Bad Mood, Good Quilt

So I was in a bad mood on Friday. I went to PQM group and pulled out the project I planned to work on: most of it was there... well, some of it was there... I just sat there, moving bits of cute red, black, white, and doggie fabric around. Frowning. Finally, I told myself that there was no use trying with that today and put it back in the box. During that time, somebody swooped over to tell me how KAYOOOOOT it was. Hearing "cute" pronounced like that when I'm grumpy was like eating vanilla ice cream with cheese sauce. Both are useful, but. Should. Be. Kept. Separate.

So I decided to use my grump. I went to the Batik boxes (we have like 6!) and yanked out the color of my mood: kind of a blurry brown-purple. Then I found the moods I could go to: that's the blue with sticks and the weird red-brown armadillo fabric. Then the moods I was shooting for: the yellow geometric and the watery blue and brown. Then the color of hope: pale blue and yellow. I added a few more that went with the melange and chopped 'em into 8.5" squares, then laid 'em out. The leaves worked as a border so there ya go. It was completely done by the time I left. See? Bad moods can be useful.

How to Juice a Purse

I hit a couple of finishes at once so I'm sharing! Here's the Fish Cozy, done at last. There was even a chance to make an initialed hem, so... Coolness, huh? You can see the lace finish, too, although it's a little blurry.Cowboy Christmas is hurrying toward doneness, too. As you can see, I'm sewing down the binding. It's about half-done. Hope I'll be telling you it's finished, too.
And I thought I'd show you how I finished the Juice. I knitted and knitted until I was down to about three yards of yarn. Then I turned the whole thing inside out.

I'd read about something called the 3-Needle Bind-off. It sounded like it was just the ticket.So I searched online and found a video tutorial, followed it, and voila! There are others, but this is the one I used and had success. This is what success looks like.Turned it right-side-out again and I added the handles. I didn't really care for them in the standard installation, so I flipped 'em and created a kind of echo to the shape. (That's how I do my hair, too.)I carried the purse yesterday and it didn't fall apart, so that's success to me!

Penguins and Prejudice

So I've had a couple of completions: the Penguin Quilt is all done. And Penguin Mama will be picking it up today. (yay!)Griffindor Arms finally got done. I wove in the ends using the Swiss Darning method and I think I like it. I'll give it some time and see how it behaves itself. If lots of the ends pull out, I'll know to try something else next time, but it was highly recommended... Tiny wore 'em to school yesterday and that's a good sign that she likes 'em. If she ever wears 'em again: that would be a very good sign. Hmm... she'd better.

And I've started the Pride and Prejudice socks. I really like this blue-purple colorway. Do you think this is Pride or Prejudice?

Penguins on Parade

Here's something fun: I'm putting together a quilt out of squares drawn by children in a first grade classroom! It'll be auctioned off and the winner gets a charming antarctic quilt. The kids had just been studying about penguins, so they decided to focus the quilt in that direction. Cool, huh? I covered part of the center block for privacy. So here's the fabric for the back--cute, huh? I was given all the materials and the plan and that was that.
And here's the story of Beauty's Redemption: Bethie found the abandoned and probably tear-stained quilt blocks at a garage sale. She handed 'em over to me for the quilt ministry. Here's what the blocks probably should have looked like. If you look closely, you can still see the log cabin proto-blocks. I knew better than to try and make the original blocks work by ripping out seams and trying to fit them together. Instead, I chopped! Not much, though. I just made the blocks the same width: some 9", some 11". And then I put 'em together in rows. And the quilt wasn't long enough so I chopped up some more and sewed 'em in. Then I dipped into the batik box for border fabric and voila!

The Spit-Splice Photo Tutorial

Okay, first thing you should know, no scissors for this. Second, it works really well with wool, but not so good with other stuff, especially plant fibers. Let's get going!

1. Break the yarn by pulling it apart. Now fuzz up the ends real well. Undo the plies and fray what's left.
2. Now, get those ends wet with some readily available liquid. (Um, that's probably gonna be spit, but I suppose you could use tequila or chocolate milk... but I wouldn't recommend it.)
3. Lay the ends together, overlapping about 2". Now rub them together against something that provides good friction, such as the leg of your jeans or upholstery fabric. Keep on rubbing until the ends have disappeared.

In this case I wanted to take one color out of my Kureyon yarn--the yellow, so I just broke it out and spliced the purple straight to the orange. Yay!

Providence Smiled

What you non-knitters may not know is that typically we knitters love to knit but hate to do the finishing work on our pieces. Ask the knitters you know:

"Do you have any knitting UFOs that only need to have the ends woven in or the
sides seamed up?"

If they look away or blush, you have your answer.
So you'll understand that I have to get in the mood for finishing up. I was just ramping up to weave in the ends of the first Griffindor Arm Warmer when providence smiled. Knitpicks Podcast did a whole episode on weaving in ends! Four different people weighed in on their techniques. I chose a new one: Swiss Darning. It's a stitch I learned while working on the Fish Cozy, so I was just rarin' to give it a go! Here's a picture, but if I did it right, you won't be able to tell a thing! Okay, I know there's still loose yarn sticking out. I'm not done, okay. But you can also see my start on arm #2.
The mail came and brought with it some fresh excitement: the Pride and Prejudice yarn and sock pattern. Yes, it's colorwork--kind of a basketweave pattern.It also came with this weird chain thing. I'll have to ask the artist about it. It must be of some use to the pattern. Or it was something just sitting around her studio and she threw it into the box to get rid of it... nah! Nobody would do that, would they?Oh, the Fish Cozy: I'm doin' the top now. Isn't this cording looking thing interesting? That's actually attached! I'd like it on cuffs, I think.

