Calla's blanket, etc.

This is the blanket I made for my eighth great-grandchild. Today was the due date, but she hasn't arrived yet. The theme of the blanket was determined by her name. I looked at pictures of calla lilies on-line and made a small sketch of three from different angles. I scanned the sketch into Print Shop, enlarged it, and printed it out on graph. I started the blanket from the bottom, working her first name upside-down in shadow/illusion knitting, then did the flowers in the intarsia method, working loosely from the graph. At one point, I was working with seven ends of yarn across each row - they didn't get TOO tangled. I worked the bottom of the flowers in stockinette stitch and the top part in seed stitch. That gives a little difference in texture in the two sections, and is what causes a difference in shade in the picture. After finishing the flower part, I knit the name right side up in shadow/illusion knitting. Then I picked up stitches along the sides and knit her middle name on one side and her last name on the other side. (The illusion knitting appears as narrow stripes when looking at it head-on; the pattern shows up when looking at an angle.) After all of the knitting was done, I duplicate stitched the stems and leaves, working 'free hand.' I'm pleased with the way it turned out, but I wish I had used a size smaller knitting needle.

When I went to Hobby Lobby to buy another skein of the darker green (I couldn't believe they actually had one skein of the same dye lot I had bought more than a month before!) to finish the blanket, several multi-color yarns jumped into my basket and asked me to make them into hat and mitten sets to donate to kids at the local school in October. Here are the ones I've completed so far.

And finally, some tiny slippers for Calla and matching ones for big, three-year-old sister Lily.

They arrived!

You're probably asking, "What in the world are they?"
About a month ago, on KnitTalk Yahoo! Group, a woman said she was going to an estate sale that was advertized as having a lot of knitting stuff. I wondered if there would be any all-nylon, circular knitting needles. She asked what sizes I was interested in and I said any size, any length. These 17 are what she found for me.
These needles are apparently no longer made. I had bought several back in the 60's or 70's, and have realized recently that I like them much better than some of the more expensive needles I have. There are duplicates, but then I usually have several projects going at once.

Graduation

My oldest great-granddaughter graduated from Massac Junior High School, Metropolis IL, last night.
Here she is with her mother. The stole reads Valedictorian. There were 13 of them out of a class of 140 something. We are all very proud of her. In addition to being smart and pretty, she's friendly and just a nice kid.

As I was walking from my car to the school building (the graduation was held at the high school because its gym is larger), a woman passed me wearing a beautiful shawl. After a couple of seconds I thought, "That shawl looks familiar  - I think I made it." When I got inside, the woman was talking with two or three others. I touched her arm and asked, "Do you teach math here?" She answered, "Yes, well not here, but at the junior high." I said,"I thought I recognized the shawl; I'm Lexi Gill's great-grandmother." She said that she loves the shawl and that Lexi is a delight to have in class.

After the ceremony, Lexi showed me a thank you note she had gotten from her science teacher for the shawl Lexi had given her. I had forgotten that Lexi had requested two. (I make shawls when and how I want to, and the great-grandkids pick out which ones they want to give to their teachers.)

This in the one Lexi gave to the math teacher

I love this picture of it being modeled by almost-three-year-old Lily - her first shawl modeling experience. See how the front corners are dragging the ground? I'm not sure if the one Rose is modeling has gone to a teacher or not. I know Lexi said the one she gave the science teacher is pink and white, but there is also this pink and white one.

Lexi said that Devin has selected a pink and brown one for his teacher, so it must be this one

I am still here.

Ruth told me today that Diane told her to remind me that I haven't posted here for a long time. She's right!

When I started this blog 8 1/2 years ago, I thought it would be about my knitting. Then a couple of months later, I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, and it switched to mostly medical stuff. The Myeloma has been  in remission now for almost five years. I only see the oncologist and have blood work done every six months, so there's not any medical stuff to write about.

Soooo, I guess I need to write more about my knitting and other fiber-related things. I just scrolled back and discovered that I haven't posted any shawl pictures since August. Shame on me! Let me try to catch up.

