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Thanks for the thread!
Thank you for a pleasant respite from the “news”.
Plus I usually steal your graphics and send them to friends.
I’m working on an English Paper Piecing (quilting) project called Smitten. It was a Block of the Month for 2021 and I’m behind! Each block is actually a pieced Hexie and I’m currently trying to piece together all the hexie blocks I’ve made so far.
This morning I took a private garment sewing class, I know basic construction but I wanted to learn to sew knits because I wear more knit clothing than woven. Plus I purchased a cover stitch machine recently so learning how to use the machine as well. I had a simple T-shirt dress with a little swing to it already cut out and that is what I worked on today.
I’ve never learned to post photos on FR so if anyone can point me to a tute I’ll post project photos.
This was supposed to have finished for my son's birthday...last October!
He is the only family member that doesn't have one of my cross-stitch/embroidery pieces and has been asking for years.
He has a Tiki theme in his home so I thought he'd like this - it's Disneyland's Tiki room.
I now dedicate a solid hour a day to working on it so it (finally) will get done and I can stretch and then frame it.
This thread isn’t what I thought it was going to be...
...and I’m happy for that.
A very handy guide ........
The Ultimate Hat Size Guide for Crocheters & Knitters [2022]
“Making a hat that fits may not seem like a difficult task at first, but there’s more to it than just circumference. For a hat to be snug and to effectively keep your head and ears warm, it needs to stretch a little. But how much? And how long does it need to be? These are the questions we aim to answer in this guide.”
https://www.bhookedcrochet.com/2015/09/07/how-to-size-a-crochet-hat/
I have crocheted/knitted myself into cramped hands many times. Knitting, in particular, gets me in one particular spot - it’s taken a couple of days of rest before I could knit without pain more than once, especially early on when I was working on hand position/speed. As I’ve done more knitting, I don’t cramp as much plus I’ve gotten better about stopping & taking a stretch/rest if I start feeling twinges.
This may help if anybody else gets hand cramps:
Hand stretches for knitters and crocheters
https://www.laughinghens.com/blog/hand-stretches-for-knitters-and-crocheters
Five Stretches That Will Help You Knit Without Pain
An expert on ergonomics demonstrates how to keep fingers and hands nimble, and improve sitting posture.
https://www.marthastewart.com/2139726/stretches-to-knit-without-pain
About to begin a new ‘adventure’ - baby booties! I’ve been invited to a baby shower (Sat 16th) & I want to knit something small & cute to use as a package (gift card) decoration & they could be worn if so desired. After much looking around, I found a pair of booties that are cute AND are knit in the round so I don’t have to seam. I have always wanted to knit baby booties/socks so now I am motivated to give it a try.
The “new” part is using Judy’s Magic Cast on which gives you a seamless toe or in this case, a seamless sole for the bootie. I use “Magic Loop” whenever I can, so that is a non-event for me. The yarn used is worsted weight (hip hip hooray!) & I have a skein I just bought to make some fingerless mitts for the tech at PT. It’s Hobby Lobby ILTY so it’s soft and the color is “Stonewash” which is blue ... close to a “Carolina” blue which was the tech’s favorite color. The baby is a boy so the blue is perfect.
The booties have 3 different looks - I favor the roll top with a ribbon .... assuming all goes well, I could make them in the two appropriate styles (the other is a ribbed cuff) & see which I like best.
I was out in the garden from 7 pm until dark last night & I worked on a shade for one of my jalapeno plants inside this morning while watching a Wimbledon match - this is relevant because ..... I am caught up on the garden for today and I can KNIT! :-)
Here’s a link to the baby bootie pattern:
Seamless Baby Booties
https://www.liesbraam.com/p/seamless-baby-booties.html
Knitting Help - Judy’s Magic Cast-On (I love VeryPinkKnits tutorials - they’re all excellent):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV9UaFgZ6Q0
The Wartime Spies Who Used Knitting as an Espionage Tool
Grandma was just making a sweater. Or was she?
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/knitting-spies-wwi-wwii
snip
When knitters used knitting to encode messages, the message was a form of steganography, a way to hide a message physically (which includes, for example, hiding morse code somewhere on a postcard, or digitally disguising one image within another). If the message must be low-tech, knitting is great for this; every knitted garment is made of different combinations of just two stitches: a knit stitch, which is smooth and looks like a “v”, and a purl stitch, which looks like a horizontal line or a little bump. By making a specific combination of knits and purls in a predetermined pattern, spies could pass on a custom piece of fabric and read the secret message, buried in the innocent warmth of a scarf or hat.
Phyllis Latour Doyle, a secret agent for Britain during World War II—and now, at 100, the last surviving woman who spied for the Special Operations Executive—spent the war years sneaking information to the British using knitting as a cover. She parachuted into occupied Normandy in 1944 and rode stashed bicycles to troops, chatting with German soldiers under the pretense of being helpful—then, she would return to her knitting kit, in which she hid a silk yarn ready to be filled with secret knotted messages, which she would translate using Morse Code equipment.
https://i.postimg.cc/k45LnMqC/7636-F4-FE-BB14-4-DBD-88-A8-EBCE20482549.jpg
Test to see if I’m doing this right! A quilt a made a couple of yrs ago
This is painted on composite aluminum fencing - primed first, then used outdoor paint. What a job - it's beautiful!
I LOVE this piece ....
Heather, the author, says:
“In going through old papers, I found this—a rare printout from the digital era, a single page that I had written in December of 2011, over ten years ago. Many of the major devices and platforms that we give our time to—iPhone, Facebook, twitter—already existed when I wrote this, but they were still nascent, and it was a different world. Still, while my words here are perhaps a bit dated, they also, I think, have a timelessness worth sharing.”
The trivia of days
https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/triviaofdays?utm_source=%2Fprofile%2F13611183-heather-heying&utm_medium=reader2
A very brief excerpt (read it all!):
Instead we have the ascent of the trivial. Before, the mundane was also the fundamental, and therefore not trivial at all.
Tilling, sowing, harvesting, storing.
Grinding, kneading, shaping, eating.
Consulting, gathering, extracting, healing.
Chopping, carrying, stacking, lighting.
Shearing, carding, spinning, weaving.
And even when it was not strictly fundamental, still it was purposeful. Out of purpose arises emergent qualities; the mundane can produce beauty and meaning.
Whittling, fastening, tinkering, building.
Collecting, drying, grinding, painting.
Wedging, shaping, firing, glazing.
Sitting, talking, remembering, projecting.
Or maybe those things are, indeed, just as fundamental. We are artisans and artists, makers of forms both functional and fanciful. And we are storytellers to our core.
Here’s an idea for your NEXT year’s fair entry! The stitch pattern is super interesting ... it’s done in “rainbow” and then there is one in blue/white . It looks like good instructions/photos on the pattern. Both blankets are gorgeous in different ways due to the colors used.
https://www.lillabjorncrochet.com/2020/11/very-rainbow-blanket.html
Cat paw chair socks .... pretty cute!
https://www.repeatcrafterme.com/2020/07/crochet-cat-paw-chair-socks.html
Super Saver yarn & only 11 rounds.
