two steps forward, one step back

progress is being made on this project

I have three more pieces to encircle, then it will be on to figuring out the next step

it's been fun creating all of these -- each little beaded surround with little "handles" at each end like casserole dishes so they can be strung together with other pieces (think paper chains from your childhood -- that's the basic idea I have in mind for the making up)

it's time for the great pack up

I have afghan squares for Close Knit Hugs and mittnz and hatz for the Cheyenne River Reservation that are ready to be packed into boxes and shipped off

I hope to get the packing up done today so these can head off to their destinations on Monday

the season of Christmas sewing is fast approaching

my daughter picked up this flannel -- I will be making it into a pair of PJ pants for Mr Cute

there's just one little problem with beginning on the Christmas sewing

you may recall my talking about this little Rube Goldberg contraption that I did so I could finish a prior sewing project

yesterday afternoon I took the machine to the local Viking sewing center because I could not get the replacement light bulb to work

she tried -- same result -- which means for sure it has to go in and be officially serviced -- meaning it will cost at least $75, and will be away from me for a while

not happening right now -- sorry

so this morning I ordered this from Amazon

because my machine's casing is plastic and because it has a little mini-computer inside, I can not use anything magnetic around it

this little LED light is free standing and runs on a single AAA battery (a size that I have rechargeables for)

I'm hoping this will get me through the Christmas sewing season, then the machine can go in to the shop in January and get a good going over


time to get busy -- lots to do

oddities

yesterday morning as I was preparing breakfast, I was hulling a box of strawberries

these two berries were in the box

Siamese twins!

or cat berries, as it looks like a pair of kitty ears

I've seen this before from time to time, but two in one box is kind of odd

wonder what was in the water

and further strangeness from yesterday

these 3 pieces of fabric appeared on the floor in the kitchen

I have no idea where they came from

I haven't used anything this color for months

and I haven't done any project that would call for anything this shape in forever

puzzling

I finished a project yesterday

this is a Christmas banner I did for my daughter and her husband the year they got married

as a quilted piece, it's kind of "primitive", but they like it, so I'm happy to make the required adjustments

when I first made it, it had 2 snow people, a dog and a bird

the next year I had to add another dog

this year I added another little snow person (close up shows that part pretty well)

with this pair of striped mittens I have met the goal of 11 pair for this year

last year it took me until mid April to do 10 pair

I don't know if it is the new (and in my opinion, much better) pattern that I picked for this year or if I've just knit faster

either way, I'm feeling pretty good about having these 11 pair complete

charity knitting time will be afghan squares for a while

desert nighmares and the "squishy"

seems the piece that I titled "Desert Dreams" has "gone rouge" on me and turned into a nightmare instead

after considerable fiddling, fussy, stitching and ripping I've decided it's just not meant to be for this year's competition

which leaves me with 3 weeks to the deadline and nothing that I can enter this time -- and I'm really bummed about it

truth be told, I haven't really been working much on jewelry pieces except for competition pieces since I've yet to figure out how I can sell them after I make them

pppfffftttt!
when I went out to get the mail yesterday the postman had stuffed it full -- magazines, envelopes and a tyvek bundle from my sister

we send each other "squishy" packages from time to time (though truth be told, its more often she sends me one than the other way)

last week I had sent her a skein of yarn from my stash because it was the color she needed to complete a project

she sent along these goodies for me to turn into more mittnz (and those gray balls? -- ALPACA -- oh yummy knitting!!)
and this is mittnz pair number 6 for this year

this was another pair made of odds and ends of yarn pieces, thus the strip pattern

they were pretty fun to knit actually, just took a bit longer than usual in the weave in stage


work on the afghan continues -- on Sunday evening I had done the first row of the new pattern section and last night I got about half way across row two and discovered an error in row one, so both of them made a quick visit to the frog pond -- we'll begin again today

progress and an actual finished object

after picking out all the basting on this project, then drawing the shapes on the back of the Wonder Under, I've now started doing the fusing part of this project

the whole point of this is that I want it to look like a black and white photo, and I'm a lot happier with the way this is looking than it was the other way

(nope, it's actually not a piano -- but all those little black rectangles were pretty "fiddle-y")

