Encouragement

Sweet Tweet and House Quilt #38 have been sold to a previous collector and I find that so encouraging.  

It makes me feel like making more new work! 

Truffle Shawl Variation #5

Well, there you have it. C'est fini. Merino, Silk and wools of various colors. It's a combination of all my fave stitch patterns,slip stitches and mitered diamonds,  and I have learned to love M1R and M1L for the center increases.

It rained (finally!) most of Sunday and that made it so cozy to knit and binge watch Professor T on PBS Passport. Feet up and a mystery to think through. Last week I binged GOLD on Masterpiece Mystery. Sooooo good. But I really love the characters and plots on Professor T. Now that I have run out of old Law and Order reruns, and caught up with Shetland episodes,  I am so happy to have found another detective program to engage the old gray cells. Of course I love the Marlow Murder Club and Maigret, and especially Unforgotten, and I ask myself, why are all the really good mysteries British? Do we dumb down mysteries here in America?

I do plan to make a pretty polymer clay pin to coordinate with this new shawl. I found a source and I won't be running short on shawl pins for a long time to come. This shawl is available for $60 plus shipping. Email me.

 It measures 33" deep and the wingspan is 72".

In the midst

 I don't often post works in progress, but I was steam blocking this shawl-start midway to finishing, to see where it is that I am going. At this point it is a tad small, at 48-ish inches across the top and 24-ish inches deep. When it cools down from the steaming I can drape it on my mannequin and decide how much farther I want to knit it. 

 This was actually started as a cowl like the Leaf Peepers Cowl I just finished, but it morphed on its own (I kid you not) into a shawl. It now looks like another variation of the Truffle Shawl  . I came across that shawl on Pinterest and followed my own link to see what else I had to say at the time. It turns out that a comment was left which I just now saw, four years later. Geesh. This reader wanted a heads up so she could possibly be first in line when I offered the next one. 

 I hope she is inclined to like this color scheme. I certainly do. 

It will get a bit wider and longer, and I will post it as a finished product then. 

Leaf Peepers Cowl

 I've been wanting a shawl or cowl or something to cover my shoulders which is where I first notice the cold. So I made this to fit that brief. I got to use my fave colors in a 'Maple Leaf' vein and knit all weekend, loving the process. I had no plan and let the yarn dictate where and what stitch or color to use. Just a glorious experience.

 Here's the other side of the loop that is the cowl shape. I like a cowl because there are no ends to dither with and it stays out of the soup. 

 I usually make really long cowls, much narrower than this one, and I like the fact that this will easily tuck into a coat without having to wrap it around the neck more than shown here. 

The yarns are all my fave merinos and merino/silk combos, no itch, no scratch.  I started it on Friday at my knitting group and finished it just today. I call that a three day project, because today was just steaming and photographing it. So at $20 a day I am offering it for $60 plus postage. Email me.

My Version of Neutrals

I chose what I think of as autumnal colors and on the more neutral end of the spectrum, if neutrals are even on the spectrum. I realize that most people have coats that are camel, tan, brown, black or gray, so they might want to coordinate a cowl to go with that palette.

 

I chose polymer clay colors in gold, and  copper and used a gold pin instead of silver. 

Available for $45 plus shipping. Email me.

On another note, I picked up my spray bottle to mist my fabric on yesterday's shirt, and this happened:

Yes, that is bleach! Turns out our wonderful April used the spray bottle which she filled with bleach water  to whiten up my laundry, which is so kind of her, since I didn't ask her to do laundry. So this piece was to be a facing on the shirt I was going to be sewing today. No biggie. I will go to WM and get more of this fabric. By the way, the laundry looks so white!!

Sewist's Process

Now that Joann's is gone, where do we go for fabric and notions? Having the urge to sew and/or get inspiration, I took myself shopping.  Our Michael's is like a mini-Joanne's and has some quilty fabric, some (icky acrylic ) yarn, some notions, but nothing I had to have, altho the price of their batiks were pretty good, at $6.99 per yard. Their sales are enticing, and if things are ordered online, a good % is taken from the price. No patterns for sale there. 

So onto Hobby Lobby, which does have a variety of nice fabric and someone waiting to cut it, which makes such a difference not having to find that person. I was happy to see that they have some woven striped linen/cotton, as well as multiple colors of woven gingham, being chiefly a gingham girl myself. Nice quality and a great price. Then I saw their McCall's patterns were 99 cents so I sat and scoured the look book. I wanted a shirt dress pattern and found this one with raglan sleeves which will make for a nice change in the construction. 

