Second One Done

At FabricLand, I was pleased to learn that everything I wanted (zippers, elastic) was 50% off. I stocked up on some 16" zippers, particularly one for the project bag I wanted to finish.

I then stopped into ValueVillage to see if they had the Pyrex bowl I wanted to replace one I had broken a couple of weeks ago. And they had one! Looking it up online it is listed in some places as a 'vintage' Pyrex ribbed mixing bowl. 

I also picked up a potato ricer. I remember us having one when I was a kid. They were great for starting the potato mashing process.

Back at home I finished assembling the grey and black project bag. Final measurements are about 12" x 12".

Now I'm inspired to make a bunch more with some fat quarters and finally nail down the dimensions for my printed instructions.

I Need Two Project Bags

I have so many UFOs that are filling the dozen+ project bags I already have that I have to make a couple more.

I had  all the pieces cut out of this fabric from my stash.

I had white lining and a black zipper. I got the fronts and vinyl all sewn together and went to attach the zipper and I couldn't find it! I have no idea where I put it after hauling it out of my zipper bin. That stopped me in my tracks so I regrouped and selected another fabric, lining, vinyl, and zipper and started another bag.

All went pretty well. The fabric was directional so I did have to fiddle with it a bit. I really need to write down the cutting instructions if using directional fabric because every bag I've made with it comes out differently. 

I had everything sewn together and got everything turned right side out and for once, I closed the opening at the bottom of the lining with the machine. when I went to zip it up I realized I had cut the zipper tab off! Ermagerd! I'd never done that before. What a bonehead. 

So I unpicked the stitches on the right side, exposed the ends of the zipper and slid the tab onto the tracks. Then I tucked everything back in and topstitched everything back together. It's hardly noticeable and I didn't have to disassemble the whole project to do it.

See? That doesn't look so bad. I also had clipped that same corner too close and it popped out to I tucked it back in and glued it in place. 

So here's the Timepieces project bag. It came out about 14" square. I just used white lining. I don't remember if it's broadcloth or muslin. 

I really must sit down and figure out how big to cut the back properly when working with directional fabric. The clocks go every which-way but the background columns are definitely directional. I did it correctly this time. I also need to write the instructions for making these bags with fat quarters (only 18" high). The vinyl window just needs to be bigger. It's easy arithmetic but I just haven't taken the time to do it.

I'm going to whip out to Fabricland and buy some more zippers before it closes. As soon as I get home I know I'll find that black zipper. 

I Went Ahead

I finished the wavy stitches. This left 24 threads from one wave to the other and meant that the outram pattern would go right up to the wavy stitches. Sylvia and Marion encouraged us to only do this much and wait 'til the next session to go ahead on the outram stitches. 

If I were to do this again, I'd do the tussock stitches one thread away from the backstitching, then the wavy. This would make 26 sts and one thread space between the outram and the wavy.

But I went ahead anyway. I started one colour of the outram stitches. Now I wish I had used a single ply of DMC on this.

This is one side of the needlebook finished. I think one ply of the dark blue would have balanced better with the lighter blue Sulky. The lighter blue looks like elaborate stars rather than outram stitches the same as the dark blue. The overall effect is good, though, IMHO.

I like this kind of counted stitching and now am keen to get my hands on more patterns like this - Wessex or otherwise. 

This project won't take that long to finish up. the seaming of the back to the front will be easily done with whip stitches much like when stitching up a biscornu. 

I'm actually keen on designing and stitching a biscornu. Teresa Kogut will be releasing at least one biscornu pattern at Market in March. There are so many cute elements to her and other's patterns that would lend themselves to biscornus.

I got more done on the ripple blanket. It is very cozy draping it over myself while I work on it on these chilly nights. Skip and I have been really enjoying the fireplace. There's nothing cozier than a cracking wood fire.

And here we are - another weekend ahead. This isolation because of COVID is really becoming old. I am so grateful for the regular connections I have with my spinning and stitching friends and an entertaining husband. Without them would be a very unhappy camper.
 

Wessex Needlebook 2.0, Ripple Blanket Progress, and Aromatherapy

After receiving Sylvia's photo and consulting with my stitchy friends, I decided to start another needlebook. I just happened to have some 28ct white linen in my stash.

