Knitting, Fiber Art, and Lofty Thoughts
I enjoyed this lovely tutorial on making a wool felt baby mobile from Felting and Fiber Studio.
We have a new grand baby in the family, so we thought it would be nice to make a gift for her. So Alex and I had a think, and came up with the plan …
Rainbow Baby Mobile
I haven’t been keeping up on my YOP updates. Since it’s been a while, I thought I should do that today.
Sewing
I finished sewing my Ophelia Overalls, and I love them. I’m going to sew a pair for each season. These are my spring overalls. I’ll sew a linen pair in summer, a corduroy pair in fall, and a wool flannel pair in winter. Pattern is by Decades of Style. Fabric is organic cotton twill from Koshtex.
Next I’ll sew another Raglan Dress in blue cotton shirting.
Knitting
Water is coming along. I get frustrated with the lace sections, so it’s in time out a fair bit. It’s not that it’s difficult. I think I’ve got it, so I stop paying close attention and then make a mistake. It’s not great TV knitting.
I’ve knit a gauge swatch for an Anker’s Summer Shirt (Rav link). AJ is knitting one, and it was in my queue, so I thought, why not? Impromptu KAL. My gauge is spot on in this Blacker Lyonesse linen and wool, so time to cast on!
I also knit a gauge swatch for Kate Davies’ new long sleeved Treit in Foxglove. I’m having trouble getting gauge so I think I’ll sit on it a bit.
I’m going to let Bob pick out some yarn from my stash, and then cast on a new pair of socks for him. He really likes his Valentine’s Day socks and wears them a lot.
Felting
I have a new piece finished for March, and meant to lay out my April piece today. But I’m tired after all the sewing, so I guess I’ll do that next weekend. I checked my wool colors, and I should be good to go. No colors to dye for the next one.
Design
My cotton and linen slub tee is coming along.
Podcast
My new episode “Grow Your Clothes: Rust Belt Fibershed” is available! I had a great time on this interview and ended up having to cut quite a bit, but may have enough left over for another episode. If you would like to give it a listen, look for The Just Craft on Stitcher, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts, or you can listen at thejustcraft.com.
Baking
I made some banana bread today! I like walnuts in my banana bread, but can’t have them (tree nut allergy) so I added pumpkin seeds instead.
This has been a Year of Projects Update. You can read my updated list here. You can find out more about the group here.
Shout out to Kelley of Ramen Needles / Dye Mad for adjusting my yarn club subscription when I asked her not to send me superwash if possible. She sent me this gorgeous silk and linen this month. 💙
Bob finished adding the rest of the soil to the garden and also finished my snaky path for me.
We’ve really come a long way on the garden. We left the far end as is because there are trees down there and Bob wants to try to pull them out. I can’t wait for seeds to start popping up. Then I’ll have a better idea of where the rest of the herbs and veggies should go.
I made progress on my overalls today. Why is it so tough to get a decent sewing WIP photo? I’m going to have to follow more sewists on Instagram for inspiration.
I haven’t clipped the crotch seam yet, which is why it’s a little bunchy. I hate clipping seams. I may trim it with the serger instead. I still need to add the bib and straps.
Isn’t my orchid pretty? I have no idea how I’ve kept it alive and happy for so long. Benign neglect, I guess.
Bob and I worked in the garden all weekend. On Saturday, Bob moved 1 cubic yard of gravel while I turned over (more of) the soil to try to level it out. The gravel went over the drainage pipe after Bob added more drainage holes, so hopefully we’ll have good drainage and not too much erosion.
Today, Sunday, we moved 4 cubic yards of garden soil. We moved it in a wheelbarrow. We dragged it on a tarp. We moved it one bucket at a time. We finally started moving it in the back of the car. We live on a hill, so using the car as a wheelbarrow was tricky. Even Freya helped. We have 1 more cubic yard of soil to move. We need it on the ends. But it’s raining and we’re exhausted.
I built up a snake pathway with the clay subsoil, and am placing rocks on the clay bank. We still have some clay soil along the back wall, with just a couple of inches of topsoil. So I will plant herbs and flowers back there that don’t mind the clay.
I planted peas again. I put the kale and cabbage and lettuce in the ground. Everything else can wait until we finish the soil. It’s not completely level but hopefully that will be okay as it’s close.
We got our second Pfizer vaccines on Thursday. I felt so bad I only worked half days on Thursday and Friday. I have a rash and swelling around the injection site. Is that a reaction I should report?
I did get about a half an hour sewing time on my overalls on Saturday.
Now I want some comfort knitting. For me that means wool and stockinette in the round or garter stitch flat. It also means I need to cast on something new.
What’s your comfort knitting go to?
I finished my Malabrigo Rikke Hat and I’m very pleased.
This shows you that you can knit a pattern in a different weight yarn and with different needles if you know how you knit. I’m a loose knitter, and I knit this DK pattern in Sport weight with needles one size down. But my first Rikke Hat is a little big, and I’m a loose knitter. So this worked for me. And I love the pooling on the brim!
As promised, here is a photo comparison of Spice Bush and Forsythia. What was I thinking? They aren’t the same at all, except both are yellow.
I received my Bougie Beaver Solo Fingering, along with a “sorry” gift. This made me happy. I can’t wait to cast on my Jessica Jones Cowl!
I’m getting pretty good at sewing project bags. Only one more to go!
I struggled with the third lace section on Water. Luckily my KAL pals already finished theirs and recommended putting stitch markers at the ends of the short rows. That helped a lot!
My summer seedlings are starting to grow. They are quite happy in the sunny window, but I’m thinking I will have to put them in bigger pots before setting them out in May. They are getting big fast!
