Beads!

I've spent a few nights this week working on stringing the beads for my Shipwreck shawl. As I said last time, the pattern calls for 5000 beads. I've strung about 1000 beads using a dental floss threader. It was slow going at first since the threader is rather flimsy and I wasn't able to just skim it through the jar of beads and pick them up. I was picking up a few beads between my fingers and more or less feeding them onto the threader. Very tedious. I've since discovered I can put a small pile of beads in the palm of my hand and pick them up with the threader pretty easily (note to self, get a big eye needle!) This has greatly speeded up the process, not to mention saved the fatigue on my fingers. The pattern calls for 8/0 seed beads, which is what I bought. I tested a few I had on hand before placing my order and thought they would work fine. Now that I have many strung, they seem a bit small. They fit rather snugly on the yarn. I guess that's good, they won't shift around when the are placed in the shawl. And with the number of beads needed, using 6/0 would add quite a bit of weight. I finished the Madeira pattern this morning. A few more knit rows then the stitch count doubles and I start the net. I'm excited to start beading. The shawl has been fun so far. The net is going to be tedious. 590 stitches per round. All yo/k2tog. For a jillion rows. For some people, this time flies, for others it's mind numbingly boring. I don't know which camp I'll land in, hopefully the first!!

Knitting roundup

Finally, a finished object.

These are the Purl When Ready socks from The Big Book of Socks knit in Liberty's Yarn Bluetopia Tea Party. The color defies photography, they are much prettier in person. The yarn is a light fingering with a tight twist. Knit on US 0 needles it produced a dense yet still drape-able fabric. The socks are very comfortable and I hope the combination of tight twist yarn knit at a firm gauge will result in a long lasting pair of socks. I am not a fan of knitting socks at this gauge because they seem to take forever. My current sock projects are the Hermione's Everyday sock in Wollmeise Twin and a plain vanilla sock in Knitter's Brewing Company Sockaholic. Both of are true to heavy fingering weight, much more pleasurable to knit.

Most of my knitting time the last week has been devoted to my new obsession, the Shipwreck Shawl. I have no idea what triggered this wild hare, but I am smitten. Shipwreck is a circular shawl knit in fingering weight yarn. The center is a lace medallion made of 3 separate designs. The rest of the shawl is a randomly beaded net pattern. I'm knitting mine as the pattern calls for in Knit Picks Bare Gloss yarn. After the shawl is complete you dye it. I intend to dye mine similar to the original, a stormy blue/gray.

This picture was taken a few days ago having finished the center strawberry pattern, bleeding hearts pattern and just beginning the final motif, Madeira. I am now 2/3 done with Madeira. The charts are pretty easy to follow, 10 stitch repeats. There is some trickiness with some of the rows where you have to move your starting row marker. This was confusing to me at first, especially the rows where you move the marker to the right. I've had 2 rows with mistakes that I had to tink back (un-knit each stitch, one by one) entire rows. This is very frustrating and time consuming, but in lace you just can't fudge over mistakes. It is pretty easy to spot mistakes on the next row, though, so I've not had to tink back more than one row. I hope to start the beaded net by midweek. I purchased my beads from Artbeads (love them). I couldn't find a bead mix anywhere that floated my boat, so I made my own using 10 different shades of blue and black.

They are all Toho rounds size 8/0. Colors include: Amethyst Gunmetal, Navy Iris, Rainbow Black Diamond, Rainbow Moss Green, Iris Gray, Matte Gunmetal, Metallic Hematite, Matte Metallic Navy Iris, Silver-lined Sapphire, Deep Plum-lined Aqua. I think the mix is beautiful and am anxious to see how it looks on the shawl. The pattern calls for 5000 beads. Most of the tips and hints I've read advise not to string them all at once. I'll probably work on stringing later today so I'm ready to go when I reach the net.

