I Do Windows

The greenery has been done for a while and now it's been house beams and today it was windows! Yes, I do windows. Fabric ones, that is. My windows in my home sadly, have not been done. The patio door is covered in doggie noseprint. I figure it the noseprints add character to my home and let people know that cuddles, play and love with the dogs is more important than housecleaning. Well, that and I don't like bending down that far. I digress.

Here are the windows. I have yet to trim the stray threads from moving from pane to pane. And of course, I ran out of bobbin thread when there was less than 3" remaining to be stitched. Murphy and his laws are not welcome but apparently they're not polite and come around anyway.










In other news, JR has been at NELA (his assigned location through AmeriCorps) since early September and he is kicking ass and taking names. NELA is Northwest Education Loan Association and they help anyone of any age and any educational or financial status find money for college. He is specifically involved in finding students that could use their services, finding volunteers to work with the students, though he does a lot of other things. It's the first paying job he's had where he gets an extreme sense of satisfaction. I am so thrilled with it. He also enjoys the company of his coworkers a lot.

What I personally have found interesting is that it's families with middle and lower level incomes that are least likely to apply for financial aid whereas the higher income families almost always do. He runs into a lot of people whose incomes would probably fall in what's considered middle class and they think they won't get any scholarships or financial aid when that is not the case. The families with even less financial resources often aren't aware of financial aid for school. He does just as much education as he does recruiting.

Changing thread color. Hah!

Hahahahahaha! I have gone over all the greenery now. At least I think I have. Let's just say I've thread painted the greenery as much as I'm going to. There. That should be an accurate statement.

Now I'm going over the house - the wooden parts. Then the windows and beams. I'm so happy I could dance!

Fall is on its way

Fall is almost here. Most of the kids are back in school tomorrow morning so I expect it'll be more quiet around the apartment complex.

JR started his AmeriCorps job last week. He works for NELA coordinating volunteer efforts and recruiting students as well as a host of other things. NELA helps students of all ages and their familes find money for college, whether it's a vocational program, four year school or even graduate school.

The quilting bug was on hiatus and it has bitten again, thank goodness. I was struggling with some thread painting and when I took the top out from under the machine I realized there was no interfacing under the section I was working on. D'oh! Interfacing helps keep the fabric from being pulled down into the throat plate of the machine when you are doing a lot of stitching. It's very useful when using a satin/buttonhole stitch or any type of embroidery.

I've been sick for over a week now with an awful cold. It started as the Cold from Hell, then downgraded to Cold from Purgatory and now it's Merely Annoying.

Two of my friends are pregnant. Methinks baby season is arriving again. It feels especially good to me as there have been two deaths in my family in less than a year. New lives starting always helps folks move past grief and I am no exception to that.

I hope all is well with you and yours.

Sock Summit Was a Blast or Knitters Are Wonderful People

I managed to drag my fatigued carcass to the Sock Summit last weekend at the Portland Convention Center. I actually didn't start knitting 'til after class registration for the Summit was closed but I finagled my way in by volunteering.

I had mentioned on Ravelry that I was going to go, and asked if anyone wanted to meet for lunch since I'm a local yokel to Portland. After all, people from all over the world showed at the Summit. None of my friends were able to make it but an online buddy, Joanna, asked me if I'd take pictures and write something up for her to be posted at www.nerdabout.com. So I did. What I didn't expect was a link from the article to MY blog. Wow. Maybe I should update this thing more often!

Here's me with team Ravelry at the Summit. Note the finger puppet representation of Bob, Ravelry's boston terrier mascot. I saw them walking down the hallway of the Convention Center and dashed out from behind the desk to snag them so all of us volunteers could take pictures with them. They were very gracious about it.

As a general update, yes, The Beast, otherwise known as the Bass Quilt and/or commission quilt is still in progress. I'm taking a break from thread painting and am feeling like starting the Mariner's Compass sashing blocks this weekend is a good plan.

On the needles right now is my fourth sock, giving me a whopping two pair of handknit. I lucked out and spotted a copy of Knitting circles around socks knit two at a time on circular needles by Antje Gillingham at the library so I snatched it and ran to the self checkout machines. It seems rather elementary since I already use two circs to knit socks. Now I know a way to avoid having to seam or graft anything on a sock. Yay!

My plans have changed slightly for next year's ichthyosis conference. Quilts are lovely and people appreciate them but I think hand knit socks will be very treasured by folks with ichthyosis. Any of us who have it on the bottoms of our feet tend to have the skin crack and get raw during temperature extremes, though children have an especially rough time as often their skin cannot accomdate growth as quickly as it should so the feet and palms crack. My feet didn't stop cracking regularly 'til I reached my whopping final height of 5'1" around age 15. So, hand knit socks it is for the fundraiser raffle. I expect I'll be making strictly tube socks in generic man/woman/child sizes so they can fit anyone. But they'll still be more comfortable than store bought. Who knows, maybe I'll start a sock knitting revolution among the ichthyosis community.

