Knitting Like Dr Seuss

As mentioned in previous posts, I've been knitting face washers as Christmas gifts. Since yesterday, January 6th, was the Twelfth Day of Christmas, I've decided to stop now. This morning I gave my friend V a couple of the washers I'd knitted. Since she's a knitter, we discussed some of the technicalities. Here's a pic of two of the washers I've made:
The blue washer at the bottom is one of the first ones I made. The orange one above is one of the more recent ones. The original pattern calls for a yarn-over increase two stitches in from the beginning of every row for the first half of the face washer. To achieve a similar appearance for the second half--with the little eyelet which results from the yarn over--the pattern calls for two decreases plus the yarn-over increase. The result is the right number of stitches, but a slightly distorted shape. I didn't like it much. My friend M, laughed and said it was a bit of a Dr Seuss shape. I had to agree. So I decided to change the pattern. Instead of doing the second half with the decreases, I knitted the first half according to the pattern and left it on a needle; then I made a second one the same. A three-needle cast off joined the two triangles and finished off the washer with a knitted in ridge at the fold-line. I liked that a lot better--hence the washer on the top is rather more square than the Dr Seuss version below. However, I'm planning to keep the Dr Seuss version. I am very fond of The Cat in the Hat and other slightly off-centre stories and the thought of a Dr Seusss version of knitting makes me smile.

Adventures of a Camel

Meet Mathew Flinders the camel:He was a birth gift to a friend of my friend L, and after 25 years of loving, he was looking rather tattered. L brought him along yesterday afternoon to see if I could help restore him. He is very precious, despite his age, so I wanted to makes sure he looked right as well as getting him back to a more secure state. In the top right of the pic you can see the length of strong cylindrical bandage that had been holding his neck together. When that came off, his neck was definitely floppy and there were several large holes where the fabric had completely worn away.

First of all we raided my doll and bear stash for camel-coloured materials. Despite my ongoing attempts to sort and reduce my collection of stuff, it's moments like these I'm so glad of my stash! As it turns out, I had some thick felt and some beige corduroy which looked like they would do the job.

• I worked the felt in through the holes to pad out the stuffiing and covered that with the corduroy.
• The new fabric extended well beyond the holes in the camel fur fabric.
• I then ladder-stitched the small openings.
• There were a couple of places where I wasn't sure that I could get the edges of the holes to come together, so I stitched the edges of the camel fur fabric carefully down to the corduroy in those spots.
• When I knew it was all secure, I was willing to risk a bit more, so I started to pull the fur fabric together over the patches--again using ladder stitch.
• In the end it all came together--no holes and original camel fur fabric covering the whole of Matthew Flinders well-loved neck.
• There were a couple of other holes where the legs join the body, but they were easy enough to stitch closed.

So now Matthew Flinders the camel has gone home to the ones who love him, ready for many more years of happiness.

Christmas Cuteness

I'm at that post-Christmas stage where little gifts occasionally catch my eye and make me smile. This little cutie was in my Christmas stocking: Now, as you can see, it's in my sugar jar, so I get an extra bit of sweetness every time I scoop out a little spoonful of sugar for my coffee. And of course that sweet cup of coffee is essential fuel for my creativity! I'll make myself another one soon and then see about getting some work done.

Double Dip

I'm quite enjoying the dip dye technique. it seems to be an easy way of getting a reliable variation in colour across the skein. And I don't have to worry too much about when rinsing happens even if the dye pot isn't exhausted, since there's always a nice section of yarn kept out of the colour.

This skein was left hanging in the dye pot while I went away over Christmas. I'd dyed the teal colour you can see in the top left section. I know the dye was still active because when I went to rinse it out yesterday, the remainder of the skein picked up a pale version of the same colour. That's the colour you can see in the centre of the skeinBut I wanted more! So when I'd done rinsing, I mixed up a small amount of another blue colour, "sky", and dipped the other end of the skein in that for a good half hour before heating up the dye pot again. I left it overnight, just because I couldn't be bothered finishing it off. So now I have the intense blue that you can see at the lower right of the pic. I think that's enough.

Sorry, I didn't iron the white cloth before taking the pic, but the colours show up better on a white background, whether it's ironed or not.

Now What?

I'm still slowly sorting my way through years of accumulated stuff in my sewing room. Every now and again I come across something like this:

Hand-stitched heart blocks, left over from a long-ago quilting project--lovingly designed and prepared at the time, but now what?

• I could just chuck them--seems a pity, though;
• I could keep them in my teaching stash just as they are--they demonstrate several useful points;
• I could find some coordinating fabric and finish them off--I just happen to know I have some; and I might even know where it is;
• I could pack them away with various other strays that seem too good to get rid of and hope to do something with them sometime . . . ummm, that's how I got where I am in the first place!

So, I smiled at myself, took a photo and blogged about them. Now at least I can tick "blogging" off my to do list for this morning.

Now what? How about making myself another cup of coffee and hoping to find something easier to dispose of?

New Year, New Knitting

What better way to celebrate the beginning of a new year than with a new style of knitting. My knitting adventure for New Year's Day was to start to explore entrelac. Here's where I'm up to:I found entrelac in the last chapter of my knitting encyclopedia. I've looked at it before and been put off by the apparent complexity. But yesterday I had time to attempt it with no demands and no looming deadlines.

I've been knitting face washers as Christmas gifts--I'm working on the 12 days of Christmas principle, which means I have until January 6 to complete my gift-making. At first I appreciated the simplicity of the garter stitch squares, but after making several I was well and truly over it. So it was time to try something new. I'm still using the bamboo-soy yarn and aiming at a small square, so the adventure is nicely contained. If it works out, there'll be a maverick face washer amongst the group.

A Space Odyssey

Odyssey (n): any long series of wanderings (Macquarie Dictionary)

In the spirit of renewal, I prepared for 2010 by clearing a small area of floor in my sewing room:

I hadn't seen these floorboards since just after they were laid down as part of 2009's great flooring project. The sewing room has been the most difficult room to recliam, partly because of the sheer volume of stuff, and partly because I have yet to replace some of the furniture I got rid of before having the new floors installed. Those two factors combined have made it hard to move in here.

Yesterday I dealt with one box and one bag full of stuff. The result is the area of floor you can see in the pic. You can also see that there still a way to go before this room is fully sorted, but it's that much easier to get to my shelves and cupboard. And the room feels that much lighter when I walk in. So, my aim for 2010 is to continue to wander along the path of getting things sorted. I don't expect it to be a quick journey, but I do expect to make some interesting discoveries along the way.