Colleen Stitches in Time

For Wendy

2011-11-25T14:40:00.005-05:00

Wendy wants shoes, so I'm linking to the page, so that I get entered into the giveaway...

it's here:
American Duchess Shoes Pemberley Giveaway
*We need to sell just over 100 pairs of Pemberlies in order to manufacture them. If we don't meet that goal, all of you who did order will have to be refunded in full, and the Pemberlies will be canceled. If this is the Regency shoe of your dreams, please share, blog, tweet, tumble, stumble, and pass the news along.*

I have their 1770s satin shoes, and Wendy has their 1770s leather shoes. Pretty good ones.

What? Proud, me?

2011-09-26T12:58:00.007-04:00

Yeah, just a little....

Normal life is slowly resuming, post Bar Mitzvah. Getting everyone ready was a challenge, butmget ready we did, and Harry did great. He completely nailed his portion, the blessings, and Haltarah. His D'var Torah was terrific, too. The rabbi had never heard of a kid doing a D'var Torah quite like this, before! As my friend Sharon said, it may be the first, ever, D'var Torah that everyone listened to, not just the family!

The Bar Mitzvah boy, in his lovely tallit (I hesitate to say that, but everyone else did....so.....I'm still not satisfied with it, but it is reasonably pretty! I love the way guys will wear pretty tallitot!)
Here is the D'var Torah.
Va-Yelekh D’var Torah
by Harry
September 24, 2011
(Deuteronomy 32:28-30)

Good morning

I wrote my d’var torah in verse
But please don’t get upset and curse
I have trouble writing
So don’t start up fighting
It took me a long time to rehearse

There once was a prophet named Moses
He dreamed he had piglets for toeses
He was like a parent
The Jews were still errant
So they just ended up without roses

God said to Moses “you’ll die
Tell the people I’ve chosen, Don’t Lie!
Would you please just behave
And try to be brave”
So the Jews crossed the river to cry

When they were ready to have a new home
They wrote it all down in a tome
We call it the Torah
They all danced the Hora
And then entered the land plated chrome

When they were ready to start their new life
They were not riddled with strife
Just like graduation
It’s a new situation
Like normal people in modern-life

The Jews were like kids leaving school
Convinced that they’re really quite cool
They must be proficient
To be self-sufficient
And sometime their own land they might rule

Right now I would just like to thank
Mom and Dad for filling my tank
Beth, Wendy, and Teddy
Grandma but no Eddy
And then of course there is Frank

Thanking someone is not easy
Quite often it gets rather cheesy
Thank you all for coming
Rosalie for her strumming
Hey Michael and Joan are you queasy?

(Rosalie is the guitar playing cantor, Michael the Rabbi, and Joan, his teacher)

18CLife

2011-09-16T22:45:00.003-04:00

There is a new 18th C reenacting list, 18CLife!

You can subscribe at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/18cLife/

It's all about 18th Century Life....Mostly civilian, of course, as most life was civilian, but military stuff isn't forbidden, it's not really the focus, but it was part of life for some.

This is where I expect to be doing most of my colonial stuff posting, from now on.

Garter tab cast on for lace

2011-05-10T15:33:00.007-04:00

People keep arguing about garter tab cast on..."Why?" "What is it for?" "Why bother?" "Is it hard?"

Here are my two samples. I messed up the lace, the same way, after the cast on, there are eyelets on the right, but not the left, but both pieces have exactly the same lace pattern.

This first one is after a plain, knitted on cast on, of 5 sts, two rows knit, increased by two, to 7 sts, and then the lace pattern.

See? It has a horizontal garter ridge, above a knitted on cast on, with garter ridges to either side. The cast on interupts the pattern of the garter ridge border. I had to pin down the cast on edge, in the middle, quite firmly, as it wants to curve inwards, quite dramatically. I don't expect that blocking will maintain the straight edge for long.

This second one has garter ridges going straight across. You can only tell where the cast on was by where the tail is.
It has a 2 st, prov cast on, 6 rows of knit, pick up 3 then 2 sts, giving 7 sts, then the same lace pattern. This edge is nice and straight, even not pinned out. It's absolutely flat, and since I used a provisional cast on, there are no lumps or ridges, expect for the actual garter stitches.

Here is what I expect them to look like after blocking.

Regular cast on....see the inward curve? That probably won't stay blocked out.

Garter tab....nice and straight!

These spots I showed are the center neck, the center of the long side of the triangle. The garter tab does a bit of magic, and allows the edge to be one, continuous strip of garter stitch, while the regular cast on has a small break in the center of that side. It's a minor detail, but as it takes about 3 minutes to work, as the regular cast on takes about 3 minutes to work, I think the (not extra) effort is worth it!

Concord town meeting

2011-04-27T23:18:00.002-04:00

It's 11:18, pm. Concord Town Meeting I dragging on and on. We are all very tired, there are 2 more articles. At least all the articles I cared about tonight have passed....everything else I cared about, other than tonight and the school homophobic crazy article that got fixed, have failed. At least tonight is good! But I'm tired, and oops...I had to go and speak, pointing out that the proposed zoning change to allow a hotel on Baker Ave extension means more tourist traffic going the dangerous way through the most dangerous intersection in town. I won't mind a hotel in there, once Route 2 is rebuilt, once they fix the intersection, and once they fix the sewer limitations. But, as usual, the planning board isn't actually addressing the issues we've brought up.

So, I'm knitting lace! Psyche and Cupid, by Holiday Yarns.

I think we will have to count this vote!

To the reenactors!

2011-04-17T11:28:00.005-04:00

If you are an 18th C reenactor, please listen!

The very basics of 18th C knitting:
1) No Shawls.
2) No flat hand knitting. No straight needles with bobbles on one end. Knitting in the round presages flat by hundreds of years.
3) No Shawls.
4) No ribbing. None. Zilch. If you are wearing purchased machine knit gloves/stockings, if you can hide the ribs do so. If you can't, replace ASAP! There is No Excuse for any hand knit ribbing....that shows a lack of care and research (unless you have found an extant ribbed item, with a good provenance, in which case, TELL US!!!!!).
5) No shawls
6) frame knits are VERY fine, upwards of 20 sts/in, knitted flat and seamed. Should you choose to mimic this by hand, you have my admiration, but it's not demonstration appropriate! These are the only knits that should have sewn seams.
7) No shawls
8) DO NOT cuff a cap high like they do on Colonial House, unless you WANT to perpetuate farby reality TV (AKA crown or Jughead style, like the idiot in the old Archies cartoon). Caps should sit near the hair line (that you had as a child, should it be receding), and really should have a bit of space at the crown, for a simple one, or a lot, for stocking caps. I cannot find a period drawing with this style of cap....just can't find any! See these guys in their caps (Hogarth)? They are messy, caps ajar and falling off..but not tiny beanies, still. Soft, squashy caps....heavily fulled caps with brims sticking out...no Jughead beanies!
9) (repeat with me.....) No shawls

10) no cables, almost no lace

So, what *can* an 18th C reenactor wear for hand knits?

Caps

Gloves

Mittens

Fingerless mittens/gloves (often called mitts or half mitts)

Stockings

all conforming to the numbered descriptions, above.

Caps typically have decreases all around, not two lines. (a common one is k2tog, k3 around, knit 3 rounds plain, then k2tog, k2 around, knit 2 rounds plain, etc) The Dutch Museum (Rijksmuseum) has many caps....use one of the following patterns for the shape, and get a stripe pattern idea from here! You can make any of these larger, to be felted, and stretch the bottom into a brim. The hat in George Neumann's Collector's Encyclopedia of the American Revolution is, basically, the same as a Monmouth cap, with the brim stretched out during the felting process....you can see the edging shape, which is quite clearly a 3 needle bind off, as I used in my Monmouth cap pattern.

Sally Pointer, Mara Riley, and I all have researched patterns available.....I haven't come across any others I'd recommend, so far. If the pattern doesn't have a bibliography and reasons for the choices made, be skeptical!

Sally's Voyageur Cap, a felted doubled cap, can be made to flop or to fit closely.
My Monmouth Cap, as close to stitch for stitch as I could get to the original, which is 1600s. (none of the original caps I can find have a purled turning row!) If you must make a Monnouth, this one has all the details....but a stocking style or doubled cap is likely more common for 18th C.

My 18th C plain old striped cap, a generic cap pattern, can be made long or shorter, of course. If enlarged, it can be felted. Its color pattern is copied from Zoffany, where the man's cap is falling off, but you can see the basic shape...it looks odd, I think that the artist was making it look like it was falling off, but didn't bother with getting it realistic, which it clearly is *not*.
Mara's fingerless mitts (I'd add a couple rows of garter to the finger edge of the hand).
For plain old mittens or gloves I'd suggest using this vintage (1950s) pattern, replacing the cuffs with a few rounds of garter, then plain knitting, and keeping the whole thing in plain knit (The period mittens I've seen have all had round tops, I expect to find more, with different shaping, but have not, yet...these are super easy and, without the ribbing, completely accurate).

The General Carleton of Whitby cap pattern is coming...several people are working on one. The only pattern currently available (in the book from the ship wreck), has been deemed to be not worth the book, by all I've discussed it with. But the color pattern is straightforward and standard shaping applies. It's the only cap I've seen, to date, with a rolled edge (with neither felting nor hemming)....but it has fringe/thrums.

18th C Striped Cap

2011-03-12T17:39:00.004-05:00

Here is another cap....photos to follow. But it's a copy of the striped cap in Zoffany's painting, with shaping copied, loosely, from the caps in the Dutch Museum.

It's an easy cap, worsted weight wool, knitted snugly, at 23-24 sts/4 inches, no felting required. It'll flop over, if made following the pattern, or you can start the decreases earlier and wear it with the point sticking up.

Photos to follow.
Ravelry link to the project sample cap I made, in progress.

download now

Testing, 1, 2, 3

2011-03-08T11:10:00.006-05:00

I'm trying to get my Monmouth Cap up and running on Ravelry. The pattern is there, and is a free down load, you can get it here, Monmouth Cap, The Details Matter, if you are a Ravelry member. That is easy. But it's trickier for those who *aren't* Rav members! There are buttons I can put in, to link to the download, but I haven't quite figured that out, yet....

Download for non-Members (but, really, if you knit, why not join Rav???).

Now, we shall see if the links all work!

Monmouth Cap, The Details Matter (you can see the specs on the Rav page here)

download the pattern now

Yes, the above link does work! Clicking it grabs my download, over on Ravelry, and will download the pdf right now. Not exactly elegant, but effective. I've signed up for the beta-test feature that lets non-Ravelry members see your designs, but haven't gotten it, yet, so in the meantime, this is it.

Racism in the 'burbs

2010-12-14T12:46:00.004-05:00

To the ladies (and I use the term loosely) at the class in the public store this morning:

Your racism was showing, load and clear. It was extremely upsetting to listen to. "Missing clothing ends up on the Boston Bus"...why did you have to keep repeating that? Are you that proud of your racism?

If your little girl brought her American Girl doll to kindergarten and she couldn't find it, how do you know it was in the backpack of the CA Metco equivalent? Did the teacher let you look? Did the teacher tell you? Or did you just assume "it was in the little black girl's backpack", while the teacher figured out which child had the doll and got it back to your daughter? It might have been in any child's backpack, and the teacher is unlikely to have told you which child.

And to the woman whose son lost his brand new black Northface jacket. How do you know it "went on the Boston bus"? How do you know, really, that he was correct with the statement that the last time he had it was on the playground. Maybe it ended up in lost and found, and that afternoon Jacob's mom found it, thinking it was Jacob's brand new black Northface jacket, lost yesterday. Only Jacob's jacket is on the floor under Anthony's bed...where Anthony announced to his mom his missing blue jacket turned black! Only Anthony's missing jacket is at grandma's summer house, left there at Thanksgiving....not to be found until next summer. The statement "Our kids don't need clothes. The only ones who would need to steal clothes are on the Boston Bus"....just boggles the mind.