Now this next tidbit is extremely important to me. Only once in my 37 years have I been somewhere amongst a large crowd of people for a significant amount of time and not had anyone stare at me or ask my about my skin. The first time was at the ichthyosis convention in Atlanta, GA in 2006. The second time was at the Sock Summit. I cannot express how marvelous it is to be able to walk through a crowd and have no one give me a second glance. I understand that for most people, seeing someone affected all over with ichthyosis is a rare occurence and it's natural to be curious. I however, am quite used to what ichthyosis looks and feels like but I'm not sure that I'll ever completley adjust to having people stare at me or unintentionally make me uncomfortable by asking personal questions about my medical issues. So. There it is. Knitters rock. Well, knitters, spinners, dyers, crocheters, designers, instructors, and all those other lovely folks that were at the Summit. Thank you so very much, you gave me a wonderful gift.

Now back to the Summit dishing.

I met some fantastic people, one of whom immediately comes to mind and that's Rita from Yarn Hollow. She noticed me drooling over one of the drop spindles and put some roving in my hands and that was it. I was a goner. I now have what I need to learn to spin yarn using a drop spindle. Wheee! By the way, the lusciously colored stuff you see in the photo to the far left is roving. It becomes yarn by using a spindle to rotate the fiber as you squeeze it down to the thickness you want. While it takes a bit of practice, it's not too difficult and yes, it is another lovely thing that one can do while sitting down. I really do need to stop acquiring more hobbies. Really! I can sort of blame this on Rita though, which I will happily do. I don't think she minds, though.

I did even get to meet Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot who is a knitter, author and all around nifty person. She probably thinks I'm a crazy stalker lady as I handed her a thank you card as I never would have discovered hand knit socks without reading her works. I also met Tina Newton, founder of Blue Moon Fiber arts and apparently Stephanie's partner in crime. Fun! On a side note, I seem to be magnetically drawn to Tina's yarn as when looking through my stash, it seems like a quarter of it is hers. Mine. Mine now at least but created by her and her marvelous assistants but now in my posession as I have purchased more in the past few months than I can really justify when going over the finances. It's worth it.

I got to meet some of the other wonderful folks at Blue Moon such as Debra and JoAnn. I met oodles and oodles of fantastic knitters and I was so pleased to meet a great number of male fiber artists. You know you're out there, we know you're out there but sometimes it's hard to find you because there are so many women crowded around. There's always more room for fiber fans. Really! Whether it's knitting or quilting or crochet or cross stitch, the more, the merrier is always true. Especially if you let me raid your stash.

Life returns to normal, whatever that is

Commencement is done and the in-laws have returned to their respective homes. I did a bump on a log imitation for a week before I finally had enough energy to get up and move. It's really embarrassing to have 70 year old relatives exhaust you from running around. That's ok though, it was even more embarrassing in May when my 82 year old grandmother was leaving me in the dust.

One of the first things I did after the family left was to set my sewing machine up to continue with the thread embroidery. I had put it away and JR moved my sewing table out into the shed for the duration of the visit so that we'd have enough room in the living room for everyone to sit down. It was an odd experience to not have my machine right there. In fact, within 24 hours of it being put up, I felt like I was missing something very important.

Mind you, I don't even sew every day. I plain and simply can't do it. But there's a big difference between, "Maybe I'll feel up to it this afternoon." and "OMG! IT'S NOT THERE! AUUUUGH!" Yes indeedy, I was having my own personal version of the Charlie Brown scream.

The machine got put back in the little shrine of a sewing area I have in the living room. I threaded it and set it up to start back on the thread embroidery. Then I got out the house block and started looking for spots that I needed to touch up. At first I was torn, how was I going to visibly but non-permanently mark the spots I needed to work on? Then I had an epiphany.

Painter's tape

I love painter's tape for a variety of reasons and very few of them have to do with painting. I put it on the wall before I put up double stick tape to mount a bulletin board or coat hook so that if some day I wish to move things around, I can take off the adhesive without removing a chunk of wall with it. I wish I could claim I thought of this handy trick but the truth is I saw it on some home dec show years ago.

The cool thing about painter's tape is that the adhesive is very lightweight so that it doesn't leave a residue when you peel it off. That's why painters use it. It allows them to paint something and when they have to paint in another color up to the edge of the first color, they can protect the work they've already done.

The house block ended up with a bajillion little pieces of painter's tape all over the foliage section.
I had already gotten a bunch of areas fixed by the time I took this picture, but I thought folks would get a kick out of seeing it anyway. Here's a closeup:
Yes, that is a pin you see securing the tape. The tape wasn't going to stick for more than an hour or two without help. I'm sure you're now wondering "why not just use the pin to mark the spot?" I'll tell you why, dear readers. Because I stabbed myself waaaay too many times 'cause I couldn't see the stinking pins! Thus, the big blob of tape was my way to tell myself "Watch hands! Sharp pointy things are right here!" I still stab myself, but not as frequently.