Button jar

Hands up everyone that loves button jars. If you grew up with a grandma, mom or aunt who sewed, you probably know the joy that is a button jar. They are an endless source of fun for a child...sorting by color or size or number of holes, just rolling it around to hear the sound it makes. As an adult, I think they are aesthetically beautiful. Not to mention useful if you lose a button or are a crafter like me. And anyone who sews knows buttons are not that cheap any more. All the more reason my heart leaped when I found this little gem at the flea market today.

A jar full of green buttons marked $4.50 (although the vendor only charged me $4, sweet). C asked me what I had planned for them. Nothing really. They'll sit on the shelf and look pretty. I'll pluck a gem here and there when I have need. The kid in me could not resist dumping them all out when I got home and looking for treasure.

The jar did not disappoint. These were my favorites. Look at those colors! And see the nifty little 3 leaf clover on that one? Gotta find a special project for that one. Later I'll sort them and see how many are singles and how many are sets. The 8 year old in me is beaming.

Massive catching up post

I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I posted! Summer leaves me lethargic and not all that talkative. But it's time for a bit of a catch up.

I read Mint Julep Murder by Carolyn Hart. This was the first time I've read one of her books. Sometimes her style rubbed me the wrong way but in hindsight I think it could be that I just didn't know the characters backgrounds (this book was #9 in a series) so some things were assumed the reader knew and understood, but I didn't. Other than that, I really enjoyed the book. Lots of red herrings and false leads so that it looked like just about ANYONE could have been the murderer.

I also finally got around to finishing Size 12 Is Not Fat by Meg Cabot. This was another good read. Not a diet or exercise or motivation book, despite the title. It's a cozy mystery set on a college campus in New York City. The story revolves around a now-grown pop singer, Heather Wells, who's trying to make a go in life after her singing career ended. This murder was much easier to solve pretty early on, but Heather is a fun character who is easy to relate to. It looks like there may be more books in this series too which I think would be worth a look.

I started The Something That Happened in Pepperville but have set it aside. I'm all for quirky towns and quirky characters, but this one goes to extremes. Not a character or place was introduced that didn't have some weird foible. I need at least a bit of normalcy in there somewhere. Now I'm on to Frankly My Dear I'm Dead. Not far enough to make comments but chapter one was good. Oh, that is when I'm not playing word games. Amazon released 2 word games for Kindle this week which I'm finding WAY too addicting.

Sewing...I'm once again making bags for my Etsy shop and hope to get them listed in the next month or so. They still need buttons and photos taken, but I'm getting closer. I also just sewed the cutest little pair of house slippers.

The pattern comes from Amy Karol (Mail order #9). The sizes included are S (5-6), M (7-8) and L (9-10). I wear a size 8 1/2 shoe so I fall right in the middle. I tried the medium, but it's too small. Will try the large next time. I also used polar fleece for the soles rather than the cotton duck/canvas she calls for. So much cushier. The top fabric is a vintage cotton found at Shupp's Grove a few weeks back. These are perfect summer slippers.

I'm back to knitting. I finished the Multnomah shawl.

Used about 1 1/2 balls for 100purewool lace weight held double on US 5 needles. I did 13 lace repeats rather than 10. I could have done more for a larger shawl, but I just wanted it to be done. The pattern is easy and it's a cute little shawlette. I'm not crazy about the garter stitch middle. If I were to knit it again I'd probably do stockinette stitch.

I've been longing for a denim sweater since I first heard about the yarn (indigo dyed cotton yarn that fades and shrinks like denim jeans). There are several companies that produce denim yarn. When Elann announced a bag sale of True Blue denim yarn, I jumped at the chance to get a sweaters-worth for under $40.  The color is medium blue and I bought 2 bags of the same dye lot. I found the dye to be very inconsistent throughout the bags though. Some balls are much lighter than others. They evened out a bit in the wash, but I can still see where I changed balls.

