The square for week 6 of the Granny Square Sampler afghan is the "Sunburst Variation" with little flecks of color in the fifth round (the first two rounds use the same yarn). I like the way it emphasizes the roundness of the center.
(Oh, it is a bittersweet pleasure working with Matchmaker Merino DK. Sturdy and yet oh-so-soft — it slips through my fingers like water rippling in a brook.)
Since I don't have to wait a week for the next square for the Granny Square Sampler afghan to come out, it may come as no surprise that my turnout is starting to blend together. Sometimes a new-to-me square takes a while to work, then by the third one it just zips along and I might start the next one right away. I think week 3's square is one of my favorites — something about the simplicity of it, perhaps. It's fun to have the colors changing on each round, but I really like the nearly-solid ones.
Week 4's squares are a subtle variation on the traditional granny square, with a little "V" shape in the second-color rounds. I realized that it didn't show up very well with the dark green, so on the second one I used a brighter color.
There are two squares for Week 5, and to revel in that, they are nearly circles! My Circles in a Square are at upper right and lower left in the photo above, and the other two are "Squircles" — the first has only sort of embryonic corners, and uses the wonderful blocking properties of wool to mold it into a square shape, but the second, while very similar in the middle, uses further rounds of short single crochets in the middles of the edges, then slightly taller half-doubles on either side, with taller-yet double crochets to fill out the corners. Simple, yet clever.
As for the oval, well, our bathroom mats are getting a bit ratty after, goodness I don't even know how long, possibly twenty years! I discovered that I could order some truly gigantic balls of Lily Sugar N Cream yarn, and so I bought three, thinking of their Oval Bath Mat free pattern. But it isn't really oval, is it, with the increases stacked directly on top of one another — though I suppose "Elongated-Octagon Bath Mat" doesn't sound as appealing — so I just sort of improvised for a while, moving the increases here or there, then when it started getting big, I put safety pins around the curved ends in the spots I wanted the increases to go, so that I could see them. I'm pretty happy with the shape, not so much with the jog where the rounds end, so if I do another one in an oval, I will try a spiral. Still, it's much more pleasant to look at the floor in the bathroom now! And the balls of yarn were so huge that I'm pretty sure I have enough for at least one more mat!
Part of the appeal of this sampler project is that working it a few pieces at a time, squares can be finished in an hour, and I did mine in odd moments here and there. Week 2 asks for the traditional granny square again but this time with only three rounds — the smallness of the square means that you can make quite a lot of them fairly quickly, and the request is for "10-14 squares" with the proviso that if you've chosen a ground color — the cream Paton's Classic, in my case — at least four of the squares use that color as the third round.
(So glad I decided to finish and block the squares as I go!)
I made the last batch and wove in the ends watching the first two episodes of "Great Canal Journeys" with Timothy West and Prunella Scales. It's not only a lovely travelogue around Britain, of course, but a tender and moving story of a couple celebrating fifty years of marriage by doing something that they love, both of them long-time narrow-boaters, and at the same time coping with Pru's slowly-advancing dementia.
I haven't seen "Knives Out" yet, but had to laugh when I read an article in the "New Yorker" this morning about the mania over the Aran sweater worn by Chris Evans as the spoiled grandson of the murder victim.
Then the film’s costume designer, Jenny Eagan, started giving interviews that built up the mythology of the sweater. She said that she could not remember who made the sweater (she vaguely remembers purchasing it, but does not recall if it was new or vintage or one of a kind), and that it was now missing. (Evans claims to have swiped much of his wardrobe from the set.) So far, no manufacturer has piped up to claim the glory. A fashion credit that could have launched a thousand shipping boxes is now lost to the ether, which has also allowed every knitwear retailer on earth to pounce on the demand. If you Google “Knives Out sweater,” dozens of shopping results pop up. There’s this one, from Orvis (now sold out!); or this one, from Huckberry; or this one, from the Irish Store; or this one, from the Aran Sweater Market. Really, any bulky garment the tint of Taleggio cheese could be the One True Sweater.
