Done!

Well . . . almost done:This morning I crocheted the last stitch on this blanket. Now I just need to finish it off. There are a few loose ends to be stitched in. And I'm planning a twisted cord fringe for the sides. That's why there are so many long ends of wool hanging off the edges.

A friend of mine is working with bushfire victimes from Healsville and Kinglake, so I've asked her to find a good home for it. I'd like it to bring some hope as well as physical warmth to people who are managing the aftermath of the fires.

Requirements

The calendar's done it to me again! It's nearly August already and last time I looked, August was a long way off.

Way back in first term I taught a beginner patchwork class at the Neighbourhood House. The plan was to keep it simple, so we made nine-patch quilts. That means all the blocks were made of squares. At the end of the course, the students were keen to learn more, so I promised a follow-up class to teach the basic techniques of working with triangles. I kept an eye out for my sanity and resisted the pressure to do it right away. First I needed time to work out a design and make up a sample. So the triangles course was scheduled for August. At the time, August was ages away. But the last few months have been really messy for me and now it's just about August already. I've had a few polite calls asking for the requirements list for the new class. But my sewing room isn't in a fit state to be used yet. Yesterday I had another look at the sewing room and threw up my hands in despair. Then I scrounged out the things I need to make a sample block and cleared off the kitchen bench:
I found my quilting rulers and rotary cutter--they were under the insurance files on my desk! The cutting mat was in the shelf with my fabrics and I had a selection of fabrics in a "to be sorted" box left over from my last project back in March. I'd found the graph paper and sketched out a design last weekend. Now I have done all the cutting and I've marked and pinned the pieces for the centre star. I think I can have it all done this weekend and mail out a requirements list on Monday. OK, I think that's achievable.

Unseasonal

I picked this rose when I got home from my walk yesterday. It's from my Lorraine Lee rose bush and its pretty pink perfection was irresistable.Lorraine Lee is an early flowering rose, but this bush hasn't actually stopped flowering since last season. We're now at the end of July and rose pruning is on the "to do" list. I keep waiting for the roses to finish flowering, but I don't think winter dormancy is on their agenda this year. I guess I'll just have to go out and give them a trim and see what happens.

On the textile front: I finished the camel-wool blend woollen sample yesterday. I'll need to go back and have a look at our requirements lists from previous sessions to see what to do next. I know I have gaps all over the place, but at least I've got one session completed.

. . . and I have a Castle Report: Town Planning gave me ticks on all of their main requirements for an upper storey extension! Now I just need a lot more zeros on the end of my bank balance, and we're away!

Castles in the Air

What's this? It's the manhole in the ceiling of my bathroom. That's the bathroom door you can see on the right hand side of the pic. Strangely enough, that manhole cover is the entrance to a dream. Above that ceiling is a roof cavity. Currently the roof cavity is filled with roof trusses--they hold it up. There's also a layer of insulation up there, plus a spider or two or three and a fair bit of dust. In my dreams there's a textile studio up there.

Last week I took two tentative steps in making the dream a reality. I rang a home extension company: they gave me a very rough and rather large figure as a ball-park cost estimate. Then I spoke to my neighbours: they gave me big smiles and all the encouragement they could. Those smiles are worth a lot! I'll see if I can take the next step this week. The next step is talking to the town planning department at the local Council office. I don't have any definite plans and I don't have the money, but I've been dreaming about this space for so long that I feel I need to at least know if it could enter the realm of reality. If it's a possible thing I can gradually work towards it. If not, I'll have to grieve it and let it go--and think of another way to accommodate the floor loom and workspace of my dreams.

Cashmere

By request . . . this is my cashmere sample for my Spinning folio. I normally try to spare you too many pictures of white yarn, but I am rather proud of my efforts on this one.

I can't take a proper action shot, since I only have two hands and when one is operating the camera, that only leaves one to do the spinning. So this is my left hand holding the fibre and you can see the spun single on its way to my wheel. That's my thumb in the picture to give an idea of size. The background is my purple track pants.

Cashmere is a down fibre--it's the undercoat of the goat--so it's soft and fuzzy and very warm. I prepared the fibre on my hand carders and spun it worsted, controlling the way the fibre joins the single by pinching it between my right thumb and index finger--at least that's what I would have been doing if I hadn't been using that hand to take the shot.

I've actually finished this sample now--it's had its little wash after being plied and is hanging in the bathroom waiting to be labelled and put away. Today's task is a camel-wool blend. I've got that carded and waiting to be spun. I only need to spin it to a medium thickness, though--not fine like the cashmere, so it won't be as demanding.

Details

I spent a few hours at the Quilt and Craft Show yesterday evening. Neither my feet nor my budget were in great shape, so I mostly looked at quilts. As well as the usual annual quilt show, there was an exhibit of historical quilts. I think this one was from the 1930's: Talk about patience and economy! The quilt was large--maybe double bed size--and entirely pieced from these tiny hexagons. You can see from the shape of the stitching that it was paper pieced in the English method. That means each hexagon was cut out of fabric then folded and basted around a slightly smaller hexagon of stiff paper. Each of these little hexagons were then hand stitched to each other. You can see the tiny, slightly irregular oversewing stitches in the picture. The heart-breaking detail for me was seeing the places where the maker had carefully stitched together two tiny scraps to get enough material to cover a hexagon only slightly larger than the end of your index finger.

You can also see where some of the fabrics have deteriorated. Apparently the iron mordant used in some of the dyes accelerates the breakdown of the cotton fibres. If you're thinking the colours are a little dull, you can mentally add a few degrees of colour--particularly yellow--since this is the colour that is lost first from the dyes.

Bargain

There's no shortage of knitting needles at my house. But when my friend V tipped me off about a bargain at the local supermarket, I went along to have a look. I came home with these:
Eight sets of knitting needles. Each set consists of six sizes: 4mm to 7mm. Cost? $1 per set. They will be perfect as a class set for beginner knitters. All the sizes they're likely to need are there. And with six sizes I can demonstrate and teach about tension squares (swatches) without students having to buy a whole bunch of needles they're not going to use. Then they can go ahead and buy nice needles in the sizes they'll need. For now they're all sitting on my big table. I haven't worked out where to store them--the perennial problem of space--but I'm still pretty proud of my bargain buy, so that's ok.