Over the weekend we went to visit Grandma Ann and Grandpa Lou. While the boys were happily playing with their grandma, Eric and I had some time to do some browsing at the bookstore. (Memo to Marty: This bookstore also has an enormous collection of beads – you will definitely want to check it out!) I got two new sewing and quilting-related books. The first one is At Home with Patrick Lose. What drew me to it was the plate and utensils placemat in the center of the first row of the cover and the Woven Rainbow quilt on the bottom left. He uses lots of bright colors, which I’m sure is part of what caught my eye. The second book I bought is Sew What! Fleece. It has some cool, simple projects, and of course, you can never have too many ideas for Crackpotty Projects, right?
Archive for the ‘NaBloPoMo’ Category
New Books
Monday, November 2nd, 2009A Little Something to Start NaBloPoMo
Sunday, November 1st, 2009I’ve finally gotten around to sewing the buttons on the sweater I’ve made for the baby my friends L and A are having. Today’s the first day he’d be considered to be born on time, so it’s appropriate to finish the sweater, but don’t start thinking “come out, baby” thoughts yet – he’s not allowed to be born until after L and A move to their new house in a week.
The pattern is the famous (at least in knitting circles) Baby Surprise Jacket from Elizabeth Zimmermann – it’s knit in one blobbish piece that magically folds into a cardigan – the only seams are at the shoulders. The yarn is soft superwash merino wool that I bought this summer during my annual yarn store pilgrimmage at All Together Week. The buttons may look familiar to those who’ve seen the sweater I was working on this summer – same style, just a slightly smaller size. Yes, I am in love with those buttons – but in my defense, I did spend a long time selecting them at the fabric store – almost went with some other ones, but they claimed not to be washable. (Hmmm… looks like I haven’t posted about my sweater yet – more NaBloPoMo fodder!).
And, Big Blankie update – all the pieces are done, and I’m working on the assembly process. I’ve got a bunch of sub-blankies sewn together, and all the pieces and subunits have been blocked. I started by washing a bunch of individual pieces and then sewing them together, but then switched to sewing the pieces into subunits before blocking – easier to pin out for blocking, and less likely that I’d get the pieces in the wrong places during assembly. Being done with the blocking means that my large scale blocking surface has been returned to its official purpose: guest room bed, and, when there are no guests present, where I sit while watching TV shows online.
We hope this looks like Vori
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009That’s “Vori” with an umlaut over the “o.” That makes the “o” sound like the “eu” in the French “leur.” In case that helps. “Vori” is short for “voros,” with umlauts over both “o’s”, which is Hungarian for “red.” As you can see, Vori is a very unusual color for a cat. His people are Borika and Andras, the parents of our new Hungarian son-in-law, Peter. Like all proper cats, Vori runs the household. So when we visited him and his people last May, the thought occurred to me that it would be fun to try a cross stitch rendering of him as a Christmas present for Borika and Andras. Years ago I worked a cross stitch kit of just the eyes of five different breeds of cats, and I figured I could adapt one of those cats to look like Vori. I chose the Persian cat since Vori has long fur and inserted the eyes of a different cat that were (I hope) close to Vori’s yellow-green eyes. Of course, I was working from memory without even a photo to help me, so I am hoping that I came close with the colors.
Since custom framing is ridiculously expensive, my plan was just to have a mat cut for the needlework and then to buy an inexpensive 5×7 frame for it. But when I was selecting a mat at the frame shop, the framer and I both felt that the 5×7 frame detracted from the interesting long, narrow dimensions of the needlework. (It is about 1.5″ x 5.25″.) And then she told me that she could make a frame with leftover short pieces of frame for very little more than a pre-made frame. So this is what I ended up with.
Now my problem is that I like it so much that I am finding it hard to give away!
P.S. I actually wrote this post sometime before Christmas and never posted it. I discovered in in the drafts folder on the blog when I was working on my mystery quilt post. So here it is.
We hope this looks like Vori
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008That’s “Vori” with an umlaut over the “o.” That makes the “o” sound like the “eu” in the French “leur.” In case that helps. “Vori” is short for “voros,” with umlauts over both “o’s”, which is Hungarian for “red.” As you can see, Vori is a very unusual color for a cat. His people are Borika and Andras, the parents of our new Hungarian son-in-law, Peter. Like all proper cats, Vori runs the household. So when we visited him and his people last May, the thought occurred to me that it would be fun to try a cross stitch rendering of him as a Christmas present for Borika and Andras. Years ago I worked a cross stitch kit of just the eyes of five different breeds of cats, and I figured I could adapt one of those cats to look like Vori. I chose the Persian cat since Vori has long fur and inserted the eyes of a different cat that were (I hope) close to Vori’s yellow-green eyes. Of course, I was working from memory without even a photo to help me, so I am hoping that I came close with the colors.
