Back in the Game

I had a sudden urge to clean off my knitting machine table. It's in my basement, between my sewing table and the "basement fridge". It gets used as a place to set and leave things, or set things down when getting stuff from the freezer. A lot of the accessories were scattered on the floor  underneath. I've been wanting to get back at the machines, but it felt daunting. The table, and everything on it, was covered in red fluffy dust, from when I made the last scarves for World AIDS Day. Frustrated by breaking my carriage and so many things going wrong, I turned my focus to Christmas stockings and other hand knitting (and the blankets for seniors charity).  I didn't even know what I wanted to machine knit, but it felt like over the past two years, I had seen so many things I wanted to MK.

It really didn't take long to get this much done. I was actually surprised LOL. 

A lot of stuff had been "thrown" underneath. It's not organized, but it's usable.

I have these cones of yarn sitting on top of my yarn cubbies. I got them in 2010. It was a bit of an interesting story!  I got out the manual, then realized I needed a ribber manual. I think I have it on my iPad, but that's pretty much just for playing Mahjong in bed now.  Downloaded a manual to my new 3-in-1 tablet/laptop. Handy! Started working through casting on, made a swatch in 1x1 ribbing, using T3, then stepped it down to T2 and then T1.  I even washed the swatch! It fluffed up so nicely.

I did some math and determined I could do 3 panels of about 70 needles (on each bed, then take every other needle back) to get the width I needed. And it would take 250 rows, at T3.  I did two panels with one white strand and one blue strand. Even letting them rest for awhile, it was too long, and even too wide. Ribbing is so hard to measure though. Lay it out once and it's relaxed; lay it out again and it's snugged up. I can easily make the blue panels measure 11" or 14". The white section is a bit tighter because I opted to make it at T2.

I laid it all out and decided I needed to rip out 32 rows of the blue sections. The white section would stay at 250 rows. I had two cones of the white, so that's why it's white in the middle.

The white strand doesn't really show up with the blue, but I assume it lightened it. I was originally going to do white/white; white/blue; blue/blue but I didn't want to wind off a big ball of the blue so I'd have a ball to go with the cone. It's slippery and doesn't wind well. 

SK155

T2, 1X1 RIB:  24sts, 22 rows to 4"

T3, 1x1 RIB: 22sts, 17 rows to 4"

Yarn In:  2485.5gr

Yarn Out: 3,032 + 352gr = 3384gr 
Balance:  898gr more OUT than IN
Costs: $90.24/364days = $0.25/day

I had hoped to have another crocheted blanket ready to be counted, but I am out of yarn for it so I have to do some ripping. And....I picked up a HUGE bag of donated yarn to make more blankets. I should have waited till next weekend before picking it up LOL. Maybe I'll just count it as next year. But then I'm starting with a big surplus (1786gr). If  I list it now, I'll end the year with a 888gr surplus. Last year I ended with 2541gr more out than in, and less than half what I  spent this year. I don't feel I bought a lot of yarn this year, but I did have to buy some for stockings. This is the 8th year I've kept totals, and after the first 7 years, I have a surplus of 1291gr. Now I'm going to add another 888gr? Ya know what? I only picked it up yesterday because the woman was going out of town. I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist until Wednesday. Yes, I'll start with a surplus, but at least I can end one year with a deficit LOL. My blog, my rules!

Grey Infinity Top

I love patterned fabric. But it can be hard to find something to wear with it! For our cruise, I wanted to really limit my clothes. But I also wanted to dress up for the dinners! And not the "wear a black dress with different accessories" type of dressing up. I had two patterned skirts that had white, grey and black in common. I also had black pants, white capris, bright pink capris, and grey pants. One skirt was bright pink, grey, white and black; the other just grey, white and black. I think I took just the white capris, which have a subtle "leopard" texture to them. I never know what to wear them with as they look kind of dressy.

