New Year, New Goals

So it's 2019, and 2018 wasn't my best year for either blogging or crafting. I did finish several pairs of socks and a few other knitting projects, but no quilts during that time. The coming of Thanksgiving and the mystery quilt with Bonnie K. Hunter served as a welcome kick-start to get back into both sewing and blogging. But it also was a kick in the pants to me to organize my scraps and long-neglected projects, both of which were in a shocking state.

When I had to make blue string blocks, it forced me to organize my strings. And not just the blue ones.

 I have a 3-drawer plastic unit; it goes beside my sewing chair so I can just reach down. Top shelf is cool colors, middle shelf is warm colors, bottom shelf is neutrals and browns. The above photo was taken when I was almost through sorting the cool colors drawer and dumped out a bunch more.

I thinned it down considerably. I stirred up a LOT of dust and had to take frequent breaks. I threw away strings I disliked or were too small for my purposes, and now my three drawers are reasonably tamed. I also started the process of organizing my other small scraps. All of this was in the week immediately preceding Christmas. I ended up getting my entire sewing area thoroughly vacuumed and the storage area under the Megaquilter much neater. I will probably do other purges and take more pictures to document this in the future, but I took a break from that when Christmas came.

This was Daniel's gift to me, and I got them on the wall for the Last Noel.

I was detoured right around Jan. 1 with a friend's post on Facebook about "Bullet Journals," and I fell into a rabbit hole thinking about ways to apply them to my life. I took a notebook I've had since 2011, a gift from a student, and had been using very sporadically as a quilting and knitting journal. If you look back in my blog, you may see some of the WIP and UFO reports I've made in the past were based on notes I originally made in this book. So far, I have not really caught the desire to write in a bullet journal daily, nor to make it look pretty. I did pick 12 knitting and 12 quilting goals (loosely defined) for this year and entered them down in the notebook. But for now, my "bullet journal" is just experimental and I don't think it would make a good picture at all. However, I will post my year's UFO goals from it here on the blog.

The way it works is I select a random number from 1-12 each month, and that number is the project I work on during that month. Then I will have to report on goals achieved or missed each month, and maybe connect with one of those awesome link-up parties that some bloggers are still doing.

UFO or stash reduction projects (knitting/fiber) randomly chosen each month.

1. spin the light green/silver roving from Sock Summit
2. spin the autumnal Dicentra Designs "Black Bottom Stomp" roving in merino/Tussah
3. start a new pair of socks
4. Manu cardigan
5. Manu cardigan (it's in fingering weight, I figure two months are necessary)
6. Rosalind cardigan
7. Mint Chocolate cardigan
8. spinner's choice (may order fiber if that is what I want to do that month)
9. small gifts for gift stash
10. On Your Toes cardigan (or bail and frog it)
11. start new cardigan from reclaimed yarn stash: boyfriend or favorite color(?)
12. any knitting finish
13. (bonus) design my dream colorwork cardigan 

UFO quilting/sewing projects randomly chosen each month

1. classical tote bag
2. bowling style bag
3. linen blouse
4. machine quilting finish
5. machine quilting finish
6. machine quilting finish
7. machine quilting finish
8. 1996 Piecemaker's top
9. mariner's compass hooked rug
10. rainbow star quilt (applique)
11. frugal patch quilt
12. felted wool blanket
13. (Scrappy trip)
14. (LOTR paper piecing)
15. (Baltimore album quilt)
16. (Extra baby quilts)
17. (Spare block quilt "scrap soup")

Numbers beyond 12 are "bonus" choices that can be substituted for another one if it comes down to getting nothing done, or can be done in addition to a completed month's project.

These UFO's are an extension of my yearly urge to clean up my sewing and crafting area. I am assuming I will be working on one quilt and at least one knitting project of my own volition each month; these are in addition. 

So this month I chose the random number 2: the Dicentra Designs spinning fiber was very easy to find and my spinning wheel was easy to dust off and get going again, while Steve and I watched a few episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. 

 It was incredibly fun to get back into spinning. I love these autumnal colors.

 And, believe it or not, the two bobbins of singles plied perfectly; they worked out to exactly the same length! Now to figure out a fun future project to knit with this yarn.

The bowling-style knitting bag is still in pattern pieces on my work counter from more than a year ago, and I will attempt to get to that. I know where all the supplies are.

