Monthly Fiber Arts Tread - March, 2022

March 1, 2022 | Diana in Wisconsin

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Your call. No obligation. If enough people are interested, it will happen. :)

[Qiviut]

Confession time - I bought yarn today (before I used up everything I was supposed to use up before I bought more!).

Handy Little Me came out with some new patterns the other day, including a knit fingerless mitten with cables & knit in the round .... woo hoo!

I have partial skeins of dark colors, but needed something lighter so the cables will show up. I had to go to Walmart today (a rare trip) & cruised by the yarn (Hobby Lobby closed on Sunday) ... picked up a skein of “Dusty Gray” that is a nice color - $3.28 so it didn’t break the bank. I am surprised at how soft it is - Super Saver has improved over the years.

I’ve been in a slump - haven’t picked up a hook (Bobble Sheep pillow projects) or knitting needles for at least a week, but the new pattern has me excited.

[Pollard]

No problem. It’s an English design I believe and was very popular when it was first introduced in the US. The original had handles on both ends which requires two people to move.

Now everyone does whatever certain popular farmers and homesteaders aka youtube stars are doing. Big low flat designs, hoop house style or some humongous thing that you need a tractor to move.

You probably noticed the nesting box high in the back end. Supposed to put a door on the back there to collect the eggs. Beats crawling inside. LOL

[gleeaikin]

Nice chicken tractor. Does it have wire on the bottom to keep fox from digging under? Good idea about door in back to access nest area for egg gathering.

Pollard: Glad you are thinking about hosting a do-it-yourself/prepper thread. Probably monthly or bi-monthly to start. Please sell it so it is friendly to women too. I’ll never forget the first time I had to design a French door. A booze loving contractor had put a big hole in the back end of my family room for the French doors I had bought. This was August at our beach cottage over 150 miles from home base. My husband arrived after a week at home doing school year prep as a teacher, and we had 3 days to locate our contractor and get the job done or do it ourselves. No contractor, so I stayed up 3 hours reading a construction book my father had given me. Next day I told hubby, I think I can do it if you do the heavy stuff. First problem—left corner was 4 inches highr than the right corner. Solution: laid the 2 doors out on saw horse table and cut diagonally across the bottom of the doors so left corner was one inch longer than right corner. With careful measuring (good at sewing) fitted the framing and lining boards inside the framing, cut hinge notches and installed door. There was no more than 1/8th inch gap at all seams. Returned home in time for school. Next trip to shore, door was still there, looked so good; no one had eaten it, pooped on it, left it dirty in the sink or on the floor. It was still perfect, and I suddenly felt, darn, men have all the fun!! So I began my house fixing career. We women need the encouragement of a woman friendly fix it site. Now 40+ years later I am renovating several houses, and trying to develop almost 13 acres in WV we got with a Starker Exchaange(IRS 1031) for 20 acres my husband had in S. Illinois.

Result: I will have lots of challenges to ask advice on, and lots of stories to share with others.

[Pollard]

I think some people do chicken tractors with sire underneath and some don’t. With a stationary coop, you can attach hardware wire or sheet metal to the bottom of the coop and have it curve out onto the ground to prevent the diggers, coons or foxes, because they tend to start right up against the coop when they dig. Needs to be a foot or more out from the coop. Wouldn’t work with something moveable.

I don’t see you on the Prepping & Self Sufficiency ping list so I’ll go ahead and add you. Tomorrow’s going to be a nasty day here so I’ll probably do a thread tomorrow and every 1st Saturday of the month thereafter.

[gleeaikin]

Thanks for adding me. After I see it I will have a better idea if it will cover the type of activities we were thinking of.

[Qiviut]

Hey folks - I thank everyone who has responded on the subject of “chicken tractors” .... some very useful info & I greatly appreciate it. However, any more discussion on this topic should get moved to the Garden Thread - here’s a link to the latest one:

https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4043925/posts

It’s totally MY fault this ended up on the Fiber Arts thread - I jokingly said I wanted a chicken tractor & wished I could knit or crochet one & the helpful comments in response for an actual CT ended up on the same thread.

Apologies to all the Fiber Arts folks ... didn’t mean to hijack the thread! ~Q

[Qiviut]

On my needles as of last night .....

Knitted Arm Warmers (Celtic Cable Stitch Pattern)

I frogged a project & have used a lot of that yarn - had 1 whole skein I didn't use on the project left oveer so I'm using it here. Vanna's Choice, color Dusty Rose.

This is a 16-row pattern repeat. I have worked 4 rows of 1 x 1 ribbing (K1, P1 for 4 rows) & the 16 rows of pattern - I need to work those 16 rows 2 x more & then do another 4 rows of 1 x 1 ribbing. So far, the pattern is "good" - Louise (Handy Little Me) has really clear, accurate patterns.

Making up - this is knitted in the flat (boo hiss!) so I am being forced to seam it together. I've looked at the "mattress stitch" (recommended seaming technique) a few times & will watch a few more before I try it. I do need to learn how to do it - she has a couple of patterns I want to try & they need to be worked flat - on magic loop, the split between front/back needles would be right in the middle of the cable pattern, so that doesn't work.

