Yammering into the void

Fogski

I finished some mittens!

My friend, who is a Frozen North native, wears big-gauge huge honkin mittens, so I figured I'd give some a shot, too.  These are Fogski, a Knitty pattern.  I used Malabrigo in Mecha and a lightweight merino/acrylic rather than the very beautiful and very, very expensive yarns called for in the pattern.  They're too big, but still soft and warm.  

Folk Flowers

The embroidery is coming along:

I ripped out and re-did the green part of the left flower with red petals because one of my stitches didn't cross all the way and it bugged me and bugged me.  I could have attempted a fix, but redoing was easier.  I usually work so that I don't have to put my hoop over stitches I've already done, but because this one is long and narrow, it's impossible not to.  So I loosen my hoop a lot and then place it and tighten - is that how you're supposed to do it?  I dunno.  Seems to be working.  Haven't made any mistakes that have made me cry yet, that's good.  

Ruby May

Merry Christmas to me!  (Awhile ago.)  I got a quilt kit for the Ruby May quilt and have been working my fingers to the bone covering petal papers.  There are 300 of them, and 50 teeny scraps of Liberty fabric to make them with.  

 

Not wanting my learning curve to show, I traced 6 petals onto some other cardstock and made one flower to see how it would go.  I thought I did a good job of gluing that curve, but it was hard to get the curve to stick around when appliqueing.  

So I make 300 of these petals and am planning a super-fun plan-o-rama where I line up all the pretty little piles and sort them into different flowers and that may end up being the most fun part of this whole thing.  

 

 

Also, I found that I have completely forgotten how to applique.  I mean, this flower isn't going anywhere, but the process for that happening was not clean.  Also, I seem to have started a mini quilt and should probably make a plan for how to finish it.  

The scraps of Liberty are too pretty to throw away, so I'm also hatching a plan for glueing them all down and then cutting out words or something to make some paper art.  

 

Underrainbow

I made a cowl.  If you see any mistakes, please do not tell me.  This is the sort of pattern that makes my brain go "that looks wrong," but then I can't put my finger on how.  It is made from Bare Hare and Felici in Firefighter (both from Knitpicks.  

 

Norby, but a Cowl

I also made another cowl! This matches the Norby hat made for Kid 1 and uses up the rest of that Persephone from Frabjous Fibers 3-ply handspun.

Argh, I don't think I took a picture.  

I'm also working on another Norby, but a Cowl in another handspun for another kid.  Was making great progress, but then it fell under my desk and I kind of forgot it existed until right now typing this but there's still plenty of time before the birthday.  

Fabric Fast

For 2021, I'm participating in the Rav quilting group's fabric fast.  There's a quarterly buying day where you can make purchases, but I haven't used mine yet and am hoping not to, at least this quarter.  (I unilaterally decided that ordering filter fabric for masks doesn't count, because that's not for quilting.)  And given that I'm still at the glueing stage, I sincerely doubt I'll be needing backing fabric for Ruby May anytime soon.  

 

Happy crafting!

In which the knitter attempts the nearly impossible

What is new, you big black shoe?  I have not posted for awhile, so there are projects.  

Blogger would like you to see this one first, so here it is:

This baby blanket is for a little one whose sex I do not know.  I did my traditional agonizing over whether it is potentially masculine enough, and decided yes!  Bunnies in spaaaace are masculine. 

And if not bunnies, blue dots.  Definitely super masculine.  And blue bunnies are almost too masculine. 

Lay off the T, bunny.

Here is a picture of a leetle teeny patch.  I patched this side and the back side.  I did not patch the batting, which was also torn a bit.  Looks like this got pinched somewhere and then pulled out, because the hole went all the way through.  I felt like I enjoyed matching up the pattern, but then on the back I found I actually couldn't not match the pattern, so hmm.  Maybe that's not so voluntary. 

My policy is to patch asap, because a stitch in time saves nine, and also I don't have tons of each fabric available for patching and I'd hate to have to use a patch that doesn't match is it getting woozy in here?  

This is a cowl in the pattern of Underrainbow, with Felici in Firefighter (almost vintage) and some Bare Hare.  It requires a skill I am reaching with all of my being to master, a tricky technique called Counting to 4.  You can see here that it didn't go so well several long rounds back, but I'm happy to report that I've ripped back and am on track again. 

On a whim called I couldn't find size 6s or 7s, I went with 5s, then that seemed smallish, so I ripped and added several repeats of 4 until I ran out of cast-on tail and when I had it off the needles to frog, it seemed big enough.  That's what 20 years of experience has gotten me.  

Oh, we wove a thing!  And by 'we,' I mean we warped our loom (a 10" Ashford Sample-It Loom) and then the kid shoved me out of the way and the next morning there were a million washcloths.  Kid's not so interested in tying knots, though, so these beautiful knots you see are all my own. 

