Quilting Again

I have been staring at the Class Quilt at my sewing machine since March. That was when the second round of being sick started this winter. I had done everything that needed to be done to put the binding on the quilt, except actually do the machine sewing on the binding. And then I just didn't have the energy to sit at the machine. Part of me was afraid I'd never get there.

Last week I had some work done in the house. One of the things I did was to put up the curtain rod that will hold the class quilt. I had the bar put up so I could put other quilts on it as other quilts got made. I've been looking at that empty bar for almost a week now.

Yesterday I was free all morning. And I sat down at the machine. Literally 30 seconds after I started sewing I realized how happy I was to be there. It took four sessions to finish putting the binding on.

The first two were pretty easy. The third was one of those disasters that just happen when it has been a long time since one has done something. Sewing the two ends of the binding strips together became a major disaster. I ripped out the first attempt because everything was twisted.

I had to rip out the second attempt too because something got sewn into the seam that should not have been there, but the third attempt, on the fourth session went like a dream. The machine part of the rod pocket is in place on the back and the machine part of the binding is in place on the front. Now it is all hand sewing while I watch TV over the next couple of days.

I'll be linking to The Free Motion Quilting Project and to Fiber Artist Journey.

Take care all.

This and That for Random Thursday

I'm feeling rather random today. I'm doing laundry this morning. I'm not dressed and it is almost 10 am. I'm resting in between bouts of doing the stuff I need to do, so dressing is waiting.

Spring has sprung in East Central PA. The Lehigh Valley is full of flowers and plants. The trees are blooming. My crab apple has bloomed for the first time in 9 years. It always has some blooms, but this time, the entire tree is blooming. Maybe the hard winter has something to do with that.

As usual I have a wonderful front garden. My daughter has added stuff every year for the last 4 or 5, most recently some perennials she found at a local garage sale. Spring has always been great in the front of the house (the only place where I plant because my community takes care of the rest), Summer, not so much. But either this year or next year that is going to change. We've been working on it for the last two years and I think we just might be done.

But I don't have pictures because my walking just isn't good enough for me to get out there with a camera and take them.

And that is the real bummer. I started walking, bit by bit, with my walker in January. In February I got sick. I got so weak I ended up using a cane full time, even in the house. The walker let me walk further outside than I could without it, but most of the time I was able to just walk. Using a cane all the time just makes me so tired. And so tired means I don't get to enjoy the Spring as much as I expected to. All very frustrating.

Take care all.

Knitting, Crochet and Decisions, Decisions

Once I finished the sock I decided I wanted to do some really easy projects. I had gotten two balls of the kinds of yarn that makes ruffle scarves. One from Walmart, and one, for just $1 at Big Lots. I went online to see how to knit them, and noticed that there were also crochet videos. It was pretty obvious that crochet would have been a whole lot easier for someone who knits continental.

I started with the Big Lots ball. I have no idea who's yarn this was in the beginning but it made up into a very pretty scarf. It is long enough to make a simple knot but not long enough to double.

My daughter chose to take both of these home with her.

I used the same crochet system to make the second ball. It is a name brand, Red Heart Sashay. It made up thicker and longer than the $1 ball. Equally pretty but in a different way.

Both of these projects were extremely quick. The problem is that once you start you can't put the project down. I needed to back off after about 3 or 4 inches because I hadn't gotten the stitch onto my needle correctly. And the entire thing ripped out. So once you start, you need to continue for about an hour.

Outside of that this is extremely easy to do, and the results are very nice.

I'm now working on a shawl. There is a problem with it because it is obvious to me that once I finish the two ends of the triangle will not match.

I got the pattern online. basically you start at one of the points of the triangle, and knit until you almost run out of yarn and then do a special bind off. I didn't realize that I couldn't see both points in the picture. The person who came up with the pattern probably didn't care that the points didn't match. She was designing for other reasons. But I will care. Again, this is a $1 ball of yarn from Big Lots. Don't have a clue what brand it originally was. It is fun to knit and I like the openness of the stitch pattern. But I am going to care about the points, so I'm going to put these stitches on some waste yarn, and I'm going to start something else with one of the other 5 balls of this stuff that I have. It is obvious after having knitting as much as I have that there is a lot of yardage in the ball.