I kept the blue Sulky thread and the acid green thread and swapped out the yellow Sulky for a deep blue DMC thread.

I changed the 4-sided stitches to over 2 threads and used the darker blue. The green looks like yellow in this photo but it's really acid/neon green. The tussock sts are the blue Sulky.

Our big concern is that we have enough room between the three wavy rows at the top and bottom for the 'outram' stitches. 

I received the cushioned crochet hook set from Amazon the other day. To my dismay there was no 4.25mm hook which I was using for my ripple blanket. I should have looked closer at the description. Oh well, I'm using the 4.5mm needle instead. So what if it's slightly larger? The other hooks are standard sizes so I'm happy with them.

This project is great for doing while TV watching. Even better, I can drape the finished part over myself to keep warm while I'm crocheting.

It's about 75cm (30") long so far. The red strips are 5" high and the black ones, 4". If I do 6 red strips and 5 black strips it will be about 125cm (50") long which is close enough to the desired 140cm (55") length.

I finished knitting the Hydrangea cowl and just need to block it.

It's really cold today -4C with bone-chilling winds. Glad I don't have to be out in it.

I also made some firestarters from some pinecones, tealights, and muffin papers. It was a thing I saw on some website or other - similar to this one. Seeing as I have several essential oil scents on hand I added a drop of peppermint oil to each of the muffin cups. 

My tea lights had really short wicks so I had to stick them to the tops of the muffin cup. The pinecones were collected years ago and had been hanging in the garage in my mom's old string shopping bag since then. They were perfect for this project because they had flat bottoms. To provide an alternative to the very short wick I stuck a match with the striking side up into the side of each muffin cup. That can be easily lit with the lighter as well as the little wick. Between them, it should ignite the pinecone and get the fire started.

Skip and I have been putting on the fireplace every one of these really cold evenings. It makes the family room very toasty and comfortable - very conducive to crocheting and knitting.

Speaking of essential oils, I have been interested in trying some just for something different while indoors all winter. At our local Healthy Planet store I found a 4-pack sampler for only $19.99 CAD.

My pack had sweet orange instead of the eucalyptus pictured above as well as the other three: lavender, peppermint, and tea tree (melaleuca). I subsequently bought a little bottle of eucalyptus oil and may procure some others like lemon, bergamot, or rosemary.

I agonized over what diffuser to buy and if I needed a carrier oil like almond oil but decided to just put a couple of drops on a folded tissue instead and not bring another appliance into the house. I've been using lavender in the bedroom, sweet orange in the kitchen, and eucalyptus in the powder room. Skip even likes the aromas so that is a bonus. Had he not liked the smells I would have limited my 'aromatherapy' to my office and also the dining room where I seem to have established a workroom.

So for a very small investment, we're enjoying having nice aromas in the house on these days when we're feeling like shut-ins.

Brief Power Outage

During my Monday Morning Stitchers' Zoom chat today, the power (many Canadians call it 'hydro') went out. I checked our breakers (they were all on) then called our power utility (cellular service was still working) but the lines were all tied up so I knew it was wider than just our house. Finally the map was updated to show the outage was almost all of SE Whitby. 

I started planning how I would spend my day until the power came back on: starting a fire in the fireplace to keep us warm in this -10C weather, stitching beside the window, starting the gas stove with matches just like the old days, taking a lot nap, etc.

I continued stitching on the project that I had been working on during our call. In about 1.5 hours,  the power was restored. Within 5 minutes of the power coming back on we got a telemarketing call. Sheesh! I may have used bad language before hanging up.

 I finished the stitch I was working on in the Wessex stitch needlebook and now am deciding what to do now that I can watch some YouTube videos and easily go about my day. I may still take a nap, though.

I finished the Algerian eyelets - the light green 'o's of the 'x's and 'o's. 

Next will be the tussock stitches. I haven't decided what colours to use yet. I'm already planning a second one which and what colours I'll use. It would be easy to design a little scissor fob. Between smalls exchanges at  StitchNorth at the beginning of April (fingers crossed) and  with the guild in either June or September, I have a couple of definite deadlines.

