The 1600" Quilt Revisited

Last October I wrote about the 1600" quilt concept.  If you don't remember that far back you can check it out here.

Go ahead and look at it now, I'll wait for you to get back.

That quilt was not a real 1600" quilt but it paid homage to the concept.

This past Saturday the Strip Club decided that we would all work on genuine 1600" quilt tops and even make it into a race.

The race part never really happened as we were very distracted by all the great food everyone came with including ribs from Sweet Sadie's.  Yum, Yum!

I did get my top done and this how it turned out:

This time I did use a real jelly roll of forty different 2 1/2" strips called a Bali Pop in the Coconut colorway.  It came out to approximately 66" x 50", a good size for a lap quilt but I wanted it to be a bigger 'snuggle up on the couch with two dogs' size.  So at the same time as I bought the Bali Pop I also bought a few possibilities for borders as all the batiks were on sale for $6.99 each... a real bargain these days.

Here's how the chosen border fabrics will not work with this quilt:

Actually I can't show you the border choices because Blogger and Google want to charge me for photo storage....WTF!

Take my word for it though, I am either going color blind or choosing border fabrics before a top is completed is never a good idea.

As my chosen border fabrics do not seem to be working I have two other possibilities I may try.  One is to border the whole thing in plain black with black binding so that it looks like a frame for the colorful strips.  The other is to experiment with bleaching out some of the black fabric that I have to see if any of it can be used as a wide patterned border of black and cream with a thin solid black first border and solid black for the binding.

Not sure how it will all work out but I am very pleased with how the top turned out and know that this will be a technique I will use again and again and again.

The Problem with Knitting

I was cleaning up my knitting supplies the other evening and decided that there is real problem with knitting.  Not so much the actual act itself but the amount of stuff you can accumulate in the pursuit of knitting.

To knit successfully all you need to is a pair of sticks, a length of string and the knowledge of six techniques - knit stitch, purl stitch, casting on, binding off, increasing and decreasing.

Everything else is a variation on the basics.

Let's take those sticks as an example.

Most beginner knitting books suggest that a beginner purchase a set of needles and a skein of  yarn.  Already the beginner is in trouble.  There are a huge variety of knitting needle sizes depending on the tradition you are following or where you shop.  There are US sizes as well as needles sized based on millimeters.  There are little gadgets that help you determine which size needles you have.  I have one that shows US sizes, millimeter sizes,  Canadian sizes, UK sizes and French sizes.  The typical beginner size of needles is a size 8 US.

Once you have determined that you have the right size of needles you need to determine the right type of needles.  Needles come with single points and double points, can be long or short, with long or short cables and made from plastic, celluloid, metal or wood.  Heck, even your figures can be used as the sticks for a knitting project.  Typical beginner's sticks are single pointed and short (about 8"long).

(While cleaning up my knitting needles I came up with about 100 different sets of needles, some that I have purchased, some that I have received as gifts, some that I inherited from my female relatives and some, I am sure, were created by little knitting elves.  I whittled it down to only one size of each needle in each type which took it all down to about fifty sets.  The discards have been further whittled down to those that are actual sets, which will be donated, and those for which I don't have a whole set. Not sure what to do with those but I am looking around for ideas.)

Then we come to the yarn.  Some skeins of yarn are called worsted weight in one region, can be called DK (double knitting) weight in another.  The amount of yarn, in yards or meters, varies by the total actual weight of the skein which may be stated in grams or ounces.  A combination of the actual weight of the yarn with the length of the yarn in that weight determines what you call it...lace, DK, worsted and many others. Over and above this yarn can be made out of anything that can be spun.  Cotton, linen, wool, acrylic, silk, rayon and bamboo are all on the shelves these days.  Each fiber has different characteristics as to durability and cleaning. There are many weights of yarn from lace weight to super bulky.  The typical starting weight of yarn is worsted weight and made out of acrylic fibers.

(My yarn stash is in better shape than my needle stash as I have a use for each skein, no matter how acquired.  I do have a little problem with bits left over from completed projects but they are slowly, very slowly, making it into caps for the pre-schoolers at the local Head Start program this coming Christmas.)

So here is our poor beginner with six sets of needles called size 8, twelve skeins of worsted weight yarn and they have not even read the first page of instructions.

There are also lots of other tools you can purchase, like stitch markers, yarn needles, cable holders, rulers, scissors, yarn barns and a million other tools but sticks and string get you started.

