Prepped and Coping

Over the last day or two, our weather has cooled and we've had much needed rain.  Today's morning showers, swirling grey clouds and stiff breezes makes it look like Mother Nature is practicing for September, a mere 10 days away.

With cooler weather and the sense that autumn's creeping in comes a renewed Sense of Purpose and a determination to Get Things Done that I welcome after a summer of strained emotions coupled with uncertainty about Where I Go From Here.

Yesterday was mostly about prep:

The garden-fresh beans my sis gave me on Sunday were prepped for blanching and freezing:

I prepped my luncheon omelette:

And I prepped my materials for another series of miniatures at the request of one of "my" galleries -- Different Strokes in Olds -- which re-opens in September after a summer of renovations and roadwork:

Foundations prepped

Sketchbook, inspirational photos, fabrics...

I prepped my "10 x 10: The Unknown Artist" silent auction piece -- now it's ready to hang at the Preview which is Wednesday evening, September 24, at the Lacombe Memorial Centre:

Special thanks to Susan Lenz who is a framer as well as a textile artist, and who gave great advice recently about this sort of hanging paraphernalia on the SAQA Yahoo Group.  :-)

I also did more work on the Japanese Taupe Quilt.  Not liking all the blank space of plain blocks, I auditioned strip-pieced-and-plain four-patches instead:

A. -  Five plain blocks in the centre -- see?

B. - Auditioning 4-patches -- see?

Today?  "Prep" became "WIPs" or "Almost Finished":

This mini is almost there -- but I ran out of the colour of thread I need to create some motion in the sky:

Mini #1 - "There's One in Every Crowd"

This one just needs stitching of the evergreen, and trimming:

Mini #2 - "Sailor's Delight" - WIP

And the Japanese Taupe Quilt is coming together -- because I'm coping!  I discovered my math on the 4-patches was a tad "out", so...instead of starting over, I added narrow coping strips to the blocks and will incorporate them thus:

JTQ - Pieced Section #1 - Rows 1 & 2 (of 5) on design wall

Tomorrow?  I work at the shop, so the studio will have to wait till Friday.  Meanwhile, I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday on The Needle and Thread Network -- let's see what others are up to, shall we?  :-)

P.S.  

• Finished this as a shop sample -- the Bollard Shrug from Berroco, in Weekend Chunky yarn:

Bollard Shrug - Self Portrait!

• SAQA colleague and cyber-friend Susan Lenz (she of the hanging apparatus tutorial) was in Portland, OR, this past weekend for the "Quilt! Knit! Stitch!" show, and saw my piece in the "Coming Up Roses" exhibit.  She had her husband, Steve, photograph her with my piece...see below (used with permission).  I'm thrilled to bits!

So lovely when someone known to you actually recognizes your work!

The Business of Blocking

When it comes to knitting, I'm a process person.  Assembling the finished project has always been a bit of a necessary evil to me -- much like swatching.  However, working for a yarn shop means I need to finish my store samples neatly, and that includes blocking.

Here's the latest sample, in pieces, drying in the sunshine yesterday afternoon:

This evening or tomorrow, it'll become a little girl's cropped cardigan, complete with sweet white buttons.  :-)

Next weekend it will be used to show off the shop's selection of Schachenmayr SMC "Micro Grande" on sale at the Creative Stitches show in Edmonton.  It's a pleasant yarn to work with and the stitch definition is lovely, so I hope there will be some takers.  :-)

Sometimes we get a sample in from a manufacturer that needs a bit of blocking.  This was the case with the pretty "Bleddyn" shawlette recently received with our shipment of Berroco Boboli Lace yarn.  Packaging and shipping had rumpled the sample somewhat, so I brought it home to re-wash and block:

It doesn't look like much lying on an old towel, pinned down, with blocking wires running down the sides to the bottom (centre)...but it's a very pretty knit, and the leaf motif looks much better now that it's blocked flat.  (Before? I could describe it, but not in polite company... ;-) )

Little else is happening in the 'sewdio' just now...just a bit of piecing, while my mind wraps itself around the construction of new pieces.  Perhaps by WIP Wednesday...

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Look Ma -- I'm Swatching!

I have several projects on the go right now, including knitting.  We've apparently had all the hot weather we're going to get this summer -- a few days very early in July, when we experienced 28 C - 32 C -- and the past week has been mainly cool, with roving clouds and periodic thunder showers: perfect weather for the studio -- and for yarn!

Glitzy Ruffle Scarf

"Niven" Shawlette Nora Gaugahn Vol 13

As a result I finished the "Niven" shawlette in Berroco Lustra, a shop sample for The Crafty Lady in Lacombe, where (in case I forgot to mention it) I'm currently working 1 day a week (photo of my version to follow once it's on the shop model).  Then I finished a ruffle scarf in Red Heart Yarn's Boutique Sashay Metallic.  I may offer this one to Lori as a sample too; although it's one of  'my' colours, it's not really my style.  I did it so I could say I'd done one, and as practice in case my daughter's still interested in having one.  The process is simple enough but very slow for someone accustomed to 'throwing' her yarn over her right forefinger and simply breezing along a mile a minute.  Yarn-play, yes.  Knitting?  Not so much!