I realized I need a grey top. Something that would work with all the bottoms. I decided to make an "infinity" top, similar to the "infinity dress" idea. I found with my infinity dress that it tends to slide up. Without anything to keep the shirt down, I knew this would be a huge issue. I decided it needed to be a bodysuit, in a way.

I found this grey fabric on Fabcycle.shop. Yay for Canadian stores! Yay for affordable! Yay for environmentally conscious!

I opted to do the underwear part using my adjusted Scrundies pattern. I followed tutorials for the top, but basically the underwear replaced the skirt.

It's not easy to photograph LOL. Two really long strips sewn to a tube top. Although I used measurements from the RTW dress I had, this one turned out a bit short. I think the other one had more stretch. Luckily, the underwear and the wrapping the straps around my waist means I get coverage.

 This was on our anniversary. You can see the white showing at my hip and at the front. The grey fabric was slightly different front to back, so I did the straps one way and the tank top the other, for a little tone on tone action.

Trying something fun LOL.

This was mid-August when I made it. Argh, you can see how much weight I put on. Though, to be fair, the picture from our anniversary was taken when we got home from dinner. 

I also made little loops from sequined material, red, fuchsia and black. These were to go around the straps near my collarbone, to gather it up a little. I kept forgetting though. 

I think if I do this again, I'll look for a lighter weight fabric. Maybe something in a rayon.

Christmas Sewing

I wasn't going to do any Christmas sewing this year. Doing the custom stockings, and working part time, I just didn't want to add more stress. Then this 3D tree pattern was released. Although I didn't have a working printer, I knew Rob could just look at the picture of the pattern piece and draw me one!

I really struggled with stuffing this. I was trying the big end of a really large crochet hook, but it wasn't working. I searched the FB group for Patterns for Pirates and a few recommended chop sticks. What? So narrow and pointy? I tried, using the larger end, and it actually worked really well. I'm not sure if I made that hole while stuffing, or if I clipped the corner too close, or what. It was a test run, but I wanted it to be nice anyway. 

I thought these would make a nice gift for my SIL. She was doing a Christmas Eve event for us. She said her Christmas colour theme was red, so I had to go shopping!

I found that if I flipped the pattern upside down, I could nestle the pieces really closely. However....totally forgot this one was a directional print!! It's almost like one of those pictures where if you look close enough, the foreground becomes the background and a different image pops out. I opted to cut more the right way up. I also widened the tree just a little by adding a bit to the fold, and I reshaped the boughs a smidge so they curved up instead of straight out.

One of the other fabrics was directional, so I was smart enough to pay attention. One of the three is the original size.

And since I was making my SIL something, I had to make my brother something. My SIL mentions everytime I make her slippers, that he would like some too. So I went shopping for boy fabric. I wasn't really happy with the selection. Nothing with snowmobiles. 

And that was all I sewed for Christmas. At least, that's all I remember sewing. I also made my first fruitcake. And I tried to make "hot chocolate bombs". That was pretty hysterical. My SIL actually did manage, using the idea I had for the mould, but I hadn't mentioned it to her! I wasn't able to find what she used though. Oh well. I tried!

Better Late...

In Nov/Dec 2018 I went to Florida with my mom, my SIL, and her mom. We hit a couple Wal-Marts. US Wal-Marts still have fabric departments...but not really dedicated staff. I don't remember if it was this time, or another time (or if I got this when we went to Hobby Lobby...). I do remember sitting on the cutting table at Wal-Mart after pressing the "help" button. Waited nearly 15 minutes for "help".  I knew I wanted to make a drapey style cardigan, perhaps like the silver one  I had made.

Not sure how I got this done between getting back around Dec 10 and a couple days before Dec 31. That's incredible turn around for me, especially being Christmas time.

I'm not sure if I lengthened it, or if it just hangs longer. I did take out the upper bodice shortening I had done; you can see it doesn't pull at the armpits/shoulder/neck now

It does cling though. I feel very broad in this picture. Not fond of it. And the sleeves grew when I wore it!

Not sure what happened with the hems

And up around the front. I'm pretty careful and I wouldn't sew it if it looked like that. 

