Monday 31 July 2023
Zipping Along.
Friday 28 July 2023
Thursday 27 July 2023
A River of Beauty
Wednesday 26 July 2023
Repairs
Tuesday 25 July 2023
Old Projects
Monday 24 July 2023
Onward Big Blankets, Ho
Friday 21 July 2023
Eye popping
Thursday 20 July 2023
Emmett's Blankie
Wednesday 19 July 2023
A little bit of knitting.
Tuesday 18 July 2023
Knitting on a Monday
Monday 17 July 2023
Variable things
Again with the fuzzy yarn.
Wednesday 12 July 2023
One More to Go. For Now.
And done. I finished up the big Granny Square blanket using the remainders of the Bernat Blanket yarn for Owen or Emmett. I have to finish another before I dare to visit again. The boys are waiting and hoping I will have theirs ready very soon.
The ends remain to be woven in but that won't take long. While I was working on this blanket, Cassie was playing with the very few ends of yarn that there were.
Tuesday 11 July 2023
Hoist By my Own Petard
I have been busy this last bit with grandkids and there is more to come. Cassie is here again, to visit and sew.
About the only thing I have been working on the last few days is a second blanket to use up all the remaining fuzzy yarns.
I am using the biggest slippy crochet hook I have. I cannot remember the size. Though I have a couple bigger hooks, they seem to be sticky with the yarn and I was not enjoying the process at all. I switched hooks and even though the fabric is a bit tighter, the overall project is much more fun to work. The blanket will loosen in the wash.
Wednesday 5 July 2023
Feeling Good About Handwork
I got a lot done yesterday.
Everett's blanket is moving right along. I am on the final colour section where the main colourful mixed bright is interrupted with pops of green and pinky orange ridges. I am hoping to get it completed today, though it is going to depend on my hands. I am finding that I can only knit short spurts of this chunky yarn before I need to break. Still it is moving along and I am pretty sure that my goal of tomorrow by lunch is doable. I am going to speed the finishing by weaving some of the ends in while I have to take the knitting breaks.
The other thing I worked on yesterday was my gauge swatch for Joji Locatelli's Newspaper pullover. I am practising two colour brioche, particularly the increasing, at the same time as trying to figure out what the gauge will be in this yarn combination. The yarns are heavier than the yarn specified by Joji but they are both quite soft yarns that have a tendency to thin out when they are worked. Manufacturers gauge isn't always what we end up with when we have a fabric we like. The two yarns are Incense from Elann, a wool silk and bamboo blend and Alpaca Peru from Diamond Yarns, both discontinued. The pure alpaca is a slighter yarn than the Incense so I am holding a strand of a pure wool laceweight, Knitpicks Shadow hoping to give the blue a bit of wools durability and bounce back. I am going to knit a fair sized swatch and I am going to wash them and do a bit of a hang test to see how they will perform together. I don't want one yarn to sag and the other to sit nicely. If they sag, fine, but they both should be doing the same thing. I hope to work on the swatch a bit more today.
Todays work is getting buttons on my lovely green and blue Elton.
I have worn it already and it is really the perfect thing for chilly summer mornings.
The summer weather here means a light sweater over whatever else we wear for the even the nicest of mornings. I find I am wearing my variation of Threipmuir with my dresses routinely and my Blue Granito is getting a regular wearing too. I love the way these shorter sweaters work with the dresses, providing just enough warmth till the heat of the day sets in.
But the weather can be very changeable too. The last few days have been full winter gear with undershirts, socks, and heavy sweaters being worn, topped with scarves and shawls. I was really wishing my winter sewing was done so that I could wear my long johns under my warm pants too.
The blast of cold gave me the chance to appreciate the way things I have chosen to make, colours I have picked to knit and to sew with go together. I love how comfortable my clothes all are to wear and how the fit is so much nicer than anything I could ever buy. I have a very few things that are not handmade any more and when those are gone, the replacements will be handmade too. (The exception is undergarments. I am not sewing or otherwise making undergarments. Nope. No sirree.)
This is my joy. It isn't dancing in the streets though sometimes it makes me feel like I could do that. It isn't shouting out to the world that I did this, though sometimes I have on this blog. This is quiet contentment and deep satisfaction. My outside feels like it matches my inside for the first time in a long time.
Monday 3 July 2023
Bernat Blanket
I kept working on Everett's blanket today.
I hope to have this ready by Thursday afternoon. I want to deliver it to my wee sweet thing so he can start using it right away.
in spaint
Sunday 2 July 2023
After Frittering
It was a busy past few days. But absolutely marvelous. Marcus was with me and it was wonderful. We laughed, we cried (about Casper, his special kitty), we danced, well he did and with had a very good time doing and talking about all sorts of things.
Along the way, while he was busy doing something else, I managed to finish all the ends on my sweater. The photo is fuzzy but the sweater is good. Better than good. I just needs to find some buttons.
Forgive the fuzziness. Marcus took the photo and was laughing while he did so. Eight year old giggling means wiggles. The sweater is wonderful and I put my arm out to show you the fit of it. It is the exact perfect amount of ease. And the yarn is something else. The yarn is two shades of Fleece Artist 2/8 BFL and the pattern is Joji Locatelli's Elton.
That left me time to get a good start on the blanket for Everett. I wasn't sure about Marcus' yarn choice but you know what? I kind of like it.
The yarn is the giant balls of Bernat Blanket Brights. I could put the colour choice down to Marcus, but we both just had to have the brilliant multi colour. We would have liked to have the brilliant blue for the ridges in the pattern along with my favourite neon green, but it was not to be. We will get by with the lighter highlighter yellow green and the hot pink. It will be a plain feather and fan pattern with two stitches either side to set the edge.
It is wonderfully soft and is knitting up much easier than I thought it would. I actually think it would be really great used as a towelish blanket for after baths but I will have to wash my sample to see if it holds up. No matter what else it is, it will be eye poppingly bright.