Having very little sportweight yarn, I was forced to order heddles that fit worsted weight and fingering weight yarns, and this weekend there will be some more weaving.  I have rainbow yarn, people.  This is going to get pretty exciting. 

And!  I started this thing, which is Folk Flowers:

It's something like 8 feet long finished and yet I kind of feel like I should be done by now.  Not done with the first motif, though I'm a bit further along than the picture suggests.  There are already two mistakes here, but the lovely thing about symmetry is that if you just make the same mistake on the other side, nobody knows!  

There needs to be significant cowledge, some of which requires counting, so I shouldn't have much to show you soon other than some beautiful finished cowls.  I am CERTAINLY not going to start any massive long-term quilting projects before getting those cowls done.  

Happy crafting!

Mittens and yarn, Zodiac signs

Here is where I say stuff about stuff I did!  

I knit mittens!

Here are the mittens I knit!

I spun yarn!  

 

This is a 3-ply of 8 oz of Superfoot from BMFA in Midnight at the Oasis, the same blue as in the mittens above.  

I also finished two Zodiac signs from Satsuma Street, Aquarius and Pisces:

I really like the colors and these were quite fun to stitch.  I'll probably make two more for the other two people in our little family, but it's unlikely that they'll be done before Christmas or upcoming birthdays. 

These mittens also happened! 

They are Ridgeline Mitts, and they are going to meet up with a very nice hat that doesn't quite exist yet but really should before Christmas.  

This year won't have the traditional dash to Christmas - it had a dash to the UPS store, and though they said that it should be there by the end of this week, everything seems delayed these days.  But now I'm stewing in urgency that comes with the season but without a whole lot to knit or finish.  Most of the gifts are wrapped.  So - what do I do now?  

I'm lining up a couple of big, for-nobody projects for after the new year, plus there are a couple of cowls I should knit for winter birthdays.  I have a baby quilt top finished and no motivation or room to sandwich it.  

Happy Crafting!

Craftin Bonanza

Hello, friends!  It has been too long once again.  Lots is happening, crafting-wise!

I finished this Ramboillet:

I tried to do lined-up colors in plying, and they lined up for a bit and then got pretty barber-pole-y.  After getting it all done, I realized that I should probably have cut the one and then gotten the colors lined up again, but yeah, I'm not doing that, so it is as it is.  It is insanely squishy, which I attribute more to the fiber itself than my spinning.  

This little guy is a pincushion I'm making for Older Kid, who is way into sewing and keeps making off with one of my pincushions.  It is fiddly.  Verrry fiddly. 

The cute little bunny rabbits fussy cut for the pincushion are also featuring in this baby quilt I'm throwing together upon hearing that a very loose acquaintance is having a baby in January.  Not sure if it's a boy or a girl, so I went with bunnies with what I think is a very neutral palette:

It's going very fast because it's what I can work on during the many hours of the day where a kid will just walk right into my room to see what I'm doing.  

This is not one of those things - a Pisces cross-stitch for Kid Two:

This is a very fun stitch. 

This hat is for Kid Two as well.  It needs a matching cowl, which I have a pattern and contrast color for, but haven't been able to bring myself to cast on for, despite a couple months of trying.  Mosaic knitting takes attention and must be done in secret, a double whammy. 

There is so much more stuff, but that's all I can share for now.  Happy crafting!

September!

Sometimes when I start a post, I have a big list of things in my head that feel like they need to be written about, but then it turns out I've already written about them.  This is one of those times that's the opposite - there's a lot of stuff that I thought was already covered, but guess not!  

There has been spinning:

Nest superwash mernio in Equinox, 3-plied, 91.5 yards:

Spin in progress is Targhee from Direful Yarns in Hansel and Gretel:

 

Finished Nest superwash merino in Esperanza:

Finished 2-ply Rambouillet in Woodland Hike:

Lion II is also finished:

I tried a new finishing with the binding, called "being as lazy as possible."  Two corners are mitered and two are abutted.  I found the missing edge pieces in a stack of fabric as I was moving the whole stash around, as one does, and then it occurred to me that I there was no reason to stick with the gray for the edges.  The mane was already crazy, why not make the edges crazy too?  Thought about borders for a bit, then decided not to add any, and used some pretty Royal Kona cotton to bind it. 

 

And I remembered the hanging sleeve before sewing the binding down.  My last feat for this one will be getting it actually hung up.  One kid says she knows where there's a dowel rod, so it might happen.  

Happy crafting!

Dangit, I forgot

this little bad boy, Allons-y Ramboullet (90% sure that's spelled wrong) in Woodland Hike or something, I can't find the tag.  

Isn't it so pretty?  I'm spinning thin again because I need this roving to last awhile.  

Happy crafting!

Post, this is a post

Okay!  I have done stuff.  

