had.   Options were a second hand stove from a big box store - cheap but would need replacing in a year or two by his estimation, or a middle of the road stove which would last for years.   Because the price was just within our budget, we went for it.   All was good until they went to install the stove and they had made a mistake and there wasn't enough clearance for those options.  The only alternative stove which fit the clearance specs, was to jump up in quality, doubling the price.  Yikes -  however, it's super low emissions, has two air flow controllers and pumps heat like you wouldn't believe.   It's the stove I wish we had upstairs!   The downside is that when all was said and done, we could have practically paid for furnace for the same price.    The cats love to sleep in front of it and I'm happy it has a pedestal base as I have a friend who had a cat which got burnt from trying to bask in the heat under the stove.

A couple of quick projects

Half of the Polar Vortex, Blue Faced Leicester sliver has been spun.   If I'd chain plied it, the colour changes were long enough to make a pretty rotation of solid colours.  However I didn't want a 3 ply yarn, so I just plied it together and called it good.  It's a little bit brighter than the photo shows, but it's pretty enough.  I have a pattern for mittens which seems like a good match for this yarn.

The purse I whipped up last year before holidays was starting to fray at the zipper.   Since I'd wanted a small denim bag and had only a part of a single pant leg on hand, that is what I used.   Considering it took about 30 minutes in total to figure out what I was doing, sew the whole thing together, including lining with a welted, zippered pocket and a zipper to close the whole bag, I'm pretty happy it lasted this long.    But instead of repairing it as it's more of a functional bag than fun and attractive, I decided to make a new one.

This one is also made from recycled denim, but I had a whole pair of jeans to work with.   I really wish I had time to make a denim strap for it, however due to time constraints, I used a bit of nylon webbing.   I'm also refinishing a little kitchen island workbench, packing, doing stuff for my son who's moving tomorrow, just brewed a batch of beer and my sweetie is home on holidays, which seems to make less available time for projects.   I'm hoping I'll sit down and make the denim strap next week, but since we're off to a Jays game and a concert tomorrow, I opted for the quick fix.   Because I lined the bag, with the obligatory zippered welt pocket for my keys and a patch pocket for other stuff, it took a bit more effort.  There are a few miss-steps, but in all, it's cute, fun and is quite roomy compared to the bags I've been using lately.  The lining matches the belt.

 Both apple trees blossomed this year, although the new one bloomed in two stages, half just after the Northern Spy had finished blooming.   I've no idea if anything got pollinated, as we had so much wet, windy weather I don't remember seeing any bees around at all.  I guess time will tell.   But aren't they pretty, whether or not we get any apples this year.   A friend of mine has an apple press and knows of an abandoned orchard.  She's thinking we should get together for an apple pressing day.  Wouldn't that be fun!

Crafts, hats and fabric shopping

 I was wasting time looking at online patterns and I found one for these little bucket bags.   The one on the right is made according to the pattern, with fusible fleece and some rather sloppy finishing techniques.  The one of the left, uses my own take on the pattern, with heavier fabrics and sturdy interfacing and hopefully neater finishing.   I mean, how much harder is it to put the turning opening on the side lining seam instead of on the top?   Either way, the first one is rather soft and bendy, while the second one has much more body.   They are both useful little bags though.

I've been playing around with crown buckram and millinery wire with a Victorian hat pattern.   I didn't have domet or flannel to cover the hat form so I used some scraps of bamboo quilt batting, which I couldn't iron because it had been sprayed with temporary basting spray.  Now to cover it.  I'm calling this my practice hat because I am learning a lot with it, including how to work with the buckram, what gauge wire to use and how to cover it. 

This one is a bit wonky.   The instructions call for the fashion fabric to be glued on and the seams covered with trim.  That isn't happening.  I haven't seen an extant hat with little beaded trim on all it's seams yet, so instead I will sew it down.    In all, if it is wearable, it will be a bonus hat.  If not, I've learned enough already to make the effort worthwhile.

