The crochet continues, we are now onto week 2, I was a bit late starting.
I am finding lots of odd balls of wool around the house now that I am looking for them.
A bit of Kogin. Because of 'habit' I always write an evaluation of each class I teach with the aim of improving it. I think I have another project here.
This has been one of the worst weeks EVER!!
I got a call from my son saying that my grand daughter, Jasmine, was inconsolable because Nugget, the family dog, had got Ted.
Now Nugget is very lovalbe, but isn't the brightest dog. He has been after Ted for some time and this time he got him and killed him.
When I arrived to pick up Ted I found him in a dolls bed, with friends on either side, to comfort him, and a mosquito screen to keep the flys out.
When I got him out of bed I found that there wasn't that much of him left.
So I thought the best thing to do was use some fur fabric to put him back together again. I got rid of the old stuffing, which was yukky, and restuffed his foot, made him a new arm and body, re-stitched his eyes and took him back to the owner. I thought I had done a rather good job seeing what I had to start with. I even put a patch on the hole in his arm.
BUT NO!!
Jasmine made a run for the bathroom and just collapsed into tears and despair. The problem?
She wanted him HOW HE WAS.
She hated the eyes, where was his original stuffing from his foot? That wasn't the right foot and as for that fur, that wasn't Ted.
So, I said that I would try again but as I was going away for a day or so she would have to wait.
When I thought about her reaction I realised that the past few years have been really hard for this little girl. They sold the family home and arrange to build a new one straight away. It was only going to be about 6 weeks till they would be able to move in. But, COVID hit and everything stopped. All their possessions went into a container and they moved out to my daughter-in-laws parent's property. And then COVID restrictions just went on and on. What should have been a few weeks turned into years.
Finally they got their house finished and they opened the container only to find that black mould had destroyed everything. After they moved to their new home everything was different. For Jasmine the only constant through all this was Ted and this wasn't Ted.
When I returned to collect him I found she had done a drawing of the things she wanted me to do, she is 10 years old. She had researched all the materials on the Spotlight website and come up with one she thought would suit.
In the mean while I had spent over $100 on petrol driving to shops to find other fabrics and I live a long way from the shops. The smallest quantity you can buy is 20cm and when the fabric costs $30 pm that soon adds up.
The fabric she choose didn't suit, so, I drew her another drawing of what I could do and included 3 fabric swatches for her to choose from. A plain knit and two soft Minkie like fabrics.
She choose the plain knit.
So, then I had to start again and had to unpick the "unpickable."
I started with the head. New ear and patch, eyes unpicked. Then I sewed what was left of the original fabric over the new to get the shape back and put the star on the new ear, as requested.
I sorted through the rubbish and found the old stuffing for his foot and remade this. (I sanitised the stuffing first.)
The original body was so ripped. There were holes and other places just waiting to rip. Firstly I reinforced all the ripped sections by backing it with new fabric. Then I placed what was left over more new fabric and partly machined and hand stitched it into place.
So this is the new Ted.
I like the one I first made better, but then, He isn't my security toy.
He does look more like the old Ted and that is what she wanted. It is her birthday today so I hope this version will do the job.
We will have to see when I give it to her tonight!
As to all my other stitching, well I can't even remember what I was doing!!
POSTSCRIPT
He was perfect!!
I doubted that I would get to this point, but, I have finished my sweater, just in time for winter.
I have made the body and arms a bit longer, to keep my backside and wrists warm. I also didn't make my garment as tight as Kate's original. I just can't stand tight clothing, even if it is in fashion. The other modification was to change the needle size to a smaller gauge for the yoke and then smaller again for the neck band. This gave me the fitting I wanted in these sections in relation to my larger hip size.
There is now the whole world of twisted stitches to explore. My children have given me that Nora Gaughin book I wanted and I think that I will explore the patterns using swatches that I will then join into a rug. A hat for my daughter is next on the knitting list.
A few more stitches on the table runner, in fact I have made good progress but I do have to replicate this one on the other end.
And I have made a little progress on the backing for the quilt. I have found this really difficult. I ended up allotting a certain number of letters each day and I finally found how to keep my stitching consistent. But I wanted there to be a bit of messiness, just as there is with spray painted graffitti on a wall.
Now for the cat.