Here is a thing I spun:

It's merino (non-superwash) Frabjous Fiber in Carnival.  I think it's about a sport weight and have no idea what the yardage is.  

 

Masks!

I ordered polyester chevron tape and a couple rolls of elastic from May Arts Ribbon and am now prepared to make masks for the next two years.  

 

Here is another thing I spun:

Nest in Good Intentions, superwash merino, two-ply, probably heavy fingering weight-ish.  

 

Sock Yarn Blankie

is coming along nicely.  I lost my crochet hook and then I found it.  

Quilts

are making good progress.  One is completely done and the other one has binding attached and I'm working on sewing it down.  Update!  I finished and washed and dried both!

 

Cowl

I'm going to make a cowl out of the yellow and gray completely unbalanced yarn.  I remember searching for a pattern and finding one, then thinking I wouldn't have enough yarn, then finding another, but it was so late at night that I can't remember what that final pattern was.  Update!  I picked a pattern! 

There is a baby

who is a boy, who will be born in December, who requires a quilt.  One of the quilts I'm finishing is a boy quilt, but I may make a new one.  

 

Lion Quilt

is completely pieced except for the outside gray pieces, which I haven't cut out yet.  I last saw the paper templates for the edges a couple of months ago, and have looked and looked and haven't found them yet.  So not sure I'll be finishing that this quarter.  

Happy crafting!

Future Whatever

Long, long ago, in a village either far away or close by, who can remember, I needed a project when I was walking out the door.  Ravelry says it was in 2008.  (Whoa.)  "Someday," I said to myself, "someday I will figure out how to connect all these little mitered squares." 

For awhile, I kept track of how many stitches I used, in which yarn.  Then I settled into 48 stitches, with the right side having a ssk before the middle marker and a k2tog after it.  I didn't like how stretched and tall the tops were, so more recent squares have decreases in the second-to-last row, too.  

At some point along the way, I bought 3 skeins of Cherry Tree Hill sockyarn in black.  

I hit 100 pairs (adult-size) knit.  I churned out mitered squares here and there.  

And then, last week, I was staring down the barrel of 14.5 hours of virtual but live training - a zoom call with 400+ participants.  

I scrounged and found one skein of the black.  (Where are the others?  Still don't know.). 

I found a small-ish enough crochet hook.  (US E4/3.50mm)

And I got hooking.  

Why make things small when you can make things big?, I asked myself.  So I made it 12 squares across - not crazy huge, but big enough to cover me up, not just a lapghan.  

By the end of day 1, I'd gotten the first row of 12 squares and the second row of 11 squares outline in black and slip-stitched together.  

By the end of day 2, I'd gotten the next two rows attached to each other and to the first chunk.  

Fully aware that once I put this thing down, I will forget what I'm doing, I'm trying to work on it a bit every day, and yesterday I got another row added.  If I happen to put it away and forget about it for another 12 years (not impossible), I should know that the edging is two stitches out of every three, single crochet, with more around the tops, and it's slip-stitched into every stitch, easing differently-sized pieces together however works.  

It has also become clear that the black will probably not be enough (though in the first row, I hadn't yet figured out to only pick up 2/3 stitches, so that used up more than an average row will).  It has further become clear that the Cherry Tree Hill black super sock is discontinued.  (Angry frowny.). 

It is even further looking like I'll need many, many more squares.  So, maybe by the time I run out of black, another solution will have presented itself.  

Yarn!

I spun some stuff!

This is Allons-y! Fiber Arts merino/bebeh camel in the colorway Fiber Romance, spun thin-ish and then chain-plied.  I'd guess it's about a sport weight.  I told Rav it's 434 yards, which was good thinking, because I immediately forgot that fact. 

This is Allons-y! Fiber Arts merino/cashmere in the colorway Open Concept.  I was not a fan of the yellow/gray trend of however many years ago that was (2? 8? no idea) - but this is a yellow/gray combination that spoke to me, and what it said was: yasssssss.  

I also thought, "boy, it would bother me deeply if I could turn all of this utterly luscious fiber into a yarn that could be used in a single project - I'd better do something harebrained."  So I divided it into three strips, and it wasn't an even division, and I decided to fix it in post, which is to say, spin them each a proportional thickness and somehow end up with all three of them ending up the same length. 

No.  That did not work.  

But, the above yarn is delightfully unbalanced and sooo squishy, and I have no idea how much there is 'cause I was done with this "measuring things" horse pucky, so it's definitely enough for a cowl. 

Then there's this - a chain-plied super-thin I-can't-even-communicate-how-many-times-this-single-broke several hundred yards (I'm guessing, who knows) that is also soft like butter and goes from gray to yellow and back to gray.  