This one I also did in August. While I had it on the needles, it reminded me of a pumpkin.

It looks like I did only hats in September. I know that's not true, but I guess I didn't take pictures of everything. And most of these pictures are blurry.

I was really pleased with the way this shawl turned out. I call it my Threes Shawl for several reasons. First because of the three triangular sections. Second because the stitch pattern is 'squares' that are three stitches wide and six rows long; half of the squares are garter stitch, so that means three ridges. Then, when I ran out of the pink yarn, I did not have the number of stitches needed for the border pattern I wanted to use, so I started the white border with three two-row eyelet pattern repeats. Finally, I wound up using the leftovers of three white skeins, with only a small amount remaining of the third ball.

I did a few hats in October, as well.

I actually used someone else's pattern for this shawl - some of my friends think I must be sick when I do that. My model didn't want to show her face; maybe because the shawl doesn't go well with her shirt.

This is another one of my Diagonal Pinstripe shawls; Lexi is again hiding her face with her hair.

I also completed two Christmas stockings - one for a grandson-in-law and the second for my new great-grandson.

I think that's all for last year; I'll report on this year in the next couple of days.

March?????

There are two lawn mowers under there.

At least it doesn't have the 'hat' it did last time.

I thought that being at least six feet from either edge of the porch, the snow would not get it. I wasn't thinking about the wind.

Tuesday night's rain washed away the previous week's snow (except for the larger piles at the edges of parking lots). Then yesterday, in the afternoon, the ground started looking white again. First it was with sleet, which turned to snow during the night. And they are predicting a low of 0 F tonight.

I'm being productive.

Yesterday morning I wound off a 40-thread, 8-yard warp, tied it onto the old warp and wound it onto the warp beam. Then at various times throughout the day, I wove miniature rugs. I finished weaving off that warp this morning and cut it off the loom. There are 33 mini-rugs all cut apart and waiting beside the sewing machine for me to zigzag across the ends. And I already have another 40-thread, 8-yard warp wound off and ready to be tied onto the warp I just finished. If I keep going at this rate, I'll meet my goal of 500 by the end or March. The 33 I just wove bring my total to 146.

However, if I spend all my time weaving, I won't get any knitting done, and I DO have several knitting projects I need to work on. Also, the weather IS going to improve and I won't be stuck at home.

Weather & Weaving

WOW! It's been a long time since I posted here. No particular reason. Probably spending too much time on Facebook. I know of one woman who quit Facebook so she would post on her blog more. I'm glad she did. I always worried about her when she let her blog go too long - she lives in Israel, a worrisome part of the world.

We've had two weeks of freezing weather in tiny town, and about a foot of snow. We're not used to such weather. Snow is usually limited to 3 or 4 inches (usually less) and it disappears in 3 or 4 days when the temperatures rise. I didn't leave my house for at least ten days.

The seed heads from last year's garlic chives wore snow caps for a while.

The robins have come back early. They like the fruits of the flowering crab apple. I'm glad that I have some hollies and pines that they can shelter in.

These few are perched in the Japanese maple, which still has a lot of its leaves from last year. I took all the pictures through windows. The icicles are on the rain gutter.

With all this bad weather, I should have done more weaving and knitting than I did. I have woven 113 of the miniature rugs for this year's Walk through Bethlehem; my goal is 500. Here are a few of them.

 On the loom.

And off. I tried something different this year - tied three 44-end warps onto the 160-end one that I had woven on at the Walk, leaving about two inches between the warps. Then I wove three pieces at a time. I found that I don't like weaving that way, so when I finished them, I put on a single warp of 40 threads. I will continue doing one warp at a time until I get the 500 mini-rugs.

I'm also making 2-inch squares on a Weave-it loom. I keep that here by the computer and work on them while doing other things online. I have 183 so far, with no particular goal. I figure we'll 'sell' them at 4/'shekel' and have samples to show the kids how they can sew them together in different ways.

Here are two dozen of them that are all made from the same ball of yarn - very colorful yarn!