I designed the pattern myself using Knitwear. Knit on Bond USM, keyplate 1, ribbing handknit on US 4 needles, 13 balls of Elle True Blue Denim yarn. Took only 5 days to complete (over the course of 3 weekends, working only a few hours at a time). I love my sweater machine for plain sweaters! After washing the sweater is so incredibly soft and light. I've got 7 balls left and am debating ordering another bag to make a sweater for C as well. I'm not really into matchy/matchy couples, but we could just make a point not to wear them at the same time! :)

Not even trying anymore

Remember way back in December when I talked about going on a yarn diet? How I was going to be good and knit from stash and not just buy yarn for the sake of buying yarn? Yeah, lets just try to forget that lofty goal. I've failed AGAIN. And with the whole not actually knitting thing going on, I feel strangely compelled to buy yarn so at least something is happening in my fiber world. It's a sickness, I know.

So here's the current fail. A week or so ago I got a ding on Ravelry that my name was mentioned on the Knitter's Brewing Company group. So I clicked over to see why. Lo and behold, I won their monthly drawing for a free skein of yarn. Sweet! I had only just discovered the site a week or two before that and signed up for the drawing on a whim. Lucky me! The indy dyer behind KBC, Wendy, uses a micro-brewery theme for her collection and has based all her yarns on cocktails. She has multi-color skeins as well as semi-solids. All sock yarns (75% superwash wool/25% nylon). I couldn't narrow my decision down to just one color and since she runs sales every Thursday (and this just happened to be a Thursday) I went ahead and ordered 2 skeins along with my freebie. The yarn arrived super quick, and adorably packaged.

Each skein is wrapped in tissue paper and nestled into its own foil stamped bag. I need to get pictures of the yarns unwrapped so you can see their gorgeousness, but there was a bit of an accident (involving a cat with a hairball, 'nuf said) so one of the yarns need to be washed (yuck) so no glamor shots just yet. The colors are lovely. The blue is called "Old Fashioned" and the grey is "Greyhound". These are both semi solids with subtle variations in tone. The pink multi is "Cabernet Harvest". It was much more pink in the skein than I had anticipated. However, when I unfurled the hank I discovered rich burgundys and dark olive greens hiding. Wendy includes a free pattern with each skein of yarn you buy. I chose Stashbuster and With a Twist. I also picked up a Knit Happy notepad which contains little post it notes, post it arrows and a notepad. Can't wait to get to knit some of this up!!

Tuesday, July 5, 2010 5:45 pm

Yeah, right. That reads 104. No joke. Almost 6 o'clock in the evening and it's over 100 degrees.

More sewing

This weekend's post was supposed to be all about Tour de Fleece (a spinning challenge that coincides with the bicycling race, Tour de France). A month or so back I signed up with the Knit Girllls team with a goal of spinning 10 minutes a day during the tour. Alas, I'm still sidelined by my achy hands so I'm going to bow out before I even start. If you are interested in more information on TdF, check out the official group on Ravelry.

On the plus side, I am starting to notice improvements in my hands. My left wrist is doing much better and only gives me problems occasionally. I was even able to do some weight training this week, still no push ups though. My right thumb still hurts but it too is showing signs of improvement. The last few nights I've been putting a hot pack on it rather than ice and I'm feeling quite a bit better. I've been able to knit a bit, maybe 30 minutes each day since Friday. I wear a support on my left hand and have my right thumb wrapped so I remember not to use it. I'm hopefully I can avoid the trip to the chiropractor if improvement continues.

So instead of knitting, I've been doing tons of sewing. Last weekend I sewed 2 bags with some of the fabric from Burkholders (and some stash fabric). The first is a purse from the fabulous One Yard Wonders book.

This is the Flouncy Bag. It's much smaller than the Namaste bag I've been carrying, which took some getting used to. But the lighter weight and cotton fabric make it much more summer friendly.

Also from this book I made the Better than a Box cat bed.

This was a bit fiddley to sew, but the results are very well loved by the feline population of our home. I stuffed the bed with the leftover wool batting and some random wool leftovers I had laying around.

Next up is a little tote bag that's made using 3 fat quarters of fabric.