"Merle" Cardigan

The Berroco Booklet that contains the pattern for "Niven", Nora Gaughan Volume 13, has a number of pieces I'd like to make.  While I bought the Lustra for the shawlette at the shop (the hot pink colour-way I selected has been discontinued and was thus on special), I want to use stash yarn for the next project: the "Merle" cardigan.    Mmmmmm...!!

Having misjudged my size (1" larger) and gauge (only off a teeny bit but...) so that "Niven" doesn't fit me particularly well (it sits on my shoulders but the width of my back means I can't comfortably fasten it in front), I thought I'd actually do a gauge swatch for this next project, it being made with stash yarn and therefore no longer available should I run short (yes, I got it that long ago).

Must be all this City & Guilds sampling stuff; I've made not one swatch, but two. 

Don't faint.

First, I made one in Classic Elite's Skye Tweed.

Colour #1203

I liked it well enough to do 23 rows of the collar pattern (this booklet's patterns are all top down and like Niven, this one begins with the collar)...but the fabric created by those rows felt a bit stiff and heavy, so I decided to try my next stash selection:  Jo Sharp's Silkroad DK Tweed.

Colour #401 - Celestine

Here's how the swatches compare with the required gauge/tension for the pattern:

• Required:  18 stitches and 25 rows to 4" in stockinette with the larger of the two sets of needles (5.5 mm).
• Skye Tweed: 17 stitches and 23 rows to 4". 
• DK Tweed: 18 stitches and 24 rows to 4".

I've now cast on for the collar (again) on a second set of 5.5 mm needles and will compare the two fabrics when I get the first 23 rows done.

By WIP Wednesday, I'll have a fresh report on from the quilting studio.  See you then!

Always Something

I've been operating with lists all week, as I've deadlines to meet and weather to work around.

• Monday's deadline was to deliver "My Little Choia Garden" to the curator of its exhibit. CHECK!
• Yesterday I wanted to finish the top of P's "Hunter's Star" throw and mark it for quilting.  CHECK!

Today I wanted to sandwich the quilt and start the quilting.  HALF-check --  if such a thing is possible.  I ran into a snag -- or two.

Hunter's Star throw with narrow border, sandwiched for quilting

The quilting marks disappeared!  I'd run into this problem when marking the circles on "MLCG", but they were small, so I took to marking them as I went along so that the embroidery could be put in the right place.  The circles were batik fabric, so I thought perhaps that had something to do with it.

Wrong.

It's the marker -- Tailorform Vanishing Fabric Marker, to be exact.  It's supposed to disappear in 48 hours...but it seems to work too well, for it vanished almost completely between 5 p.m. yesterday and 9 a.m. today.  I'd even folded the top with the marked side in, thinking that would keep the air from getting at it and removing the marks.  Go figure.

The quilt is sandwiched anyway...and I may mark it in sections as I quilt.  The purple line made by this marker is perfect for the fabric, as it's easy to see.  However, while in town tomorrow, I'll check other options.  (I have a turquoise water-erasable marker, but it's not dark enough for this particular project.  I also have a marking pencil which might do but the lead is so soft it's constantly breaking, which is why I no longer use it.)

And the other small snag?  I have a small spool of thread that would work for quilting the top, but I'm concerned it's not enough.  So...along with marker I'll be replenishing thread!

The upside of today is that given the aforementioned wrinkles in my plans, I had to move on to other items on my list.  This included taking out the garbage and cleaning my gutters and downspouts before the forecast rain hit (again).  CHECK!

It also included casting on the Seyfert cowl from Berroco (a free pattern), which I'm making in the yarn for which it was designed (whoa!) -- Berroco "Quasar" -- as a gift for my cousin A when I visit later this month. She's cousin D's wife, and her favourite colour is blue so here's what I'm using:

Pretty, eh?  I think it'll be a nice addition to her cool-weather wardrobe.  Next on the list: graft the toes in cousin D's 'Plain Vanilla' socks and sew in the ends, while watching to see if the Severe Thunderstorm Warning actually produces a Severe Thunderstorm.

Oh...and check in with WIP Wednesday over on The Needle and Thread Network, to see what's cookin'!

Better Late Than Never

This summer I've been trying to catch up on Unfinished Objects -- embroidered ones.  The first was a small "Springtime Sampler" from a long-ago cyber-class over at The Victoria Sampler.  In fact, the class was so long ago, that this one isn't even in Thea's cyber-class listings any more!  I've managed to find a frame, and have hung it in my bedroom.

