Works in Progress

With this awful hot weather and lack of rain I haven't had a lot of gardening to do lately, so I've been working on some things indoors.

My big, horrible project is painting the last room in the basement.  When I say "room," don't get the idea that we have some kind of lovely finished basement.  Not at all.  We have a basement that serves strictly as a laundry room, storage, and my old darkroom (that I haven't used in years).  A basement with 100-plus-year-old stone and brick walls.  The walls need to be coated occasionally to help prevent the mortar from crumbling.  I have finally, after eighteen years in this house, gotten up the motivation to finish the final section.

The first step was decluttering.  I took apart an entire home gym, hauled it to my car, and had both the Salvation Army and the junk shop reject it.  Luckily, the metal scavengers took it from the curb.  I also emptied the husband's computer accessory closet -- 20-year-old software boxes (many empty), manuals for printers that are long gone, textbooks for software that is several generations outdated.  Then on to the fun part.  


And by fun part, I mean drudgery.  This job involves a LOT of shop vac use, wire brushing, more shop vac, filling small cracks and holes, more shop vac, painting with thick, gunky, stinky waterproofing paint - which seems to be the best thing for solidifying the mortar - and, for good measure, another round with the shop vac.  It is a slow project, partly because I work on it for a day or two and then take a couple of days off, but also because it all has to be brushed on by hand in order to cover the rough, pitted stones.  I don't have the words to describe just how yucky this job is, but I think the brand name of the paint -- UGL -- kind of sums up how I feel about it.

This is what I'm dealing with.

Coming along -- s l o w l y.

To take my mind off the horrors of DryLok, I have also been crocheting more squares from 200 Crochet Blocks for Blankets, Throws and Afghans by Jan Eaton.  The three newest squares are  Victorian Lace (#92, two hook difficulty), Kingcup (#95, three hook), and Spinner (#89, two hook).  I'm really liking the brighter colors in the last two squares.

I also began working on the shawlette I am making with the Alpandina yarn I received from the yarn swap I wrote about in June.  I still have a little ways to go before I get into the lace portion, but I like it so far.  The yarn feels fabulously soft. I am going a bit slow on this because every once in a while my center line gets off by a stitch and it has to be unworked.  I don't notice the problem for a while, so this usually involves taking out one to two complete rows. Confession:  I lack the confidence to undo my knitting mistakes if it's more than a couple of stitches, so I have to wait for my daughter to come home for a visit.  I'm sure she thinks I am incompetent, but she kindly fixes things so that I can continue.

Looks a little like a stingray.

Knit a Square Update

About a month ago, I wrote about the KasCare Foundation's Knit a Square Challenge that I am participating in along with Laurie from Kitty's Fiber Journey.  My output has not been phenomenal, but here is what I have knitted so far. Eight squares.

Every time I sit down to knit, within minutes Alfie wants to play.  It's tough to be productive with sad dog eyes staring me down.  You're just going to have to take my word that these squares are not as mis-sized as they appear in the photo.  Are they all perfect eight-inch squares?  Well, no.  But they are closer than they look here.

The KasCare Foundation's Knit a Square Challenge is designed to provide blankets for African AIDS orphans. According to the KasCare web site, there are an estimated 14.8 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa.  Their 2012 challenge is called the Knit-a-squillion challenge.  Their goal is to  send 1.2 million squares to South Africa by July 10, 2012.  The squares will be sewn into blankets once they are in South Africa.

from the KasCare Foundation Facebook page

Hip to Be Square

Here's what I'm working on today: an eight-inch knitted square.  I'm joining my blogging friend Laurie from Kitty's fiber journey in making squares for the KasCare Foundation's Knit a Square program.  I'm starting with a plain garter stitch square.  Maybe I'll get more creative as I go.  The squares are turned into blankets for children in Africa who have been orphaned by AIDS.  You can read more about it on Laurie's blog or the KasCare Foundation website.

Chunky Hat

After making the Mackinaw hat (http://sweetposydreams.blogspot.com/2011/09/finished-object.html) a few weeks ago (which, by the way, is too big for my son and which my daughter said looks like cocker spaniel ears, nice!), I thought a scarf of the loop stitch I had just learned would be fun.  So I bought some super bulky wool blend gray yarn.  I played around with different variations of a loop stitch scarf, some of which were pretty cute, but ultimately decided it wasn't working for me.

