A moment of real life.

This has been such a week.

We got to do something fun this weekend.  El helped a friend out with her blog.  :)  She had a play-date with one of her friends - who she's been friends with since they were in the baby room together.  They tried out a new-to-them doll.  It was a great combination of something between a baby doll (baby doll sized and shaped) but with older girl features (good hair, clothes and accessories).  They had a lot of fun seeing each other and playing with the babies.  I brought La with me also - she and the friend's little brother played some kind of imaginary pirate attack/chase game that was pretty funny to watch.  La has a lot of baby sitting potential in a few years.  Not only did El really like the baby, but La picked up to try it out - and she doesn't play with baby-baby dolls anymore, but she does play with "darbies" as we call them here. 

The girls were both really impressed with Rylie's dog, Chloe.  And she was very sweet - she was good with little fingers petting her and liked to play catch. 

We've been watching our dog Tiger start to seriously decline pretty quickly.  We had a moment about a week and a half ago where we thought it was "time", but the vet gave him some antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and he seemed to be perkier for a few days.  He was able to get through the dog door again and spend some time laying in the back yard, being lord of all he surveys.  We said good-bye to our dog Tiger yesterday after about 13 nice years with him. 



We got Tiger when the monkey was 5.  La was born when he (the monkey) was turning 9 and El was born when he was turning 14.  The girls have always had a dog.  After meeting Chloe, the girls are requesting a golden retriever for next time, and I think they've worked out a system where one girl gets to pick out the dog and the other one gets to name him. 

Here's something good.  When we went to the grocery store this weekend, I had to bring both girls.  We got one of the bench-wagons and things were going sort of OK.  They weren't antagonizing each-other too much.  They were asking for a lot of things we didn't need.  I didn't have to use middle names too much.  The candy row is the same as the magazine row.  I didn't have quarters for the candy samples, but I let them each pick a magazine.  La got some tween gossip thing (reading is reading) and El got something called "Sparkle World" a little advertise-y, but fun.  I swear to you they looked through the magazines for the whole rest of the store and were super well behaved.  $10 well spent.

A Study In Helix Knitting

I've seen helix stripes in a few places.  The first was Kathy's Helix Striped Socks. More recently I saw Jessica's helix striped hats. 

So, after finishing the wrap and not feeling the need to start a big knitting project.  I finished the mittens for me.  Making good time on the socks I was working on....I cast on for some hats. 

See this one?
 
That's all gray?  It had a band of helix stripes in the middle, but I ripped it out (I voted for it, then against it).  It was interesting, but I had wonkiness issues at the color changes and then didn't have a lot of confidence that it would stay put together - the yarns were all acrylic and slippery. 

Next I made a random cable hat.

This one has math errors.  If your pattern calls for, like an ABAB type of thing, you should have an even number of repeats, otherwise it doesn't work.  If it is abABabAB, then your number of repeats should be divisible by 4 (if ab==AB, except for the cable placement).  Also, a lot of cables makes your hat much less stretchy, so make sure it's the size you want it to be, without needing stretch.

Finally, I made this helix striped Thorpe. 

It was fun to make.  I ended up making the largest size.  Hats do not look that big when you're going top-down.  This is wool from La's 3 year old sweater and some brown that was many things, including cowl mustaches.  The crochet edge (added after the photo) is very much homemade looking. 

The cable hat and the Thorpe are both going to the Afghans for Afghans youth campaign for next winter.  Need to find a place for the gray one.

Modern Quilts Illustrated - 1st issue

I am not sure how to start this.  I was born when I was very young.  I learned to sew by hand and on the machine when I was pretty young - in elementary school.  I always liked the idea of making a quilt - it looked easy.  My mom warned me that you had to be careful (precise).  She knew me well, that precision is not my strong suit.

I bought a sewing machine when I was a grown up - I was dating my current husband, so sometime between 1998 and 2001.  As I started reading knitting blogs, I discovered FunQuilts - there was a quilt a long of their book, Modern Quilt Workshop.  See photos from the quilt a long here on Flickr.    I got the book Modern Quilt Workshop for Christmas one year.  Look  through the quilt gallery on their web site.  The one I've always wanted to figure out how to make is Ocean View (I don't think we're supposed to be able to get to that page.  But look.  It's gorgeous.  Can you make it with prints?  What happens if you use different colors?  What is the ratio?  I'm thinking 5x8 for each of the window panel halves, but who knows.  )

I made Plain Spoken for the monkey.  I really still want to make one of these in pinks and yellows or in Lilly Pulitzer colors - pink, green, turquoise, yellow.  Palm Beach-y.  It might be too much.  I'm not sure.


The one I made for El was inspired by Between the Lines.


