Category: Handcrafting

Knitting, fruitcake, and the tree  – Yuletide 2023

This is the beautiful cable hat from the yarn that my friend Judith brought me from ireland. It took such a short time to make. I’m already wearing it. I think it is my favorite hat so far. And I love it especially today because our temperatures dropped below freezing for the first time this fall.

I won’t go into detail about it since i’ve already written a post with all the details.. Cozy things are important on days like this. Thanksgiving is over, and now to wait anxiously for Christmas and to enjoy all of these cold days that are ahead of us.

The fruit cake was made yesterday while we enjoyed leftovers and a fresh charcuterie board. For those of you who suffer from lactose intolerance, did you know that if you eat deeply aged cheese, that it won’t bother your stomach? Anyway, happily, it doesn’t bother mine.

What is Christmas without the wonderful fruity dense cake that i’ve been making for decades now. The fruit was soaked for over a week in rum. Now it’s wrapped in cheese cloth soaked in rum and wrapped in foil to wait for another month..

I’m hoping the christmas tree comes today. There are just a few things that I enjoy more or as well as a christmas tree. I’ll spend the rest of today knitting on the pair of socks that I started before I cast on the irish hat.

I wish and I hope, which doesn’t come easily to me, that there is joy and, most of all, peace in this holiday season for you and yours, while we remember that many suffer. And so it has always been.

Yuletide coziness

This Quilt Deserves Better

You know, this crosstitch quilt took 40 years and more hours to create than you could ever imagine. I loved every minute of those hours.

There were years when it languished in a closet, partially completed, while my life was filled with family, going to school, traveling, and other obligations. But it was always there, waiting for me to come back to it.

Now that I’m older, crafting is what I do. It’s all that I do. I do it for joy, peace, and the satisfaction of creating something beautiful. While stitching, be it crossstitch, crochet, crewel work, knitting, bookbinding, or tapestry, I forget about the troubles that face me, that face us in this incredible yet troubling world that we live in. Podcasts, audio books, documentaries, travel vlogs, and the like fill my days while I craft.

Beyond the stitching, however, there was the cost of taking the quilt to the “long arm quilter.” By the time I finished the cross stitching, I was not inclined to hand stitch a queen sized quilt. Three hundred dollars was a small price to pay.

For those of you who don’t quilt, you may not know what that is. A long arm quilter is a person who owns a very large, almost room sized machine in which they can feed a quilt of almost any size. That machine is connected to a computer on which many patterns are programmed. A pattern is chosen, and off it goes with the expertise of the long armed quilter. For those of us who quilt, it is a marvel.

At that point is when the long arm quilter saved it from more time sleeping in the trunk or closet. I had started to quilt it by hand, but after months of working on it, I realized that the task was too daunting. I just wanted it to be done. When I got the quilt back a week later, I then hand stitched the binding. It was finally ready to use.

But, by this time, this quilt is so precious that I can’t use it on my bed… Only because I have two cats and a dog that often share my bed. Claws, hair, and dirt would most likely destroy it.

So for now, it’s folded and safely sits on my ottoman with a pillow on top where Fran Ham, the cat, loves to sleep. I can only enjoy the parts of it that peek out from underneath.

Beautiful quilt. You deserve better.

The Balvonie Bonnet

The finished project

I’ve been wanting to make the Balvoniee Bonnet by Corinne Tomlinson for a long time. Corrinne says that her inspiration for this hat was Balvonie of Inshes in Inverness, Scotland, where she grew up and spent long school breaks there with her family. The bonnet is “traditional Scottish woolen brimless cap; a bunnet (Sir Walter Scott).”

I ordered the kit from Wooley Thistle this winter. The yarn is by Jamieson and Smith, a 100% Shetland wool from the Shetland Islands. But I’ve been stuck in a place of no motivation for knitting except to finish a pair of socks for Hannah. The socks are out of Arne and Carlos Schachenmeyr sock yarn. They were supposed to be done for Christmas. Then they were supposed to be done in February for her birthday. But I just finished them this past weekend. So now I’ve got time to do the bonnet.

