OT: Fairyland at 2079 Green Leaves Road

Evan spent the night this weekend and again lost a tooth here.  This time he swallowed it.  That suggestion upset him, so he created a great story about the Tooth Fairy coming and getting the tooth, but before she could leave any money, Jake woke up and scared her away.  Seems we found 20 cents in the floor and she must have dropped that.  He was much more comfortable with that explanation.

Next morning, the three of us built fairy houses.  It was a bit cool so he had to wear my sweatshirt jacket.  Steve called him The Blue Monk all morning.

Evan supervising his minion.

The finished main house

 

 

Kitchen Update

Kitchen ceiling ripped out. 

Old cabinets ready to go to Charlotte Yarn.

Plastic everywhere because . . .

John is shredding plaster.

How to make a new ceiling.   This is a panel lifter.

You are only as good as your tools. 

My job is to clean up each night.  (I can hear my children laughing at that.)  No cooking, no water.  No water is really bad.

But John has loaned us a sink.

Wall board is now up.

Crown molding going up.

Cabinets are in town and come soon.

The process hasn’t been nearly as bad as I envisioned.  Of course, we haven’t done the “sand all the mud on the wallboard and ceiling” thing yet.  Sue, my designer and major domo of the whole project, is a marvel.  She anticipates what I want and really keeps me from doing something stupid.  She also handles Steve like a dream.  John and Mark have been wonderful.  Having only one person working on each thing may take a little more time, but it also means we get to know each other and can more easily help each other through the hard parts.  How many builders do you know who would loan you their sink?  And they can do anything!

I just train the dogs and make stuff.  My kind of work.

More later–

Dropped Stitch After-Fix

1.  Secure the stitch until you can calm down and make a plan.

2.  Recover as many dropped rows as you can and thread a piece of yarn through the last unattached stitch.

3.  Rethread the needle with both sides of the thread. 

4.   Poke the needle to the inside through the nearest attached stitch and then tie a simple, overhand knot.  (No, you won’t feel it.)

5.  Weave one of the thread toward the toe for about one inch.

6.  Weave the same thread back toward the heel for about one inch.  Cut.

7.  Weave the other end of the thread toward the heel and then toward the toe.  This prevents bulk.  It looks like this.

That’s it.

It will stay.

It doesn’t show.

A Sock Story Repaired

Once upon a time there was a pair of socks that I hated knitting and put off so many times it took more than a year to finish them. But I finally did. Finish.

They have the instep shaping of the arch that Steve likes . . .

I did some math and created an offset star toe.

We photographed them and discovered that somehow--they are just off.

Then we discovered this! Have I mentioned how much I hate these socks.

Tomorrow—How I fixed it.

Knitcircus Gifts Issue is up

The cover

Shapely Beauty copyright Knitcircus

Shapely Back copyright Knitcircus

Shapely detail copyright Knitcircus

Go to www.knitcircus.com to see all the patterns which you can get for less than 9.00.  A subscription is dirt cheap.

More later–

I won!

Amazon Warriors

Okay, it’s not the lottery, but I won my first Fantasy Football match.  Cam Newton came through for me.  Yeah.  And I’m not really a Panthers fan.  May have to change that.

Quick (no pun intended)  trip to Athens this weekend to see Zach play soccer.  We created a college fantasy league for our family and the 9 year old is the commissioner.  He ran the draft last night with an iron hand.  This should be fun.  He is the only one that follows college ball and his dad just picks Duke for everything.  His mom has the best team name; she’s a nutrition nut and called her team The Carbohydrates.  We are a weird bunch.

Paul was in Chile recently to consult for a University there.  He almost didn’t come home because it was so great.  A similar reaction to the one I had in Australia.  He brought me gifts—his mother in law.  What a sweetie.

Chilean pin -- local artisan

Made from a 100 peso coinBack Detail

Back Detail

Copper and knit earrings from local artisan

and these–prepare to copy these.  They are over 2 inches long, so don’t work with my stubby neck, however, they are destined to be a killer necklace.  This technique should be easy and looks cooler than any of the things I have tried before.

Paul is very ecology-conscience, so he also brought me the bag the earrings were sold in.