Well, it's interesting the way that Eagan has used her costumes to comment on each of the characters in the movie (I'm sure anyone reading this will notice the holes in the Aran almost immediately!), and pleasing to me to hear that Arans are "in" again — but really, people, you don't have to go crazy trying to buy one! You could learn to knit!
Of course, it might be just as much the way he wears the sweater as the sweater he's wearing —
In addition to consolidating my yarns this week, I was also inspired so much by photos of the Granny Square Sampler project at WiseCraftHomemade (I'm only seven-odd years behind the crochet-along!), that I dug out all of the odd balls and leftovers of Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK I have, stuck into various corners of drawers and boxes here and there. I knew there were quite a few, but seeing them all stacked together, well, there is quite enough for an afghan. These colors are for the most part rather darker than what I was picturing in my mind, but a stash-buster is a stash-buster. There are also a few non-Matchmaker balls in there of similar weight — why not?! — so it's a collection of past projects and projects that never really got off the ground. I can see two Azkaban scarves and a Forbes Forest, a bit of Doctor Who, and a Smeerenburg hat in there ….
Basically, the idea is to make a pile of granny squares, a different pattern every week, though the number (and occasionally shape!) of each varies, and at the end to lay them out like a jigsaw puzzle in whatever order they fit, and crochet them together into an afghan. Blair suggests that at the beginning, in order for a collection of random yarn colors not to seem too daunting, you set a rule or two, like "Lightest color always starts in the center and gets darker with each round, or Blue and pink yarns never sit side by side, or Always end largest rounds with charcoal heather, or Use cream in every square." Oh! that last one is lucky for me! —
This was a blanket from Knitting Without Tears, quite a lot of Paton's Classic Wool — I remember starting it, but I have no idea now when that was. Never mind!
The square for Week 1 is the traditional granny square, making one with 7 rounds and two with five rounds. I can tell the moment that I pick up the Classic that it is heavier than the Matchmaker, but I'm hoping that in the small quantities used for one round in a granny square, it won't be too noticeable. The Classic will also be the yarn I use to connect all of the squares together, but one of the beauties of this sampler project is that you can adjust the size or number of rows that connect all of the squares, so that gauge isn't critical.
I decided to weave in the ends and block as I go, so that I'm not stuck with three thousand ends to do — tedium, thy name is weaving in ends — which I'm already feeling was a good decision, as this alone was forty yarn ends! Yes, one of the squares has only four rounds, it was my swatch and I decided to use a smaller hook, though to be honest, it doesn't look much different to me now, scale-wise! Since it is pretty close to the same size as the five-round squares, I might be able to use it to fill in an empty spot when putting the afghan together.
Visit Blair Stocker's blog for the inspiration behind the granny square sampler, and a preparatory post about yarns and color selection. There is also a Flickr group.
The previous post was "bits and bobs," this one is "odds and ends" — in a flutter of spring(-ish) cleaning and reorganization, I started consolidating the yarn in the chest of drawers next to my sewing machine, in order to be able to put sewing things in some of the drawers. This meant, of course, that I came across dozens of leftover balls of yarn, sometimes two of three of a kind but often just a partial one, so not enough to make much of anything by themselves.
And so in the afternoon I sat down at the computer with a cup of tea and found a number of "leftover yarn" projects that I like, and will include at least one, I hope two or three, in this year's knitting. I've long wanted to make a mitered-square scarf with the ends of sock yarn, but I might even have enough for a mitered-square blanket like this one by Nicolette of Knitting Squirrel!
For just a tiny bit of yarn, there is always something like the little sachet in the photo, which I came across in one of the drawers — it was included with some yarn I bought, I'm sorry I can't remember now from where as it was a nice little touch. This one has a ribbon drawstring and is filled with lavender. The Treasure Pouch by Resilient Knitter (the pattern is available free with subscription to her newsletter) is very similar.
The Traveler's Life afghan by the Yarn Harlot is similar to the perennial favorite linen-stitch scarf in that you use one length of yarn per row and then tie the ends into a fringe — easy-peasy as well as satisfying. There are numerous versions of the linen-stitch scarf, I'm sure, but here is one, and here is another that doesn't even require turning your work! and here is one for crochet. (This post at Look What I Made gives not only a tutorial for linen-stitch in crochet but also shows examples of how altering the number of rows per color will change the effects of the linen stitch.)
