March 10, 2007

Fiber Art

This is a craft I found at a quilt show. It's called Fiber Art and makes great use of fabric scraps which I accumulated when I was quilting. I made this picture (about 23 x 11 ins) based on a painting my oldest daughter did. It's basically an inch thick piece of foam core board. You draw the design, cut into the board on the lines, and then push the edges of fabric down in the cuts. No sewing, no gluing, just a knife, scissors and fabric. Goes very quickly, weighs next to nothing, and is a very unique art item. Great for gifts. My friend F, made two of them. If you look on the Fiber Art page, he did Rolling Star and Hummingbird. Maybe he'll take pics and post on his blog (hint! hint!).

I am almost ready to put the waste yarn in for my afterthought heel on my second sock. Probably have five or six rows to do before that. I had kinda hoped I'd get them done in time to wear on my second trip to the Ren Festival with F and his hubby. Don't think I'll make it, though. Oh well, it's actually too hot to wear socks anyway!

We have two citrus trees in our tiny back yard. Grapefruit and lemon. They've been neglected for quite awhile and are very over grown. Right now at 7:15 am, there must be 50 birds, mostly sparrows, out in the trees just talking up a storm.

March 6, 2007

Tippey Toes

My sock is progressing! The above pic was in mid afternoon and this is when I put it to bed last night. The white yarn one each side is the waste yarn for the peasant or afterthought heel.

There is a vague patterning emerging from the yarn, but the ribbing on the front disguises it pretty well. The patterning isn't real apparent and I'd probably not notice it if I wasn't looking for it.

F came over yesterday to help out with my "Honey Do" list. We were supposed to get a dryer through Freecycle, but as our transport for Saturday fell through, whoever picked up the bunk beds from our kind benefactor decided to take our dryer, too. So, there is no dryer and consequently, we didn't need to replace the belt. However, F showed me how to take the new to us Oreck vacuum apart and clean it and replace the belt. Then we knitted! Oh, and we got my three sock books rebound!

These are all paperbacks that were bound the "normal" way. I read in one of the knitting groups the suggestion to get Sensational Knitted Socks spiral bound. Well, I thought, "Why not all of them?" So I did! Cost less than $15 for all three, so it's worth that small investment to have a book that can be folded back on itself and says open!

And here's your "cute" fix of the day. Allie fell asleep in Oma's chair!

February 25, 2007

Froggy went a countin'....

After having two really nice blog entries Yahooed, I've decided I'm going to write it all out in WordPad and then cut and paste to the blog. It's so irritating!

Above is a pic of my little froggie row marker. He helps me keep my place on my decrease/increase rows. The ring farthest away from Froggie is my "change" row and the ring closest to him is my "knit even" row. Otherwise I get so excited when doing my heels and toes I forget the knit even row!

I washed my Tofutsies yesterday and they are all nice and dry...ready to wear when I take my grand daughter to school tomorrow to show them off! I have 1 .75 ounces left to make my grand daughter some socks with. I borrowed F's scale so I can make the leftovers into two equal balls. Then, other than a toe up sock, is there any way to figure out if I have enough to make a sock? As much as I dislike this yarn, I don't want to start and then run out. I seriously don't want to buy more, either. Any hints? It's so much thinner than regular sock yarn it might look kinda funny if I just save it for contrasting heels and toes....

I CO the Socketta, color 363. Decided not to do ribbing on this pair. I have half an inch of garter stitch and then went into the stockinette stitch. They will definitely be slouchy socks, but I don't mind that at all. I am planning on doing an Afterthought or Peasant heel on this pair, just to see how I like doing it. I did a star toe on the Tofutsies and found it a bit easier...only, I think, because this is the type of decrease I do for my generic hats so it was second nature for me to do it. My star had six legs on it and I noticed most patterns have three or four.

Picked up a copy of Folk Socks by Nancy Bush at the LYS on Friday. Haven't had a chance to sit down and read through the history of socks, but am very pleased that there are recipes for different heels and toes. I ordered Charlene Schurch's Knitting Sensational Socks from KnitPicks on the 17th (shipped on the 20th). That order should be here on Monday. I'm not a big book buyer, but having good reference books rather than books of patterns is, IMHO, a necessity! These two books come highly recommended for that purpose.

My disabled son spent the day with me yesterday. He was in a car accident almost ten years ago and suffered Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). For a kid that wasn't supposed to live, he's doing pretty good! Seriously, the docs gave him a 1% chance of survival and that's their "nice" way of saying "No chance." Guess he showed them! He's not the same person, although bits and pieces of him are there. Lost the use of his right hand, left foot, right eye from brain stem damage, but he does hold down a full time job, has his weekly role playing game and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, we watched a movie, he played cribbage with my grand daughter and then some games on the computer. Again, pretty good for a guy who was not supposed to have lived!

Got really cold again here. Down in the low 30s yesterday morning and pretty cool this morning. Had to dig out my knitted slippers and put a sweater back on even with the heat on! I'm not complaining. I know how hot it'll get this summer and I'd rather be able to warm myself up as cooling off is never as easy!

To answer Michelle's question from yesterday: Yes, the heel and toes are the same yarn. The swirling around the foot yarn pooling disappears when moves into making heel flaps and doing the heel and toe decreases.

February 3, 2007

Dyeing again....

Spent most of the day with my best friend, F, yesterday. We had to make a run to the local LYS so I picked up three skeins of white wool so I could show F how to dye with Kool Aid. Pic above is our results. The purple really needs to be overdyed. I don't like the colors with grape KA. See if I have some blue or red to overdye it today.

