Interruption or Intervention

First, to finished things

I finished my hardanger practice piece April 2nd!!
I'm thinking it will become a page in a fabric book of sampled needlework.


I hope to continue exploring different techniques for each page. Giving me a perfectly reasonable excuse for jumping from one thing to another as the mood strikes!
Brilliant?


Sock Madness - round 2 got underway Saturday. The pattern was delivered by email at about 9:30 in the morning and we were told it would need 2 contrasting colors.



I was afraid it was going to be stripes.
I should have been more afraid, as it turned out to be stranded knitting. I'm ridiculously slow at stranded knitting and when the highlight of a chart is getting to do several sets of 4 stitches in a row of the same color!! ...seriously. Slow.

Steph dubbed them Cinderella Socks as she squeezed them onto her foot for the official & mandatory "feet must be in the socks" photo. The girls were both on campus until after 6. I finished them around 1:45 but couldn't convince them 2 of their feet needed to get home immediately. The madness!

Finding someone they'll fit should be interesting. They are very tight.
As I believe I've mentioned: I do knit quite tight.
And they're very long in proportion to width.
Cinderella?

And now for the needed intervention round 2 of Sock Madness provided. Concentrating on knitting socks for 4 days made me put aside the colossal mistake I had just made with a pair of scissors that morning.
I was happily stitching away on a piece with some much desired color when I seem to have gone mad with a pair of scissors. I foolishly cut across 3 of 4 columns of threads before realizing 24 of them were not intended for cutting.
I had not yet pulled many of the longest threads, and I thought by cutting them in half I could pull from both directions. They would come out easier.

Major structural damage has occurred! It will take more time to try and fix that I intend to devote to it. I believe I'll let the flames of the wood stove destroy all evidence of my stupidity and try again.

Like it never happened but for the lesson learned.
Careful with those scissors! (And no shortcuts.)

Humbled by Hardanger

Picking up where I left off

Hardanger progress

Continuing with my "design as I go" practice piece, I needed to work myself away from the center. Somehow.

I thought centering the next section above the on-point square - keeping the 3rd stitches in line and 4 threads above - would allow for the corners to meet back up at the edge. They're off by at least 2 threads.

I'm telling myself it was mathematically impossible and not my counting. Since all 4 corners did it.
Design flaw?

I managed to give myself way more eyelets to do before I could cut & needle weave again. Since the book says eyelets must be done first or the cut threads will be ripped from their moorings, eyelets it is. MERCY!

I'm just itching to start something with some color but so far I've stuck to this so that it gets done. And then I can move on to one of my new books.
Or maybe I'll try this needlecase in DMC Perle Cotton 5 4190 Ocean Coral.

Yes. An impulse buy while birthday shopping for Steph.
Along with this Clover turntable hoop discounted from $36 to $8 at Joanne's. It's even marked down to $15 here - so it was either overpriced in the first place or just plain sucks.

For $8 I'm going to find out for myself.
As soon as I finish the rest of these eyelets so I can get to the fun part of this hardanger project. (And before round 2 of Sock Madness!)

Sock Madness 3

We interrupt ...everything!

Yes. I took time out starting Thursday morning for some Mad Knitting.
If it's basketball playoff time, it must also be time for Sock Madness 3.

Since I participated in 1 & 2 it was hard letting go. The words "I don't think I'll play this year" were spoken aloud, with at least 1 witness. But in the end I decided to try the 1st pair, with a promise not to overdo it. I don't want to be a Pattern Collector - someone who ONLY signs up for the free patterns. That's not fair to all the sock designers or the 2 hosts.

I made it through round 1...
Finished Sunday morning. It had an interesting new cast on that I might try again. ("Twisted German" :) Luckily there was a YouTube video to get us through that.

The After Thought Heels were a little too much like someone thought up a way to put THUMBS on a pair of socks. They had us put a big hole in the bottom of the socks (on purpose!) for trying on purposes during knitting.
And then knit the heels last, with the idea you could replace the heel when they get a hole in them.

LOOK UP AT MY BLOG TITLE.
We don't like thumbs much around here!!

