Such a fun project

Cast on my Touchstone last night after dinner.  I was afraid the orange in the yarn when it was in hank form (which you can see in my prior blog post) would stand out too much and over power the other colors.  But it does not.  I love the way this yarn is knitting up in this pattern.

Easy stitch pattern to follow – a bit of binge watching shows and I make good progress.  I do love squishy garter stitch scarfs/shawls and add in a bit of super simple lace and it’s definitely a winner.

Have I mentioned how much I love this yarn/pattern combination?? 🙂

Touchstone Shawl

Well when  you finish one shawl, what’s a knitter to do but start another!

Touchstone is a new pattern by Laura Aylor.  I love her shawls and this is a simple knit – perfect to pick up and put down, tv watching, bus ride knitting type of project.  It also happens to be one of my favorite shaped shawl types — basically the shape I’ve discovered I love the most and wear a lot so I tend to gravitate to this style shawl now rather than true triangle shape.

It just so happens that in a not long ago yarn purchase, I got some Tosh Vintage Yoko.

I love this yarn and I thought of it immediately when I saw the Touchstone pattern.  But I did not have enough in the stash.  I tried looking for other yarn to use but just kept thinking about this so I finally just ordered some more and got what I had in the stash wound so I can start on it later today……. if I ever get off this computer!

Oh and did I mention the pattern is free for a while?  You know you want to make one, too!

 

Camp Loopy – final project

Finally got photos this morning of my final Camp Loopy project.  The Farmhouse Shawl.

It’s a simple pattern and alternating stockinette and garter sections.

The upper section has mostly stockinette with garter row accents.  and the bottom ha a wider garter section.  I added more rows/sections to mine on the bottom to use up all my yarn knitting (over 800 yards) because I wanted it larger and did not want to add the fringe.

Isn’t this yarn great or this pattern — the ombre yarn worked really well — it’s a newer one called Cascade  Wave which is worsted weight.

 

So here it is after it’s photo shoot this a.m.

Camp Loopy 3 – S8-1-7-17 F 8-13-17

 

So it’s been a busy three months – in addition to the other stuff I’ve been knitting and sewing on, for Camp Loopy I completed a fabric and a knitting project for each of the three months so here’s a recap of Camp Loopy 2017 for me.

Camp Loopy 3 – S8-1-7-17 F 8-13-17

Kelcema – Camp Loopy 201 – S7-1-17 – F7-13-17

 

 

 

 

Nothing to show

Literally – nothing to show – oh how I miss my camera and it’s only been a couple days.  Thank goodness replacement cord comes tomorrow.

In the meantime I’ve been folding and stacking fabric. The last several quilting projects I’ve been working on have all been batiks and I have not necessarily (okay I absolutely did not) put all the fabrics back when I was done and they were scattered about the sewing room AND the table in my living room.   Charm stacks (for the beachhouses and mini gem blocks) 10″ squares, and then the FQs and yardage I was cutting the starflower blocks out of.    I spent a very long time yesterday refolding and restacking and putting back on the fabric shelves.  And I still see pieces here and there.

I did set a couple pieces aside to see if I’ve already used them for a starflower point or not.   The starflowers which look like this prior posted photo have all been rearranged so they are by color for each individual “flower”.

There may be one or two that will be dark background with all rainbow colored/bright batik print but otherwise I tried to stick to one main focal color for each flower.  I think I now have a about 15 flowers sewn – they won’t all fit on the design wall – and a couple more cut out.

It’s hard to tell how many blocks I’ll need since I’m not really following a pattern.  I’m going to need to make some blocks that will get part of their points cut off in order to make the quilt squared off around the edges.  I may need to lay these blocks across the bed to get an idea of how many I’ll need.

I’m hoping to get the rest of the fabrics put away so I can to back to machine quilting a quilt I have half done or so.

In the meantime, laundry, dishes, and other cleaning – it was just time for a coffee break after sticking two loaves of banana bread and one banana chocolate chip loaf into the oven.  I was out of room in the freezer and had to use up my banana collection in there.   So we’ll be feasting on banana bread at work tomorrow.

Busy busy busy

Yes I’ve been keeping busy……..

Knitting stuff…. finished the back of my sweater I’m working on and started the front

yarn arriving…. yep some lovely stuff came in the mail,

yarn ordering … as I was planning projects I needed one more color or two to go with what I bought

sewing quilt blocks … last night I finished off a few more star flowers (which is what I’m calling those blocks I’ve been making shown in previous blog posts).  I’ve got 11 of them up on the design wall and it’s full.  Still need more blocks tho so sorted through a pile of batiks last night to see what I could find to cut more pieces.  Plus I will need to figure out how I want to do the partial blocks that will be needed to square up the edges. f

Of course I have no new photos of these things to show you because my camera cord to connect it to the computer has been acting a bit touchy for a while now and when I couldn’t get it to transfer photos last night, saw that I can see wires through the plastic coating.  Okay – not a good thing but Amazon to the rescue — new cord will arrive Monday and I remembered to order the other cord I think I need to hook computer to TV so I can watch Amazon Prime on the “big” screen rather than the laptop.

and I need to remember to take a final photo of my Camp Loopy shawl and submit it before the end of the month now that I finally took it off the block mats.

