Yarn To Go With Yarn To Go With Yarn

In October 2016 I purchased the colour of the month from Candy Skein. It was lovely yarn and I tried to turn it into socks but the yarn and pattern didn’t go together. The yarn sat in stash but I had a feeling that it that it would need another yarn to go with it. I purchased a skein of grey yarn at Stitches SoCal in 2018. Now I had two skeins of yarn waiting in stash! 

I was given the pattern Lilli Pilli as a friend was trying to encourage me to take part in a knitalong but at the time I could not decide on yarn. With that pattern in mind I purchased a skein of yarn in the sale specifically to go with the two skeins. And that was the next sale yarn I decided to cast on. The yarn is Belle by ArtFil. I used that yarn in Verdon. It is a slightly thicker fingering weight yarn and there is less meterage than many fingering yarns so I was concerned that I would not be able to work the complete lace sections but I had just enough yarn to finish the last lace section but not enough to bind off. This was another project where I wanted to preserve the squishiness of the garter stitch but also open up the lace. I laid it out and pinned the lace sections and then sprayed them with water.

It is a long shawl but not very wide – which seems to be the trademark of this designer. 

 

 

 

Although my plan is to cast on another project with sale yarn whenever I have finished one this time I decided to finish my Comfort Fade Cardigan before starting a new project. I was close to finishing this and it was easy garter stitch but I wanted to change the collar so I couldn’t just pick it up and go. Having finished the Lilli Pilli it was all go with the Comfort Fade and now I am ready to bind off.

I have been working a few rows each day on my oldest project and I hope to have the knitting finished by the end of the month. I also have a sewing project to share.

August’s Hat

Here we are on the last day of August and I am so close to having two projects finished. In the meantime I’ll show the hat I made for charity this month.

 

I was not inspired by any of the suggestions in my two go-to groups so I picked an older suggestion that had not previously made. This turned out not to be the best of ideas and was frogged. Back to square one and time running out. OK, an exaggeration, it was only the end of the first week. I could have gone for my standard Better Late Than Never beanie pattern, but chose a pattern that I have made before and requires more concentration because I wanted to quickly crank out this thing.

The pattern is Brain Waves Beanie which I made in 2017. It is not a hard pattern but does require concentration as you are working SC, HDC, and DC in groups in each row. I definitely felt I got into a rhythm this time rather than keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best. The yarn is left over from a hat I made earlier this year and now I have used up most of the dark green. There is still quite a bit of the light green left but it is not recommended to use it for the main part of a hat for Operation Gratitude so it is going to take a while to use it up.

My Year Quilt is Finished

Last time I wrote about this quilt was February last year when I had finished the last squares and was deciding what to do with them. Looking back at my posts, I am surprised that I have not written anything about my choices and the process.

In my post I said that I had purchased fabric to make the squares all the same size. I started out by adding a small border to the largest square and then sized all the squares to that. As the point of the quilt is the individual squares, I placed sashing between the squares. But I also wanted a quilt I could use so then borders were added and then it was sandwiched and then it waited. Another quilt waiting to be quilted. 

In the end I repeated to myself “finished is better than perfect” and just got on with it. Also I told myself that I couldn’t sew anything else until this was completed. (I broke this self-imposed rule when I had to make masks.) The action of quilting was hard because of the weight of the fabric so each session was no more than two hours. But a little here and there added up and I had a finished quilt. As I was not working on anything else I kept the walking foot on my machine the whole time as it is fiddly to change. (This has made me think that it would be nice to have a basic machine that I can keep set up just for quilting.)

There was no plan for the quilting. Just some circles with the darning foot and a lot of straight lines with the walking foot. As I got closer to finishing I started to think about the binding. The fabric I used for the back of the quilt was extra wide and I had just enough in the length to make a self-binding. I trimmed the backing to ¾”, folded in half, folded this over the edge of the quilt and then machined. As this is a quilt for us I did not miter the corners. I tell you, machining binding is the way to go.

I am really pleased with the result.

 

 

 

Oh, and as the impetus to finish this was so I can make some clothes for the family with fabric I’ve had for a while, what did I do? Start a new quilt completely from scraps!

Who Is the Most Patriotic?

A common theme I have found in this war of SJWs and anti-SJWs, is that “they” are just not patriotic or “they” don’t love their country.