And it's SOCK MADNESS.
There's no 'trying on' in Sock Madness!
You knit them EXACTLY like the pattern says.
Not one stitch less! (More is your own call.)

The design was inspired by a quilt block called Drunkard's Path.
Probably won't be printing a fresh copy so I can knit this one again but it's a cute gift idea for quilt friends who might get a kick out of it. Definitely never doing heels like that again!

I don't know how long I'll last this year as my elbow and wrist ache when I do anything with my right arm for very long. I need to LOVE the 2nd pattern if I'm even going to cast on for the next round.

I've taken a break from knitting. These are the only 2 pair I've knit in the last 6 months. Knitting only while "waiting" takes a long time to get a pair of socks.

Take a deep breath

Remember to exhale!

My first Hardanger Woven Picots :)
Not sure if I did them right - but they don't suck.

How dainty stitches are on 30 count fabric!

Took me all afternoon to do these few.
The hardest part was getting the courage up to make the 1st knotted loop.

How committed would I be if it failed?
Would it be a mess to untangle if things went very badly?
A great gasping breath escaped after about the 3rd pair and I realized I had been holding my breath for way too long!

Next to cut the middle threads away and weave it back together. Remember to breathe...

I bought new stork scissors and some better tweezers for removing the drawn and cut threads.
Dear family: HANDS OFF!!

2 of the new books I ordered arrived.
Can't wait to explore them; they both look full of inspiration and brimming with the details of new stitches just waiting to be tried.

Still Puzzled

How I spent Friday

I made another puzzle piece :)

Here is the blog with some other examples.

I needle tatted the basket with a smaller weight thread last year, so it wasn't big enough for a postcard. It got dropped into the sewing box for someday.

I dug it out and put it to use. It's been so long since I did one of these that I'll have to relearn how to make them before I try another for swapping.
Basket Pattern (Designer: It's me!)

I need to make a "view finder" shaped puzzle template so I can center things better. It's hard to judge where the middle will actually end up with my current method: Just guess...more or less.

I added some petals, leaves and beads at the base to offset the basket handle being too close to the top and too much empty space below. Sara took a look at it and said it looked like petals had started dropping off.
So I guess my disguise worked :)

On Saturday I basted newly purchased 30 count Hardanger fabric and set to work on a new block. I'm winging it as usual, with thoughts of making it into a Stitch Exploration fabric book page.

This is about 4 hours of work.
Free chart I started with. Looking forward to cutwork & needleweaving sections. Where I go next is still up in the air.
It's going to take a while to make a "book" at this rate.

Puzzled

Did I mention I bought a light?

And it came with a magnifying glass?
PRICELESS. Seriously recommend it!!

I've been experimenting with more puzzle pieces. It suddenly occurred to me my pieces could be like little band samplers of every technique I've ever tried with fabric postcards or fabric ATCs. I don't have to reinvent the wheel for ideas! I've already had a couple of good ones and it's okay if use them again. A needle tatted basket of flowers soon :)

I tried the Hardanger doodle puzzle piece on top first. No basting. Just outlined the puzzle shape roughly a quarter inch away and started in one corner and away I went. It's a little random - but I was practicing!
There's a tan fabric layered behind to highlight the cut work and I added some beads as quilting when I was done because it seemed like it needed something more.

Mostly I wanted to see if this type of fabric could be buttonhole stitched without fraying all over the place. I used fusible web, plus stitched the outline very close before cutting the puzzle shape. (I should not have used a pencil as I can see some marks that I thought would never show. Oops!)

I also tried experimenting with the tabs on the bottom one. To see if I could make it fit, I custom cut the top tab down to size.

I was afraid the stitch work on the bottom piece was too close to the edge, but when I locked them in place the open space from the top piece made it less noticeable I think. It's a 2nd try.
(This time it's square... for what it's worth :)

I mistakenly used 3 strands of floss and didn't realize it until I went to separate the other 4 in half. There were only 3? Damn! I ran out with an inch of edge work left. I hope I have some more. Somewhere. It was late so I haven't gone looking yet.
Wish "organized" was trait I could say I've passed on to the girls.
NOT.