Skip and I watched the Bills/Chiefs game last night. At halftime, I checked my email and received a video from Sharon about a group ukulele program with Jann Arden singing Glen Campbell's 'Try a Little Kindness'. I ran upstairs and hauled out my little uke, tuned it up (all strings are tuned up a tone for my beginner skills) and played along with the video. Then, of course, I had to look for more ukulele videos to play along. 

I made it back downstairs for the last 5 minutes of the game just as everything started going crazy. Chiefs were ahead, then the Bills, then the Chiefs, then it looked like the Bills would win. We were screaming and dancing around. I was madly texting Francey in Colorado and Jeanette in Bowmanville who were also watching the game. Then the Chiefs tied it up as the clock ran out. Damn! Overtime! 

The rules determined that whoever scored first would win and the Chiefs did. We were SO disappointed. It was so deflating. A pall fell over our house as I am sure happened all over western NY state. There had been such a build-up in Buffalo and now, once again, they got kicked to the curb. Josh Allen was awesome but Mahomes was outstanding. The Bills just need better defense.

Oh well. One more weekend then a couple of weeks off 'til the LXI SuperBowl. I think I might even order takeout chicken wings for that.

A few things on my crafty to-do list:

• work on Louisa Acton/Cordelia Peacock
• work on Wessex needlebook
• sew 2 project bags for the two projects above
• do some work on UFOs
• practice painting some more spring flowers
• crochet more on the ripple blanket (new cushined crochet hooks are supposed to be delivered today)
• maybe play my ukulele a bit more this afternoon
• plan what we'll have with our baked salmon tonight
• bundle up and walk to the community mailbox

There is no end to fun stuff to do. 

Starting the Wessex Needlebook

I wanted to start the Wessex needlebook last night but got hung up trying to decide where and how to do the 4-sided stitch - whether to do it over 4 threads (2 stitches in the instructions) or over 2 threads. The I couldn't figure out how to do the corners for it to work in the centre. I was overthinking it.

Today I realized the 4-sided stitch didn't need to be centred on the centre 8 threads so I started in.

While chatting with the Crafternoon folks, we all coached each other through the 'x's (yellow), 'o's (green Algerian eyelets), and backstitching. Jeanette, Marilyn, and I decided how we would do the tussock stitches.

Jeanette did her 4-sided stitch over 2 threads as did probably everyone else. 

The 'x's and 'o's looked like spring colours so I added a 4th colour, the pink for the backstitching. I'm ready to start the tussock stitches but I'll finish the 'o's first. 

Taking a break for the end of the Bills game...
 

A New Crochet Technique

 A crochet tutorial from Annie's appeared on Facebook. I was intrigued. 

Hannah Cross of HanJan clearly explained a type of mosaic crochet. I dug out a couple of yarns from my acrylic stash and followed her steps and was able to create a little swatch. 

It wasn't that difficult. It would be easier doing this in the round as you're always crocheting from right to left. Doing it flat, you have to cut your yarn at the end of every row. It would be cool for a hat pattern. 

Annie's has a couple of Hannah's patterns. This tutorial was for the basics of the Splash of Colour Afghan. 

Because it's primarily single crochet, I would probably not choose to do a whole blanket but a hat might be fun. I'd have to figure out my gauge and some negative ease so it wouldn't fall off my little head.

I really enjoy learning new things. I'm also considering investing in some crochet hooks with good grips. I'm volleying between plastic handles which are really inexpensive and silicone handles which are 2.5x more. I don't crochet much and do have a box of hooks that I bought at a yard sale that covers every possible size including teeny tiny ones that can go through small beads for beadwork in knitting. I have, however, been doing more crocheting lately to use up more and more of my stash and have been donating the 45" x 55" afghans to our local hospital for chemo patients.

A few months ago I crocheted a swatch of a buffalo check from another YouTube tutorial from Daisy Farm Crafts. She calls it 'gingham'. I learned how to carry the yarns by capturing them in each stitch from colour to colour. You can see the how the pink is carried through the white stitches.

The stitch pattern was a combination of single and double crochets called 'griddle stitch'. I liked the effect but it was too fiddly for my liking. If I were to stitch it, I'd definitely use a large crochet hook so the resulting fabric would be somewhat loose. I don't really like the feel of tight, 'bulletproof' crocheting for and blanket.