I've written so much about knitting, you'd think that's all I do. I actually got some progress on In a Garden, but I was one stitch off (insert the theme from Psycho here!) so I had to frog a buncha stitches. (It wasn't the kind of thing you can fiddle with and it'll look okay--it would have messed with the structure.) Really no point in adding a picture of that...And here's Molly. She's been a little lonely, so I thought I'd do some quilting today. We'll see how it goes.

Not in the Tiki Room

Chiloe asked who the designer of In the Garden was: Linda Gillum from Kooler Design Studio. She's got quite a body of work and seems to be a dedicated artist.I finished working on the parrot quilt. I've decided to call it Rain Forest Serenade. Turns out that's the name of a piece of music by The It. Who knew? It's kinda nice. Here's a link if you want to take a listen. (Actually, I thought it was the name of the music from the Tiki Room in Disneyland. Turns out that's "Tropical Serenade.")

Here's the Juice Purse. This Noro Kureyon is freaking me out, though. While the colors are, well, juicy, there's hay or something stuck in every now and then. I pull it out and keep knitting, but also there are a lot of knots: that doesn't make for easy knitting. Even with those oddities, I like the yarn. The color progressions rock. And the yarn spit-splices really easily. Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like. Don't think too long about it.

I found these blue sparky handles for it at my LYS. There were two other handle sets that looked good with it, but after putting some weight on them and holding 'em like a purse, the bamboo and the bead handles just didn't feel that comfortable to me and, after all, I plan to use the purse, not just leave it on the shelf!And Soylent Green sock numero dos is on its way. Yay! And remember, Soylent Green is made from the best stuff on Earth: people!

Some People Really Shouldn't Be Allowed Outside

Okey-dokey-pokey. What's up in the studio? Well, I've been a little--okay, not a little, super--obsessed. I've been working on In a Garden. See how the backstitch makes things so different? I think the details really shine.

And like everyone else, we've had to tighten our belts. Luckily I have a HUGE stash of stuff to sew, knit, weave, crochet, quilt, so the whole shopping thing isn't necessary, albeit way fun... But that does mean that the finished frameables (i.e. cross-stitch that I want well-protected) will have to wait until there's cash. Eh, so what? In the meantime, I can still make beautiful things. And pretty things. And, um, things.And speaking of things... the Griffindor Arms have had significant progress. I must say that the pattern was not as helpful as I'd hoped. In fact, it appears to be unfinished. The designer says to slip a number of "live stitches" (that means they're still knittable, and vulnerable to being dropped) onto a holder, but she never says what to do with 'em later. It's not like I'm going to hand my kid a project with a buncha stitches slipped onto a safety pin! I'm sure that doesn't count as finished. But the good thing is that it's giving me leeway for creativity. I've made a thumb hole and am just finishing up a few more rows.I'm taking advantage again of living in a beautiful place. Monday I took a little hike around Cabrillo National Monument. I saw a cottontail, two fishing boats, a paddle surfer, and plenty of lizards. I didn't take this picture, but this was definitely the view. And I touched those rocks!And today, I went to Balboa Park for a walk. I toured the prado, looked at the Niki de St. Phalle statues, and settled down in the Zoro Gardens (once a nudist colony for the 1935 Panama Exhibition and now a butterfly garden). Not sure how long I was there, but I think it was 5 rows of the arm warmers. Oh, and I sang. Nope. Not sure what I sang, but I know I was singin'. And the only person that came near me had an odd look on his face. Huh.

Busy? What Do You Mean, Busy?

Yeah, okay, so it's a little busy. Just who do you think designed it? The queen of no-off-switch. But, hey, the Purple Circus is complete! All that time with Tiny moved the quilt within reach of the magical realm of Finished. So I'll turn it in on next Friday--yay!And speaking of finished... The Red Herring Purse is all done, including lining. It took about half an hour to make the lining and then I sewed up the sides, put in the handle doweling, and tacked in the lining this morning at Knitting with the Girls. Now we turn our attention to an item not yet finished, but well on its way: the infamous Fish Cozy. When I knit on it in public, people stop to ask what in the world I'm working on; funny they can't tell. But look! I've done Fair Isle knitting (that's the pattern-y looking thing near the top) and decreasing and striping and stuff. I've learned so much just working on this little bugger!

The Voices in My Head

A miracle happened today: Tiny came into my studio with quilt fabric she'd purchased six years ago--when she actually was tiny--and spent time with me, working on her quilt! Me, the mom. I can hardly take it in. And she stayed in a good mood the whole day. We must have been together six hours. She completed this strip quilt top and made a back.

Here's a close-up. See how it looks a bit like that Hi Cat cat? A friend of mine calls it Fello Fitty...

And then--and then!--we watched a movie (Yes Man) with the Man of the Place just like a real family and everything.

I wasn't planning on sewing much today but I didn't want to break the spell so I just sewed and sewed and sewed on a purple thing that I was using for leaders and enders when working on other quilts. I'll call it Purple Circus. It's a scrap quilt, but maybe you can tell..One block calls for 4 - 2.5" square white, 2 - 2.5" square scrap, 2 - 2.5" x 4.5" strips, and 2 - 2.5" x 6.5" strips. I just came up with it. Although maybe it's something some pioneer gal invented 150 years ago. You never know. Also, I had more mile-a-minute blocks leftover from Shout! so I made another quilt. I think I'll call it ECHO! Echo! echo!

Also, I've found myself acting a bit hermit-y lately: not posting blogs or tweets or even reading my favorite sites or wanting to talk on the phone. And I think I know why: input overload. Yes, I've been listening to podcasts almost all the time. My creative thoughts have been suppressed because I'm constantly listening to the voices in my head, well, my earbuds anyway. So I've made stuff but communication has been challenging. I guess I'll have to change my listening habits.