The Fiddly Bits cowl by Jana Pihota or her Excavation blanket are a little more complex structurally but still very simple knits that would use up a lot of leftover yarns while producing a handsome and useful accessory.
Or how about a sock-yarn rug?! — a gloriously wild idea —
There are plenty of old projects still on the go to keep me busy during the coming year, but of course one can hardly help adding new ones to the queue. There are so many wonderful projects out there …
I found myself last summer rather taken by the Gladiolus Vest by Robyn Chachula — to my surprise, as it's crochet! Well, you never know. It's in a worsted weight yarn, rather heavier than much of my stash — until I thought of the bag of Jaeger Extrafine Merino that David bought for me in Hong Kong some years ago.
(The top square is blocked and the bottom one isn't!) It worked up in the swatch quite nicely, and feels delicious of course, but it's a rather dark blue, and try as I might, I couldn't seem to picture the vest in a dark color. I set the swatch aside to think about for a while, and of course months passed. I had for some reason the other day thought of a bag of a Japanese wool/silk blend I bought for myself in Hong Kong (!), in a pale pink — I'd asked Laura if she would like something made out of it, and she said, "Well, it's pretty, but …" then suddenly last night at some ungodly hour when I was still awake, I thought, "Oh! I should try the silk yarn on that crochet vest!" It also works up into the crochet square beautifully —
The only problem is that I have 10 40-gram skeins, and by my calculation this is exactly the amount called for, which in my experience usually means not quite enough. Do I carry on and risk it? The problem is that being crocheted squares, you cut the yarn at the end of each square, so that if I end up not having enough of the yarn, I'm left with eighty or ninety lengths of yarn, instead of ten.
I am using up the rest of the strips of Moda "Boro" fabrics, which are, to my delight and horror both, enough to make quite a large second Chinese Coins quilt. (Horror because, gosh, why did I cut all of them? and delight because now I'll have a Boro quilt of my own.) I have sewed most of the remaining strips into five "stacks" and now must hunt down some coupons and get fabric for sashing and backing. And I also now have a charming stash of two Karen Styles collections from Marcus Fabrics, "County Clare" and "Meridian Stars". I really like this version by Sandra Clemons of the traditional "Cross and Crown" block, and was delighted to find that it's available for free. The two fabric collections play well together, too, I think, and there will be less of a contrast between reds/browns and pinks/blues when they are interspersed —
On one of our recent trips to Pasadena for Parade rehearsals, David and I spent a few hours at Vroman's — as one does — and I came away with Blair Stocker's Wise Craft Quilts. The book impressed me not only with its collection of beautiful quilts, but with Stocker's gentle emphasis on artistry and creativity as well as meaningfulness, and that it isn't just "here's how you do it" but also "here's why you do it," how to balance light vs. dark colors, or odd shapes, and so on. I was delighted to find that Stocker also has a blog, with lots of beautiful things to look at and make.
And I must say I'm rather taken with her Granny Square Sampler afghan project …! She has provided patterns or links to patterns for a variety of granny squares of different sizes and textures, and, like the quilts in her book, tips for piecing them together into a quirky afghan.
Oh, yes — and Rose Parade, of course! This will be Julia's last year (aging out at 17!), so it's a little bittersweet. But what a stirring sight they were!
Some time ago, Julia said, apropos of nothing it seemed, "Mom, I want to learn how to make bobbin lace." Julia, my intelligent and deft yet rather defiantly undomestic teenager wants to learn a centuries-old needlecraft! "Hm," I said, trying not to let my delight show, "well, let's see what we can do." And not long after that, we happened to come across a demonstration by a group that holds monthly meetings — so we went, and then took a day-long class.