The only place to buy fabric is a huge warehouse store.   They have a small number of 19th c reproduction prints within the volumes of quilting fabric.  Luckily, the fabric is sorted and shelved by maker, so it is fairly easy to find if you do the research first. 

I was looking for just a little bit more of the red print and couldn't find it.   It turns out that most of the reproduction prints were put on clearance.   To top it off, I had a 60% off the sale price coupon - so the fabric was $2.10 - $2.70 a yard.    I brought home 3 dress lengths, enough red to repair my red dress and a piece for a new apron.   I'll need to get just a little bit more for the apron as I will be about 1/4 yard short.   I now have enough of the red to redo the 1830's bodice and maybe even the sleeves, as I ripped one last time I wore it.  From left to right - 1860's, 1860's, 1830's, 1830's and the apron.    If I'd wanted a Regency dress, there were lots of prints to choose from.   The brown and salmon is an interesting combo.  They had it in plain light brown as well, but I really liked the rather odd mixture of the two and the darker brown.    While I am not a huge fan of green, it was one of the only non-linear period prints they had, so it will make a nice change from the rest of the stripes.

Halloween Sewing

Way back in the summer, my daughter asked me to make her a Gryffindor House Hogwarts cloak for her Halloween costume.  She's always thought of these things much in advance and thankfully gave me lots of warning.  A couple of weeks ago, she asked me how it was coming along.  So of course, I sprang into action.  I figured it would take a couple of hours, but really, it took me the better part of a day and then some.  You know, because I had to draft out the pattern from a little diagram and had to make it durable and clothing like, instead of just a one use costume.  This Hogwarts cloak could be handed down to her grandkids, if she were to have any!

The sleeves had a funky design, that I would change a bit if I ever made a second one.  Here it is half finished.  Of course I don't have a photo of it finished, because I got the last hem stitch in 2 minutes before we had to leave to drop it off on Saturday!  She promised me a photo of her as Hermione though. 

Then I had to work on a project for myself.  A project for no reason other than I felt like it.  It's not like I'll be going anywhere for Halloween, nor is it likely that we'll even have a single kid knock at our door where we live.  We've had one in the past 5 years and that was several years ago.

This hat is made of felt.  I could only find cheap craft felt, so it's interlined, plus the brim is wired, twice, since the first time wasn't strong enough for my liking.  The fabric store had every colour and width of cotton bias tape, except for black in the size I wanted.  They had some sort of shiny, man-made fibre bias tape  in the right width, in black, which I used.  I had to slip stitch it down by hand, as it was pretty slippery.   It looks quite nice though.

The flowers are made from scraps of the hat felt, some very dark Blackwatch plaid ribbon (much darker than the photo), wire and

glass beads.   They were super easy to make, being a circle of felt, cut in a spiral, rewound and then glued on the bottoms.  I used a fabric glue for the flowers, but hand stitched everything on to the hat, because my glue gun died last year and I forgot to replace it.   It was at least 15 years old, so was likely about time.  But I won't get back into town before Friday, so hand sewing it was.

If I do this again, I think I'll try a funky purple or grey, with black design quilting cotton, with big tulle and silk or paper accordion pleated poofy flowers.  And I'll replace the glue gun, just for speed and simplicity. Or just maybe I'll weave the fabric first.......

Playing With Colour

 

Playing with making rolags and puni  of different colour and fibre combinations.

 More colours here and elsewhere.  They are starting to pile up.  The big consideration is making enough of one colour combination to actually have enough fibre for more than sampling.  I was surprised at how much time it takes to make good rolags this way.  I've seen some very messy ones which look like they'd be difficult to spin.  These spin so nicely that it's worth the effort.   It adds a nice change and twist to fibre processing.   It's a bit easier to manipulate the colours in a precise way than the drum carder or hackles.

 Playing with new project bag designs.  While I was making these, I was sure I wouldn't like them.  However the moment they were done, I loved them.  The larger one is big enough for a small project, notions and a pattern.  Awesome!  