I won't try to rip the knitting because, once again, I'm dealing with a yarn that doesn't rip very well. And I've got so much of this stuff, it just isn't worth the aggravation to even try to rip it out.

Take care all.

Finished

The second sock went extremely fast. Partly because knitting was all I wanted to do. Partly because I was locked into the TV set for the last two weeks because of the Boston Bombings. I lived in Boston. I remember Patriots Day, and I lived in Watertown for 3 of the years I lived in the Boston area. All too close to home. So I wanted my hands busy, and knitting worked.

 So, what have I learned from all of this?

I've learned that even if I take two photos on the same day in the same room, the light won't be the same in those two photos, and for this yarn, that mattered.

The rug my feet are on is a medium blue. The socks aren't actually the same color as either of the photos, but they are closer to the big one, which I took on the white blanket on my bed, than they are in the photo where I'm wearing the socks.

I've learned that there are times when gauge has to be EXACT. Socks are one of those times. I learned about negative ease. Now that I'm actually wearing the socks, I'm aware that I might have liked even more negative ease, but that might be a personal preference.

I've learned that even sock yarn socks, done on double zero needles, at 8 stitches an inch, are rather heavy compared to what I normally wear. I am very unlikely to try to put these feet, in these socks into a shoe. But they might be very comfortable to wear around the house.

I also learned that by today's standards I'm an Intermediate knitter. Possibly on the edge of Adventurous Intermediate, but not any further than that. And when I'm buying books or looking for classes in knitting I'd better make sure I've filled in all the gaps in my knowledge before I get started. And I just might need to pay attention to the new bits I am learning.

Will I make more socks? I don't think so. Several reasons. My daughter said it well. She said, "They're just socks!" I put in a lot of effort on a pair of socks, and if that was all I'd gotten from it, it would not be enough. It was worth the effort because I got quite a bit out of it in addition to the physical socks.

And, one of the reasons for making something is that you love the result. I'm not at all sure I love the result. I have sensitive feet, and I'm not sure I love the feel of these particular socks on my feet.

I am doing the basic filling in the blanks of my knowledge on the lace making project, which will be where I take knitting next. I learned enough with the socks to be a lot more careful with the books I've been buying, for one thing. There is also a Craftsy class that was more advanced than I was ready for, but I think in this case, it will be where I go after I've taken a few more steps, so it is OK.

This, That and Books

I still have not gone back to quilting. The quilt on the machine which needs its binding has not been bound. That is going to be strange because on Monday the local contractor will show up and one of his minor jobs is to put up two curtain rods, and one of them is for that quilt. It won't be the only quilt that ever goes up there. I am putting up display places because I intend to change out the quilts that are up. I needed places to put the quilts because I knew that one of the reasons I wasn't quilting was that I could not figure out what I was going to do with them if I made them.

I have been knitting however. One of the things I learned from the whole sock project was what I did not know. I needed to go back, all the way to being a beginner so I could fill in the holes in my knowledge and make a sock that would actually fit. I had to get quite stern about gauge. Close enough was not good enough. I had to learn new cast on methods. It turned out making a toe or turning the heel wasn't that hard. I've conquered two kinds of toes and two kinds of heels in the process. It was other things. Details like negative ease that were part of my problem.

It took two Craftsy classes. I didn't finish either of them because they were both way beyond my knitting level. One additional online class that was excellent, but which didn't quite work for me for a bunch of reasons. And three books. There is nothing wrong with any of these teachers or authors. But the last book really was a book that a beginner could use and that an intermediate knitter could continue to use. That book is SOCKS FROM THE TOE UP by Wendy D. Johnson. And what she had, in addition to explaining negative ease very well, and how to pick a sock size very well, was THREE plain vanilla socks. Two kinds of toes (I learned one of hers) and three kinds of heels (again I learned one of them). Once you get past the beginning section there are wonderful socks with patterns and lace. And who knows. I might try one or two of them. But one thing I've figured out. Most of the people who's blogs I read love interesting yarn, and if you have interesting yarn, you probably aren't going to do an interesting pattern in it.

Plain vanilla is a good thing.

I've just reviewed the book at Amazon.

