Recycling

 I need to prepare a project for tomorrow's craft group meeting. I had in mind some sort of woven basket using ribbon, to put sweets in. (Sweets, candy, lollies, whatever you call them!) Yesterday I experimented with skewers and cardboard, but the results were not very neat, won't work. I remembered seeing on Pinterest weaving around cut yoghurt cups. I don't have any yoghurt cups, but I do have some 1 litre milk bottles. Would that work? I think so.

I'll prepare the bottles. Weaving shouldn't take much time, so I'll take along felt in case people want to make felt flowers or something to decorate the baskets further. 

Another Cowl

 

I thought I'd add a lacy cowl to the collection.  I adapted a hat pattern that I've knitted before, Fishtail Hat Pattern by Gail Bable. I added a few repeats to the circumference and, of course, didn't do any decreasing. It's an easy pattern to memorise and I think effective.  Using a short circular needle, it was very easy to knit round and round

Wiggle

 

The pattern is called Just Wiggle It Cowl, by Susan Ashcroft on Ravelry.  As soon as I saw it, I knew it was next on my cowl knitting agenda! It's a clever pattern. The zigzags are created with slipped stitches, I think that's called mosaic knitting. So you work with just one colour at a time, and it's not as heavy as it would be worked in fairisle. The shaping is also clever. You increase on one side and decrease on the other to create a slant, so when you join the ends , by grafting, the stripes are diagonal. It was fun to knit, I may need to make another one. 

Goats And Troll

 

I was tasked with making a felt storyboard for the Three Billygoats Gruff story. Mmm, not as easy as the weather one. I tried printing out cartoon pictures of goats to use as a pattern, but they were all too complicated. In the end I had to take a deep breath and draw my own. I used it for all three goats, just varying their horns, though I think that strictly speaking they should vary in size. I was worried that the small bits like legs and ears would be vulnerable, so I appliqued each one to a piece of felt. 

 I looked up trolls on the internet. Goodness, there are a huge variety of trolls on there! The unifying factor seems to be that they're green. So mine is green, though how 'correct' it is, I have no idea. 

Round 10

 

 I think I managed round 10 of the Spring doily without any mistakes, hooray. 

Weather Chart

 

Last week I had a message from another of the teachers I did a project for last year, asking if I could paint characters onto wooden spoons for her to use as story props. Mmm, no. I explained that I'm a fibre person, who can sew and knit and tat, but that I avoid paint and glue if at all possible! So she sent me pictures of a weather chart and a Three Billy Goats Gruff storyboard to do in felt instead. Here's the weather chart. The green bit is a pocket to put the unused symbols in, the children will choose the appropriate ones for the weather on the day. Teacher has a song to go with it. 

Nearly

 

I made it most of the way through round 9 without a mistake, but I must have been hurrying to finish because I made a mistake on the final repeat. By the time I'd figured out what the mistake was, I'd already hidden the yellow thread. I think that the number of flowers on the outside is correct, so I decided to leave the mistake. It would be a mission to sort out, and then likely be more noticeable than if I just left it alone. 

Cowl

 

I thought I'd make some cowls for my market table. They should knit up quite quickly and I wouldn't have to charge a high price for them. I started with this one, which is called Free For All Cowl by Jen Peck on Ravelry. The edges are knitted-in icords. I thought that was a great idea while I was knitting, but when I joined the ends of the cowl, I realised that the icords pull in a bit. That's logical because they use slipped stitches, which means there are fewer rows of knitting in the icords than in the main part of the cowl. I think if I knit it again, I'll just do a narrow garter stitch edging on each side. Otherwise, I'm happy with it. 

One Sock

 

It's a bit bizarre to get an order for one sock. But there's a story. Of course. Last Winter I knitted a pair of grey socks for a lady. One of the socks accidentally ended up in the washing machine and was horribly shrunk. So she asked me to knit another. I did warn her that my chances of matching the socks were somewhere between nil and nothing. She said that was ok, she wears them at home on Winter evenings, so it's not a problem. I had two goes at matching the yarn. The first one was too dark, the second one too light. I decided that the lighter one was closer and went with that.

So I have fraternal socks ready for collection

Round 8

 

 I've finished round 8 of the Spring Doily. I don't think my fix is noticeable, and it'll be less so as the doily expands. Phew. 

There's A Law About It

 

Jane's Law says that if I'm going to make a stupid mistake, it will be on the easiest round! Round 8 is straight forward, shuttle and ball, rings and chains. I was working away, glanced back and saw that I'd missed a ring. I hadn't finished the round, but was much too far along to untat. I did a repair, which is not bad, except that I shouldn't have hidden two threads in one ring because it distorted the ring. I'll show the whole round when it's done and you can 'spot the mistake'. 

Another Pair

 

I've been knitting diligently and have finished the third pair of socks for the order I'm working on. Here they are all together:

Now that that's done, I can get on with the next round of the Spring 2024 doily. Appropriate on International Tatting Day! 

Brown/Green

 

I plyed the green and brown threads together yesterday morning, then washed and dried the skeins. I even started knitting in the evening, the third pair of socks for an order.

More Bags

 

I have an ongoing order for 30 jewelry bags a month. I can do them all in one day, but I prefer to do half at a time and do something else in the day as well. I'm making progress on spinning for the third pair of socks.

The brown thread is spun and I'm half way through the green wool. 

Round 7

 

I've finished round 7 of the Spring doily. I'm on track!

Second Pair

 

I've finished knitting the green pair of socks, the second pair for the order I'm working on. It looks in the picture as though one sock is smaller than the other, but they really are the same size!

I've made a start to round 7 of the Spring doily, I hope to finish it later today. 

