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!

It's getting serious, here

So I've been working on my main project, which involves a lot of photography.  I've set up a workspace that will allow me to take photos as I work.  Unfortunately, I had a distinct problem with light.  As long as I was getting full sunlight through the master bedroom window, at the opposite end of the hall, the photos looked grand.  As soon as the sun started moving past that window (shortly after noon, this time of year), the camera started to compensate for the artificial light.  When I uploaded the photos and looked at the folder, I could actually see the photos change from blue-ish with natural light to yellow-ish in artificial light. 

Now, I can compensate for that with digital editing software, but frankly, I'd rather take good pictures to start with and not count on being able to edit it later.  I could also play with the temperature in the white balance settings, etc., but I don't want to be fussing with the camera.  I need to be focusing (no pun intended) on my subject.

Today, I solved that problem.  Check this out.

This photo has been resized, but is otherwise straight from the camera.  It's almost orange.  This is using room lighting, without flash.

 This photo has also been resized, but otherwise untouched.  Huge difference!  This is what half my photos would look like, and the other half would look like the yellow photo, to varying degrees.  Very frustrating.

 Here is our new addition - a light box kit.  We've rigged up light boxes before, without too much problem.  We also played around with a number of different types of lights, but we've never had proper studio lights.  The two bulbs this kit came with are compact fluorescent adjusted to 5200 Kelvin (daylight).  The camera settings go from 5000K to 5300K, so I set it to 5300K to test it out.

The kit came with a choice of backdrops as well, which affix to the back of the box with Velcro.  Facing one way, the two flaps have green and white, with blue and silver available when flipped the other way.

There is also the front flap, which I won't be using very much, since my arms are going to be right in the box.  The doorway has two removable pieces, so the photographer has some choices as to how large to make the opening. 

The light tripod legs are adjustable, and they also have two telescopic sections at the top, where the light fixtures attache to the tripods.  I haven't opened them to full height, so I'm not sure how tall they actually get.  The fixtures themselves are very light weight, so stability is not compromised by extending the height.

This thing is going to see a lot of use in the next while!

A blog to check out

My daughter introduces me to the most amazing blogs!

Check out this amazing evening jacket.




From the blog OMG that dress!  at this post, it's at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Incredible!

Yarny Love

Ah, finally - a blog post not done on my phone!

Summer is the busiest time of year for us, and for the next while I will be joining my daughter at Art on the Plaza, sharing her booth with my crochet.

My birthday was during the Art Walk (which was fabulous, even with all the rain on the last day!), so today my daughters took me out to get my birthday gift.  They were originally planning to pool their resources and get me a tajine, but they're prohibitively expensive and not many places carry them, or have them in stock, so they took me to River City Yarns, instead.  This is what they got me...

Eighteen balls of Phildar Recif multicolour in Savane, a self striping yarn made in Belgium (French language website)

The downtown River City Yarns is in the process of moving to a new, larger location in the West End, so the downtown store was almost completely empty when we got there.  There were quite a few kits and some other yarns, and sale tables.  The sale items were all at least 25% off, or 50% off if you bought at least 10.  It was so difficult to choose!  In the end, I decided to pick up all they had left in this colorway.  That way, there's enough yarn for me to make pretty much anything I decide on.  The girls had one restriction placed on their gift.  I have to use it to make something for myself!  Most of the things I make are either gifts, samples or sale.  Other than winter hats and the like, or things like can cozies or table mats, I have nothing for myself.

This yarn is 70% acrylic, 25% coton and 5% polyester, gentle wash and lay flat to dry.  Each ball is 50g, 112m.  I am thinking of using it to make either a top out of it, or a shrug or cardigan - something lighter for summer use.

While we were there, my younger daughter picked up a ball of yarn for herself.

Frill Seeker by Estelle, Precious Metal, Q50901.  Another hand wash, lay flat to dry, it's 90% acrylic, 10% polyester, with about 60 meters in a 200g ball - enough to make two narrow scarves.  She's broken out the knitting needles already! 

Now to look for pattern ideas.

My kids sure know how to make their mom happy!

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! :-)

Amazing animation!

This is fantastic!!

Company

The kitten we are trying to find a home for likes my work station!

A little bit of insane fun...

Seventeen Evergreen - Polarity Song from Lucky Number Music on Vimeo.

Michaels and Blankets for Canada

What a terrific afternoon we had today!



