Making Plans

Some of the time you just have to have an opps to get you out of one mind set and into another that is more creative.

I had the hexagons all laid out. I started sewing from the middle and figuring out which was the next one to pick up wasn't easy. In the end it became almost impossible to be sure I had the right one.

And then the board tipped over and the hexagons were all on the floor. A really big opps. 

Now, I know I could lay them out again. I actually did it more than once, after all. But it occurred to me that wasn't the way to go.

And I know I could make sure that the shape, once finished would be squared off, but my plans were to mount the finished hexagon project onto a piece of fabric. Did it have to be squared off? Did it have to be round? Could it be a shape that just happened?


I thought about it and my answer was yes.

It doesn't matter what shape this ends up. It can be regular. Or totally irregular and rather wonky. It just does not matter.

Irregular just might be exactly what I want. At this point I've separated the hexagons out into piles by value. I've sewn a few more onto the grouping I've got. I know were the 3 or 4 on the bottom are going to go. I've got a vague idea of where the group on the side of the board should go as well.

And what is really weird is that I know, roughly, how I'm going to quilt this. It is going to be a wall hanging, not any kind of blanket. I've got some other things to think through. Should I do some hand embroidery on it? Beading? What colors will I use to quilt it? One color? Multiple ones? But I've got time for all of that.

Meanwhile, I've got another project in process. It is time to pick out a quilting pattern for the square in square blocks on the table scarf.

I have Leah Day's book of the 365 quilting patterns and I went into it and made a list on my notebook. The page I photographed has notes for both the table scarf and Bloom. I had a full page of designs I liked for both of the projects. The design I chose for the table scarf is Granddaddy Long Legs.

I drew out the pattern about the size I'll be quilting it. I can sew much better than I can draw on my desk. The desk has some weird bumps on the top. It makes the lines more out of control than they should be.

But I like the design. It is one I can do. So it is the one I am going to try to do.

I also need to watch the videos for the three designs I am looking at for parts of Bloom.

And I still need to get stitches on my needles for that first pair of socks.

Take care all.

Opps!

Things happen.

I had the hexagons laid out on a board. I started in the middle and had gotten a chunk of the lighter colored ones put together.

And then I hit the board with an elbow. Most of them fell on the floor. I took this picture after I'd picked up most of them and put them back on the board in a heap.

I laid them out once. I could do it again. But I'm considering just putting them together without making a full scale layout. I might find myself needing to make more of the hexagons because I never counted just how long or wide the project was. That's OK.

I have a rough idea that I have to add more light hexagons to the "top" of the piece that already exists, but not to the bottom and not to the left side.

I've already sorted the hexagons roughly by value. I think I could put most of it together that way. It wouldn't be exactly the same, but it might actually be better. It certainly would be easier.

I've been enjoying the process of putting the hexagons together. I went to YouTube and watched a couple of videos before I started. I haven't done any English Paper Piecing since around 1986 or 1987. Back then I used a running stitch to attach the fabric to the base which was made of paper. The method I used this time doesn't involve sewing through the light cardboard the blanks are made of.

Back then I used normal sewing thread to put the pieces together and you could easily see the sewing. This time the teacher on YouTube said that if you only take a tiny bite of fabric, the stitches wouldn't show.

Mine aren't that perfect, but they certainly are better. I'm also using a fine needle and a fine thread.

But mostly I am having fun.

Take care all.

Knitting Saga

The picture really says it all. The red yarn is a baby fingering yarn. The multi-colored is a sock fingering yarn. I could not get 8 stitches to an inch in the red yarn with a #0 needle. So I checked out the the size of the two yarns and the sock yarn was absolutely thinner. Not by a lot, but thinner.

I'm not really happy with the local yarn shop. Frankly I was clear that I was a beginner as far as socks went and they should have spent some time on me.There had been a class going, but the class was finished even if most of them hadn't left yet. They had opened the door to regular customers. That was last Tuesday. Then they were closed on Wednesday because they were running another class. And we have been having weather, or life got involved. Or I just couldn't get there when they were open.

Meanwhile I tried to take a Craftsy sock class and it was too advanced for me. They exchanged it for the beginner's class, but that turned out to be a toe up class as well. I already know I'm not ready for a toe up sock.

I did a bunch of practicing with that red yarn, and I really am ready to make a real pair of socks. I located another class on the web. I've downloaded it and it looks like it might work for me. It is a top down sock, for one thing. For another they are calling for 7 stitches to an inch and not 8. There is a hope that I could manage that between the thinner yarn and the one stitch less guage.

