Momma Said There'd Be Days Like This

March 25, 2006

No pictures today, just wanted to do a quick update.

Poor Meredith (again). I re-did the armholes - much, MUCH better. Got one sleeve cap done and it's STILL too fluttery! I've set it aside (probably until tomorrow evening). I am NOT giving up. I still love the project.

One the KAL front, I'm done with eight HS Hats. I have cast on and knitted quite a bit on Heidi's round tablecloth pattern that I'm using for a charity baby blanket. Boy, oh boy, has THIS been a learning experience! The original test bit (smaller and with heavier yarn) went oooooooo-kaaayy, but the center/"eye" of the circle was all stretched out. Heidi gave me some good advice for that and other problems that I was having.

I ended up making little gloves for my fishing weights, using the concept from nonaKnits' I-cord Gloves pattern, on the ISM. WAY cool. Used up a lot of scrap yarn. They're kinda dorky looking, but they really do the trick.

I also grabbed my box of bobby pins and some Sculpey and made some 3-prong EON tools. They look like something Wilma Flintstone would use, but one of the two really does the job (the second one's "fingers" are too short).

After casting on and getting 4 1/2 of the 16 wedges done on the baby blanket, I decided I needed to do something in the no-brainer department. Out comes the knit Teddy for Charity pattern that I'd converted for the ISM. Other than making one leg 10 rows shorter than the other leg (yes, I fixed it), the body's done and awaiting arms.

Back to the baby blanket this morning. I just finished my sixth wedge and found that #5 looked funny AND my stitch count had grown by 2! Frogging eyelets, even on the ISM, is a serious PITA. I got it back to the beginning of wedge 5 and decided to take a break and come talk to you all!

Did anybody notice that the felted clog-o-meter has been changed to 100%? They're officially done. However. They're still a bit wide, and the 'dome' on top of the foot is pretty high. Now that I've worn them a couple of times, I might send them through the machine another time or two to see what happens.

Pictures will appear in the next few days...
The Woodland Beginning Quilting classes are officially over. We're all exhausted! Everyone said they had fun and that they learned a lot.

(This is me, counting my chickens...) I already have the next class filled (but not scheduled or paid!) for the Dreams and Wishes pattern, in May.

knitting, ISM, and a little bit about quilting

Labels: knitting

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Meredith Update and more

March 19, 2006

Poor Meredith. I've lost track of the times (okay, I think it was four) that I ripped and re-did the sleeve. I finally decided that it would "do", and went on to get some mileage on the body.

Well, yesterday I tried it on. I am just NOT pleased with the way the sleeve is hanging. I decreased and decreased so that I wasn't getting the drop sleeve look, but I am still not happy. I mean, look at the big ol' pleat there:




Here's the armhole (I put in a light line where the armhole of my t-shirt is):



Well, guess what. I ripped. AGAIN. This time I did even MORE math and modified the armhole so that it was an inch and a half higher and started curving sooner.

And I got bright (third time's a charm, yeah?). I put in a lifeline at the spot that I ripped to. Picking up fuzzy stitches ain't fun.

Currently I'm just past connecting the V-neck. Three rows are on below the pits. I think I'll finish out the skein doing the body while watching TV tonight, then try it on yet again. Wish me luck!

More knitting - I've now finished SIX Head Start Hats. I'm looking to do a baby blanket on the machine next, using Heidi's Round Lace pattern. It will be a veddy pitty blankie, but I have to admit there's an ulterior motive here... If I can swing it, I'll use the short-rowing skills I gain to make the Drops Circle Cardi I discovered when reading savannahchik's blog. Of course, that will be AFTER Easter, right?

Back to Woodland Quilting... as I hoped, I have gotten some phone calls from the class with questions. I would MUCH rather get calls than to hear on Tuesday: "I didn't get it, so I didn't do anything."

Fortunately, one of the calls was my brand new sewer, so I got to thank her profusely for helping out last week. And what a start she's making! One of her strips was cut 1/4" larger than the rest, so she had lots of problems matching up the seams. Now, if it were ME, I'd just toss the stripsets aside and decide I was making a wallhanging instead of a baby quilt. Did she? NOOoooooo. She ripped EVERY square out, trimmed it, then sewed it back in. Wow, that's a lot more work (and can we say, Perfectionism???) than I would have done. Ladies and gentlemen, A Quilter is Born!

