Quilt Camp

Can you guess where I was this weekend?



Yep, I was at spring quilt camp at Round Lake Christian Assembly in Lakeville. I love quilt camp. It's a great bunch of ladies, all working on whatever it is they brought with them.



No one goes hungry at quilt camp!



This year we had some extra special guests on the balcony. See them?



Does this help?



A couple of robins had good sized nests on the light fixtures and there were several other nests in progress. One of the birds scared the bejeebers out of me Friday night when I was outside getting some air. It swooped right past me from behind.

On my way to quilt camp, I stopped at Calla Lily in Wooster for a yarn fix:



The thing underneath the yarn on the right is a wine bag and the tassled scrunchy closure is above the yarn. The bag of beads below the yarn is there because it's meant to be a beaded hat kit (with the wine bag doubling as a gift bag). But I don't think I'll be making a hat out of it. Not sure what I *will* make out of it, but that's never stopped me before, right? I have one of those one-skein pattern books so I'm sure I'll figure something out.

What did I work on once I got to camp, you ask? Well, I quilted this, which is a group gift for the first granchild of a guy at the office. I cut it out, Lisa pieced it, I quilted it and Katie will bind it.



But mostly, I worked on these:



It took me most of the weekend to assemble these 8 grocery bags (tutorial here), and I had them all cut out before I left. Max helped with the cutting:


"Aaahhhhhhhhh.... this is the life!"

You'll be seeing more of these bags. I have 4 more cut out already and I remembered there was some other fabric I wanted to use. I think there will be at least 5 more, so that will take some more fabric out of the stash. With the two dozen I made last year, I figure I will have used close to 70 yards of fabric for these bags. Not really making a dent in the stash, though. Sigh....

Things you don't see every day

Today is a collection of things you don't see every day. I'll warn you, there are some crappy cell phone pictures included.

First up - ALPACAS!! Thursday was knit night at That'll Do Farm. They are so cute:


The girls - two of them are expecting


Mick


The as-yet-unnamed baby boy

I had a great time and many, many much-needed laughs after a pretty stressful day at work.

Next up, the DeLorean I saw at the car wash on the way to work this morning:



I have no idea what happened here, but a telephone pole down the street has been like this for a week:



Next:


Emma wanted to play Vanna

Crochet?? At my house? I took a 1-hour learn to crochet class from a lady at work on Tuesday. gotta say, I'm not hooked (yeah, couldn't help the bad pun). I had a really hard time keeping my tension even and figuring out where the stitches should go. I think I'll stick to knitting and reserve crochet for finishing/edging. And even then, only when absolutely necessary.

And what's this?



Knitting progress!! My hands finally stopped hurting (stupid arthritis) and I made it to the point where it's time to start the heel flaps on the Laughing Matter socks. Hooray!

Finally, Sleeping Princess in Cowboy Hat:

I'm not dead....

...contrary to popular belief. The week after my last post was crazy busy at work and then my allergies kicked in, then my arthritis flared up, so I didn't really have any knitting progress to show. Yeah, I know -- poor me.

I did get some knitting done. Since the socks on tiny needles were making my hands hurt, I started a very plain, very boring garter stitch scarf, which I started a couple of times and have been working on during non-work meetings over the last couple of weeks.



Doesn't get much simpler than that - cast on 20 stitches, slip 1 stitch purlwise, knit to the end, repeat forever. That's some Bernat Softee Chunky in the Nature's Way colorway (I think) on size10.5 needles. Exciting, isn't it?

Since I'm not knitting much, I decided to venture into my sewing room. I had Monday off, so I started with the clean up. I think the picture is a little blurry because my hands were shaking. Wouldn't you be afraid to go in here??


Disaster Central

I'm sad to say that after spending the better part of the afternoon in there, it didn't look a whole lot different. I took a bunch of yarn down to the stash, hung the bazillion scattered rulers on the pegboard, put the knitting notions back in the knitting tote, stashed the big plastic tote of batting under the sewing table, pulled fabrics for a couple of projects and now you can mostly see the sewing table and the top of the ironing board. The cutting table in the corner is still buried and likely will be for a while. Baby steps....

I took advantage of the cleared sewing table to actually *sew* something. This little kit that I bought at the NEORQC Getaway in February:


Closed


Open

It's a pretty easy pattern using 1-1/2" strips of fabric. You can get it here. I added the magnetic closure and the beads that hold the button on from my stash. Everything else was in the kit.

Tomorrow night is craft night with the girls from work and I'm taking my beading project, but I'll probably spend most of the night cutting pieces for a group quilt project and a couple of bags for a class I'm taking early next month. Maybe I'll have something bloggable afterward, but don't count on it.

A couple of weeks ago, the moon looked really cool. The trees didn't have many buds on them and it was a little cloudy. I tried to get some pictures of it, but this is the best one of the bunch:


It looked much cooler in real life

As for wildlife, the last few pictures I've taken of the cats have come out blurry, so I'll try to get some better ones for next time. Meanwhile, I've been birdwatching over the internet this past month or so and now I can do it live. Sort of. Meet Howard (just made that up):



He and his mate are building a nest in the christmas tree shaped bush/tree/shrubbery outside my kitchen window. you can see the hole where the nest is at the bottom of that picture. I haven't actually tried to look into the hole to check out the nest, but I've seen the other bird taking nesting materials in there a few times.. Being attacked by territorial birds isn't high on my list of fun things to try.