One sock done and the other is started.  I was hoping to get these done before the end of September but I'll have to actually set aside some time to work on them if I want to meet that goal.  The cuff is a bit fussy, but once I got the grid work pattern worked out, it was super easy and the foot patterning became intuitive.  I love the use of the single cable travelling stitch, which I can do without a cable needle.  It's fast, fun and adds a nice bit of decoration to the sock, without any fuss or muss.

I spent an afternoon washing Alpaca.  It took over 2 days to dry because of the weather and the fact that I let the top and the bottom part of the fibre salad spinner get separated thus couldn't spin out the excess water.  Yay me!

The truck broke down, the day before I was going to head out for a day at Westfield.  It was Saturday morning and that's a dreadful time for getting emergency repair service.  We only have the one vehicle, so not fixing it wasn't an option.    However, we were 3 feet from the repair shop parking lot and they could fit us in but we'd have to wait 10 minutes, was that okay?  So after 3 hours in the waiting room, without my knitting, a book or some handsewing (argh), we had the truck back, with a shiny new alternator.  It wouldn't have been so bad but less than 2 weeks before, we replaced the alternator on my son's car and had to get new tires.   Bad things come in threes?  I hope that's it for a while.

Fun Projects and Making my day...

My daughter was out at the beach with her friend.  When they stopped for lunch, some low life broke into their car and stole beach bags.  They left the iPod which was probably the only item of value, but took swim suits, towels and my daughter's knitting!   Because she has just started collecting supplies and doesn't have much of a stash, all of her needles and notions were in her project bag.   Her birthday was this past weekend, so I made her a new notions bag to replace the one which was stolen and stuffed it full of replacement notions.  Knitting without a few basics can be more fussy, so there are stitch holders, cable needles, darning needles, a needle gauge and stuff like that to get her stash restarted.  Luckily making a quick zippered pouch, even a lined zippered pouch is a pretty quick and easy project.

I worked the bake oven the weekend before.   Usually the oven heats up quickly, when a good fire is started like had been done that day.  Once in a while though, the wind is such that it seems to suck all the heat up the chimney.   The fire wanted to smoulder rather than burn.  It took forever to catch along the length of the oven and then when all was said and done, the oven barely heated up enough to last for what I'd brought along to cook.  Because the temperature wasn't even and didn't hold like it usually does, the bread was a tad too crusty.  A couple of the batches of cookies were burnt, but more because it was incredibly busy and I was distracted telling people about the oven.    What worked perfectly though was an interesting experiment, straight out of Mrs. Beeton's Guide to Household Management, 1859.    I had just enough ingredients for the recipe A Good Useful Cake.   Before I left home I'd done part of the prep for the recipe.  I'd creamed the butter and sugar.   That was a slight deviation to the procedure, but I felt that since I was making a cake from scratch, on a wobbly table, outside under some trees, in what could have been any weather I could live with a few changes that I knew wouldn't affect the outcome.   I'd weighed out the flour, sugar and fruit.  I gotten 3 eggs from my hens the night before, so I'd packed them up in a container for projection and added some milk in a mason jar.   I crossed my fingers that this would be one of the recipes that worked but the ingredient proportions were pretty good, so I had high hopes that it would be at least a reasonable success.   Turns out it is an excellent and very delicious cake.   It had a texture similar to a pound cake, was not cloyingly sweet but had a very smooth and elegant taste to it.   It's a keeper!