I have finished the main lace pattern on my Hydrangea cowl and have started the edge. It involves casting on 12 provisional stitches, joining it perpendicularly to the bottom of the cowl, and working another lace pattern back and forth on those 12 stitches, joining the 12th stitch purlwise to the edge stitch of the bottom of the lace 'tube'. No pics right now but I should be able to finish it tonight.

Skip and I are going to watch a Netflix movie, 'Definition, Please' about a spelling bee champion who is struggling to live up to her full potential as an adult. It got 100% on the Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer. That's certainly good enough for me.

This afternoon I will start my Wessex Stitch needlebook that several guild members are doing as a project. We had a great tutorial by Sylvia and Marion who stitched it ahead of time and have warned us about several tricky things in the pattern and some of the pitfalls we may encounter.

Lastly, I love word puzzles and have recently become intrigued by the online word game, Wordle (not an app). I had seen some Facebook friends posting their scores and I had FOMO and checked it out. It's pretty fun. Some cheeky musician developed one for choral music called Byrdle (as in the English Renaissance composer, William Byrd).

I hope you aren't getting whiplash from all my digressions and tangents lately. Being cooped up has my mind whirling a lot of the time but my body isn't quite as cooperative. I flit from one thing to the next.

Guild Stitching

 I got a bunch done on my Louisa Acton yesterday during the Crafternoon chat. 

I started the basket and got most of it done.

The brown on the basket is a 6th colour. I have deviated so much from the original colours and name that I probably should just say my Cordelia Peacock sampler was inspired by the Louisa Acton one.

I have selected the fabrics to make myself another project bag as I have so many UFOs I don't have one to spare.

I frogged about half of the cowl I'm knitting and have reknit it up to where I was. The lace is going much better now that I'm not trying to do it while watching an exciting football game.

Snowmageddon 2022, Knitting, and Darning Socks

We got a big dump of snow Sunday night into Monday morning. It basically crippled this part of central Ontario. It's been 2 decades since we had so much in one snowfall. Here in Whitby, we had the greatest snowfall of anywhere in Ontario. That's about 20" in one snowfall for those of you living in Liberia, Myanmar, or the USA.

Schools were supposed to go back to in-class learning for the first time since the Christmas holidays but in most regions, elementary schools stayed closed and secondary schools pivoted to online learning. Yesterday was the same. In all my years teaching in this region, I only remember one day that our school closed and that wasn't until about 10am when the central office realized enough staff and teachers couldn't make it in to supervise kids that had been dropped off or who could still walk to school. Otherwise, on a big snow day, buses don't run but schools normally stay open to receive students whose parents can't keep them at home.

Skip and I shovelled for almost 3 hours on Monday morning. A neighbour had used his snowblower on our sidewalk but we still had to clear our front porch, walkway, double driveway, walkway to the back yard, paved area in the back yard between the gate and our laundry room door and a bit of our deck off the kitchen from the sliding door to the steps down to the lawn. This is my laundry room door and the gate in the centre. Our little woodpile against the fence had about 40cm (15") of snow. There are two steps down to the ground.

The snow was not really wet as temps stayed below freezing but it the accumulation made it very heavy. We whittled away at it with our little snowblower, scrapers, and shovels. The snowplough had come by early that morning so there was deep heavy stuff at the bottom of the driveway. That almost killed us.

I had to quit after about 2 hours and Skip finished up the bottom of the driveway. I took a Tylenol before going to bed and was surprised that I wasn't a wreck the next day.  It was beautiful and sunny and just above freezing. 

But the damned plough had come by again early Tuesday morning so we were tasked with removing all the ice and snow at the bottom of the driveway again.

I did as much as I could and again, Skip finished up. Any bits that had exposure to the sun dried right up but made the snow quite crusty and harder to remove. My back was really sore in the afternoon and has been since then. 

I had a nice FaceTime chat with long-time friend, Francey, in Colorado in the afternoon. We email and message back and forth but it was nice to FaceTime with her.

We had about an inch of snow last night so of course the plough came by again and, of course, Skip is out there cleaning out the bottom of the driveway. 

With all the COVID restrictions, we've been cocooning at home. Skip got a bunch of groceries yesterday so we're good for several days without having to run too many errands. It's supposed to get really cold so all the nicely melting snow will freeze and make skating rinks out of all our streets. 