I was able to set up a display at a table near the door, happy to use the embroidered and crocheted cloth I inherited as part of the display.  I picked up some variegated yarn to work with and set out 4 of the 5 panels I've done so far, with extra hooks and yarn at the ready.  I was joined by three lovely ladies and would have loved to go longer than the time I was allotted.  We got so busy crocheting and chatting, I completely forgot to try and get the group photo I had planned on!

Remember, 8"x8" panels for Blankets for Canada can be dropped off at any Michaels.  I will be organizing a joining party for the end of Jan/start of Feb at the Clareview branch to help piece the donated squares together into blankets.

Have fun stitching!

See? I fit!

While doing a bit of work this morning, my younger daughter's cat decided to pay me a visit.  She then decided that squeezing under the shelf would be a good thing to do.

Then she went for a nap.  Well.  When she wasn't batting at me every time I reached for a tool.

She's so vicious, yet so adorable while she's trying to draw blood.

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!




 

Space

Well, I finally had to break down and do it.  I had to do some furniture rearranging and partial dismantling and set myself up a work space for my crochet.  Upstairs.  Due to permanent damage to my knees and feet, I tend to avoid the stairs as much as possible, but I really needed to get a dedicated space set up.  There's just too much noise and traffic downstairs.

This meant clearing out the old computer desk, including what used to be the girls' computer.  There had been some problems with it that we've never got around to trying to figure out how to fix. I don't think anyone has touched it in at least 6 months.  After all that time sitting and collecting dust, I finally moved it out.  There's a space at the end of our hallway between the wall to one bedroom and a support pillar. The desk was always too wide to fit into that space, since it had a small shelf on one side to hold a tower.  With no computer to put there, I simply took the shelf off, and now it fits perfectly.  There was a bunch of other stuff to move as well, and a while bunch of dusting. 

There's still a bit of work to do in the area, but I took the time to set up and work on a project to make sure the space was suitable.  I think it'll work out fine.  I will be able to bring up more of my supplies later, it's a good height to work at, I have good light to work under, and I have some space I can take photos in, too.  Lighting for photography isn't very good, but I can work that out in time.  The chair isn't the most comfortable, but it'll do for now.

The most important thing is that I now have a space I can keep my course and various projects on the go and not have to tuck things aside or worry about them getting knocked about.  Unless the cats jump unto the desk, of course.  They both seem to like the new space, too.  While setting it up, I kept having to move the younger one out of way, and she kept climbing into the lower shelves.  When I was working, I found both cats hanging around, keeping me company.  They like being nearby while I work. 

I'll be having more photos to post soon.  I'm working on a display that will be used to promote my classes, and I'll be doing a step-by-step of the process. 

So far, I'm liking how it's working out. 

Little pieces of history, part eight

This is the last piece in my series of fancywork that I inherited.



This piece is actually from Poland, and I have no idea as to its original source.  My mother explained to me that these were traditionally made to hang on walls.  You can see that this one spent some time on a wall somewhere, long enough to develop dots of rust from whatever was used to tack it up.



The central design is free style cross stitch with a bit of stem stitch for the arms and legs, and stem stitch and straight stitch for the facial details. Including the border, it measures about 29" x 21 3/4"

The border is a long strip of bobbin lace that has been back stitched to the hem.  You can see how it was folded to turn the corners in the above photo.  In one corner, there is a bit of repair to the back stitch - in a brown thread!

Aside from the dots of rust and a bit of wear, the embroidered cloth is in pretty good shape.  The lace, unfortunately, has quite a lot of damage. 

Personally, I find the design rather unattractive, and the skill it was worked in isn't very good.  The cross stitches are quite uneven, with some looking more like V's and Y's than X's.  At the back, you can see knots were tied at the start of the threads, while a lot of the ends don't seem to have been anchored at all.  I'm rather surprised they haven't come lose at the front, but I guess being a decorative wall hanging rather than something that saw use, like a table cloth, has saved it.

Though I don't particularly like it, I find it an interesting piece and imagine that whoever stitched it must still have been pretty proud to have it decorating their wall.

Little pieces of history, part seven

Just a couple of pieces left in the series of fancywork I've inherited.  Here, I have another thread crochet piece from my late great-aunt.



I actually hadn't noticed that it was made with two different blues until I'd uploaded the photos!  It's a lot less obvious in person.

This is a small table cloth made out of square motifs joined together with a chain mesh.  It's 6 squares by 7 squares, with a narrow border, and measures about 42" x 36".

I love how the square motifs together create a secondary diamond pattern. 



Here's a closer look at one of the corner squares.  The squares are basically filet crochet worked in the round.

