Weekend Shrug - Finished

Okay, let's call this the Two-Weekend Shrug!  I did mainly work on this on the weekend days, so it is safe to say that it was a quick knit.  I bought two hanks of Berroco Weekend and I ended up only needing less than 1-1/2 hanks.

My last post, explained the source of the pattern and a bit about why I chose this to knit:

• Weekend Shrug - Part 1

Continuing with the open weave pattern, I need to knit to a length of about 15 inches.

Once I had 15 inches knit, then I knitted the ribbing again, like in the start.  I have essentially knit a rectangle, with ribbing at the top and bottom of the long sides of the rectangle.

There was a special bind-off method that was needed to mimic a cast-on edge, called Elizabeth Zimmermann's sewn bind-off.  Elizabeth Zimmermann was a British-born knitter that revolutionized the modern practice of kntting, so essentially she is the Mother of Knitting.  What she says goes. :-)

So, this is how it is done.  First, when you are ready to bind-off, you cut the yarn really long; put it on a sewing needle.  Thread the yarn from right to left through the first two sts, purlwise.

Second, thread the yarn from left to right into the first st, knitwise.

Third, pop the first st off the needle.

Repeat, threading the needle in this fashion until you have threaded through the last st on the needle.

The bound-off edge looks like the cast-on edge.  Yippee!  Even if it doesn't, who is going to know??

Then I sewed the ribbed edges together for 3-1/4 inches on each side; folded the ribbed edge that will be on my neck and I was DONE! 

I went by Brandon Yarn Boutique to show off how much I had done (I was at the final ribbing part at the time I stopped by the shop).  There were other people there and enjoyed looking at my project.  I loved hearing their praise and comments.

How neat is this little shrug?  I can't wait to wear it!  This will be my newest favorite article of clothing.

I am vowing to make only practical pieces.  I have several items that I have knit and barely wear because it's too warm out or it only goes with one thing.  That is a good-intention statement, but in my UFO pile there are wool items and long-sleeved pullovers. Sigh.... 

Weekend Shrug - Part 1

Hooray!  

I'm back to knitting and blogging.  This is a good thing!

My newest project (yeah, yeah, I know I have a few UFO's hanging out there) is called my Weekend Shrug.  It was a free pattern on Ravelry called Ribbed Lace Bolero by Kelly Maher published in her blog: 10 feet high.

Kelly Maher's pic of bolero - Front

Kelly Maher's pic of bolero - Back

Isn't that cute?  I wanted something that I can do in cotton or cotton blend, versatile with my spaghetti strap and sleeveless blouses, and will be a quick-knit.

I went to my local yarn shop (LYS): Brandon Yarn Boutique to find the perfect yarn.  I knew if I went to Joann's or Michael's, I'd end up not liking the yarn I chose or something, so I decided to splurge and do it right.  My time is worth it!

Anyway, I chose Berrocco Weekend (75% Acrylic, 25% Cotton) in Pitch Black.  I am using size 8 and 10.5 knitting needles.

Weekend is a nice acrylic/cotton blend that feels and acts more like cotton than acrylic.  It is not springy like acrylic, but true to form like cotton (aka, no give).  Just what I wanted...something that can get thrown in the wash; carefree.

First you start out by ribbing a k2, p2 on the 8's.  I would use my 8 circs, but they are tied up with my UFO Cabled Cardi KAL.  Oh well, I have so many straights, that is what I used.  It was a little awkward because I used the 14" ones, which gave me arm fatigue holding them up.  I did not realize how spoiled I had gotten with the circs!

Little ribbing

Next you start the lace or open weave on the 10.5's.  These were even more awkward to work with at the 14" length.  How did our foremothers knit all day with these things?!

Kathy, my sister, talked my into buying the 10.5 circs.  Her convincing argument was that you only have to buy them once and you will always have them.  So true...consider me convinced.  I printed out a Michael's coupon and bought them at 40% off.  Yeah me!

Once the open weave portion is done, then you knit the ribbing again, back on the 8's, and connect the corners which meet under the arm and sew.  Right now, I would consider myself only about 25% done.  I have about 6" of the open weave knitted and I need about 18".

