Friday, July 31, 2015

Pebble Beach Shawl

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I decided to heck with it, I'll photograph my Pebble Beach Shawl on a wooden hanger, heat be damned!

I'm very happy with how this turned out. The pattern shows off the gradient wool to its fullest, and its airy design complements the colors, which make me think of a tropical sea against a white, sandy beach. It'll be a perfect shawl to wear next spring. :)

The pattern is brilliant ... I usually gravitate toward charted lace patterns, but Helen Stewart does her patterns in spreadsheet form, which works for my left-brain. I wouldn't call it an "easy" pattern, but a careful beginner would have no trouble following along and obtaining a beautiful result.

My only frustration was with my initial choice of knitting needles. I was using one of my generic Chinese circulars, and the metal was far too slippery for the wool so I went out and splurged on an Addi Lace Turbo ... ahh. I find the Addi Lace needles have the perfect amount of grippiness for lace knitting.

Close to nature

Where do I begin? I suppose where I left off. Camp pickup two weekends ago was uneventful. I was one of the first parents there, and O was standing at the door of his cabin waiting for me. :) Hugs all around. He had a great time and really liked his counselors; his only complaint was "too much swimming." My boy is not fond of being in water, never has been. Most of his local friends were on vacation by the time he returned home, which actually worked out as it gave him some time to decompress from camp. Most of them are coming home this weekend, so this week Mom's Taxi Service will be at full gear until O leaves for Texas next week.

Summer has been pretty quiet, which I like. Lots of slow, hot days filled with nothing but time. O thinks it's going by too quickly, and now that I look at the calendar and realize that August is this weekend, I suppose he's right.

OK, so moving on to the exciting bits. This week I went to make muffins and when I pulled the tin out of stove drawer, I noticed mouse droppings. Ewwww. Before you think I'm a terrible housekeeper, please note that our house is older and has lots of nooks, crannies, and holes that critters just love. I'm not frightened of mice--they're kind of cute, actually--but I don't want them around my food, so I had to put out a trap. The next morning, I found the little guy behind the stove. No more have been caught so I'm hoping we had one errant mouse in the house. The rest of the week I spent decontaminating our stove and the areas around it.

Then late last night I was sitting on the sofa when I noticed a noise coming from the living room coat closet. The door was cracked, and boom -- out flew a BAT!!!! I feel much differently about bats than I do mice ... you should have seen me bolt upstairs, screaming for my husband who was already in bed. Poor guy was sound asleep, but he knows how freaked out I am around bats due to some unfortunate childhood bat experiences while living in an old house in Vermont. He and O did some research on the computers upstairs to figure out the best way to get the bat outside, then they ventured downstairs to find the unwanted guest lurking behind the living room drapes. When they tried to scoop the bat into a box, he flew across the room and landed at the top of a bookshelf. By then the bat (and the boys) was tired enough that the second scoop went more smoothly and the errant visitor was released into the night. Shudder. We've had a long-standing wildlife removal appointment scheduled for this Tuesday, and I cannot WAIT to have these bats gone from our attic. And while last night's bat visitation terrified me, I'm glad I saw from where it emerged because now we know where we have an exit hole into the house.

Yes, I'm a total wimp when it comes to certain species of wildlife in my house. I own my wimpiness. ;-)

Crafting

Lots of sewing going on this summer in my studio. I now feel very comfortable with my new sewing machine, the Baby Lock Melody. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a flat felling presser foot for it through my local dealer and just about keeled over when I got the bill for it, almost $25. Ouch! So I decided to order one of those 32-piece presser foot collections from Amazon, along with a ruffler attachment. I paid a little over what I paid for the one foot through my dealer, so I figured if a few of the presser feet worked, I'd be ahead of the game, esp. the ruffler, which is pricey.

We have Amazon Prime, so everything got here quickly. The ruffler was easy to install and worked beautifully. The 32 presser feet came in a sturdy cardboard box and every foot was labeled on the front so I knew what each one would do. The feet are all metal with a few understandable exceptions, such as the teflon foot for sewing leather and vinyl. Last night I used the piping/welting foot to install piping around a mixer stand cover I made for out kitchen:

KitchenAid mixer coverKitchenAid mixer cover, close up

 

I was very happy with how the piping came out especially as it was my first try. I used instructions from About.com to put this together, but ended up using my own measurements for the pattern. I added an outer pocket (which I tried to pattern match and you can see in the bottom photo) to hold the flat beater attachments, and created a lining with fabric from an old cotton Jacquard drape. All in all, I'm quite happy with it although I may make another just to improve on my design. :)

I finished the Pebble Beach shawl, which is blocked and ready to go. It has been so hot, though, that the thought of posing with a merino wool shawl draped over my shoulders ... ugh. I'll do a separate post on the shawl when it cools off.

What are you working on this summer?