I find this interesting because, just because someone has a different opinion does not make them any more or less patriotic than you. But is that correct in the true meaning of the word? I decided to look up the meaning of patriotism and came up with some interesting ideas. There was one local government page whose examples of patriots were; military, police, firepeople, police, nurses, doctors, schools and volunteer who helped after a disaster. If you stuck to that definition then there would be not be so many patriots. 

I also found this definition, which I thought interesting.

What is patriotism? [1]

• Special affection for one's own country.
• A sense of personal identification with the country.
• Special concern for the well-being of the country.
• Willingness to sacrifice to promote the country's good.

The last definition fits in with the description I showed first. But what I find of interest is the third description – “Special concern for the well-being of the country” and this is why I do not believe you can call someone who has different views from you unpatriotic. I would argue that the majority of residents have concern, they just show it in different ways.

But what would the founding fathers think? Yes, I have read this as an argument for sticking with the status quo. I think the founding fathers would think good on ’em, for anyone collecting signatures for a ballot, protesting for change, stopping work. Remember this country (the United States) was founded on a revolution because they were not happy with the people in charge (yes, a gross over-simplification) and they knew that not all citizens would like the decisions that they or future governments would make so in the First Amendment they gave the people “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”.

So why is it unpatriotic, when it is a part of the Bill of Rights? 

I have written about hypocrisy previously and, of course, the nay-sayers are just the same as the people they decry because they love to complain about government, it’s just different forms, so that’s OK.

 

 

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[1] Stanford.edu

Head, Neck and Feet

After typing that heading, I thought what about hands? But I did not quickly cast on some mitts. This reflects the three projects I have finished this month and they have not been replaced by new cast ons.

First finished was a hat for charity. (And, yes, there will be a new cast on next month.) I took the pattern suggestion from the Hat of the Month group on Ravelry. It is Ditto available free on Ravelry and I used Plymouth Encore which has been in my stash for a very long time, leftover from another project. The pattern is in two sizes and I knit the smaller size. I did not make the fold up brim but I have seen photos with such a brim and think it looks better.

The next project finished was an old project, but not my oldest project. This was a project I started in September last year but did not work on after a few rows. But working just a few rows each day quickly produces a finished item. I was given both the yarn and the pattern. The pattern is Cardioid Shawl and the yarn is Fearless Fibers. The pattern is written for fingering weight yarn but, although, originally labeled as sock yarn the yarn I used is a lace weight. I am showing two pictures here so you can see the difference blocking makes.

 

The final finished project is the socks I started in June. The pattern Is Sun Valley Socks Sun Valley Socks, available on Ravelry. I used leftover yarn – Miss Babs Yummy 2-ply and Trailing Clouds Nimbus Self-Striping Sock. For  bit of fun I reversed the main and contrast colours on the second sock.

There Is No Knitting Community

It seems as if the “community” is not in a state of well-being unless there is some issue to be debated and to get angry about. Yes, yet another issue has come to the fore in the knitting community. I am deliberately using knitting in this context as the issue arouse around a knitting pattern. But all of this applies to any yarn craft. I am not going to say what the issue was because, in reality, that is not what is important. What is important is that string wranglers have to be angry about something. If you are not up-in-arms about THE issue then YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

When did knitting and community first go together and why do we think there is a community? We are social animals and like to be around people with a common interest, we interact on the internet with other knitters, we can communicate with pattern designers and yarn dyers, the commonality of working with yarn. We are part of a world-wide group of people and we are good. But are we? Knitters are people and people are not the same as each other. Why do you hang out with this person and not that one? So how can you expect to like or get along with all knitters just because you manipulate string with two needles? In other words do not be fooled by the idea of a community. It’s a bunch of disparate individuals with a common interest.

Which brings me back to the title. There is no knitting community – where is the feeling of fellowship? [i] The community is a few people being angry over a perceived slight, the band wagoners joining in and a few brave voices putting their heads above the parapet to say this is wrong.

What I have seen over the past couple of years. We must support individuals big companies are bad; now it is buy that cheap yarn: support pattern designers they deserve a living wage; now it is patterns cost too much, we want this, this and this included and the pattern to cost less.

How dare you disagree with us we are right and it is our right! But when you are always angry how do knitters decide what is important and what is someone taking their bad day out on someone? In other words the issue is not even going to be looked at by the majority. It just turns into a fight between the loud minority saying this is bad and the loud minority saying nothing is bad. There is no room for discourse about why something might need to be changed, people are put off by the never ending issues and any semblance of community disappears.

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[i] As defined by online dictionary