 

I follow Modern Quilt Studio on Facebook.  I also read Weeks' blog, Craft Nectar - it is thoughtful and informative.  I can only imagine that it is very genuine.  So, I saw a post on Facebook offering a copy of Modern Quilts Illustrated for review.  I snapped it up.  It came in the mail today.  It is very cool.

One of the great things about their patterns (spiffy red uniforms and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope)  is the alternate palettes (or seeing what happens if you have more colors or less colors or if the shades are too close or to different).  The alternate palettes and the clear instructions.  The alternate palettes, clear instructions, and excellent illustrations.  Really, there's a lot of great things about their patterns.  One of the other things I like is that they make an excellent jumping off point if you, like me, have trouble reading and following directions.  [one of the things that is fun to me is figuring out how to do stuff - so I usually only look at the pieces to cut, the assembly directions, and the alternate palettes.  My husband is in charge of assembling stuff from stores.]  But reading the words is always worthwhile with these guys.

For instance.  The pattern for Beatrix is included - I was struck by how you could probably make that with a couple of sets of charm packs for the print blocks in the middle.  The dimensions are pretty close.  You'd have to do some math (or have a smaller quilt) to make it all work right.  If you didn't want to slice the charm squares in half, you might be able to do the strips in a ticker tape scheme at the end.  Or only have the stripes in one direction.  I'm not really advocating this, this is just how I think about things.  If the point of the magazine was to give me something to think about, it worked.  When I first saw it, Beatrix reminded me of one from the Modern Quilt Workshop book, so I went back and looked it up.  It's the Once Upon a Time quilt and, really, they're different from each other.  They have blocks and lines, but that's probably where the similarity ends.

I really like the Stacks pattern.  It is very graphic and reminds me of the Zipper quilt from the Modern Quilt Workshop.  Just because of how your eye zig-zags down the quilt - not because they really look alike.  It looks totally makeable.  I end up with a lot of fabric in one or two color families (pink and turquoise) - and I think this might really suit my stash.

The palette study in the closing was fascinating, and will probably be what pulls me to subscribe.  The advice on how to do a minkee or fleece back will probably be used one day.  The tidbits on the first pages were fun.

It is a neat magazine - Thanks for the opportunity to review it - and good luck with the endeavor!

Sheltand Triangle

Wrap Style by Pam Allen and Ann Budd was published in 2005.  At the time, it took "the blogosphere" by storm.  There was a knit along blog for projects from Wrap Style and its sister book Scarf Style, where you could see everyone's lovely projects.  Both books were composed of several projects from a bunch of well known contributors.  They both have a wide variety of patterns, each having a good photograph, diagrams, charts, and enough instructions.  There's a glossary and a design notebook that provides further detail, insight, and ideas.  Both books were, like, the bees-knees at the time.

It was during this time that I started thinking about the Shetland Triangle Lace Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark.  Each finished object photo was lovelier than the last.  Every time, it was billed as a straightforward lace project. In the fall of 2006, I ordered three skeins of K1C2 Ambrosia and then lost my book.  A blog-friend let me download a PDF of the directions from her.  I found my book at about the same time and started.  I think it took me three times to get the part before the first chart to work right.
Three tries for this.  Cause I got Skillz.

I got going on it.  Well, sort of.  It was hard work.  I could only work on it after La went to bed because it took a lot of concentration.  And I still would end up with the wrong number of stitches either by the centerline or by the edge.  I would rip back if I had a decent lifeline or I would just fudge it.  I was probably at about 5 repeats in to the pattern when I put it down - I had to get through one repeat of the pattern in a sitting or else.  And each repeat was taking me about an hour.

I spent most of 2007 pregnant.  There was no complicated lace knitting.  I finished El's blanket March 25 and picked this project up.  People in the house are mostly sleeping through the night, I was not working on any large knitting projects.  It seemed like a good time.  So, I knit it from March 25 to April 19 and finished that baby up.  It really went a lot faster.  Funny what 5 years of knitting will do for your skill set.  Might be related to that 10,000 hours or "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" business.

Anyways, I am quite pleased with it.  I showed it to the girls before I washed it and we discussed how it looked like fanny.

I re-soaked it this morning and blocked it.  The yarn turned really nice in the bath - blooming quite a bit.


The deets:
Shetland Lace Triangle by Evelyn A Clark, published in Wrap Style.
Nearly three skeins of Knit One Crochet Two Ambrosia (70% baby alpaca, 20% silk, 10% cashmere) in color #729.
Size 6 circular needle.
September 2006-April 2012
8 repeats of the main pattern.  8 rows of the edging chart.  Then follow the last two rows' written directions.
Ravelry Link.