August 13 – Sunday Stuff

There’s lots of “stuff” going on here this Sunday.  Boring stuff like laundry and cleaning the kitchen, stuff like blocking this shawl

It’s my Camp project and once its dry I can and I bury a few ends I can put it in the “done” pile.  The yarn softened nicely. You can’t tell in this photo that there are sections of garter stitch alternated with stockinette stitch but it’s funny how some of the color changes in this Cascade Wave yarn matched up perfectly – switching color as I was switching stitch sections.  I made this longer than the pattern called for since I left of the fringe and used about 840 of my 880 yards.  I was afraid I wouldn’t like it when finished because it wouldn’t have a long enough wingspan but after soaking I was able to block it out to what I think will be a good length.  One thing I would change if making again would be to make the center spine the same  throughout rather than as written in the pattern.

New stuff to show you – Check out my new lovely yarn bowl.

It was a birthday gift from my sister.  She did good! 🙂  It’s a piece of art in itself – lovely wood.

More knitting stuff –  my never evening fingering weight sweater.  And yes – you can see about waistline area where the color lots are different.  It’s not as apparent in person but I knew I would have issues with that since some of the yarn was bought years before the additional hanks of the same yarn.   All kinds of “fade” type projects are popular now so I’m calling this my fade type project.   I didn’t want to have either a whole front or whole back darker than the other and I didn’t want to alternate hanks because I do not have enough of the darker lot to alternate the whole project with, so I decided to use the darker on the bottom halves of both the front and back.  I did alternate for a few inches when switching from darker to lighter and I like the way it looks.

I knew probably another 4 or 5 inches on this last night after this photo was taken.  Rows are shorter so it’s moving along a bit more quickly.

Sewing stuff – I cut out and pieced another 20+ sections for the star flower quilt.  I decided that I’ll make each 6 pointed star flower in the same color family.

My plan is to substitute some of the pieces in place of some already on the design wall and then start piecing the individual flowers – the sections are too big to lay them all out on the design wall but if I get some of them sewn together I can see what other colors I want to add or what colors I need to cut more pieces for.

Putting away “stuff” that came in the mail –

I love stripes mixed with florals and this will likely be another blouse.

I also finally found the perfect fabric to make a tree skirt for my Christmas tree!  My tree is decorated in only the type of glass ornaments shown in this fabric so it will be perfect.  Just a small circular tree skirt – haven’t decided if I’ll actually quilt it or not.

And the last in the just “stuff” category – yarny stuff appeared this week.

August Camp Loopy Fabric Project Completed

My last Camp Loopy Fabric project for 2017 is completed.   I’ve posted the pattern before but as a reminder here’s what it looked like.

I made a few changes to it in the end. It has split hem side seams.  When I got it all done I found it was very room at the bottom so the split seams were not necessary and I decided I would just sew straight down to the bottom and trim away the excess fabric that was meant to be turned under to hem the splits.  I also used only 8 buttons rather than the 9 called for in the pattern.  There is one button on the collar band and then another directly below it  on the button placket – I didn’t like that and it seems a waste of a good button (and an unnecessary buttonhole to make since I would never button those top two buttons) so did the collar band buttonhole and then spaced the buttons every 3.5″ down the front.

Here’s the buttons and fabrics I used – all from The Loopy Ewe of course.

And the blouse – completed today.  I even remembered how to make buttonholes on a sewing machine I don’t really use anymore  -but the only one that zigzags to make buttonholes, since it doesn’t have an automatic buttonholer.

I haven’t sewn any clothes for myself in over 20 years and what I was surprised about with this pattern was the length of the top.  I’m tall so things never seem to be long enough for me,  When I used to sew nearly all my clothes (back in the days when I seldom wore pants to work and usually wore suit jacket and skirts) I always had to lengthen blouses, sleeves, skirts, jacket lengths, and inseams.  Patterns were not written for tall people.  But this blouse pattern was definitely long enough.  It is a tunic length on me, which is what I like, but I did not add any length to it and for the average height person, I think they would find it too long.  The sleeves however, I did add about 1-1/2″ or slightly more to the sleeve itself and with the cuff band added it is just about the perfect length.  The sleeves definitely would have been too short otherwise.  If I make it again, I will probably add another 1/2″ to the length of the sleeve just for good measure.

All in all, it’s a very nice blouse.

Now to go bury a few ends on my  August Camp Loopy project so I can put it in to  soak and  get it on the blocking mats today.

Tuesday’s fun

I started out doing laundry but quickly lost interest in chores.  The laundry I need so I have work clothes to wear the rest of the week is done and that’s really all that matters.