Still not a lot of progress on anything except the knitting. Only 6 more rows of the pattern and the neckband to go. I should have this finished by next week, then I think I will need to give my aching hand and wrist a bit of a rest for a little while.
My table runner has a few more stitches added.
And I am still stuck trying to finish the quilt back. I'm not really sure why I am so slow. It might be all that time spent at the doctors or in hospital. and, I have spent days organising all the photos on my desk top into folders. This took days!! Now I have to go into each folder and delete all the unwanted items.
I can report that I am moving on with my knitting. Hopefully another week should see this finished BUT NO. I Just found a mistake so I have spent the morning ripping it back to the armhole join. When I knitted the sleeves I went up a needle size to allow a bit of movement and forgot to reduce the needle size when I joined all the pieces, and, I only had 20 rows to go before I was finished. I could have 'made do' but would have not liked the outcome. So we move on.
And the applique on my quilt back is slowly progressing. I think I should have just 'stenciled' the words and applique on the backing. It is really difficult to stitch and I'm not sure that I will get the result I want.
I have had a few visits to the Doctor so that has taken up most of my time and will mean another day lost to stitching because I will be in hospitals for more tests. But, I have been trying to keep up my French lessons as well. Slowly, slowly.
Lots of set backs this week.
I have returned to my "dragonfly" design. This started out as an idea for a class but now it is just fun stitching.
And I have done another knitted swatch in the right gauge for my sweater. The right size needle makes a big difference.
And I am playing with patchwork patterns.
This will not suit the embroidery I wanted to use it with but it will suit a quilt I have in mind.
(Note to self: You have to finish all those other quilts in the cupboard!!!!)
So I have started on the last applique for the graffitti quilt as well.
I am going to have to stop talking to myself!
I am now up to doing the pattern on my jumper and that means learning how to do twisted stitches. I found this exercise really hard on my right wrist. It turns out there are 4 different way of knitting these stitches. After much trial and error I selected the method that caused the least pain. I knitted two swatches. One in 5ply,
and the other in 8ply.
After blocking the swatches I can see that I will have to reduce the size of my needles to get the tension right on the 8ply wool, I will need to knit another swatch to check this. But I have learnt two new things this week, twisted stitches and plush work!
I have even finished another two embroidered seams.
I think that I might also brush up my French. All the time I took translating information from French sites, for embroidery and music, this week shows me I really should set time aside to master this language. And I have also become interested in those early French explorers who were in the Southern Hemisphere. Being able to read information in the original language would be helpful.
That [email protected]#%
I have had to un-pull it back to where I joined it together to make the yoke. I have no idea what I did but I found a section of stitches that looked really loopy. I tried to fix it and that made it worse, so I had to un-pull it back to the front, back and sleeves. I did something wrong and I had yarn all over the place. In the end I cut the yarn and am now ready to start the decrease again. I just hope it works this time. (That took 3 days to get to this point.)
Nearly finished, rather I have finished the silly stitching.
That means that I now have to experiment with the wool embroidery. I saw this in antique quilts in Nates in France back in 2007 and am finally getting around to trying to do it myself.
This is from Facile Cecile back in 2012 and I am sure that the technique originated in Europe but the Americans call it Amish Plushwork. I bought a whole lot of old tapestry wool to experiment with.
Only two seams on the quilt this week.
and that is all I have done.
I still have an urge to keep on embroidering the seams of the rose quilt.
Shadowing of the printed design.
Lazy daisy and knots.
Straight stitch and Colonial knots.
But I think I sill soon get bored with this because there isn't a lot of thought involved. So, I have dug out a design I was working on some time ago. I was going to make this into a class but I think I will just make it into a book cover when it is finished. It is a floral Dragonfly and although I drew the design and trialed the stitches I might change all that.
Actually I have sewn quite a bit of this one.
I am having so much fun trying out stitches on the seams of the patchwork, but that seems to be all I have done.
This is crown stitch.
So I added a couple of Pistol stitches to make them into buterflys.
Just having fun. (Must remember to remove all those reference points.)
There isn't a lot happening here but I have finally got that sweater back on the needles, joined up all the pieces, got the count right and am ready to go. I just have to work out the instructions.
As you can see I still have a lot to do on that list but there are now some items with ticks against them.
This isn't on the list but I pick up my stitching on the seams of the quilt every so often. I might try to finish this line today. The thread is some left over Stef Francis cotton.
As I said, not a lot happening.