While I loved the idea of this sweater, it doesn't get much use. When I saw that back photo...and although I love teal, it's not easy to wear teal with teal. I thought I'd be wearing it with sleeveless dresses but once it was cold, I didn't wear any dresses to work. I really should put it somewhere in the closet where I'll be able to grab it  easier. It's folded up on a shelf, hidden by the hanging clothes. 

Charity Blankets

I wrote in a recent post about Christmas stockings, a blanket that I had to rip apart to get more green yarn that was used in the stocking. I decided to get off my duff and finish up that blanket. Then, I measured the other similar one I did and saw it was too big. So I ripped it back and finished it up too. Then I looked at the multi-coloured one I did, and I knew it was way too big. I knit these on the looser side, which means as I lay them out to measure, it's easy for them to get wonky and not give a true size. When I ripped this one out, I rolled up the yarn as I went, so that I could just re-knit from this ball and save some time. However, I found as I got into the shrinking section, I was getting really long runs of the colours because the blanket was now narrower so the yarn that had done say, 5 rows before, could now do 8 rows. I did end up cutting some colours and moving on to the next, and also ended up with a baseball size ball of yarn left. So, I had to start another one. I weighed the first one, and weighed the remaining yarn. I was a bit short, so I grabbed a few balls of textured yarns to add in. I have a lot of single balls of textured yarn, or mohair, from when I was making newborn photography props. I'm not doing that anymore. However, they won't make good choices for charity blankets because many of them must be handwashed, or at least machine washed on a gentle cycle.

These are the first two, done in subtle shades of brown, beige, cream and greens. I'm pretty much out of these colours now, except for a ball of green and a ball of brown that I am still using in the latest multi-colour blanket. These weighed in at  476gr and 403gr.

This is the one I've called "The World's Ugliest Blanket". I had no real rules, just making sure the intensity of the colours stayed random, and the length of the colours wasn't too long, or too many short sections before going with a long section. It weighs 407 gr. I'm going to round up these totals because there were a lot of ends trimmed up. 

I should have one more blanket done (not the newest multi colour one) before New Year's. I also admit there is some yarn that came into the house that didn't get added to the totals. A ball of Woollike, and some cones. I don't count cones at all though LOL.

Yarn In:  2485.5gr

Yarn Out: 1300gr +1732gr=3,032
Balance:  546.5gr more OUT than IN
Costs: $90.24/360 days = $0.25/day

Cruise Dishcloths

I really enjoyed working on dishcloths last year during my road trip to Florida. So I decided to work on just dishcloths on our family cruise. The downside...at the start, the ball is huge (340gr).  Took up most of my "personal bag". I did have an issue with getting the starting strand, and while dealing with the mess, found a (manufacturer's knot), so I cut it and wound a smaller ball.

The plane seemed even smaller than two years ago. It was a snug fit, and it was good to not have to worry about patterns, scissors, multiple balls, etc.

I tried to work each cloth so there were 20 eyelets on each edge, before decreasing. As before, I knit them at a looser gauge so they'd have room to shrink when washed, rather than getting all stiff and tight.51

I'm not sure exactly how many I ended up getting. I did not knit very many on the actual cruise/travel days. I'll count when I get home.  It took me until early November to get them all knit. I'll give a few to my mom.

Yarn In:  340 gr + 2485.5gr= 2825.5gr
Yarn Out: 2037gr + 340gr = 2377gr
Balance:  448.5gr IN
Costs: $90.24/351days = $0.26/day

Red for Ed

The province I'm in is in the midst of contract negotiations with education workers. It hasn't been going well. One initiative the elementary union is promoting is on Fridays, wear "Red for Ed". There are official red shirts available through the union. As a supply (substitute) teacher, I can get one of these, but...in the True Tracy Way, I want to be a bit different. I go into so many different schools, and some of them, I don't see any of the shirts on Fridays. Other schools, everyone is in red. I don't want to stand out if no one else is in red. So, I thought a simple red shirt without the sayings/logos would be a good compromise. And....I could make it myself so I'd know it fit me!