 

Friday, July 17, 2015

One more day

Hawk on walk

Yesterday during our walk to pick up the car at the repair garage, I spotted this hawk fluttering around the ground. We couldn't figure out if it was injured or hunting ... we could also hear some angry birdsong coming from the firs. I wanted to get a little closer, but those talons!

So yes, one more day! Tomorrow I'm picking O up from camp. I miss him so much and can't wait to hear of his experiences. I did get a letter from him on Wednesday, and I was surprised by how long it was. It looks like he kept adding to it each day. He's a very good and entertaining writer. It sounds like he's had a good time, except for the swimming. Although the weather has been warm here in New England, lakes and ocean water really don't get warm until August ... and even then, I wouldn't call them "warm" ... more like comfortable. Plus, O is not the most enthusiastic swimmer. He said the two weeks at camp would have been the best two weeks of his year ... except for the twice daily swims, which he says ruin everything for him.

I would feel sorry for him, but I took swimming lessons as a child in the cold Atlantic Ocean. No pity party here. ;-)

Camp pickup is between 9 and 11, so I'll leave Boston around 6ish, which should give me time for some coffee and exercise breaks (need to stretch out my back frequently). I'll be giving O's local friend a ride home, too, so we'll make a brief stop at my father's house on the lake to say hi and pick up Aunt Pam's yarn :-), then be back on our way home.

Crafting

I finished sewing a pair of shorts yesterday, waa-hoo. They came out great! When my head photographer returns home, I'll get some good photos for my review. I am not a big shorts-wearer, but on especially warm days they're necessary. I love these shorts because they completely cover my thighs but don't make my legs look like sausages. Flush with success, I dug out some olive green twill from my stash for a second pair. But first, I want to finish a gift project (silk pillowcases). This is a wedding gift for a friend who is now pregnant, which gives you an idea how behind I am in sewing!

Knitting ... not much to report here. I spent a couple hours yesterday tinking three rows (over 400 stitches each row) of my Pebble Beach shawl as I had two extra stitches. The problem was a wrong increase stitch. Sigh. When will I learn? Anyway, all is well, though I will probably not finish the shawl this weekend.

I discovered a new-blog-for-me this week, Ikatbag. This mother of three has craft skills that are a-m-a-z-i-n-g -- she's a whiz with cardboard and all sorts of crafts, but also sews without commercial patterns. In fact, she has never used a commercial pattern to draft her clothing! Oh, and she studied physics in college and does all sorts of cool science projects with her kids and creates the most stupendous birthday parties for her daughters ... seriously, I would get palpitations doing half as much as she does in a day!

I'll leave you with a video of me trying to get a hawk's attention by talking to it as I would a cat. D'oh.



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Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Hydrangea season

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I told my dentist last week that I see hearts everywhere. :)

The hydrangeas in the front of the house are spectacular this year, such a vibrant blue. Two years ago I had cut them back too severely so that last summer we only got a couple blooms.

I have not heard a peep (i.e. received any mail) from O since we dropped him off at camp. He had told me not to expect anything because he doesn't like handwriting letters (the camp doesn't allow computers/e-mail), but his counselor assured me I'd get a couple letters anyway. I'm trying not to get antsy about it ... as long as he's having a good time, that's all that really matters. Plus the camp does a great job updating their blog every night to let parents know what's going on. I can tell from the activities they describe that O is most definitely enjoying himself. He's not super athletic but he's "sporty" and loves to run around and participate in physical activities/games. They had a "marathon" the other night where kids could run a course through the woods, and I can guarantee he was ALL over that.

I'm picking him up this Saturday. I can't wait to see him and hear all about his adventures!

Crafting

Melody and I are becoming fast friends, maybe even BFFs! Last week I took one of those "get to know your new sewing machine" classes at the dealership where I bought her. A lot of the class was fairly basic--how to thread the machine, how to wind a bobbin, etc.--but I did learn a few tricks and became comfortable with some of the advanced functions on the machine. Like buttonholes...as I said to my husband last night, I will never get sick of watching Melody sew a buttonhole!!! What used to be an exercise in frustration is now a matter of letting her do 90% of the job...my only task is to move the fabric around and press buttons. It couldn't be easier.

Kwik Sew 3421Kwik Sew 3421

This week I finished the Roman shade for the dormer window in our bedroom and a pair of swimming trunks (Kwik Sew 3421) for my husband. I'll talk about the Roman shades in my next post as I need to take photos. Both were straightforward projects, except for sewing the power mesh lining on the trunks. So slippery and fiddly and tricky to work with, especially when joining elastic around the leg holes. Luckily that part of the suit isn't public. I used a medium-weight cotton twill I bought on sale at JoAnn's for the outer fabric; my husband does not like synthetics, so cotton it is. Today's job is to purchase a navy cotton drawstring to finish them off. The pattern, like all Kwik Sew patterns, is easy to follow. The only thing I would do differently is use my own way of inserting elastic in the waistband casing (sewing up the casing except for a 2" gap, threading the elastic through as one long piece, sewing the ends, then sewing up the gap). The KS way is to sew the elastic into a circle then wrap the casing around it to sew it into place. Too fiddly for me!

