Tricky, stupid shawls

 

Shawls are tricky projects.   They start off first by giving you hope.  It tricks you because at first, the knitting goes so quickly that you're making good progress.   You can see the shawl growing in size as you are knitting.  This gives you energy to keep knitting because you want to see it in its full, finished glory! 

 And then... and then you  realise you are still knitting. You realise that shawls are liars. You're half way done and there are still yards upon yards of balled of yarn waiting for you, even a shawl like this which is made of leftover yarns.   You keep knitting, and knitting, and knitting.  Slowly, ever more slowly does the shawl grow.  Soon it's taking you 15 minutes  or a bit more to knit one lousy row.  Now, you knit and can hardly tell how much you've accomplished in the past hour and a half because you only knit an inch!   And still, you have several more balls of yarn, and the lower lacy border.  That joy that the photo and pattern of the shawl is starting to dim because yep, shawls are liars. 

Now instead of enthusiasm, you're asking yourself when will I actually finish this?  You're wondering to yourself if it will actually be big enough because surely it should look bigger than it is now after what feels like weeks of knitting every day.  As well, the knitting needles that you love in other sizes, now feel just slow, stodgy and wrong in your hands, like you chose the wrong needles.  Maybe the aluminium needles would be better, or needles with better points, or rounded tips or better joins.  And because these are convertible needles, you're also telling yourself you're thankful that they haven't broken because you just found 2 different sizes of this brand of needles broken in your needle bin, which doesn't inspire confidence when knitting down the home stretch of the stupid shawl.

Yep, shawls are tricky liars.   The photographs hook you.  They hook you into forgetting how much time it actually takes to knit a stupid shawl.   They hook you  into thinking this will be a fun and satisfying project  It will of course be so in the end, but that will be mixed with some relief as you cast off the last of the 325 stitches you end up with when you're finally finished.  Of course that is when you also realise that there are 250 stupid yarn ends to sew in before you're actually finished the shawl. But then it's done.  You sigh in relief and are happy because it's pretty close to what you wanted.   

Then, because you need a new project on the needles,  because you realised that the shawl you just made won't work with the dress you ended up buying to wear to a wedding, you look through your stash, and look through pattern books, Ravelry, your friends projects and suddenly you find the perfect pattern for those skeins of yarn that have been insulating the craft room.   It's this elegant, drapey, and quite perfect shawl!  And so it starts again, the circle of the shawl: excitement, enthusiasm, the frustration, the boredom, the hopefulness of finishing and finally, the relief and satisfaction that you're done, before you start something like that again.  

STUPID, TRICKY SHAWLS!

above photo - a simple shawl, using leftover yarns, some dyed and a brown that doesn't go with any other yarn that I have,  Some might be handspun, one isn't for sure, but they were unlabelled because I went through a very long phase of thinking that I'd remember the fibre content, yardage and brand/ or sheep breed of every single skein of yarn that I have had over some ridiculous amount of years.   I'm now labelling everything, or tucking in the ball band if it's commercial.   It sure took me long enough to get into that habit.

Garden and spinning update!

 Gosh it's gotten cool here.  I harvested the last cucumber on the plants, and with no more flowers, that was the last for the season.  I ate it for lunch the next day.   There are still tomatoes on the vine, but they are all quite green.   We're supposed to have some warmer weather next week, so I'll leave them and hope they get a bit bigger.  There are tons of Hungarian yellow peppers, although I've no idea if they are hot or not.  There are Jalapeños left to harvest.  There are also a lot of them, however they are quite short.  The mystery pepper plant is all still green, but they are very long and slender, so I'm guessing some sort of hot chill pepper. I'll harvest them sometime soon.  Other than that, there are only herbs left to harvest; parsley, basil and soup celery.  I'm going to plant one bed with garlic this fall.   Seed garlic should be in the feed store in a couple of weeks.   

I got 100 g of lovely, deep pink roving from A.  I spun it into singles and then decided that I was going to spin up more singles to ply it, in a different colour, since this was hand dyed and I couldn't match it.   A gave me another 100g of the same fibres which I spun and dyed into a lovely soft grey.   I plied them together, deciding to make a matching hat and mittens.  I knit the mittens first, and then had to figure out how to make the hat fit the remaining bit of yarn.   Finally, after knitting and ripping out hats 5 times, I knit up a sample on a new toy, an old, but lovely working knitting machine.   I made a hat with just a few metres of yarn to spare!