Once you actually decide to learn how to knit, you then need to determine your style of knitting.  There are two basic types, picking (also called Continental) and throwing (also called British).  There are also many variations depending on the local tradition.  Before you even take your first stitch you need to build your foundation row by casting on.  Every teacher of note has their own favorite cast-on from simple to complex and I am sure there are whole books discussing the merits of each style.  The complexity of such a simple activity as knitting, can turn off the most dedicated student.  The most basic is called a Backward Loop Cast-on and even my middle-schoolers can master it in about ten minutes.

Do you see where I am going here?

I love knitting but I am getting overwhelmed by the stuff.  The stuff can consist of the tools and materials but it also consists of the knitting police who will tell you a better way to do something even if you are getting good results from your method.

How do we combat the problem of knitting?

May I suggest the following:

• Buy only what you need and keep track of what you have on hand.
• Use what you buy in specific projects not stored for 'something' in the future.
• Learn to knit, and continue to knit with, people you like rather than with 'experts'.
• Take a class or two with the understanding that you will learn only a few new ideas per class.
• If it works for you then it is right, if it doesn't, ask a good friend for their method.  It might work or it might not.
• Discard the stuff you hate...donate it, un-ravel it or just chuck it.

I have all my knitting stuff under control right now, even to ignoring expert advice with a smile rather than a scowl.

Don't let your knitting stuff get you down.  Just sit back, turn on a movie, pick up your sticks and string and make something.

To Copyright or not to Copyright

....That is the question, at least for some designers out there.

Recently I have read a whole slew of postings about fabric designers saying that their copyrighted fabric designs cannot be used in anything that is sold for money.  I have also seen a bunch of quilt designers saying that their patterns are copyrighted and you can't make a quilt from their patterns and have it judged in a show without the designer getting full credit and giving their permission for it to be shown.   Can anyone out there make a quilt exactly as it was shown in a pattern?  If you can, then it is a copy so why bother making it in the first place?

As far as I know none of these issues has been litigated fully...that is a judge has not ruled on the legality of all these threatened lawsuits.

I decided to make my own test of all of the issues by making something based on a copyrighted design and see where it lead my not-so-legal mind.

I purchased the April 2011 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting because it had an article about Edyta Sitar... a recent guest of the Kingwood Area Quilt Guild.

Edyta designed a handbag that had some interesting lines in it so I decided to make a copy.

Here's how mine came out versus the original article:

Does my bag even look remotely like the one in the magazine?

Should Edyta get credit for designing my bag?

I believe the most credit she could get would be as an inspiration for my bag but even that would be a stretch as my bag is different than hers in the following ways:

I redrew and re-sized the pattern to meet my needs.
I used pre-quilted fabric rather than custom quilted fabric for the body of the bag.
I added interior and exterior pockets.
I eliminated the gathered embellishment.
I eliminated the gathered corners and turned them into tailored ones.
I did not hand apply the binding and used a double rather than single layer of binding.
I reinforced the handle with heavy nylon rope.

What about these other bags I have made that contain similar design points:

If I ever sold this bag would I need to get permission from all of these designers and pay them royalties for specific design elements?  And let's not forget that I bought the fabric at JoAnn's so maybe they should get credit as well.  And what about the threads I used or the old binding from the bottom of the stash?

I think you can see why I am so confused by all this craziness.

If you want to copy my bag, I have a pattern you can trace and I won't make you pay royalties but it would be nice if you gave me some credit somewhere sometime when you are become a big time handbag designer for Dolce and Gabbano.

Sock Knitting Master Class

No, I did not take a master class in sock knitting but I did buy a book of the same name that was written/compiled by Ann Budd, a knitting rock star.

The book is very comprehensive and you can find great information on all aspects of sock knitting.  It even discusses all the various ways to knit a sock with different tools... four or five double pointed needles, two circular needles, one circular needle and the magic loop method.  The DVD is pretty good and if you are a visual learner the DVD is a real bonus.

What I like is that the author is not married to a single method of knitting socks.  Every method I have ever heard of for top down and toe up knitting is included.  You can sample the methods and find what you like or dislike before committing to a full set of double pointed needles or short circular needles or more importantly, purchasing patterns or books using a particular method that you find out that you hate.

I tried out one of the patterns for toe up knitting by another knitting rock star Cat Bordhi.  Cat is known for her use of two circular needles to create her toe-up socks and the pattern also introduces Judy Becker's 'Magic' cast-on (not so magic, just tedious IMO) and Jeny Staiman's stretchy bind-off (good choice for the sock pattern I tried).  The pattern is called Pussy Willow Stockings.

