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.

What's happening these days?

The socks with the really yummy yarn are coming a long.   It's a waste to do them in plain stockinette stitch, but they are so soft and thin, I'm not unhappy with them.   I did the eye of partridge heel.   It doesn't fit my skinny heel as nicely as the regular old slip stitch heel, and it's fussy.   I won't be doing that heel for my own socks again.  It is pretty though, so it has that going for it.

I love the whole process with this yarn.  It has a lovely twist.  It isn't splitty.  It's soft and lovely to handle.    I love the colour.   It comes in a whole range of colours and varigated colours, which weren't in the little shop where I found this.   They had a very small selection of the Holst Garn Highland.

The tomatoes are ripening well this summer.    I've been canning them, one batch at a time.   I may not
have to do my 2 day canning marathon this year, with purchased tomatoes because every couple of days I get a canner load full and am done.   This is an enjoyable way to do it.    I've only had one jar not seal properly and it ended up on some mac and cheese (real, not boxed) for supper and was really good.

 The yellow tomatoes are a variety called Yellow Boy ( I think).    They are really delicious and work nicely in a sandwich.   My son in law has a basement set up for starting his tomato plants so I happily benefit from his generosity, when he passes some my way.  

This scarf is on the loom right now.   I pretty sure I don't like it.   The yarn weaves nicely although it's an acrylic that has a soft but a bit plasticy feel too it.    When I bought it, the store lights showed the orange as a bit more softer and toned down and not this bright pumpkin orange.   I'll weave it off as it's a fairly quick weave since the yarn isn't sticky.   I'm really not a huge fan of orange though, at least in broad stripes like that.

On top of this bright orange fiasco, I needed a tape measure quickly, so borrowed the one from this scarf.   Then I shoved it into a project bag with the socks when I was volunteering and needed some handwork.  I forgot to put it back on the loom before I started weaving again.   I didn't notice that until I had advanced the loom several times.  Now I have no idea how fabric I've woven, or how long the scarf is.

Brad Paisley Concert

So frustrating!   We had a windstorm last weekend and since then our wifi has been in and out.   It's been cutting out for hours at a time and then poof, like yesterday and until 2 minutes ago, it's been fine.   Our service is generally really good, although slow because of the nature of rural wifi in our area.   So this is just frustrating.    We checked and a critter did not eat through the cable this time :)

  First a note that these concert photos aren't mine.   I have an old phone with an outdated camera, which has never done low light settings well.   Now it's starting to not take good photos unless it's outside in daylight.   However, we went to the concert with friends and one of them generously forwarded the photos he took, and said I was welcome to use them on my blog.

Last weekend we went to see Brad Paisley in Niagara Falls.   He was playing in a small venue at the casino.   We'd had seats in a larger hall, but they'd cancelled the concert.  They'd rebooked the concert, and I managed to get the presale code, so we had decent seats -  front row mezzanine/low balcony, so we got to sit the whole time, which my hip really appreciated.   The venue was a great way to see a concert.  It held only about 1500 people.  The seats were comfortable and the sound was great.  The only bad thing was that there was only one person on the merchandise stand, which meant for a very long line up.  

  It was an enjoyable concert and Brad Paisley put on a great show.   We stayed with friends who are amazing hosts.  We played a bit of Irish music, ate lovely meals, saw the show together with oddly enough, getting seats right beside each other despite purchasing them separately.     It was a fun end to our holiday week.

It was my first time at being in a casino.  I hadn't expected it to be rather like being in a mall.   Since my only experience with seeing a casino was from the telly, it surprised me how dark and how many gaming machines there were.    I didn't play but hubby did.  He played a penny machine and came out $10 ahead. I can't say that I'd go to a casino for fun though.   I'm happy enough to keep that $5 in my pocket, bird in the hand and all that.

 

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!

Old Spinning Wheels

  A gal asked me if I wanted her old spinning wheel.   She's not a spinner and when she bought her loom, they tossed in all their spinning equipment too.   This was all she had left and while all the pieces are there, it's not together, and needs a repair.   It's been tentatively identified as a Haldane Hebridean.   It has a lot of similar shapes and features, but until I get it cleaned up and put together, I'm guessing I won't know for sure.  The Hebridean has a pretty identifiable shape.  It's supposed to be based on a traditional wheel used in the Hebrides.  Haldane was a Scottish company which made several different styles of wheels in the 1970s.  I've met people who spun on Haldanes and they loved them, but these were the upright wheels, not the Saxony style.   

Still, it looks like a sweet little wheel and if I can get it working, then I'll be thrilled.

The wood is dry and dusty.  The leathers are in pretty good shape, although bone dry.   I'm researching how to clean and care for the wood.  What do I use to clean it?   Does it need some sort of finish on it?

Drive wheel is 16.5 inches, just like a Haldane.

The flyer and mother of all look the same as the photos of other Hebrideans I've seen.  

This is the repair needed.   I don't think I have the skills to fix this.   I haven't done a trial fitting yet, so I don't know how much actually broke off.     