After I finished touching up the foliage above the house, I started working on painting the foliage at the base of the house. Once that's done, then I'll work on the foliage framing the whole block, then paint the house itself. Then I have fish to paint and then! excitement! excitement! I get to start drafting the Mariner's Compass blocks that will fill the corners of the quilt. Once the Mariner's Compass blocks are done, I'll be putting all the blocks together with some borders and then finally! quilting the whole thing. I have no idea how long it'll take me, but I'm still learning and having fun with it. This will though, be my very last comission. Ever. If I agree to take a commission ever again, please have me hauled away to the funny farm. I believe my father's words when I told him I'd accepted the commission was, "God, you're nuts!" My husband's reaction was somewhat similar though less politely phrased. Ahem.

Idle hands are well, boring

As you might have guessed, I don't do well without having something to do with my hands at almost all times. I've found I tend to scratch a lot more, which is bad for anyone but especially bad if you have ichthyosis. Also I tend to get real twitchy. Thus, while the in-laws were here I did some more knitting and a little bit of tatting.

I didn't finish anything but I had fun playing with yarn. In fact, I was having so much fun that I recently volunteered to test a pattern for someone on Ravelry.
Sheila asked for volunteers on the Ravelry site so I sent her a message saying something along the lines of, "I could be a tester for newb factor. If I can follow it, anyone can since I'm very new to knitting. I've made a scarf, hat, and dishcloth." So she took me up on it. I'm excited 'cause I'll get a nifty pair of socks out of it.

The tatting is hanging out in its bag in the bedroom where the hubby is sleeping before his graveyard shift tonight, so pics of that today. Sandy, a buddy of mine from my online quilting group, sent me a bunch of old Workbasket magazines. Those things are great because they have tatting, crochet and knitting patterns in them. Sadly, Workbasket stopped being published in the very early 1990's. Fortunately, many people kept their copies. One of those people was Sandy's mom. Thank you, Sandy's mom! In return I am sending Sandy some tatted motifs for her efforts of digging around 'til she found the stuff and then shipping it off to me. Hopefully I will have pictures soon.

Until then, be safe and do stuff that makes you happy. Hopefully the two aren't mutually exclusive!

He did it!

My husband holding his diploma for a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics. Need I say more? We are so happy!

Pictures!

We never did find the digital camera so last week we broke down and bought a new one. I figure that means any day now I'll stumble across the other one.

Here I am holding the house section. Supposedly taking a picture of the quilt being held by the maker is good for documentation purposes. Quilting + documention = good thing.



I took a few more photos closer up so you can see what I'm doing with it.
The upper right corner

Here is the lower right corner.


I was pretty unsure about whether or not the green all around each part of the trees looked ok so I took it with me to a counseling session. Considering I pay my counselor to be honest with me and I trust her sense of color I figured she'd be honest with me. She liked it. A lot. At least, I think so as her jaw dropped and she said nothing for a few seconds. She said the thread work gave it a bit of a stained glass appearance.

As long as the person receiving the quilt likes it, I'm happy. Plus I want them to be able to toss this sucker in the washing machine if they want to, though Linda said if it were hers, she's hang it on the wall in her living room. I think she was dropping hints, don't you? If I have any remaining sanity by the time I'm done I might make her a very small wall hanging. Emphasis should be on the words "small" and "very."

My additional latest insanity is knitting. As previously mentioned, I joined www.ravelry.com. That site is very addictive! After I had finished my afghan and the wrap that there is a picture of in a previous post, I kept on going with more projects.

I made a dog toy. Nope, no pictures of that 'cause it already has holes in it. That's ok, it's for the dogs so holes are perfectly acceptable.

Then I decided I wanted to make myself a sweater. It takes so much freakin' yarn to crochet a sweater and it takes 1/3 less yarn to knit one of the same dimensions, thus I thought learning to knit might be a good thing, So I'm teaching myself. I knit a scarf many years ago but I've pretty much had to relearn what little I'd known.

I made this hat first. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is fairly well known in the knitting world. Her books are a hilarious read for anyone who likes to make things. She's also a prolific blogger. She suggests that many people get sick of working on a scarf long before it's done and a hat is a good first project. It's not that big but big enough that by the time you've made on of proper dimensions for yourself, you have the hang of the knit and purl stitch and you're not yet sick unto death of the thing.

This hat was made with a knit 2 purl 2 stitch. I think it needs a flower added.

This is a washcloth/dishrag/whatever you want to call it. You can find the pattern here for free.
http://knitalittlemore.blogspot.com/2008/03/introducing-bubbles_11.html

I have noticed that knitters tend to be very generous about sharing their patterns. I admire this, I really do. I'm one of those people that has a horrible time trying to follow a pattern so once I'm confident about how to make something, I tend to just wing it and do my own thing. That means that if someone likes something I've done, they're welcome to copy it to make one for themselves but I really can't help them if they want a pattern from me. My cooking is a lot like that too, which might explain why my meatloaf is always a tad different.

I've been trying to add to my repertoire of things I can do when I'm hurting so I don't feel like I'm a useless lump. Between the tatting, crocheting, and knitting, I think I'm pretty well covered now. Today I will most likely be playing with yarn while waiting at the airport for my in-laws to arrive. JR is going through commencement this coming Saturday so we have relatives coming from Florida and Ohio. I'm thrilled, one that he's done with his bachelor's and two, 'cause I love my in-laws and don't get to see them often.

Enjoy your day and WEAR SUNBLOCK!