Labels: knitting

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Quilting in Woodland

March 14, 2006

So, I started teaching Beginning Quilting in Woodland. Before starting the class, I put together an outline of what would be done during each of the three 2-hour classes. Wow, it sure looked good on paper.

The first week's classes (there are two separate classes, you know) had a couple of bumps; in the first I skipped an entire section which was informative but in no way crucial. In the second, smaller, class, I got the skipped part in, but for some reason the class ran about 30 minutes longer than the first. Actually, "for some reason" is quite vague. In truth, the skill level of the second class was much more widely varied. From the nice lady who has been sewing longer than I've been alive (sure hope I didn't offend when I mentioned that) to the one who had just bought her new sewing machine and didn't know what a seam allowance is...

After the second class, one of the participants took me aside and explained that she would be out of town on the day of the second class. Well, hey. That's the class where we learn to rotary cut and to sew our strips together and, um, basically DO everything.

Fortunately the other half of my brain was there (that's J, of course) and she suggested we do a Saturday class for the person who was going to be out of town. After I got home, I had the bright idea to call the brand-new sewer and invite her on Saturday, too, since I expected that she'd benefit from some good one-on-one attention.

We get together on Saturday, J & I start with finding grainline, how to safely use a rotary cutter, cutting strips, sewing them together, pressing tips. THREE AND A HALF HOURS LATER, we're packing up to go home. Three and a half hours! Two people! And I expect to do this for four and six people in TWO hours and WITHOUT J? Well, hand me the paper sack, girls, I'm starting to hyperventilate.

After about 24 hours of "WTF was I thinking", I finally got over myself and decided that what will be, will be (yep, big fan of Doris Day songs. Grew up listening to them at my grandparents home every summer vacation).

The official second class of the series is on Tuesday. I actually hadn't overbooked myself for the day, so I had time to start dwelling and worrying again. By the time I got to the afternoon class, I had a mid-sized lump in my stomach. Four people. I've already figured that I can't trim anything from the class, so I start off by telling everyone that we will need to put the pedal to the metal and move it along.

Whaddaya know, we made it in 2 1/2 hours. I will have to remember to thank mybrand-new sewer for her help - even though she is still 'learning the language', she gets it. And she was a big help.

The evening class started showing up about 5 minutes after the afternoon class had cleared out (so much for an hour between classes!). Fortunately, one of my friends who have been attending the Vancouver classes came up to lend a hand - and bring McD's, which I wolfed down while the ladies were setting up.

Again, we managed to get to a finish point at about 2 1/2 hours. Not so bad. It was immensely gratifying when The Light Came On for one of the ladies and she started twirling around saying, "I get it! I get it!"

The third and last class of the series next week is all me - demonstrating basting, quilting and binding. Originally the plan was to have everyone bring their machines and work on finishing their quilts, but I think it will be more effective if they can give their undivided attention, refer to the handouts and take notes. Oh, and they all can have my phone number...

Labels: quilting

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What Would You Want Me to Tell You?

March 11, 2006

We are not morning people. A big part of the reason for that is very simple: We are night people (wow, how’s that for a profound bit of news?).

Frequently, Mr. W. spends his 10pm to 2am listening to Coast To Coast AM on his XM or Sirius radio. You know, George Noory, Art Bell. Odd stuff. Remote viewing. Psychic predictions. Upcoming catastrophes such as earthquakes that will make Reno into ocean-front property. Aliens ARE among us. Pedophile shape-shifting-snake-people. Insidious poisoning from jet contrails. Sun spots that interfere with the electromagnetic whatcha-hoozits here on earth. Whatever, it's bad.

Stuff that makes you think. If you're so inclined, stuff that reinforces your paranoia. Stuff that makes you go, "What was HE smoking?".

Overall, not the stuff that good dreams are made of.

Well, gosh. It seems that occasionally Mr. W. realizes that this is not good-dream-inducing. On one such occasion, he forewent (is that a word? What's the past-tense of forego? Foregoed?) listening to George. Instead, we went to bed early-ish (still after midnight) with our usual reading material. He put Angelina: Chaplet of Divine Mercy in the CD player. Rosary chants, some incredible singing. Lots of repetitive chants (I guess that’s what the rosary is, huh?).