Anyone know what kind of bird he is? The one building the nest actually looks like she's a pale blue/gray. And Howard doesn't have a crest so they definitely aren't cardinals. I'd been thinking of taking down that tree/bush/shrubbery because over the 11 years I've been in the house, it's grown to the point that it's starting to encroach on the driveway. I can't get rid of it now, obviously. I'll keep you posted if I learn anything new.

Catching up

So, what's new?

Let's see, at my house, there's new jewelry.



That's a bracelet, earrings and pendant, all made from recycled aluminum knitting needles, by Sassafras Creations. Aren't they pretty? I lovelovelove them, especially the bracelet. It's so light, I don't even know I'm wearing it. It gave me an idea for a new project, but I need some help with it, so more on that next month.

I've been working on my socks. Here are the Laughing Matter socks.



I'm not quite to the heels yet, but I'm getting close. And third time's a charm with my Sinuosity by the Sea socks.



I started them with size 2, 1.5 and now size 1 needles. I sure hope they fit! I've finished the ribbing, chart A (4 rows) and two and a half rows of chart B (12 row repeat). It's hard to tell from the picture, but the pattern is starting to show a bit. It's a slow knit for me, since I can't do cables without a cable needle. Someone showed me at knit night a couple of weeks ago and it made perfect sense at the time. I haven't mastered that particular skill yet, so I'm still using a cable needle. Work is going to be extremely crazy over the next couple of weeks, so don't expect too much progress till mid-April.

Last night I went to an Uppercase Living project night again. I made another lamp like this one that I made back in December.



John took the first one for a nightlight, so I made a matching one. I also put together a set of coasters, but the embellishments were the wrong size, so there's another set on order. We did make and take projects, too. Here's mine:



It says "Create". I actually decorated the back of the thing, but that's okay. I also brought a few things home to decorate my laptop.


It's all girlie now. :)

I usually include a cat picture, but today you get a different furry creature. This little guy lives outside the cafeteria at one of my work sites.


"Can I have another peanut? Please?"

My friend and I were out there this afternoon and saw him. I think one of the guys said his name is Curly. Katie gave him a couple of peanuts and he stood on the ledge by the door looking in. When we didn't give him any more, he came down to the end of the table where she was sitting and stared in the window at her. It was pretty funny. He's an aggressive little beast, though. Another squirrel jumped up on the ledge and Curly chased it away.

Am I blue?

Yes, I am. As you know, I've been working on my blue Laughing Matter socks. They're going pretty well, except for a couple of screw-ups that I've been able to fix. Tuesday night I cast on a new pair of blue socks. Sinuosity is the name of the pattern and it was designed by local designer, who just happens to be in my new Thursday night knitting group. I love the pattern and love the color. What I don't love is my choice of needles. I had a feeling I should have gone down a needle size because the pattern calls for me to cast on 70 stitches. But I didn't listen to myself and cast on with my trusty size 2 needles.



You can't really tell from this picture, but the stitches on the darker pair are kind of loose and really stretchy. So, I'll be ripping those out and starting over. It's frustrating, but at least I've only done about 10 rows. I worked on the Laughing Matter socks at knit night last night instead. Glad I took them with me! The pretty row counter was made by a new friend of mine from the Thursday night group, PrettyKnittyJewelry. It has a teapot charm on the end. How cool is that?

In other news, Sunday was craft day, and I played with my beads.



I beaded the seam lines of the last 7 seams of this block, and added a few beads on the flowers in the center. Now I just have to bead the fabric dragonflies and figure out what else to add in the border.

Also last weekend, I was in the living room and kicked off my slippers. A little while later, John asked if I was missing one of them.



Blue had picked it up and put it in his bed. I think he likes me. :)

Here's an example of how a can of cat food can really bring the "kids" together:



Unfortunately, it didn't agree with Blue's tummy, so we won't be giving him any more of it. Yuck!

And in other kitty news, Emma volunteered to help me with my socks.


"I'll finish these for you, if you'll tell that stupid kitten to stop looking over my shoulder, Mama."

They call her the Yarn Whisperer

Her name is Jen and she has mad untangling skillz. Just look at her go:



In less than an evening she turned the mess that was the formerly Very Pink, now red/orange yarn into this:



A beautiful yarn cake, wound by hand. I am in awe of this. I will really hate to rewind into two balls when I'm ready to use it. I can't wait to see how the pink highlights look when it's knit up. I'm going to use the Little Pumpkins pattern with it.

The other ball of Very Pink yarn is going to be a purple semi-solid. I'll be dyeing it with some Wilton icing colors, just to try something new. Don't worry, I'll blog all about it when the time comes.