The sky was quite moody on our last hike.   It looked like rain clouds, but it didn't rain and a surprising amount of sunshine broke through the clouds.  The river had a lot scummy stuff on it, which I've not noticed before.  It was a very hot summer though, so that could have been the reason.   There were a lot of dogs on the trails that day.   I generally don't mind them running off leash, as I've only had 1 incident with an aggressive dog.   However, a few owners have decided that they don't need to clean up after their pups, which sadly made for some areas where you had to watch where you stepped, rather than enjoy the scenery!

The Rudbekia or black eyed Susan's were pretty much past their peak blossoms.   The large field of them was showing a lot of spent flowers and not very many blooms.   On the home stretch of the trail, walking beside the river, I saw these pretty blooms.  They look like they should be Rudbeckia but their petals are short and roundish.  I looked it up though and it seems there is a related flower called the Brown eyed Susan and it looks like this!  Pretty enough and nice that it was blooming when it seemed like only the golden rod and a few Queen Anne's Lace stragglers were left.   

I gave away my LeClerc Fanny counterbalance loom to a friend.  She's been looking for one locally but nothing in easy access has been for sale.   The one that came through the guild went to another member.  Since I'd not used it since I strained my shoulder weaving a couple of years ago, I felt it was time to pass it on.   I got this loom with  requirement to pass on another loom.  I have given away a 36 in Mira jack loom, a tapestry loom, a 5 ft. triangle loom and a 15 inch new Dorothy.  I think I have payed it forward enough.   I gave all of these away without any requirements though, just to enjoy and use them.   When my friend picked up the loom, she dropped off a couple of knitting machines she had in her garage.  One which is a plastic bed and the other that she felt I'd enjoy more, was a metal machine.  I've been playing with it and it's quire enjoyable.  It's fast and has a fairly big learning curve like the sock machine.  Really it's just practice and being willing to take off the tangles and figure out what you did wrong.  I had a few of those.

A New Knitting Project

Today I filled my buckets up with birdseed and peanuts, to head out and fill the feeders.  It's been pretty cold and blustery so the birds empty them fairly quickly in this weather.   Because I did this sort of by rote, I didn't look up in time to get a photo of the Coooper's hawk sitting on the garden gate, right beside the feeders.  It was really pretty.  I scared him off when I noisily shut the garage door.  If I'd looked up and seen the hawk there, I'd have been far more careful and tried to get a photo. 

I'm knitting a new shawl from a Victorian pattern.   The pattern is from Petersons which was a ladies magazine.  The pattern is in the 1842 edition.  The picture of the shawl and the pattern are separated, which made it a little more difficult to begin.   However, it's an easy pattern and is far more modern than expected.  It's a shawl knit from the corner up and there is nothing symmetrical, lacy or other things we might expect from a pattern from that era.   The original was done in blue, grey and white.  I used the darker grey instead of the blue, because I had some at home and had to purchase less.

Shortly after I photographed the shawl, I found Kevin had settled on it for a nap.   What is it about cats always sitting on the projects I'm working on?   After Kevin had his fill, Dion spent a few minutes on it.  Dion though is far happier sleeping on finished projects or puzzles.  Our Christmas activity is usually jigsaw puzzles.  As soon as we take a puzzle out, Dion is right there either playing with the pieces or sitting on it.   If we don't cover the puzzle at night, we find that he's played with it and have to redo parts of it.

This is the pattern and the picture from the magazine, which is actually a hard bound book.   The book is full of stories, recipes, patterns, music, colour plates and drawings of the most up to date fashions.  

From what I can tell, zephyr yarn from the time, was the weight of fingering or sock yarn.   I've chosen a worsted weight wool yarn, which is larger and faster to knit up.  It's a bit warmer as well.  So far the main downside I've found is that with all those colour changes, there are a bazillion ends to sew in.  Also, the pattern as written has the pattern flip every other repeat so that the colour change shows on both sides.  I added an extra row of the second white section so that there is a clear front and back.  This is mainly because I didn't want to sew in ends at the neck edge, which also has the increases. 

 

Knitted Pumpkins (pattern included)

I volunteered to make some knitted pumpkins for a fundraiser.  I've had to hone some skills for these.   First was needing to make I-cord for stems.  I've always found I-cord a pain to make.   If I'd had a spare wooden thread spool, I would have just pounded 4 finishing nails into and made a corking contraption, like we made as kids.   Sadly, thread only comes on plastic spools now, so that was out.   After some experiments, I went out and purchase short double point needles, which work much better.   I still don't "like" making I-cord, but at least it's fairly quick now.     It took me a few tries to get the stem length right.