Fast forward to 7am. I’m having a dream. Mr. W. and I meet my mother when she was younger and I was just a babe in the cradle. I recognized her right away because she looked just like the pictures I've seen in the photo album. Apparently it didn't take much for us to convince her that I am her only child all grown up and married. Still in the dream, Mr. W. made a tactful exit so that Mom and I could have some time alone.

So, I'm talking to her, trying to decide what to tell her of her future. My first thing is, "My father will need to travel his own path, and that doesn't include you. But don't despair, you WILL find true love and happiness." (My mom has said for years that my dad was her first love but my step-dad was the love of her life.)

What else should I tell her? Setting aside the whole space-time-continuum or whatever it is that says you're not supposed to say anything in the past or else you will, single-handedly, muck up the future so that the wheel will not have been invented and we were not victorious in the secondworldwar and the women will end up wearing mini-togas and the men will be in polyester catsuits like in Logan's Run…. (sorry, I digressed)
What should I say? Of course, most of it will be in regard to me, since that's a subject best known to me. "Don’t let me drive on this date in December of this year" (that will keep me from having The Accident). What about, "Don’t let me marry the first guy, make me find Mr. W. sooner." Well, if I didn't marry the first one, what about my kids? Would they be the same, except look like another dad? If I'd met Mr. W. sooner, would he still have fallen in love with me? I mean, the experiences of my past (and that included the first guy) made me into the person that Mr. W. loves. What if we'd met sooner and I wasn't "just right" yet?

There were a lot of other things that I told her or wanted to tell her. Somewhere along the way, I realized that I was awake and still thinking about what I should say. And how would I do it? Would I give her a bunch of envelopes and say, "Don’t open the next one until this one comes true?"

There I was, very awake at 7am-ish. Not startled, not groggy or disgruntled. Just... contemplative. I thought about the dream for a long time that morning. Very captivating line of thought for me.

Finally after a day or two I found some time when Life wasn't getting in the way and I gave my mom a call. I told her about the dream and asked her what she would have wanted to know. She thought about it for awhile and said that she probably wouldn't have wanted to know anything, because what she went through and how she grew and dealt with it is what made her the person she is today.

My mom's a pretty smart cookie.

Though, I still would have told her to save every cent she could from that moment on and as soon as she saw a stock with the letters MSFT, buy as much of it as possible.

Labels: babble, THESE

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Hats, Hats, Hats

March 07, 2006

Some FO's! (Insert Kermit voice here:) YAYAYAYAY!

I've finished the chemo cap for my MIL; I'm hoping she won't need it because she's shiny, but only that she can enjoy it and know that I'm thinking of her.



Also, I've finished up two of the four Block-A-Minute Head Start Hats. I think that I need to go down to KP3 for the base of the hats; even though the StyroQueen is a bit petite, they still seem awfully large for kids/teens. Oh, here's a translation: They fit ME. I have a big head. Both literally and figuratively.





I also learned that when I take the hats from the machine to the HK needles, I apparently do the first row 'twisted'. Must be the direction I'm loading the stitches onto the needles. As I work on the next two hats, I'll keep that in mind when HK'ing the first row and un-twist them by purling through the back of the stitch on the first round.

Now it's time for an itty confession. I sorta joined a KAL.

What? What did you just say?

mmblbll joined mmblbll

Speak up! I didn't hear you! You joined WHAT?

Okay, FINE. I joined a KAL. Less than 2 weeks since I posted my mini-rant about KALs, I joined one. There I was, doing the KBS thing and I found a link to one that looked interesting. And the link actually took me to the post about the KAL. The premise (I'm sure premise-ing today, aren't I?) is to, during Lent, spend at least 50% of my knitting time on knitting for charity.

I wrote to Annie's Knits and told her I was too embarrassed to admit here that I was joining, but could I post a button and would she put me on her participants list (incognito).

So, yes, I joined, dammit. It's for a GOOD CAUSE. I still stand by my original mini-rant. And the link WORKED.

Labels: knitting

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Quilting and More

Well, as promised, a quilting update: Our Vancouver group is doing a block-a-week sampler from Quilter's World. It's quite cool, and something I've always wanted to do.

The basic premise is that you take the same block and switch around the colors/values each time you make it. I actually have a book (that I can't find right now, of course) that's dedicated to this concept; fortunately the folks at Quilter's World took the work out of it for me this time.