This is my first sample piece, in a stitch called cloth stitch — this particular one happens to have "winkie" edges, I'm told, those little picot-like bumps that occur when you wrap the weaver threads around the next pin in the sequence. I did a fairly long length during the class, trying to keep the threads snug and the tension even, and then the next day when I worked on it some more, I had to laugh when I saw that I had been snugging up the weave quite a lot more the second day!
Lace has taken a bit of a back-seat lately, though, as I am still enchanted with the "Froth and Bubble" sampler, and finished the bottom panel last night. I started in the middle, so have two panels left!
It's well into Christmas concert season, actually, but how could I pass up a title like that?!
I had a chamber choir concert at the end of November, a Christmas concert with the big choir a week later, went to Julia's instrumental-music concert at school, then yesterday helped to swell out the alto section when our director's church did "Messiah," which was fun — it's done a lot, yes, but it is one of my favorite masterworks to sing, and I actually can't decide whether the soprano or the alto part is my favorite! (Yes, I'm still wistful about not being in the alto section any more. This is my seventh season as a first soprano, and that's still hard to believe.) The church where we rehearse had asked for some singers for Christmas Eve, but then they decided to just carol on with the congregation as usual, and so while Christmas Eve services are always a pleasure, I'm a bit relieved to be able to just relax.
Here is a progress photo of the "Froth and Bubble" sampler —
at which I've obviously been slightly obsessive, as it's much further along than I expected. I'm enjoying it tremendously, clearly! and am spending most of my free time, and I confess some of my not-technically-free time, on it. At the moment, I'm pondering a color switch on those acorns in the bottom panel — I can't seem to wrap my head around yellow acorns, so I've tried one in a golden-brown, which is not as realistic as the real thing, but more in between brown and the chart's comparatively bright yellow. (Not that yellow is bad per se, mind you, but for acorns it's just not … quite right!)
I was watching the Christmas 2017 episode of "The Repair Shop" yesterday evening, as one does, and was delighted to see that one of the craftsmen decided to knit a scarf as his Secret-Santa gift.
It was a bonus that Will was quietly touched by the gift, perhaps in some disbelief that Dominic could knit at all, but also that he had gone to the effort to do so. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and you knitters, may all of your knitted gifts be as happily received as this scarf!
Julia and I had a gift exchange last week that I wanted to make something for instead of buying, and so for one of them I chose a free biscornu chart from the Cross Stitch Guild. I used the same colors as on the chart, except for the little back-stitched embellishments (for which I used the dark-brown 3371 already at hand in my box because of the "Froth and Bubble" sampler, but in hindsight looks a little too dark). I also omitted the beads, as I hope this pincushion will be used and, personally, it sounds a bit risky to me to have a pincushion covered with beads, which would either get in the way or over time dull the points of the pins. (Anyone with biscornu experience, please speak up!) I left a bit more room around the design as well, which ended up adding an extra row of color by way of the whip-stitched seam. Instead of a button, I "tufted" the cushion with cross-stitches that go all of the way through to the other side. I used the tips for assembly from The Floss Box and Carolyn Mazzeo, which were helpful as it was a bit mind-bending without first having seen how the thing gets put together! I stuffed mine with cut-up bits of Paton's Classic wool, as full as I could, as I've heard that the lanolin in wool helps keep the pins from tarnishing. The chart was fun to work and I think it makes a pretty pincushion, so I'm pleased on the whole!
The other was a miniature coverlet, from the Diamond in a Square tutorial at Purl Soho that I had such good results with on my 1:12 version a few years ago. This time I used the pattern exactly as written, so the layout is a little different from the 1:12 one. Still Kona Cotton, though — one of my favorite fabrics, I think. I was tempted to hand-quilt this one, but I was a bit short on time, but I thought it did need some battening-down, as it were, so I stitched-in-the-ditch by machine. This feels to me a bit second-choice, but there it is — and I did really enjoy choosing the colors, and the process, as the tutorial is excellent. The color balance in the photo is really off, I'm afraid, but I didn't have time to fiddle with it or wait for better light.