My daughter's green Lands' End windbreaker wasn't on the fence, with all the other kindergarten coats one warm afternoon, in the middle of pickup. But a very similar, same size and color, London Fog windbreaker was! After several days, that London Fog coat showed up in lost and found. I eventually gave up and took it and washed it, and let my daughter wear it, posting a notice offering to swap coats back. Never heard a thing.

When we were on a long distance train to Florida, I put my sons handknit sweater (with sheep on it! It was so cute!) with our coats. It went missing. I didn't know if I left it on the train, if it was stolen, or what. It was just gone. What would one think? Those ladies, I bet, would assume that one of the many other passengers on this crowded, diverse car had stolen it.

Years later, when packing for a plane trip, while carefully checking every pocket of the suitcase for sharps, guess what I found in an obscure, seldom used pocket? Yep...Harry's long outgrown sheepy sweater!

I hope the teacher suggests a little more tolerance to this group of women.

End of the season

2010-11-09T22:11:00.004-05:00

We had a great time at Hartwell, doing a foodways presentation of preparing and preserving food for the winter.

I got to hold Ginger the Chicken. She's a Buff Orpington, just like that silly lady kept in Busman's Honeymoon.

Sabra orchestrated a fabulous lunch...and as Sue said, we eat best in the Fall, because it's harvest!

We used the market stalls that Ken built...they are just so terrific, and they look so much like the drawings! I love having realistic tools and furniture.

Ginger had quite the fan club.

Rick built the cart kit that the park bought. We all used it to shlep our gear out. It worked great. Harry was able to pull it up all by himself. You have to balance it carefully, and tend it while loading and unloading, or else it tips over...not hard to keep it from tipping, but you do have to watch it!

Kids make it all real!

2010-11-09T21:51:00.003-05:00

NOTHING looks more real when reenacting that a properly dressed child! Usually kids' clothes get skimped on, but that is a mistake. Kids are camera bait, and if someone's photo is going to wind up splashed across a paper, it's a child's, so it's worth doing them properly.

I never did finish posting the little outfit I made Anna. I'm totally happy with how it came out. The only things that aren't just right are on purpose...it's a tad loose, because I want it to fit next summer!

I just love this photo!!!!

Construction details can be seen here...the gown has a string to fasten its skirt, and those go through the lacing holes, so that they stay up! There is a placket to cover the lacing holes, and it really does make a neat effect.

I don't have a photo of her in her cloak and black bonnet...I need to get those, the whole thing is just so sweet! Anna still needs another petticoat and stays, but these will do for right now, breeches are next on my list!

Anna

2010-10-16T22:14:00.003-04:00

Too tired to blog...but here:

She was obliging me by showing the back of her gown to the camera.

More coming.

Saintonge Flag Quilt

2010-10-13T22:13:00.003-04:00

I have a friend, who's sick. He's going to be dealing with a lot of doctors and hospitals and feel crummy for a while. There isn't much I can do to help...but I can help keep him warm, while reminding him that there are people who care. And, while we are at it, this will remind every doctor and nurse who enters his hospital room that this man is important enough to have people making him hand made stuff.

When my daughter had her tonsils out, I noticed that the medical staff flocked to her, to admire her handmade doll and quilt...so I do my best to send friends and family prepared.

So, here is what I did....

At Jo-Ann's, we wanted to get fleur de lis polar fleece, but they didn't have any (I though I'd seen some, but, sadly, no). So Abe suggested a Saintonge flag, backed with Marine Corps polar fleece. I decided that was a great idea, so here is the flannel for the flag:

And my rulers and rotary cutter...this would have been impossible without big, good rulers...at one point I had to use 3 to cut my squares, these are big squares!

If one is clever, and remembers how, and the weird seam allowances necessary, you can get 4 squares, each made of 4 different colored triangles, without ever actually sewing a pair of triangles.

You take two squares, sew them diagonlaly, twcie, then cut between...that gives half square triangles.

Then you do the same, again, to get quarter square triangles.

I put the white all around, and the stripes of all the colors, like the ribbon/braid hanging from the real flag pole, to make it rectangular and long enough (a hint of this is to the left in the photo way back at the top). Here it's unironed, waiting for me to go to Jo-Ann's to get more white flannel. It's very very bright in person.

It's flannel on top, fleece on the back. Totally washable, soft and very cuddly. It folds up small, but should be nice and warm.

We just got back from giving him the quilt. He liked it, we chose well ;-)

For No Good Reason

2010-09-26T21:41:00.002-04:00

Ok, I do have a reason for this post, but it's not a good one. I'm sewing growth tucks. I want this gown to have growth tucks. I just don't want to sew them. But I'm doing it. But I'm also bored. I have about 1.5 lengths of thread left to do, and I don't want to. So I'm procrastinating here.

My thread is waxed silk thread, from Utica threads. Size A.

I take the skein, as it comes out of the bag, fold it in half, so that there are two loops at one end and it's about 9 inches long (this makes each strand 18 inches) and tie a string around it at the middle. Then I cut the two loops, and divide it all into 3 sections, and braid it, and tie it off. Then, when I need a new strand, I gently separate one from the top of the braid (not the fringy end), and pull it out! No tangles, no cutting, no waxing, just one piece of 18 inch sewing thread! Very efficient, I love this thread!

This is how I sew. I always use a thimble. I didn't use one many years ago, and I wanted to learn to rocker quilt, so I used a trick by Ami Simms' How to Improve Your Quilt Stitch. I wore a thimble all day! I got used to it, used to considering it part of my hand. Now I hold my hand like this to sew:

You can just see the eye of the needle at the thimble.

The bandaid is from the abuse I gave my hands on Friday. I stabbed my thumb repeatedly, burned two fingers making dinner, and scraped a sewing callus off while peeling squash. And I never figured out what I used to shred my thumb. Then on Saturday, for the first time in YEARS, I stabbed myself on a pin closing my bedgown. I haven't done that since I first started wearing straight pins! I figure it was the cold I was just getting over.

I hold the right of the fabric between my pinky and ring finger:

Then I push the needle the rest of the way through with my middle finger.

This is pretty much what my hand usually looks like:

I hold the left side with my left, of course, and my thumb nail presses down right next to the needle tip, and my left and right hands stay tensed, while then rock up and down, building up sts on the needle. The fingers stay pretty still, relative to each other, except for slight pressure on the needle with my middle finger.

There. A totally useless post, and I'm ready to go finish those foolish tucks!

Some finished little clothes

2010-09-24T23:53:00.003-04:00

It used to be that I could see threads in fabric, and doing things like cross stitch over squares made of two threads was easy. It's no longer easy...with my reading glasses (not bifocals), I can just do it. Sigh. But it came out ok.

So this makes the shift done. And cute. As long as I was at it, I ironed pleats into the sleeves, just to be silly. You can see them, a bit, if you look closely. A simple shift like this probably wouldn't have those pressed in pleats, I suppose, but they are hard to do, at least if you don't want to burn your fingers, so I keep trying, to see if I can.

Clearly I have some work to do.

See? The cap is done, with a cute bow and ribbon to tie behind. Nice shift, the skirts that will attache to the bodice, (which is all cut out, but still in pieces), and the apron.

We'll see how much I get done tomorrow. Eyelets...I don't have green silk for eyelets. Blast. I could've gotten it from Sue, had I thought of it on Wed...or even earlier today.

LIttle clothes coming along

2010-09-23T22:57:00.002-04:00

This isn't really exciting...but things are becoming wearable! The little shift just needs marking and ties or button links for the wrists (ties for now, certainly!)

shift

The bodice lining is basted, boring boring...gotta stitch it properly in the morning, and cut out the outside fabric.

it's a lining!

The skirt waist is all pinned...that is the most nuisancy part of it. Whipping it in place will be quick, now.

pinned waistband

I'm sure Anna will LOVE her pockets (also half done, no photos yet)...so she needs slits to get at them. I think I made them a bit too long, though. She has tiny little hands!

pocket slit

It really is starting to look like a gown skirt!

More linen cuteness

2010-09-20T17:20:00.003-04:00

Anna's cap is done! I still want to make a ribbon bow to put on the top, to tie behind her neck, but that will wait for a calm time, when I don't feel like getting something useful done.

They are pretty boring, when spread out flat, but it makes it easier to iron, if the back is on a drawstring.

When it's pulled up all the way, it's just such a sweet little cap! I tried to copy this one, the one the blue girl is wearing. I liked the ruffles...they are box pleats! Box pleats are easier to make than gathered ruffles, look better with less fullness (so less hemming), and are easier to iron, as you can just plow the iron right over them! So, box pleats like the painting or gathered ruffles? No contest!

Testing, 1, 2, 3! N

2010-09-15T21:27:00.002-04:00

This is just a test to see if iPhone a d blogger place nicely together. The answer is, sort of. I have to grab any photos, first, because flickr and iPhone don't play nicely. At least, I haven't figured out how to do it, yet!

But, I've been meaning to post my crutches for a while. Today, I had PT at 9, and my knee worked until 8:00!!!! Clearly, there is hope, that I won't need them forever.

Forest Clogs for Alex

2010-09-15T16:13:00.003-04:00

I got this pattern from Meg Swansen. It's going to be in the new book she's putting out, on her mother's garter stitch work: Knit One Knit All! I'm really looking forward to it! I have preordered my copy.

Here is my adaptation of Elizabeth Zimmermann's pattern for funky clogs

I cast on and went merrily along, until I realied I was knitting way too tight, and they were way too small. (the color above is too pale)

So, I redid the toes, and here I am, getting ready to do the really weird (easy, but weird) shaping on the foot/instep.

I decided that my pattern was not quite what I wanted, so I lengthened the ball of the foot part, for more coverage, and made the sides higher. I appear to be almost incapable of following a pattern without making changes. But, I LOVE doing so on EZ's patterns, because I have perfectly good brain, I know how to use it, and I use it to make my knitting do what I want it to do!

But, my changes aside, it's a fun little pattern, really fast and easy, and took less than one ball of Sheepsdown yarn! I've decided I really love this yarn. I'm working on an afghan out of it, too. It's funny, though...it's a bit delicate, for all that it's so thick. Ok, that is a "duh". If it were more tightly spun, for more strength, it'd be thinner, with the same weight of fiber, so to get this thickness, with more twist, it'd need more fiber, making it heavier and stiffer.

Here they are in all their finished glory!

Teddy says they are radish shaped. Teddy is a strange child.

They are not at all a teal color, they are really forest green.

They look much smaller than they are. Garter stitch stretches so much that if you don't make 'em small they'll fall off after a few weeks!

They are for Alex, who's about to spend a year at St. Andrews, in Scotland. It's cold over there, and raw, so he needs to have warm feet! Good luck in school, Alex! Enjoy the Scottish Weather!

Colonial Tinies

2010-09-07T10:16:00.002-04:00

I'm making a set of colonial clothing for a little girl. She's tiny, so are her clothes. I have her first cap almost done, just going to add some more ruffles.

I'm attempting to copy, more or less (in a coarser fabric) the cap on the Ludwig's Blue Sash Girl.

We were at a party, so I tried it on. I need to pull the strings in back a bit tighter, she is clearly at the small end of this cap, but the baby size would certainly be too small. So, since I rather doubt Anna will shrink, it's perfect!

Here are her shift sleeves, languishing in my bag (caps are more fun):

But the apron is completely done.

These clothes are fun! I'm making them to free up our friend Steven, who would otherwise have to make her new clothes, so that he can help my son Teddy, who's turning 16, put this together:

It's a big project, the wood is only roughly shaped, and the is a bunch of metal work still to do...

Teddy is about the happiest boy in the world, right now!

I don't wanna sew

2010-08-01T20:12:00.003-04:00

Since I don't want to sew or, really, I don't want to make a pattern, when I saw this knitting survey, that was just the ticket!