This is how they looked in the book:

Very pretty!

Here is how one of mine looks:

Not so pretty but definitely adequate.  The yarn I used is from a company called Nako and is 50% wool and 50% acrylic so they should be very durable.  I like the variety of colors in them though the yarn had a tendency to split while I was working with it.  I have no idea where you could buy this yarn as I received it in a yarn swap this past Christmas and I see on the website that this yarn is made for the Turkish domestic market.

The instructions were well written though you really need to keep your eye on them or you could easily get lost.  As in most books like this, every pattern is by a different sock designer so you can get a good overview of each designer's style.  The pattern I used will probably lead me to seek out other patterns by Cat...though I will probably not use her two circular needle method of construction as I am addicted to my beautiful double pointed needles from Knit Picks.

If you want to sample different sock knitting methods this is the book for you.  It is not for the beginner for their first sock....that pattern would be the 100 gram sock pattern in this post.  I'm going to try some more patterns from the book as there are some other intriguing construction methods just itching to get on my needles.

Five Years

Five years and two days ago I was told that I was being laid off from the Big Bank where I worked.  After twenty seven years of service they caught up with me and determined that I was no longer needed.

Five years and one day ago I started this blog because I knew I would need to write even if it wasn't financial analyses of the performance of certain groups within the Big Bank.

Five years less nine days Alex came into my life.

Right now I am a little over-whelmed by all the things that have happened in the past five years.

In so many ways I am not the same person today that I was then.  I became an orphan, took up knitting again, spearheaded a charitable sewing group, lost my gall bladder,  developed RA, made some true friends and lost some not-so-true friends, decided to tough it out and not look for a new paying job and, in a couple of months, I will turn sixty and officially be eligible for many senior citizen discounts.

In so many other ways I am still the same person.  I still do not suffer fools gladly, cannot sing or dance without causing pain to myself or others, or keep a 'company ready' house.  I still insist  that I should do my own lawn mowing, though my neighbor insists on doing the front lawn.  My teeth are still crooked and my allergies just keep getting worse.

And every morning I wake up and I am glad that I did.

Not a stellar record but that's my story and I am sticking to it.

Twinkle Quilt

I am so excited that I was able to actually finish a quilt this past week.  I started Twinkle, from the Kim Brackett book 'Scrap-Basket sensations', back in January and it has taken me this long to get it together, basted and quilted.  A long drawn out process but I think it was worth it.

It came out at about 70" square which is larger than the original design because I added two extra rows.  The fabrics came primarily from my South African indigo stash of fat quarters with the stars all coming from the same piece of fabric that had four shades of yellow in it.  That outer border was actually ordered over the phone from Stitchin' Heaven when they ran out of the fabric that I really wanted for the border.  I think it all works together.

A surprise for me was that the indigo fabrics only bled a little in the wash.  I used a whole handful of color catchers and they came out bluer than they were before but not solid blue.  The lightest yellow looks a little duller to me but my fears of everything turning blue seem to have been misplaced.

This Saturday is another meeting of the Strip Club and I think we are supposed to be working on UFO's.  I'm going to bring something that has been sitting in my to do pile for several years...another quilt but totally different from a something made from strips.

If you like the quilts I have made from this book, go buy the book.  I have to buy another one as I destroyed my copy with large cup of cup with cream and sugar.  What a sticky mess!

 And even if Alex likes this quilt it will not go into the bathtub with all the other doggie quilts!

Puzzled

About ten years ago I participated in a Block of the Month quilt program based on the Yikes pattern from Maple Island Quilts.  Every month I got a lot of fabric to make four blocks in a variety of large size basic block patterns.  Even if you don't quilt you have probably heard of Log Cabin or Courthouse steps blocks.

Here's how it turned out:

Pink, turquoise, black and white batiks made for a dramatic quilt and the construction allowed for any inaccuracies to be hidden by offsetting the rows.  I worked for hours on where to place each block but, in the end, Lady Jane (my Italian Greyhound then) mixed up the blocks so the placement ended up more random and less pleasingly placed.  I still love it for its energy and cheerful vibe.

I was about an hour from finishing up the quilt top when Paul saw it and asked for it for his bed.  He moved out a couple of months later and I haven't really seen it in many years.

Fast forward about eight years...

I was at his place the other day and saw it in a heap in the laundry room.  Thinking I would do him a favor, I decided to bring it home and wash it for him.  I dumped it in a heap on MY laundry room floor and went to let the dogs out.