I might mention here that any idea that fusing is less time consuming to do than applique should be totally dismissed right here -- the drawing, the cutting the pressing is time consuming, and after all the pressing is done comes the actual stitching -- around each and every little piece (and yes some artists do that on the sewing machine, but I'll be doing it by hand)

crawling along at tortoise pace
when I got tired of standing at the ironing board working on the fusing I did some hand work

the flap for the hand bag is now decorated and lined and top stitched

ready for attaching to the bag

the magnetic clasp piece is attached too

so now its on to creating the straps for the bag -- getting closer to getting it ready to use!


the third pattern panel in the afghan is complete

progress to 10%

plodding along




and another pair of mittnz actually complete

when I got to this pair I was down to not quite enough of the blue yarn to make this larger size, so I went through the bag of "odds and ends" and pulled out the little ball of variegated yarn that went well with the blue

I considered doing the ribbing with it, but decided in the end that I liked the idea of stripes better

in the end there was a piece of yarn about 8 inches long that wasn't needed

and I'm 45% of the way to 11 pair!

today I'll be looking in the "odds and ends" bag to find something to go with the pink yarn that there isn't quite enough of

sometimes these "scrap" mittnz are the most fun because of the challenge of using the different yarns in an attractive way --

today we are holed up in the family room with the space heater -- it is frigid here -- below zero with high humidity and a lot of wind -- I made a trip outside to pick up the newspapers (why on the coldest day are the newspapers out in the street!!??) and put an envelope in the mail box to be picked up -- one more trip outside later to get the mail will be the extent of our venturing outside

brrrrrrrrrr!

Long overdue update

Wow - I can't believe it's actually been more than a week since I was out here to post

and it's been a very hectic week at that!


last weekend we were at my daughter's house with my friend from California

while we were there, we did some playing with pastels, a medium that I have not played with before

these two pieces were my attempts -- the pumpkins along the fence was my second try, and I'm much happier with it than with the first one

it was fun, but I think I'll be sticking to my fiber mediums

on Wednesday, the DH had the surgery to repair his shoulder

the surgery was much more extensive than had been anticipated, and took longer

with that extra time and between taking care of the "patient" I have finished up the quilting on the lighthouse water color piece that I started a couple of weeks ago

I've now trimmed it square and cut the binding, so I hope to have it finished in the next day or two

this was a really fun project, and I hope to do some more things with the water color pencils -- as soon as I get a chance to get some of my own


these are the mittnz 2011 knitting so far

three lovely pair -- two size XS and one size S


last night I started working on the first planned Christmas present for 2011 -- it's a crocheted afghan -- I know crocheting something this big will take me quite a while to complete because crocheting bothers my wrist, so I'm allowing a lot of time to do it

and it is that lovely time of year when I have to do taxes --- pffffftt! --- I have already finished up all of the required sales tax returns already though, so I've got a good start made --

onward!

bits and pieces

this is mittnz #10

the yarn did indeed work up differently in the smaller version, bigger pools of color (especially that intense sapphire blue)

the completion of this pair means I will be putting the mitten pattern aside for a while and start working on that Christmas afghan and a sweater


these are the 10 pair of mittens I have knit since the first of the year

an interesting assortment of colors

stripes and pools

large and small

pretty cool I think





the weather here has been the usual spring mix of warm then cool

cloudy then sunny

with occasional downright COLD wind

the daffodils don't seem to mind

those two smaller, lighter colored ones on the far left are all of the older ones that remain

the rest are the result of the "buy the bag of bulbs on half price sale" that saw me planting about 30 new daffodil bulbs in this area last fall

nice
this rather cloudy picture was taken through the dining room window at an angle

I didn't want to risk spooking the wren

for the past few years there have been house wrens using this bird house that hangs on the corner of the house

yesterday morning as I was working on a project I heard the unmistakable sound of wrens outside the window

so it looks like there is nest building going on -- they were coming and going for a while

last year I could even seen the tiny little baby birds -- I hope I get that privilege again -- and I'll keep the camera close at hand

heart songs and trees and mittnz (OH MY!)