Now it's time for some selfish sewing. Today's project is preparing fabric (lavender twill) for a my own pair of shorts.

I'm just over 80% done on the Pebble Beach shawl, which should be finished over the weekend at the rate I'm going. Each row is over 400 stitches long, and there's a picot bind-off.

At last week's knitting group I got my yarn to knit a 12" x 12" block for a blanket we're making for an ailing group member. We get our choice of stitch patterns and I'm pretty happy with the one I chose. As soon as the block looks like a block, I'll snap a photo. My goal is to have the block complete by next Thursday's meeting.

Sequence Knitting got an excellent review at Knitter's Review. Now I am tempted by Susan Crawford's vintage Shetland knitting project/book, which is being crowdfunded. She has reached her goal, but is still accepting funding. I could have the book in my hands before the holidays, but honestly, will I really get around to knitting Fair Isle before then? I don't think so.

I missed our Forrest family reunion and my Aunt Pam's interment up in Vermont this weekend--my back was giving me trouble, then the car started making funny noises--but I did get to talk to my cousin Sherry at some length Saturday night. She said she sent an enormous amount of Aunt Pam's yarn home with my father for me to have. Wow, I was so touched! I'll probably pick it up on Saturday when I get O from camp...she says there's a lot of it, so maybe I'll have to make two trips. My Aunt Pam was a spectacular craftswoman; not only a first-rate knitter, but she painted, did cross-stitch and crewel embroidery, and quilted ... and other crafts/art endeavors, I'm sure! At some point I will show you some of the projects she did. They are truly beautiful.

 

Monday, July 6, 2015

Away at camp

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O was safely delivered to camp on Sunday. My father had a clever idea. When I asked if we could borrow his SUV to bring O's trunk to camp, my father said, "Why not let him take the boat over?" (The camp is on the same lake my parents' house is on.) O loved the idea, so he piloted us over there. His arrival definitely attracted attention on shore. The only trouble was, the dock's gate was locked, so one of the parents had to find the camp director so we could get in. She's known my dad for years, so I don't think she was too annoyed. ;-) The only thing my father asked of O was that he ask the camp director, "Permission to come ashore, ma'am." It was pretty clear she knew this was one of my father's antics. ;-)

I brought O to his cabin, met his counselor, then helped him get settled. I didn't want to hang out and embarrass him, so I said, "I think I'll get going back to the boat now," and the boys in the cabin perked up. One said, "Hey, you're the ones that came on the boat? Cool!" I guess he made a memorable entrance. O's cabin is visible from the water, so my father and stepmother will know where to look for him when they boat over at night. (They like to come over and see if they can see him...grandparents!!!)

The night before my father took us out on the lake and we watched fireworks. July 4th during the day had been drizzly, but by nightfall, the skies were clear, the air was cool, and was the perfect evening for fireworks. Once they were over, we sat offshore and listened to the Grateful Dead's "Franklin's Tower" play at a house party. The perfect tune for Independence Day! (BTW, it was also my father's 76th birthday. I can hardly believe he's that old. He was complaining about a pulled muscle he'd gotten from, get this, running laps around the track! He's a former marathoner, still in great shape.)

Today (Monday) the house feels empty. I already missed O on the drive home, but I know he'll be having fun these next two weeks.

Crafting

Not much knitting got done since I last posted, though I did work a couple of rows of Pebble Beach last night before bed. Each row is now over 300 stitches and I'm not even halfway through the pattern.

On the way back home from CT I stopped at That $2.99 Fabric Store in Auburn. They had some great denim there, but I have plenty of denim in my stash so I controlled myself. I bought a couple of yards of midnight blue lace to use as an inset on a dress I want to make and two yards of cream-colored polyester charmeuse for slips/bodice lining.

It looks like this week's sewing project will be creating a Roman shade for one of our bedroom windows. Since I finished the drapes for our northern-facing window, my husband has become quite spoiled and wants the eastern-facing window to have a similar covering. I can't blame him--the light shines right in his eyes at dawn.

Friday, July 3, 2015

The Yowza Weigh-it Shawl

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I finished knitting this beautiful shawl by Susan B. Anderson last month during a week where it was cold and rainy and I'd already shut off the heat for the season. It was a pure delight to knit--it wasn't completely mindless because every couple seconds there was a new color change to ooo and ahh over. While knitting, I listened to the Serial podcast put out by PBS. Can't wait for the next "season" to begin!

