Pat's Knitting and Quilting
June 18, 2013 Leaf Evolution was the perfect spring spin and knit - such a well designed, beautiful mystery shawl! It was presented in 6 weekly clues starting from the small leaves and growing gradually and fluidly into larger leaves and flowers - simple lace, but oh so pretty!
Started with this soft thick fluffy batt from FatCatKnits - filled with merino, falkland, bamboo, silk tencel, and firestar,
3 ounces of fiber spun into 441 yards of 2 ply lace weight yarn
I have to tell you about the very stressful ending to this shawl - here is how it went down. As I got closer to the end of the shawl, I knew I had cut it way too close and started knitting faster and faster with increasing anxiety. With 3/4 of the bind off left to go I ran out of yarn. There was a teeny bit of leftover singles on a bobbin so I plied that which got me to about 12 stitches left. Next, I spit spliced the little pieces I had used to tie up the original skein - had to go to the trash can for those! - which gave me another 10" getting me to 6 stitches left. My first thought was to pull back the bind off and use a regular bind off which uses less yarn, but is not as stretchy - then I thought pull back a little and divide the 2 ply into 1 ply for the last few stitches, but I really didn’t want to do either of those , so I went to bed and when I woke up, I saw that beautiful piece of yarn from my cast on - wahooooo! I spit spliced it to my tiny end and bound off the last 6 stitches - phew!
Pattern: Leaf Evolution Mystery Shawl designed by Tetiana Otruta The subtle color changes from this batt made such a beautiful shawl - the lace pattern shows up perfectly and there is still lots of interesting beauty to catch the eye in the yarn itself - love it!
Thank you to my beautiful model, Shaina (Connor's girlfriend)
The chicks are 6 weeks old and look like miniature adult chickens - Every morning they are waiting for me on their outdoor perch (they get up and come outside early early in the morning as soon as the sun comes up)
oh how they love to be out and about in the yard
usually head straight to the raspberry bushes
Anastasia sunning herself
Little Red
If you have comments or questions or want to contact me for any reason, just email or contact me on Ravelry. Thanks :) June 10, 2013 I started this Mystery Quilt in November 2010 and had the top completely pieced and borders on in 3 months...THEN it took me over 2 years to sandwich, quilt and bind it - but it is now completely done! Here is a reminder from 2+ years ago....
and today....
A wonderful light summer quilt - I used up so much scrap fabric in this quilt :) Pattern: "Roll Roll Cotton Boll" Mystery Quilt by Bonnie Hunter
I love fiber mysteries since I am forced to step out of my controlled world - freeing but a little scary :) Here are a few more mysteries in the making... Leaf Evolution - this pic is through clue #3 - Clue # 6 arrives today.
July Mystery Mittens by Torirot - starts July 1 - I will divide and spin this beautiful Fat Cat Knits Falkland braid in Montpelier colorway for my first Tour de Fleece spin and use the yarn for my mitts - can't wait for this one!
and I just signed up for this fun Blue Mountain Handcrafts "What's Your Sign?" Ravelry SAL - From the BMH site .... Each kit will contain approx. 4 oz of fiber and 1/2 oz of add ins. The base fiber will be hand dyed Portuguese Merino Top and the package of "add ins" that may contain a few or several of the following: silk, bamboo, nylon, firestar, angelina. There will, of course, be a small package of surprise goodies with each kit.....we hope you enjoy them! I am Pisces, so my kit will be forest green, baby blue, gold, sunset pink - yummmm - this will be some fun drumcarding and spinning! I think that's enough for now - especially since the Tour de Fleece starts in a few weeks - I am on (no surprise here) Team FatCatKnits. If you have comments or questions or want to contact me for any reason, just email or contact me on Ravelry. Thanks :) June 1, 2013 Started with this gorgeous braid of All Spun Up Merino Tencel - such soft fiber with a beautiful sheen! After staring at it for a long time, I decided to split the fiber into blues and yellow/green and spin them separately.
Love these bobbins - such pretty shiny singles!
