Are we there yet?

Its Sunday, blog post day, and part of me wants to blog tomorrow. For tomorrow I would be there, there being at the end of the lace edge on Rosebuddie. But I'm not there yet, and in fact as parents we have both banned the question 'Are we there yet'. Any cub who asks 'Are we there yet?'is themselves asked if they would like us to stop and they can get out and walk there. We allow 'how far to' questions within certain limits, after the first question we expect them to notice and make note of the distance on road signs. So no ... I'm not there yet, but I'm very very close. I've also got a new sock on the needles to introduce, and its a long weekend here in New Zealand so with an extra day I felt I had the time to finish  some half made books.

Heading into the last corner of Rosebuddie

So this is where I'm at, less than 10 repeats to work and I'll be done. About now I really should check that the remaining stitch count is neatly divided by the number of stitches I need to complete a whole number of repeats. I checked at the beginning but that was some 600+ stitches ago and sometime little things happen to change the stitch count. Little things like when two stitches cuddle up together and act like one, or two plies separate and make one stitch look like two stitches Best to check now while I still have a few repeats to adjust things in should adjustments be needed.;

First sock of 2012

This is the first sock of of 2012, and I think my 53rd pair of socks since 2006 when I discovered sock knitting. This particular beauty is Teosinte, by Anne Hanson aka Knitspot, and I'm knitting it in a Vintage Purls yarn, Archimedes. The toe on this sock is a provisional cast on toe, and is short rowed to create the shape. I haven't done a toe like that in a long time so it was fun to see the toe shape appear out of the short rows as the wrapped stitches were collected and knit. The lace is lovely, and easy to remember and seems to suit a more stripy yarn like Archimedes. I knit most of this at a Staff-development session Thursday of last week, where the Management gathered up the entire teaching and admin staff into one huge space and greeted us for the new year. The institution in which I work has a tradition of greeting the academic year with a whole day meeting and associated planning sessions. After some 11 years I've worked out that the morning whole institution meeting makes for very good knitting time. 

Four more books

And this sunny yarn arrived durring the week, the first installment of Vintage Purls Summer sock yarn club in light lemon yellow with a shawl pattern - Demelza. There was also fudge - but that is long gone, and look little knitterly sticky notes. This is not a colour I would have ever chosen but it is so bright and yellow that I am wondering why I'd never considered this colour before. Defiantly on my to knit list. 

With the extra day this weekend I was able to spend some time finishing the books I had part made. Here are the last four of the six I have mostly done. One or two of these are earmarked for particular friends, one is for me and one is for the birthday stash. You know the birthday stash?  A small collection of things one has put aside knowing that there are birthdays and similar events going to happen. The birthday stash prevents last minute panic buying of weird gifts. Rosebuddie is headed for the 'so you are having a baby' stash, but I'm going to have to add a non-pink blanket as well as not all babies are girls, and some parents really don't like their wee boys in pink or pinky purple.

Some assembly required

Of course these are not totally finished yet, the book blocks (pages) are assembled, and the covers assembled and covered but the two have not yet been attached to each other. That is the next step, but I've found that letting the books dry out completely after each glue step makes the process neater and easier. I'm also playing with different weights of card for the covers. I have not found book-board available locally, but I've not really looked beyond art supply shops and larger stationery stores.  I do want to try Michael O'Brian in Oamaru,  as I have heard that he does sell some book making materials. Problem is that that most times I've been there, its been after hours or he has been just locking up to to go to lunch. There is a Youtube video explaining more about his work here, where he mentions apprenticeships,  part of me wants to inquire about learning bookbinding from him ... but right now there just isn't the time. 

What I have found out is that thicker card is less likely to curve when glued and dried, but is much more difficult to cut to size, thinner car dries into wave and curl shapes when glued .. unless I press it flat until dry. I can press it flat easily, but do wonder if the curl will return if the book is ever in a high humidity area or subject to some sort of mishap involving liquid. These are made with a ply-card, not the thickest I've used, and not the thinnest. I'm still exploring the materials available here and thought the ply - card, made of layers might be a little like ply wood, stronger and stiffer because of the layers. 

Surprise! - these are for Ngaire

There were two that I made and covered yesterday, with brown paper, and the last of the thicker card that I had on hand. I had a request for 'more' of the brown paper covered journals, so here are two more. One has plain paper and one has a knit grid. What I have found out is that books can be made in hundreds of different ways, and right now I'm liking the quite square spine with the french-groove hinge, and the inner book-block coptic bound so the pages open and lie flat easily.