My current sock project is the Bovary socks, top-down socks so a little out of my comfort zone, in some "Vixen" Hipster Knit sock yarn I bought at Sock Summit in ...2011? I am approaching the toe of the first sock; it has been fun to knit, although kind of slow. I would like to finish both socks by the end of January, so I can join the World Down Syndrome day knitalong. 

My current sewing project is obviously, finishing the Good Fortune quilt top. Hopefully by the end of January as well. Then it will join my 5-7 quilt tops awaiting quilting. I seriously need to get some machine quilting mojo going. But for now I am happy to have my goals lined out.

The Lendbreen Tunic

Since I'm trying to get back in the blogging groove, I'd like to share a fascinating video I discovered today.  It's the story of the Lendbreen tunic, an ancient (1700 years old) textile found in a Norwegian glacier, and the effort to reproduce it using the same techniques used at the time. They gave up on the handspinning because it would be too expensive to pay for the woman-hours. An estimated 760 hours of work to go into a basic garment.  I loved hearing the Norwegian spoken, and the sheep are just beautiful animals.

WIP Wednesday; Yarn-Along

Wow, for a couple of weeks I haven't really had anything much going on in any of my hobbies, and now I've got stuff by the bucketload.  Feast or famine, I guess!

It's Roman Culture day in 7th grade, and we're talking about the role of women in Ancient Rome, so here is my spindle collection all ready to give the kids that want to a chance to try their hand at spinning.  All of them except the Kundert (2nd from right) were hand-made by me; the far right one is my iconic Ancient Roman spindle whorl, made of lead and purchased on Ebay, set on a dowel.  It doesn't actually spin very well, compared to the Tinkertoy ones.

If you are married to me or one of my sons, the next few pics contain potential spoilers.  On your own head be it; I'm far too tired to police these things.

Secundus' argyle.  I'm making very slow progress on these and they will not likely be done before Christmas.  But I did turn the heel of the first sock!  I consulted an old favorite book to remind me about how to turn the heel; it's crazy how I forget these things.  Also I did a review of How Civilizations Die yesterday, and I'm almost finished reading House of Hades, the latest in the Percy Jackson series.

I cut out 8 yards of fabric yesterday, and these will be for Christmas gifts.  I'm going to set up a production line and use black thread on all of them.  I've been meaning to do this for over a year.  It will feel good to use up so much fabric!

As many of you know, Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery is going on... here's the first clue, and I'm looking forward to the second coming out Friday. I'm making the smaller version, if 75" square can be considered "small."

 I'm also doing some cutting for what I hope will turn out to be another quilt-along, the one in the February issue of APQ magazine, for a low-volume Burgoyne Surrounded.  I find it oddly comforting to cut out fabrics for a scrappy quilt, and I'm slowly working on taming the mountain of scrap fabrics that has built up around my sewing area.

Since I haven't updated my design wall photo for awhile, I took this picture today.  Not much change, but the "nine" and "Nazgul" blocks have been added to my NAWWAL quilt and I made enough diamonds to complete one diamond of the scrappy String Star.  I'm going to think about the color progression this way and whether or not I want to change it.

Linking up to Yarn-Along and WIP Wednesday.  Go check out what others are doing!  Oh, and I just found out that next week is the famous giveaway day at Sew Mama Sew... get ready!

Tour de Fleece Wrap-up and Stash Report

The Tour de Fleece is over, although my spinning isn't, quite.

I'm pretty pleased with the yarn I spun.  There on the top right is my BFL, and in the center is the hemp that I spun at the beginning of the Tour.  I have quite a bit of singles spun which can't be counted in the total until they're plied.  Top left is one of two bobbins of pure Tussah silk.  At bottom left is the Kuchulu as it was a few days ago.  I finished the spindle spinning today, just a little bit late.

I made a plateful of my Jenkins Kuchulu project.  At 12:00 is the dis-assembled spindle -- isn't she clever?  (I call her Idelette because she is made of tulipwood.  It's a geeky Calvinist joke).  1:00 is the last of the BFL/silk from Dicentra Designs in "Salt Marsh" that has been my project for the last 3 years, approximately.  At 2:30 is the other cop I spun this Tour.  Then there are four little turtle-shaped cops from the last year or year and a half.  Then the 2-ply I made with the 6 or 8 balls I spun even earlier than that.  It's a little emotional to come nearly to the end of this spinning project.  I will ply it on my wheel, probably in the next few weeks.  I have no idea what the yarn will end up as yet.

You can see my stash entry on Ravelry for the Tour de Fleece here, with more extensive photos.