I've also seen a Haldane in pieces and there were 2 wooden pegs, which are also missing.  The odd thing is, is that I can't figure out what would need to be pegged together. 

I just compared the two maidens.  This piece is definitely something I can't repair and will need an expert.   Does anyone local know someone who can reproduce something like this?

 

More odd sock yarn dye lots

 These are the newest socks on the needles.  I was rather surprised when I wound the skein into a ball/cake and found a large band of gold nestled in at the halfway mark.  I didn't think too much about it though as the white bands were fairly large too.  That is until the second sock and I started knitting it.  I kept knitting the gold and realized that I'd have a a rather massive gold stripe, probably enough to have gold down past the heel turn.   I debated this, because I really don't like to have a yarn join in my socks, if I don't need to.  However, I cut the yarn and wound off the rest of the gold to a point just before it switche colours.  The resulting ball of gold yarn fits in my palm, so that I can just barely touch my fingers around it.  That is a large section of gold!   I could have ripped it out and maybe had enough to match the stripes, but I wasn't sure, so I left it in and kept knitting.   It's nice sock yarn to knit with.  The colours are interesting blends.  This is my third pair of socks with this yarn.  The first was speckled and pretty, but a bit plain.  The second had two totally different coloured socks as there were no repeats that I could find in the yarn.   This one is pretty bizarre too.  However, that it knits nicely and slides off the needles effortlessly makes it lovely to knit with.  Plus, I don't really mind the odd colour combos and dye jobs.   It does make it interesting to knit.  If it were a different colour than the gold, I would probably just left it as is, and not wound it off.

I made a raised pork pie for supper.  It was pretty good. I wasn't fond of the hot water crust pastry, so will try a different recipe next time.   The filling was good though.  Next time I'll make a gelatin gravy to add to it, as a moistener.   I'll also make them smaller.   This one took over 2 hours to bake!  

It's been a good year in the garden for cucumbers!  I've eaten one for lunch for the past couple of weeks.  Plus we've been harvesting English cucumbers as well, which are more supper oriented.   I missed a couple of the small ones, and they are huge.  This could be a problem, as cucumbers often die off once they've set a fruit that matures enough to reproduce.   The tomatoes are just starting to ripen.   The plants are loaded this year.   If they ripen enough to harvest, I won't have to purchase many for my canning marathon.  The Lemon Boy plant that my son in law gave me is particularly delicious!  It has bright yellow tomatoes that are nicely tomato flavoured but not overly acidy.   He also gave me a green cherry tomato plant.  Those are interesting because they have a strong tomato flavour, but figuring out when they're ripe enough to harvest is interesting.  I can't tell by colour, so I'm having to do a gentle squeeze on the fruit to see if they're soft enough.   

 

New Rigid Heddle Loom projects

 

This was such a fun and easy weave!  It's fabric that will be turned into a project bag.  It was a short warp of 4/8 cotton or maybe a tad larger.   I think it was a smallish cone of thread that someone passed on to me because they didn't want it.   It was perfect for this.   The weft was a ball of a synthetic tube yarn stuffed with a soft cord or filling.   It was leftover from placemats I'd made ages ago. 

  Now if the weather will cool down a bit so I can start up the iron. It's been so hot and humid here.  The humidex has been over 40C several days and close to the rest.   Too hot and muggy for me to iron.  I have this project bag, which needs interfacing ironed on, then to be sewn to shape.  The lining needs to have some interfacing for pockets, and a welt pocket in the lining.  I also need to figure out what to do for a handle, or if it needs a closure.   But it should be pretty when done.

Now on the loom is a 100% wool warp for a blanket.  It will be woven in two pieces and sewn together up the middle to make a blanket.   There are three stripes on this, so three on each side.  I mucked up the placement because with a bit more effort, I could have made it so the sides to be sewn together had a smaller teal section, and the wide stripes would appear to be even.    

This isn't quite so much fun to weave.  It's wider, so it's slower going.  Plus the wool is  a bit sticky, so I have to be careful about skipped threads.   I'm not 100% happy about the sett.  However the next larger reed I had for this loom was 10 dents, so I went with the 7.5 dent reed.  I'll be fulling it up when it's all said and done, so it will be fine.   It will soften up as well.

This is a more accurate colour of the yarn.   Direct warping is quick and easy.  I didn't get the tension quite right this time though, despite tensioning it twice over several hours, leaving it overnight and checking again before tying it on, and then fixing it again.    I think it might be an issue with using the cardboard slats as separators as I've never had this issue with a good paper warp.  Years ago, I purchased a roll of heavyish, but not high quality water colour paper.   The poor sales person at the shop was warning me about results with that paper, and yes, I did try some water colours on it, and it was awful paper for painting on.  However, it made fabulous packing paper and sewing patterning paper.  I ran out recently and haven't got an art store near me to see about replacing it.

The lawn tractor died.  We put a huge amount of $ getting it fixed last year and it didn't even last the summer.   The timing sucks though as not only have we had to replace all of our kitchen appliances, we also had to replace our non-functioning furnace and tank.  Then a critter chewed through the cable from the wifi dish to the house and that took a couple of days to fix  What is next I wonder?