Daily Fiber

Inspiration from the Little Free Library

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Laura Kate

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How many of you are familiar with this movement? I first became aware of it almost ten years ago. It’s a way to encourage reading while recycling books that you have finished reading. Anyone can erect a little library on their property by becoming a steward, building the library and registering it at the organization’s site. There are little free libraries all over the place. Check out the organization’s website, which has a map showing the locations of these tiny structures.

https://littlefreelibrary.org/

On a recent walk through my neighborhood I discovered that a neighbor had installed a little free library in her yard. What a surprise and delight! Inside I found a beautiful book of photographs that looked very promising as a source of inspiration.

http://maxwellmackenzie.com/americanruins.php

Maxwell MacKenzie is an American photographer born in Fergus Falls, MN. who specializes in architectural photography. This book includes some wonderful images of abandoned structures on the Northern Great Plains which he captured between 1996 and 1999. They were built by settlers, farmers and pioneers who abandoned them, generally due to experiencing some kind of hardship. I found the images to be haunting. I began to imagine the people of the past who had lived and died there. And so I began sketching from the photographs, with an idea about recreating some of these ghosts. Here is my first sketch, of an old one-room schoolhouse. It is almost finished.

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This exercise is a good way to take a break from fiber arts, while continuing to develop my skills with pen and ink.

quilting

Back to the Scrap Heap

Posted on December 7, 2019December 11, 2019 by Laura Kate

I’m taking a break from knitting and painting to do a little sewing. Some may recall my brief panic the day I realized what happens to my studio as a consequence of quilting.

Crazy Out-of-Control Scrap Heap

After spending time perusing other quilt blogs to find out how other quilters deal with this situation, I found part of the solution in the form of quilted buckets. This lesson comes to us from Christina Cameli and Bluprint.com.

https://shop.mybluprint.com/quilting/classes/free-motion-quilted-gifts/673670

So yesterday I started on my first of three fabric buckets that (I hope) will contain my fabric-waiting-to-be-used. This project is also an opportunity for me to practice free motion quilting while adding color and style to my studio. Her are my fabric choices for the first bucket.

120619a — **Pink for the outside and gray for the lining.**

I’m quilting dimensional triangles for this bucket. Here is the first step done.

120619b — **I had to use a chalk pencil to keep my row straight.**

The next few hours were spent happily quilting. Eventually the first basket was finished.

120619c — **Some inch-wide grosgrain ribbon I found became the basket handles.**

I have to admit that I sewed up the wrong sides of the baskets, so my basket is actually two inches longer than the one in the lesson. This turned out to be fortunate. The revised dimension held lots of fabric and fit nicely into the allotted space on my shelves.

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I used the Kon-Marie method of folding the fabric and filled the bucket with the folded fabric pieces inserted on edge. It was amazing to see how much fabric this little bucket holds. Each fabric piece remains clearly visible and easy to grab.

So my plan now is to make three more buckets to use in storing 1 yard and fat quarter size pieces, and to make some smaller baskets for the various colors of scraps.

I highly recommend Christina Cameli’s class. She is delightful instructor. Each of her projects can be made in an afternoon and would make wonderful gifts.

knitting

Dropped and Found

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Laura Kate

Dropped and found

My friend Kathy tossed this knitting pattern at me a few weeks ago with a plea. She really liked it, but was intimidated by the instructions to drop several stitches and then pick them up again. I couldn’t understand what she was afraid of. So I agreed to test knit this pattern.

Here is it, as designed by Jesse at Home.

Dropped and Found Wrap

Frankly, this is one of the easiest patterns I have ever knit. It is a basic garter stitch rectangle. The dropping and picking up takes place at the final two rows. I chose to use a bulky 2-ply yarn from Universal Yarn called Marled. I theorized that the frequent color changes would keep me from getting bored while knitting plain garter for several hours. Fortunately, I had a long, easy car trip during which most of the work took place.

120519a — My test wrap is roughly 15 in. wide by 50 in. long before blocking.

Here’s how the braided sections are completed. On the second to last row, drop three stitches roughly every 12 stitches. Knit one more row, leaving the needle in place. Now gently pull the dropped stitches apart all the way down to the bottom row. Starting with the bottom four floats, use fingers or a crochet hook to braid the floats in groups of four back up to the top. Put the top loop of each braid back on the needle and bind off. Voila!

120519b — I made mine narrower than the pattern called for, hence only three braids.

I can imagine several other uses for this decorative technique. It would make an interesting treatment up a sleeve, or flanking the button band or center back of a cardigan. How else can you imaging using the dropped and found design element?

drawing, knitting, painting

Life in the Studio

Posted on December 3, 2019December 10, 2019 by Laura Kate

As much as I enjoyed our little trip to visit family, it’s nice to be back into my routine. Just as an aside, the faux suede baby booties, while slightly too big, were well accepted by little L. In the meantime, she had also acquired two other items of footwear – a pair of sneakers and a pair of snow boots. She did a brief baby runway show, modeling all of the above. It was so funny to watch her toddle around the house awkwardly, although looking quite pleased with herself and her ability to work the crowd.

Back at home, I have picked up where I left off on various fiber projects.

First of all, I’m knitting a birthday surprise for my daughter. (A big clue to the surprise is found in the sketch above.)

Secondly, I’ve resumed efforts toward making the Arches quilt. It’s amazing how just writing down the next steps motivated me to work. I have finished drawing the full-size patterns for each block. And by completing this step, I have been able to determine exactly how may squares of each color will be required. Over the past two days I have been painting the background fabric. I chose to paint the background squares on a gray fabric, in order to keep the background looking like the night sky.

Next up will be the fabric for the quilt subject.

knitting

Notta Gloves

Posted on November 18, 2019 by Laura Kate

Trigger mittens, also know as trigger finger mittens, have been used by the American military since at least the Civil War. A clever combination of the warmth of mittens with the flexibility of gloves, these mittens have a separate index finger to allow soldiers to easily operate machinery in cold temperatures.

I made these mittens for my grandson, based on specifications from his mother. She had made him a pair similar to these, but he lost one. Since I don’t care for military associations, I have renamed this style the Notta Glove. The name is self-explanatory.

This basic pattern came from Victory Light on Ravelry. Her design needed adaptations to create the index finger but they were easily made. The original design can be found at https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/zen-little-fingers-and-toes-part-1-mittens

You start the normal way, with a 2×2 rib cuff in the main color. Next, with larger needles, begin the 2 x 2 stranded knitting with the 2nd color.

**I inserted a thumb gusset at this point – not included in the original pattern.**

Use waste yarn to set up for an Afterthought thumb – I worked it over nine stitches. Continue in pattern to the top of the palm, where you divide for the 2 finger compartments. I put the outer 2/3rds of stitches on waste yarn and worked the index finger with 1/3 of the stitches. Add 2 stitches where the front and back meet between the fingers.

Here’s that fickle finger of Fate pointing the way.

Put the held stitches back on the needles, continue in pattern until you reach the tip of the middle finger, and decrease down to nine stitches in the usual manner for mittens. Put held thumb stitches back on needles and knit the thumb last.