While I still need lots of practice and need to study the stitch how-to's more closely, Hardanger stitches are coming so much more intuitively. I blogged about it at the time, so I'm surprised it was so long ago that I first tried.
2006. Really?

I shouldn't have held out so long without a light!
Instead of flinging it away in frustration because I can't see, I want to try more.

The Curious Frog

How it came to this

For some reason lines from the opening of the Lord of the Rings keeps going through my mind:
"What news of the outside world? Tell me everything ... Everything? ...far too eager and curious for a hobbit.
Most unnatural."

I may not have even known the terms Needle Weaving or Drawn Thread until 2 weeks ago. But I'm an eager hobbit... tell me everything!

I've gone to 2 libraries and carried home 1/2 dozen books (just now requested another offered suggestion through the lending library program), purchased a couple online that still haven't arrived...grr!... and dug out all the books I've collected on Stumpwork, embroidery, CQ, Hardanger & more.

All to satisfy a current mood to teach myself.
To stitch something.
I've been working on this 2nd experiment in stitching.

My thought bubbles along the way:
I want it to be bigger than the last piece so that there's room in the center for surface embroidery.
I want it to be square so I can try the Zig Zag hem tutorial - needs an even number of threads.
Baste A LOT because I can't count.
Okay that was too much. Didn't need half of it except as markers in counting to ten.
Tried following the diagonal flow of the last piece but it turned out too Laverne ...Letter L!
Fill in some more to disguise the L.
Now is it too much?
Maybe I liked rectangle better. Next time.
Sort of reminds me of ivy growing on the side of a building.
There's too much empty space to fill. Balance?
Try some Hardanger...make a window!
Now it makes me think of kitchen windows & garden walls...
Add more knots.
Now beads.
Too much?
Should I have left more empty space?
Should I snip OFF some of it?
Too late...filling it in.
Adding more.
And more.
Last night: "I'm stopping now... maybe it will look different in the morning."
When I got up this morning: "Something's not right."

And then I saw the frog charm in the bottom of my stitching container.
Purchased a long time ago and waiting for a place to go.
I dropped the curious frog down onto the piece - peeking into the garden window.
I knew what I wanted to do.
Maybe it would be okay to Add MORE knots & wheels to balance the window.

A line from something Stephani once wrote ends: "that's how you learn" has been repeating in my head as well. I'd been considering my next blog entry and thought I might go with the title I taught myself.

I'm nothing if not determined. If I see something I want to do, I try to figure out how. Whether the "teacher" comes from books, from internet tutorials, patterns with complete and detailed instructions or a simple image that I feel compelled to explore.

Explore. Yes that's what we can do. And access to internet is a seriously valuable tool. Just as we can pick and choose what to use. What to consider. What to discard. What stitches to put together and which "rules"to break.

One comment from a site I visit currently spoke about mixing stitch techniques. She asks: Is there a point when you do so much that it all gets fused in your mind, and you use any technique that seems appropriate, or should you keep each style of work separate?

In my head it was a description of what must be going wrong with my latest effort. What I woke up to this morning seemed "just not right" and I wasn't sure if it needed more, less or something not all. I was still looking at it when I read her comment. I didn't know if I would be brave enough to blog about it, if in the end I hated it absolutely :)

Still not sure about it but I tried something different...
I went exploring like the curious frog!

Does this look SQUARE to you?

NO.
Because I (still) can't count.

Here's the progress made on my 1st effort using a combination of Drawn Thread, Needle Weaving and Surface Embroidery.
I think I'm calling it finished.

Kind of small so it may have too much going on?

Cutting was not so scary as I remember it from the Hardanger project.
Fun even! Although I am going to need some sharper scissors.

But what seemed a huge expanse of open cut threads before attempting to follow Mary Corbet's tutorial for Hem Stitching, turned out to be a scrawny little patch for Surface Embroidery! Will need to go bigger and braver with next attempt.

And learn to count.
I would have sworn this would be square - until I realized it wasn't!!
There were 20 pairs of "threads" one way and only 15 the other.
Sigh.

So I wrapped the drawn threads with randomly symmetrical Needle Weaving. Or at least what I suppose is Needle Weaving.
I wish I had gone a shade lighter in color.