Since custom framing is ridiculously expensive, my plan was just to have a mat cut for the needlework and then to buy an inexpensive 5×7 frame for it. But when I was selecting a mat at the frame shop, the framer and I both felt that the 5×7 frame detracted from the interesting long, narrow dimensions of the needlework. (It is about 1.5″ x 5.25″.) And then she told me that she could make a frame with leftover short pieces of frame for very little more than a pre-made frame. So this is what I ended up with.
Now my problem is that I like it so much that I am finding it hard to give away!
Ex-Travel Knitting
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008I’ve learned my lesson about travel knitting – it’s important to take projects which don’t turn into half-finished, too-big-for-travel-knitting projects, or you’ll end up with a bunch of partially-finished scarves as reminders of trips past. It’s also good to bring projects which don’t require too much concentration. Counting to 8 is not difficult. Counting to 8 on inadequate sleep is much harder than you’d think.
Anyway, here’s a scarf I started a couple business trips ago (click to biggify):
It uses 2 colorways of sock yarn, which is why it’s kinda stripey.
And, apologies to dear Aunt Barb (who doesn’t understand why one would want to make socks when they’re so readily available in stores worldwide), but I think the perfect travel knitting for me is socks. Minimal counting required (I can generally handle counting to 2 even when I haven’t slept enough for days), they don’t get too big to fit in a quart-sized bag, and I like to wear handknit socks on business trips, so they’re very practical. I just need to purchase an additional set of sock needles to avoid any mid-journey disaster that would ensue if I dropped a needle on the plane and was unable to recover it.
Quilt show report
Friday, November 21st, 2008Marty and I went to the Bloomington quilt show last weekend. We were both impressed with how many quilts there were since all of the quilts were made by members of the local guild. Here are some of our favorites:
We both thought this one was impressive!
This one is called ‘Nancy’s Flower Garden,’ so of course I liked it.
Especially cool to our vest and jacket makers.
I liked the applique and colors on this one.
And one more I liked.
When you don’t have enough time for all your crafty hobbies…
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008add another!
No, that doesn’t sound quite right. How about: Brain research shows learning new skills is good for you!
Here’s my new toy, a Kundert drop spindle, with my first attempt at spinning (click picture to biggify; teach me photography to better focus-ify).
I need to let the new yarn “marinate” on the spindle overnight so it’ll keep its twist, so I haven’t yet been able to fully evaluate it. I’m quite pleased that it looks rather yarn-esque, though!
Walking: All The Cool Kids Are Doing It
Sunday, November 16th, 2008Does learning a new skill count as a Crackpot Project? Why the heck not!
Aunt Barb Will Be So Proud
Saturday, November 15th, 2008Last spring, honorary crackpot Aunt Barb stayed overnight at my place, and I showed her some of my knitting. She went ga-ga over the swatch for my Hillswick Lumber sweater, and told me that it was such a piece of art that I needed to frame it and hang it on the wall.
Several months and a few trips to local big-box craft stores later, I’ve framed the swatch.
I was considering hanging it up in my bedroom, but I think I’ll actually take it in to work and hang it up there.
Details: I bought a shadowbox frame, and piece of mat board – I had to go to a couple of stores before I found pieces of mat board without holes (for photos) available at a decent (i.e., suitably cheap for a crackpot project) price. I then used regular thread and tacked the swatch onto the mat board around the edges of the knitted portion of the swatch so the texture of the yarn ends is still present.
Yes we did!
Sunday, November 9th, 2008Can I just say how overjoyed I am to be able to post this picture?
Oh hey, and there’s also this:
(Note the time stamp in the upper right corner!)
To answer Ann’s question about posting about politics on a quilting blog: heck yeah! After all, when I think back to what Obama’s candidacy seemed like when it began, “crackpot project” pretty well describes it, don’t you think?
There are some terrific photos and stories out there, but if you want to get all goose-bumpy, I highly recommend these two videos from the campaign:
Signs of Hope and Change
We Have a Lot Of Work To Do
And if you haven’t seen this series of four photos from the crowd at Grant Park on Tuesday night, you really should take a look.
Last but not least, photojournalist Callie Shell has a page of photos she took of the campaign for Time Magazine. Keep clicking the link at the bottom of the page for “more photos.” My favorite is the one in the ice cream shop.