My friend called me up today.   She said she was dropping something off at my door but didn't want me to answer it because she had been exposed to chicken pox and didn't want to risk spreading it around.  She said I'd know what to do with whatever it was, when I saw it.  Her husband is a potter and he'd helped me make a bowl a while ago and let me glaze a few pieces of bisque fired dishes that had been kicking around for ages.  I figured that a couple of those had been fired and she was dropping them off.   I hadn't heard Maureen drive up and spent the afternoon making the notions bag.  When my sweetie got home from work, he showed me where he'd put this large white bag.  In it was the most amazing bowl that I'd ever seen.  It was truly a "Wow, this is totally unexpected"   moment   My son looked at it and asked " Mom, are you making bread anytime soon"?    I guess so!  Bread, cakes and all sorts of other things.  This will be the perfect vessel in while to dissect several 19th century cookbooks that have been calling my name!    Look out family, you might be eating some interesting and old fashioned meals in the near future.

Finally!

Rainbow striped socks are finally done!  By some odd accident, the stripes, while starting at slightly different colours at the cuffs, match up by the second repeat and stay matched up until the toes!   They sure are bright and cheerful.   I'm quite tempted to put another pair of socks on the needles, but I think I may wait another week or so.  That way, I'll have them for a travelling project.

The second incarnation of the messenger bag is done.  It's made of a simple khaki cotton twill, with a heavy cotton twill lining that I found stuffed in a box.  The twill was almost a skirt length, but not quite, so I figured I'd not planned anything else for it. I put a front and back pocket in the lining but forgot the two side pockets this time.  Since it's a single piece out and inner, with box pleats, forgetting those two side pockets was pretty easy to do, since they'd be patch pockets, sewn on after the lining was completed.   It is a good deal smaller than the first, about 2 inches smaller in all dimensions.  It makes it a much more comfortable bag to wear.  I think I'll add a closure of some kind to the bag, just to secure the flap.  Next time I'd round the corners of the front flap and at piping to the seams to add some interest.  Still, this one is quite good enough to be my go to bag this summer.

June Stitching

 I've been knitting on those darned socks as it really does seem that if you don't actually do the knitting, they just sit there doing nothing on the needles.   An update on those another day as I moved one almost finished sock to a stitch holder as I was heading out for the weekend.  I didn't want to have to worry about counting for the toe or grafting while I was going to be distracted with lots of friends about.  Now I have one sock needing the toe knit and another on the heel flap.   It feels like I've not accomplished anything yet.

In between trying to get the rest of the garden planted, I've been sewing.   I stitched up a project bag but it's a bit larger than I'd wanted.  It's a good recommendation for measuring out a project before you cut it.  Making the bag is pretty easy and doesn't really need a pattern, but measuring first would have meant a bag I really wanted to use.

Here is the second recommendation for measuring first.   I planned to make a messenger style bag.  I drew out my pattern on graph paper and proceeded to cut it out and sew it together.  Last minute I decided I wanted to play around with applique.  As I started to stitch it down, I realized that it's been a long while since I've done this.  It took a few minutes for all the info and experience to be retrieved and sorted out before I was happy with all my stitching.  Next time I would use a different flower so as to not have that rather headlight effect.   In my mind I saw it will lots of beads and embroidery stitches making the stamens, however in reality, those beads and threads are still in their respective storage containers.      The bag is much bigger than I'd envisioned although the measurements are what I sketched. I  just didn't put a ruler on to paper to plan it that way.   Next time too, I'll do the construction a bit differently as this one had way too many pieces and I chose the most complicated assembly plan ever!  It was meant to be a useable mock up.   Now it's still useable, but I'll redesign the pattern before I make another one.     It's got tons of pockets inside, including ones suitable for pens and double point sock needles!

As to the garden, there are still a couple of things left to plant but it's mainly in.. finally!

First waterlily of the season!  It's so pretty....

New mitts and the before Xmas to do list

So the white Clun Forest mittens have disappeared.  I've gone and lost them before I'd even had a chance to wear them!  I'd only gotten to try them on for fitting.   I'm pretty ticked at this.  I may have put them in a safe place or I may have taken them with me and left them behind.  I figure that winter really will set in sometime and I'll really, really need mitts, so I started a new pair.  I had two skeins left from Jessie's fleece and since the fingerless mitts I'd made with this yarn turned out quite nicely, I decided to use the rest for my own mitts.   As I was winding the skeins into yarn cakes, I realized that they were two different grists.  I used the skein of slightly fatter yarn for the mitts, hoping there would be enough.  There was a little less than I thought there would be.  So, next job is to card up some more of Jessie's fleece and spin the rest of the mitten yarn.