Next time...
(when I go bigger & braver ;)

Fine lines & slippery slopes

No turning back...

A few weeks ago I admitted defeat and bought a Daylight tabletop lamp.
I swore I didn't actually need the magnifying glass that came with it but it would be there for someday. If someone ever did need it.

On Sunday I peeled the protective sheets from the magnifying glass and tried it out. Okay. Maybe I do "need" the magnifier.

I tried Hardanger a year or two ago and declared it the hardest needlework method of all time. Mostly because I couldn't see the damn threads.
I did several heart shaped practice projects before finally getting one to come out "right" enough. Then moved to other things.

I am trying again . . . but now with better lighting.
Inspired by this picture I felt compelled to give counting threads another try.

I've ordered 2 books including the one mentioned at Maggie's Textiles.
Until they arrive I'm (* sort of) going by Mary Corbet's tutorials found on her blog, Needle 'n Thread.


*OOPS!
I was supposed to wrap 4 threads (except for 2 on each end). I did 2 all the way across. All the way around.

I meant to do that!
Not buying it? Didn't think so :) I stopped reading directions too soon and just started sewing.

If there was a report card
Follows Directions marked: Needs Work

Lilacs in Waiting

Before and After

Tom and I went snow shoeing just before sunset on Sunday.

The threat of another storm was brewing.

By Monday 18 inches of snow would blanket us a little longer in winter.

I am officially sick & tired of Winter now. Please go away!

Last year I may have lasted a little longer before giving up on February. But not by much. Winter has been much more severe this year. No open ground where the snow pack melts completely and winter hits the reset button.

We lost power twice yesterday, for several hours of roughing it without electricity or water. My right arm aches from all the shoveling & roof raking.

For those who need convincing: Freshness Dates on a box of cereal are merely suggestions. The Cracklin Oats are fine. Really.

I made chicken & dumpling soup for supper.
And Whoopie Pies in the afternoon to celebrate power restored to the kitchen.

Perfect Whoopie Pie Recipe
Cream together 1/2 cup Crisco & 1 cup sugar.
Add 2 eggs, stir until creamy.
Add 2 cups flour
Add 1 teaspoon each of: baking powder, baking soda, vanilla and salt.
Mix well. Add 1 cup of milk and 1/2 cup of cocoa.

(Still a little fuzzy when the perfect time to add the cocoa is - but near the end!) Stir for a really long time until creamy cake batter consistency.
Drop by spoonfuls on lightly greased cookie sheets and cooked 8 minutes at 400 degrees. Exactly. (less but not more!)

Allow to cool!

Filling:
2 cups Confection sugar
3/4 cup Crisco
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla and * "a little milk"
* What the hell kind of measurement is that?!
Beat until creamy with mixer.

("a little milk" seems to be about 1/8th cup or less)
Sandwich 2 cakes with filling and squish together slightly.

I don't know if this is the same recipe readily available on the internet but when I couldn't find "my" recipe, I tried one from the internet. It sucked. So I'm writing "mine" down now so I'll know where it is next time the battered recipe card goes missing.

The mouse takes the cheese

Or gets stuck with pins & needles

Look what I made today!

Valentine Mouse Pincushion.
Instructions are here.

Changes made: Added an extra layer of "cheese" colored felt under the heart shape and practiced my blanket stitch for an extra sturdy base.
Added a braided tail; 2 beady blue eyes.
I stuffed him with dryer lint.

The only good mouse is a felt mouse!

"I can stop any time I want"

"So are you addicted to THESE now?"

(comment by a smartass Stephani)

Okay. They're addictive!
I've made 4 now.
If there's a Whirl Into Spring drawing, I'm ready with my prize.

Because shadow or no shadow given off by pesky rodents in Pennsylvania - I'm ready to bring on Spring. Now.

I've been working on my quilted Puzzle Pieces for a swap set up by Pat Winter Gatherings. Also addictive. I don't know if they'll fit together with other submitted puzzle pieces without purposely tweaking the nearby connecting tabs a bit. Hopefully I'm not alone in needing to revise the pattern of alternating pieces to make them fit.