After working on the Mini Hex N More blocks yesterday I decided to get out my regular Hex N More ruler which can cut several different sizes of the same block I was making yesterday (as well as multiple shapes in multiple sizes).

Here is a photo of the larges size gem blocks next to my minis from yesterday.

Of course in the large blocks I attached my background fabric in the wrong spot (wrong if I was planning to make the same style block as the minis).  So ended up with a different type of block but I like it.  So decided to cut a whole bunch and randomly stuck them on the design wall so see how it would look.

I think I like them arranged in color families so they stand out more as star/flower looking so some of the fabrics would get moved around and I need to pull more from the stash to complete certain color groupings.  I purposely haven’t used any green fabric yet because if I do decide to use them like this, I think the green will fill in the large triangle section between “flowers” so it looks more like leaves.  Then again I’m also contemplating cutting off the colored tips  to make the colored shapes hexies or even half hexies so I’m going to wait before pulling more fabrics to make more blocks until I decide how I want the finished blocks to look.    And I’m totally ignoring the fact that there are about a gazillion Y-seams that will need to be sewn which is just a slow, but necessary process if I leave them as is.   I also have a plan to combine the minis with the larger size blocks but those are plans for some other day.

I did get my Camp Loopy shawl finished last night – made it larger rather than adding fringe so I needs a soak and blocking.  And I just remembered the gorgeous yarn bowl my sister gave me for my birthday that is still sitting in the bag I brought it home in.  I must go get that out so I can keep my sweater yarn from rolling all over.

I have also discovered that I really need to go back to work because I’m far too messy when I’m home for several days.  I now have fabric pulled out all over the place that you know I’m going to be too lazy to put away where it belongs tonight. 🙂  Maybe tomorrow night it will go back where it belongs…..I’ve got to find some dinner and get some knitting done.

 

 

 

 

 

August Camp Loopy projects

I’m making the Farmhouse Shawl for my Camp knitting project.  I need to go wind the last hank of yarn.  I’m using a new Cascade yarn — Wave — which is a worsted weight that changes hue.  It’s perfect for this pattern.

I am farther along than this last photo I took.  I think I’ll probably just knit until I’m out of yarn and not add the fringe on this one.

For my sewing project I made a blouse.

I have buttons on order and once they arrive I can make the buttonholes, stitch the cuff lining in place and hem the bottom.

Today I’ve been putting with a stack of batik scraps and a charm pack of all shades of gray to black batiks as the backgrounds to my gem blocks.  I’ve been wanting to try out my Mini Hex N More ruler template from Jaybird Quilts and the gem blocks turn out so cute.  I can cut two large block pieces from a batik charm square.  These could be become very addictive little blocks to make.

Vacation fun

I’ve been on vacation and busy doing  – well doing whatever I felt like basically.  I spent two days at home doing some little chores and then spent 5 days or so at my folks visiting with them and my sister and her family, and now back home with more days yet to play.  And I’m not thinking (well only a fleeting thought) about how many emails will be waiting for me at work after being off 2 weeks but that’s the way it goes – not going to worry about it but sometimes I long for the days before email. 🙂

One day at my folks we took a water taxi cruise on the river.  The pelicans, ducks and herons were very busy on the river.

Okay one of those is not a bird – it’s my Mom.  It was a nice cruise up and down the river and the weather was very cooperative that day – not too hot or humid.

I took several projects along with me to work on while we were visiting – one was  a sweater that has been sitting in the “need to seam pile” for at least a year.   Well it is now much closer to being finished.  I seamed it all except for one sleeve underarm/side seam because I didn’t take enough balls of yarn with me.  But all the other seaming was completed and I picked up and knit the neckline trim and have one side of the button band knit also.

I need to find some buttons before knitting the other side of the buttonband so I know how big to make the buttonholes.  The back of the cardigan (which has 3/4 length sleeves) has a bit of the lace on the upper back too.

I also took along my Sanderling CF sweater which is an A-line tunic length sweater with 3/4 sleeves – miles and miles of stockinette.  It was about 4″ long when I took it on vacation, and it is now somewhere between 14-16″ long.  The yarn is so lovely and soft but fingering weight on smallish needles makes for a long slog.  The upside is if I want to work on something I don’t want to concentrate on – this is the pattern.  It’s going to be so lovely and drapey in this Handmaiden Mini Maiden yarn with its silk content.

I also took along a little wallhanging of beach houses that I just needed to hand stitch the binding in place on.  I got that done as well.

And after finishing that one I decided that I wanted to turn it in to a back pillow for my patio chairs since it went to well with the seat cushions.  I had a stack of extra blocks made so today made the rest needed for the second chair cushion.  Just need to quilt and bind the second one and then turn them both into cushions.

The picture above was taken before I sewed the blocks in the 2nd grouping on the right to each other.

I’ve also been working on my August Camp Loopy projects but I’ll save those for later.

So I haven’t really disappeared – I’ve just been off having some fun!