So, last week was Block 8 (of 12). That thing just about kicked my butt.

I think that for this block, I'll use the "Galloping By On Horseback at Night" way of avoiding seeing the not-quite-perfectly-matched-points. And what is it with Log Cabin style blocks (or components)? I have a major brain blockage here, I think. No matter how I try, I can't sew a straight seam for the life of me.

Another fun thing about this project is that, while all "quilt-shop quality" fabrics, and while they're all quilter's cottons, the fabrics are NOT all the same weight. Go figure. It's time to pull out the walking foot (now that I'm almost done with the project, of course) so that the bottom layer of fabric doesn't pull up SO MUCH when I'm sewing.

The good news is that this block is DONE. Block 9 is also done and ready to be displayed to the class tomorrow night as an example of what the next one is to look like.

Still in the land of quilting, this evening I'm starting a new three-week Beginner's Class at Tami's Fabric Fun in Woodland. This is the second attempt at giving the class, the first was scheduled too soon after Christmas to get much interest. YAY! Such is not the case this time! Not only did Tami fill the six seats for the 6:00 class, she also got five people on a waiting list so we put together a 3:00 class, too! Two of the same class, back-to-back... only one trip in to town, and if I play my cards right, K might even feed me between classes so I don't have to spend the hour driving home and back! (For true accuracy, the 3:00 class will actually be held this week on Thursday, then switch to Tuesday next week. I guess I'm on my own for dinner today.)

Labels: quilting

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Meme Me

March 06, 2006

Okay, I admit it. I don't know what a 'meme' is. I mean, I think I've got the gist - someone tags you with a list of questions that are written so that you share interesting or unusual or meaningful information about yourself with others. Then you tag someone else. Kinda like "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours".

Um. How do you SAY it? Is it like mee-mee? Or is it MEEM? (that's what comes into my head when I read it) Are you memed?

Who came up with this thing, anyway? Is it an honor to get tagged, or a bother? (Sounds like a bother to Me) Is it just convenient filler when you are having a not-so-bloggy day but you feel like you need to post something?

And if you don't answer and re-tag, will your blogserver crash and lose all but the first few lame posts you ever wrote?

I've been trying to not overwhelm the blog (and myself) with a bunch of posts all at once. Yes, I have a lot to say, and yes, some of it is even interesting BUT I've heard about burnout...

I went to Mom's last week and delivered a new-to-her computer. While I was there, The Boy and his family came out to visit for a few hours (wow! The mountain actually came to Mohammed!). A nice time; the 6+ hours travelling went by very nicely since Mr. W. installed the MyFi for me.


On the knitting front, I have been working on the top-down sleeve on the Meredith sweater. I got it almost to the pit and decided it was too wide. To decrease to the wrist I would have had to decrease 2 sts every other row, and that sounded a bit extreme. So, out it came, and I re-picked-up around the armhole and did some short rows along the bottom of the armhole to fill it in a bit - I even remembered to write down exactly what I did so I can do it on the other sleeve! Now it's longer than a cap sleeve, shorter than a short sleeve. I think that if it was someone else's pattern (and in a yarn I didn't love so much) I would have gotten frustrated by now. Since I'm learning so much as I go, I'm still pretty excited about the whole darn thing.

I also made a good start on the ISM for four Head Start hats. I saw something about a "Mile A Minute" hat and decided to do something similar. Since all four of them are a little over half done, I think I'll call them the "Block a Minute" hats. I cast on for the first, did the ribbing and stockinette up to 6" , then laid in some ravel cord and cast on for a second hat. I didn't cut the yarn from the first hat, just pulled it aside and attached the second skein. I did that for all four hats (until I ran out of 'charity' skeins), then pulled the whole thing off the machine and pulled the ravel cords.

The pictures shows three hats still stuck together, the fourth (at the top) pulled off. If you squink up your eyes, you might see the green ravel cord between hats.



The live stitches at the top of three hats are currently on crochet cotton, the fourth is on the needles. After I got all of the hats separated and threaded up, I sewed each into a tube. Now I can just get going on my circs and finish each of them off.

Next post will be about quilting - there's stuff to say there, too. Oh! And I have a FO to post! I've been a very biddy chick this week already!

Labels: babble

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