Here is a knitting survey that is going around…

Bold for stuff you’ve done, italics for stuff you plan to do one day, and normal for stuff you’re not planning on doing. And I add red for UFO

Afghan/Blanket (2, mostly done, but not quite, an other 1/4 done)
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn Camel? How about alpaca which is much nicer? YES!
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
Knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn --- it's just rayon...why bother?
Domino knitting (modular knitting)
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn -- again, it's just rayon
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn-- again, it's just rayon
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with your own handspun yarn only swatched so far
Slippers
Graffiti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street) -- um, no
Continental knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book -- would like to, don't expect to, but I will put out a few patterns, soon
Scarf
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)

Knitting to make money yeah, right. I don't think it'll happen
Button holes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dying with plant colors I've done this with fabric, not yarn
Knitting items for a wedding
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cozies…)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars
Olympic knitting
Knitting with someone else’s handspun yarn
Knitting with DPNs
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit
Bobbles
Knitting for a living well, knitting IS living, for me ;-)
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking swatched, but there is a cute little dress in Cast On....
Dying yarn Kool aid
Steeks
Knitting art
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener BO
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards
Machine knitting
Knitting with self-patterning/self-striping/variegating yarn
Stuffed toys
Baby items
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mitts/arm warmers
Pillows I can't believe it, but I don't think I've ever actually made a pillow....at least not knitted
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Rug for a dollhouse...made many!
Knitting on a loom but never finished...boring
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets I have my son making a dog bed, I may finish it up, since I want it done!
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Hair accessories I used to finger knit (two finger) hair ribbons all the time!
Knitting in public

I guess I knit a lot ;-)

Home, again!

2010-07-16T15:05:00.003-04:00

I'm back.....knee is surgered. Boys were packed up and sent to camp and the west coast. One boy was injured (cut his pinky with a knife), surgered and sent home from the west coast. I was packed up and sent off to Chicago, Wisconsin, Chicago and trained back home. Husband surprised me by meeting my train in NY! Injured finger had its stitches removed, only to discover that the tendon had reruptured, so more surgery scheduled. Now, back to regular life!

Knitting Camp!

Show and Tell:

Spinning Lessons:

The tables of people

(see my crutches, in back?)

That is Meg, in the center in the cream top

My seatmates

Across from me.

That is the Stonington Shawl....made by Elizabeth Zimmermann herself! I loved wearing it!

100 years of Zimmermann contest entry by Greg...it's a "fire cracker"! Or maybe a bottle rocket. A tube covered in knitting, with dangly sparklers and shooting a cork!

knee

2010-05-12T19:47:00.002-04:00

I'm recovering from my knee surgery. My knee hurts. There is hope that it might be a bit better, since I can sometimes move it from bent to not bent, without shrieking in pain. It's not all better, because removing a torn meniscus from a knee with bone on bone arthritis is not going to change the state of the arthritis. But some better is better than not at all better...which is what I was hoping for.

So I'm sleeping a lot and being boring. It takes me about a week to get over a general, I've found. No point in rushing it, because it just won't be rushed.

The only interesting thing? I can't stand grey on grey on grey. So I made my crutches more interesting:

Back to sleep....

Finished Tallit

2010-05-11T19:22:00.002-04:00

I just realized that I didn't post the final done photos.

Here are the cute little corner reinforcements.

You can see the wrong side, there...it's a bit of a pain to end off the ribbon, you have to sew it in place, knots would distort, come undone, and be nasty.

Here is the atarah

And the corner with tzit tzit

See? DONE!

Fishy yarn!

2010-05-09T20:56:00.002-04:00

Ok, well Nora calls it Ocean Yarn. But that is ok ;-).

I love me some Nora Yarn...

This is the skein I got.

Isn't it totally gorgeous? You can just about see the fish in it, but it's hard to get it spread out just like Nora had it originally. But I can see half a tail (she does each painting in pairs, so each skein is a half fish). When you look at the sock being knitted up on the Holiday Yarns blog (linked above) it's quite clear that that yarn is OCEAN! Nora is amazingly talented...how does she get that from painting a fish????

As I was spreading it out to take my pictures, Wendy started oohing and ahhing over it. "Mummy, won't you make me socks out if it? Wouldn't it be great for me to be in the frozen artic of Philadelphia, and wear this socks so I don't freeze to death? Can't you just see me in college, going like, 'Oh, yeah, I'm that cool!' "

So it looks like I might just have to make Wendy some fishy socks. She wants a shell pattern, like TheGeorg used (and I meth Georg today, at NHSheep and Wool!!!), on the Holiday Yarns blog.

Hats, hats and more hats!

2010-05-02T22:21:00.004-04:00

I should really put in all my links from the Sheep and Wool Festival. But I don't feel like it...so I'm going to talk about hats.

We have too many hats.

I have several modern hats, a Tilley Hat for sailing and going being a tourist. My sons have them too.

I have some modern hats, like the one I'm going to wear to Barry and Elise's son's Bar Mitzvah.

(bad photo booth photo)

Abe has a small collection of baseball hats.

Wendy has a few of her own, mostly go unworn.

But we really have a lot of colonial hats.

The prettiest is Wendy's Purple Silk, made by the Fairy Godmother, Hallie.

See? Here is the shelfohats

There are bonnets,

And straw hats galore,

We have foolish looking, mostly dead, old tricorns, (I hope he actually threw that one away!)

and nice tricorns (that always need brushing),

And you can see my nice hat boxes that I make...lots of carefully cut cardboard taped together with the kind of paper packing tape you have to wet with a sponge to get to stick. I hope to get more made, and color code them by type of hat and person they belong to...

But, really...we have too many hats!

The funny thing is...they all get worn!

Atarah and Town Meeting tie for finish.

2010-05-02T19:08:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting here in the kitchen, hot! I'm sooooooo glad to be hot! I spent the winter freezing. I was always cold, Abe was in short sleeves, temp was 67 or 68 and I would be wearing a long sleeved shirt and at least 2 sweaters, wool slippers, and I'd still be cold. Today I'm hot because I was virtuous. Abe, the boys and I took our bikes to the rail trail and rode from Bedford to Lexington and back...with ice cream in the middle. It was a nice ride. I helped some teen fix his chain. It was really tangled, and he was walking the bike home, so I fixed it for him, I think embarrassing him, because I did it easily, but it was very tangled, I'm just pretty good at untangling yarn, very practiced at that, and chains are similar to yarn. Teddy loves his new bike, and he would ride off for a while, turn and ride back to us, then go on again. That way he got a lot more miles in than I did.

Now, as for the embroidery.

The atarah got blocked. I soaked it thoroughly, then it needed to be hung, over something without edges, to drip dry. I didn't want to use the regular rack, because it's not clean enough, so I rigged this up in my sewing room. It was pretty stable, but I didn't trust the cats, so I taped it in place.

It's dripping into that bowl.

Here's a close up:

You can see the fancy support system I rigged up. It worked, it didn't budge until I took it down!

I'm really pleased with this, it's just coming out so pretty!

At the last night of town meeting, I started sewing it on.

See? You can tell it's at Town Meeting, because we have our voting slips on the table. Town Meeting is a pain, but I love it, too. We are the legislative body in the town, all the adults who care to register and show up. There is such a long tradition of doing this, I just love being part of that.

The corners make me happy.

They aren't that hard to do, as long as you do it right...you have to snip off the extra across the corner, so that you only have 1/4 inch beyond the point, then fold that in, crease it, then fold in the edges, and match the folds to the middle, and then the tricky part is keeping it that way until you stitch it! Basting the wrong side folds together would work best, but I usually just use two pins, carefully, and tweak it with my needle when I get there. Nice sharp points make me happy.

Sewn on:

Isn't DONE nice?

I finished stitching the atarah on as the the Head Teller and Town Clerk were adding up and checking the results of our last vote, which needed to be counted (most votes are just "hold up your ballots" and if it's not absolutely clear, we do a "standing, counted vote" where the Tellers go up and down and count every row/table and right it down. This takes a while. I like that, too, since I am a teller, and walking around counting is fun. You do it in pairs, and have to be very careful To Get It RIGHT! We have lots of tellers, from as many different areas of town, age groups and political leanings as possible, so that we get it right!

Blogging at Town Meeting

2010-04-27T19:35:00.003-04:00

I'm at Town Meeting, paying enough attention to know what the article is about, and how it works, but keeping my distance enough so that the contention of this article doesn't bother me! TM is at our high school, with school-wide WiFi. I had some difficulty getting on, but finally got network diagnostics to tell me that I had a bad network account being used, so I told it to set up a new one, and that worked. (the questions are getting to the place where I'm really glad I have this to distract myself!).

Now, as for the atarah, it's off!

All of a sudden it looks much better, doesn't it? That is always reassuring. I always worry that when something comes off the frame, that it will shrivel up and look like crap. It didn't!

I was also worried that there would be a crookedness problem, because I did this in my preferred "folk style" method, rather than the modern overly drawn, "perfect" stitching version, which I hate working. My method is more fun, but there is a bit of a sense of living dangerously!

I had to do a bit of tweaking, but it worked.

It's pretty straight! I wish I could take a photo of the whole thing!

I love how the colors just glow on the blue background.

This works! I love not seeing the raw edges...

I basted the edges under and now, it's all wet. I used a washable chalk pencil to mark the flower spots and the stem shapes. There are a few white areas here and there. So I gave the atarah a good soaking, and it's hanging to dry in my sewing room. It'll need steaming after that to puff up the petals, which got somewhat crushed while wound on the the frame.

Tonight, I have a large piece of white silk to hem, then I get to knit!

Atarah embroidery is DONE!

2010-04-26T23:29:00.002-04:00

At Town Meeting tonight, I finished the embroidery!

I have something of a reputation...people alwasy come over to see what I'm working on, at TM. I've never brought a frame quite this big before. One year I fit my DD with an en fourreau 18th C gown, I've knitted, done bobbin lace (smaller stand for that), sewed, made buttons, but never lugged something quite so large! Yes, this photo really is at Town Meeting, from tonight! It's in the Caf, at CCHS. The main moderator is in the Auditorium, but that room has uncomfortable seats, too formal, and bad light. So I sit in the Caf which is slightly less formal, people can bring an infant, or a quiet school aged kid, and it's lighter, and you can eat. So I sit there, spread out whatever project I've got, and get lots of work done! Lots of people bring laptops, now that the school has wifi.

But the really great thing tonight (other than the embroidery, which follows), is that my daughter, Wendy was there. She's 18, so this was her first real TM. She went a lot last year, and helped out, running errand for her dad (who is the Head Teller) and anyone else involved in running TM who needed something. This year, since Abe needed more tellers, Wendy got drafted. That means that the first thing she actually did at her very first TM was stand to get sworn in to count votes impartially! I saw her on the monitor as we got sworn (I'm a teller, too, and she sat in the auditorium), and was no end pleased.

Just at the end of the last article, I was redoing that too larger flower. I had to finish it off at home, but I had finished the last hex, unrolled it all, and then remounted it to fix the too-large flower in the second hex. Everyone around me was watching...it was boring...school stuff that was clearly big cuts, was going to pass, but we had to sit through the presentations. Sometimes it's just the process that counts, that knowing we had to do it this way, makes the schools do a careful job with their presentations...doing it is important, but it's still boring! So people watched me paly with my pretty flowers.

It looks ok, here, (bad iPhone photo...too fuzzy), but really, it's bigger than the others.

See? It's the second hex from the left, upper left. Ick.

So...this is what happens to icky flowers:

Take that!

Now that I've redone it, twice, it looks fine. Photos tomorrow. Way too late to touch anything that I can screw up, right now!

At TM tomorrow, I imagine I'll be hemming and appliqueing, unless I get that done during the day, in which case I might be embroidering the little blossoms on the corner squares. Then appliqueing the squares down...the end is in sight!

What 2/3 looks like

2010-04-25T21:20:00.003-04:00

Four hexes are done.