As for the Dusty Gray yarn I bought yesterday, here are the fingerless mittens I plan on making - very simple cable & worked in the round (yay!) although it does have thumbs you need to knit .... I can do thumbs, but I'm not really fast at doing them yet & they're a bit nerve-wracking still.

Malva Christie Fingerless Gloves Pattern {Cable Knit}

I LOVE knitting fingerless gloves & arm warmers because they can be very simple or very complex (cables), are small enough projects you don't have to spend weeks on them (like lace baby blankets), they're stash busters, & they're useful/make great gifts. The neighbor I got eggs from last week got 2 pairs ... she let her daughter pick the color on the first pair - something in brown (not very exciting). I told the mom she could have another pair & she picked 'red', one of her alma mater colors - she walks/runs so the mitts are perfect for that. She has since texted me that she loves them, which is all the 'reward' I need for knitting them. :-)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Very pretty color! I love Vanna’s colors - the ‘tones’ are just perfect - just about everything goes together.

[Ellendra]

The first time I had to take one of my hens to the vet, she turned into an accidental therapy bird. I found out when I went to pick her up. It seems one of the vet techs was afraid of chickens, so naturally they all decided she needed to be the one to handle mine.

My girl was so sweet and gentle, that the vet tech fell in love! I think she would have adopted my hen if I’d let her. And this wasn’t even my cuddliest chicken!

(No point to this story, other than it was a funny story about someone who was chicken-phobic.)

[Qiviut]

For some ‘odd reason’, I seem to have an awful lot of time to knit now. Sigh.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Well, you KNOW who your biggest fan is, here! *HINT*

LOL! I still haven’t started on the re-do of my Blue Ribbon-winning afghan for this upcoming season!

Maybe I’ll start it tonight in SOLIDARITY with you, while you recover. ;)

[Qiviut]

So I was listening to War Room on podcast & got distracted ... messed up a cable row. The big issue is trying to figure out “where I am” ... cables are stinkers to “tink” (the knit version of crochet’s frogging). I’ll work it out somehow. I may start putting in a lifeline every couple of rows ... generally don’t these days, but they sure come in handy if you mess up & need to rip back when tinking doesn’t work.

Ice machine is going - feels good! I think I’ll end up on the couch tonight - room for the ice machine & easier to get up/down.

Always “something”! :-)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Beau left for a Hunt Club meeting, so I’m LOOKING at the box of yarn...

It’s a START! :)

[Qiviut]

I hope the “looking” turned to “inspiration”! :-)

After trying to figure out the cable row with the boo boo, I finally gave up & decided to rip it back. This is scary - no life line, just live stitches not on any needle. I got a smaller needle & started working my way down the 40 live stitches picking them back up and wonder of wonders, I got them all & in the right order. With cable stitches, you slip, for example “two stiches” onto something (cable hook), & hold them either in front or back of the work, then knit or purl the next two stitches, then knit or purl the two off the hook which causes the stitches to cross. When they’re live & off the hook, you need to preserve that stitch “crossing” when you put them back on the needle.

Anyway, I had 40 stitches when I picked them back up & looking at the design, it seemed to be intact. The next issue was most of my stitches were “twisted” so as I did the next row, I was untwisting stitches as I went along. After looking at the completed row plus one more, the design actually looks ok. I am definitely putting in a lifeline every other ‘even’ row - even rows are not cable rows, just work across knitting the knits & purling the purls.

Didn’t get much sleep last night, but I’m “up” (ha ha) & drinking coffee, so that’s good. I was slightly nauseous (happened yesterday evening, too - reaction to pain I think) - coffee has relieved it. My dad hobbled in to see me last night (he’s in the den, I’m in the living room) and asked if there was anything he could do for me & to let him know if there was. So sweet - he can barely walk, but he’s actually hobbling a little faster with his walker on wheels than I can right now with crutches. We’re quite the pair.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Yesterday afternoon I pulled apart the afghan I had already completed for the County Fair this upcoming season. It went smoothly, but took me about 3 hours, all told.

Today I am starting the re-work of the afghan. The color gradient just wasn’t tripping my trigger. The theme is ‘Driftless Wisconsin’ so needs to look like Four Seasons of the hilly crop fields all around me.

I re-worked the colors and wrote out the pattern and will post pictures of progress. It’ll be a while, but with more gray, rainy, COLD days ahead, it’s too wet and yucky to be in the garden yet, so I may as well take advantage of it!

Other than that, I’ve just been working on cotton dish cloths for charity and I am going to thin out my yarn once more to make more hats and scarves for ‘Warm Up America.’

[Diana in Wisconsin]

[Qiviut]

Love the theme - can’t wait to see pics. It’s exciting :-)

I think I’m getting closer to the point of being able to concentrate enough in a focused way again to pick up my knitting, maybe this weekend. Four measly rows in the cable design & 4 rows of 1x1 ribbing & I’ll be done with the first arm warmer (other than seaming & that’s a whole ‘nother issue!). Considering the level of boredom I’m experiencing, being able to knit will be a welcome relief!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

You’re a trooper! Hang in there! The end is in sight! :)