Feb. 2 Joining Party

I almost completely forgot to take photos during the joining party!  Unfortunately, that means I didn't get a photo of another volunteer who had joined us but left earlier.  I also missed out on the tables covered with the little granny squares we sorted through.  We joined the smallest ones into groups of 4 to get the 8" blocks needed. 

We had more then 160 squares in total, along with a gorgeous complete crib-sized blanket and the pieces of a raglan style sweater with collar.  I have more photos up in my Blankets 4 Canada flickr set.

Many thanks to the volunteers for coming out!

A handy thing...

So my darling younger daughter is teaching herself to knit.  Well.  I'm quite impressed with how quickly she is picking it up!

After making a quick sample of knit and purl with a cable, she moved on to making a pair of slippers, which my husband now wears.  They are awesome.

Now she has decided to make a phone cozy for her father's phone.  It's going to be a basic rectangle folded in half and the side seams sewn closed.  It's also going to have a cable in the centre.

For those not familiar with doing cables in knit, a group of stitches is taken off the needle and onto a cable stitch holder - a J shaped tool - then the stitches are worked back on again later.  In the process of doing this, my daughter needed to keep her stitch holder handy until needed in the next row.

So she did this.

Yup.  She's using her captured bead earring as a holder for her stitch holder.

What a hoot!  Plus, it works rather well!

Yarn Night Reminder

Just a quick reminder for the folks in Edmonton, that I'm having my first Yarn Night tomorrow.

What: Yarn Night (well... afternoon).
When: August 18 and every third Saturday of the month following, starting at 1pm
Cost: $5  Pre-registration recommended, but not necessary
Where: Clareview Michaels 13703 42nd St NW
What to bring: yarn, hooks or needles, patterns and your own sweet self. :-D  Though it's not a class, I will still be able to give a hand with any crochet questions. 

Since this is our first Yarn Night at this location, it's tentatively scheduled for 2 hours, though we have the option to go longer.  

Hope to see some of you there!

New Yarn Bomb

A mixed knit and crochet yarn bomb on the West side of Churchill Square in Edmonton.  It was put up in honor of National Yarn Bomb Day earlier this month.

A better picture

I posted a photo of the finished Blankets 4 Canada blanket I'd been working on, using my phone.  Here's a better version. :-)



This is the first time I've ever done a joined blanket.  Any other blankets I've done have been all in one piece, with the exception of a hooded baby blanket that had a triangle added to one corner for the hood. 

These squares were joined by working 1 sc in one square, 1 ch, then 1 sc about a quarter inch down in the second square, while holding them wrong sides together.  For the joining yarn, I happened to have the same type of yarn in matching pale blue and one of the reds that was used in some of the squares, so I alternated between them - I didn't have enough of either to join the entire blanket in one colour.  I was rather pleased to not run out of the red right near the end!

I worked on this in one of the multi-purpose rooms available in the co-op we live in.  A very handy space, with plenty of tables to make spreading out such a project very easy.  The only "down" side was all the interruptions.  We live in a very neighbourly co-op, so whenever people went by the door and saw me, they'd pop in to say hello and chat for a bit. :-D  Enjoyable, but it did make things take a bit longer.

I can live with that. ;-)

Finally!

I finally got to work on this blanket again.  Aside from sewing in ends (which has to wait until I get home, since I forgot my needles), it is now finished and will be delivered tonight.
Whoot!

Almost there

Finishing up the blanket I started at the joining party. Rows are done. Need to join the columns, then finish the edge all around. Should go faster now.

Joining Party

Today was our Blankets 4 Canada joining party at the Clareview Michaels.  Many thanks to those who were able to make it out!



These are the beautifully made squares that were in the bin when I got there - 155 in total.  Donations get picked up on a regular basis for joining by volunteers, so we were a little low.  I am in the process of finding out how many have been donated in the past couple of months.  I'll post it when I have that information. :-)



I spent some time trying to put together squares for an 8 x 6 blanket.  There were a whole bunch made in the same wonderful texture that matched sizes, but not quite enough to make 8 x 6, so a few simple crochet ones that closely matched in size were added to fill in the blanks.  I brought this batch home to finish, and the others were taken to be worked on by volunteers later.