Interestingly I've found out that  the pumpkin stem is called a peduncle.

The pumpkins themselves are made mainly from scraps of handspun, with a  bunch of dyed leftovers.   I was told that they didn't care what colour the pumpkins were.

I had to actually learn to crochet properly.  I've crocheted for ages, but didn't really like it better than knitting.   I'm still pretty sure I wouldn't crochet a sweater, but the leaves are my reward for making the I-cord, since they are quick and fun to make.  I realize they are more like an apple leaf than a pumpkin leaf, but I haven't figured out a pattern for a pumpkin leaf yet, that isn't complicated.

I now have 15 of these things made. I make the stem first, then the leaf.   Lastly I make the body, gather and stuff it and sew on the bits.  It seems to be the fastest way to make them.   This is my evening " hubby is watching the telly" activity.  On a good night I can make a couple.  My record is 3 completed pumpkins.  Mainly though I'm happy with 1 completed pumpkin and maybe a start on another.

The pattern is simple-

Cast on 36 or any reasonable multiple of 3 stitches on 3 double point needles.   36 stitches makes a small pumpkin.  If you want a larger one, cast on a few more stitches, but always a multiple of 3.   

Sometimes I put a marker on after the first stitch. If you don't mind having to check or knit half a row after you think you've ended, you can tell the starting point by the yarn tail that is hanging.   

I knit 24 or 25 rows or so.  If you've put on more stitches, you'll need to knit more rows.

Cut off a long thread, about a yard, or just under a meter.   Thread a darning needle, or tapestry needle onto the long thread.   Move the stitches from the needles onto the thread.  Pull tightly, slip the needle through the live stitches again, secure with a few stitches, and knot.   Thread the needle through the centre point of the gathered stitches, so the thread and needle are hanging from the outside.  

Pull a puff of fibrefil, that is larger than you think you need and stuff it in the now cup shaped pumpkin.  Push the needle through the centre of the pumpkin and fibrefil to the open top.  Start gathering the edge of the pumpkin.  (This is the cast on edge)  As long as you don't have too large a gathering stitch, it doesn't really matter if you do every other stitch, every couple.   They should be even though.    

Now pull them tight.  Again, run your thread through the edge of the gathers to pull them tight.  I add a few extra stitches, making the stitches that show tiny  and larger under neath.  Knot.

Thread the long thread from the centre top, through to the centre bottom and back to the top.  Pull to squish the pumpkin down a bit.   Again secure the thread with few small stitches, knot and weave the end in.

Stem: - 

3 or 4 thread I-cord.  When casting on, leave an end long enough to stitch the stem on to the pumpkin. - Knit 1 inch or so.   Secure the live stitches by running the working thread through them and knot, weaving the end in.   Then using the long cast on tail, secure it with small stitches to the centre top of the pumpkin.

Leaf - (american terms)

 Crochet a chain 6 stitches long.   Slip stitch the live stitch to the first stitch.   

Chain 2,  double  crochet 5x 

Chain 3, slip stitch the live stitch to the first chain of the 3

Double crochet 5X

chain 2

Slip stitch the chain to the starting point of the original chain.

Close the centre hole with the cast on end.

stitch to the pumpkin with the other end.

weave in the threads

You need to put the stem on.   You don't have to bother with the leaf if you don't want.  They look just fine without it.

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!

Back after Camera difficulties

I had horrible issues with my camera.   It would only take dark, under exposed photos.  It was horrid and it was frustrating because I can't afford a new camera and it's likely not worth repairing this one as it's pretty old.    I ignored it for a while.  Today, I took it out again, fussed with a few things, still no luck.  Then I tried it with the flash -  worked perfectly... without the flash, too dark.   It turned out, it was a stupid dial that I was moving by accident.    Sheesh... talk about operator error of the stupidist kind!   As okay for photos as my phone camera is, it's not really good enough for a lot of what I like or at least usually need to photograph.

This is the almost finished - it's now completely done - traditionally hooked rug that I made with my handspun, hand-dyed yarn.    I'm really happy with it.  I learned a lot, and for a learning project, I think it turned out quite nicely.   Some areas are over packed, and learning how narrow lines work was interesting.   I was going to put a border on it.  While I started it, I wasn't sure I had enough yarn in the colours I wanted, and since these colours were one offs, using up old dyes, I opted for the smaller rug, to be certain of having enough yarn.

