Ridgid Heddle Weaving With Self-Striping Sock Yarns

I've had a craving to weave for awhile, so I warped my loom with some self-striping sock yarns and  pretty quickly had this lovely shawl.

I'd bought a battery-operated fringe twister, which I got to use for the first time.  It makes fast work of this neat finish.

I used some inexpensive Premier self-striping sock yarns, warping with just over one ball of the purple, and with a little of the pink and the sparkly yarn.  I find I get a beautiful result with these yarns, which produce a plaid-like fabric.  For the weft I randomly alternated the rest of the purple with some solid purple sock yarn.

The sparkly yarn had some slubs, which fit through the 12 dpi heddle with little tugging.  The yarn is a bit scratchy, so I think I'll use it more sparingly in the future.  This was a Tuesday Morning find.

I impressed myself so much with this project, I immediately warped the loom again, this time with blues and greys.  I figure I'll stockpile these shawls for gifts.

Here are some gratuitous pretty photos: the first, a fall scene taken at a rest stop when Michael and I returned from a weekend trip a couple of weeks ago.  That yellow tree called out to me.

Another beauty shot: this time of my cat Louie, who posed so nicely for me.

Baby Quilts

Debra asked for baby quilt tops to donate to a program that allows incarcerated women to keep their infants with them.  I was very interested in supporting these women and their children, and the idea of making a few baby quilts appealed to me.

I spent a very pleasant Sunday afternoon whipping out these tops.  The pink and green one was from a set of blocks I had made with an eye toward a larger quilt.  What a relief to make one more pink block, put on a border and be done!

This quilt's center is a pre-printed panel left over from another  project.  I added two borders, the outside one being from The Fabric That Would Never Die.  Debra sent me a bunch of this blue tropical fabric years ago for some charity quilt project, and she sewed up a bunch of it too, and yes, there's still some in my stash.

The blue and yellow fabric in this quilt is flannel, and the novelty fabric is regular cotton.

Here I used another novelty panel, added a border, and voila.

This has been so satisfying, I think I'll make more until Debra tells me to stop.  I may also stash a few of these for gifts.  If I want to finish a big quilt, I'll trick myself by breaking it into baby quilt-sized units.

Repeats

Sometimes I find patterns that I just want to knit over and over.  Right after I finished my last Ridge and Furrow Shawl, I cast on another one.  It's a perfectly mindless project.  Just grab two balls of yarn that go together, and keep knitting in the pattern until you run out of yarn.  This one is made of one ball of Berrocco Lustra, a blend of wool and tencel in solid brown, and one ball of Crystal Palace Yarns Taos, a variegated wool yarn.  Both were sale yarns I picked up with no project in mind.

I've already knit two more pairs of Basic Fingerless Mittens, this time with two colorways of Fibranatura Oak, a blend of superwash wool, silk and linen, that I got for cheap at Tuesday Morning.  This yarn is a light worsted, but I doubled the yarn by knitting from both ends of the ball simultaneously, and used a size 9 needle.  These gloves are a women's medium, while the ones I made from the superbulky yarn were a women's large.  Throw in an extra two rows after the cuff and they'll fit better. 

I like to stockpile projects like these for gifts.  Oh yes, that gift giving season will be upon us soon.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Vintage Embroidery Patterns

I've long been a fan of the Flickr site Hoop Love, a treasure trove of vintage embroidery motifs.  Some of the designs can also be found on Pinterest.

I found a couple of designs I liked, enlarged them to 8 x 10, and traced one onto water soluble stabilizer. 

 I've done this before, but this time I used a gel pen, which took forever to dry and which transferred ink to the needle when I stitched.  Next time I'll use a Sharpie or Pigma pen and hope for better results.  I prefer to use this method over a transfer pencil, because I feel like I get a clearer image of the design.



You can see here where I machine stitched the stabilizer to the top of a cotton dish towel.  This work goes fast: big stitches with 6 strands of floss makes for a bold design. 

Next I'll rinse the stabilizer out, wash and iron the towel.   It will add some cheer to my kitchen.

Mitts and Apple Time

I've been very busy at work these days, so I don't have much creative work to show for myself.  I did, however, knit this pair of mitts in a chunky wool, an old ball of Noro Bonbori. I always love the color changes in Noro yarn. The free pattern Basic Fingerless Mitts,  is knit flat and seamed, and it's a quick project to make.  These went to a colleague who gave me some wool to unravel. 

I have an apple tree in my backyard, and it's Apple Time, so I had to do something with this year's harvest.