This is boring...it doesn't look much different than three.

Now I've also finished up the last 2 hexagons' stem stitching, but that is even more boring to look at!

Reasonably nice flowers, not sure yet if I'll have to tweak any of them.

This one is my favorite flower, even though it's not coral!

Ok, I like this one a lot, too!

Off to finish up the French knots, in the hope that I can do 12 ribbon flowers before Town Meeting starts tomorrow.

Fencing Baby Jacket

2010-04-24T17:05:00.003-04:00

In the time honored tradition of procrastinating doing something you don't want to do (embroider) by doing something you have been putting off, I finished up the baby sweater for Teddy's fencing teacher this morning.

Teddy's jacket is a raglan, zippered, color blocked, piped, warm up team jacket. The body is a marroon, sleeves are black, with white along the raglan lines one the sleeves, with piping along what would be the princess seam lines in a woman's dress, and matching piping on the sleeves.

One of Teddy's coaches, Ariana, had a baby back in December. One day, while idly looking at Teddy, which, of course, means looking at that jacket, since if he's awake, he's wearing it, I realized it was a raglan, and that it would be easy to copy as a baby sweater...so who could resist that? Off to the yarn store for Plymoth Encore yarn. I wanted DK, and I would enlarge mom's baby sweater pattern a bit. Since the shop I went to didn't have DK Encore, I got the worsted, and thought I'd kluge it. Then I talked to my Mom. Always a good idea, since she told me she'd made that sweater in worsted, and it turned out to be a 12 mos size, you only have to lengthen the pattern, not change it otherwise.

There were, of course, challenges. The pattern is top down, made in one piece. So after the black neck, I had to have the maroon front, a bit of white, then black, then white, then the maroon back, then white, black, white, and the other maroon front!

If I worked consistently in one place, picking up and putting down the work carefully, there were no tangles, since this was intarsia. But if I put it in my work bag, and brought it anywhere, then I had to guess at which way was up, and if I had to turn it the other way first. I never did manage to really figure out what it looked like with only one twist, to turn it the right way around. I kept thinking that that should be simple to figure out, but I didn't manage to do that. So I had to untangle it every so often.

It got easier once I dropped the sleeve stitches, since I only had the body maroon and the 4 piping lines. Each line of piping was just a single 2-yard-long strand, that I could pull out as I worked it. No tangles there. They slowed down the rows a smidge, but were easy enough to work. Doing the sleeves was the same, each sleeve had two piping strands, but where easy to work...they just took forever! I tried to work the sleeves with a magic loop, but it kept making me nuts. Of course, since I was working with my acrylic circular tips, I couldn't use two circs, because I only had one pair of them, and I know that if I used wood or metal tips for the second circ, I'd have strange lines, because I really knit differently with the different needles. I finally remembered that I could use the right tip as a acrylic, and the left one as a smaller needle, and it would work out. So I put together two needles like that, and that worked. It would have been even more clever to remember I'd done that, so that I would have remembered that I did, indeed, have the necessary tips to work the ribbing when I was at the parade, rather than have to wait to get home to finish the sleeve! But I got a lot of Abe's hat done then.

To install the zipper, I made a black chain and whipped it along the zipper tape with regular thread. I started at the bottom, having woven in the tail into the back of the chain. I carefully stitched the bottom of the chain to the hard bit of the zipper tape, very securely, since the bottom and the top tend to have the most stress. I wipped the chain to the tape with about two sts per chain, along the zipper side of the chain, lining it up with the lines on the tape. I make sure to not twist the chain and to make sure it was not at all stretched, so that the zipper tape would stay flat. I made sure to sew from the bottom on both tapes, although one is more awkard than the other. At the top, I undid the tail, and frogged it back to just the right length, then ended it and wove the tail in, and then stitched the top securely. I folded the top flaps back, and stitched them down, but you have to keep the inner edge far away from the zipper teeth, or it won't zip smoothly.

To sew the zipper in, I matched the top and bottom and used those clippy barrettes to hold it in place.

I picked a line of sts on the inside, and followed up, stitching in maroon from the black chain to the jacket insides.

Mostly I stitched under every other row on the inside, but occasionally did a few more stitches than that. I had to follow a column one stitch further out at the ribbing, to get it to match the top. I'm not exactly sure why, but that made it even, so it worked. Of course, I had to do the second tab a second time, to make the two zippers match more closely at the neck, but it worked. The garter stitch on the jacket's left side appears to be a tad smaller than on the right but I think that is because of how I stitched it. I used the same vertical row on each side, but there must be something about my tension that was off. I (briefly) considered worrying about it, but decided I was sick of the jacket and that I didn't care. I know a few people who would notice it, but, well, as Elaine says, "Done is better than Perfect."

I did use sewing thread to tack down the zipper tape at the neck, and make the tops match perfectly....it was easier than redoing it about 100 times with the yarn, and only took a couple of minutes.

I love it.

Embroidery Chugs Along

2010-04-24T16:43:00.002-04:00

Here are some pictures from last week. I've done one more hex than this...two more to go!

3 complete hexes. I expect to go back, when the whole thing is done, and tweak some of the flowers, for balance.

I just love the potential when just the stems are embroiderd.

The red flowers are my favorites. I wish I could make all the flowers red, but then they wouldn't show up and be special.

Except for occasionally blowing it in size of flowers, this is going pretty well. Well, also except for when I try to end off a leaf stitch and pull it though. Ending of silk ribbon is Not Fun. The ends of ribbon on the back have to be stitched together with regular sewing thread, just weaving them in doesn't work, they are large, flat, slippery, and bulky, especailly if twisted or knotted. So they get carefully trimmed and overlapped, then sewn together. I start by leaving a tail on the right side, then, when I'm done, I pull that to the back, and stitch the ends to the underside. But sometimes I pull the wrong bit, and instead of a tail popping to the back, the tip of a leaf stitch drops back. A leaf stitch is what I used most, you lay the ribbon along the surface of the work, and then poke the needle through the ribbon, forming that little fold at the tip of the leaf or petal. But if you poke it through to the back it's ugly! And undoing it is hard, because the ribbon is stitched through itself, there is a hole and a folded knot-like loop. If I'm VEEEERY careful, sometimes I can use a blunt needle to loosen it and undo it, and then if I'm even more careful, I can restitch it. Sometimes.

This means that after I undid and redid the leaf stitch that I just yanked on, when I went to end it off, yanking on it again meant a cup of tea before proceeding. I hate when I make the same mistake several times in a row. At least my grandmother (Grandma Downstairs) taught me that when those feelings happen, I should stop my work and go make tea. Grandma got me addicted to caffeine when I was about 10 and she was teaching me to sew! I distinctly remember the first really nasty sewing machine jam I got, and I was getting frustrated, clearing it, so she made me stop and have tea with her. Those were two of the best things she taught me...to clear the jams (notice she wasn't doing the clearing?) and tea!

Next up will be drawing the last two hexagons! I'm getting faster at these flowers, they should be done in a few days, and I can cut out the tallit itself!

Procrastination

2010-04-14T16:12:00.002-04:00

See me mend Abe's breeches...Battle Road is on Saturday...and Harry needs a lining and knee bands moved down, as well as shirt cuffs.

So, lets list all the cast ons I can think of. Why? Because people on Rav were talking about them.

Invisible provisional (waste yarn, wind working yarn over and under)
backward loop
backward loop with extra twist (german twisted precursor)
longtail
thumb variation LT
lefty longtail (true mirror)
lefty longtail (as I actually do it, combo style)
German twisted
German twisted lefty mirror
German twisted lefty combo
Channel Island
crochet provisional
double needle standard
double needle longtail
cable
knitted on
wind on, knit through back loop
tubular
Jeny's suprisingly stretchy
Judy's magic
figure 8
Turkish
alternating long tail (for colors)

Ok...I know I know more than that, mostly variations, but it's like naming all the dwarfs...hard to do on the fly (well, I can do the dwarfs, probably...Doc, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful...they are easier, if you remember there are two without a y!).

Ok, I guess that means I have to get back to my mending.

In my next life, I'm not telling anyone I know how to sew.

2010-04-13T20:20:00.002-04:00

I went for a couple of bike rides on the Cape this weekend. I only had my iPhone with me, so the pictures aren't great, and, even then, it was overcast while I was riding on Sunday (didn't think to take any pictures when it was beautiful on Saturday).

Water from the dock at the end of Barlow's Landing.

I was inexplicably fascinated with looking at salt marshes this weekend. I just loved them all, and there are lots of them around Wing's neck!

This tree made me very happy. I even turned around at the bottom of the hill and rode back up to take a photo of it!

If it were a bit warmer, this would be a lovely quiet place to sit and knit. It was at the end of one of the little dirt roads off the road that forks with Wing's Neck (what, you want me to remember street names? Dream on!).

More marshes. I love the marshes!

Pretty soon this gardern will be lovely...there are a few flowers already. See the water? I like water.

This is the best place in the entire world to knit. There is a nice seawall to sit on, as well as the beach and rocks and dock. Not too wavy, but some. Lots of small sail boats to watch, as well as kayaks. The sun finally came out, giving me a decent photo!

We have a hexagon!

2010-04-07T21:16:00.004-04:00

Well...it looks promising, doesn't it?

This is the first of 6 hexagons of flowers! It's done.

There are some things about this that are a pain...turns out that the coral glows under my full spectrum embroidery light when I try to take a photo. I didn't try a flash, I assume it'd be worse. Maybe I can get an outdoor shot tomorrow.

This one looks a bit better, the angle seems to help, and you can see how 3-D these flowers are.

This one is my favorite...well, it's better with leaves, but it's cute! And the petals are all curly.

This is also the one with the truest color. This blue on my monitor is the sky blue of the silk background, as well as the right, bright green, and pink.

This shot of the back of the embroidery shows the part of silk ribbon embroidery that is a pain...you have to sew down all the foolish little tails. It is slow and frustrating, and must be done carefully!

This is the front of that same bit. I later went over the petals to make them bigger and poofier.

Hmmm....I do like how this one turned out, too...with the bright coral flowers, and their dark leaves. I was choosing leaf colors, I had 3 greens, and decided that the neat variegated darker green with brown was just not going to work, and I wasn't going to use it at all. Then after I put leaves on a few flowers, I realized that neither the sedate pale green, nor the bright green was going to work for this flower. I ended up being able to use that green after all!

I like this combo, too...they look sweet together. Ok, I guess I like these flowers. Perhaps that is why I chose this pattern? Of course, the pattern in the magazine bears almost no resemblance to my flowers! I'm totally messing with the colors. The mag had representational colors and names for the flowers. Mine are pure fantasy, although I'm keeping the basic stem shapes and a smidge of petal shapes, mostly for balance. The colors are what I liked at the store, and nothing else!

There are a lot of french knots in this. I can't remember the last time I needed to make a French knot, and the centers of all the flowers have them, and that one flower (was it supposed to be a strawberry? Mine isn't) is just loaded with them!

Well, I got the first batch of flowers done, took about a day and a half, and I have 5 more to do. I'm getting faster, of course, and I'm learning what color goes where, so I won't have to spend quite so much time working that out tomorrow. I have the next batch sketched and labeled, and I even did a bit of stem stitching, so I'm good to start in the morning.

The Boring Set Up

2010-04-04T19:36:00.003-04:00

Yay! We are good to go! Well, except for the embroidery thread. I have all the silks, but I need some floss.

I have my frame set, the stand ready.

My cute little caddy. It works perfectly, otherwise I tend to loose my threads. And my clamps. You need clamps for embroidery, don't you? Well, I do. The magazine has the directions for the funkier flowers, which I'll change completely. These flowers will not be realistic. They are Colleen-Flowers! I have pretty colors for them. There is a variegated magenta and pinky lavender and purple. I have solids in lavender, blues, and corals. Then there are some plain and some variegated greens. They all look lovely on the pale blue silk!

Here you can see how I hold the little tote-caddy to the frame.