A few weeks ago, I took a mystery sock class at River Colors. It was in the middle of my Olympics knitting, so I hadn't blog about it till now. Here they are:


Shibui sock yarn in color #350 ManBlue

The pattern is called Laughing Matter and it's a mystery sock class by Michelle Hunter. I kind of like the spiraling color pattern it's making. The pattern is a pretty simple 6 stitch and 4 row repeat, which makes it good mindless knitting. I started the first sock in class on DPNs, then after I finished the Mermaid socks, I moved it to 2 circulars, cast on the second sock on the DPNs, caught up to the first one, then moved it to circs to so I can finish them at the same time.

I was working on them at knit night last night and biffed one. I highly recommend keeping a pair of DPNs (or a really long circular, if you like/can do Magic loop) with you if you're doing 2 socks at once on 2 circulars. If you screw up one of them, you can move it off the circular needles, fix the problem, and put it back on. In my opinion, it's better than tinking back both socks. Just be careful to A) pay attention to where you are in the pattern so you can catch the doctored sock back up to the other one and B) make sure you have the needles and sock oriented properly when you put it back on the needles so everything is going in the right direction.

I'll work on these this weekend, but Monday I'll be starting some Sinuosity socks for the KnittingNonStop KAL (Knit ALong). One of the things on my ToDo list for the weekend is to wind the yarn. I'll be using Destination Yarn, in the Sea colorway that was the inspiration for the pattern. Not very imaginative on my part, but the combination is just gorgeous.

And here's an example of all the help I have at home when I'm using my laptop:


"I don't know why Mama says she needs longer arms."

Dyeing for prettier yarn

As you might be aware, I like buying sock yarn. Over the last couple of years, I've bought some kits and samplers that turned out to have some yarn colors that weren't exactly me. Here are a couple of examples.


KnitPicks Essential (now called Stroll) in Glacial - too pale


Okiteks Sock yarn in something Very Pink

Now, since there is no shortage of sock yarn in my stash, I *could* have given this away, but I thought I'd have a little fun with it. So I wound it into hanks and tied it with waste yarn to try to keep it from getting tangled.



Then I soaked it in some vinegar water:



It took a *long* time (like hours, no kidding) for it to get fully wet. You can still see the lighter, not quite soaked sections in that picture. That's about an hour into the soaking process. Once it was good and wet, I drained the hanks.

Next up, preparing the dye. I had picked up a couple of PAAS classic Easter egg dyeing kits. They each came with 9 color tablets in pink, red, orange, yellow, spring green, teal, blue, denim and purple.


Can you guess which is which?

I didn't really have a plan for how I was going to dye the yarn, but I figured I'd start with blue. I took a guess on which ones were the blue tablets and mixed up the dye as directed (3 Tbsp vinegar per tablet) in some condiment bottles from the dollar store. The color looked good.



I added water to the bottle, gave it a shake and put it on about half of each hank. Note, the bottles aren't exactly water tight, so be careful if you try this at home. Your mileage may vary with higher quality bottles. Oh, and wear gloves no matter what.

I thought I did a pretty good job getting the dye all the way through, but as I moved it around, I found I hadn't. So I proceeded to mix up the denim tablets. I did a better job of with that color, but I still wasn't happy. So I pulled out a couple of packets of blue raspberry lemonade Kool Aid, mixed them with about a quart of water and filled up the dish.



I microwaved it on high for 2 minutes, let it rest for 2 minutes, and repeated the cycle a few times till the water was mostly clear. When it was done, I decided there were still too many spots that were too light. So I went back to my tablets and picked the ones I thought were teal, but could have been green. I divided the dissolved tablets into two bottles this time and used the water from the dish to dilute it. I did my best to fill in the undyed areas and repeated the microwave cycles a few times.

Here's the result, having a little soak in the sink.


Not bad for a first attempt

Okay, one color down. For the pink yarn I wanted a more all-over color, so I dissolved the yellow and orange tablets in a measuring cup.



I added two packets of lemonade Kool Aid and water to make about a quart. I put about half of that in the dish, put the pink yarn on top, pushed it down, then poured the rest of the dye over top. It still looked pink to me, so I sprinkled another packet of lemonade Kool Aid on top and scrunched it in. Still wasn't happy, so I sprinkled a packet of black cherry Kool Aid on top and mixed that in a bit. I turned the yarn over and did it again.


Much better

Another round of on/off microwaving and it was done. I rinsed it, squeezed it out, rolled it in a towel and put it on a rack to dry.

Here are the final results:


That's a little bit of the original color on top


Yeah, I had 2 balls of that pink

You can still see a bit of the pink where the waste yarn wasn't as loose as it should have been. I think I'm okay with that. After I knit it up, if it bothers me, I'll mix up some black cherry and lemonade Kool Aid and spot dye those areas. A little of the pink might make a nice accent.

If I do this again, I think I'll wind the hanks around something longer. They fit nicely in the dish this way, but they didn't work so well on the swift when I was winding. I'll also add at least one more piece of waste yarn. It took me over an hour to wind the blue/green yarn because it was so tangled. I'm terrified of the orange yarn. You might not be able to tell from the picture, but it's really a mess. I think I'd divide that 100g ball into two 50g balls before I dye it, to make it more manageable, too.


So pretty.....

Overall, though, it was fun and I'm glad I did it.


"I'll untangle that yarn for you, Mama"