Before we left on holidays, I started this shawl.  I knitted a few rows in the car and hotels each night on the way down.   I knitted some while we were in Nova Scotia and then on the way home, despite my issues with motion sickness, it was a godsend.   It started to rain the moment we hit the New Brunswick/Quebec border and was scary, torrential downpours until just outside of Montreal.   I got a lot of knitting done in those hours.   I wasn't driving ;)

It's a simple shawl- Danish/Icelandic style wrap shawl in garter stitch.   Perfect for keeping the hands busy without a lot of though.    I just finished it a couple of days ago.  The thing is huge.   It's warm and cuddly though. 

 I had some scraps of handwoven wool fabrics that I ran though the washer to full up.  They fulled up more quickly than I'd expected and more than I'd wanted.  I set them aside until a couple of days ago.   I dyed them up in yellows and oranges.  The greens were blue fabrics to start with.    I've started making some proddy hooked sunflowers.   I wish I'd dyed more yellow fabric though.   It makes for pretty flowers.   The centres should be larger, but I'm using scraps of linen hooking fabric up and they are only about 4 inches wide, so this is about it for flower size for these ones.

Here is a photo of a sunflower from my garden for comparison.

I've been working on a rug warp.   I dyed it to get the colour I wanted because I'd bought a whole whack of natural coloured 4/8 cotton a couple of years ago.   Now I need to wind 22 more threads of the white stripes, because I managed to miscount the first time.    It's an easy threading project though as it's only 27 inches wide and there are only 2 rugs to weave in this warp.

Garden update and knitting

In the garden centre this year, there were some decorative  pots of everbearing strawberry plants.   They were large plants, with 5 or 6 in a pot, and many of the plants had runners, with smaller plants already growing.  They were just a couple of dollars more than buying  a single, small, barely started strawberry plant and the same price as bare root stock (when you took the runners into account), that I hadn't decided to order in time for this year.  I purchased 2 pots, and between all the plants, I have a 4 x 6 foot bed of strawberries planted.  There will be a small harvest this year because of the mature plants.  This was my first strawberry and ohhhh, it was so delicious.  It was soft and sweet, not like the imported berries at all.

 On the long weekend, the gals I was camping with had all brought their knitting.  I was inspired when I got home, so I quickly knit up this little winter toque.  I had started it using handspun, but when I dropped a stitch in one of the cables, I ripped it out and began again.  It was easier than trying to figure out where that lost stitch was.  As well, I'd made a mistake on the second cable, which was irking me to no end, so I accomplished fixing that by ripping it out as well.  It's cute, soft and was surprisingly easy to knit as the pattern was super easy to remember.

The currant and gooseberry bushes have liked this spring weather.   They are all bearing decent amounts of fruit.   Since the white and black currant bushes were only planted 2 years ago, I'm pretty happy about that.  The red gooseberries are the same age, and they have berries as well.   My haskap berries were planted at the same time.  One has grown quite large and flowered a ton this year.  The second one is still small and only had a few flowers.   I haven't checked to see what amount of fruit has set on those bushes though.

 The Alliums are flowering.  They are so pretty with their deep pinky/purple globes shooting up from the ground.  There will be a gap in flowers as I don't have a lot between the Allium and the Rudbekia and Echinecea.

 The Woad is flowering though so yay for fresh seed.  I got enough plants from my 10 year old seed to have in my garden as well as pass some on to a friend.  I love the funky sign that I got from Erhardt.  I realize it's autumnal, but it looks cute along with the little whirly gigs and other bits of spinning things which not only decorate my garden, but keep the birds from eating the seedlings.  Before I put out all the tacky decor in the garden, the grackles and robins kept nipping off the tops of the green beans just as they sprouted, pecked away at the young lettuce plants and ate virtually all the strawberries, the first time I tried planting them.

Colours as dull as our weather, sadly

I wove off 6 of these tea towels.    They took forever.   I found it amazing that I could weave for 2 hours with minimal breaks at the guild studio, on the slightly smaller Artisat, but on my fanny I have to take regular breaks every 20 or 30 minutes.   It's a larger loom and it feels so different.  It weaves beautifully though.    I used a sett of 18, as a couple of big name weavers suggest that for absorbent towels.  They will be absorbent and are very soft, but I think the next ones will be a sett of 20.

This is the underside of the tea towels we were weaving off in the studio.   I meant to take a photo of the second one I was weaving off but my sweetie called me up and asked if I'd like to run into town for some errands with him, and I totally forgot in the 10 minutes I had left to finish up and head out. Four of us wove off towel, to get 6 done before the show.  It was interesting about the speed differences.  Pat said it was 11/2 hr project.  I said 2 hours, another gal said it took her 5 hours.   It was an intuitive pattern though and I found it easy to get into a rhythm, which does help with speed.