Also, if you look closely, you can see the Cascade 220 yarn in lipstick red in the background. That is going to be a striped sweater with bright pink and this red for Hannah. I’ll post more about that as I get into it. The pattern is called the Compliment Sweater. Hannah has asked me to make her something out of yarns that were not my favorite but turned out to be my favorite in the end after completing the project. I think this will be the same. Lots of summer knitting to do.

The pattern

What Knitting Can Do When the World is Dark.

I’m knitting a super lovely “Sheperdess Sock” designed by one half of the Grocery Girls, Tracie Millar.

I’m knitting them in Schachenmayer, merino yak, 4 ply, in colorway: 07516.

This is an easy and well written pattern. I’m loving the yarn and the color. It’s so perfect for dark November days and nights.

In the photo is a yule card by a Swedish artist, who’s name escapes me, old photos of my grandma and grandpa, Eduardo Galeano’s book, “Memory of Fire”, Alice Staremore’s book, “Glamourie” and a notebook of my writings. I love an assemblage photograph.

When I was a Weaver

Maybe the worse for wear

This is a hand woven pillow top completed in 1973. That’s 50 years ago! It’s made of 100% rustic wool on a large floor loom while taking classes at the Multnomah Art Center. I cannot remember what breed of wool or the pattern but it was a marvelous experience. It changed my life.

I bought several looms over the years and enjoyed weaving. I learned to spin, as well. Recently, I sold all my weaving and spinning supplies.

It took years to admit that I would not ever weave again, so I kept my equipment and supplies far too long. Thanks to my mom and dad’s persistant support, I have always been proud that I never let anything stop me from doing whatever I’ve chosen to do regardless of… well, there came a time that I had to give up on this craft and many others.

I have little to show for this time in my life with the exception of a few pieces, including this one. Though it is the worse for wear, I will sew it into a pillow cover again. It makes me nostalgic for those beautiful years.

A poncho for Hannah, 1973

Folded Origami Dog

Dogs can fold

To wish I could fold like this as autumn approaches.

We will find piles of blankets and quilts.

Soft, wool socks and hand made sweaters.

Roaring fires in stoves and fireplaces.

The joys and comfort of summer’s labors.

The Bad Sheep Wild Blueberry Socks

Winter’s Wooliness

The Wild Blueberry, Bad Sheep socks are done. I only wish this photo did the color of the deep blue justice. It doesn’t begin to capture the color.

Even though we are a full month away from autumn, I’m anxious to put these babies on. They will look amazing with my Birkenstocks.

Now, I’ll go back to working on my Magnolia sweater. It’s been sitting all summer while I waited for more yarn to arrive. The kid silk came from Latvia. After months, it finally got here. Now to try to figure out where I left off.

I’m glad I had these beautiful socks to work on, as well as some other projects, like another pair of socks for Hannah and Nori and a hat for Jesse.

Now I want to find some woolly DK self striping sock yarn in autumn and winter colorways to make some more socks. A girls gotta have a simple project on the needles too for when one needs a break from knitting a lace pattern.

The late summer weather is beautiful and pleasant, though we’re looking at some heat coming our way for next week. I’m loathe to let summer go as I wait patiently for cooler weather and fall color.

Bad Sheep Addiction

Wild Blueberry

Okay, shut up. I just finished my last pair of socks of which, I haven’t even posted the final photo yet… but I couldn’t resist this yarn from Bad Sheep Yarn.

This is the most beautiful shade of blue I’ve ever seen. It’s called Wild Blueberry and with its shades of blue and pink and dark purple, it replicates perfectly the blueberries in my garden. When I laid sight on it on their website, I couldn’t resist even though I couldn’t really afford to buy another skein of yarn when my shelves are overflowing. *sigh*

But it’s hot summer and I’m much less tolerant of the heat than I used to be. I want to finish my Magnolia sweater before winter but just thinking of working with wool and kid silk mohair makes me start to sweat.

Oh, I won’t be able to resist the sweater but don’t you think that knitting more socks is a great idea in midsummer when the temperatures climb, climb, climb from mid 80°s to near 100°?

Now, I have 2 pairs of socks on my needles. When I start itching to work on the sweater, these can easily be laid aside momentarily.

Oh, Bad Sheep… You are so bad. You and your yarn are so tempting that I can’t resist. You feed my addiction, you bad bad sheep.

But Bad Sheep, keep it coming. I’ve already spotted another skein for another pair of socks.