Eileen from Blankets 4 Canada also brought this co-ordinated set of squares to work on.  Some of these were made with glitter yarn!  It's going to look pretty amazing when it's done.



Eileen was just whipping through those rows!!



Laura from the Wandering Woolies Meet Up group was able to spend some time helping out.  Great to see you, Laura!  Thanks. :-D



My daughter, meanwhile, volunteered to sew in loose ends.  She did the tall stack you see on the left, and all but about 6 of the small stack in front of her, in the time we had.  She collected quite the pile of snipped yarn ends by the time she was done! *L*

Thanks for a great evening, Ladies! :-)

Have crafts, will chat (updated)

Yesterday evening a bunch of us got together for a Craft n Cat at my place.  Sorta.  We live in a co-op, which gives me access to a multi-purpose room I can book at any time.  Lots of space, tables, chairs and even a fridge, microwave and kitchen sink.  Very handy.

The only down side?  Horrible lighting for pictures.

While there I worked on my first temari Christmas decoration.  I'm not at all happy with the photos, so I'll try again when I ready a new base for stitching.

I was able to salvage some other photos, though.  We took part in a coaster swap that I wrote about earlier.  Of course we all brought projects along to work on while we had our tea and munchies. :-D

 Here's one project in process.  The pattern is from Baby Styles by Beehive (Book No. 117) from late 1970s or early 1980s.  It's going to make a wonderful gift!

The last time I saw this cowl, it was just a narrow band of stitching!  It's made with a mohair blend sock yarn, if I remember correctly.  Long enough to wrap twice around the neck, light and warm!

update from the lovely maker of this cowl: "I just kind of improv'd. Cast on 300 sts, beaded the first two purled rows at every 5 sts (i think), and I did a second beaded, purled row on one edge beading every 5...carried on and on every 14th row slipped a bead on every 16th st. Finished with purled edge, beading every 5 sts. That's about it."

This set of coasters for the swap were made from a pattern found online somewhere, using Handicrafter Cotton.

These were my gift!  Aren't they awesome?  Instead of coasters, she made cabled cup warmers.  Love the knitted cables.

update:  "I got the mug cozies from a pattern on Ravelry.com, fell in love with the cabling."

This fascinating quilted coaster was finished during the Craft n Chat. I love the origami look.

I just had to get a shot of these socks in progress.  Each sock has 440 beads that need to be strung before the sock is started.  The maker of these is a knitting goddess who makes the most amazing socks and miniature clothing. 

The spiral piece you see under the socks became this after being sewn into shape.  Then, because we had a sink handy, it became ...

... this.  This is after being felted by hand in the sink.  I believe more felting is planned for it.

From the talented lady who made these:

"I found the idea for the quilted origami in a book titled, Fantastic Fabric Folding by Rebecca Wat (I hope that link works).  Now that I've got the hang of it, I think I'll make a pillow or wall hanging. The felted knitted coaster is from a pattern I found on Ravelry: Felted Coaster."

Felting.  That's something I still need to try.  Both this kind and needle felting. 

Add that to the list! :-D

Serendipity

This was one of those evenings where everything just seemed to fall into place.

A little while ago I found myself perusing the Meetup site, just checking out what was in the Edmonton area.  There I found a knit and crochet group called the Wandering Woolies and thought, what the heck.  They sound interesting.  So I joined.

They meet on Wednesdays in different places around the city.  Tonight it was at a location not far from where we live, and a place I had to have driven past many times, but never saw.  The down side of being the driver rather than a passenger! *L*  It turned out to be a fascinating place called The Carrot, and I'm definitely going back there again with the girls.   

While there, I met the creator of the Wandering Woolies group, Barb, and it ended up being just the two of us.  I'm good with that!  As we were chatting and getting to know each other, she mentioned that someone had approached the group recently, talking about the upcoming Special Olympics, which will be held in nearby St. Albert in 2012.  I thought it was a great idea and planned on getting the word out about it when I got home, since it's open to anyone who wants to make scarves and send them in.

Well, who should show up but Karen Manchak, Director of Events and Hospitality, and the person who had approached Barb about the project.  She was just a great, bubbling effervescence of excitement!  It was great to meet and chat with her, and find out more about the project.  Barb also had 4 finished scarves for her to take as well, and I must say, they looked fabulous!