Decided to experiment with a houndstooth pattern even though there is not quite enough contrast for the pattern to show up well - I quickly realized that I really like the muted pattern - now you see it/now you don't :)
folded in half - through the loop
ooops - Little Red snuck in.... 3 1/2 weeks old - My very favorite girl :)
full length folded over
If you have comments or questions or want to contact me for any reason, just email or contact me on Ravelry. Thanks :) May 21, 2013 Now THIS was a project! An amazing learning experience - I started out following the plans step by step, but gradually got more and more confident in my skills and began to change things up a bit - modifying and adding lots of my own personal touches. I promise I will get back to knitting/spinning/weaving/quilting content next time :) WARNING: Picture overload.... This is one of my modifications - an outside nest box for easy access - LOVE this!
from all angles...
a view inside...
waiting patiently in the brooder box - they want to move into their new home!
The chicks are 2 weeks old and will move out in another week or 2. In the meantime, I built this little portable run so they could play outside on these beautiful days!
If you have comments or questions or want to contact me for any reason, just email or contact me on Ravelry. Thanks :) May 8, 2013
They hatched Monday - were 15 hours en route and arrived here at 11 am yesterday morning. In these pictures they are 24 hours old - OMG they are the cutest little chicks ever - I can't imagine any more cuteness! Running, chirping, flying, preening, eating, sleeping - and last night they started playing games. I brought in a big clump of dirt with dandelions and violets in it and they LOVED it. One will get a little something in it's mouth and run fast and they all run after her thinking she's got a bug or something - what a riot - We've have been totally entertained since they arrived :)
There are 7 total - 1 Australorp, 1 Barred Rock, 1 Rhode Island Red, 2 Easter Eggers, 1 Golden Laced Wyandotte, and 1 Golden Buff - a perfect little flock!
and their home is almost done!
If you have comments or questions or want to contact me for any reason, just email or contact me on Ravelry. Thanks :) April 30, 2013 On a whim, I decided to play along and make some April Mystery Mittens in the "I Make Mittens" Ravelry group, and I'm glad I did - LOVE these mitts! The designer was Julie Hamilton from Julie's Yarn Shop - and what a mystery these mittens were! I didn't have the design figured out until the very last clue.
It is so difficult to pick out colors when you have NO IDEA what the mitten is going to look like! I limited my choices to stash yarn only, and chose 7 colors of Knit Picks Palette. We were told the basic colors to use (light gray background, red, green, black, brown, lemon yellow, white) I didn't have all of those so substituted when necessary and went with a "country colors" palette. (You'll notice that 4 of the 7 colors were left over from my recently completed Polar Chullo). I was VERY unsure after clue 1 because I felt like there wasn't enough contrast with my choices, but from clue 2 on, I was happy :)
She designed these with beautiful detail - the thumb even has all 4 motifs on it (flower, bird, heart, butterfly) - I realize that I didn't get a good thumb photo, but you can sort of see both sides if you look at both sets of pics. Something wrong about knitting mittens in the springtime... these wintry mittens need snow - not flowers!
All month I worked on the coop during the day and knit on these mittens in the evening - a very nice combination of projects! I scored this amazing brooder box at the grocery store last week - It is HUGE and now has a window and door in it - pics when chicks come...In 10 days!!!
After hanging the coop run door yesterday, I got very focused on making a handle from a pruned lilac branch - I LOVE my new door handle!
If you have comments or questions or want to contact me for any reason, just email or contact me on Ravelry. Thanks :) April 25, 2013 I'm a bit out of season here, but I finally put the finishing touches on this hat - all ready for next winter!
I love earflap hats in general, but this one is spectacular! The minute I saw Mary Ann's pattern, I knew I would make it. I LOVE her colorwork patterns - she designed my favorite mitts.
Pattern: Polar Chullo by Mary Ann Stephens
Lined with cashmere - soooo soft and warm! This picture also shows a nice close up of the i-cord edging - THAT took awhile!
chair picture to show tie tassels too
Chicken news....2 weeks until chick arrival - and the coop is progressing beautifully :) Should be completely predator proof with this 1/2" hardware cloth extending 12" underground!
I added an exterior nesting box and will put in a cute little window so I can peek in :)
If you have comments or questions or want to contact me for any reason, just email or contact me on Ravelry. Thanks :)
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