THEY WENT NUTS!  Sniffing it, pawing it, rolling on it and exploring under it all the while wagging their tales and making general happy puppy sounds before they would go outside.  Good smells mean that Paul has been using it a lot or that someone doused in  'essence of beef'.

Imagine my surprise when Kelis, while trying to get out from under it, got stuck trying to crawl through a hole in it.

A HOLE!

Not just one hole BUT THREE HOLES!

I should not be surprised as the dearly departed Kimora chewed on everything she could when she was a puppy and I am sure these holes are her handiwork.

I am not distressed by the holes, they only show that the quilt has been well used over the years and, as I always say, I make utility quilts not heirlooms to be preserved for future generations.

But really... three holes seem a bit much.

So this weekend I will be trying to decided what to do about this quilt.

Here are the options as I see them:

1. Toss it out.  Not really an option a I still love it.
2. Carefully patch it to invisibly hide the holes.  This could take a very long time to find the exact matching fabrics and may never look as it did when brand new and, with my luck, Alex will chew a new hole in it just to show he can do it.
3. Patch it without concern for how it looks.  A black patch covering all three holes would make the quilt usable again but will not be very aesthetically pleasing.  Then again, a patch is a patch is a patch.
4. Cut out one big hole, bind the edges and make it a doggy door.  I am intrigued by this solution as it would give Alex and Kelis a new game.  Then again, with my luck, I would get my foot stuck in it  and rip a bigger hole. 

So, while I am getting some work done this weekend (cleaning, planting and de-cluttering) I will be puzzling over what to do with this holes.

And Bill, I will not use red to fix it!

The Last UFO

The Last KNITTED UFO (UnFinished Object) to be precise.

Why is this such a milestone for me?

In general, I tend to have about three knitting/crocheting projects going at anyone time.  Usually there is a pair of socks, a hat or scarf project and one bigger project (think sweater or complex lace) on my needles at any one time.  My theory is that socks are great for when I am being a couch potato, hats and scarves are great for knitting group gatherings and bigger projects are good for long movies or car trips.

There really is a method to my madness.

BUT, I must confess that the larger projects sometimes get hidden away because they become boring to work and I lose interest in them.

My last UFO was from a kit I purchased in Canada about six years ago.  Called the Sweater Bitz Kit it contained an ultra suede vest without sides and lots of various yarns so that I could knit up sleeves and side panels to make the vest into a jacket.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.  All the different yarns were cut into three yard lengths and the knitter was assured that there was enough yarn in the kit to make even the largest size provided.

After reading the instructions, I divided the yarns into two equal piles so that each sleeve/side combination would have similar yarns in them.  In a hotel room, with lousy lighting, I began this soon to be UFO.

What changed my enthusiasm from 'wow, I need to wear this next week' to 'let's just hide it away'?

THERE WASN'T ENOUGH YARN IN THE KIT TO FINISH THE KNITTING IN MY SIZE!!!

When I used up half the yarn in knitting one sleeve with side extensions I found that I needed about another 200 yards or so of yarn to finish it up.  I put aside the first sleeve/side and started on the second...just to see if I was wrong.  I wasn't.  Second side needed just as much extra yarn.

Into a bag the whole thing went and once in a while I would pick up additional skeins to finish it up.

A couple of weeks ago I committed to finishing it up and this is how it looks today:

The color correction is a little off as the pre-made vest portion is black, not dark grey.

I still have a little hand sewing to finish it up.  In the end I added a lining to the knitted portion to stabilize the stretch as the knitted part is quite heavy and would 'grow' over time.

The textures of the different yarns are wonderful but I don't know if I will ever finish up the hand sewing needed to finalize the sleeve and side side hems on the right side of the photo because I am not in love with this project any more.

To add insult to injury, the size I chose is a little small and I should have made the side panels a little larger for an attractive drape.

The company that packaged the kit no longer carries this item and the retailer I bought it from seems to have disappeared from the web soon after I bought this kit.  That should have been a clue!

I am now UFO free and intend to set up another set of three projects to meet every eventuality.  I already have one of the three dedicated to making hats for kids at the local Head Start facility for their Christmas Party later this year.  Three hats done already!  The other two will probably be a great sweater with a kangaroo pouch in the front, that I have been itching to start, and an interesting pair of cabled socks to round out the 'in process' pile.

No knitting/crocheting UFO's ...YEAH!