So I frogged that and found a pattern for super bulky yarn on Ravelry, http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/big-button-hat, and made yet another hat.  How many hats does a girl need?  The only snag I ran into was finding size 11 double pointed needles.  I like the result, but I still have a skein and a third of super bulky gray yarn to use up.  Gift hat? Hmmm.

Finished Object?

For the last several weeks, whenever I found the time, I've been knitting this hat.  It was supposed to be for my son -- he even picked out the yarn -- but I don't know. . .   Too goofy?

I must say, this hat was a lot of fun to knit after I got the hang of it.  I learned the loop stitch (the brown part of the hat), which gave me trouble at first, but now I love it.  I think a loop stitch scarf may be looming in my future!  It also feels fabulous with the flaps made of baby alpaca yarn.  I want to wrap my whole world in baby alpaca!

My hat, though, seems too big and doesn't have as much crown as the pattern pictures.  Maybe I didn't follow  the pattern correctly and left out a round or two; who knows? Next time the son comes home, we'll see if it fits (and if he'd be caught dead wearing it).



There's at least one member of the family the hat looks good on.  You know who that is!

Don't let my version put you off.  You can check out the "real" version for yourself.  The pattern, Mackinaw Knitted Hat, is available for purchase on Etsy from Worldknits or on Ravelry at http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mackinaw-knitted-hat.

Posy Tote

This tote bag has been a long time in coming.  I started it about a year ago.  Last fall, I accidentally left it behind on a visit to Tennessee.  By the time I got it back on my next visit, I had moved on to other projects.  And let’s face it, knitting stockinette in the round can get pretty dull.  And this was a LOT of stockinette in the round! 

Before felting

I picked it back up recently, and I’m glad I did.  I’ve made some smaller felted totes, but this one is roomy enough for lots of yarn or shopping.

After felting

This was the first project I’ve felted in our high efficiency washing machine.  Don’t know if it was the size of the bag or the high-tech washer, but this came out with more wrinkles than I’m used to, and even a few felted lumps.  I am now on the look-out for a second, secondhand old-fashioned machine with a real agitator and non-locking lid.  Yep, I’m just a two-washer kind of girl. 

The husband says the wrinkles give the bag character.  Could it be because he’s only a one-washer kind of guy?

Toil and Trouble, Cauldron Bubble: Lessons in sweater felting

Knitted flowers

Sweater felting – sounds like fun.  I wanted to put felted flowers on a tote bag I was making.  I’ve only ever knit or needle felted flowers, and only felted things I’ve knitted myself.  But the prospect of buying several different colored skeins of wool for just a few flowers seemed expensive and, hey, felting sweaters sounds cheap and fun.  I read a helpful tutorial on Aunt Peaches’ blog, and figured I was good to go. 

Step one: Get some inexpensive 100% wool sweaters at the thrifts.  Easy.

Step two: Prep for the wash.  I had a little pang when I first began cutting up the sweaters.  Cutting off the ribbing and seams was like inflicting a wound, especially on a funky hand-knitted (in China) cat sweater.  I really was torn over that one, but it was too big for me, and Alfie would have wept little doggie tears to see me endorsing cats.  Easy. 

Step three: Shrink the sweaters in the washing machine.  Now that sounds like the easy part, but . . . .  Let’s just say that buying a high efficiency (read, low water and no agitator) washing machine sounded good last spring when the old washer pooped out.  I’d read the horror stories about felting in HE machines, but I had fair success felting the tote bag, so it would work, right?  After several washes, not so’s you’d notice.  Frustrating.

Step four: Take the sweaters to the laundromat for a spin in a machine with an agitator.  A little shrinking, especially the blue Eddie Bauer sweater.  Easy.

Step five: Drag the lobster pot out of the attic and boil the sweaters for an hour or so.  Stir periodically with a long bamboo spoon and keep adding boiling water from the tea kettle.  The red funky cat sweater faded to a rosy pink, and some shrinkage did occur.  Hot.  Tiring.  Messy.

Step six: Wash several more times in the HE washer and dry several times on hot.  Finally – Success!

Overall, the resulting flowers make this a fun project, but if I added up the cost of water, electricity, natural gas, and sanity, it might have been just as cheap to buy the wool and knit the flowers.  

But as Bette Davis said, “The key to life is accepting challenges.  Once someone stops doing this, he’s dead.”

Still kickin'.

Crazy for Hats

Hats!  This summer I began knitting hats.  I have knitted six hats so far.  I gave two away before I took pictures.  I can't wait for the weather to turn cool so I can wear these.  I can always wear them when walking Alfie this fall and winter because he doesn't care if I look silly!