I'm recycling last Monday's design wall picture because I have only sewn a very few more short seams since then.  I can't seem to do both fiber arts and quilting at the same time; I see-saw back and forth between them.  I'm looking forward to actually using some stash soon!
Stash report:

Fabric:

Fabric used this week: 0 yards

Fabric used year to date: 41 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 28 yards
Net used for 2013: 13 yards

Knitting yarn:

Yarn used this week: 0 yards
Yarn used year to date: 6550 yards.
Yarn added this week: 550 yards of the finished BFL in "Atlantis"
Yarn added year to date: 5800 yards
Net used for 2013: 750 yards

Design Wall and Stash Report

The design wall is in heavy use right now.  It's not quite big enough for a queen-sized layout, and there are blocks pinned to the bottom of other blocks and dragging on the floor.  This is my Country Stars quilt.  The blocks are all done and I'm happy with the layout.  The fabric recipe was scrappy, country, with a dash of Civil War and cottage.  I am having a wee bit of trouble with the diagonal layout -- Mr. Pythagoras forgot to remind me to seam the sashing strips with the block strips before adding the setting triangles.  So I may have a few seams to rip and re-sew, and I am also not sure about whether the setting triangles are quite big enough to avoid cutting the cornerstone squares in half along the edge. If that even makes sense.  Maybe in a few more days Pythagoras and I will be on better terms.
Exciting times in the stash; this is a bit of a mixed bag for me, as I'd like to see my stash shrinking.  I bought 2 more yards of black fabric for the sashing of Country Stars, and have added 225 yards of hemp yarn from the Tour de Fleece, and then my friend Joyce gave me this yesterday:

1300 yards of Knit Picks Simply Cotton in "Green Tea Heather" from a project she frogged.  With buttons! I really love this shade of green and have already been on Ravelry researching possibilities.

And of course there's yarn in progress on the wheel.

She's a pretty wheel.  And my only stash consumption this week is 550 yards of yarn (including heel reinforcement) on Steve's socks, which are finally finished!  Pictures later.

Stash Report:

Fabric:

Fabric used this week: 0 yards

Fabric used year to date: 41 yards
Added this week: 2 yards
Added year to date: 28 yards
Net used for 2013: 13 yards

Knitting yarn:

Yarn used this week: 550 yards
Yarn used year to date: 6550 yards.
Yarn added this week: 1450 yards
Yarn added year to date: 5250 yards
Net used for 2013: 1300 yards

July 4, 2013

 Daniel wished he had Instagram.

 Quarta made a fruit salad like she read about in Highlights.

Secundus was the grill chef.  Chicken tenderloins marinated in Thai-Malaysian Curry-Ginger Marinade for Tofu from Passionate Vegetarian... really good for meat too! 

 Strawberry Pretzel Dessert - an ode to my Midwest upbringing.  Pretty sure it passed for a salad at church dinners when I was growing up.

On my Grandma's china.  Grandma Maffett, not Grandma Bogue.  I don't remember Grandma Bogue ever making this, (and she was the undisputed queen of desserts) but the creamy filling is a lot like her Davy's Delight.  Which is a recipe I'll have to share sometime because it's not known to Google, apparently.

I got a tiny bit of spinning done for the Tour de Fleece today too.  We have hours to go before dark and then it will be noisy for quite awhile in our neighborhood.  The kids bought sparklers and spinners and those pathetic "glow worms" and "magic colored snakes" for later.  The best way to enjoy the snakes is to throw a whole package of them into the firebowl, according to Daniel.  We only do non-airborne fireworks, but our neighbors go all out.  Yesterday it sounded like a an entire fireworks stand went off all at once at one point.  Oh well, the country only turns 237 once.

CCXXXVII a patria condita

Yarn-Along, WIP Wednesday

Work on the purple quilt continues.  Only ten more blocks to piece and 40 more (half of total) to join together.

I have started the Easy Street mystery quilt with Bonnie Hunter.  I don't have enough of any one gray or white for it to be my constant, but I'm going for low-variation, especially in the whites, so it will look nearly solid.  Something about the crud going around this week and the dreary weather makes me want to quilt.

I have a finished shawl to report: this is Citron, #11 in my 12 shawls in 2012 challenge.  Tertia and Quarta both wanted to model it.  I didn't get the lighting quite right for Tertia's shot, but I adjusted it later in photoscape.

