Buttony sweater progress - photo heavy post

My evening knitting has been a ferocious thing...I've really been restless and it's been a great way to keep my hands busy while letting me think a little. None of what I'm working on right now is so complicated as to need my undivided attention, and that is a good thing.

I thought I'd share my button process with you. On a sweater like this where some buttons are going to have more stress on them than others I'll re-enforce buttons that fall at stress points (in this case bottom ribbing, bust point and top button). This helps to prevent the button pulling the fabric out of shape at these points.
Typically I start with threading the yarn needle with at least 2 strands of yarn, which I use doubled. This gives me 4 strands of yarn for each pass of the needle. Do yourself a favour before you start and make sure that the yarn can be pulled through the button's holes easily.


To figure out the button placement I usually place my garment on Sally Stitch, adjusting everything to make sure that things hang right and fit well. I pin through the button holes at each point to hold the garment in place while I stitch each button on. The one I'm doing for demonstration is the top button (all the other ones were already done). To start, remove the pin, and lift the stitch directly underneath the buttonhole. Give it a little tug, but not enough to distort the fabric.


Lift the button band away. The stitch that you will be putting the button on will now sit a little proud of the others.


Pass your yarn needle through a small button, then through the fabric back to front where you determined the button should go.


Now pass the yarn through your fashion button, the one that is on the right side of your garment.


Pass the yarn needle back through the fashion button, front to back, making sure that you go through one of the holes on the little backing button, too.


Continue going back and forth in this manner until you have passed yarn through all the button's holes (typically not more that 4 holes). Tie both ends of the yarn together on the back side against the little button securely, trim yarn ends leaving a bit of yarn, not enough to be seen from the front side of the garment, but long enough that your knots won't unravel. You can put a little bit of Fray Check on your knots, if you like.


Pass your button through it's buttonhole to make sure the placement is indeed right.



Here's my Buttony with all 12 buttons on. I'm now ready to pick up the stitches for the arms - I can't decide if I want to just leave them short like that, or knit long sleeves. I'm kind of partial to how it looks right now, and think it would be a really practical thing to wear over a long sleeved jersey knit shirt. And kind of cute, besides.

All the best,

Lisa

sad, sad news.

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I'm volunteering, teaching knitting in one of the Grade 7 classes at our school...
this week one of our students died suddenly in a tragic accident. He was only 12, and it has impacted the school in a huge way. The staff started a wall in the hallway where the students can post their memories of him, things that were his, letters to him and photos. It is so hard, so raw. It's impossible to make sense of a life with so much potential taken so suddenly. My heart aches for his family.

L

Some other stuff

One of the amazing things about the part of Canada that we live in is that it can be so tremendously HOT in summer, and so incredibly COLD in winter. Our lovely little town has an amazing public beach (I know I've gone on and on about it here before, bear with me) that truly is an all season wonder.




In the summer we build sand castles and run around in two piece bathing suits, swim in the lake and bask with our books under sun umbrellas.





In the winter, we play with our sleds, sliding down, down down toward the water (which recedes at this time of year, giving us a reeeeaaaaalllly long slide when the conditions are right).



All the photos in this post were taken last week at the public beach.
















Don't you just love how the water and sand are right up against the snow?




It's like a little band of summer (colour wise, not temperature wise) right along the water.








I can't believe that people go out fishing in weather like this. It was -14 degrees Celcius that day, with a wind as you can see by the choppy waves. It was PESKY cold. And I lost my first pair of mitts this season. ....sniff.


I was warm and toasty in the OTHER sweater that I've knit so far this season....

Merino wool and mohair (just for cuffs and collar). Cozy, cozy. The pattern is from here.

Now if you're a knitter, you could live your whole life, knitting every day and never make half of the things offered as free patterns from that website. It's a treasure trove.

Do you like the last photo? Taken by Oldest. We're still working on him composing things so that the horizon line is -er- horizoney and straight.


Fun, though, eh?

Stay warm,

Lisa

An evening work-in-progress...

I'm making a top down, fit-as-you-go raglan cardigan from some wool that I bought for my knitting machine (which I've been unable to get working properly, yet!). The pattern is one that I found through Ravelry, but is available here.

