We haven't exactly eradicated this nonsense from the house yet but I did make it through Tuesday without taking a nap. I really wanted one but I held on in the hopes of a really good night's sleep. I had a teleconference with my doctor yesterday, on another matter, and she had the same thing and went through pretty much the same symptoms and duration as us. She's 20 year younger so I have a little better attitude about the whole thing. The weather here has turned beautiful and the pollen is flying. I want to be over the illness soon so I can distinguish virus from allergy in the coming days. I did sit out in the sun for a while yesterday and it felt great! While I was out I walked up to the bird box and discovered that we have our first clutch of Bluebird eggs! That's something fun to look forward to in the coming weeks. Back in the sick ward, I haven't had the energy to do much of anything except for a very little crochet. I had a ball of yarn leftover from the last baby blanket so I used it to make some newborn hats. These two are made from the free Vintage Vibes Baby Beanie pattern. They are easy and fast. Another great free pattern for a newborn hat is the Vintage Pearl Baby Hat. The pattern calls for pearls to be sewn in after the fact but I'm not doing that. I feel sure it would be rejected as unsafe. These 4 hats used up the rest of the baby blanket yarn. The 4 hats were clearly feminine so I thought I should do at least one little boy hat and I used a BagoDay YouTube tutorial to make this one. I think it turned out a little big so I may need to adjust the pattern a little for my tension. Finally I went back to a giant ball of Feels Like Butta yarn that I'm working through making men's slouchy chemo hats. I think I can get 2 more from this ball of yarn. This is the Avery Brimless Beanie and it's a purchase pattern.
That's it. That's 5 days of accomplishments! If all goes well today I'll get 2 rooms vacuumed and maybe make some cookies. I want to get back to the dye studio very soon. I miss it! You thought you would see a finished bear today didn't you? Well, it's close! Mom and I had dentist appointments yesterday morning. I came home from that and procrastinated for a couple of hours and then buckled down to get working on it. I will finish it tonight because I have to deliver it tomorrow! Meanwhile, I've worked on this blanket some at the beach and have been working on it each evening since I got home. I finished it last night after I got tired of the bear. I got the pattern for this one on Etsy from Nancy Said. It's a nice one to work on because there are 2 sections that alternate so I didn't get bored doing row after row of the same pattern. There's a sedge stitch section and a section with alternating SC and DC2TOG/DC rows. The yarn is EYB Babe Freckles that I got on sale at a shop on Maine last summer. It's a 3 weight and very soft. The border is two rows. One is alternating DC and CH1/SK1. I did the final row different from the pattern alternating DC in the DC and DC2TOG in the CH1 spaces. It worked out OK but I think it needs to be blocked. It finished about 29" x 35". I'm going to wet it and block it before I send it off for donation. I will probably make this one again because it was so fast and easy.
I have almost a full skein of yarn left so I'm going to use it for some baby hats before I start a new donation project. Tomorrow will be bear day! The miracle isn't about finishing my quilt. The miracle is that I woke up early enough to see the sunrise! This NEVER happens. I'm not an early morning girl but yesterday something woke me and I'm glad it did. I spent most of my creative time yesterday working on the quilt and I made great progress. I only have 3 borders left to do and there's no reason I can't get them done today. There's a 2" black, 1" orange and 6" print. No block piecing required. I also learned that my new cell phone camera has a wonderful trick. I took this photo with the quilt on the floor and me standing above at an angle. The camera popped up a yellow rhomboid outlining the quilt so, just for fun, I clicked that to see what would happen. This happened! This little feature is going to save me a lot of editing time in the future! Today is our last day and my goal is to finish this quilt top and take a walk. Off and on, all week, I've been working on the baby quilt. It was all I had to work on last night and I'm close to the body of the blanket being done. Then I just have to do the border. FYI, this is an awful photo. The blanket is white. Here's a close up of the stitch pattern. Kim and I have also spent a lot of time looking for my next crochet garment project. I think I have it narrowed down to a couple of projects. I'll figure it out when I get home and can peruse the yarn options. The weather word for yesterday and today is WINDY which you can see from the surf. When I went for my walk I walked into the wind so that the walk back would be easier. I walked farther than I planned because I wanted to see the wind surfers that were way ahead of me. I haven't decided it I admire them or if I think they were crazy. Maybe both!