Like the filet crochet runner I wrote about last time, this piece is in fantastic condition.  There is no damage of any kind that I can find.  There are a few loose threads visible on the back, where the sewn in tail ends have worked themselves loose.  It's remarkably soft and has an amazing drape to it.  I actually had a hard time using the piano bench to take the photos, as it kept slithering off the edge. *L*

This is another of my favorite pieces.

Little pieces of history, part six

Here we have another fantastic piece from my prolific and highly skilled great aunt.



This filet crochet runner is about 2 feet 10 inches long and about 15 inches wide.  The rose motif you see here is mirrored in the other half.




The simple edging matches the filet mesh very well.

I've looked over this piece thoroughly and there isn't a bit of damage of any kind on it.  It's in superb condition!  I know the piece must be quite old, but with the excellent condition and unfaded colour, it looks like it could have been finished last week!  I might want to give it a gentle cleaning and re-block it, just to straighten out the edges, but that's about it.

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

Little pieces of history, part four

I've fallen behind on blogging about the wonderful pieces of fancywork I inherited.

I think this next piece is my favourite of them all. A gorgeous round tablecloth, just over 2 feet across, not counting the crocheted edging.



This is another piece from my great aunt. The fabric is thick and densely wove, and looks to be cotton. I got a little surprise when I examined it more closely for this post. A distictive numerical stamp on the back. I do believe this used to be some sort of sack! A flour or sugar sack, perhaps.




Here's a detail of the repeated floral motive. It is done in embroidery floss using satin stitch, stem stitch and French knots. The black marks that you see on the bottom are from what looks to be other numbers on the back, written in marker, that extend beyound the hem. The fabric was definitely repurprosed.



I just love this thread crochet border! There is some minor damage to a couple of lengths of chain that I have found, and a couple of dots of what looks to be rust, but aside from that, this piece is in suprisingly good condition. Very sturdy. I'm pretty sure I can fix the damage to the crochet myself, too, in such a way that it would not be noticable anymore. I just have to make sure I can match the thread, first.

The hem is something I find really remarkable about this piece. As you can see from the photo above, it has two rounds of machine stitch. Hemming something round is always a challange, so I'm impressed with how neat it is right from the start.

It's the back of the hem that has me fascinated! Looking at it, there's a bit more concern about the condition of the piece, and it will need gentle care.

The crochet edging was actually worked directly onto the fabric. It looks like a circle of single crochet was worked around the edge of the circle first, encasing about a quarter inch of fabric, but worked so that the top of the stitches faced *into* the work, instead of out. At least one more round of single crochet was worked after that, then there's a ring of double crochet worked around the edge, serving as the foundation for the rest of the edging, which is worked in rows.

The foundation portion of the edging is fastened down with basting stitches, the edge is folded under for the hem, then machine sewn, creating the hem and turning the crochet foundation to the outside of the piece at the same time. The very first round of single crochet is completely hidden in the back. This is the part that is showing some wear. You can see the loose ends of the weave through the crochet thread, and in a couple of places they've worked themselves out of the loops around them, leaving empty crochet stitches hanging around. Of the two rounds of machine stitch, the inside one used to just catch the edge of the hem, but as the ends worked themselves loose, very little of it is still attached. It's the outer ring of machine stitching that is holding the hem in place.

I can't tell if the edging was completed before or after the hem was turned and sewn. I would guess after, or the pulling on the fabric would have yanked the crochet foundation right out of the weave. Unless the fabric was cut *after* the crochet was worked. That's certainly possible. I would love to have seen it being worked.

It's a remarkable piece, and I just love it!

Lion Brand looking for quest bloggers

Do you have a yarn craft related blog? You might want to check out Lion Brand's Invitation to Guest Bloggers. :-)

A pause

I'll be taking a bit of a break from blogging here in the next while.

I am such a suck!

No question about it. I'm a suck.

At least when it comes to the cats.




Both cats like to keep me company. Tiger, however, prefers physical contact. She'll frequently find some way to be sitting on me, or leaning against me. While working on my daughter's afghan, she lay down against my hip - right on top of part of the afghan. As I worked my way around the border, more of the afghan ended up on top of her while less was under her. I paused to take the photo before getting the last of it out.

Today?



She did this. One moment, she's on the arm rest of the chair next to me, the next, she's across my chest, settled in an purring! Me? I leave her there! LOL

She didn't enjoy the fact that I kept working while she was there and shifted around a few times before I finally got one of the kids to take her off. A few minutes later, she was back! She didn't stay away until my younger daughter cuddled with her.

Too funny!