Karen was able to leave me with this poster (click on the image to see a larger, readable, size).  The goal is to collect 2500 hand made scarves. From the poster:

To begin
1. Pick up your yarn in wool, wool- or acrylic- blands at a local retailer or online store.
2. Knit or crochet one or more scarves in white and a shade of blue as in our logo to a size of 7 inches wide and 6 feet long.  Consider accenting with a splash of "maple leaf" red!
3. Mail or deliver with your name and address before February 1, 2012 to:

2012 Special Olympics Canada Winter Games
25 Sir Winston Churchill Avenue
St. Albera, AB T5K 2S7

And feel free to attach a note of encouragement to athletes.

                         
Karen has been getting a lot of positive responses to this!  For those who live in Edmonton, both locations of River City Yarns are willing to be depots to accept scarf donations.

It was fantastic chatting with Barb and Karen, and so funny to find out the serendipitous series of events and connections that seemed to bring all three of us together tonight.  It was awesome!

Anyone interested in making a scarf or two is welcome; there are no geographical limits.  If they exceed their goal of 2500 scarves, the extras will be donated to local charities in need.  A worthwhile project! 

Have fun!




 

For his birthday.

One of our birthday traditions is that the birthday person gets to choose any restaurant they'd like to go to for their birthday dinner.  Today is my husband's birthday, and he chose to go to The Keg.  We haven't been there in ages.  Which might be why we forgot that the place doesn't open until 4 pm.

Wanting to miss the supper crowd, we took my husband there straight from work, finding ourselves with more than an hour before the doors opened.  No problem.  There's a Michaels nearby!

What does my husband get himself for his birthday?  A gorgeous pair of 5.50mm rosewood knitting needles, and two skeins of Bernat Mosaic in Calypso.  It's been a while since he's knitted, and he wanted to pick it up again. I had been to the Michaels I teach at earlier, picking up a couple more balls of yarn that were still in the van.  They were out of stock for the hook side I wanted to buy a spare of.  We found one at this location. Sweetheart that he is, he bought me a Soft Touch crochet hook.

We still had lots of time before the restaurant opened.  So what did we do?

Start knitting and crocheting in the van, of course.

Our daughter was kind enough to take a cell phone picture of us. 

Are we addicted, or what? LOL

Yarn Bomb

Some time ago, my older daughter was out with her friends and spotted a yarn bomb.  Knowing her mother as well as she does, she made sure to tell me about it.  Today, I finally had a chance to get a couple of photos.  I love finding stuff like this!

If you're unfamiliar with the concept, yarn bombing is basically yarn graffiti.  Crafty folk sneak out in the dead of night (more or less) and leave knit or crochet pieces out in public places.  Sometimes they'll put a scarf or toque on a statue.  Others sew shapes onto poles or trees.  The truly dedicated cover entire buses, cars or buildings in yarn.

Our local mystery yarn bomber covered the arm rests of a public bench.





This one is still in pretty good shape...

I love yarn bombing!  I think they add a wonderful touch of whimsy and colour to unexpected places.  If you want to learn more about yarn bombing, visit the Yarn Bombing blog.

Knit scarf

scarf-full
Originally uploaded by amkb

A sure sign that crafting is contagious. Our younger daughter has taken up crochet and a bit of knitting. Our elder daughter, who is already a fantastic painter and makes very unique fabric dolls, among other things, is trying to figure out crochet now.

My husband, meanwhile, has been itching to knit. He's tried a few times, but didn't get the groove until he made this scarf for our younger daughter (and willing model). I had to laugh at ourselves. While my husband was finishing this scarf, I was working on another placemat in the cotton, while our elder daughter was trying to crochet. Youngest was making sure my husband's yarn didn't get tangled. So all 4 of us, sitting there, knitting and crocheting... while watching a Rambo marathon. LOL

He got himself some larger needles, which helped. I had a stash of Bernat Harmony yarn, which is quite bulky (rated 5 on the label). The colour is Silk Green.

You can see a more detailed image here.

He did quite well, I think. Knitting is one thing I'm just not getting the hang of, though I admit it's probably because I don't enjoy doing it enough to get better. I'm happier with my hooks. My husband prefers needles. Between the two of us, we've got it all covered. ;-)