We're leaving tomorrow so I'll have a final update Monday. It's been a great week. We've both relaxed a lot and have had a great week finishing procrastination projects. I was so close to finishing the sweater that I just had to power through and get it done yesterday. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. It fits well and I know I will use it a lot next fall and winter. It's too late to use it now because this is a very warm sweater. Here are a few notes: Pattern is a YouTube tutorial from LaDria LaVey. The hexi cardi is very popular right now and there are dozens of version on YouTube and other sources but I thought hers was a little more stylish than some of the others. The yarn is Jeans from Lion Brand. It's a 4 weight acrylic and very soft. It's a little splitty and this dark mottled colorway is a little hard to see stitches. I tried a couple of other patterns with this yarn first but got frustrated trying to see stitches. A granny style cardi was a perfect solution. I used a J-6mm hook. I made a number of adjustments as I went along to alter for size and sleeve length. With this pattern, changes are easy to do on the fly. The front edge has bobbles and I used my trim stitches to draw the front edge up a little. Again, it was easy to adjust on the fly. Now I can go home this weekend and look through my little stash of garment yarn and pick something new to make. While here, I have the baby quilt to get back to. But that's not all! I also made some good progress on the firefighter quilt. The pinwheel borders are together. I need to do some measuring and make some coping borders so that these will fit. It was late enough last night when I finished these that I thought it was a little late to be doing math. This will be my project for today. But it wasn't all inside work. I didn't take as long a walk yesterday but we did get out for a walk on the beach once and went out other times just to feel the sand. It was warmer, about 70 but the wind has really kicked up. For exercise, it was yoga day. Today it's supposed to be about 72 with pretty high winds. I am planning for a long walk in between quilt sewing sessions.
It was a great day! Yesterday we had a high of 69 but not so much sun. It still made for a more pleasant walk. I headed east this time toward the pier. It was about an hour to the piece and back. There were lots of shore birds and gulls out today. I love watching the fast moving shore birds on the surf. I was a little surprised that my camera caught this one as well as it did because it was really booking. If this guy looks annoyed it's because he should be. There were 3 young women on the beach who thought it would be a good idea to offer one of the gulls a chip. Of course about 15 of them flew in, scared the women and they screamed and chased the gulls away. This one landed right in front of me without a snack. He was indignant. It was a great sewing and crochet day as well. I got all of the pinwheel blocks made so today I will cut the background pieces for the pinwheel border. After the pinwheels there will be a narrow black border and a narrow orange border before the last border of the fabric at the top. It's coming together nicely I think. The hexagon sweater is making great progress! I got the back seam done and wove in a couple dozen ends and I've started the bottom hem. I am going to really love this sweater and look forward to wearing it in the fall. I know I'm a little lates to wear it this season.