Nearly

 

I didn't manage to finish round 6 yesterday as planned, but I completed it this morning. In time for the release of round 7 tomorrow. 

I did get the yarn dyed, ready to be knitted into a sock. I also dyed some fleece, brown and green. I'll spin one thread green and one brown and then ply the two together, for the third pair of socks in the order. 

Delivered

 

I delivered the puppets yesterday, as well as the tatted lavender. I've finished the spinning for socks, but the threads still have to be plied together, wound into skeins and dyed. I'm sure that while they're drying I'll be able to tat the rest of round 6 of the Spring doily. 

Multiple Projects

 I seem to have a lot of projects on the go at the moment. 

I've made a start on Round 6 of the Spring doily.

I have an order for another 10 tatted lavender 'bunches'. I've done 5 of them. Yesterday at a knit'n'natter session I tatted two and a half flowers, but still need to finish them off. There's a link to the pattern on the right hand side of the page. I read through it to remind myself before I started tatting!

I've finished the pair of brown socks:

And started spinning wool for the next pair:

I have an order for two puppets, fox and crow, which need to be delivered on Monday, so I've made a start this morning

Right, all that should keep me occupied for a while. I also prepared a project for yesterday's craft group in an old age home and must prepare another one in the coming week. 

Sweetcorn

 

We've been enjoying scrumptious sweetcorn from Jack's garden. They're beginning to get overripe now, so yesterday I prepared some for the deepfreeze:

I'll use them for fritters or muffins later in the year. 

Brown

 

I'm working on a pair of brown socks for a man. I use two skeins for a woman's sock, and wasn't sure how much extra a man's sock would need, so I spun four skeins. I mixed yellow, blue and red dyes to get brown, put the skeins into the dye bath and it looked more beige than brown. So I hauled the skeins out, added more dye and then put them back. Whether it was because of that, or because the dye bath is a bit small for four skeins, the dyeing came out very uneven. The skeins looked horrible, frankly:

But knitted up, it looks fine, I think. I rather like it. You can see in the top picture that the sock looks 'brown' without the variations being obvious.  Here's a close up:

Phew.  I think that three skeins will be fine, so dyeing for the next pair for the order will be a little easier.

Round 5

 I've done this week's round of the Spring doily. Shuttle and ball were fine for this round.  I know I have a tendency to make mistakes when things are easy, so I made sure to pay enough attention while enjoying the simplicity of the round. 

One More

 

I sewed another 'bespoke' shirt for Jack yesterday.  I see there's enough fabric left for another shirt, but I think I'll leave it in the stash for now. Three new shirts will be enough to go on with.

This portulaca plant is so pretty this morning that I couldn't resist taking a picture of it. 

Round 4 Is Done

 

I finished round 4 of the Spring Doily yesterday afternoon. I like it! 

I played yarn chicken, which was a bit silly, it would have been quicker to join in another thread. But with a lot of thread left on one shuttle and not much on the other, it was tempting to try to avoid a join:

The market went quite well on Saturday. I sold a hooded towel, which is a good sale, and a number of smaller items. I also got an order for three pairs of men's socks, so I must get on with spinning wool for those. 

Round 4 Begun

 

Round 4  of the Spring doily is out today. To begin with, I used green for the chains and yellow for rings, but I decided I was making things unnecessarily complicated for myself and changed to all yellow. I also realised that it was a mistake to try to use shuttle and ball, two shuttles work better. I notice in the Renulek photos that joining picots are very small. But when I tried to do that on round 3, my circle didn't meet up! So I'm not making my picots that tiny. I wonder if it's because I'm using Milford thread that is very tightly wound? I don't know. 

Now I need to get back to preparing for tomorrow's craft group meeting and Saturday's market! 

Spring Doily 2024

 

The first rounds of Renata's Spring Doily 2024 have been published on the Renulek blog. I have neither the time nor the thread to tat the whole doily, but I'd like to tat part of it. On Sunday I found my shuttles and all the things I needed and set to work. It went horribly wrong:

Oops. I went back to spinning wool. But Diane's multicolour version renewed my resolve and today I had another go, as you can see in the top picture. I tried to pay more attention to tension and have successfully completed three rounds, ready for the next round to be released tomorrow. 

Storybook Rabbits

 

I had a message from one of the (trainee) teachers I made felt story aids for last year asking if I could make two rabbit puppets for her. Her deadline was pretty close, but luckily she was happy to have the turquoise rabbit I had in stock, instead of the blue she visualised, so I was able to help. The pink rabbit is mum, so I made her a bit bigger than the other one, and gave her a necklace. 

I had a message from one of the other teachers last week, asking for advice about making her own props for story telling. I was happy to help, but I do wonder why she didn't learn that when she was training! 

Shirt Two

 

I reversed the colours on this shirt, so that it's not identical to last week's shirt. Same pattern, of course, and same adaptations. 

Leaves

 

I sold a pair of fingerless gloves last week, so I thought it would be a good idea to replace them. I used the 'spearmint' yarn that I spun last year, August. I knitted some of the batch of yarn and put the rest on my market table as yarn. It's still in the basket, so I may as well knit it up myself. The pattern is  called 'Leaves', by ValKnitting. 

Another Pair

 

I've finished another pair of socks for my sock basket. Oddly, one sock looks slightly paler than the other. I dyed the skeins together, so I don't know why that is. 

Back To The Sewing Machine

 

Jack tore a shirt last week. I'm quite pleased with my mending:

But it's nevertheless a sign that it's time to make more shirts! The original pattern is from Burda Moden magazine, but I've made so many changes to suit Jack's requirements that it's scarcely recognisable. No buttons, long pockets, that sort of thing.