So I used a flash when I took the photo with Quarta, but I think it was too much light.  In any case, it was a fun, brainless shawl to knit.  Yarn is 437 yards of KnitPicks shadow laceweight.

There's Citron underneath my final shawl for the year, a Wingspan in my Targhee homespun.  And I'm reading The Legend of Luke by Brian Jacques.  I love the Redwall books!  Linking up to the yarn-along over at Ginny's blog.

I even did a bit of spinning yesterday evening, while watching the Grinch with the girls.  This is hemp.  I've had it in my stash for awhile.  No idea what I'll do with it, but it was time to spin it.  Secundus asked, and I'm pretty sure you could not get high by smoking it, and you'd look pretty stupid trying.

Finished Shawl! Deep Water Dreamer

I finished blocking my 9th shawl in 2012.  I'm calling it Deep Water Dreamer after an Eric Bogle song that came to mind as I was unpinning it.   I'd started it back in August, actually at Family Camp.  It's the half-circle variation of the "Camping" Pi shawl in honor of Elizabeth Zimmerman's 100th birthday.  I was thinking of calling it Indian Summer since that's the time of year I finally finished it, but then I thought of the color of the yarn and cold deep water that you might see if you went camping this time of year.

I experimented with draping it over various foliage, but you can't really see the lace pattern as well as I'd like. 

It shows up better in the blocking picture.  The yarn was variegated in spots that matched rather nicely with the changes in the pattern.  I didn't actually plan it that way, but it looks rather nice.  This used up about 600 yards of my handspun Wensleydale and has a radius of 25".  I'm ready to knit some non-lace projects now.

Here's the detail of the little waves and how fussy it was to block.

Sister Sweaters

Here at long last are the sister sweaters.  On the left is my original Rhinebeck, hand-dyed orange superwash, knit as "Miss December" in my 2009 12 sweaters dodecathon.  It's been one of my very favorite sweaters of all time ever since.  And sister Beth liked it so much, recreating it for her became my challenge for this year's Tour de Fleece and the the Ravelympics.  I put it aside to buy buttons for it and then the school year began and I just finished sewing the buttons on the first night of her short visit... but it fits and it went back to Scotland with her!  Secundus snapped this photo before she had to leave.  It may be a bit blurry but it works.  Great pattern, happy yarn (homespun is the best!) and I still love orange.  I would knit another orange sweater.

It has been weeks since I did a proper update on my stash report.  I finally have some movement in knitting and quilting to report.

Fabric used this week: .5 yards for binding log cabin, and I'm counting 16 yards as donated (or at least on long loan!)
Fabric used year to date: 74.5 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 28 yards
Net used for 2012: 46.5 yards

Yarn used this week: 600 yards for camping shawl
Yarn used year to date: 6744 yards
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 3503 yards (all handspun, not purchased)
Net used for 2012: 3241 yards

I'm hoping to get back into both quilting and knitting now that the highest stress week of the school year is past and it's back to just ordinary stress!

Yarn-Along with Martin

I'm linking up to Ginny's Yarn-along today.  This is my September shawl in the 12-shawls-in-2012 challenge.  It's the EZ 100th Anniversary Camping Half-Circle shawl, and it's a free pattern in honor of the late Elizabeth Zimmerman.  It's not really called EZ because it's easy, or anything!  I'm using my handspun Wensleydale light fingering/ wannabe laceweight, and right now it looks like nothing great.  Maybe it will be pretty when blocked.  That's the thing with lace knitting, it's a leap of faith that you didn't make a mistake and that it will be gorgeous when blocked.  I'm in the "willow leaves" next-to-last repeat and the rows are more than 300 stitches long right now, but still haven't used up my first ball of yarn.  I have lots and lots of willow leaves to go.

I'm trying to finish up Martin the Warrior, the second book (if you count them chronologically) in the Redwall series by Brian Jacques.  I reviewed the first, Lord Brocktree, a few months ago.  Quarta and Daniel and I were doing the great Redwall race, but Quarta has finally kicked in and during the last weeks of summer vacation, she sped through several books and is now all the way up to Rakkety Tam.  Maybe I can review Martin in a few days.  I think Daniel has forfeited by going off to college, but it's mission accomplished in getting Quarta hooked!

No WIP Wednesday today because the start of school has meant no time or energy for quilting for awhile, but I did photograph the shawl on the Chinese Lanterns quilt on my bed.