I finished another Heart Song block

the black and white print is one of the fabrics my sister brought

I think my heart applique work gets better with each one -- this one looks especially sharp

one more to go to meet my goal of having one a month for the quarter (and it's only the 6th of the month!)


finished "stuffing" the second redwood tree

I used an entire 2 ounce skein of this ancient yarn to do this one

this yarn did do a much quicker job of the "stuffing" that the nicer stuff I was using for the first one, so I am once again feeling thankful that someone gave this stuff to my sister and she deemed it "too scratchy" to use for knitting projects

so now I will begin the really big tree that goes between the two little ones (LITTLE?!) that I have just finished

today I'll be ironing the new turtle fabric and the Hoffman Challenge fabric -- I'm ready to start in on the next/first turtle block, but if I'm going to drag out the ironing board and use the electricity to heat up the iron, I might as well do all of it!
Ta Da!

a pair of finished mittnz -- this is pair number four

I thought I would have used up all of these yarns doing this pair, but no, there are still pieces of both of them -- but not enough to make another pair

so I found some other brown tone wool yarn in the stash that is also little pieces, and later today I split up all of the yarn into equal size balls (2 of each color) and start another pair

the coral scarf is now 31 inches long -- only 24 inches to go -- and it is really nice

and did you hear that little yelp of joy from my vicinity yesterday afternoon? that would be the sound of my having finished our tax return -- YIPPEE!! so now I'm ready for the next onslaught -- either my daughter's or my friend in California -- Bring it on!!

mostly beginnings

except this one

the big aspen trees are all finished and ready to be appliqued to the base of the quilt

(we CAN see the forest for the trees!)


so now it's on with the redwoods, which will take a while since there are all those rows and rows of stitching to create the channels for the bark

good work to do while watching a good TV show






can you see the turtle?

well, what we have here are the flippers of the sea turtle (he's swimming toward the bottom of the picture)

today he'll get a head and at least part of a body

there are four this size to do for the corners

then there's the big one for the center

still need to get some pictures of sea grass to use on this

this is the beginning of the scarf from Alison's book made out of the "free" yarn

the yarn is kind of odd -- sort of like knitting with embroidery floss in the way the strands of the fiber tend to come apart, unlike wool which hangs together so well

with this I need to be careful not to separate the strands as I knit into them

the pattern is awesome --- easy to do, nice repetition

lookin' good!

and this is progress on the first of the bi-color mittnz

I wasn't sure about putting these two yarns together, but I really like the look now that I have

I have just started the decreases at the top of the hand, so it is closer to the finish than the start




this arrived yesterday

ordered it last weekend for the annual sweater knitting

so you could say this is a sweater, raw on the half shell

so to speak

I'm not starting this until the scarf is finished




and this?

this is packing material

or was -- it protected the external hard drive on it's way to me

I see the beginnings of an afghan here

maybe


oh, and that geeking thing I was trying yesterday?

nope, no can do

have to wait for the computer doctor to make a house call --- which will happen tomorrow

YIPPEE!!

weekend projects

this is the block I wasn't going to do

the one for the quilt group, and I wasn't going to spend any money to make anything for the group that I wouldn't otherwise do

except all of these fabrics were in my stash

it looks pretty good

the one thing I see is that the print corners look a little wonky to me

they aren't -- I measured them

but it is hard to cut this print fabric and have it look straight --- perhaps I'll do another block and put that print deliberately at an angle (like maybe a 45 degree angle)

we'll see

I do like the look of the block in general, and I may actually play with the idea in some other colors for a whole other project

now what did I say about not getting involved in this?

the other three of the aspen trees for the Trees project are now ready for painting --- it took quite a bit of time to install the batting and lining layer on each of these, but I really like the look, and I know they will look a lot better after they are attached and stuffed too -- now it's on to the redwood trees (bigger, and the bark is a lot more complex)

and another pair of mittnz (number 3!) is now complete too

these are made of Woolese that was left from yet another sweater project

the nice thing about this pair is that there are no splices in the yarn as I knit -- so the weaving in took no time at all (unlike the two pair of gold ones that required quite a bit of weaving in because that was recycled yarn)

these were knit on size 2 (for the ribbing) and size 3 needles -- I have just located my size 1 needles, so the next pair will be smaller still (now, which yarn shall I use for those?)

time to get busy!

knittin' mittnz

ta da

the first completed pair of mittens for the (expected) Mittnz 2010 challenge

I made these up using some of the left over yarn from the sweater I made the DH for Christmas

they are a sort of antique gold with darker flecks of coffee brown

and I have enough yarn to knit one more pair this color




I went to the local quilt guild meeting last night, and while I was sitting and listening to the business meeting and watching the presentation I finished another afghan square

this is part of what I love about doing these squares --- they keep my hands busy so I stay away from the banana bread and the brownies and the cookies and (well you get the picture) and once I've cast on the stitches, I can do them without looking --- even in the dark!

