Time well spent

 

All that planning and swatching was well worth the time involved.  I have a new appreciation for sweater designers. So far so good.  You can't see it but there are 2 row counters in the front cable section one for counting the 6 row cables and another for the 8 row cables.  They are chains of loops and you just move to the next loop down the chain as you come to it.  So much easier to keep track of the row number.  My beginning of the row marker has a removable marker attached to it so I can glance at it and know if I am doing an increase row or a no increase row.

Our cold weather left last week and now the snow is melting the weather man called it a solar snowplow, I just like to hear the water dripping off the rooftops and the gush going down the storm drains when I go for a walk.  It puts a spring in my step knowing that spring is coming.  --Ann--

Planning, counting and swatching

Plan, swatch twice, knit once, is that a saying?  If not it should be. I found a sweater pattern a couple years ago, I like the way it fits so I have knit it more than once actually this makes sweater # 4 for Brookings Crew by Marie Green, probably 6 or 7 if I count the do overs. It is top down, I like the neckline and the raglan sleeves. It is just a good basic sweater with a cable pattern . I have changed the cable pattern in the front panel on each and done the sleeves differently on two. Again I am changing the cable pattern but going beyond the 22 stitch center panel which required some thinking and planning because I need to start the purl stitches set up while the neckline is still being shaped.  It took weeks but I figured it out, it was a good thing to do on those bitter cold days, first on graph paper then I knit the beginning of the sweater to figure out where the purl stitches go to show off the cables and to plan the twists so I am doing all of them in the same row and my right and left twists are correct sounds like a candy bar commercial. Once that was figured out I printed off another copy of the pattern and made lots of notes, let’s not confuse these changes with past notes. And I’m out of yarn but I figured out the set up and neckline. I didn’t really want to knit half a sweater  to plan the front cables.  My graph paper probably only makes sense to me some of the c's are for cast one and some are for cables, my dots are for purl stitches  but also for purl rows.  A few months after I finish the sweater the graph probably won't make any sense to me.

Count the stitches in the front panel, cast on 46 plus two on each side, begin pattern and unravel my practice work.  16 stitches in the center for a stag horn or wishbone cable two 4x4 with a right and a left cable. Then I tried a variation which required a 2x2 right and left every other row with the cable twist moving in 2 stitches on the cable rows. I thought that looked kinda wimpy compared to the 3x3 cables on the sides. I also decided I didn't want to do that many cables. The center cable needs to be bold and the focal point. Back to the 4x4 with an 8 row repeat.  It doesn't bother me that the 3x3 cables and the 4x4 cables are not twisted on the same rows.  I like the 3x3 with a 6 row repeat, I tried a 4 row repeat but that was too dense. I also tried some different patterns between the cables. I like the knit-through-back-loop stitches with a purl between.  I believe I am ready to start with the new yarn.  This gray Kenzie yarn by Hikoo, I have used it on 2 other sweaters and love it. Neither of those sweaters have pilled. I just wish this grey had more flecks of color because I love tweeds but it will show off the cable better since it is more solid in color.  Ready, plan, set, swatch, knit, knit --Ann--

Babies came to visit

 The babies came for the weekend and my have they grown!! We last saw them in early January, can’t wait until we can see them again. —Ann—

Whatcha been watching

1. High Seas  series about a luxury passenger ship traveling from Spain to Brazil after WW 2 murder, nazis on the run, theft etc very good
2. Schitt’s Creek very funny series
3. The King movie about Henry the 5th & 6th
4. Hinterland mystery series takes place in Wales
5. Spanish Princess series about Henry the 8ths first wife Catherine of Spain 
6. Judy movie about Judy Garland very good and a tear jerker 
7. Alias Grace short series based on a Margaret Atwood book 19th century Canada Irish immigrant accused and convicted of murder based on true events 
8. The Queens Gambit very good
9. Rebecca 2020 movie of classic book by Daphne du Maurier  
10. Sherlock series 3 seasons each episode gets weirder than the last
11. The Crown the royal family rather dysfunctional fun to sort out the truth from fiction
12. The Black Book movie WW2 Jews trying to get out of the Netherlands 
    
13. The Outlaw King movie about Robert the Bruce Scotland after Willam Wallace.  I have watched all this English history out of order but when so many names are repeated across generations it could be even more confusing.  I did freqently google names and events to find out what really happened.
14. Peaky Blinders series takes place after WW 1 in England I haven’t been able to sort out the good guys from the bad. Socio/economic issues of the time unemployment, labor unions, industry, organized crime, dirty cops, dirty priest, Irish republic army, communists, drugs, horse racing and betting, I could go on. A very different post war England than the Maisie Dobbs book series that is set in the same era.
15. Emily in Paris series just for fun an American business woman is sent to a publicity firm in Paris she is young and doesn’t speak French very well.
16. All Creatures Great and Small new PBS series about James Herriot very good

Remember when we will be able to travel again instead of experiencing the world as distant spectators through movies and books. A trip to New York City exactly 2 years ago with daughter we went to To Kill a Mockingbird and Wicked.  Such fun hope we can do it again someday.  --Ann--

Another below 0 day

 

Another cold cold day on the Dakota plains at least it’s not snowing......too cold to snow. It makes a person very thankful for central heat and to stay home.

