Sunday, June 29, 2014

It's a Boy!





Meet my new "grandkitty", Mike. He is a lovely 6 year old boy, who was adopted yesterday by my local kids. He comes from the same shelter where we are foster volunteers. His new parents had been looking for an older cat to fit into their lives, and they think he will be "purr-fect".

Here is a closup of his cute face.
He is my second ginger "grandkitty".
This is his cousin, Minnie, with her championship ribbon.

Guess good looks run in the family!


Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Back to Sewing

May and June were very busy months around here. We had family celebrations, house guests, new kittens. To accommodate this, there was some furniture moving, in and out of my sewing room. This completely churned things up, and I got to the point where I was afraid to venture in.

I had promised to make a couple of prizes for our street party, that happened last Friday. So, I got up my courage, and dove in. I spent about 1/2 hour moving things so I could work, and finding some supplies. Then I ignored the rest of the mess, and fell into my happy place, sewing.

First up: I saw this pattern for a  Manicure Pouch on Noodlehead. The pattern was free, and I had all the supplies, so it was a go!

I used a scrap of Laurel Burch "Flutterbys", for the outside. I don't have much of this left, I may have to look for more of it.

Here is the inside:


The fabric was in my stash, I am not sure what it is, but it is cute. I added a bottle of nail polish and some remover pads in the zipped pocket. I should have pulled the nail polish up a bit, so you could see that it is purple and sparkly!

This is a cute and easy project. I think I will make a couple more, to keep around as gifts.

Next up, A Firetruck Bag!

When my son was little, he liked to take his trucks with him, when we went out somewhere he might have to wait. I figure that are other little people who feel the same way, so I used Firetruck fabric on the outside and "vintage" dino fabric (left over from when my kids were little) on the inside. This is another Noodlehead pattern! I think I have made it about 12 times now.

I need to spend some more 1/2 hours moving things into their homes, but at least I am back at my machine.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Birds of a Feather - Part 3 complete

My progress on the Birds of a Feather Knit Along has been slow. It was suppose to be a Mystery Knit Along, but the mystery has been over for nearly 2 weeks, and I still have one more clue to go.

The shawl will be lovely and large when it is done but right now the rows are very long and seem to take forever to finish.

Here is my progress so far.





There are 649 stitches on my needle. The pattern has you working on half of the stitches, and making wedges.

Here is a closeup of the wedges. The picture shows 5 wedges in total, but my contrast yarn isn't enough of a contrast to show that well.

It will need some serious blocking before it is done.




The next part is kind of like the "choose your own mystery" books. There are 2 different ways to incorporate the final stitches. In one, you completely mirror the second section, with the cables, then use the Kitchener stitch to finish the whole thing. The other has you create a totally different wedge as the last wedge and work in all the stitches, row by row. I am still thinking about which I will do.

Today, I saw a finished version with a beaded fringe on the edge. I find that idea very interesting and it will save me from having to weave in all my ends.

 This is "World Wide Knit In Public" week. I will be looking for a nice patio to knit on.




Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Husqvarna Platinum 16

The local Husqvarna dealer offered an opportunity to try the new mid-arm machine with the Husqvarna Educator, on Saturday. I love having the chance to try new machines, in a setting like this where there is no pressure to buy.

Here is my sample.

They had us trying it without the stitch regulator and I was not really impressed because it didn't do any better at free motion than my regular machine. The stitch length was as difficult to control, so I have lots of different stitch lengths. Since we only had a small sample to work on, it wasn't really obvious what one would gain by buying this machine. The educator did demo the machine with the regulator attached, but it was again on a fairly small piece of fabric, so I am not sure how well it would work on an entire quilt. 

All and all, I decided that they didn't convince me to part with a large sum of money to add a new machine to my collection. Oh, and I managed to break one of the regular store machines, trying to tack down the binding!

The dealer did give us some nice goodie bags, though.



Kittens

Springtime means kitten time at animal shelters. It has been a long time since we have had any teeny-tinies to foster, since we had an adult cat all last summer as we waited for him to find a forever home.

This week, we got our first batch of spring chicks.

I have named them after two young women in my knitting group.

So meet Leah:

And Erika:

To give you an idea of how tiny they are, here is Erika playing with a tennis ball (I think the ball is winning).

And here they are, together, eating of course (not ginger cookies, like the real Leah and Erika).





All together now: Ahhhhhhhhhhh!