ok, so I'm now down to needing only 10 more to fill the current box

and the Guild meeting? -- very interesting -- a nice group of ladies -- once again I seem to be the only art quilter in the group {sigh}, but at least its fun to be with women who share my love of fiber, color and workmanship

yesterday the bead order arrived!

this is always a momentous occasion --- better than a brand new box of crayons!! we spent about an hour doing the check in -- making sure everything we got we had actually ordered (we had -- yeah!) and making sure we got everything we ordered (we didn't -- BOOOOOO! -- three things on back order) then there is the calculating of the per gram or per each price for each one and the assigning of inventory numbers (and if this all sounds like business, it's because it IS a business --- every now and then I have to put on my accountant hat and do this part --- and the taxes!)

so today I'll be working on kitting up the projects that I ordered things for --- oh YEAH!! --- new projects are comin', new projects are comin'

Catching Up

I'm back!

For the first time in a very long time we actually spent two weeks on vacation!! Weird ---

As we have done shows and traveled for those in the past few years, our "vacations" have usually consisted of an extra day after a show to visit a place we've not seen before or to visit briefly with friends.

This year, since I will not be doing any shows that I'll be traveling to, and because a dear friend was celebrating her 80th birthday, we made a trip to California.

The point of the trip was that she and I got to "PLAY"!

In this post I'm going to talk about about the projects that I've worked on the past two weeks, then in another post in the next couple of days, I'll talk about our travel "adventures".


Project #1: The Angels
You may remember this project from a while back.

Even though in general I was pleased with the way it came out, I have long maintained that doing faces, especially human like faces, in any medium is not my strongest suite. This piece was no exception, so I took it and the fabric markers I had originally used on it with me, hoping for some help with it.

The suggested fix? Darker markers to do the shading/highlighting of the eyes, nose and mouth and under the chins.

The result I think is much better.

Project #2: Rubber Stamping
That we should be messing with rubber stamps at all is sort of funny as neither of us have ever been all that into the whole rubber stamping craze, but when we recently got involved with cutting rubber stamps from our own drawings, we got a lot more interested!

These are the pair of zebras that I cut and the first stamps of each of them.

There's only one problem with this -- my original plan was to have two zebras that would FACE each other --- except I got the transfer to the rubber wrong, and so both of them face the same way ---- Pfffttt!!

Okay, that means that I need to cut one more, but I'll have to get another sheet of the rubber stuff to cut first.

Project #3: Rubber Stamping and a Painting Technique Lesson
You probably remember that I've been sort of giraffe crazy of late, and that has spilled over into this project too.

There at the top is the giraffe rubber stamp, and underneath is the stamp with the embellishment of an added tail and mane that are drawn on with a fabric marker.

Because my friend has taken all those classes in painting techniques that come along with a BA in Fine Art she gave me a techniques lesson on using various sea sponges to create the tree and the ground beneath the giraffe.

My plan next is to use thread and beads to further embellish this and to create something that can be hung on the wall from it.

And yes, I'm thinking about something that will involve even more stamped animals.

Project #4: Dye Workshop
Ok, perhaps we should have labeled this "playing with dirty soap"

This project involved squirting dyes into a pan of shaving cream to form patterns then laying the fabric over the pan to take up the colors and patterns -- sort of like you do with marbling techniques on paper.

After that you pick up the fabric and let it dry for about 24 hours before you wash out the shaving cream and residual dye.

And these are my pieces from the project.

My plan is to use them as parts of more stamping/embellishing projects in the future


The Shopping Spree
This was not a trip where I did a whole lot of shopping for anything.

I did get the chance to go into a quilt store in San Jose while we were there and picked up a piece of fabric for a wall hanging we are working on that is titled Breakfast on the Hoof.

The "cow print" fabric was just too cute to resist especially since they were having a sale.

And here's the next question --- which is more useful, the purchase or the bag?

Since I work with lots of media, the bag will be just as good to have as the fabric!

A Project Complete!
One of the things I can do quite well while riding for hours in a car is knit.

While we were traveling I completed the last of the mittens for this year's Mittnz challenge.

I'll be sending along my picture this week.

Since those were finished by the middle of the second day out, I started working on this year's sweater project. Because sleeves are usually the last pieces I knit and I usually dread them if they are just plain sleeves, I decided to knit those first this time. And I'm now within 10 rows of having both sleeves complete.

And there have been some other knitting experiments which I will be sharing in the next few days, incuding the purchase of some absolutely amazing silk yarn.

And so there we are.

I'm back, I played, and now there is a ton of laundry to do ---- more soon!