I picked up some red cotton-lycra from The Fabric Snob..  I will say, it did seem to fade just a little with the first wash. Just a little. I used a TNT, New Look 6807 . The one I made in white cotton lycra seemed a little close fitting, so this time, I sewed with smaller seam allowances from the chest down. However, it seems too big now, especially the back. I like loose clothes for summer but this might be a little too loose.

Sorry for the super crappy photo. I'm just trying to get things caught up.

I wore it last Friday, and it was a good compromise. However, my Friday for this week got cancelled. I wish I had got this done much sooner, but the way things look, it could be a long period of negotiations.

More Stockings

The past couple years I've only done Christmas stockings for prior clients. So this one woman wanted some more stockings for extended family. As well, I totally messed up the names on the back of two of the stockings from last year, so I had to fix those. Ooops.

Not too much to say about these, made to match these...ummmm...why do I not have a blog post about the first batch? Searching...searching...I never took a photo?! Okay, imagine a picture looking just like this photo, but with different names on the back LOL.

The client sent me a picture! I actually did include the first two in the 2017 totals, but not the one for the baby I made in 2018. I've updated those totals now.

I just found some notes in a notebook. Apparently I get 6st/inch with Astra on 3.25mm, and I cast on 82st. The stocking might be 6 7/8" across (x2).


Yarn In:  2485.5gr
Yarn Out: 305gr + 1732gr=2037gr
Balance:  448.5gr IN
Costs: $90.24/344 days = $0.26/day

This Year's Christmas Stockings for a Previous Client

This year, I had orders for eight custom Christmas stockings for prior customers. And I needed to correct two stockings for one of those customers (and make three more). I already showed the first few, now for the rest (I've gotten behind on showing this year's projects, knitting and sewing).

This stocking is another one for the family from this post and this post. I got an email from Kiera, wanting one for her new baby. I didn't get back to her right away, and her husband, Patrick, contacted me through Facebook. She sent me pictures of her and Patrick's stockings. She was using the same last night as the original man that ordered, so I was thinking Patrick was a brother and she married into the family. But then why had I knit one for Patrick? I searched through all my photos and couldn't find one indicating I knit Kiera's stocking--which had a different shade of green for the words. I was getting totally baffled, so I emailed Kiera. Duh...she was the sister to the original client and her's was an original. Patrick married into the family. 

My notes are still not great for this pattern, made even worse by getting the actual pattern after having done the first batch. I pretty much don't use the bought pattern and just go with what I charted. I got the yarns out and got going. As I got into the green behind Santa's head, I got concerned. I didn't have a whole lot of this yarn left. What if I ran out? What if she had more kids?

I found a blanket I had knit for Crochet Blankets for Seniors, but hadn't woven in all the ends yet. There were some sections done in this green! 

I was really stressed that I wouldn't get this done. I had been working on all the other orders when this came in and some of the other ones were giving me a hard time. I set a goal of being done by Dec 1, and if I wasn't finished, I would finish but only charge for the materials. I had to ship it to Ottawa so I had to leave enough time before Christmas for that. In the end, I set the others aside and got this one cranked out pretty quickly! I forgot to weigh it but based on the other ones, I'm calling this in at 80gr. 

I just found some notes! Astra, 3.5mm, cast on 77 sts with backwards loop. Purl 1 row, Knit 1 row (double check this as it's knit flat).  Knit 1 row in white. Do banner. Then 6 rows red. There are two rows red after Santa before bell. 14sts on each edge for heel. 3 rows red after bell. White 1 row, do decreases, 12 rows to end with 8 sts.  Heel: 28st + 28sts, knit 2 rows. Dec like toe.

Yarn In:  2485.5gr
Yarn Out: 80gr + 1652gr=1732gr
Balance:  753.8gr IN
Costs: $90.24/342 days = $0.26/day