Next, I finished a wee sampler -- slightly off count, as mine always seem to be -- that I began on a very special trip in January, 2009 -- Jeannette Douglas' first stitching cruise -- 'round the Caribbean, with my sister as my travelling companion, and wonderful stitching friends -- new and old. (A bit over a year from now, Jeannette's cruising again -- to Alaska.  Having been there on a cruise in 2005 for my 30th wedding anniversary, I'm not going there again, but I commend it too you.  The scenery is spectacular, the stitching shops (Rushin' Tailor's Quilt Alaska and Changing Threads, both in Skagway) are wonderful, and I am certain Jeannette will keep you in stitches -- literally and figuratively -- while at sea.)

Then, this week, I finished the first project I did with Jeannette -- the "Love Needleroll", which was featured in the Just Cross Stitch Christmas magazine in 2004!!!  I've put it together and it rests on my buffet next to "Take Time to Cruise".  It took me hours to do the pulled-thread work for the ribbon -- more time spent prevaricating than actually pulling the threads! -- but it was worth it.

Now the weather is cooling off dramatically, and I, Like the Queen, am turning to knitting.  I am well away on the marl of the cuff of the argyle kilt hose I've been commissioned to make, and my thoughts are turning to knitting and finishing items for Christmas.

And then, just to kick my 50th Almost Fall Knitting Season off in fine fashion, I went shopping at The Crafty Lady in Lacombe when I was there on Monday.  As soon as I got in, Lori was anxious to show me their new shipment from Berroco Yarns --  -- fabulous yarns, including the intriguing 'Remix', which I'd love to buy...but not yet -- and a new book from Nora Gaughan, Number 7, with which I fell in love immediately.  Even better, it passed my "3 pattern rule", meaning that it had to contain at least 3 patterns I'd realistically make, before I'd lay out money for it. (Magazines have to do this too and, of late, few have passed muster -- but I digress.)  I then spent some length of time -- nearly till closing -- looking for the right yarn with which to create at least one of the patterns: the Rhodocrosite Wrap, perhaps, or the Quarzo pullover.  Alas, either the weight or the colour was wrong.  Lori had brought in beautiful colours of the Berroco Alpaca in various weights, but all rather muted and with a great emphasis on greens, browns and golds, which do even less for my skin tones as I get older than they did when I was in my twenties.  Sigh.


All was not lost, however.  I do, after all, have a capacious stash -- and I hadn't visited the steamer trunk in the back yard for some months.   First, I went to the freezer on my back stoop, where I found an almost-forgotten bundle of balls of elann.com's "Endless Summer Collection" Lara in ruby tones (colour "#335 -- and no, it's no longer in production).  Perfect for "Rhodocrosite"!  Then, I went out to the trunk in the garage and there, in the bottom right hand corner, I found a package of 13 - 50 gram balls of Berroco Uxbridge Tweed in "Marionberry" -- Colour #1171 -- and yes, it's discontinued too.  Such is the way of stash yarn. But "Marionberry" is a delicious mix of purples and blues, and will make a comfortable, even pretty "Quarzo".


Of course, with all the unfinished projects and the queue I have in Ravelry, it's unlikely I'll get to these projects (which are, after all, for me) for some time... but a gal can dream, eh?  :-) 

Something Old, Something New

I believe one is never too old to learn something new. Yesterday I took a class in entrelac at River City Yarns in Edmonton (their south-end store) -- and had a great time. I came away with the beginnings of a new scarf made in "old" (read: stash!) yarn, and I think I might have just found another addictive knitting technique. The yarn is Emu Super-wash DK, 100% wool (breed of sheep not supplied), and the entire piece will use all 4 balls (119 metres each) that I have in my stash. I'm thinking this one might be an ideal project to donate to the craft-and-bake sale coming up at church.

Another something new is the recent photo I received from my DD, sporting her new Sweet Tee from Interweave Knits, Spring 2009 (it's a self-portrait, always a tricky thing to do). In the words of Stevie Wonder, "Isn't she lovely?" (I'm no proud mom, am I? My late DH and I often wondered -- and I still do -- how we managed to produce two such good-looking, good-living kids...)

You might notice that DD's shirt doesn't have the Fair Isle floral embellishment around the yolk -- that was by request. Also, I think the yolk is a bit wider than the original pattern, but IMHO that gives it a very elegant look. Try making it in a sparkly black-and-gold yarn to wear with great black pants or a long black skirt...or perhaps in a sporty denim, with a long-sleeved turtleneck worn underneath. This pattern has so many possibilities, that I expect I'll make it again.

This version took three balls of Berroco Comfort Worsted; DD's chosen colour way was "Maine Woods", #9839 (scroll all the way to the bottom of the linked page). Generally good at math, I messed up the calculations on the yardage I ordered and bought seven balls! LOL! No worries; I like the yarn well enough I'll use it for something else. Perhaps an entrelac scarf...?