I've actually done quite a bit of knitting this winter, a real change for me. Usually I just knit one sweater and a pair or 3 of socks, but this year I've knit at least 4 pairs of mitts, several hats, at least 3 pairs (maybe more) of socks, a vest (which is waiting on one skein of yarn so that it can be completed), a sweater, and now this sweater. I've found that I can knit while waiting for one of my sons at piano lessons, and that has upped my productivity considerably!

So, with this current WIP, I need to decide now how much waist shaping I want to do, and whether I want long or short sleeves. Hmmmm....

By the way, I'm volunteering these days at the Elementary School, teaching knitting to the grade 7 students. It's a laugh riot, and they're all very enthusiastic! We're making fingerless mitts like the ones I posted here. I hope to get a picture of all of their hands together with their mitts on when they're done.

Stay warm and cozy,

Lisa

Mailed

A few of the final steps

Sorry that this is not the most thorough tutorial for bookbinding, but the original tutorial really has all you really need to know. I thought I'd just share the little bits that I do that might be different from the original.

One of the things I've found that simplifies everything is that instead of folding the cover over the cover guide (left) with my fingers, then folding the wax paper over and clamping it all in place, I grab the wax paper and fold it over to clamp. I end up not handling the glue areas at all, it makes everything tidier and more accurate.



When assembling the cover I've taken to gluing the corners first and letting them dry completely. It makes for a very nice, tidy corner.

Oh, and if you want to have a ribbon bookmark, the best time to add it is when you are clamping and gluing the signatures. Just lay it on top of the glue and smooth it out. Make sure it is long enough to go the length of your pages. I leave mine quite long, they can always be cut shorter later. In this book I used a woven tape-style ribbon. I'll add beads and embellishments to it in the final steps.

This is how I put the pocket in this book:

Once the signatures were in place and glued into the inside front cover, I glued the pocket in as though it were an endpaper. Normally one would glue the last page of the last signature in to the back cover before placing the endpaper. I didn't do that (that would have meant that the pocket could not sit in as snugly as the signatures). I glued the pocket side to the inside back cover, then the paper side to the last paper of the last signature.

Once the pocket was in place, I glued in the endpaper. I made custom endpapers for this book by collecting quotes that spoke to my heart about our friend's life and situation. I wrote them all in WORD, turned them all a co-ordinating purple, made each of the quotes slightly different sizes and fonts so that, though they ran together, they can also each be read individually.

As you can see in the picture there are a lot of pieces of wax paper interleaved with pages that have glue drying.

This is the point the book is at right now. I'll let it sit under a weight overnight to dry, and I'll check on it tomorrow. It will be handle-able by then, but probably not totally dry. I can do any finishing bits at that time, then leave it under a weight for another 10 or so hours so that it is completely dry and flat.

Thanks for coming along on this journey with me. Thanks to you, too, for the comments and well wishes for our friend. She is much like an Aunt to me, she and her family have been in our lives as long as I can remember. I'll always be grateful to her for letting the boys hold her newborn lambs. They will never forget it.

Lisa

Pocket construction for inside back cover

This next step involves an amount of glue. Don't be too enthusiastic, but do be thorough. I used wax paper in many steps to keep the glue from migrating through the fabric and paper surfaces.

Place wax paper on your work surface. Grab the longer (12" ) paper that you folded last step and place it on your work surface, both folds as 'valley' folds. Set aside the smaller (8 1/2") paper for now. Make sure that the smallest (fold 2) fold is toward you.

Run a line of glue along each side edge from the first fold to the edge closest to you (click on any of the images to enlarge them).
Place the folded muslin on the paper, on top of the glue, between the first and second fold as shown above. Make sure that the folds look EXACTLY as shown in picture above. Check that the fold of the muslin is parallel to the edge of the paper.

Fold the forward edge of the paper up and over, sandwiching the muslin. This creates the outer pocket edge (it won't make sense yet, just trust me). Smooth it to make sure that glue is making good contact along the side edges.

Cut a piece of wax paper 5 1/2" X at least 5". Place it on top of the muslin as shown in the picture above.