These were actually worked much earlier than the first, but of course I couldn't show them here just-in-case! I decided to work a sampler for the friend who has joined the local miniatures group with me, so I chose a free chart from Kreinik called "Love Makes a House a Home". I converted the threads from Silk Mori to DMC, which was a fairly simple matter. I started with the main motto and worked down the chart, tweaking the house panel a little, to make the couple look more like our friends, and I shifted the tree a little and reshaped the cloud too, just for balance. I enjoyed that part so much that when I went back to the motto and started working upwards, I ignored the little voice in my head that was telling me that the line of hearts and the alphabet weren't quite centered. While I was blocking the finished sampler, David looked over my shoulder and said, "Um, is that part off-centered?" upon which a small howl escaped me and I admitted that it was. I can't give it to J like that, I thought, so instead of working the whole thing all over again, as I was running out of both time and silk gauze, I looked around the internet for another free chart, and found a modern-looking one among the free charts at La-D-Da, the "Tiny Sampler". My friend has a huge dollhouse under construction, which is to be a Victorian house "lived" in by a modern family, so can have things of any style, including contemporary. The "Tiny Sampler" has a definitely modern air, especially the alphabet with its irregular-sized letters, and so while my heart seems to be with the "old" stuff generally, it was fun to do something quite modern for a change. I used the floss colors as on the chart, though looking at it later I probably should have used a slightly darker blue for the details in the bottom panel, as they are a bit pale against the natural-colored linen I used. This is actually cross-stitch, not tent, leaving the fabric background bare, both a nice effect and a time-saver!
In the end, I thought, "Well, if she hangs the 'House' sampler on the side wall of a room, the off-centeredness would hardly be noticeable …!" and so I ended up giving her both!
There are a number of different ways of framing miniature needlepoint, two of which I found online, Janet Granger's and a more-complicated method at Face From the Past which I might try when I have no deadline — I ended up using spray fabric adhesive (which I had left over from sewing my shoulder bag a few years ago) to attach the stitching to a piece of watercolor paper (because it's acid-free and stiff), making a frame with picture-frame moulding, the kind with the rebate under the inside edge since the needlework is relatively thick, and then instead of masking tape à la Granger (because I'm a librarian … !), I secured the needlework in the frame with a glued strip of paper.
A progress photo for the "Froth and Bubble" sampler. The original is surprisingly garish for my usual tastes, but I love it, though I admit to having toned down the colors a bit for my own version. I think Long Dog's style might best be described as "neo-traditional" — this one looks Elizabethan in its motifs, yet the colors are quite modern (even though, yes, the Elizabethans loved bright colors!), and the verse is from a much-longer poem by the early-Victorian Australian poet, horseman, and sometime politician Adam Lindsay Gordon.
The stitching frame I'm using is a bit ungainly and a pain to shift, so I am working a page of the chart at a time — it is six full-sized pages! I was a bit alarmed to see how very hot-pink that one flower stem (!) is, so I've left it either until I resign myself to it or can find a somewhat milder pair of pinks and pick this one out. The dark-brown outline would tame it a bit, but it's awfully vivid …
In other news, I got a dirty big stack of books for my birthday, pictured here with a ringer. We went to go and hear Isabella Tree speak at the Theodore Payne Foundation recently, on a subject that interested both Julia and me, that of native-plant gardening and our relationship with our local environments — the book was included in the ticket, but I would have bought it anyway, as it was fascinating to learn the effects of simply not doing anything, as it were, to the land, albeit on a much-larger scale and a very different climate than our own arid little suburban lot, and to begin to think about how we might work with nature instead of against it. I very much enjoyed reading the two volumes of memoir in the Lucy Boston book, the first of which was new to me — it reminded me in many ways of Gwen Raverat's Period Piece, though Boston is more fierce in her independence and tart in her manner, even as a child. I will probably never get tired of leafing dreamily through Ben Pentreath's book, which seems to me to illustrate pretty much exactly what a comfortable home best looks like. The small lives of women throughout history interests me, and so now I've just started The Jamestown Brides, about the literal shipment of fifty-six young women who volunteered their futures — they were to be bartered off as brides — in exchange for passage to the New World in 1621. More to come!
Knitting, reading, other stuff.
A Bluestocking Knits 