We are investigating getting a bigger and more powerful snowblower. A local place still has several in stock.

I didn't do a lot yesterday except finish darning some socks. Yes, I darn my hand-knitted socks. When i spend 16 - 20 hours knitting a pair, I'll be damned if I'll throw them away just because I've worn holes in the bottoms of them.

Katwijker socks are one of my favourites and I've knit at least 3 pairs of socks in that pattern.

On the most recent pair I knit, I continued the Eye of Partridge, slipped stitch pattern onto the bottom of the  heel and added nylon reinforcing yarn.

However the previous ones had worn right through. 

I picked up stitches below the worn part, and knit an eye of partridge flap beyond the worn part then grafted the flap to that area and then tacked the flap down both sides with whip stitches. It's not pretty but it did the job.

I still had remnants of a similar yarn so it actually blends in quite well.

It took me all afternoon to do both socks but I'm happy to be able to wear them again.

Knitting wise, I started the Hydrangea cowl with the KnitPicks CityTweed DK yarn. I started the project during the Bills playoff game and had to do a lot of tinking because getting the lace pattern established  required my 100% concentration and I was making a lot of mistakes. I quickly marked each pattern repeat with stitch markers which made aligning the lace pattern much easier and also easier to find mistakes. 

Unfortunately there is a mistake in the chart and written instructions which confused me for a while but I checked the errata online and figured out how to fix the problem. I got one repeat of the lace pattern done and will have to figure out how to correctly align the second repeat.

Ready to Start Louisa Acton aka Cordelia Peacock

I got the colours picked for the sampler. 

I will use the skein of green Valdani floss that I was given for Christmas as it is so similar to the DMC green I had picked.

All my guild peeps who have stitched this say it goes very quickly so I may start it during my Zoom chat this afternoon after I get the rest of the moon stitched on Moonshine Cabin.

Last night Skip and I watched the Bills beat the Patriots. It was quite an amazing game with the Bills scoring early in the first quarter and maintaining their lead and scoring 7 touchdowns. Unfortunately their kicker squibbed two of the extra points but the Bills maintained their offense. 

Francey was watching the game from her home in Colorado so we texted back and forth during the game. I discovered my iPhone 12 Pro will record audio bits so I frequently yelled 'Touchdown' or 'First Down' and sent the audio clip off to her. It was a lot of fun.

Skip and I remember a similar time in 2017 when we spent the night in Buffalo after returning from being stranded in Charleston SC while disembarking from our last Crystal Cruise. I was part of the entertainment staff and taught knitting onboard. Before driving back to Canada we stopped in to Wegmans (big grocery chain) to pick up some favourite items and noted all the Bills-themed items in the store and bakery in particular.

There were cakes,

pastries,

cookies, (I loved the one that looks like a football field and fans)

balloons,

all the checkouts had alternating red and blue lights, and some checkout staff wore Bills colours or jerseys.

The place was humming with excitement in anticipation of this game that would advance them in the playoffs for the first time since 1999. Sadly, they lost the game. 

But last night they WON! Had COVID not kept us home, we definitely would have gone to Buffalo this weekend to take in the excitement. We wouldn't have gone to the game but would definitely bought some of those cute football-themed cookies.

Enhancing a Design

One of the FlossTubers I watch, Valerie from Stitching in the Barn, likes to put her own relatives' names in her samplers. That makes them more meaningful to her rather than the original stitcher's name. 

While looking at the Louisa Acton sampler, I remembered that my maternal grandfather's mother had a very poetic name which would fit perfectly in lieu of "Louisa Acton . Aged 11" at the bottom of the sampler. I also decided to insert the date when she would have been 11 years old - 1859.

Using my decades-old cross stitch software which does not have capability to graph 1 over 1 in a 2 over 2 chart, I got the job done by going back and forth among three different files to finally create my great-grandmother's name and date:

Isn't that a wonderful name? IMHO, it's perfect for this sampler. 