Other Stuff

Okay, I know I've been working on other stuff.  What, though?  Oh yes:

Baby Quilts

Here's a baby quilt top:

Okay, that's sideways.  I blame the pandemic.  This has a white inner border and spotty blue outer border now, which I have not photographed.  Due to my brilliant planning, this bad boy also has a zig zaggy green backing, though I'm not sure what the binding will be and any day now will drive an hour over bumpy, broken roads, don a mask, and use my birthday month coupon to buy some handsome binding at 20% off.  

This baby quilt, which has, since this terrible picture, been sewn together and is awaiting borders, is mostly Terrarium by Elizabeth Hartman.  I love it, a lot, and have reminded myself that having the best baby quilt ever in the history of the world is no reason to have another child.  (Children are so much work.)  I have a green on green butterfly backing for this and it will also need binding. 

Stuff More

The Tour de Fleece is happening, though the Tour de actual France is not.  I've spun more Nest in Good Intentions:

It is so pretty and happy and I love it and look forward to plying, which now that I think about it could happen tonight, given that last night I finished the first half of this:

Which is Frabjous Fibers merino in Cathedral (#235).  I feel like a total dilettante in my Hoar de Fleece group, with people who spin mostly fiber that looks like it grew on an animal and understand the difference between short and long draw and woolen and worsted spun.  I do none of those things, but they tolerate me anyway.  

Craft on, craftykins!

Something is done!

The baby raccoon is done!

Before grid was removed

 Tomorrow I'll soak and iron it.  

Woohoo!!

Happy crafting!

Ever closer and further

The urge to finish something burns stronger than ever, and yet I have started more projects.  This one can't be helped, though, because it is Time To Spin, and when it is Time To Spin, you spin.  Simple as that. 

This little beauty is Fiber Romance on merino/baby camel from Allons-y Fibers.  I got it last year, along with another nice one, of which I spun two plies - well, I divided for three plies, quite unevenly in fact, and decided oh, it's cool, I'll just spin one super-thin, one in between, and one super-thick!  Which I realized was probably pretty dumb, and it's time to spin the third chunk, and I deeply suspect that it's not going to turn out well.  But that's no reason to avoid spinning - it's just reason to avoid spinning that particular project. 

Come for the disjointed rambling, stay for the helpful life-hacks and abrupt transitions. 


Raccoon

So, all the colors of the raccoon have been used.  Not completed, which is why there are still what look, depressingly, like hundreds of little spaces that still need thread.  You know how you reach the end of a pregnancy, and you're like, whew, that's over, and then an eighth of a second later you realize that, actually, now you need to parent for the next 18 years?  Finishing the last color was a teeny bit like that. 

With spinning, I can make yarn.  With cross-stitch, I can make the final product look like the picture.  Eventually.  I think there are strategies for this type of intense full-coverage work - I know there are, in fact, have heard tell of them on faraway message boards, and even seen pictures.  Seems that some people do one square at a time, and some people "park" threads and move along a solid line diagonally (-ish) through the picture.  If people do "cross country," that is, doing one color at a time, they have a way of making sure that they're getting every stitch in each box of 100 stitches. 

That skill continues to elude me.  I pick a color and follow a path through that color, and when I can't be bothered to find any more of that color, I pick a new color.  Until now, of course - now I've got 17 needles threaded and am finishing square-by-square. 

This one time, a couple days ago, I shook my craft room like a Boggle game, really got those letters mixed up, looking for the "/" color, which had been an early one and which - shockingly - I had missed a dozen hundred of here and there.  Looked and looked, then gave up and ordered more because surely any day now, that little color will be all I have left. 

Aaand, of course, the next day I found it in with this little project:

Aquarius

which of course does not actually use that color, but it also involves embroidery thread, so. 

This is the Satsuma Street Aquarius stitch, and I love the colors on the black.  The black is harder to work with than white, but it's coming along okay.  The middle water curl on the left is missing a layer, but it doesn't affect the scaling of the rest of the piece, so I'm leaving it. 

I am writing this post now because I need to get this picture off of my camera because the little spy has probably already seen it.  That kid can sniff out a present at 50 paces.

Bag

Every once in awhile, I add some stitches to the bag. 

There is a lot of space to cover.  The bag does not feel pressing, because we are in the After Times, wherein we do not need to leave the house carrying bags.  At some point I suppose that will probably change, so I continue to work on the bag.  It involves lots of decisions, so there are times when I decide to work on the bag, stare at it for 11 minutes, and then decide to work on something else. 


Lion

Progress on the lion is slow and steady.  The lion is looking a little weird to me these days.  Definitely occupying the "what was I thinking, again?" spot in the lineup.  However, it is easy to work on this a tiny bit at a time, so I do at least a little on it most days. 

Bright Birches

...are not even close to being finished, or progressing at all.  My desk is like a beach, and when the tide is in, you can't lay a cutting mat down on the sand and cut stuff.  Well, people, the tide is in.  No telling when it will go out.  Hopefully once one of the darn above things is finished. 

Happy crafting!