Zillions of sewing UFOs to go.  :-)

Trouble

NO, this post is not about Alex...even though his behavior sometimes defines the word.

This post is how I get myself in trouble.

Let me elucidate.

Several months ago, the bricks and mortar location of Sun Flower Quilts  closed and it has become a virtual store.

That's all well and good except that the store had a three day sale to reduce the inventory.  Since Sun Flower was my favorite store, I had to go to the sale.  While there, I picked up some pricey notions for cheap as well as some baskets and other little bits and pieces.

Here's where I got myself in trouble.

Abandoned on a bookshelf  was a kit for a little change purse with a frame closure.  (if you are unfamiliar with frame closures, see here.)  It was only a few dollars and included hard to find interfacing.

I have never tried this type of construction before so it was a no brainer to pick up the kit and fiddle with it.

I am now hooked on this type of purse making.

Yes, it is a little finicky and requires significant patience but the product is very satisfying...or at least it would be if I didn't get glue all over the fabric body of what I made....

The white haze is glue while the yellowish stain is something I can't identify (can!t blame Alex for this one!).  I had to add the beads as there was a perfect spot on the handle for them.  The whole thing is only three inches wide and the Japanese fabric I used is a discard from a another member of the American Sewing Guild (Thanks Carol!)

So now I am in trouble.

I want to buy a bunch of different metal frames and make a lot of these little containers of deep mysteries or a few coins.  The fact that I have many little bags to hold deep mysteries does not not seem to deter my fascination with this construction technique.

Heck, there is still room on the credit card.

Hmmmmm...

PS - In my defense, here is an example of something I will never make again as the product is totally useless -

Made from 1" covered button parts, it is supposed to look like a macaroon cookie but is definitely not good enough to eat.  Instructions are on the web someplace but I can't find them again...and I don't want to!

Bushwacked!

In April, Nancy Bush, a rock star of the knitting world, will be in Houston offering two classes for local knitters.  I am fortunate enough to have made the cut to get into the class.

Making the cut does not mean that I have the skills needed to master her lace knitting techniques, it just means that I followed the rules for submitting my money to pay for the class.

I have long admired her work for many years in Piecework magazine. Her specialty seems to be knitting techniques from Estonia and other Baltic countries.  I don't know if it was one of her articles but once there was an article about a knitted wedding shawl, about the size of a double bed quilt, that could be pulled through a wedding ring.  AWESOME!

Quick, do you know where Estonia is located?  (hint: further north than I thought :-()

Anyway, I got into her lace class while the other day will be spent on knitted gloves, a topic that does not interest me in the least.

I decided that instead of just going in blind to the class I would pick up her book on lace knitting and read up on her work.

'Knitted Lace of Estonia' is a beautiful book with lots of narrative and an excellent selection of knitted lace patterns as well as information on how the knitter can create their own patterns from the many motifs and construction details provided.  There is even a DVD  that adds a personal touch to the book's contents.

After reading the introductory chapters I decided to take the plunge in and try one of the patterns.

My choice was the 'Lily of the Valley Scarf' on page 90.  I didn't have the yarn called for in the pattern so I used a skein of Noro Kiramaki, a wonderful variegated lace weight yarn multicolored from beige to brown to pink to lime green.  It is similar to their Sekku line with the only major change is that the rayon is replaced by cotton.  Kiramaki is not being made any more so you would have a hard time reproducing this:

The number of mistakes in this scarf are almost too many to count but by the clever camouflage of the variegated yarn means that they do not stand out from the correctly knitted portion.

For fun I ran it through a ring to see if it would fit. (it does!)  It also camouflages the subject of this post.

After a couple of weeks of knitting diligently from this wonderful book, I blocked the scarf, to straighten out some of the knitting.  As I sat on the couch last evening to clean up the loose yarn ends Alex hopped onto the couch for a game of fetch with his knarly old Nyla Bone.  The scarf stuck to the bone and, as I was trying persuade him that he didn't want my scarf,  he leaped off the couch to prance around the living room, dragging it behind him.

I carefully corralled him (no dogs were permanently injured in this procedure...but he could have been!) and unstuck the scarf from his bone.

Pause for the air turning blue from my cursing as I discovered that several rows had their yarn broken in one area.  Huge hole that I darned together.

So that's the whole story.  Nancy Bush's beautifully patterned scarf has turned into something I will wear VERY carefully as Alex bushwhacked my satisfaction in a job well done by reminding me that nothing is more important that quality puppy time.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!