I did a bit more sewing - two knitting project bags.  I've found these to be incredibly useful.  You take all the bits and pieces for whatever project you're working on and stuff them in the pretty sack.  I try to put in all the tools I'd need, like tape measure, pattern, darning needle and thread snips.   Then when I put the project down for a bit and pick it up weeks later, everything is in one place and finishing up goes so smoothly.

Left on the to do list - a tote bag, a shirt, two embroidered labels, one loom to dress, one project to weave off at the guild, and a partridge in a pear tree.. okay maybe not the last one :).  All in all, it should be close to achievable - the shirt is a last minute addition and I'm crossing my fingers on that one.

Friday Night Sew In Success

I'll have to admit that I did a bit of sewing during the day as well, but in all I marked the quilt borders, quilted the borders, cut and made the binding, and bound the quilt yesterday, finishing up just before 10 pm.  Included in that was a repair to the treadle belt as it had stretched.   The belt is leather and a new one will stretch a bit after using.  In this case it started slipping miserably and I managed to sew my finger while wrangling the quilt through the sewing machine.  Thankfully it was minor as the treadler responds very quickly in situations like that!

The two major projects I'd wanted to get done before Christmas, are both done.  While I was somewhat singularly focused on the quilting over the past couple of weeks, it is such a huge relief that they are finished. And no, I'm not making quilts for the other two kids this year.  I'll plan that a little more carefully and give myself more than a few weeks to accomplish that task!

Only 3 more projects to sew for pressies... I guess the countdown begins

A week dedicated to warm hands and nice surpises

This week, the rural mail delivery folks, actually came into the drive way to deliver a package.   I'm not sure why I wasn't expecting it, because I knew it was on it's way.   However, it was a lovely surprise to receive this beautiful, handmade, Walnut cone thread stand in the mail.  It will look so nice beside the 15-30 treadle, however I know it will also get used by Lady Pfaff, my electric embroiderer.    The skilled turner offered it as a prize for a quiz on the TreadleOn  email group. Treadle On is a an amazing community of people who use people powered, both treadles and handcranked sewing machines.  They trouble shoot, diagnose, give repair information, identification information, where to find parts and support others who use treadle machines.   It's quite amazing really, to have a group which so easily shares and gives freely, their knowledge and information.

I did some more spinning and then realized that if I didn't start on mittens, friends and family would have cold hands.   First off was a pair of fingerless mitts from the Jessie's fleece .  My friend had donated the fleece and asked for a pair of fingerless mitts in return.   I wasn't sure how they'd turn out because there are a lot of inconsistencies in the yarn.   It was a bit on the hard to spin side.   It took a while to figure out the right gauge because although I did swatch, that information didn't actually prove useful when  I started knitting.  In the end, it was a bit of trial end error. I ripped back twice, trying new needles each time until I found a formula that worked.  They were supposed to be fancy with cables, but they didn't look right.  That was another start.   When I wet finished them, they took on a lovely halo effect, which was very unexpected.  Pretty though :)

Next on the list was mitts for the hubby.   While I've bunches of yarn waiting for a project, most are in amounts large enough for something more than mitts.   The Clun Forest would have been perfect, but it was white and not really a man mitten colour.  I know he's going to be using the snow blower, carrying in wood and doing other chose in them.   I found this rather nicely spun single skein of Shetland, which is working perfectly.  

Finally, I popped out to the fabric store and the sewing machine shop and picked up a few things, including a dozen new bobbins for the treadle, a quarter inch foot for the treadle and these fabrics.    The project should have been started yesterday but I managed to drag my feet about pressing  when I had the time.   I haven't pieced a quilt in a good few years.   I'd started making a comforter for each of my kids, which half-way through the project, changed to making them quilts instead.  So some have quilts and the others wore their comforters out as children.  Now I think it's time to start finishing that project, especially since I have the perfect machines to do the quilting with.