The next knitting project is to relearn how to knit lace. I've done some easy patterns, but most of the things I've seen online or in books are way to hard for me to do right now. I've decided to be a bit more careful about how I go about doing this. I've found some YouTube tutorials and I've watched some of them. And I bought a book called CHARTS MADE SIMPLE by JC Briar. It is about reading lace and other knitting charts. Once again it is ORGANIZED. It isn't that I didn't know the easier things in the book, because I did know them. What makes it worth reading, and reading it slowly and carefully, are the little things that are buried inside all the stuff I already know. So I'm going slow so I see those other things. And I've already learned quite a bit and I'm only on page 35.

I've also ordered the lace book by Wendy D. Johnson, and a second book that just might be more like the charts book than the Johnson book. More about technique than about actual projects. In fact the projects did not get a great review at Amazon when I ordered the book this morning. It is THE VERY EASY GUIDE TO LACE KNITTING by Lynne Watterson. She is promising "step by step" "easy to follow projects and patterns". Here is hoping she is right.

Take care all.

Socks - Almost a Pair

I turned the heel on the second sock last night.

 I almost can't believe how fast this sock has gone considering how long the first one took me. But I kept second guessing the first sock. I must have tried it on every day I worked on it, and there were times I stopped knitting until I could try it on.

I've got physical limitations. There are only so many places where I can try on a sock, AND take its picture. And there were times when it was time to try it on again, and it was night and there wasn't any good place to take a picture where the colors would be anywhere near close to the yarn itself. So that meant that I waited until morning for the photo, and waited until the following evening to start knitting again.

I started the second sock with the second ball of yarn. I probably did not need to do that because the yardage probably was enough for two socks. The second ball started in a different place on the stripping than the first ball did, so the two socks will be very fashionable. They will not match.

The left over yarn will become some kind of scarf, I think. There should be enough for a small project.

Someone asked what the yarn is. It is Opal Bicoroz. Not sure about that final letter. The yarn label is in German. It has something in it that is probably polyester or nylon and it is a sock yarn. The recommended gauge is 30 stitches to the standard 10 centimeters. So that is 7-1/2 stitches to an inch. I did manage to get the 8 stitches using a double zero needle.

So I am on the final portion of the race. Next stop is to finish the leg, bind off and run in the ends on both socks and actually try on the pair and see how I like wearing hand made socks.

The next knitting project is to learn lace knitting. I've done some of it in the past. All very simple patterns. But just as with the socks I realize that there are problems with being totally self taught. There are holes in my knowledge.

Take care all.

A Few Thoughts About Watertown, Massachusetts

I lived in Watertown, Massachusetts  for 3 years in the late 1960s. I found my old street on Google, although I didn't manage to locate the two family house we lived in. Watertown has a population of about 30 thousand people. It probably was about that size when I lived there because I doubt if there has been any new building in that area in the last 40 or 50 years. It is still an area of mostly one and two family houses, mostly built before World War I. The house I lived in was different because it was a newer house fitted into the block because our neighbors had sold off the second lot that the owner's father had bought when he built the house in 1910. That house had always been set on one of the lots so the second could be sold off when the time came.

It was then mostly a lower middle class neighborhood. I bet it still is. So the response of the people who lived there when everything was over wasn't a huge surprise to me. The people I knew when I lived there, most of whom had lived on the block for 40 or 50 years or more, would have come out onto the street to applaud the police cars as they left the area too.

I spent a lot of time watching TV the last couple of days and I figured a few things out that weren't all that apparent. It was the Watertown police, without Federal, State or Big City backup, who stopped the car with the two suspects. They were the ones who had the gunfight with the 200 rounds, and the home made bombs and grenades thrown at them. It was also the Watertown police, again without backup, who got the first cordon set up around the second suspect and held in place until the special Federal teams arrived to deal with the extremely difficult situation they were in. They were the ones who got the local families out of the houses during the period where it looked like nothing much was happening.

You had to read between the lines to figure all of this out. There are some people who objected to the death of the first suspect, but in addition to gunshots and bombs, he was run over by the car driven by his brother. At this point I'd wonder exactly what killed him. He died in the hospital, and not on the street, so they got him to a hospital. There were only 6 policemen in that original group. This was after the MIT policeman, who had been alone, had been killed.

The truly amazing thing about all of this is something a hospital administrator said on day 2 or day 3. He said, "Everyone is still alive!" They didn't loose anyone who made it to one of the hospitals alive. All three of the original deaths involved people who died in the triage tent, or before they made it to the tent.

Take care all