Little projects

I've been trying to get some little projects done.

I bought a doll house kit,

that came with dolls and their pets.

Finished!

Made mittens for an upcoming trip to the snow

and a cowl.

One of my nieces said I'd never made her any socks, so I got that done.

My husband bought me a new sewing machine at our neighbors' estate sale.

Okay. Maybe it's not so new, but it works like a dream

Most of my free time has been taken up with a not so little project. I've been trying to reclaim my backyard meadow from invasive grasses.

with some success.

On a day trip, we found a kit to make a cloth book in the local quilting store.

It was a fast, fun project.

Not quite as fast, but extremely satisfying was my reorganizing of this cabinet. My serger finally has a place to live (other than the floor) when not in use!!

The owners of my LYS (local yarn store) have been discounting some of their merchandise prior to their retirement. I'd been looking at this organic cotton, baby blanket kit, and with our friends' newest arrival, I had two excuses to purchase it, along with some other fiber...

...was that me who said: "I stash fiber, not yarn," (forgetting that they say, "never say 'never'!)?

No Theme

It's funny how purely by happenstance, there tends to be a theme to my posts. This time around, you're on your own. I can't find one.

I've been dawdling through a towel with Sophie. The pattern is simple (1,2,1,2,1,2,2,1,2,1,2, etc), but I kept losing count and weaving too many rows. So, I decided to go on a hunt for an abacus. This is so much easier for me to keep track of, throw the shuttle, slide a bead, repeat.

I made a tiger from Edward's Menagerie with some yarn I had left over.

This is my first successful round braiding! Isn't it pretty?!

Socks, always socks!

This pattern was in a "Vogue Knitting" magazine, early fall 2019. The sweater's not my usual style, but for some reason, I couldn't resist. Besides, it turns out, it matches my skirt!

Here's a better picture.

And the back (rather obvious, I know).

Edward's Menagerie strikes, again! My grandbaby was "the man in the yellow hat" for Halloween, so here's his Curious George.

And I'll finish with more diaper covers for someone else's end.

Learning

There's been a lot of learning happening.

Last month, I went to WEFF. One of the vendors taught me how to use this tool for Andean plying. It allows one to ply from both ends of a piece of yarn at the same time, without a tangled mess. 

Maybe I should learn some self control. Here is only some of the fiber I bought there.

I'm getting better at making diaper covers.

I don't know if this counts as fiber art for Spinzen, but here's my grandbaby using my inkle loom to learn to walk.

My friend works at an elementary school that has a massive garden. They grew the cotton you see here in the basket. She invited me to their school fair to demo the processing of it.

I spun this small bit from their homegrown cotton.

My nephew came for a visit and sat down to learn to spin.

 And my sister-in-law couldn't put the Inkle loom down.

Spring

We've had a lovely spring. With all the rain last winter, everything is in bloom.



Artichoke and painted lady

Wisteria and roses.

Amaryllis and wild flowers

The yardage I was working on is now a tallis bag for my niece.

Next up is a sample for a baby wrap. For some reason, the edge threads keep breaking. I don't think it's the temple, as I always use one. It could be that the yarn is too old. I'm just not sure. So, right now, it's just sitting while I dither.

My medical alert bracelet broke, so I spent some time in the bead store. And while I was on a beading kick...

I went back to and old UFO (unfinished object/project). I stopped knitting this, years ago, because I didn't like the way it looked with the white yarn in the background. Now, I'm shifting the beads from the white to the black yarn. The beads from the bag will be moved too, after I unknit it.

The sweater I'd just started last time I posted is finished. I made some minor changes to the pattern. The sleeves are longer and the body shorter.

Puttering

It feels like I've just been puttering, doing small projects.

For starters, some years ago, I wove this yardage for curtains. I don't remember why I took them down, but our old front door curtains needed to be replaced and they did the trick!

I finished the last baby blanket on Sophie.

And I've been playing with more of the crocheted creatures from Edward's Animals. Here's a Lakeland Terrier,

 

a Cocker Spaniel,

and a gray cat.

 

My grandbaby needed a hat for Groundhog Day.

And he definitely needed a Dude sweater!

This may not look like puttering to you, but for whatever reason, this time around, each step to dress Julia has felt like a separate project. This Tencel basketweave will be yardage.

 

This is the first time I've ever knitted up a swatch and actually washed it. My usual is to knit it up, measure to make sure I'm getting the right number of stitches per inch and rip it back out.

I just finished spinning this fiber with Gingie and plying it with Suzie.

And next up is this cotton.

This "wool" was spun up, but not plied, because I didn't know what I wanted to do with it. Typical. Anyway, when I realized I needed a hat, I went ahead and took the singles and Navajo plied it (finger crocheting the spun fiber while spinning it some more). 

Knitting it up took no time, so, here we are!