I will not let this shrug stay a UFO for long.  I have been wanting a black short-sleeved shrug for awhile and have been too cheap and lazy to go shopping for one.  I figured that I would be crafty and just knit the darn thing myself.

Cheers to a quick knit!

Books - Quarter 1

Yes, I have been a big slacker...I have not been reading (in addition to blogging)...

Since my move I have been too busy to do any crafty projects.  Just unpacking and cleaning - lots of cleaning.  Hopefully I get back on track soon.

Since Christmas, or even earlier, I have not even read much.  When I visited my family over Thanksgiving, I brought a book up with me.  It took me until January of this year to finish it.  I've just been too busy to read.

The one book I finished in the first quarter of 2013 was:

1. This book was a bit dragged out in the middle part, as usual for Stephen King.  I think that is why it too so long.  I finally had to hole myself up on a Sunday in the house and finish it.  It starts off by telling a bit of history of a group of guys that grew up together.  During middle school, they befriended a kid with downs syndrome, Duddits, by saving him from the local bully.  Duddits had a special gift that can show the way (for lack of a better term).  This talent and his association with the other guys lead to each of them possessing a special mental gift.  The mental gifts show themselves at times and it prevents them from developing real relationships with people as they grow up.  They never formed friendships like they did in middle school.   During their childhood, they visit a hunting spot in the middle of nowhere in Maine with one of the fathers each year.  There is a dreamcatcher in the cabin.  They experience unique times together in the cabin.  They continue to meet once a year at the cabin, even though they have lost touch with each other as they are adults.  Fastforward to them as adults: They take their annual hunting trip to the cabin.  One of the days, they encounter a lost, unwell hunter in the woods and bring him back to the cabin to give aid.  This man has something very wrong with him and this starts the tailspin of everything going out of control.  There is an alien inside this man and it came from an alien aircraft that lands in the woods and pretends that it has come in peace.  The government thinks they know better (that the aliens do not come in peace) and want to annihilate it and all the beings in it.  The government then quarantines the entire area that encompasses the cabin and wants to kill every living thing in it.  One alien takes control of one of the hunting guys and sends him on a suicide mission to kill the government people and to want to eventually kill Duddits. The surviving main characters mentally work together to make it out alive and save Duddits.  Leave it to Stephen King to take a hunting trip and turn it into the end of the world, fighting off aliens.  It was a good read, but way too long.  I know Stephen King likes, not loves, to build each character, but sometimes it gets dragged out.  I give it 3 out of 5 thumbs up.

That book was like 700 or something pages long.  Ugh.  But, it was good.  I took equally as long to read my next book, so you will have to wait until summer to get the next list.

I found a great used book store:  The Bookstall in Brandon, FL. 

They will take your used paperbacks and give you store credit for them.  They even rent out best seller hardcover books.  Downfall is that they do not take hardcovers as used books.  In the past, I have brought in books, they look through them, select what they can sell, give me a small percentage of the cover price in store credit and I go down the street and donate the rest of the books to the library.  The library has annual book sales and the main branch in downtown Tampa has a bookstore that is open the first Sat of each month.  Everyone is happy: I get rid of book-clutter and get credit for more books and the library can sell my donated books.

Back in Mass, there is a used book store: Readmore Books.  Old, dusty building with books probably older then me in there, but they would take books for store credit and such.  I cold spend hours in there.  I am happy to have found better than equivalent to my "Readmore Books" in Brandon.

Sewing Room (Before)

Yippee, Vince and I just bought a house! 

In my newly bought house, there is an "office."  An office means it is a room with no closet.  It can be a bedroom, just put an armoire in there.  Instead of making it a bedroom, I want to make it into a sewing room.

I say sewing room, but it will be my multipurpose crafty room.  But, the only thing I have done to it so far is paint it.  Yellow.  Like really yellow...

The yellow I chose was Behr Honey Tone.  It is so nice in the pic and on the paint chip card.  In the room, it might be a bit too much yellow.  In the day, it looks really sweet, at night with the light off...it is in your face.  I'm keeping it for now, maybe I just need to change out my ceiling fan light bulbs.