I think I'll head off and work on the last of the edge, and then see if the book covers are ready to have their inners inserted.

cheers
na Stella

Confirmed (I think)

I think I've confirmed that there is enough yarn to complete the lace edge on Rosebuddie! I know, its all in the details today, what is that saying about small things amuse small minds?

Rosebuddie nearly off the needles and able to be seen flat

Rosebuddie now has over half the lace edge worked! The lovely thing about working the edge sideways on knitting is as the edge is completed the stitches are released from the needle and one gets a feeling for the true size of a project. Not only the size but the look, the way the colours in the handspun yarn are playing out in the knitting, and the proportions of each section of the lace. This is a time when I catch myself repeatedly smoothing out the lace after each few rows and just admiring and looking. I can't be alone in that can I? A sort of mix of pleasure and surprise at how something that has been bunched up on needles looks when relaxed and flat.
The details of the yarn usage are:

• before the edge started I had 49 grams of yarn remaining, 
• after the first corner was worked I had 38g of yarn remaining, 
• after the second corner I had 28 grams of yarn  remaining. 

In theory those numbers confirm that I need 10-11grams of yarn to edge a side, and I will finish with a small amount of yarn left over.

My new 'old' dress

And the dress, back view as the fit across the back lower waist and the swing of the skirt are the features I most like. I'm not sure what Bear did but his photo makes me look slimmer than I feel just now, I like it, wonder how I can do that in real life? I shortened the dress considerably, as the original length, to nearer the ankle than the calf seemed dowdy. This length is a nod to fashion but not quite the short flippy mid thigh skirt length that seems so popular right now but so wrong for someone of 'my age'. I'm also elegantly pale or deathly pale depending on your view on sun-tanned skin, but that is just a fact of living here, working when the sun shines and being the kind of knitter who sunburns failry easily so tends to avoid direct exposure to the sun.

take care
na Stella

Enough - maybe , probably.

I think I have enough yarn, I think I do, I think I do, I think I do. Do you think that if I repeat this mantra as I knit there will be enough? And sorry, seems I am having a flashback to the little train that could. Today I have progress of a good kind on the  Rosebuddie blanket, the dress is nearly finished and I am loving the vintage details in its construction, there is an actual finished object with photos, and a new toy was loaned to me. Now I want one of my own.

Here is the 'first' corner on the Rosebuddie blanket. I say first in a slightly tongue in check way as I have knit the edging up to and around the corner once if not twice before on this very same blanket, so there have been corners before. Last time I realised I would finished the blanket with an enormous amount of yarn left over. At which point I frogged the edging and added a few more repeats of the next-to-last lace panel. I had weighed the yarn I had left just before I began the lace edge, and had 49g. I weighed the yarn again after I reached the first corner, and I had 38g left. Now to me that means a side takes 11 grams of yarn, and if I have three sides left to knit I will use 33g. The celebrations consisted of me sitting in my knitting chair, smiling to myself and checking and rechecking my maths just to make sure. Inside I was all happy and warm, even more so this morning when I layed out the corner for a photo and noticed how pretty it is.

 Wednesday went well, I sewed the vintage dress pattern as planned. I made minor adjustments as my waist is not in the same place as the waist of the pattern, and oddly had to shorten the skirt as the hem was nearly to my ankles. That felt a bit frumpy so the hem now sits just below my knee. I loved the little construction details, like seam binding. In a recent Opp shop purchase I had found a wheel of vintage cream and orange floral seam binding so bought it for the princely sum of $4. The vintage pattern provided three options for neatening the seams, pinking, hand overcasting or seam binding. Seam binding isn't used here in New Zealand, or sold but as I had this to hand I decided to use it. I did practice some economies and over-lock the skirt seam allowances. I loved the effect of the seam binding so much I didn't want to use it all up in the one garment. I also like the weird mix of modern overlocking with vintage seam binding .... some historian somewhere will be very confused by that mix.

 Because the dress was designed in a time when seam binding was common the instructions were written to allow very precise and neat finishing of the inside edges. I didn't quite know how this edge would work out but followed the instructions and I'm pleased I did. Look so neat, the way the seam binding fits together where the button fly at the front and the neck facing meet. There were also instructions for hand stitching a button hole, something I can do and have done, but this time I went for machine button holes, I wanted to wear this dress this month, and hand stitch button holes take forever to work.

 This is one more project off the needles, Dark and Twisty. Little wristers in sock yarn, cabled and ribbed. Little cub has been wearing these most days, despite it still being summer and warm, so these should get a lot of wear come winter.