I found a ball of brown worsted weight wool yarn stuffed in a corner of a bin.   I'm turning it into mittens.  I can't find any of my mittens from last year.  Considering I had a coat pocket pair, a truck pair, a car pair and a spare pair, it's kind of a lot to go missing or misplace.   I did treat myself to a nice new set of wooden needles.  These are Knit Picks, which only became available in my town last year.   They are beautifully finished and lovely to knit with.  I like the wooden needles because they are so light that I feel like I can knit forever.

I made this cardigan  a while ago and didn't ever wear it.  It was too big and kept slipping off my shoulders.  It was on the ugly side as well.   I kept telling myself that I'd frog it and re-knit it into something that a)fit better and was more attractive.    I told myself that for the better part of a year.   I think I was putting it off because I'd done a darned good job of sewing it together and didn't want to figure out where all those ends were and the seaming theads.

I finally sat down to rip it apart.  What a pain in the patootie!   It's taking way longer than I'd anticipated.   So far I have the neck/button band, the front and 1/2 sleeve ripped out. Sheesh, the way this is going, it will be next summer before I can start knitting the sweater.  I've already tried that.  Knitting sweaters is definitely not a summer or warm weather activity.

Spinning and Knitting

Usually, when I have to wait around for appointments, I bring a sock project to fill in the endless minutes.   However, I didn't have a sock project either on the go or ready to go, so I substituted a pair of mitts.  A gal once described this sort of mindless, patternless project as a potato chip project - which does sort of fit since you just keep knitting without a lot of thought.   I had a lady say to me that she would never have the time to knit as she was sitting in the waiting room doing absolutely nothing, not even reading a magazine.   The lady with her large novel looked at me and grinned.   I told her how many socks I'd knit when I was just sitting around waiting for appointments.   She apparently reads through appointment waiting as well.  The lady doing nothing, still had nothing to show for her time, but I hope she was at least relaxed and refreshed.

One of the guild members is an Alpaca breeder.  She spoke about Alpaca fibres last meeting and commented that any lock 2 inches or less was considered trash and unprocessable.   That is by machine though.   Hand processing those shorter lengths works adequately.  

I dug up a pattern for a sontag from Peterson's magazine - 1861, spring issue I think.  It is different that most of the one's I've seen which are from a Godey's Ladies book pattern.   I'd popped out to get the yarn for the Peterson's pattern but it wasn't on sale and was $8 a skein, and I'd need about 4 or 5 of them.  I decided to spin the yarn instead, which will mean that the project won't be done when I wanted it to, but I'll use up stash fibre.   As this sontag will likely brush my neck, I decided on some Merino Top and Alpaca locks.  I have some lovely brown Alpaca in the same staple length of the Merino, but I didn't have enough brown Merino to be certain of having adequate yardage once spun.   The white Alpaca locks are short.  They are about 2 - 2 1/2 inches long.   They hand card nicely enough but I ran both through the drum carder, sandwiching the Alpaca between layers of Merino.    This worked a treat and I have been carding up lovely, fluffy batts.   I'm using a ratio of 60% Merino to 40% Alpaca.

I got Alpaca from a fundraiser held for a member of the Edmonton Guild who had lost all her fibre equipment during the massive floods a few years ago.  They had Alpaca fleeces, mostly shorter length fibres for a $20 donation.  I was happy to donate and now I'm happy that I'm actually using the fleece.    I'll have to wash the yarn after it's spun as the Alpaca is definitely not clean.

The superwash merino rolags are spun and plied.  It's a pretty yarn, soft, squishy and colourful.   I've no idea what I'll do with it but at least it's done.

Shawl Progress

I've been knitting away at the Godey's Ladies Book Shawl (Nov 1864 issue).  The border calls for 2 colours, contrasting to the main colour.   I've seen the whole shawl elegantly done in just 2 colours, but the original was described s the main part being violet and black varigated, with a gold and black border.   I wasn't sure I had enough blue to do the border and the fringe, which is tied on after the shawl is finished.   I have 600 g of the blue, 400 of which were used for the main body.   I had 250 g of the brown and I had 300 g of the white tweed that I could dye up for the third colour and 200 g of a grey marl, which I'd tried first and it was pretty wishy washy and unattractive.   I saw a photo using the deep blue, brown and gold, which was spectactular, so I chose that as a colour scheme.   To say the least, it is indeed a bold choice.  The gold was dyed with weak acid dyes, using warm yellow, black and a little bit of magenta.