And the slate frame is clamped to the big stand. You can see the clamp in the back.

Boring, huh? This step of setting up embroidery always takes me forever...and it's very very boring. But, well, you can't do the embroidery without setting it up...so I figure I might as well do it all tonight, because I can't start until I get that thread, and today all the needlework stores are closed. I'd planned to go the floss stitching after I did the silk ribbon, but finally decided I needed to swap the order. So I can't wait to choose colors until I stitch, gotta do it first...so on my way home from meeting the surgeon who will, I hope, get rid of my torn meniscus (oh, my knee HURTS! Complain, fret, whine and groan), I will stop at a needlework store, and then be ready to go.

HAH!

2010-04-03T16:09:00.003-04:00

Ok, I did it. I'm pleased. I like my fancy slate frames...they work great. But it is a nuisance to lace them in. Then you have to cut the lacings, reroll the ends, and repeg it, and then relace it. Hate that last step!

Here are the steps:

I made a bit of a template.

I sewed casing strips to the top and bottom of my fabric and marked it from the template.

Sewed the embroidery fabric to the side slate pieces.

Rolled up up and put in the top and bottom sliding frame pieces. Then I stretched them out and pegged it, to make it taught.

This works well, but you really need it stretched vertically as well...which is where one usually laces it, like they did with the Plimoth project, you can see the lacing on the side, here:

Too frustrating, given that I'll be moving it a few times, and I don't want to leave it under tension, because of the 3-D ribbon.

So I threaded dowels through my casings, then used binder clips, tied to string, and hood string clips to hold the strings under tension! It's quick and easy to move those, and tighten them back up!

See? Much easier! I feel clever! Let's see how it works....on to the embroidery!

Tattoo of the kids

2010-04-02T22:07:00.003-04:00

There is a bit of shine, and it’s still a bit bloody in this shot (I’ve since given it the soap wash and lube, and it’s wrapped up for it’s first night, as per instructions…..

This tattoo is of my kids...Teddy is the tree, Harry the swing, Beth is the butterfly, and Wendy is the flower.

I absolutely love it. Sharon is the best!!!!! I went to Juli Moon Studios in Lynn, Massachusetts. I highly recommend them, I hope someone here goes and gives them the business, I was so pleased!

Sharon listened to me, drew up what I asked for, tweaked it based on her own taste, keeping in my the things I said (I had lots of things like “well, this or maybe that”, because I wanted the artist to be able to do what worked, without getting bogged down in what I said, since I know that what you say you want isn’t always what you would choose, when you see it for real!). We discussed placement of the butterfly, back and forth, and she ended up with it on the branch, having expected to prefer it flying. I like it there…makes the whole thing less busy and more graceful.

I was on about size and prettiness, so the tree ended up slender and graceful, in a way that it never occurred to me to request. But had I known, I would have. It’s huge, but I was expecting it to be shorter and wider, until she handed me the sketch…and taller and narrower is MUCH more elegant! She’s good…she has lovely taste. Basically, she listened to me, the whole time, and read me accurately. My dd took one look at it, and said when she gets her first tattoo, she WILL go to Sharon! And txted off a photo to her bf, because he wants a tree of life (among other things) and may prefer to go to her, too. And she gave me the whole run down on what is required on safe tattooing (you won’t get anything from her except a tattoo), and how she treats everyone as if they have something nasty, then all are safe. She has a tattoo chair that is sort of like a dentist chair, with two separate leg rests, that are adjustable, back, head rest with a hole in it, the works. Very nice and sensible. She has a water mural painted aroudn the entire room, with a mermaid and fish (some big hand painted ones, and some are colorful decals….great overall effect), the ceiling tiles are sparkly fabric colored, and there are colored glass globes hanging….it’s pretty in there. I loved it. Can you tell? Oh, and it did hurt. A lot. She was encouraging, and suggested when breaks would be good, and patiently let me take them as I needed. The forms included all the info possible, and you had to initial each, including the info that you could stop whenever you wanted to. She was picky about making sure that the stencil placement was just where I wanted it, and offered her opinion as well. We all agreed when it was right. She said she’d MUCH rather I griped AT her than about her, later!

See, my leg is doing fine, here. There is no redness to speak of, yet. This part is very painful...the fine lines hurt the most!

This is the first break, this much took about 40-45 minutes. All the outline is done, the worst part!

After a break...it's over half done. Some color is in.
As time goes by, and more drawing/injecting of ink, my skin got pretty red!

My skin is pretty unhappy, by now! Sharon kept putting on vaseline...she had to wipe off the blood and excess ink, over and over, and you really need the vaseline to protect your skin from those paper towels ;-) But tomorrow the redness will fade a lot, and the colors will start to really shine.

All done!

A square knot undoes...

2010-03-31T22:55:00.003-04:00

See the square knot....right over left, left over right (or left over right, right over left...same thing).

Take two adjacent tails and separate them.

Keep pulling.....WHOOPS, you now have two half hitches sliding along a single thread.

Square knots are not good under pressure, if the tail separates from its mate!

Granny bows have this problem, too, but they are even more likely to get into this state.

If you tie a third knot on top of a square knot, or a bow, it will have less of a tendency to come apart. For baby wearing, I tied a square bow (as opposed to a granny bow), and then tied the bow loops into a double bow.

Don't trust a square knot or a granny knot whenever you are wearing something that matters (like a mai tie or wrap). Use a bow on top, or fasten the tails to their mates in some seamanlike manner that will hold (in order for the square knot to fail, the adjacent tails must separate, so there are many hitches that will hold them together, that are easy to take out on purpose, but will not fall apart easily).

A new tallit

2010-03-30T22:44:00.002-04:00

I'm working on a tallit for a girl in my Synagogue, whose Bat Mitzvah is approaching. Her dad bought my tallit making services at our fundraising auction...so now it's time.

It's going to be silk ribbon flowers, on a blue silk noile atarah. I'll make the corner reinforcements blue noile, as well. There be a single flower on each corner.

This is the design, from Inspirations Magazine that suggested the design and the flowers to use (well, I'll change them some)

But I don't like the grid...while I played around with my cutouts, I realized that a hex set up, 6 across, worked great! These flowers need to be upright, not scattered, as is my usual pattern...but clusters work!

Here is half of the basic pattern, you can see it inside the drawn lines for the atarah, about 4.5 inches high, 36 inches long.

These are the hexes of flowers. I'm using greens for the stems, not gold, since I'm not doing the grid, and I'll change the colors of the flowers themselves....a lot!

This photo is a bit dark...the blue is slightly lighter, and the corals are a bit lighter and pinker as well. Well, at least that is so on my screen!

I'll transfer the pattern tomorrow! This is going to be fun...I love the colors!

Valerie's Tallit

2010-02-06T21:08:00.004-05:00

My niece's Bat Mitzvah went well. Her tallit was finished, pressed, and she seemed to love it...well, given the color, which she chose, that was a given!

Isn't she just adorable? She got the dress in blue, not pink, because the tallit was hot pink, brighter than the photo shows. Good choice!

And here are my older 3 kids, Val, and her brother, all in the tallitot I made for them. Not the best view of my work, but I just love the group of them! They were all delightful, too...Jamie had an aliyah alone, my 3 had an aliyah together, and Wendy chanted.

Now, on the making of the tallit...

I decided that Valerie's had to be the Four Mamas from the Bible, to match the four corners required for a tallit. That was easy, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel. No problem...but I had to find symbols for them all!

Sarah, well, she laughed when God told her that she would have a baby in her old age...so the mouth is Sarah's laughter.

Rebecca...well she favored Jacob. Encouraging sibling rivalry may be what she's famous for, but not what I wanted on the tallit! Several people (on Ravelry and in person) suggested that she was generous, that she watered the camels. Val didn't want camels (too bad...there are some gorgeous camel embroidery patterns in Australian Inspirations magazine!), so I used the blue background for the water.

Leah, Jacob's first wife, had many children, so she is the mother and child symbol.

Rachel, Jacob's beloved, was beautiful, so the eyes are for her.

The gold thread is Kreinik gold metallic thread...not as bad to work with as I was expecting. I found it easier to leave a tail when I started end ended, and use regular sewing thread to tack the tails to the stitching underneath afterwards.

The pink silk noile was a find from my friend Sharon, from one of the online fabric stores...Sharon pointed it out to me, I called Val up and sent her the link, and she was very excited by the prospect. I think it works great for her! It's loud, but it suits her. I planned to use a changeable dark greyish blue taffeta for the water, but it had a nasty crease line in both directions, that just wouldn't work. So the local quilt shop came through with this teal. It's a cotton/silk really soft, slippery blend, but when sprayed with quilter ironing sizing it behaves. Water spots it badly, but evens out once rinsed.

When I was tying the tzittzit, I realized that I had figured out how to do them consistently, so that the spirals started and stopped in exactly the same place, as the instructions require, but never explain how to do. The commercially tied tzittzit don't necessarily get this right, either. So, I took pictures!

Here are the 3 cords plus the longer shamesh.

The cords go through the hole, and the 7 ends get evened up, with the shamesh hanging longer. The shamesh was put through the hole to the inside, so it will always wind up on the bottom, when I'm done with each double knot (granny knot).

The granny knot tied, pretty straight forward so far. But this next bit is the trick: See the shamesh? It's on the bottom half. I ALWAYS "fair up" my knots so that it is in the center of the clump of threads, and pull it towards the front.

Now, as you pass the shamesh around to the left, then behind the stands, you can wind it the prescribed 7 times, and you end with it on top. I keep hold of the strands the whole time, to keep them neat and taught. I toss the shamesh to the left, then reach underneath to grab it and bring it back to the right and top. Divide the strands into two sections, 4 on the right, 3 on the left.

Add the shamesh to the group on the left, holding it towards the center of that group.

After that last double knot, keeping the shamesh towards the center, you start the next spirals.

It takes me 15-20 minutes to tie one corner of tzittzit.

Lastly, I'm not sure why, but I love this shot. You can see Beth's flowers on hers better, anyway.

Heart baby slippers

2010-01-31T17:11:00.002-05:00

I needed something quick, easy, colorful, and fun, that I could finish really fast...so, despite not having anyone I can think of with a newborn, I made these, anyway, from The SockPixie

They start with a modified heart, from Elizabeth Zimmermann. I made the heart hat years ago, and I liked it...so I dug out some yarn, leftovers from Jesse's Steggie (he doesn't seem to wear it much, it's adorable, though...Steggie, from Knitty.com), and added in the Fruit Loops colored yarn I couldn't resist when I bought Jessie's yarn, it's all Encore washable acrylic/nylon worsted...there is enough for a tiny sweater or two, so I'll make something to go with the booties...maybe a Feb baby sweater...

The pattern just has the booties, no closure. Since I know just how long they'll stay on baby feet, I added double strand finger looped cord, the way Jeannette, the Waldorf handwork teacher, taught us. I sewed the center back of the cord in place, so they can't get lost or tangled.

They really came out cute!

Square Sock toes

2009-12-11T15:25:00.003-05:00

This sock toe is great. It's really easy, and it warps to fit any sort of foot. It can be used with most toe up sock patterns....just don't do the toe they suggest, do this one.

Figure out how many stitches you want the foot to be (look in your pattern, or do the math, whatever).

Divide that number by 4. Let's name this number....Alfred (if it is not even, just round it down, and increase those 1-3 sts in the last row).

Cast on Alfred stitches with any provisional cast on you feel like. I like the invisible cast on, here, at http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/cast-on (scroll down), but any will do.

Work in garter stitch, knitting each row, until you have Alfred ridges on both sides (this will be Alfred times 2 number of rows).

Pick up Alfred stitches along the next side....if you have two circs, just pick up sts, one per ridge, with the needle tip with the yarn tail hanging from it. Pick one spot at the very edge of the ridge, to pick the st through, and use that same place in each ridge, to make it smooth and even. If you need to, finagle the last sts/ridge just a bit. If you are using dpns, then use a second needle to pick up these sts.