We are still waiting on our gravel and soil. Hopefully that will be delivered in a couple of weeks. Even if I don’t get peas this year, I can plant more pea seeds and eat the shoots. I learned that while watching my new favorite show, “Edible Garden”. I’m watching on BritBox, but it looks like you can watch the full series on this site. Also, she has a book! I’m totally getting the book.
In the meantime, I’m digging up daffodils and separating and replanting the bulbs around. Bob has finished pruning the apple trees. And I’ve been foraging wild spring onions in the woods. I’d like to plant some native wildflowers in our woods, but we have so many walnuts, they discourage other plants from growing. So that’s something to figure out.
I’m so excited for our garden! Now I’m thinking I should plant potatoes and leeks if there is room!
Which color should I paint my nails first?
It’s snowing here. Is it snowing there?
This pretty yellow flowering shrub is not Forsythia! I thought it was, but I was told it’s Spice Bush, a native understory shrub, Lindera benzoin. (Someone commented on my Instagram photo and corrected me, thankfully.) We do seem to have a Forsythia on the other side of our property, though. Once everything is in full bloom I’ll do some pruning and take a photo so we can compare them.
This may not look like much, but I spent several hours digging up the weeds in the garden so I could plant the peas and cabbage and kale. Unfortunately, there’s a layer of clay under the top soil, and we haven’t had any new garden soil delivered yet. So even though I went ahead and planted them, we may not have any peas, cabbage, and kale this year. I’m really proud of myself for digging this up on my own and I only had a little help from Bob, who worked for 10-15 minutes to dig up a huge root system of some old ground cover. It looked like tree roots, it was so big! He broke the pitchfork handle trying to wrest it from its iron tentacle grip. Once he got it up, he shouted at it, “I beat you, you ol’ stump!” Which is a reference to my favorite scene in “Drag Me to Hell.” I haven’t laughed so hard in ages.
Fiber Art
I felted a new piece today. This is a peek at some unfelted fiber since I’m not showing the work until the show starts.
Knitting
When I started getting excited about knitting again, in 2018 I went to A Wool Gathering with my friend Sara. While we were there I picked up two hanks of this linen and cotton slubby yarn with the intention of making a simple drapey top to throw over tank tops in the summer. I finally cast on yesterday. I’m counting this toward design since I knit a gauge swatch, calculated the width I want, and cast on the number of stitches — even though it’s literally two squares of stockinette seamed at the sides and shoulders. The most basic design ever. Gotta start somewhere, right?
Other than that, I’m knitting away on Water and my Malabrigo Rikke hat.
Sewing
I don’t have any new sewing to show, but I’ve got Water KAL bags to make and I want to cut out my overalls this week.
This has been a Year of Projects Update. You can read my updated list here. You can find out more about the group here.
Yesterday we met one of our neighbors. He mentioned our lot might have been a cemetery at one time? Which explains the limestone pillars. It’s just a rumor, but hopefully we won’t dig up any old bones! No, our house isn’t haunted. I also got bitten by one of his dogs. This was not his fault, as she was on a leash and I stupidly reached down to pet her. His other dog, though, a bulldog named Hammy, was off leash but friendly and adorable. Have you ever been bitten by a dog? It was my first time. I have a small tooth shaped hole in my arm. I will be more cautious about dogs now!
I feel like an entire year of pent up pandemic energy exploded this week!
The Just Craft is now available on Stitcher, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Google Podcasts had already indexed my episodes — which I didn’t know — but I’ve submitted the new feed to them. I‘ve got two exciting interviews lined up. And James is going to interview me for Podcast Tactics! Now I need to come up with a new logo concept.
I am the cow’s tail (as my Mother and Grandparents would say) on the Water shawl KAL. (That means I’m behind everyone else.) But I did finally finish the second lace short row section. It’s been a rough week, and I have to pay attention when I’m knitting this. The good news is that the lace is repetitive, and I think I can read my knitting now. That should make it go more quickly and easily.
I received my yarn for the Beaver KAL. I ordered Bougie Beaver but oops received Saturday Night Beaver. It’s really pretty and is very close to another yarn I have in my stash. Weirdly close. A little more gold, though. I really wanted Bougie Beaver for my Jessica Jones Cowl, so I ordered another skein, this time in Solo Fingering. I left an order note indicating to send me Bougie Beaver, please and thank you. I’m sure they are overwhelmed with eager KAL beavers.
I am making an effort to not order anymore superwash yarn after this. Here’s an article from Woolful that talks about reasons why superwash wool is not environmentally sustainable. This isn’t new information to me, it’s just that I hadn’t really wrapped my brain around just how many dyers are using superwash wool and how, now, if I order yarn online without paying close attention, it’s likely to be superwash. My eyes are agog at the colors, and I don’t stop to think about the environmental cost. I have purged my stash of some, but not all. I don’t even like the hand of superwash for garments for myself, to be honest. I may use what’s left in my stash for knitting for family and friends who will likely throw their garments in the washer and dryer.
Here’s my second Rikke hat I’m knitting in Malabrigo Arroyo. Oops. It’s sport weight instead of DK. I went down a needle size because my last Rikke was a little big and floppy. I hope this one fits! This is the Anniversario colorway, and it is really pretty.
This is my most recent yarn purchase. It’s my favorite wool from my favorite farm. And hopefully I will soon get to meet Clancy, the sheep. This is the same yarn I used to make my Paris Toujours shawl that I wear all the time. It’s my favorite garment. Maybe I’ll even get to meet Hollis, the sheep who provided the wool for my shawl? I need to decide what color to dye it, although it’s very pretty as is.