 I already have the fabric which is a tablecloth from Walmart, in the Pioneer Woman series. Yes. A tablecloth. A quality heavy woven 100% cotton 60x102" item for like $18.  Speaking of Walmart, I particularly like their Waverly Cottons, many of which are pre-cut into fat quarters, yards and 2 and 3 yard packs. I didn't intend to cut into my tablecloth on a brand new untried pattern, so I prewashed a two yard piece of aqua Waverly cotton to use as a tryout. $5.64.

Then after jiggering my new studio to sew,  I started getting the pattern ready to trace.

I never use the pattern without tracing, as I want to make marks, cut off the seam allowance and find the right size lines before cutting. I use Pellon's Easy Pattern paper which I buy by the bolt, again, from Walmart.

I know the construction of this garment will mostly be sewn on my serger, so I trace my size from each pattern piece and then mark the new seam allowance which is 3/8" less than the 5/8" on the pattern. I have marked my ruler with this orange line to use as a measuring guide. 

What a lotta work, you say. I agree, but as a process person, it's all part of what I do to make sewing a smooth and enjoyable effort.

Here's my aqua cotton, and the pattern piece for the sleeve. I never make the full length sleeve on any garment as I famously have tyrannosaurus arms. Plus, two yards just isn't enough to fit the full pattern, so I often add a cuff from a waste area of the fabric. 

 Shown here is about half the sleeve pattern which I have cut using my pattern weights rather than pins. I have adjusted the tapered sleeve to flare a bit because I know I will be adding fabric for a rolled up cuff, later. 

...and then it was time for Dave's caregiver to leave, so I have to wait to sew this into a shirt and see how it fits and if my gingham tablecloth is shirt worthy. 

Cowl and Pin 2025

 It's already that time of year when one starts thinking about keeping away the cold winds. Here is the Dots and Dashes Cowl,  one of my fave things to knit. This one is made from Merino and silk yarns, super soft and squishy, but warm and snuggly too. It's one continuous round of scarf, with a coordinating pin of polymer clay and stainless steel.

  I'm a fan of cowls because it can double as a head covering in an instant, and with no ends, nothing falls into the soup, shall we say. And once out of the cold, it sits nicely around the shoulder, brightening up the ensemble.  I've found a source for the pin and so as I make more of these (I'm on #2 already) I can fashion a pin to coordinate with the cowl's colors. 

Dots and Dashes Cowl, available for $45 plus shipping. Email me.  SOLD

Or make your own, pattern is here.

GSR Heels

 As I age (gracefully I hope) it occurred to me that I might be less mentally sharp or not as quick on my feet as I once was. This may be true or a result of terrible new sleep patterns, but I figured I oughta try and make the most of what brain power I have now. Just FYI, I used to solve problems quickly, in minutes but while I still solve them, it may be the next day or a week later. Frustrating. I heard that knitting was good for the brain, so why not start there to sharpen the ol' stick. 

Thanks to Youtube, our channel of choice these days, I kept seeing vids on German Short Rows as a feature of sock heels. A lovely French lady demoed how to do it and I thought, I should learn this. I began on a day when I had no caregiver for Dave, so I had all the time he was napping to work on learning this technique. I should add that my small knitting group is very interested in learning to knit socks and I wanted to give them options to try, once we all stop fooling around and get serious. As if!

 In all honesty, it took me ALL DAY to learn this technique. Not because it is difficult, but because I think I already know everything (major personality fault) and I had to pay better attention to the directions I had been skimming over in haste. Geesh. Luckily I am not adverse to ripping out knitting and starting over, because that is what it took to slow me down long enough to actually get the point of how it is done.  And Ta Da! I have it mastered. It is a very nice heel which can be done toe up or cuff down and looks just about the same. It feels nice on the foot (although I made these socks too long for my size 7.5 foot) I am sure they would be comfy to wear. I also decided to get fancy and do a cable pattern, which is lovely but unless you wear sandals, will not be seen. O well. 

 
The toe I used is the easy toe from Knitty.com. Scroll all the way to the bottom of that link. And I decided to get even fancier and make the whole sock on two circular needles which was way fun.

I'm feeling very brainy now. O, and I should add, that as a long time watcher and re-watcher of Law and Order (even the UK version) GSR also stands for gun shot residue. O my.