I would say that I'm confident that I can finish both of these before I leave Sunday but I don't want to jinx myself. So I'll just say that it's possible to finish both of these before Sunday. Depending on whether you are following Kim's weather app or mine, the high yesterday was either 59 or 63. It was a beautiful day and I got in a long walk to the West end of the island and from here I could see over to Hammocks Beach State Park, which, I think, is only accessible by kayak or boat. I probably looked ridiculous on the beach because I decided that a 2 hours walk was the perfect opportunity to test out my new hiking boots. But at the beach no one really cares. The boots performed great with no rubbed spots on my feet or ankles. I'll need a few more test runs before we go to Maine in August. Most everyone was bundled up pretty good on the beach but there was one family in shorts and swimsuits. I'd bet money that they were Canadians. I cheered them on. I thought I'd share a couple of photos of our set up here. This is the place where we are staying. On Emerald Isle, about half the houses are duplexes and ours is one. We are in the unit on the West side, closest to the camera. The couple on the other side is from Massachusetts. It's a very comfortable house with great natural light. Being West facing I expect that this unit is pretty hot in July and August. We picked this house because it had such a nice sewing table! Yesterday Kim finished the red jacket that you see hanging on the back of one of the chairs and she undid the ribbing and a few rows on her white sweater, to shorten it. The raveled yarn made a pretty wool waterfall. She helped me fit my hexagon sweater Monday so I finished off the body yesterday morning and will seam the back and start the ribbing today. It's very possible that I can finish this sweater before we leave. That would be really nice. I've decided that this is my before breakfast project. After breakfast I got back to the quilt and made the 4 corner pinwheels. Here you can see the firefighter themed fabric that will be the background for the pinwheel border. The 14 small pinwheels are cut out and I've start sewing them together. I should be able to finish those blocks today. On my walk yesterday I decided to "shop" for the house I would want and I picked this one. I love all the big windows and I can't imagine what it would cost. Certainly more than we could afford! But a girl can dream.
The first blanket that I made like this was for Chris. Then I made 3 more, one for each of my brothers. I bought enough yarn to make 8 blankets! By the time I finished the ones for my brother these had become blankets only for the men in my life. Number 5 was made for my cousin's husband. This one is #6. It doesn't have a destination yet but I'm sure it will. I only have yarn to make 2 more. I'll kind of miss them when the yarn is gone. I've really enjoyed making them. One of the next two is already assigned but it will be nice to have 2 in the closet for emergency need. Of course, there are loads of yarns that will work for this pattern. Premier Puzzle comes to mind right away. This one finished about 48" x 64" Cascade Cartwheel Yarn, 7 balls, color 3, Seattle. Pattern from BagODay Crochet, pattern repeat is 8 stitches plus 3 I used a K hook and chained 147 stitches (with an L hook) I do not like having scrap yarn so when I finish a project I immediately add the scrap to one of 3 corner-to-corner scrap projects. This one might end up being good enough for a wheelchair blanket but I expect that most of them will be pet blankets. Anything that will avoid having a bag of scrap yarn bits. I have an overload of scrap fabric. I sure don't want the same situation with yarn.
I haven't quite decided on sewing/quilting projects but I'll get that figured out Friday. I thought I'd share this photo too. This is the first delivery of 29 veterans quilts for 2023 from my quilt club. It's so nice to be a part of this amazing group of ladies.
My second version of ths shawl is complete! From The Heart organization specifically requests wrap around shawls for donation to assisted living and nursing home facilities. The shawl that seems to be most popular is a free one by Susan Coes. That one is OK but I wanted more wedges. Then I found this one by Carrie Penny. That was great except that I wanted a neckline so that the shawl set more forward on the body. I also thought that it wasn't necessary to keep increasing for the full length. I melded what I learned from those two and created my own pattern that also happens to be pretty fast to stitch up. I also wanted it to have a bit of a decorative edge and a single crochet neck edge for a little nroe neck stability. I have written up the "pattern" and you can download it here.