One alternative I can see would be to ask some entries to leave their edges unfinished. I've been practicing my blanket stitch. I think I may be going the wrong way. All the tutorials seem to work the stitch right to left but after trying the first one and feeling like I was doing it backwards, I wondered why not go the other way. So I did. Seems the same to me.

It's still NOT my favorite stitch! If front is supposed to look as good as back, I've got a lot of practicing to do yet.

(If any Puzzle Swap participants stop by and want to do a one-to-one puzzle swap email me!)

It's a Beautiful Day!

My heart is happy :)

Tom and I went snow shoeing Tuesday morning. And this time I brought the camera.

There was a song in my head and a need to just look up into the sky.
I said thanks more than once.











Happy Inauguration Day!

I also whispered something about "men" and "idiots".
In the same sentence and several times.

My idea of perfect Snowshoeing is to go forth and blaze a wonderful trail until you're half tired, turn around and enjoy the fruits of your labor: A nice groomed trail for homing. Since you're half tired, getting home is just the right distance and goes quicker than you think.

An idiot man declares at 20 minutes past half tired:
I know where we are!

It'll be quicker to go off into the deep woods, with no clear trail.
I can see the road!

Never mind that we're getting off the "interstate" of snowshoeing trails and taking the over grown "tote road". You'll need 4 wheel drive to get back to the main road after he finally acknowledges maybe we should turn around.

Gee, never done that before ;)

I almost forgot...

Star Bright borders are done!

Saturday morning family members were called to a gathering in the living room for a mandatory round of applause over another finished quilt top. They complied quite nicely.


It was supposed to have another 5 or 6 inch border of the lighter fabric, but all the bias of the pieced stars made for wavy borders. One side was a real headache. Enough that I've pledge to myself only border-less quilts from now on! We'll see :)
I thought I had a quilt bat all ready to go and was going to pin the layers and get started with some quilting since we were having a blizzard. Except it was crib sized when I pulled it down. Too small.
Now I must go to the fabric store at my earliest convenience?
Oh, darn.

{Thought bubble: More red fabric? Or maybe some muslin so I can try a hand stitched Scrappy Cathedral Window...}
No one can see that, can they?

Took a little detour

Found myself in Russia gazing at beautiful stitch work.

I don't remember what word I put in Google the other day. But, This is what I found! Plus her tutorial for the Hex shaped needle books.
I have an addiction for making needle books.
So I made one for myself today ;)

The pictures of the tutorial are so universal I hardly needed to use Babel Fish to translate. (You can enter a web address and it translates everything for pages & pages. Mostly understandable, even!)

I made mine quite a bit smaller, once I realized how much larger 17.5 cm is than I thought. Next time I need to decide on a template size and stick to it. That way back & front might come out more or less the same size - first try. I used a CD as the template for the cover circles and instead of hemming the edge I sewed 2 circles together, trimmed extremely close and snipped a slit in the middle of one of the circles and turned.
Slit is completely covered by insert.
(Way easier!)

This one does have a bit of a design flaw as my stork scissors stick out of the pocket too far. Plus I cannibalized a 6 inch crazy quilt block with the hummingbird already stitched. I wanted to get started right away - instant gratification. It started out as several fabrics with embroidered seams, but the more I cut it down to a smaller size, the more was lost. You can just catch a glimpse of the other fabrics. One of the seams had a pink embroidered chain that stood way out of place without the rest of the block seam work. I snipped off the pink, but the needle marks still show.

But most importantly: I finished a project AND have one less orphan block in the treasure box!

(If) I bought fabric

I'm not blogging about it.

If I had a discussion with the cutting table lady at the fabric store she might have laughed as we discussed a need for some red to supplement my fabric inventory.

If there had been a 50% sale on everything, this would have been a really good day to supplement just a little more.
You know. If.

Progress has been made on several quilting fronts.
(She attempts to divert attention)
4 weeks of the Calendar Challenge have been completed.
(this is only the 3rd week!)
I may add some applique to the red & blue week panels to mark the return of my desire to applique.