Now take out the waste yarn, putting the new, live sts from the cast on onto another circ or dpn.

Pick up sts along the last side, same as the 2nd side, onto that second circ or a 4th dpn.

Count your sts, making sure you have the required number for your pattern. Each circ should have 1/2 (twice Alfred), each dpn should have Alfred. If you had to round down to get Alfred, now increase to match your pattern and you knit the next row, and put them on your needles as the pattern requires. Continue with your pattern. This toe is a bit shallower than many short row toes, so you may need a few more rows before the ball of the foot. Most patterns measure from the tip of the toe to judge when it's time to start the heel, so changing the toe works for most patterns.

The points of the square will point up the sides, center top and center bottom of your foot.

Embroidery

2009-12-08T21:31:00.004-05:00

It's about time I documented the embroidery I did for my synagogue, Congregation Kerem Shalom.

Years ago, our synagogue got a new Torah....an old new Torah. It was originally in a synagogue in Czechoslovakia. The Nazis murdered all the Jews in that town, and stole the valuables. The Torah was tattooed, cataloged, and placed in storage, to be part of a display in a museum of an extinct race. Ugh.

Here are the red letters the Nazis painted on the rollers. They used to be brighter, but handling has rubbed much of it off. The Torah wasn't well cared for under the Nazis, but it has had some conservation, although I wish it could have some more.

There are many Torahs like this, that were rescued and placed in synagogues for safe keeping. Here is more information.

Sixteen years ago, I was asked to make a cover for this Torah. I drew a tree of life, and embroidered it in wool on wool fabric and lined it in cotton. I kept the stitches simple, it's mostly outline stitch, with long and short stitch, satin stitch, couching, and some simple fillers.

I loved the camel, he was fun!

I really enjoyed the colors, and who could resist adding a lion and lamb to a Tree of Life? As is obvious, I had fun with the animals...when you aren't restricted by reality, you can put a goose into the tree with the seal!

The metal pointer is a yod, used to keep your place when chanting Torah, so that your finger oils don't damage the ink. They are usually decorative, as well as functional, and hang from the rollers, looking pretty, until the scroll is undressed, opened up and read.

Here is a page of the Torah

And here you can see it rolled up, ready to be dressed.

I did much of the embroidery with my then 1 yr old daughter strapped to my back! At her Bat Mitzvah, she carried this Torah around the sanctuary in the traditional processional, and then chanted from it. It's still part of Jewish life cycles, despite its history!

Double Knitting!

2009-11-10T20:25:00.005-05:00

I'm learning double knitting, in yet a new way! I've done plenty of it like Beverly Royce wrote about, in the OOP Notes on Double Knitting. Very useful for skinny tubes, but I don't bother with it otherwise. Right now, I'm doing double knitting colorwork, M'lou style! Double Knitting: Reversible Two-Color Designs I'm really enjoying it. I want to do a cap, but I needed a gauge swatch, so, since Abe has refinished my old cribbage table, it needs some coasters...so here is the first.

the front

and the back.

I'm noticing a lot of unevenness...I think that many of the spots are from twisting the yarns together on the inside. The top bit has much less of this, and that was when I figured out how to make the yarns stay in the same orientation, and actually knit faster!

This is a really fun technique. You have double the number of stitches, and have to pass the yarn forward and back between each stitch, as you knit the stitches for the front, then purl the stitches for the back, working each pair, one in each color. SInce you use each color once for each pair of stitches, the tension problems I usually have when trying to carry two colors in one hand don't happen. So I'm doing this in Contental style knitting, because it's easier to pass the yarn forward between stitches.

I'm finding this hard to put down...I keep wanting to see what it'll look like when I get just one more row done. You can't see the pattern on the row on the needles, because it's doubled, with the reverse video interspersed, so you need to knit another row to see the last row!

I'm using sock yarn now, this is Knitpicks Palate. The cap will be in Regia.

I'm still chugging away on Ellen's sweater...but I've got 5 inches of stockinette to do, and I'm about an inch into it. It's in my bag, for my "out and about" knitting.

Ribbing Woes

2009-11-05T10:37:00.003-05:00

I'm using Manos Del Uruguay. It's a silk/wool blend. Singles....LOVELY yummy scrunchy crunchy silky yarn.

This is what I want:

But this is what I have got:

What is the difference? Well the pattern yarn is Posh, a cashmere silk mix. Notice the lack of wool. Cashmere and silk ribbing is pretty flat, with very little sproing to it...it just doesn't draw up. If you are making a sweater out of that, that lack of drawing up may make you nuts! So the pattern has these really wide ribbed bands, that don't draw up, mostly for looks, not for holding in power (the pattern photos aren't online. sigh). If I want mine to match, I need my bands to not draw in. As you can see, they are drawing in a LOT. Lovely snug ribbing....just not what I want this time. So in order to get rid of the drawing in I'm trying using a huge needle. It is working, but the stitches are, of course, huge!

Of course, it looks like I'll have to just knit a few inches, and then see. What a nuisance. Relaxed this one is about 16 inches, while the last was only 9. So we are getting there, except for the stitch size/neatness. I'll probably have to compromise with one size smaller needle and some blocking, but I'd rather not depend on the blocking for this one, so I'm willing to risk another 4 inches of frogging...but at least the larger stitches mean fewer rows!

I gotta crow

2009-11-02T19:38:00.002-05:00

I'm feeling quite clever.

I just finished my Icelandic Neck Shawl, done as a full size shawl, from the Schoolhouse Press Shawlalong. It's blocking, and still wet....that unspun Icelandic yarn holds a lot of water!

The shawl was pretty easy, except I didn't measure, and decided I wanted it bigger after I finished the base triangle, but before I added the border, so I added a bunch of borders, first, then the pattern's border.

The pattern border is ruffled....this is where the cleverness comes in...see how I blocked it!

I figured, since the ruffle is 3-D, and I can't fit it all next to itself, down on the table, I might as well make it 3-D! I had already laced some crochet cotton through all the loops along the edges, so stringing some blocking wires through the bases/indents of the scallops was easy.

It is taking forever to dry, though!

2009-10-13T21:56:00.003-04:00

Why is iPhoto not succeeding in transferring things? Is it just to make me nuts? Yeah, that must be it.

Anyway....I have FABRIC!

For Val:

I now have to put these together!

The blue is a bit slatier in person, it's a changeable silk, the folds shimmer blues and grey-blue in the light. I tried light blue and royal.....ICK! Just wouldn't work. This made both Wendy and me smile, so it won!

Mum's birthday

2009-05-28T20:33:00.002-04:00

At the sheep and wool festival I got my mum a birthday present!

The new knit kits were on display at Holiday Yarns. We were all laughing a bit, because most people think that they looked like birth control pill packs. Abe thought that they looked like toilets. And then when I looked at the package out of the corner of my eye, I thought it said "toilet"! Very unfortunate design. Despite this being the first generation, and I'm sure that the next version will be much better, it's still a handly little gadget. As for it's unfortunate looks, I have a daughter who is quite handy with her paint pens from the craft store (the kind you have to shake and they have a ball bearing to mix the paint, and a brush tip you have to push up inside to get the paint to flow).

Here is what Wendy did to her grandma's new knit kit before we mailed it!

Looks great, now!

2009-05-09T21:46:00.006-04:00

I love a good sheep and wool festival! Today at the NH Sheep and Wool Festival it was terrific. Ok, my knee hurt. A lot. That wasn't at all terrific. But the festival was fun. I was a bit restrained in my shopping, at least compared to what some years were like, and compared to what I wanted to buy!

I saw people. I saw some people from La Leche League, who I haven't seen in years. That was fun. I talked to lots and lots of people. I like being able to see someone with a Tsarina kit (the leaves/wine one) and ask if they've done those before, and discuss it, and mention I'm working on the Scheherazade Shawl, and have them say, "oh, I know that pattern...lovely", and not look at me like I have two heads!

I met Claudia! I've read her blog for a couple of years, I've emailed with her, but I've never spotted her and her orange tandem, despite being in the places she rode by many times...but today I finally met her! I was sitting, resting, telling Abe that I was hoping to see Claudia and Julia (Moth Heaven, but I didn't spot her. I met her last year). And then, there Claudia was! That was great timing. When I was talking to The Tsarina, I also met Dan. He's fun, too!

I bought no yarn. Nope, none! But I DID buy fleece. It's red. It's pretty. I love it. Got it from Jennifer, it's dyed by Damselfly Yarns. I have been spinning again, having had to get my wheel working again, to be in the filming shoot for Lexington Historical Society. So I got this nice red. Of course, I MEANT to get something with more distinct colors, and didn't. So, I'll need another, if I go back tomorrow, I'll get Jennifer dyed one, probably.

I've been able to get yarn, not good yarn, but yarn nevertheless on my spinning wheel all along. I figured it was just a matter of practice to get good. I finally learned to watch the little triangle of drafting fiber, nothing else, and only let the twist into it when I'm ready. NOW I'm getting much more even and thin yarn. I think it'll be sock weight when I ply it, so I'm pretty pleased. So I figured it was time to learn to use a drop spindle. I was never able to actually get yarn on one the other times I tried. I figured that it was a matter of 1) practice and 2) that triangle of drafting, although I wasn't sure how. So I sensibly went to the person I knew who was the most recent and obscessed convert to spinning. The Tsarina of Tsocks. I figured Lisa'd have good advice to a beginner, having just been one, and would know what spindle would likely be good, and be able to describe what to look for clearly. I was right. She had the most evil look of delight when I asked! She sent me to Bosworth for this.

It's purpleheart wood, and weighs 1.13 oz. I will try it out soon!

I got some plain creamy colored fleece. It still smells a bit woolly. It's cormo and alpaca. It's yummy. It's for playing with the drop spindle. It will be fun, it's so soft. I hope to get something fingeringish weight, and to make a really simple shawl out of some forgiving pattern.

She gave me a quick demo, and I realized that she was suggesting a technique very similar to what I use on the wheel....soon, soon, and I will see.

I've been working on my Scheherazade Shawl for Wendy...prom is this Friday....think I'll make it?

I have about 20 rows in the chart plus a border to go....so that is 40 rows plus 2 borders on the ends.

You are supposed to provisionally cast on, for the center. Then work out to one side, do the border then pick up the center, and repeat. BORING. After I worked a few rows in the center, I picked up the cast on, and with another ball, caught that side up. Now I work the rows twice, one for each side. It's much faster, in the long run, because each row is completely different, so when I do it the second time, I sort of remember it, rather than having to completely relearn it if I were doing them totally separately. It goes fairly quickly...when I work on it!

I added beads to it, that weren't called for. Wendy picked out fairly large purply-maroon round faceted ones. I added them along the zigzags on the sides. The yarn is zephyr laceweight, of course. I really like that stuff!

I've got it in my favorite little bag.

The other side:

Only certain projects can go in this bag. Wendy's prom shawl counts. I've had it 22 years, (I think...it's a number, and it changes. Every year!). I got it on the NY Air flight, with an apple, cheese, crackers and juice in it (remember when airlines gave you food?) I was seated next to this guy...the one who asked me what IHTFP meant (it was on my MIT shirt), because he said he couldn't remember, he knew that there were lots of answers....and then while we talked about that, he mentioned a friend's wedding he'd been to, that many of my friends had gone to...and, well, anyway, we've been married for 21 years, now. So it's a special little knitting bag.

Almost there!

2009-01-31T12:34:00.002-05:00

I've been working on, obsessing about, and basically living my earth stripe wrap. It's almost done. I decided to leave off the fringe, and put a border on. It's only one strand of kidsilk haze, on size 5 or 6 needles (needle gauge is awol, as usual...and I even got a new one!). The stole itself is on a size smaller needle, double stranded. I'm using feather and fan, in garter stitch for the border. I picked up stitches all around the stole. I can't be bothered purling for garter stitch, and since I'm changing colors each row, I don't even need to wrap and turn to knit on the wrong side, since I already have to weave in the ends...I'm just knitting a row, then turning, and adding in the new color!