Instructions state to use a safety pin to mark increase row 

I used 4 skeins for the blue.  It wasn't as long as I'd done the math for, but draping it on myself showed it was going to be long enough.   The border is 4 rows colour A, 6 rows colour B, 4 rows colour A, 6 rows colour B, 10 rows colour A, 6 rows colour B, 4 rows colour A, 6 rows colour B, 4 rows colour A.   I almost stopped halfway through the border.  

Not only was it plenty big enough, but each 2 rows increase the total stitches by 4.   It is taking me about 1/2 hour to knit one row.   I'm quite ready to cast off.    However, by the time I'd finished the centre section of the border, I realized that I was now on the count down, so I kept going.   I have 14 rows left to knit.

The gold and brown border is  bright and hardly subtle.  I think it is a good choice for the time period and  it is well within the colour suggestions of the original pattern.

This baby is going to be warm.   It already weighs close to 600 g.  I'll need to use part of the second skein of both gold and brown for the rest of the border.  There are 2 skeins of the blue left, which will be used for the fringe.   I don't know how much I'll need for that.

When I start getting a bit overwhelmed with the knitting, I choose to knit 4 or 5 stitches.   Then another 4 or 5 and so on.   Usually it's just 4 stitches, and by doing that, in no time, I've completed a row.  I've only had to resort to that trick a couple of times though.

I am already thinking about my next project, which will likely be a) smaller and b) incorporate a stitch pattern other than garter stitch.  The only thing good about that much garter stitch, is that I don't have to look at it very often while I'm knitting, so I can talk, read, entertain the cat etc..

Kitty update, Victorian knitting project

Kevin and Phil made friends fairly quickly.   After about 3 days of ignoring one another, there was a day of sniffs and growls, then a day of sniffs.  That night they were playing, chasing each other around the house and general wildness.   After a day or two of hard playing, Kevin's cranky leg gets sore and he starts limping again, so he takes it easy for a day or two until he's good to go again.   If I'm not around to provide Phil with a lap to sleep on, the two of them sleep on my bed.

I made some pickles last week at Westfield, in the Misener house.   The beets and cucumbers from the Lockhart garden were ripe.   The beet recipe was strait out of Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, I had to adapt the pickle recipes somewhat as I didn't have a crock to store them in.  I didn't run them through a hot water bath, so they are refrigerator pickles.

 I decided to do start another knitting project as I wanted a shawl or wrap to wear in the cooler weather at Westfield.   This pattern is in the November, 1864 issue of Godey's Ladies Book (vol. 69).  I downloaded a facsimile and was able to print out the pattern instructions.  Someone has very nicely put the instructions on Ravelry as well.  The article in the magazine says the original was made with a varigated violet and black centre and fringe with black and gold contrasting stripes.   It says solid colour yarns are cheaper than the varigated colours and natural colours are the least expensive.  You can use any weight of yarn for this and the article points out that if you use strong yarns, it is suitable for charity knitting.   This is an easy to knit, utility shawl, but it isn't mindful, careful knitting.  It's garter stitch, garter stitch and more garter stitch, with a few increases tossed in.

I was originally thinking that a cream or light grey shawl with brown and grey stripes would work nicely.   However this white tweedy yarn was on sale - super sale really, with a packet of 5 skeins for a bit less than the price of 2 skeins.   That really made the choice of colour a moot point.   However when I knit it up, the white had no life to it.   It is a cold, dull white and the black bits just looked unappealing.    So into the dye pot it went.   I decided on blue though, in an attempt to minimize the black bits.    I was going to use woad or Japanese Indigo, as I have lots ready to use in the garden, but I didn't have enough time in one stretch available.  Instead I used acid dyes and I'm pretty happy with the way the colour turned out.   I have a lovely grey marl for at least one of the stripes. I might still go with the brown for the other.    I only dyed 6 of the 10 skeins I'd purchased for this project, so I have 4 left to dye another colour, if I need one for the stripe.

Plying, and weaving and raccoons, oh my!

I've finished spinning the Blue Faced Leicester.  I plied it, wet finished it and it's ready to go into the stash for a future project.   I like BFL because it's both sturdy and soft.  The staple length makes it easy to spin.  It dyes nicely and is just an all around good general purpose sort of yarn.  I use it for things like mittens, socks and hats when knitting and for scarves, shawls etc when weaving.   This commercially prepared roving  was easiest to spin with a short forward draw, although I'm pretty sure I did a bit of point of contact long draw when I was just spinning but not really paying a lot of attention... oops...