Star Bright borders have been worked on once again. 2 days in a row. No pictures yet because I never think of it when it's all spread out on the living floor. You'll have to trust me. I'm working on it!

And why did I forget how much I love to applique?
It's been a lot of years since I did any bigger than a postcard.
A Tisket a Tasket, 12 Months of Baskets

I decided to put the Bunny Hill Designs free block of the month design for January in the blue block setting I already had made. Needed to make the basket smaller so it would fit.

Congratulations to Briarose, winner of the socks AND Needled Mom, winner of the Knitting Needle Roll-up from my Whirl Into Winter contribution.
I even won something from Patchscrap!

Now let's get winter whirling out of here.
It's too freaking cold!

Quilting Old and New

She's at it again

Great News:
I used up some more of my fabric inventory!

Formerly known as stash fabric. "Stash" has a negative tone and what I'm really doing is Quilting Green. Right? If you have plenty of material on hand you don't waste gas running to town. Until you know.

When you need some more...

Did you note how I'm ignoring the fact that I've started some new things and Star Bright has gone 4 days without much forward momentum?

BUT.
Digging through all my inventory, I found some more of the 2nd border fabric. So I can add a very narrow strip to the either side of the seminole border under construction (I was afraid would be too wavy) and still have enough to do the binding.
What luck!

Wondering: Should I practice saying this with a straight a face or a grin?

I've also been digging through my Unfinished Treasures for the - ahem - aging English Paper Piecing project(s) I knew were in there somewhere. I happened across some cheap Hex Therapy - and after some debate with myself, got out the ironing board and took a few wrinkles out my Grandmother's Flower Garden. I'm going to work on it again.
(Note bold font promise and shiny new button in the sidebar!)

I suppose you might further note the second English Paper Piecing project also pulled out of hiding and ironed nearly wrinkle free. Because if you quit working on one hand-pieced project, you should start another.
In a different shape.

(Would have been better though if every family member in the household did not appear in the kitchen to find mom standing on a chair taking pictures of very old unfinished quilting things. Explanations sound so much more guilty said out loud.)

With that said... I signed up for a couple of quilt block exchanges a couple of weeks ago. shhh!

One is a birthday exchange; 7 people signed up. Each get a block from the others on their birthday. I missed one that happened before I signed up. She said I could surprise her or wait until it rolls around again.
I thought I would try applique and make my contribution extra special since my own 5.0 is just around the bend. Except I really like the Heart Applique. Tom actually commented on it: "you should keep it".
I'm undecided and now the clock is ticking louder...
But I enjoyed doing applique for the 1st time in years! And I really like this setting.

The other swap is a centralized Chain of Friends block, in groups of 8. I have 9 finished. Commitment completed!!!

Until a different set of 8 blocks show back up in my mailbox and their life clock starts counting its way towards another UFO on my list?
Maybe not! I sent an email to our local county Project Linus director and they accept orphan blocks. And there's a Blanket day coming up so the big pile of unwanted treasures may find a good cause.
Or become someone else's problem.

201 posts! So she took a hammer to it?

Pardon our mess...

Finally said screw it and upgraded from Classic Template to New & Improved Blogger Template. I may have some tweaking to do still!

Star Bright!

Now we're getting somewhere!

Star Bright by Janis Nelson, Quiltmaker magazine #83 Jan/Feb '02.
(Started the day after Christmas ;)

The New Year's Day attempt at Planet Patchwork's One Day Mystery Quilt set my resolve back a bit ...already?
Started something big, before finishing a project underway. And then changed my mind.
I hate the Big Fan pattern, but now there are quilt pieces sewn together as evidence that give me away. Especially once it becomes a blog entry. I started something new.

Delete button, maybe?
No... it will just be something else. Soon.
Promise!

But I went on a guilt ridden, star paper-piecing, fake 9-patch sewing frenzy. The main body of my Scrappy Quilt is DONE!
There's even an extra row up the side so Stars would be in all 4 corners. Now pattern calls for 4 Borders - one of which is Seminole styled piecing.

The "I will quilt it right away!" pledge must be taken. Right hand in air, left hand on sewing machine: "I will!"

Have I mentioned I don't know right from left most of the time?