So, I just moved in this past week, so the place is still in an upheaval.  I do have my craft supplies in the sewing room, but that is about it.

The room is towards the front of the house and opens with a pair of double doors.  The doors are solid, but I would like to switch them out with pair of windowed french doors.  When you walk in, there is a nice window to the left.  I have placed a bookcase to the right and the dark colored cabinet is a computer work station.   I was thinking of buying or making a cutting table which can double as the table for the sewing machine.  I would like to buy a glass-door cabinet and store my yarn and material in there. 

It may take some time to get this room straightened out, but I'm hopeful that it will look wonderful and be very functional.  Stay tuned for the "After" post...not sure when though!

Scrappy Quilt - Part 2

Happy Easter!

Since my quilt blocks have been done for weeks now, it is time to pick a layout and sew them together.  I first blogged about my Scrappy Quilt here:

• Scrappy Quilt - Part 1

Next step you choose a layout.  Since I chose the lap size, I only have three (3) layouts to choose from.  I mean, you can do whatever you want, but to have some pattern, there are 3 ideal layouts for this size quilt.  I will lay them all out for you and then I will tell you which one I am doing.

A neat trick I learned in quilting class, is when you have your blocks laid out and you are trying to figure out which one you like best, you look at it through a peephole.  Yup, a door peephole.  A peephole for a door can be bought at any hardware store for about $5.00.  If you work with colors and palettes, I highly recommend a peephole.  It makes everything look like a kaleidoscope.  Wait and see....

Ok, I'm getting ahead of myself.  The next actual step is to press your blocks on the wrong side to get all of the seams laying flat and pointing outwards.

That is the back of one block.  See how one seam is all crazy on the right?  You will press that down so it is neat as a pin back there.

Next you "square-up".  Squaring up is a crappy job.  Nobody likes doing it.  It is easiest if you have a clear plexi quilting square in the size of your block so you can just zip around it with the rotary cutter.  Alas, I do not have said plexi square.  When I measured my blocks, the numbers were all over the place.  I had real job in store for me.

Not sure how or why the blocks were as much as an inch off one another.  No clue how that happens, unless I cut the strips wrong, and I would have noticed a half inch difference when I was making the blocks.  Whatever, no need harping on what I can't figure out...

So, because of the measurement differences, I now had to pick a size and cut them all to that size.  In the end, no one will notice that the outer strips are a 1/4" thinner than the next one.  I cut them all to 13-1/4".  They should have been about 14".

Now for the fun part...the layouts!  You will now see why I separated the Lights from the Darks.

Layout #1: Fields and Furrows

Kind of chaotic.  Now look at it through the peephole:

Can you see the Light and Dark diagonal stripes?  Cool, huh? 

Layout#2: Timberline

That one makes one Light diagonal line with the other Lights pointing to the center stripe.

Layout# 3: All Sevens

I am noticing on this one that one block is not facing the right direction.  All Dark corners should be pointing down and to the left.  The bottom middle is pointing up and to the right.  Darn!  You get the idea!

All my log cabin quilts have been done in the Fields and Furrows layout.  Can you guess which one I am choosing to do??

If you chose Fields and Furrows, then you would be WRONG!  I'm breaking my rut and choosing Timberline.  Below is all of the blocks sewn together in the correct order.

The book explains how you ensure that your blocks are in the correct orientation when you go to sew them.  I won't explain it here.  All I have to say is pay attention when you do this.  I did make one mistake and had to take the seam ripper to it.  Also, be careful when you rip out these seams, you can poke a hole in the fabric.  Ha, trust me.

Next will be making the borders.  I will save that for some time later in April.  Thanks for stopping by!

Cabled Cardi KAL - Part 1

A KAL is short for Knit-Along.  A Knit-Along is when two or more people knit the same thing at the same time and help each other and are generally there for companionship  and support during the project.

These KALs are often done online in large groups or at knit/yarn shops.  My sister and I will be doing our own KAL and I will be blogging our progress.  We will go at my pace, or rather, I will blog our progress as I progress.  I'm a lot slower than she.  My sister's name is Kathy, so I will just be referring to her as Kathy throughout these posts.