I went to site KnitPicks and very much liked what I saw there. The prices look good. Not cheap. Just reasonable. They seem to have everything I would need. And I don't have to fight parking.

But I wanted to start the project today and I had one ball of yarn. The pattern that came with the class said TWO balls of yarn. So I went back to the local yarn store. I fought the parking fight. Parking is not good at the triangle in Emmaus, PA. I figured that maybe they would have a #00 needle so I'd have one smaller than the one I've got. They don't. I did buy a #1 however. Just in case I need to go one size up. Everyone else in the world is knitting this yarn on a size #2 or even a #3.

They didn't have another ball of the yarn I bought last week, but they were willing to exchange it for one in the store. I found the same brand in a different colorway that I liked and there were two of them.

KnitPicks doesn't have #00 needles either. But I might find one through Amazon. I am very unlikely to be going to the local store again. They did try to help me, but I have standing issues, and I really can't shop there anyway. I'm better off with mail order for a lot of things. I might just order something from KnitPicks just to begin to have a stash. I like having stashes.

I will be putting the new yarn on the needle later today.

A Weekly Update

I've been seeing a lot of monthly and end of year updates and I began to realize that I needed to do some of that too. I tend to underestimate what I actually do some of the time.

I got moving on my free motion quilting. I choose Bamboo for the large rectangles in the table scarf I am making. I tried it out on a practice sandwich, and then on two extra blocks which will become mug rugs because they came out pretty well. And I've done all but one of the blocks on the table scarf.

The next step is to choose something for the square in square blocks, try that out on both a practice sandwich and the two extra blocks and then put them on the table scarf. Then all it will need is binding.

I didn't do anything on the Bloom art quilt this week. But I'll be picking that one up again soon as well.

The big focus has been on my hexagons and learning to knit socks. Both of them are hand projects that so far can be done, at least in part, while watching TV. I always had a hand project when I watched TV. And always means from the age of 11 or 12 to quite recently. A good 55 to 60 years. But when my husband was sick, I didn't manage much of that. Even during the last year I sometimes could knit a simple project and some of the time I just needed to sit and do nothing but watch mindlessly.

Part of it is that the programs on TV are now my programs. I'm not watching, at least some of the time, programs other people chose. My mother owned the TV set in the evenings. My husband owned the living room TV set most of the time as well. Once there were DVRs I recorded what I wanted to watch on the smaller TV in the computer room, and watched after he went to bed. I'm not trying to keep busy while I keep whoever else is watching company. I used to read with the TV on too, but that is long gone.

But, as I kept telling myself, in part, this too is grief. And it needs to be respected so you can do the grief, feel the grief and move on when the time is right.

Now I NEED something to keep my hands busy at least some of the time. The result, at first, was hexagons.

Over the last two weeks or so, I've gone from a few hexagons, to a lot of hexagons, to laying out what I've got. I'm doing a value project. I'm ignoring the colors and just going from light in the center to dark on the edges. I've cut a bunch more dark hexagons and I'll be filling in and probably adding one more row, or maybe even two, all around. I'm not sure how I will put this together, but I think from the center out.

And then there were the socks. It all started on someone else's blog. She was knitting socks. I asked WHY does someone knit socks. She wrote a blog post. And the comments came in.  You can read Judy Laquidara's post here:

http://www.patchworktimes.com/2013/01/26/why/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PatchworkTimes+%28Patchwork+Times+by+Judy+Laquidara%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

(Sorry for the long link, but I haven't figured out how to just have a one word link yet.) Baby Steps around here.

Next thing I knew I was at the local yarn store buying a book, one ball of very expensive yarn and a very nice, very long circular needle. It turned out to be a book that I wasn't anywhere near ready for. I hit the Internet and my own supplies and this is what happened, sort of.

I also bought a Craftsy course. The "thing" on the circular needles was from that class. I've asked Craftsy for an exchange to an easier class and that is in process. When I took the "thing" which was supposed to be a toe off the too small circular needle it was a pretty good looking beginning toe.

But from that and another attempt from the book, I recognized that toe up socks were not something I was going to be able to do at this point. As you can tell from the double pointed needles, I've used them before. I was just rusty. I found a small sample sock pattern on the Internet and that is what is on the white needles.

