Well Rested

I guess I have really taken a lot of time of from this blog. I have been creative though. I has been snowy and cold this winter, so I guess that I really was hybernating. Gained 10 lbs. So I am happy that Spring it on its way.

So Here is some of the work that I have been doing.

I knit another had during a wresting match, but don't have a picture. I donated two of them to the raffle at the team banquet. So people bought tickets and won them, the teamed raised money for next year.

I finished the sweater that I wrote about earlier. What a lovely picture of me.

 It felt really great to finish stuff. This spurred me on to knit more.

 Kate sent me some lovely roving as a Christmas gift. I spun it up and knitted these fingerless gloves.

 This Entralac Headband

 And am working on this final one, a scarf with a lace pattern. This is still in process. I have to pay attention to the pattern becuse of the lace. But they all have turned out really nice and soft.

 I went through my hand spun yarns and found some single skeins. So I made some hats and scaves.

An Ear flap hat.

Hat and scarf set in a basket weave pattern.

An Entralac scarf and matching headband. I like the entralac pattern and love to knit the headband.

Now I am making mittens. These are from Natural wool. Grey, White and Brown.

This mitten has a braid down the back. Its mate is still being knitted.

These hats were made from one skein of commercial yarn.

 This is a head band, I need to add a button at the point, them you wrap it aound you head and button it at the base of neck.

I have several other projects planned with my handspun. People always ask 'Who are you making that for'. We know the answer. Whomever. Maybe I will keep it, maybe I will give it as a present, Maybe I will sell it. It is the process that I enjoy. The product is just Extra.

Something to do between matches

Saturday was another all day event of Wrestling. So I bring my knitting. I had already had the hat started, I knitted it from the double points to the circular needles. The results is a hat mostly knitted, definately finished, during the wresting meet. Casey wrestled twice, he had to switch off with another player that is in the same weight category, he lost the first and won the second, pinning the wrestler. I did bring the sweater that I am working on but the wrestling was interesting so I watched the matches. But there will be more meets and I will get more things knitted. At the end of the season they have a banquet and parents bring items to auction off as a fund raiser. So I will add this hat, knitted during one of the meets.

somtehing for me

What a concept! Knit something for your self. I tend to either give away as gifts or sell the items that I have made. So this year I decided I needed to make something for my self. So I have a book that has patterns that are knitted from cuff to cuff.

Really nice patterns, and variety of designs all knit from cuff to cuff. So I picked the following. I wanted to use Noro or something like it. Our local yarn store is going out of business so I thought I could get some there. 

Well they did not have enough balls of Noro, so I bought the following instead. I got 7 or 8 different colorways. A couple the same that I will use to start and end with so the sleeve/cuff has the same colorway. And the neck edge and bottom will also be the same colorway.

So you knit the cuff, it has a rolled edge and some ribbing, it makes a nice edge.

Then you knit the sleeve. When I ran out of one ball I tried to find a similar color in a different ball of a different colorway. So far it has turned out nice.

Then you cast on for the front and back and knit for a while. Then knit just the front making the neck edge.

And then go back to the back and catch up with the front. That is where I am now. Working on the back. I need to knit the same number of rows that I did for the front when I knit the neckline. Using all those different color ways is really turning out nice.

I was hoping to have it done by the end of Wrestling season, cause there is not a whole lot of excitement when you kid is not wrestling during a match. I can get a lot of knitting done. But I have been knitting at home also. So I should have it done within a couple weeks.

Just Desserts

I got my sewing area set up and electricity to the machines on Saturday so I had to make something. I bought Layer Cake of Moda Cherish Nature a while back. I used a pattern called Ashley's Journey in the book Piece of Pie, Layer Cake Friendly Quilt Pattern. I finished cutting and sewing all the blocks on Saturday and cut the borders and sewed them together.



I added the borders today. The pattern only has two borders, I added the third. I also added an additional row of blocks, 8 instead of 7. I have it hanging from the second floor balcony, the wall is in the dinning room. So I made the quilt in two days. It is 66 by 94. A nice size.

New Year wishes

It is time for the new year. Time for new beginnings. Time to wash away the past and begin anew. 2010 was a very stressful year. I am tired. I can't tell you how tired I am. After rushing around on Christmas Eve trying to get those last minute items completed and running into too many obsticles, I just sort of gave in. Oh well! I said I guess that is not going to happen this year. At that time my word for the new year came to me.

RELAX

Yes. That is my word for the new year. Relax.

For quite a while, to many years really, I have felt rushed. Always playing catch-up. Over extending myself, over committing, eyes too big for the stomach, the whole 9 yards of that.  Even driving, I time travel to the latest minute, I try to sleep in to the last minute and then find that I am rushed to get where ever.

So, for 2011, I will relax. I could elaborate on all this with what I will or will not do to allow me to relax, but I think that that is all I will say. I will relax.

I looked back on my word for last year. Sensation. I will say I lived my year with many sensations. So this new year I hope to learn to relax.

My wonderful sister sent me Jamie Ridlers' Wishcrasting Journal for a Christmas gift. It is so appropriate for how I feel. I need to make life go right for me. I am tired of things going wrong. Maybe right and wrong are not the best words, maybe positive instead of negative would be better. I know that we all have what we can handle, but I would like to handle positive stuff. I have proved that I can handle the negative stuff. I want to be that person who people say, 'Wow! what a break for her, she deserves it after all that she has been through! Good for her!'

So the Wishcasting Journal is a way of asking for what I want to happen. It is just a variation on praying. Asking Spirit to help. Asking the universe for help. Self fulfilling prophacy.

2011 will be a great year.

My wish is that you have a great relaxing 2011 also.

Ok, so I had to do it again!

I had to do some more screen print. Since I only have the one thermofax screen it is the same, just a different color way.

Again I used a piece of fabric that I over dyed. You can see the original design in the picture below. It was cream base with a leaf pattern. This light aqua dye didn't cover the leaves as much as the other one. I let the screen go off the edge on to the cover fabric on the board that I use.

I used the flower screen and the 5 colors of paint. I let the paint dry between colors. It looks like the other piece from yesterday. I wash the screen after eash color. This time I was a little rough with it and ruined it after the last washing. So No more printing with this screen. I probably will buy it again. I have some ideas that I want to used on. I am really happy with both, this and the one from yesterday. I probably will make a bag or some sort. I think that the fabric will still look good when it is cut up.

I Had to have some creative time

I just had to do something fun today. Amid the packing and storing stuff, I needed a break. So, I produced this.

I had taken a screen printing with thermofax screens class a couple of weekends ago and bought a screen and some paint from Lynn, the instructor. Check her out here. I went to Joann's and bought some more paint a couple of days later.

I just repeated the print with different colors paint. It was great fun and a great release to do something creative. It is also on a piece of my hand dyed fabric.

I let the prints dry between colors so it didn't have to worry about messing up what I had printed. I watched a new QA workshop that I got online today on screen printing while the printing dried.

Very nice workshop. I hope to apply a lot of her techniques to my work. I really enjoyed this. I also found her on YouTube and watched a couple of videos before I bought this one. I tried a couple to things that didn't work out. So I went back to what I know that worked. Discharge. I got out a stencil of a dragonfly and my Comet and a foam roller and went to town on a piece of my hand dyed.

I will probably add something else to it later. Paint stick rubbings or rubbings with stamps or maybe some more silk screen printing. This was fun also.