I'm a huge fan of Susan B. Anderson's blog (and vlog, too!), and when she introduced this pattern in May, I dropped what I was doing, ordered the pattern, and promptly broke my yarn diet by ordering the exact color yarn she'd used in her sample (Miss Babs Yowza! Whatta Skein! in the colorway "Perfectly Wreckless.") I made a mistake and ordered the colorway "Berlin" (which is very pretty, too), but the people at Miss Babs were nice enough to correct my order ... that's what I get for ordering yarn late at night.

Speaking of nice...that's one of the main reasons why I love Anderson's blog and vlog. She seems so darn nice, not to mention talented. While I don't mind reading snark, I can only take it in small doses. I much prefer blogs, podcasts, and vlogs where the hosts leave me feeling a little happier after having read or watched them.  Anderson's blog is definitely a cheerer-upper for me. :)

OK, back to the shawl. Yes, the colors are as vibrant IRL as they are on your screen. The shawl appears to have a woven appearance because of the garter stitch, yet it's soft and squishy around my neck. I was going to wash it and pack it away for the summer, but discovered last week that it was perfect to wrap around my shoulders on a cold and rainy day ... plus, those lively colors cheered me up. I even got a couple compliments on it when I wore it out shopping at Whole Foods. The reason why it's called "the Weigh It Shawl" is because rather than count rows, you weigh your yarn as you go along and start wrapping things up when you are down to a certain number of grams. I still had quite a bit of yarn left over, but that's okay because I like having odd balls for my blanket knitting.

Ravelry details here.

I'm off for the holiday weekend. Happy July 4th to my American blog readers, and to everyone else, have a wonderful weekend. :)

p.s. Forgot to mention, but I also made the pink cotton lawn blouse underneath the shawl. It's a bit wrinkly as it had been freshly washed but not ironed. I thought the shawl would look better styled with a blouse.

 

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Stormy weather

Rolling thunder woke me up Wednesday a.m. Welcome July!

My sugar fast continues and I'm feeling well, a little better each day. I didn't need a nap on Tuesday, and on top of this, two nights in a row I stayed up long past my regular bedtime of 11 to read. I do still have sugar cravings in the early evenings, but nothing like the ones I had the first day.

We continue to get O ready for camp ... yesterday he got his hair cut and today his camp sheets should be arriving, which will need to be washed and folded for his trunk. This morning I woke up and realized how much I'm going to miss him while he's away. This will be the longest O's ever been away from me, and there's no phone calls, no e-mailing allowed ... handwritten letters only. Which I don't mind--being the loving mom, I will write every day!--but I'm not so sure I'll hear anything from a 13-year-old boy in return.

Was sad to read that the rumors of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's divorce were true. They seemed like a nice couple, very family oriented. Marriage is tough business, for sure, especially it seems in Hollywood.

Crafting

Lessons learned while working on the Pebble Beach shawl:

  • A lifeline is a must once I get past 100 row stitches of lace.

  • Save lace knitting for the mornings when my mind is fresh.

  • Point protectors are my friends.


I spent an hour+ on Tuesday night tinking back two rows (250+ stitches per row) to fix a massive mistake. Then I carelessly left my knitting on the couch, and when I came back found that some stitches had slipped off the needles and created a mess I couldn't figure out without ripping back. Another hour later all was fixed but I made zero progress on the shawl as a result. On Wednesday, I put in a dental floss lifeline ... took me all of five minutes.

I cut out the contrast fabrics for O's board shorts on Tuesday night and then cut out the main fabric on Wednesday a.m. I'm normally not a big fan of using rotary cutters and weights to cut out pattern pieces, but because the microfiber was unstable, the rotary cutter made short work of the job. Later that night I got the fronts and backs of the shorts sewn up. I'm not completely happy with my topstitching, but I doubt any of the boys at camp will be scrutinizing it.

When I was catching up on my blog reading Tuesday night, I noticed that Ann at Gorgeous Fabrics gave a terrific review of Sewaholic's Thurlow shorts/pants. As she said, "...the Thurlow’s welt pocket instructions and draft take something that other pattern companies butcher, and make it crystal clear." I am in desperate need of some nice trousers, as well as shorts, so I promptly ordered the pattern, esp. since I'm pear-shaped and Sewaholic patterns are built for my shape. (Bonus: there was a Canada Day sale going on and I got a discount!) The shorts look a little too short for me, but I suppose I can lengthen them a bit. Once I finish O's camp sewing, I'll give the Thurlows a go.

By the way, I'm getting more and more comfortable with Melody the more time I spend with her. She is so quiet! And little things like speed control, automatic threading/thread cutting, needle down, and the knee life make my sewing so much more accurate and enjoyable. Every time I finish up a sewing session, I tell my husband, "I have to say it again ... I LOVE MELODY." (Half of his office in my sewing studio. Lucky him!)