Lay the 'peak' fold of the muslin on the wax paper. (If it doesn't make sense, just enlarge all the photos and follow them step by step. A picture really is worth a thousand words).


Fold the top edge down toward you.


Run a line of glue along each side edge. Fold the remaining muslin over onto the glue.


Above is what your pocket should look like, only in better focus. Keep the wax paper in place until all the glue is completely dry.


Grab the other piece of paper that you set aside in step one. Place it on your wax paper work surface so that the fold is a 'valley' fold. Apply glue to one whole side, as in picture above.


Place your completed pocket on the glued side, muslin side down against the glue. Put another piece of wax paper over top of the whole thing and put a stack of quilting magazines on it until the glue is dry and everything is nice and flat. Then you can carefully remove all the wax paper.

Lisa

preparations for the book construction

I prepared the signatures the way the whip-up tutorial recommends using light weight sketchbook paper. This time, though, in order to make room for the pocket in the back I bound 7 signatures (groups of pages) together rather than the customary 8. I did measure the spine and cut it to accommodate 8 signatures - this was to be sure that the book has enough room to hold the pocket and anything that our friend might want to put in it.

The thread for sewing the signatures is a lovely purple trilobal polyester, used double.


Making the pocket for the inside back cover was the next step. I wanted to make sure that the pocket had room to expand for anything that our friend might want to slip in there (notes, cards, anything). I started out by cutting two pieces of muslin 3" X pocket depth. I fan folded the muslin to create 4 layers (fold the fabric in half lengthwise, then bring the top raw edge to match the fold edge, turn the whole works over and bring the last raw edge to match the fold edge). You can see the folded muslin right and below.


In the last picture you can see the watercolour paper cut for the inside back cover. There are two pieces, one is 5 1/2" X 8 1/2", the other is 5 1/2" X 12". The second piece could have been longer, but it was all I had.

The smaller piece is folded in half (at the 4 1/4" point). The larger piece is folded so that the first fold matches that of the other paper (this is where the bottom of the pocket is, where things snuggle up against the spine). The second fold is at the 8 1/2" point. When folded up the two pieces should be the same size. Notice the directions of the folds in the pictures below and left. This is really important if you decide to try this for yourself.


The next post is about how to assemble the pocket pieces. It'll be VERY picture heavy.

Lisa

working on a gift

A dear friend of our family is pretty sick.
She's lovely, we've had her in our lives since I was in pre-school when I chased her son around the playground equipment and she met my Mom. I've been thinking about her an awful lot, especially right now, knowing that she's going through some pretty heavy treatments for her illness. I really wanted to make her something...something that would be right, y'know? For a good while I thought I'd make her a large shawl/throw as I understand that people undergoing radiation can get very cold. I researched all kinds of yarns, trying to find one that would not be irritating on hyper-sensitized skin - but with where we live it would take a long time for anything like that to get here, so I started casting about for other ideas.

I've been keeping up on Sue Bleiweiss's blog where she's been doing wonderful things with journals, making them themed, and in that way they can become tremendously personal. It struck me that I could make a journal for our friend.

I started out making a multimedia collage surface to be the cover. It's layered up with MistyFuse on muslin using several kinds of tissue, pressed Johnny-Jump-ups and Calendula petals that I dried last summer from our garden, skeleton leaves and stamps. I sealed the whole works together with diluted fabric medium to give it a bit of resilience, but help it maintain it's flexibility.

I'm using the same template I used for the hardbound journals last Spring when I made gifts for other friends, with some modifications.

I wanted to put a pocket inside the back cover, and make the endpapers from inspirational quotes and sayings.

Our friend has always been a very outdoor person, enjoying the outdoors and an active lifestyle. I hunted through my stash of tissue to find the dragonfly tissue, and included the plant material as a small tribute to her love of nature.

The next couple of posts include how I made the pocket and incorporated it into the endpapers. I've broken it up a bit as I expect this next bit to be quite photo heavy.

Lisa

Halloooooo?

I think this has been my longest blog silence - ever.