I finished it last night. Not too bad. The same site had a free pattern for real socks using the same heel and toe and that is what I'm going to start today. On double pointed needles in the red yarn. There is a possibility that because of my big, and rather swollen feet, that I won't actually be able to wear these socks, so I'm using a fingering weight baby yarn I already owned. If I can wear them OK, if not I learned something and I didn't continue to buy yarn and/or needles without actually doing something with them. One thing from that Craftsy course I am not yet ready for that stuck was that, if you are knitting from the cuff down, the swatch you need to make should be circular and about the size of what you would be knitting as the beginning of the sock. So the best way is to make a guess about needles and yarn and just begin. If you guessed right, you just keep making the sock. If you guessed wrong, you haven't lost anything because what you have knit is the first swatch. So I'm guessing.

This kind of spinning is the way I learn. But there comes a point where you have to settle down and actually DO SOMETHING. You need to sew the blocks together. You need to machine quilt something. You need to put something on the needles and knit an actual object. And when I was in school, you need to settle down and write that paper.

Take care all.

What is that on my needles?

The saga of learning how to make socks continues. I found a pattern online at www.kitty.com for a small practice sock to be used to learn how socks are made and I've started the project.

I took pictures at the three stages I've done so far. One three needles and almost to the point where I needed to move the stitches. On two needles and a bit more than half way through the first part of making a heel.

This sock is the size you would make if you wanted a tree ornament, and it just might turn into one. Both of the other attempts at starting are gone now. I did save the beginning of the toe I had made. Off the needles it looked pretty good considering. I'll be doing a bunch of swatching before I put anything real on needles again. I think when I finish this I'll be ready for a beginning sock for real.

That isn't going to be easy, by the way. I have big feet, and I have swollen ankles. We have been working on the ankles and they are so much better, but they are still 2 or 3 inches larger than the circumference of the foot.

When did I start sewing?

There's a new linky in town and it's Emily's Sew Thinky Thursday! Her debut questions are:

When did you start sewing? Tell us a bit about your sewing history. When did you realize you were really hooked?


I'm not sure when I started sewing. I know that I raided my mother's stash of ribbons and lace and made my Toni doll a fancy ball gown, probably at age 10 because I don't remember playing with it much longer than that.


I belong to a generation that was taught to sew in school. Hand sewing and little projects at first. Needle holders. Something that was hemstitched. I can't remember what. In the 6th grade I made the apron I was supposed to wear to my cooking class in the 7th grade.

And I believe that sewing class was also in the 7th grade. They didn't have enough sewing machines to go around, so we mostly sat around waiting for our turn. To keep us busy they taught us to pin the seams, and baste the seams and then, and only then, did we get to actually sit down at a machine and sew a seam. When the year was over I could not stand to even look at the two garments I had made, a blouse and a dress.


I have no idea why I kept sewing, but maybe it was because I knew what I'd been taught in school was not sewing the way it was supposed to be.


I started making my own clothes at 16. And I continued to make clothes for the next 20 or 30 years, until it became a lot cheaper to buy clothes and I found out that I enjoyed buying clothes.


I made my first quilt in the early 70s. I'd never seen a quilt. There was one quilt magazine, QUILTER'S NEWSLETTER and I followed the instructions in that for a quilt as you go quilt. It was a disaster, but my daughter loved it to death anyway. Since quilting was something that was done by hand, quilts took years to make if you had any other kind of life. I'd get bored and put the current project away, and take it out again and work on it some more. All three of the quilts I own from this era took decades to make.


About 3 years ago I pulled out the two quilts that were still being quilted. One was a white whole cloth quilt that I had worked on and off for over 10 years and the other was a quilt I had pieced in the early 90s. I finished the whole cloth quilt and then the pieced one. And about that time I bought a gently used sewing machine after not owning one for several years.


And for some reason, it all took off.


So when did I start sewing? Which kind of sewing? I've quilted on and off since the 70s, but there isn't a whole lot to show for it. I made clothes for decades, and I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore. And I've started making machine made quilts during the last 18 months.

Free Motion Friday

I've finished the Bamboo on all but one of the larger blocks in my table scarf. I was rather worried about doing free motion on this piece. I wanted it to be perfect. Bamboo was a great choice. Instead of trying to make the lines straight, I had to try to make them wiggle, just enough. And for the segment lines to curve down.

I'm rather pleased at how it has turned out. I need to find a complementary pattern for the four square in square blocks. Not sure yet what I will do there.

Take care all.