Cordelia Elizabeth Peacock lived her entire life in Botsford Parish, Westmorland County, New Brunswick. Cordelia and her husband, Nelson Anderson, both died in 1919. I wondered if it was the Spanish Flu epidemic that got them both that year? With a quick search on Ancestry.ca I learned that Cordelia died July 20 1919 (after the peak of the flu epidemic). Cause of death was an 'internal growth' that had been diagnosed 6 months earlier.

Headstone at Pioneer Cemetery, Murray Corner, Westmorland County NB

But I digress...

I have settled on a remnant of Legacy linen from Picture This Plus that I picked up on my last visit to A Stitcher's Garden on my last US road trip with my crafty friends. Sadly, this shop closed last fall. We do look forward to visiting the Hobby House Needleworks in Pittsford NY as soon as we can safely travel to the US.

Starting a Hydrangea Cowl

I found some lovely KnitPicks DK City Tweed in my stash. This yarn is so soft and squishy - perfect for something around my neck. 

I got the thumbs finished on the grey, black, and red Latvian mittens. See how they blend in with the pattern? Thumbs like this without a gusset are called peasant thumbs or the way I do them with waste yarn, afterthought thumbs.

The garter stitch cuff was much quicker on this pair. 

Adding the red pips of colour afterwards made knitting much faster. I would knit up a couple more rows then add the red bits and weave in the red yarn through the floats between pips.

A pair of mittens has about the same number of stitches as one sock so the project goes very quickly. 

I have only been stitching during my Zoom chats as both projects I've been working on require sitting at the dining room table with good light. I'll be picking my fabric and colours for the Louisa Acton sampler but should be able to stitch in my usual place - on my reclining end of the sofa - as the fabric will be light-coloured. My task today is to get the project kitted up.

Moon Over the Cabin

On my Wednesday Crafternoon chat, I got the white part of the moon stitched.

The lighting is bad but you get the idea.

I also finished the second pair of Little Hearts mittens 

except for the thumbs which I'll finish today. I remove the waste yarn and pick up the live stitches to knit the thumbs.

Instead of the folded over picot cuff, I did the garter stitch cuff as outlined in the Little Heart hand warmers pattern from the same book. It made the project go that much quicker. Another shortcut I did was leave the red yarn out and only knit with the grey and black. Once I passed a few rounds after where the red should go, I duplicate-stitched those stitches, anchoring the yarn under other floats/strands between stitches. That was even easier than trying to duplicate-stitch after the entire mitten had been knit.

While cleaning out my mitten and scarf storage, I found 3 cowls I hadn't used in years. As I wear long-sleeved t-shirts all winter, it's nice to have a cowl to keep the back of my neck warm without the extra fabric of a scarf. The Hydrangea cowl is a favourite and I've knit two of them from 100% alpaca sport weight yarn.

The flared, lacy bottom sits very nicely on my shoulders and the upper 'tube' is nice around my neck. I want to knit another one in the larger size so it will be a bit looser.

Thank goodness for Ravelry because I drew a total blank on the pattern name when I first found the cowl. I knit these 11 years ago and could not remember the source of the pattern. Once I knew it was from 'Brave New Knits' I was able to locate the book in my knitting library.

I've been binge-watching "Cheer" on Netflix. I had watched the first season when it first came out but had only a vague recollection of it. At the beginning of Season 2 there was a reference to a very serious allegation so I went back and watched all of Season 1 as a lead up. I stayed up WAY too late the night before last so last night I went to bed early as I was understandably quite tired. I slept for about 10 hours. I guess I needed all that sleep. I have 3 more Cheer episodes to finish then on to the next thing.

Several of us in the guild will be stitching the Louisa Acton sampler from 1898 Schoolhouse Samplers.

 It's a free pattern. The colours are up to the stitcher to select so I have been stalling picking them out. However, I found one person's blog with her colour selections and will have a look at those first. so far all I've done is print the pattern. Fabric and thread selection will follow.

Our guild is also starting a project at next week's meeting on the Wessex stitch. We're doing the needlebook from the EGA website which is available for free. Kim created kits with needles, the felt, batting, and fabric. We just needed to pick 3 floss colours. Most of us are using Sulky petite floss. I decided to pick three of the colours from my Starry Night cardigan.

I picked the blue, gold, and bright green. The Sulky thread wasn't quite the right green

but I found a random skein of this thread with no label which I might use instead.