Looks like a flyer for some event.  I just recently read about using a scoring tool and some white glue to make envelopes out of pretty magazine pages.  Then you place a white sticky label on the front for the address.  Just prettying up the mail a la Martha.

Knitting news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Tomorrow is the release of the Knitcircus Gifts issue.  I have a shawl in it that I truly love.  Simple, but fits.  Here’s a teaser:

More Tomorrow—–

Winestains

I am so proud of this piece.  Recently I have seen some projects similar, but I had never seen one prior to starting this.  I love that I used old swatches that could have easily been trashed.  I like that I learned some new embroidery stitches and embellished with scrumbles and beads as well.  I like that I will be warm all winter.  Here are some overall pictures.  I will put the detailed pictures on Flicker for anyone who is interested.  I hope this will inspire some of you to do something similar and to share it with me.  Thanks for looking at my pics.

More later–

Knits at the Barn with the Quilts

Click here to visit the website with info for the Barnful of Quilts show this Saturday, Oct. 8, from 10–5pm.

Valerie Fox and the Fox Family Farm has sponsored this event for eight years.  It began with Quilt Artists and Valerie is branching out to other fiber artists.  I am so honored that she asked me to display some of my work this year.

For a $5 contribution to Samaritan’s Purse, you can see some awesome work, buy some art or fabric or YARN for yourself, and have a good time.  Hard to beat.

Many of the exhibitors are local artists and you may be surprised at how many fiber artists live in our area.  Are you one of them?

I hope you go.  If you have been on the Yarn Shop Crawl, this is a great way to top it off.  Tangled will have a booth and that is where my stuff will be.  Lauren, Valerie’s daughter, will be manning it, so drop by and say hello to her.  Check out Winestains, the crazy afghan that I knit.  This is its first public outing.  Yes, there is still some work to be done on it.

If you use interfacing to support your embroidery on your knit fabic, and you should, be sure to use the water soluble kind.  Now that I know putting a backing on Winestains is a bad idea, I am slowly, painstakingly cutting away the interfacing and hoping and hoping I don’t cut the threads.  Heck. I had some water soluble, but I guess I was too cheap to use it.  Penny wise; pound foolish.

More later–

The Kitchen Has Started

The Dining Room Wall that was

The wall is gone

The room is huge!!!!

Electrician comes today!!

Finished a few things

A beret for me.  This is another Nancy Marchant free pattern, Whirlybird (I think), which I had to alter a bit because I used DK weight yarn for a heavy worsted wt. pattern.  I just repeated some rows and it looks great.  I used one skein of Manos Silky Worsted for the handdye and one of Sirdar Baby Bamboo in the wine solid.  The bamboo luster looks great.  The beret is the smallest I’ve made.  Gauge matters, folks.   Like it on me.

This is my first brioche pattern.  It is knit bottom up, using an adjustable rib band, and is worked in cotton.  I created it for a class for brioche beginners.  It begins with a large band of 2 color stockinette brioche to keep it simple while they learn the rhythm, and then uses the brioche decreases to close the top.

The adjustable band is a simple 1×1 rib larger than the projected head size.  When you finish the beret, you sew the band together with a nice button to achieve a perfect fit.  This will also allow you to easily resize the band if the cotton stretches too much.

My latest version of Carole Metzger’s necklace.  It used fingering weight hemp from my stash (an old Elann yard no longer available) with glass and metal beads.  I am about ready to create my own pattern to suit my personal likes and dislikes.  I’ll share.

Last—and not a knit project–is my fabric paint project.  I do not paint, nor draw.  No talent there.  But I can trace a template and then just fake it.  I used acrylic paint with a product from Golden that turns acrylics into fabric paints.  I mixed green and black randomly.  I mixed purple with black.  I painted the leaf totally in one of my greens and then added dabs and whatevers wherever to try to give it dimension and texture.  It is still too bright, even after I watered down the purple/black to make a wash and sponged it on.  However—–I like it.

I like t0 read Interweaves Quilting and Crafty mags.  I love some of the projects, but you have to make them to get them.  I decided to try.

I learned this:  You do not have to be any good at a craft to have fun doing it.  You also don’t have to be any good to produce something that you like.  Seriously.  So try something new.

More later–