We're getting back in the swing of things here Chez Thiessen, what with the boys having gone back to school and me finishing up the last few customer quilts on my roster. I've got a lot of paperwork to do yet, so I'll probably not be out here in blogland for a while again.

Once I'm back to doing my own quilting I'll play show and tell, and share some of my knitting stuff as well, no doubt.

Thought I'd put up a pic I took this afternoon in our garden - the deer amaze me. They jumped the fence, braved the dog and ate all the remaining grapes that were on the vines along with most of this sunflower head. It was easily twice this size yesterday! This is the only head that didn't go moldy out there, and apparently the only one palatable to the foraging deer.

Happy snow day,

Lisa

Happy Ho Ho Ho

We spent part of our day yesterday sledding at the public beach....thought you might enjoy a glimpse into our afternoon:



Note: no boys were injured in the filming of this video!


Here's to having fun with you and yours!

Cheers,

Lisa

Teacher gifts

Each year we like to try to say a thank you to our boys' teachers at school. I was out of ideas this year when I ran across a post over at Angry Chicken about cakes baked in jars. Whaaa? How perfect is THAT idea? And it inspired me. Yup.

It was as easy as making any quick-bread recipe...and I got to give away some more canning jars (I really am trying to thin things out around here before we move - no, no one has looked at the house in 3 weeks, but a girl has to be hopeful, doesn't she?).

I made Pumpkin Spice Cake and here's the recipe:

Pumpkin Spice Cake in Jars

1 c seedless raisins
1 c walnuts
2 c all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
4 eggs
2 c granulated sugar
1 c salad oil
16 oz can pumpkin

Preheat oven to 325-degrees.

Brush the inside of 8 (1 pint, straight-sided) Kerr or Ball Quilted Crystal (12 oz, straight-sided) canning jars with shortening (DO NOT use Pam); set aside. The 1 pint jars are shorter but bigger around than the decorative 12 oz jars, use either one. Sterilize the jars, lids & rings first.

Coarsely chop the raisins & walnuts; set aside. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cloves, cinnamon & ginger in a large bowl. Add raisins & walnuts; toss to lightly combine. In another large bowl, beat eggs at high speed until thick & yellow (2-3 minutes). Gradually beat in the sugar until thick & light. At low speed, beat in the oil & pumpkin; blend well. Gradually stir in the flour mixture until well blended.

Divide among the 8 canning jars (should be slightly less than 1/2 full).
Wipe the sides of the jars off (inside/ outside) in case you slop or it'll burn. Place jars on a cookie sheet or they'll tip over. (I used our canning funnel to fill the jars, so there was no slop).

Bake in preheated 325-degree oven for about 40 minutes or until a long pick inserted into the center (deep) of the cakes comes out clean. (My jars took about 15 minutes longer!)

When the cakes test done, remove the jars, one-by-one & immediately place a lid & ring on & screw down tightly. Make sure to use HEAVY-DUTY hot pads because the jars are VERY hot. Place on the counter to cool. You'll hear a "plinking" sound when they have sealed. I nearly forgot, keep the lids & rings in the hot water until you're ready to use them; you want the gaskets hot so that the jars will seal.

I did use pecans instead of walnuts, but aside from that I followed the recipe. Only one didn't seal, so we will eat that one!

I printed out the recipe (partly so that the recipients can make it themselves if they want to, and partly so that they can see what's in them - in case of food allergy or some such) and the boys decorated each one. We ribboned and tissue papered the top of each jar, attached the recipe/cards, and sent them off to school.

The good news is that we still have five jars to share with friends and neighbours.

Happy Holidays,

Lisa

**later edit - sorry about the wacky fonts...I don't know what's up there, and can't seem to get it to be normal!** -L

Ornament exchange

Every year at this time the book club that I belong to does an ornament exchange. This group of ladies has been really a wonderful force in my life in many ways...were it not for them, I think that the adjustment to moving here (rural BC from Vancouver) was one that I might never have made.

We do that 'each brings a gift' game - is there an official name for it? We draw numbers and each, in turn choose gifts from the table - or choose to 'steal' another's gift...things can get quite spirited! It's loads of fun, and it never fails that the most beautifully wrapped things go 'round and 'round. One year I'm going to wrap mine in crinkly brown paper and jute, just to see what happens.