I just started casting off. I did about 6 inches, and realized that I meant to use pink to cast off, but I was using the purple. And I really prefer the pink, so I had to frog, although it's not ripping, it's picking! Mohair doesn't like to ravel!

Now, if you do a bit of a swatch on the side of your work, to figure out how many stitches to pick up, and it comes out a little loose....then you pick up that way all around, and then start working feather and fan, would you be surprised that you were getting a bit of a ruffle? Well, why was I surprised? As it turns out, I think I like the ruffle. I hope so, because I don't want to frog a week's worth of mohair!

Now, here is my brilliant idea...put a safety pin through the tightening holes on Knitpicks interchangeable needles. Stitches can't fall off!

Can You Say Endorphins? (yes, knitting related content!)

2008-12-02T15:43:00.003-05:00

I got my new tattoo last night. I've been planning it for a while. I drew up a sketch of a ball of yarn and needles, and futzed and played with it. When I went to the tattoo shop, they decided I had to talk to the custom guy (Al), because I wanted it more realistic and colored fancy. He was busy, so we made an appointment. When I showed up a week later, he had a nicer ball of yarn, and he made it littler (although it still feels huge, and it's smaller than I had planned! Good thing he thought it should be smaller than I asked for!), and changed the needles, and we flipped it over a bit...I was planning on the needles being vertical, he was planning on horizontal, so we split the difference...another good choice!

It's neat how he transferred it to my leg, like a Cracker Jack tattoo! Then he set to it...with that buzzy pen. It didn't hurt as much as my old tattoos did, but it hurt plenty! There were a bunch of long lines, and those are the worst, I think. The coloring wasn't too bad, it was just slow. But the whole thing took just under 30 minutes. I'm clearly a wimp when it comes to tattoos...others get ones that take hours!

After I left I could feel those pain induced endorphins...I felt wonderful! My leg was only sore to touch, really, but the hormones were still zipping around, it's very weird.

So, here is Al. I think he's now convinced that knitters are lunatics...or maybe just me.

And isn't my new tattoo pretty?

The color is somewhat pinker in person. The needles are just about as long as my index finger.

HUZZAH!

2008-11-05T00:46:00.001-05:00

Been a long time since things turned out this well! No nightmares tonight...

Good Night.

Politics

2008-11-04T22:32:00.002-05:00

We are watching and waiting.... 538 has called it for Obama it seems a little early to do that to me!

As we were sitting here, all of us on our laptops, with NBC on, all of a sudden, there was a huge scratch on the door! Scared me...after scooping up the dog and cautiously opening the door...in popped Peggy! How on earth did she get out? We haven't had a cat get outside in probably ten years!

Political Hallowe'en!

2008-10-31T21:57:00.004-04:00

I don't have photos of the kids, the boys were a soldier (Well, he calls it an Army Guy. I say Soldier) and Indiana Jones. They put together the costumes themselves, so I'm satisfied.

But I did Rapunzel's costume.

Teddy loved it...our little political dog.

The kids were quite enamored of the pumpkins in Yes We Carve, so we downloaded some stencils, and they went at it.

Teddy did a respectable job on his pumpkin.

Harry carved one the day before, a typical skull, but when he saw Teddy's, we wanted to play, too. So he went and got one of the carvable fake pumpkins (surprisingly real looking) I bought last year, and set to it. He has a great deal of patience....can you believe that a TEN year old did this?????

Boo!

Something to work on

2008-09-25T09:45:00.007-04:00

I have finished clue 2 of my MS4. I'm noticing that my YOs are not the same size, depending on if I do an SSK or k2tog next to them. I need to watch and see if it matters if the YO is before or after each sort, to see what I can do to make them more similar.

The sides area curving in and out in the most intriguing fashion! The purl column that delineates the edging is curving too. There is a little indent in the bottom corners, and I just can't tell if the very bottom of the center section will want to be straight or not!

I can't wait to find out! Now I just have to catch up with clue 3!

Frogging a section down

2008-09-13T22:08:00.007-04:00

I have been thinking that simple counting on the wrong side rows wasn't going to be enough for me to be sure that my Mystery Stole 4, from Pink Lemon Twist was going to be enough for me to not have massive mistakes. I was right. About 2 pattern rows before the end of Clue 1, I looked more carefully and noticed a honking big hole in the bottom of the left diamond.

See it here?

That won't do. Not at all. No way am I gonna frog this...it has the right number of stitches in the section, so there won't be an issue with too much or too little yarn, so I'll just drop it down to fix it.

But first, I got out my supplies!

Then I picked up the stitches just below the mistake by inserting a skinny dpn into the right leg of each stitch. I followed those stitches up their columns to the needles, and dropped the stitches off and let them ravel down. They won't go past my dpn, of course.

What a mess, huh?

Well, it's not hard to make it look more manageable, just a simple pin does that.

This is what a yarn over on the right looks like, when it's all lined up correctly.

If this is confusing, I recommend dropping down a few more stitches, so that there won't _be_ any lingering yarn overs...make sure that the edge-most stitch and the one next to are not yarn overs, or at least not yarn overs that get decreased over to the side that isn't raveled!

This is what it looks like WRONG!!!

That yo is lost due to a chain of lost YOs from above. To fix it, I had to go to the top, and find the highest one, wrap it correctly, then go down a row, wrap it, etc, down to the bottom. As you see above, it worked.

Then I knit the row correctly.

I got confused and had to undo a bit, when I did two pattern rows in a row, forgetting the plain knit row in between...when fixing something from the right side, I just knit across the rows I'd purled, of course!

And it worked nicely!

Good Grief!

2008-09-13T21:08:00.004-04:00

I am making a little dragon for myself. He needs taming, but we are getting there!

His name is Good Grief.

At this point, he's just bones... and he is NOT tamed...all those little wires are quite sharp, and my hands have many bite marks from them to prove it!

I have wrapped him in layers of quilt batting. This helps a lot...but is it his muscle or subcutaneous something or other? I guess it must be his muscle, because there still remains another layer before the skin.

And his close up:

Now he has his subcutaneous...um...what? When you give guinea pigs fluids, it's called giving them subcutaneous fluids. But is that a noun, or what? At any rate, he has it here.

little red what?

2008-09-09T22:09:00.002-04:00

I am in the TsockFlock Club, by the Tsarina of Tsocks. This is the Tsuspense Project....

I have to work on loosening up those left slipped stitches. This always happens to me on a slip before a knit. The slips before a purl are fine!

I will frog this back to below that little gusset....I think I can do better than this, and I'm feeling compulsive about it!

I have finished the Tallit, and the Bar Mitvah was fun....more on that later.

The Tallit Grows!

2008-09-01T23:39:00.004-04:00

I've been stitching and stitching on the Tallit. I had a disaster with the base fabric....there was a weaving error in the middle of the fabric, making the texture different (not smooth), sort of like seersucker! Washing and pressing and adding sizing did nothing. I have some other fabric, which will be _fine_ but is a different color, and not already half hemmed (which is when I discovered the problem). But I have to get over that and deal.

The stars are coming out fine...well, I have to fix a tiny two thread snip in the underneath fabric, and then finish up one point, and the stars will be done! Turns out I should'a basted the lining down the middle before I did the applique. So now I have to kluge the edge all around. I think I'll unstitch the wool lining and redo the sides...but we'll see tomorrow. It's too late to make a decision. But that is a detail.

This one is the closest in color. It's all silk and shimmers.

I started the applique at the Wholesome Trottin' Race we went to yesterday (not the kind where they set down right on the horse)...it was really windy, and I only got 3 done. Today at the Marlboro parade I got a bunch done, and got even more done at the Unit Party afterwards....I think Wendy go some photos of the pirate ship in the pool, being manned by Teddy and Harry, and attacked by Dana and Brian and Adam (I think)...They had a blast...so did the kids.

I meant to watch just one episode of Gilmore Girls, but Wendy insisted we had to see another...and it looks to me like Lorelei will marry Luke at the end, but Wendy won't tell me...there are only a couple of episodes left, and she wanted me to stay up late and watch, but Abe has to work (HUZZAH!) tomorrow and I have to drive him, he has a sprained ankle!!!!

I hope to get the tallit cut out tomorrow morning, before Teddy goes to school, so I can hem it during the PA meeting. Then finish that one star, get the neckpiece on, and then just something for the corners, and Tzit Tzit!

Unless something else goes wrong....

2008-08-30T19:49:00.002-04:00

I have photos!

This one is GONE!

She is off being a political intern for the fall semester. We miss her, it's weird having a kid grow up!

We went to Battle Ship Cove for a reenactment.

Teddy is the happiest boy in the world.

Don't worry, he's just drilling, it's a non-firing piece. He did well at his first drill, and all were happy with him. He was VERY tired!

Wendy got a new hat.

And Harry did some virtual Fencing while watching Teddy's lesson

experimenting to see why this photo isn't showing up for some people, so it's there twice, now...

And I'm well into Alex's Tallit, and it seems to be going ok.

But what I want to be doing is knitting, of course...I have some lovely silk to make a dragon with (for me!) and I have my lace with nupps and my earth stripe wrap....all on hold at the moment. And when I finish this Tallit, I'll be working on French Sleeved waistcoats, whose name I forget at the moment. It's not Gilet, which is the sleeveless waistcoat.

Bracelets

2008-08-13T22:48:00.004-04:00

I got my friend Sharon to make my daughters and me bracelets. Pictured here on my mohair Snowdrop Shawl, pattern by the Yarn Harlot

I'm pink, Beth is green and Wendy is purple.

I asked Sharon to design them, I just requested the colors, she found the great Mogen David clasps and all the silver spacers. (next photo background is the Earth Stripe Wrap, by Kaffe Fasset).

Eventually, I asked for each bracelet to have a bead from the others. At first she wasn't too sure about that (and I wasn't, either, really), but Sharon came up with the really neat way to manage that. I wasn't sure it would work, artistically, but Sharon took it and ran with it, and we love them!

Ravelympics Projects!

2008-08-11T23:09:00.004-04:00

A Monmouth Cap

This one is a large, fits my DH, who has a head size of about a 7 7/8 or 8....yeah, hats normally stop at size 7 3/4. I SAID it was large!

It's been felted, and is drying. No one here was too happy with me, as I made them all try on the wet cap out of the washer (and I have a front loader....you can felt in and stop a front loader....just push in the knob and wait for the light to go out, and open the door. Easy).

Here is the loop.

ETA

Here is my first FO for the Ravelympics.

Angora wool mittens for my DD to take to college. She won't get frostbite in the Frozen Tundra of Waltham. I mean, it's a hilly campus, and she'll be rushing from building to building, I remember college, and there will be miserable days, when she'll NEED them. And they are soft and fuzzy and wonderful. She may make fun of me now, but she'll love them come February!

Aren't the little medals cute?

I'm well into the second cap, I think it'll be a medium. Oh, and they take less than a ball of yarn. But I'm getting bored with it.

Ravelympics!

2008-08-08T14:51:00.003-04:00

I'm doing the Ravelry Olympics, and I'm testing to see if the countdown timer works.

Clearly, it does!

We did the VINEYARD!

2008-08-04T17:12:00.003-04:00

Harry and I did it! We loaded up our bikes, got dropped off at Wood's Hole, and took the ferry over to Martha's Vineyard. After the obligatory stop at the Carousel (I got the brass ring our first ride, so I was done and happy, and Harry took my free ride)

We got a snack and headed for Edgartown.

When a another group of tourists wanted me to take their picture, they returned the favor.

In Edgartown we checked out the harbor....we've seen SO many of these red jellyfish this year! Are they the same kind they have at Prince Edward Island? They don't look like the really colorful and nasty man-o-war's I remember as a kid. This one had a clear bell around the red body (if you call that a body), and it was pumping it in and out to move very effectively.