I am not a pattern writer and it has not been tested so try it at your own risk! If you find errors please let me know and I'll fix it. Once you get going it's really simple and it's easy to make up for an missed increase on the next row so you don't have to frog much. If you do try it out please let me know if there's anything I can do to make the pattern more understandable. Every year at the May family beach vacation I try to bring a handmade gift for everyone. I've done tie dye beach towels, coiled coaster sets, fused glass dishes, dyed beach totes and last year it was slumped wine bottles. I don't really plan to make gifts and no one expects them, but you know that I get on kicks to make things and once I start I want to make a lot of whatever it is. My family is a good place to distribute all of the stuff I make. They feel obligated and won't say no! When I made the fish placemats a couple of weeks ago I made for for my nephew. Then I remembered that I already have 2 sets of placemats in the "gift closet" and that, with a few more sets, placemats could be the beach gift for this year. I do love making them and I have a box of overdyed napkins that need to be used too. The next set is going to be based on 4 bird embroideries that a friend stitched for me over 10 years ago. It's crazy how much stuff like this I have in my stash! Don't laugh, I know that you have these things in your stash too! I even had 4 turquoise dyed napkins in the napkin stash that can go with the birds. I started by pulling a bunch of fabrics that might work with the embroideries. When I make placemats they have to be simple. I do not allow myself to agonize over them and I limit my design thinking time. Placemats, like postcards, are meant to be fun and they certainly aren't going to be subjected to any design judging. For these I started with a dark frame and then a painted fabric that has a "sky" feel to me. Next I really wanted to use the batik on the right because it's so close to the embroidered fabric but it looks so dull and bland. I really needed to bring that dark jade frame color to the batik. Screen printing might fix that. I need a color that comes close to matching this dark jade fabric. That will do. I love mixing dyes and paints! A little bird on the corner of the napkins will make them look more like a set. I found a twig screen to do an all over print on the fabric and I think this is going to work great as the final fabric in these placemats. It doesn't matter that the printing is a little messy because the fabric will be cut into strips. I'll be working on these again this weekend. Today I'll be crocheting with with the Ashland From The Heart Stitchers group. I started a new shawl when I finished the green blanket. This will come together a lot faster than the blanket. I made a shawl a while back with this "pattern". I kind of made it up as I went along and didn't write down any notes. Of course I liked it and now I'm trying to re-create it with notes.
Tomorrow is the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival. I'm looking forward to getting even more inspiration and ideas for projects that I don't have time for. The purpose of this blanket was to use up to skeins of Lion Brand Pound of Love yarn and that's what I did. I admit that after making it I like the yarn better but there's something really daunting about these giant skeins of yarn. I prefer smaller skeins although I know that the price is best on the larger skeins. How do I know the price is better on the giant skeins? Well, I sat down earlier this week and did the math. I looked up as many of the "everyday" yarns as I could think of and calculated a price per yard. I calculated both the base price and also the most common sale prices. This chart is sorted by the sale price. There are a lot of these that I have never used but the cost analysis was an interesting exercise. For other "specialty" yarns like cakes, anti-pilling and blends, I consider a price of less than .02 per yard to be a good deal and that's how I handle toe barrage of "great deal" emails that I get every day. I did order a skein go the Herrschners Worsted 8. The price is really good and they have tons of colors. I hope I like working with it and that it washes well. This blanket will be donated to From The Heart, probably for a chemo or dialysis patient. Here are all of the specifics: Blanket finished size: 47 x 52 (It's a little too wide, I should have made it closer to the size of this one but I made it wider because I thought I had more yarn. I wish it was closer to 40 x 60 but it will be fine as it is.) Pattern: Sober Granny by Christa of The Secret Yarnery - she has excellent tutorials and patterns, did not do the border J (6 mm) hook, but probably should have used a K Cast on 35 sets of 4 + 2 (30 would have been optimal) Crochet alternating 7 rows in dark green and 9 rows in light green, beginning and ending in dark green. I quit when I ran out of dark green. Last row: CH3, 2 DC in 1st SC from previous row * SC in CH2 space from previous row, 3 DC in SC from previous row* SC in last CH2 space The pattern makes great texture and it's nice mindless stitching. I want all of this yarn gone so I took the leftover dark green and added it to this scrappy blanket that will either be a wheelchair blanket or pet blanket, depending on it's ugliness factor when it's done. I actually think it looks kind of fun at this point. I have more of the light green left so I'm doubling it up with some tan yarn and making some men's winter beanies to stock up for next year. This pattern goes really fast so I should have the green yarn finished off by Monday.
Tomorrow and Saturday are sewing days with quilt club so I'll be starting a new veterans quilt. Today I have lots of computer work to do but I hope to get a little quilting practice in this afternoon. But it's also sunny and warm so the outside is calling.... |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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