 I also plied together several different yarns to put into this rug, as in shaker rug techniques.   I realized after I'd started that I don't have enough of the blue wool yardage to make enough rags to weave a rug, as long as I'd thought.   So, I've been staring at it, trying to decide what to do.  I could rip it out and start again, keep going to make a small mat, or add larger areas of the plied yarns.  Hmmmm, what to do, what to do?



The first mitt is finished.  It still needs to be blocked and it looks much nicer when being worn than in the photo.   I had it nearly finished and ripped it back to redo the thumb as I didn't like the way is sort of sticks out nor how really small it was.   I ended up not being able to figure out a better way to do it, so I just added a few rows of ribbing on top to both keep it from splaying out and to make it longer.  I also added a few rows after the pattern and more ribbing rows to make the mitt longer.   This is the 4th try at the 2nd cuff.   First couple of tries were my mistakes and then I was half way done when I realized that there were some errors that I'd not caught when reading it over.  I think I've got it figured out this time.  The cuffs are opposite though so if it gives me any more issues, I'll just redo the right cuff and forgo the difference in patterns since I already know that there is only 1 mistake in the right cuff and I've already fixed it.

My son was grilling dinner on the deck when he called us out.    It seems that the rather yummy smells emanating from the BBQ, woke this guy up.   Until the last year or so, that knot in the big Maple tree was sealed.   Obviously though, when it broke open, this little guy moved in.   It's too bad that their cuteness doesn't make raccoons such cute little animals.   We're making sure the barn is locked up tight by dusk and being careful to put the compost out early, while the chooks will still go through it and pick out the goodies.  I really don't want him to feel too welcome around here.  I don't want him eating my chooks or causing any other issues.

  We've had a pretty orange kitty hanging around.   It's not terribly afraid of people, so I'm thinking it might be a dropped off kitty, rather than a feral barn cat.   Sadly, it's getting skinny, which means it's hunting skills aren't up to par, also why I think it might have been toss out of a vehicle, and isn't a barn cat.  Barn cats are usually pretty well fed.  It's  now got a hurt leg.   I'm hoping it stays out of the way of the raccoon and maybe I can figure out some way to slip it some food.  So far the chooks have eaten everything I've tried to set out for it.

Starting holiday projects

 The steam tractor was out giving wagon rides at Westfield on Father's Day.   What a cool piece of equipment but noisy!   Not the chugging as it drove around the site, but when it blew the whistle, it was really loud.   I was in a building close to the bandstand, which was cool because there was an old time band , which played fun music for the better part of the afternoon.   It threatened to rain, which probably stopped some people from visiting, but the rain held off until closing time, so the day was pretty awesome.

I've started my holiday projects.   This is a cuff for a pair of mittens.   I had to restart this after I'd made the second bobble, because the way I was reading the pattern directions, the 2 yarn overs made an extra stitch, which didn't get eliminated in the pattern.   I based the size on the hand circumference but now am wondering, as the wrist fits quite small.  It's taken more time than I expected to get this far, with still 1/4 of the pattern to go for the cuff.   Once I got all the cable details and the bobble down, it's gotten faster.

I've been weeding and mulching the garden.   I use cardboard and newspaper for mulch.   I've been told it's ugly and why do that, but it's very effective.  By the end of the season, it's starting to break down and it easily works into the garden in the springtime when we till.   I really like how it blocks the weeds so effectively and it's really inexpensive.    I tried using old straw one year, which really worked well, except a) it costs a lot more than the paper/cardboard which is usually free and b) there were so many seeds in it, that my mulch looked like a wheat field.  It kept the other weeds at bay, but I had to weed out the wheat!

The rug warp is wound on and ready to weave.   I'm spinning some of the weft for one rug, so decided to play around with some different colours.   This one is definitely being unwoven as it's really ugly.  I was looking for dark coloured sheets at thrift stores, but I didn't find any.   Old jeans would likely work as well but I'll need to take another trip to town for those.  Meanwhile I have a few yards of blue wool fabric which I might strip down for weft.  There  doesn't seem to be quite enough yardage for a skirt, so better to use it than leave it sitting there for the moths.

Finishing more things up

 The white Pima cotton is plied.  I'm thrilled with this yarn.  It was fun to spin.   There are 284 yards in this skein, which weighs 44 g.    I'm finishing up the last of the lighter brown cotton right now.