For lunch, Harry's choice was the rooftop of a fish restaurant. We rode back, taking the wrong road, naturally. Harry wasn't too happy about that, but it only added about 1 mile, and it was in shade, rather than the blaring sun....the day was HOT!

Oak Bluffs is really pretty, and it is amazing how great being independent on bikes feels!

Harry did great, and I was really proud of both of us...14 miles! I know lots of people do way more than that, but we're just starting, and it was the right amount of challenge for us!

On Knitting and Biking

2008-07-30T22:06:00.003-04:00

My Earth Stripe Wrap is growing! I'm really enjoying knitting it, it just flies, because I keep wanting to see what the next color will look like, despite the boring stockinette. Only problem is that it's now 20 inches (1/3 done!), and it rests on my legs, which was making me too hot, since I cannot knit it with sweaty hands, it is now waiting for me to go home to the A/C to work more on it....it's pretty humid here on the Cape (Cape Cod), even with all the doors open and ceiling fans on. It's fine for knitting on merino lace, just not mohair!

On the bike front, as you can see, I'm still very enamored of my Pink Townie. She is doing a great job being a back drop for my knitting. I still need a name for her! I am up to over 5 miles at a stretch, now, and am still riding about twice a day.

I took Harry on a quick ride this afternoon, as I was making sure he could manage in-between busy roads. Tomorrow morning he's doing 6 miles with me, including busier roads, as I teach him to deal with the traffic. He's doing great with hand signs, and staying the right distance from the the edge of the road....but he needs to go slightly faster! He's on a small bike, still, so he doesn't coast very fast.

This is what my 13 yr old son likes to do. His grandparents took him out to Utah to climb, for his Bar Mitzvah trip. Grandma doesn't watch ;-)

Today

2008-07-27T11:39:00.002-04:00

I don't feel too well, but I'm improving. I got a stomach bug last night...woke up in the middle of the night with it. We shall go there no further.

I am sitting in the living room, reading, looking at blogs (did you SEE Jennifer's pretty bamboo wool sock yarn? She made a set, just for me! I LOVE it!). Here is the view over my shoulder, taken with the little camera on the top of my MacBook's screen. It makes me happy, even though it's quite overcast....at least I'm feeling under the weather as the weather is less than great. I expect to be fine by dinner time, I am already much MUCH better.

And here is a proper photo, taken properly, a year or two ago at sunset....it's my favorite.

It's too pretty here to be sick!

2008-07-26T21:22:00.002-04:00

It's a good week.

Yesterday my husband finished his MAT (Masters of Teaching). He was in at small program, and they had a funky graduation, where each student presented their research projects, and the heads of the various departments told something about each student as they got their diplomas. Naturally, they said that Abe was a reenactor. I do believe that that will make him a better history teacher!

Today we are in my favorite place in the entire world, on the water, on the Cape. Although my daughters have been stick in the muds (or stuck in the houses, reading), my sons were game for everything except water. So we went for two bike rides, totally 5 miles. One in the morning, one after lunch. I don't want to do too much, too quickly, or I'll have to stop!

I LOVE my new bike!

But getting the kids going is like herding cats. We had a pleasant ride, and had to adjust seats afterwards. But the bike computers are all adjusted and working, and keeping track of our miles is lots of fun!

Now for Knitting....

This is Kaffe Fasset's Earth Stripe Wrap, from the Rowan magazine, number 42. I LOVE it. Kid Silk Haze. I got 12 colors, not quite the ones in the patterns, and I used a couple of pastels in place of neutrals, and I'm adding in some pink/purples in addition to all the pink/golds, to unmuddy it just a little. I can't wait to finish, the colors are wonderful, and the yarn feels even better!!!!!

MINEMINEMINE

2008-07-24T20:15:00.003-04:00

I have done it! I bought myself a bike!

Thanks to Claudia I learned about Electra's Townie bikes.

Here is mine.

Neat, huh? I love it!

I've wanted to ride my bike for ages, I've been waiting for my weight loss to let me ride, but that was taking too long...and my knees don't bend enough, and my balance is rotten, so if the seat was high enough on my bike for me to be able to pedal, I couldn't touch the ground well, and I felt too unstable.

These bikes have their pedals way forward, so that you can still touch the ground, almost flatfooted and still almost straighten your knee when pedaling! I chose a three speed, because you can adjust the gears while stopped. In a 7 speed I keep getting stuck gears too high to easily start up, so this is a safety issue for me right now. It has a coaster brake (I feel like a kid!) and a front hand brake. Only difference from Claudia's bike are that mine doesn't have fenders and flower stickers (but the stickers are available online). The bike shop didn't have the white Electra rack, so that is on order. It'll be pretty.

You can see how low the cross bar is. I can get on and off quite easily, despite my knees' stiffness. The best thing, of course, is I CAN RIDE! I picked it up today, in dreary rain....drizzle, then deluge, then a ray of sun, with more deluge. It almost stopped raining just before the sun went down, so I was able to go for a quick ride. I went for a mile, up and down several hills, and it WORKED! I CAN RIDE! I know, I said that already, but I CAN RIDE!!!!!!

Next week I, too, will have some BAT/KATs for Claudia!

I HATE going to the ER

2008-06-18T23:19:00.008-04:00

Teddy is left handed.

See the bandage?

Yep. that is his left hand. So, how do you cut your dominant hand while using a multitool to cut cardboard, you ask? Well....if the place that needs cutting is more convenient to your right hand.....

No, he didn't need stitches. Nor did he need a tetnus shot. Just serious cleaning and steri strips, to hold down the chunk of finger he sliced off (I expected them to glue it, but they didn't).

Patience? Nope, none left. All used up.

Graduation

2008-06-08T18:02:00.003-04:00

I have a choice....I can be really sad, and nostalgic, or quote the Yarn Harlot....so I'll copy what Stephanie said, and point out that no matter what happens, Beth can never be a High School Dropout.

PROM!

2008-06-05T23:09:00.002-04:00

They are pretty happy!

The Dress is DONE. Done is nice, very nice.

The shawl is nice, too.

She even lent a shawl to a friend, but she's in a different limo, so I don't know if I'll be getting pictures of her in it...

2008-05-31T20:50:00.002-04:00

The quilt was well recieved by Mr. D, the band director. I quilted it with a pattern of "MrD" all over it, but it wouldn't show up in the photos.

The Pops Concert was fun....but it was Beth's last concert in high school! We'll hear "That Song" over and over again next weekend at graduation, but _she_ won't be playing!

Let's hear it: My Reindeer is purple, your reindeer is green are the proper words. None of this flying upside down reindeer. Everyone knows that reindeer don't fly upside down!!!!

I've decided that it's time that the girls stop this teen nonsense (it's been fun, but enough is enough) and go back to being their REAL ages....7 and 9. _My_ little girls are in elementary school...that is normal. This high school (and graduation? no, more nonsense) stuff is crazy. Normal for my family is elementary. Let's go back to normal, please.

Quilt!

2008-05-30T09:13:00.004-04:00

The teacher quilt is layered!

I usually HATE layering quilts....I have two upstairs all done....wait....I think here is a third, but it might need a border...but I hate layering them, so they wait...but as I was starting, Abe came in, and asked if I could use his help. Turns out that the answer is yes, and that it means doing a thorough, pretty easy 20 minute job of what used to take me an hour or more, hurt my back, and cause much frustration and swearing!

We laid out the top on the table, smoothed the batting, fussed to get it right, peeled, sprayed the sticky stuff, smoothed it out, shifted, finished it all...then did the backing, and it's done! Piece of cake. He's hired.

This quilt was a whim, because I saw the music fabric, and got a bunch of fat quarters to go with it, with no plan in mind, except to give it to Mr. D. Now I need to decide on the thread, and I can start quilting. It needs to be done tonight.

As long as I was taking pictures, here is the dishcloth I started at the chorus concert last night. Yes, mistakes. I don't care, it IS just a dishrag, and I refuse to tink back more than one row for a dishrag.

My niece's sweater is swimming along. She's gonna love this....it's SOOOOO soft.

Much happier!

2008-05-28T19:27:00.002-04:00

As you can see, Beth is much happier, now. So am I! Now the dress just needs finishing....zipper, straps stitched in back, hemming and more ironing. No more thinking, no more altering. AND I was planning on doing that this weekend, anyway! So I'm done with it for now.

Huzzah!!!!!

Procrastination

2008-05-26T13:21:00.005-04:00

I am avoiding cutting out the fabric for the REAL bodice of Beth's gown.

Yesterday I went to the second day of the Immersion Farming Weekend at Hartwell Tavern. It was a fairly low key day for me. I started working on some tiny mittens, that I'm just making from a generic, in my head, mitten pattern.

I think that the needles are 4-0, steel needles. The yarn is Icelandic lace weight from SchoolHouse Press, left over from my nephew's tallit. I was going to work on Sue's mitts, but the yarn had disappeared....turned out it was in the zippered blanket bag that has the stuff I got from the NH Sheep and Wool festival in it. In plain sight on the couch. SIGH. Found it as soon as I got home and sat down. But that is ok...these mittens are good take along knitting, and fairly quick so I can _finish_ something. If 12.5 sts per inch is something one can consider quick and easy!

Lunch, made by Carrie, was WONDERFUL. She made a green pea soup (fresh, not split) with a variety of green things in it, and described boiling the peas until they were dead, and straining it, and that part looking gross, but made a wonderful stock for the rest of the veggies. And it was fine for my diet!

Ok...I guess I have to go sew, now.....

Beaks and Gowns

2008-05-24T08:20:00.002-04:00

Typical morning getting the kids ready for an 18th C gig:

Harry! If you want to eat that cookie, sit at the kitchen table....NO making beaks out of fortune cookies!

Did you know that if you put the fortune cookie in your mouth, points sticking out, and wave your arms, that you were then a bird? Me neither....

Ok, Here are the last versions of The Gown. I think I need to cut in the underarm a tad, that looks like I need to in the photos, although it didn’t in person. I’m going to adjust the gathers slightly differently, and angle the shoulder straps a little (they are pinned). Other than that, the last paper pattern I made is what I used in this one....so I’m good to go!

With Sharon's advice, I changed the pattern, and FINALLY we can see that this one (with some tweaking) will work!!!!!

These are her shoes...favorite pink shoes form the Junior Prom...she loves them and is wearing them again.

She likes the gown pattern (but not this fabric). She's too tired to look happy.

Next up.....TEAL fabric!!!!! I get to do the real thing, finally!

What was I THINKING?

2008-05-20T21:18:00.008-04:00

I'm out of my mind. I tried to start Beth's prom gown ages ago, and got bogged down. Now I need to get it done this week.

This is it so far:

Yes, really nice, huh? Pretty fabric? Ok, it was $1 yard stuff, for draping.

This is the real stuff. Much better. The blue is tealer thanit looks, of course. It's silk. And slippery! But it's pretty.

Oh, yeah, that too....this gown....no pattern. I'm making this dress:
Yeah. Ginger Roger's over the top dress from Swingtime.

Did I say I don't have a pattern? I'm draping it on her. Part of it is perfect. Part is NOT ready, yet....but it's gonna SWIRL!

Wish me luck.

Let's Try Again!

2008-05-18T21:37:00.003-04:00

Abe keeps saying I should set up a blog, and I've tried a few times, and it keeps not working or being too frustrating....but I've gotten a decent book on HTML (written by someone who cares about good programming....love the book!), and have a fast web connection (this just won't work with a dialup!), and we shall now try again.

Let us start with Beth's shawl:
It's Fiddlesticks' Peacock Feathers Shawl. Green wool/silk laceweight from Jocelyn.

She has worn it once, so far, to a wedding. I'm pleased with how it came out, and I haven't found any mistakes in it, yet!

I'm clearly going to have to do more reading on hacking this code, since there are clearly a few nuances to it that I'm totally missing!