Kathy chose a cabled cardigan from knitty.com called Mr Greenjeans.  Here is a pic from knitty:

Picture from knitty.com

It is a one-button cabled cardigan with raglan sleeves.  It is worked from the back of the neck, down, then the sleeves are picked up at the raglan armhole and then the sleeves are knit in the round (no seams) to the cabled cuffs. Then stitches are picked up along the front and neck edge and a ribbing is knit.

Ok, not too bad.  The experience level is "Tangy" per knitty, and that means, intermediate. I never let the experience level stop me from doing a project.  The techniques needed for this cardi are basics of any raglan pullover.  Should be no problem.

The yarn we are using is Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool (100% pure virgin wool).  I am using Natural and Kathy is using Birch Tweed (78% pure virgin wool, 13% acrylic, 9% nylon).

Natural

Birch Tweed

Kathy mentioned to me that she was going to use Fisherman's Wool and I said, "Hey, I have a few skeins of that in Natural already.  I was going to knit you an Irish Cable sweater one time, remember?  I guess your not getting that Irish Cable sweater!"  Yeah, she figured she wasn't getting one, since I've had this yarn since before Ames closed in Raynham, MA (~the year 2000-ish).  Still has the Ames price tag on it: $5.00 on clearance.  What a steal because it is about $12.99 for an 8 oz skein now.

We are using size 8 circulars.  The pattern instructs to change to 7's when you cable.  We are going to stick to 8's because the cables tend to be tighter anyway, so going down a needle size will only scrunch them up further.  

First the cast-on is done and we get an inch or so into it:

Nancy's Start

Nancy's Close-up

Kathy's Start

Kathy's Close-up

So, we are off and running.  Kathy is already way ahead of me.  It was snowing in MA when she was knitting, so she sat and literally knitted all afternoon on one weekend.  I, on the other hand, not so much.

So, check in every once and a while to see how we are doing on the Cabled Cardi KAL!

Scrappy Quilt - Part 1

Here is the start of the scrappy quilt.  I bragged about my previous quilts in a recent post: Quilts - Brag Pics.  I got a couple of comments and a bunch of people viewed it.  It was great!  Now this quilt I'm making now takes a little bit from each one of the quilts, sort of like a memory quilt.

I am making another log cabin (they are easy and I don't need to learn anything new) and I follow the fabric needs and instructions in the Quilt in a Day book series.

This really is a great book, as you can tell in my previous Quilt post, I made several and had this book by my side each time.  This time I am choosing to make a Lap quilt size, which should be about 54" x 68".  I will need a total of 12 blocks.

Above is my collection of fabric.  Some are already cut into strips and some are still fabric that are whole pieces.  I tried to separate into light and dark.  The reason why I do this is so that you will see a distinction in the pattern when I put it all together.

I cut a bunch of strips, about 2 or three strips per fabric.

Those above are my "Darks."

Those above are my "Lights."

I chose the same fabric to be my center square.  I thought choosing the same fabric would give the quilt a focal point or points of reference that would give order in a chaotic array of fabric.  Now, I like the thought of scrappy, but I have rules to my scrappy.  They are:

1. Have to have separation from the Lights and the Darks; I could not let it be completely random
2. No two strips of the same fabric could be in the same block
3. No two strips of the same fabric can be next to each other once all together

I guess you could say this is an OCD Scrappy Quilt.

Here is the "Center."  It was one of the main colors in Alex's quilt. 

Once the center is cut into a square, you need another set of squares to be your first addition strip.  I chose two different fabircs, so they don't look that different yet.

Above is adding on the second strip.  You pretty much go around the square adding on either a Light or a Dark strip until your block measures about 14" x 14".

The beauty of strip quilting is that normally you make the blocks all the same so you sew them all at the same rate.  The challenge with this scrappy way is that I wanted each block to be unique, so I was dealing with having to constantly grab new strips rather than the same one.  Might not sound like a big deal, but it was a bit of a hassle.  A labor of love, that's all I can say.

Almost there...

Here is one finished block.  I have finished all 12 blocks.  You will have to stay tuned to see how it progresses.  I will leave you with that one block to fantasize how scrappy the other 11 blocks are.

Toodles!