A small finish, my blue and yellow cowl. I should have finished this 3 weeks ago but wrist stress probably tendinitis I have given my wrists a rest. Knitting in the round on a short cable goes fast but the repetitive motion as small as that movement has stressed my wrists. Maybe that was the problem the small movement rather than the big movement of repositioning the fabric on the needles. Anyway I went a week and a half without knitting! Then I would knit 2-4 color changes a day so slow. I must remember to stop and flex my hands and wrists more frequently. The cowl is done. Scroll down to the post with this yarn for a link to the pattern. Something new to bundle up in the next time I venture outside.  Stay warm —Ann—

out of the cupboard

 

Another little quilt out of the cupboard for Valentine's Day.  Just little 4 patch hearts with an applique vine and leaf border  I must have made this 20 some years ago.  --Ann--

just scraps

 

I was a little to ambitious the week before last when I cut sashing to finish 2 quilt tops then machine quilted 4 quilts and cut and finished the binding.  I could feel it in my wrists so have been taking it easy since then I had to find a little project that didn't require any cutting.  I found these 16 patch strips all cut and leftover from wedding quilt for son and daughter-in-law. There were only 2 sets of 4 I had play mix and match with the rest.  Just scraps and a nice little lap quilt.  My hands need a vacation.  --Ann--

Out of the cupboard

 

On one of those cold windy days last week I folded the last of the Christmas quilts to put away for the year and pulled out this summery quilt and took a short mental vacation to a warmer sunnier greener spot.  I made this  well over 20 years ago with mostly William Morris fabrics.  The quilt guild I was a member of would get  bales and squares of fabrics from a company called Merryvale they had the complete line of all the newest fabrics and since the town I was living in did not have a quilt shop at that time it was great way to get new fabrics.  The squares were 6 x6 and the bales were 6 x 18 inches.  The only fabrics that were not from a Merryvale bundle were the flowers and foliage.  The flowers were all hand appliqué either blind stitch or buttonhole with embroidery floss.  I had so much fun with the bees and butterflies.  The wings of the dragonfly were from a frosted tree print perfect for the veins in the wings.  The bees are all yellow plaids.  Then I sewed a few bug buttons on because I had them and daughter was too old for cute bug buttons on her clothes.  I also stuck a few broaches on just for fun the blue dragonfly was my grandmas.

The Monarch butterfly is leather and a birthday gift from my mother when I was still a teenager.  I used to pin it to the back of my sweater.  I can't remember where the other pins came from.  The one below looks like abalone shell.  The white one on the yellow flower in the top picture is fimo clay.  No garden is complete without a spider,  I hand quilted the web with metalic thread.  A little bit of summer in my sewing room.  

--Ann--

Splats

I forgot to give credit to buterflythreadsquilting.com for designing Twirla, I'm still calling mine splats, the blocks were not at all difficult you just need to keep the right side of the fabric up when you cut or use fabrics that do not have a front and back.  I put tape on my ruler for a template, how many times have I trimmed away a paper template until it was no longer the right size or shape!?!  Her directions are very clear and easy to follow.

One last picture of the quilts and the backs. I bought the end of the bolt of a double wide fabric and it was about 5 inches short.  I cut up two fat quarters of my hand dyed fabric and did it the lazy way and just added it to the end rather than have it run across the middle.  I still have a huge stack of fat quarters that I dyed about 20 years ago.  Warnings for cold and snow to come I can think of lots of things to do. --Ann--

 

another couple done

I finished these over the weekend. I am clearing the room of last years projects 4 out of 5 done.  Super simple quilting on these also I swung an arc  up and down the side of each seam then realized it was  going to look goofy in the center so I did a little arc to make an 8 point daisy.  When I started the second quilt I thought the blocks didn't quite look finished so I swung another arc in each segment around the perimeter of each block and just straight line quilting in the sashing, I used a multi colored thread.  --Ann--

Another one done

 

I chose the easy way of quilting another quilt with my favorite meandering concentric teardrops and feathers, my plain vanilla quilting, it just works so well on scrappy traditional blocks.  I did spend some time looking through the quilting books but the traditional quilting patterns that fit  neatly in a nine patch block just didn’t work in my head with these offset blocks. The colors make me think of heliotropes and foxgloves guess that will be the name of this quilt.  Another one done. --Ann--