Tour de Fleece - Finish Line

Aaaand... we cross the finish line!  24 skeins finished, a total of 2140 yards, about 45 ounces (not quite 3 pounds) and lots of fun.  Now, a short breathing space before the Ravelympics.

In the top half of the layout I put the 10 skeins from the first week of the Tour, all of which were 3-ply with each ply a different colorway.

These are the 12 skeins from the second week; 2 plies of one colorway mixed with one different colorway.  There is also one little N-plied skein of the leftovers from colorway 4.  No 2 skeins have the same makeup.  The 5 colorways are 1. Classical Copper, 2. Trademark Infringement Caution, 3. Olympic Flame Orange, 4. Bronze Age, 5. Ancient Embers.  Now I'll need to figure out a nice way to construct the sweater with a gradual progression of the colors.

I'm pleased with the N-plied Targhee skein.  Maybe I'll make another shawl-I-never-wear with it.  Or maybe a baby sweater, or socks that would have to be hand washed.

Here's a closeup of the "novelty" spinning.  Cat, all 15 yards of it, and the BFL/silk singles on the Kuchulu, still in progress.  I have a lot more to spin on the Kuchulu before that project's finished!

And one last shot of Bradley.  I'll probably put my spinning aside for a bit and focus on quilting and knitting.  I didn't actually start anything new on the wheel since yesterday, but I'm wondering whether my next project should be hemp or one of my wool braids.
Details on my Ravelry stash page, which has links to the other two pages I used to record the Tour de Fleece.

Like Spinning Cat

It was hubris.  I should have listened to the few posts about spinning cat I could find on Ravelry: slippery fibers, need to be blended with wool, tend to shed, felt and break.  Well, duh!  Of course cats tend to shed, that's why I had this crazy idea in the first place.  I should have taken warning that Challenge Day in the Tour de Fleece was on a Wednesday... and I've never gotten the hang of Wednesday, somehow.  I should have paid attention to my own screen name, for goodness sake.  Seize the wool!  Not the cat.  Cats don't like to be seized.  Cats are terribly, fiercely independent.  Especially Muffball.

Did I really think this creature would make a good fiber animal? If domestic longhair cats in general were a good source of fiber, don't you think we'd all be more familiar with cat yarn in the knitting world?  Don't you think maybe there would be cat farms where kitties were raised to supply fiber for the hobby spinning market?  Maybe even a reasonably priced cat-fiber sweater in the Land's End catalogue?  But I thought I would be able to do it.  Because I'm so special and talented.  I had visions of blissfully spinning a soft, fluffy laceweight yarn, maybe fine enough to make a lovely lacy "smoke ring" style cowl.  Ha!  I saved her fur for over a year.  I washed it gently.  I combed and brushed it as best I could, picking out clumps that were too matted.

Cats attack your spinning wheel when you're using it.  Apparently their fur has an aversion to being spun on the wheel.  So I tried a spindle.  A spindle is a little like a cat toy.  I think the fur tolerates that because it is curious about the toy, just like the cat would be.  I managed, with lots of clumps and lumps and breaks, to spin all the fiber up on a spindle.  Never mind that it was not the lovely fine yarn I had envisioned.  Never mind that parts of it looked like a dryer, cleaner version of the hairballs that occasionally get deposited on my floor.  I finished spinning that ugly lumpy yarn because I'm just as stubborn as any cat.

I was determined to ply it right away.  Maybe salvage what I could of the challenge and come away with enough to knit a cat toy.  Or a cat finger puppet.  So I wound the single onto my right hand to make an Andean plying bracelet.  There wasn't much; I made the bracelet before the circulation was completely cut off to my middle finger.  And then... I lost the other end.  I couldn't find it.  So I started winding the end I did have onto a bobbin.  And I discovered something.  You know how cats always land on their feet?  Well, cat yarn always breaks right about at the halfway point.  Or at least it did this time... only I didn't know that yet.  So I wound the rest of the yarn onto the other spool-like item I had handy... the handle of a cat brush.  THEN I plied the two yarns together, back onto the spindle.  It worked, kind of.  I mean, I have a little bit of cat yarn.

I wound it off.  It's about 15 yards.  That's how much yarn I got from more than a year of saving Muffball's fur.

Some cat owners will tell you their cat sheds enough to knit a whole new cat.  I'm here to tell you that's not true, even though I thought it was.

What do you think?  Enough to knit a cute little kitty finger puppet?  Maybe after my feelings have recovered a bit from the ordeal?

Humph.  I'm going to go spin some wool.