I found the pattern online, but am not linking it because the pattern has issues. The designer must have larger fat quarters than I can get (you know those things are never cut square and you rarely get the 18x22" you're supposed to) because I couldn't get the pieces she calls for from my FQs. So I just used her basic idea and came up with my own bag.

The fabrics are reversed from one side to the next. It's a perfect little lunch bag size.

Last up is a nearly instant sundress. JoAnn Fabric had this cheater fabric on sale this weekend.The top is shirred with elastic and the bottom is a full skirt.

For $9 I got enough fabric for a dress and ribbon to use for straps. All you do is sew up the 2 cut edges, add straps and you are done! You could cut the bottom down and hem it if you wanted a shorter dress. But since this is strictly for around-the-house-wear for me, the selvage finished edge is just fine for now.

How to Sew a Button

I just finished up the book How to Sew a Button by Erin Bried. This quaint little book serves up the wisdom of our grandmothers in easy to follow steps. The tips range from the useful for everyone...(how to sew a button, how to grocery shop and how to spring clean) to the useful for those of us who yearn to be more like our grandmothers...(how to roast a chicken, how to hang a wash line and how to play crazy 8s). There's practical tips about budgeting and saving. Cooking, cleaning and sewing tips abound. There's stuff you'd never think to find in a how to book, like how to make friends with the neighbors or how to greet your honey after a hard day (lest you feminists balk, she's quick to point out this tip goes both ways). Everything is presented with a light heart and charming attitude. Each tip starts out with a pithy comment from "the grandmothers" who contributed to the book. There a kitschy, retro drawings scattered throughout the book as well. All in all an entertaining but educational read. Downside, makes me REALLY miss my grandmas!

Squee!!!

Zero knitting

My hands are rebelling against me and I'm unable to knit. I've not knit a stitch in almost 7 days which is probably some kind of record since I've taken up the hobby. The problems I'm having were probably brought on by the new exercise routines I've been following lately, but knitting definitely aggravates the pain so it's off limits for now.

Instead I've been reading. I'm still on the aromatherapy kick and am working my way through a pile of books on the subject. Last week I finished the Aromatherapy Bible. The book is small in dimension but still nearly 400 pages. It is one of the best references I've read on aromatherapy. The topics are concise but thorough. The book covers various techniques for using aromatherapy, has a large essential oil reference section and plenty of recipes. I foresee turning to this book often.

I'm about half way through Essential Aromatherapy (the 1995 edition). This book is somewhat dated (there's a reference to Princess Diana using aromatherapy!) But the principles are still good. There are handy reference tables in various configurations making it easy to search for oils by name or by condition you wish to address. This too will be a book I keep on the shelf, but if you are looking to get a copy for yourself, perhaps consider the updated version.

On my Kindle I'm still reading Mossy Creek. This book is delightful. A perfect summer read. Each chapter introduces a new citizen of Mossy Creek and tells a story about them and their involvement in the town. The tales build on each other very subtly with previous characters showing up in the sidelines here and there. The characters are funny and smart and the stories are engaging. I'm sure I'll be picking up more books from this series as time goes on.

C and I made our first trek to Shupp's Grove this morning. We got there early, right when they opened, and found many vendors still closed. This flea market is very laid back compared to most where it's all a hustle and bustle. Located in what appears to be an old wooded campground, Shupp's Grove is a cool, dipped in nature oasis. The folks there are friendly. Bargains abound and we usually find something to spark our interest. I picked up an old Corning dish to use as a bird bath and C found some old comics. On the way home we found Burkholder's fabric store was open and stopped in to have a look around. Oh wow, what a store! There are 3 huge rooms STUFFED with fabric.

I picked up 2 one yard cuts of some vintage looking fabrics and a slew of fat quarters (you can get 20 fq for $25, that's half price!) Now I really have no idea what I'll do with 25 fat quarters, but since I'm not knitting at the moment, this will at least give me something crafty to play with!