 I cooked up a couple of vats of applesauce...

...and got over a dozen pints.

I also made over a dozen small jars of apple chutney.  We eat a lot of chutney at my house.  This was a half day's work, but it was a team effort.  Michael was in charge of peeling the apples, and I have one of those little hand crank peelers that's fun to use. 

I still have apples, but I've done my canning for the year.  With the leftovers, they'll be some apple crisps, and maybe a few baked apples.

Dishtowels

I bought these cool papel picado machine embroidery transfers from Debra  I thought they'd make cute dishtowel embellishments.  I jazzed up this set with rick rack.

This one got double layers of rick rack.

I made a more sedate set with the last set of towels.  I machine sewed the buttons, I'm not sure it's much faster than hand sewing, but you get nice uniform results.  Tip:  use scotch tape to hold the button in place while you stitch it.

I'm keeping the rest of the motifs for myself.  They'll be perfect for a little art quilt.  Maybe something for the Day of the Dead.

I've finished this shawl that I worked on over the summer.  The pattern Ridge and Furrow Triangular Shawl, by Sue Grandfield, is a free download on Ravelry. 

This is the second shawl I've made from this pattern because it is a lovely meditative knit that's easily memorized.  Plus it's striped, one of my favorite patterns.

The colored yarn is a long color repeat wool blend that I got on clearance.  The black is recycled yarn from a Gap sweater: a blend of wool, nylon, angora and lamb's wool.  Yummy stuff.

I got a question in the comments about the pink and white quilt in the background.  It's a kit quilt top I bought on Ebay.  The workmanship wasn't great, but I love the colors, and Debra machine quilted it for me.  It's so bright and cheerful, and it goes well in my newly refurbished sewing room.

Museum Monday: In the Button Box

Beth over at Love Laugh Quilt proposed a Sewing Museum this week in which people post some of their vintage goodies.  I've dumped out some of my vintage metal buttons to share.

The buttons above are funny to me because they resemble the heads of screws.  How's that for an industrial look?  Following that theme, the ones at the bottom of the photo have metal "thread" in fake button holes.

Here are some plain brass buttons: both two holed and four holed.

I love these "primitive" mid-century buttons.  They have what looks like a cave painting design.

More oval and modern buttons in two sizes.

I've also got some military or police uniform buttons.  The sewer strung them together to keep them tidy.

This collection of lady head buttons comes in three sizes. These really remind me of coins.

More military/police uniform buttons, in two colors.

These are mysterious:  the inscription says "Highland '16 Scottish."  Perhaps they were from a band or lodge uniform. 

All these buttons were inherited stash from my sister-in-law's mother.  Apparently she was an avid needle worker and she recycled many buttons.

Finished Zig Zag Afghan

This one's done.  This is a very satisfying project if you like to play with color.

And Michael said he wanted it.  Now it lives in his man cave.

I feel inspired to make more blankets and afghans, and I've got an acrylic stash to work with.  There may be another one before long.

Sewing Baskets

One of my favorite possessions is this vintage sewing basket.  My sister bought it for me when I was in high school at a Christmas rummage sale at my school.  It's a very sweet memory.  At the same sale my brother bought me an enamel pin with tiny pearls that I still have and love.

I occasionally see these baskets in antique stores.  I've seen them in aqua too, but they a distinctive motif on the wooden lids, and they have matching cord for handles. (I didn't notice until I was writing this post, but there's a cat tail peeking out of the right side of this picture)

I keep my embroidery thread in mine, sorted by color in plastic bags.  It's a little crowded in there. 

I recently bought this larger sewing basket at a rummage sale.  It's not in perfect shape, but I love the color and it's roomier than my pink basket.

Old sewing baskets, like old sewing machines, come with an interesting assortment of goodies inside.

 This one had lots of elastic, bias tape and hem facing.  Someone needs to come up with a great craft project for bias tape. 

 
It also had some great needle booklets. 

The needles in the second one were tiny, which is probably why they're all still there.

I migrated my cotton embroidery thread into the new basket and I'm using the old one for crewel thread and silk.

They look very cheerful on my shelf.

Blue Afghan

The blue afghan is coming along very nicely.  I can get several inches done in an evening of television watching.  Michael and I are big fans of The Shield on Netflix, and of a new crime drama on FX called The Bridge.  TV watching is good for this project.

I'm going to keep working on this until I use up most of the yarn I've dedicated to this project: which should take it up to twin bed length.  Hopefully, this will happen soon, as I'm eager to work on something else.