 Now this is the toy that I was loaned, a wee darning aid. At first I didn't quite understand why this would be any better than darning by eye, and hand and using a mushroom or egg. But I love playing with knitting and sewing toys so I dug out a old knit swatch and pretended it had a hole in it.

 Wow! I love this, I want one, I really do. I dont' darn, much or often or even like this but I want one of these. This little gadget make darning a very even square patch easy, I was impressed by the clever little hooks that lift and turn the warp so you can just slide the darning needle across instead of weaving up and down through all the threads. Now this darn breaks many of the rules given in old books, especially where they suggest staggering the edges so the darn blends in better, but I like it. I have all sorts of ideas about using this to decorate knit or not knit things. The back is neat and tidy to, but didn't photograph well. I imagine if there was a hole I could either neaten the edges by stitching them to the darn, or trim them away, or both.

Tomorrow the cubs go back to school and Bear and I both return to work, until now one or the other of us has been at home for childcare purposes. Tomorrow is the first standard week of the  working year for all of us. That means today is all about making sure the cubs are clean, tidy, washed, and ready to go to school. There will also be baking as things are prepared for lunch boxes, and books are labeled, shoes polished, bags emptied of the fun holiday stuff and filled ready for school. Excuse me as I go and be a parent, instead of a Knitter.

na Stella

Messing about

Seems like I have been messing about with lots of different things the past few days. Little cub has been invited to more birthdays, and like before these friends play the ukelele, and have seen her ukelele bag and the one we gifted to C ... so let it be known that they would love one of their own. Because it is never easy finding great gifts  - Little cub and I decided Bella gets a bag ...

Bella

and Caitlin gets a bag as well. The plan was to make them different but not so different that they were hard to make. Like the others I traced around the ukelele and added seam allowance straight onto the denim. I ironed fusible web onto one side of some bright colourfull fabric left over from a previous project - I always keep good sized scraps. Then I  cut out their names in letters then ironed the letters onto the front of the Uke bag. Then I zig zagged over the raw edges  to finish them nicely. Little cub chose the colours, based around one friend liking green and the other friend liking purple .... the threads are left over from previous projects.

Caitlin

I also made significant progress on my Rosebuddie, I  knit 3/4 of the way through chart, on addition to the complete repeat I had already worked. This left me with 49g of yarn - which I hope will be enough to complete the lace edge with. I've calculated how many stitches I have, and how many repeats that will allow me to knit around the edge, and adjusted the stitch count by two stitches to make things all match up nicely. This time I'm liking the way the eyelet boarder between the blanket body and the edge is working out -now that I'm p2tog rather than K2tog.  

Rosebuddie, this time with nice eyelet lace edge

The vintage dress pattern I bought to make myself a dress has been opened, carefully unfolded, checked, and the instructions read through. Everything is there, and it is well used but nicely looked after. I Googled how to use vintage dress patterns, and was encouraged by the number of people out there blogging  like this info. On Sunday morning, out buying Denim for  Ukelele cases I found this lovely gold and chocolate floral at Global Fabrics and decided that I was brave enough to make it into a dress. My usual taste in clothes runs to darker and plainer, but I must have been feeling a tad risky. The print is a very stylized old gold floral, kind of arts and crafts tonal print. Still am it seems as I've cut out the dress and have it pinned awaiting basting for fitting. More recently the fabric I have bought with plans to sew specific things has just ended up in stash, this time I really want a new dress, especially after making 5 for little cub. I usually make my own patterns so toile rather than baste and fit. Subtle difference being that a toile is adjusted and discarded in the process of making the garment fit, and a basted fit is achieved by cutting the garment in the final fabric with checking for size and allowing for alterations before it is completed. I was in town today and saw a special on little pretty vintage style summer cardigans .... so thought I might head back to buy one to go with this latter in the week.

Rose gold and chocolate brown

The other project that made its way onto and then off the needles are these little chickens and eggs. The cubs both love them, the one with the blanket stitched wings is by little cub. She knit it in the round - her first magic loop knit project and a successful one. She had started one earlier that was knit flat, but lost interest, seeing then knit in the round was enough to make her dig out her knitting and ask me to show her how to make one. The chick pattern is adapted from Fuzzy thoughts, and the eggs from Frankie.

Chicken or egg?

I'm off work again for three days this time, and if my plans go well I will have all day Wednesday to test fit and complete the dress ... ready to wear to work. Tomorrow there is some serious play date-ing at my house followed by the Ukelele girls birthday party.

Take care - na Stella