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!

 

Loose Ends

I've been cleaning up loose ends.

I made a Chanukah hat with pom poms (as requested) for my grandbaby.

While his Mama read a page in her book, he decided to check out his new hat.

I took care of that "loose end" by making tassels. They should be harder to pull apart.

Footnote. I finally got the numbers right for a basic sock pattern that fits.

I wove this color and weave (the weaving is simple "over/under", the design appears in the cloth, because of the color order or the threads), chenille scarf with Julia. It's been sitting unfinished for a while. After a few washings, chenille fringe tends to lose its fluff and look like a rat's tail. So, I decided to go ahead and just hem it.

One of my spare time, knitting projects has been this shawl.

With the left-over yarn, I'm weaving a scarf on Julia.

I didn't realize how long ago I dressed Sophie for these blankets on her drawloom. It was back in December of 2017! Here they are, finally off, December 2018!

When I take cloth off my looms, I almost always use my serger to protect the raw edges before putting the cloth in the washing machine. This is the first time I've ever had that stitching fail to hold. 

But I was able to get them all hemmed and laid out to photograph:

At which point, my daughter's cat promptly walked across them all and sat on...

You guessed it!

I found a lot of the designs I used on Pinterest. I'd post them with links, but unfortunately many of them don't have active links for me to cite where they originated.

the cats

an optical illusion

  transportation

the bees (Craftsy.com)

stars

 and the roses.

The others are just standard designs I've seen or drawn.

zig zag

plaid ish

and shapes.

This one's already found a new home.

More loose ends:

After cutting the blankets off of Sophie and taking down the drawloom pattern heddles (that gave me about 12 inches more of usable warp), I had something like 36-42 inches (I should have measured) of yarn per end left on the loom. I didn't want to just toss it, so by using a weaver's knot, I'm hoping that I'll have extended each warp end enough to squeeze out one more baby blanket.

Let's see how far I get with it.

Help for a Bit of a Mess

Things have been a bit of a mess lately.

I got a load of free mulch for my garden. It was free, but not yet mulch. My husband and his friend have been spending Hours re-chipping it.

In reorganizing my sewing room closet, I pulled out some yarns and fibers for re-homing. I wound this handspun for making dryer balls.

A couple of them didn't stay in the prep stocking...or felt.

But, I've just kept putting one foot in front of the other

Knitting socks always helps.

I finished the yardage I was weaving on Julia and made up some requested grocery totes.

With help to do some of the Heavy Lifting, I've been getting things done.

To Baby Land

I'm not a fan of flying, so my sister held my hand for a flight to baby land to see my daughter and son-in-law.
I took a few <wink, wink> things I'd made for the coming baby.

 

Remember that tangle of yarn? Here's Blake from Edward's Menagerie, all made up. And I knit a Raggedy doll, too, with the standard dress and overalls. When the baby of unknown gender made an entrance (after this photo was taken), I dressed the doll.



Every baby needs a pair of muck-lucks, a hunter's cap

and a pink bunny.

And just because, I made baby a few pairs of socks.

What's there to do while away from home and waiting? I found this knitted lace, shawl pattern on Ravelry. It is Orenburg Harmony by Loginova Svetlana and made up from Forest Hills, silk 51%, merino 49%.



Once I was home again, I went back to the baby blankets on Sophie and her drawloom. For the purple blanket, I designed as I went. I also used it as a sample, to see what would work for the next design. You see, normally, there are, for example, 4 warp threads and 4 weft or 6 X 6 or 8 X 8 to make a [design] unit (like a pixel or square on graph paper). Each one of the tiny squares on the design on the top edge of the blanket in this picture is a single unit. In this case, each is made with 6 warp and 12 weft threads. If I hadn't bothered to sample, my next project would have shown a distorted picture. 

Yay! No flat cats!      Now, look near the top of the picture, you can see white and brown threads that are pulled down onto pegs. Look directly over the left hand cat's head. That's one unit (six warp threads) raised by pulling down the brown draw cord. This pattern is one I found on Pinterest: club-kreuzstich.com. 

 



I've been a bit out of control, making stuffed animals out of patterns from Edward's Menagerie. I made this elephant for the grandbaby and another for a friend (she begged).



Father tested, baby approved.

Baby tested, father approved requested a few minor changes.  <Snort!> I just read what I wrote. It stands.        I saw this cloth at the fabric store. How could I resist giving it a try, making some cloth diaper covers?