F had BO his pinwheel sweater but it was waaaaay too tight of a bind off. So he undid the BO and I suggested he use a bigger needle to BO with. He did and it worked like a charm. When I left he was picking out the sts from the afterthought heel technique to start the sleeves.

I got about three rows done on the sock flap. Today I start the short rows to shape the heel.

I'd made my son, Z, (pic on yesterday's post) a roll brim hat. He didn't really like it as it was too loose, but really needed the wool hat as he works outside early in the morning and/or late at night when it's still in the mid-30s or low 40s. So, I found a similar color of Encore and added ribbing to it for him. The "seam" where I picked up the sts, makes a natural folding point if he wants the ribbing folded up, and hardly shows if he doesn't. I am really pleased with how it turned out.

Oh, I did the grocery shopping yesterday. Twice. My daughter decided she needed to go before I dropped her off so I could take the car to F's. My knee woke me up every time I moved last night and is really tender today. It doesn't hurt to walk or drive (standard transmission) but it sure hurts now. Guess it's a good thing I can sit (after I finish the housework) for the rest of the day and knit! Which would make it different from any other day, how???

January 21, 2007

I finally got the darned thing finished up to putting in the sleeves! And in retrospect, I really fussed with it more than I needed to. It would have come out just fine if I'd have kept going. Oh well, live and learn. And to quote Hilde "Trust the pattern."

With that said, let me tell you how I changed the arm hole area. The actual pattern made absolutely no sense to me. So I figured I could use the concept used for an afterthought heel. Here's what I did. When it got time to set aside the sts for the sleeves, I grabbed a piece of waste yarn, knit across the prescribed number of sts for the arm hole, turn and knit back with the waste yarn. Then I picked up the working yarn and kept knitting, repeated for the second arm hole with another piece of waste yarn, and then knitted on to finish the circle. Today I'll go back, pick out the waste yarn, pick up the live sts on dpns, and make the sleeves. At least that's the plan. More on that tomorrow!

I've had this old sweater for many years. It's a cheapy machine knitted thing, but, hey, it keeps off the chill. However, the cuffs stretched out in the bag on the way home from the store. I wore it for years, rolling up the sleeves, and then rolling them up again ten minutes later. Then they'd fall when I pushed them up.

So, all the sudden it occurred to me that I could knit some cuffs on. I started the first time by picking up sts all around, but decided that was too tedious for this sweater. So I did a round of single crochet, then picked up the sts, and knit the cuffs. They are a little snug, and I can't push them up at all, but, I can wear the sweater without the cuffs falling over my hands. Maybe someday I'll frog them and do a better job.

January 21, 2007

Pinwheel Sweater Milestone

I finally got the darned thing finished up to putting in the sleeves! And in retrospect, I really fussed with it more than I needed to. It would have come out just fine if I'd have kept going. Oh well, live and learn. And to quote Hilde "Trust the pattern."

With that said, let me tell you how I changed the arm hole area. The actual pattern made absolutely no sense to me. So I figured I could use the concept used for an afterthought heel. Here's what I did. When it got time to set aside the sts for the sleeves, I grabbed a piece of waste yarn, knit across the prescribed number of sts for the arm hole, turn and knit back with the waste yarn. Then I picked up the working yarn and kept knitting, repeated for the second arm hole with another piece of waste yarn, and then knitted on to finish the circle. Today I'll go back, pick out the waste yarn, pick up the live sts on dpns, and make the sleeves. At least that's the plan. More on that tomorrow!

I've had this old sweater for many years. It's a cheapy machine knitted thing, but, hey, it keeps off the chill. However, the cuffs stretched out in the bag on the way home from the store. I wore it for years, rolling up the sleeves, and then rolling them up again ten minutes later. Then they'd fall when I pushed them up.

So, all the sudden it occurred to me that I could knit some cuffs on. I started the first time by picking up sts all around, but decided that was too tedious for this sweater. So I did a round of single crochet, then picked up the sts, and knit the cuffs. They are a little snug, and I can't push them up at all, but, I can wear the sweater without the cuffs falling over my hands. Maybe someday I'll frog them and do a better job.

January 13, 2007

My best friend, F, and I decided to do a KAL. He fell in love with the Pinwheel Sweater. I'm a bit leary of the size of the project as I know it will take me forever due to loosing interest in it, but F and I spend every Friday afternoon together, so even I only work on it then, it'll get 4-6 hours a week of my time. And, I'm going to make the little one for my grand daughters to see if I really like it or not.... After looking at it, they both start out the same and seem to be identical until it's time to put the sleeves in.... And I found out that I can use the technique for an afterthought heel for the armholes as I find the instructions in the pattern really confusing.

I made some great progress on the baby sweater I'm making for GS#4. I now have the front, (verigated) back (bright red) and one sleeve (kelly green) finished. I CO on the second sleeve (yellow) and have the cuff done. One more day of knitting and all the pieces will be done. Then comes the process of teaching myself to seam. I've been seaming things all along, but have been unhappy with the results. They don't look anything like all the pics in the tutorials. So, this time I'm really going to pay attention and have my instructions at hand to practice more seaming.

I'm so proud of F. I taught him to knit in the fall to help the two hemispheres of his brain integrate after the removal of a very large tumor. I think it's helped him in that aspect, but for sure it's provided hours of relaxing, productive entertainment. He, like me, really hates to sit with empty hands. Anyway, he's taught himself to do cables, and now is working on a scarf of his own design. He'd decided his next project was a sweater and challenged me to join him. He showed me the design he picked which was a nice easy cardigan type jacket. Then I showed him the Pinwheel Sweater and that was all it took!

So, I'll start it to figure out how to do a circle from the center out and as soon as he gets his yarn, we'll start it.