Finally, remember those pretty yellow berries.   I was walking by to collect eggs as a couple of the girls lay just under those particular vines and this is what I saw.  I think they are gorgeous.   I ran in to grab the camera.   It's a good thing too, because the next day, I saw one of the chooks balancing on the lattice, eating those little red berries.

Phew!

What a week it was!   Last week I had to do the shopping and final prep for the Crown Tourney feast on Saturday.   I baked on Sunday and Wednesday.  I shopped on Thursday, which took trips to two grocery stores and a trip into a nearby city to pick up items stored in a friends freezer and a whole slew of crockpots, roasting pans etc.  Friday I cooked all day.. bread, meringue cookies and 9 pies.  Saturday there were 5 of us in the kitchen and we produced a good meal, with some cool plating effects... and I forgot my camera, sigh.  A friend sent me this rather fuzzy photo of the sausage cattails.  I was happy they worked out so well.

In my spare time, I've done a bit of spinning.   Generic domestic grey sheep sliver.  Pretty enough unspun, but gorgeous when spun up.  It is fairly easy to spin as well.   I'm not sure what I am gong to do with it, so I'm spinning and plying it in a suitable weight for weaving or knitting.    

It's going to be suitable for woven scarves, shawls or knitted hats and mitts.  There is only a pound of sliver, so while I'd contemplated leaving the singles for weaving, there wouldn't be enough of it for a useful amount of yardage.  Plied there won't be enough for a useful sweater either, not that I've actually knit a sweater in a very long time.    Next time I order, I'll make sure I get enough  for a larger project because I'm so happy with the quality.

I had the sewing machine going as well.  I made this cute little project bag with some leftover fabric.   It has a nice big pocket inside.  It still needs a drawstring cord though.  I've nothing suitable on hand.   Crappy lighting and no way to show the size without more work than I'm willing to do right now.   It's big enough to hold several skeins of yarn, needles and a pattern, or other small to medium size project.  While I love the size and shape, I'll likely make this a gift bag as it's not quite my favourite fall in love with fabric.

Filling in the spare time...

The past few days have been busy...

On the treadle sewing machine -  7 tablecloths, pieced and hemmed.   The fabric came from  long, narrow tablecloths.   The owner gave them to me to change over to sizes correct for the tables at our Canton's next SCA event.   There was enough of the blue for 6 and I'm turning the brown into another 2, each slightly larger tablecloths.  Because they are rectangular, they'll work for both round and rectangular tables and 8 should be plenty for any contingency.

100 grams of Clun Forest rovings, spun semi-woolen.  I put them on the rug to photograph them and the cat decided he had to investigate.   He then took a nap on the skeins!


 I've almost finished the wide purple stripey socks.   I've had enough of ribbed socks for a while and will do a different pattern for the next pair.   I still need to graft the toe together.   I'm not fond of that process, although it doesn't take long.  It's fussy to do neatly.   I'm happy these are done.   They've been the least enjoyable socks I've made.  Not only did I not enjoy the colourway, but the yarn wasn't my favourite to work with.    Interestingly, the large purple stripe managed to fall in almost the same spot by totally accident.   I had a partial skein left from the first sock, so use it to start the second sock, rather than switching to a new ball.   Despite the second ball being wound opposite to the first, so the stripe order was reversed, and randomly starting the new ball in the middle of the 2nd sock, the purple stripe in almost the exact same place on the foot, off only by a row or two.  Bizarre....  At least the socks are comfortable, if that's any consolation for having ugly socks! I do love the blues and greens though.. so it's not all bad.

Nope, the garlic isn't planted yet... it's been raining here the past few days.   Instead of doing yard work, I'm off to make cookies..