 The last pair of guy mittens are done, just in time for Christmas.  These will be warm and functional, if not pretty or trendy.  I rather like these however.  They'll never show the dirt and if one gets lost, then it isn't like I spent hours on colour work or a fancy pattern

The last scarf is finally off the loom.   I had a bit of fun with this one.  Every once in a while I did a little inlay of varigated blue.  It kept the weaving a bit interesting.  The scarf before this is plain grey.

Kitchen update! and yarny things of course

Oh my goodness!  Look what is happening with the kitchen renovation!!!  The walls are painted and I will have to say that my sweetie did an awesome job with the drywall.  They are perfect.   The cupboards are going up.    A few inches of space were lost when the outside wall was insulated, which has meant a shift of all the cupboards.  It won't make much different to most of the room, but the top cupboards on either side of the sink don't quite fit.   We could do it by switching two of them around, but then the cupboards would only be 12 inches wide.   He says if he makes them to fit, they would be 16 inches wide, which would make so much more sense for dish storage.

I've been doing a bit of Xmas knitting.   These are simple wool mittens sized to fit any one of my guys.   My sons and my husband all fit the same size, so this is pretty easy.   I can make several pair and they can choose which one suits their fancy.   That little piece of yarn is all that I had leftover from this pair.   Admittedly, I used a partial skein and if I'd made mitts for myself or daughter, there would have been plenty left.  But, really, I didn't need plenty left ;)  The remaining 24 inches of yarn is much easier to dispose of than a partial skein.

This is the 50% alpaca/50% merino blend.  It is a lovely yarn and the mittens are quite soft and yummy.  I'm making another pair of "guy" sized mittens and did have a few moments of angst where I almost ripped them out and made a pair of mittens for myself.   I decided that I actually have enough alpaca in my stash to blend up another batch and make myself mittens from that.
 The needles are Knit Picks.  They come in a 6 pack and are made from brightly coloured wood.  They are some of the sweetest needles I've ever used.  They have a perfect point , weigh practically nothing and slip the yarn across them just nicely.  I will have to keep my eyes open for more of these. 

Blending project update

That blending board spree ended up using almost all of my leftover commercially dyed Corriedale top from the level 4 and 5, Master Spinner programs.  I have an 1880's chest of drawers which I use for fibre and equipment storage and the coloured bits of roving were taking up the bottom drawer.   My aim in doing this was to use up the rovings, free up some space and have a bit of a break from spinning the project fleece.  These are just a few of the blending board rolags that I made.  The orange is a bit misleading as it is much more orange than in actuality.   It was my least favourite of all the colour combinations, although I'd hoped I'd used up all that Chili Pepper Red and I think it was Cheese Cake yellow, in a way which didn't end up looking like clown hair.   I was trying for something autumnal and pumpkiny.

I spun it all using the traditional longdraw.   There are 5 different colour combinations there and while I thought my favourite would be the blue - lower left, I ended up liking it the least.  However the orange turned out to be one of my favourites because it really did remind me of pumpkins.   There are 65g - 75 g of worsted weight yarn for each colour, so enough for mittens at least, or maybe a hat.  

more accurate colour of the orange blend

 I spun and plied more white project fleece yarn.   I did a rough check on yards per weight of the yarn. I counted the wraps on the niddy noddy, did the math and then weighed the skein.  I divided the yardage into the weight and got 1.9 y per gram.  By then weighing the rest of the skeins and multiplying by 1.9, I got a rough estimate of 1398 yards.   While by no means truly accurate, I have enough spun to start looking at sweater patterns.   Hmmmm, leave it white or dye it?

I started with the Raspberry/blue rolags.  They had the most yardage but I should have probably started with the smaller yardage lots.   I will have leftovers from these mitts.  Not enough for a decent project and if I'd made larger mittens, I could have used them as a present for someone with bigger hands than mine.  But since I have small hands and a habit of losing mittens, maybe I shouldn't worry too much.  Of course I usually make my pairs of mittens of similar colours, so I can mix and match.  I wonder if odd mittens are a trend yet?

I'm knitting these on brand new bamboo needles.   The first time I tried bamboo needles, I really liked how light they were but I wasn't sure I liked the feel of them.  However, I received a couple of pair free with a yarn purchase one time and since they were the only knitting needles I had of those sizes, I ended up using them several times.  The first time, they were a bit rough but by the third project, they had been sanded incredibly smooth, by the fibre and were getting a glossy finish, I presume the oils in my hands.  They ended up being lovely to work with.  Hopefully these will turn out the same.  Otherwise, the local store has just stocked Knit Picks wooden needles and they are really nice to work with.  I may pick up a pair just so I can put a second project on the needles, stuff it in to go project bag and drag it along with me.