The last two years I've played with the idea of giving an 'ornament'. It struck me that we never said 'tree ornament'!

Last year I made silver earrings loosely shaped like Christmas trees, and this year I wanted to do a collage.
Being book club, it made sense to do something based on book parts and imagery. I built the background with scrapbook paper and laminated some cherub/angel tissue to it using fabric medium. I lucked into finding this charming picture in a '50's era Reader's Digest Condensed version of a book called 'Joy in the Morning'. The picture is perfect, the window in the store reads 'Merry Christmas' backward, and the date on the calendar is Dec 24. I cut out words that said 'Merry Christmas' (top) and 'love and joy come to you' (bottom) and laminated the whole works along with a bronze skeleton leaf using another layer of diluted fabric medium. A light sprinkle of bronze 'radiant rain' watercolour spray, put everything in a dollar store frame, et voila! A Christmas 'ornament'.

Trish got this one, and I'm glad that she did.

It all sounds pretty seamless, but in reality I have 2 others here that weren't so successful. They'll go back into the paper bin and something else will be made from them, no doubt.

Hope your season is shaping up to be a merry one, with those you care about most.

Lisa

A special day

It's my Mom's birthday.


My Mom has been a wonderful gift in my life.


The picture is of me, Mom and her mom, my Nana, circa '71 or so, somewhere in Saskatchewan (probably Moosejaw), I think.

Nana was a prolific knitter and crocheter, and my memories of her all involve partially formed wooly things taking shape beneath her hands.

I know I've mentioned my Mom here and there in this blog, but I don't know if I've properly given her credit for teaching (enabling? :) ) my fibre skills from an early age.

Growing up my Mom and Dad never discouraged my love and exploration of handwork (I remember saving up money for yarn to make a sweater and Mom going 'halfers' with me on it). They always were interested and encouraging, making technique books abundant and available. Mom taught me to tat, and even once knit back part of a sleeve that I'd unravelled after discovering an overlooked mistake. Although I learned the basics of crochet from an Aunt, Mom taught me everything else...how to put all the pieces together, how to diagnose and fix my mistakes. She managed to reach into corners of our basement and find whatever tools were needed (even a beautiful old hand crank Singer -and carding brushes...I never did ask why she had carding brushes).

She has always been there when I needed her, and came as soon as possible to meet each of our boys (meeting youngest when he was just a few hours old). She has redefined 'Grandma' and made that moniker her own.

I get to talk to her often, and wouldn't trade our relationship for anything in this world.

Thanks for everything, Mom. Happy Birthday.

Love,

Lisa

Finished silk scarves

I found a little time here and there over the weekend to finish up all the silk scarves. I can't tell you how happy I am with them! The colours are so luminous, translucent. Very pretty.

Using the Shiva paintstiks proved to be interesting, as silk is somewhat wiggly and squiggly, not wanting to stay put. It made doing the rubbings challenging, but well worth the effort. For most of the scarves I kept the colours in the same or analogous colour family (some were highlighted with a little sparkle,too) so that the effect was more 'emergent' than stamped or printed on top.

It would be hard to pick a favorite out of these!

The grape colour to the left is actually a rich plum in real life, and for some reason I can't get it to photograph well.

All 12 scarves, done.

Back to quilting!

Cheers,

Lisa

Kool silk

Working on the assumption that wool and silk are both protein fibres, I tried the same methods that I tried last month for sock yarns on the remaining silk scarves....success!

The photo does NOT do the colours justice. There is almost no natural light around here these days, certainly not powerful enough to get a decent photograph. These colours are beautiful Kool-Aid bright and lustrous.

The only thing I did differently from the sock yarn was to use a much larger bowl and more water so that I could agitate things with a wooden spoon in between zaps in the microwave. That and pre-dampening the scarves helped to give lovely, even colour. Next stop, Shiva Paintstiks! I have it in my head that they would look wonderful with an allover rubbing design of some kind, in lustrous colours...

I dyed all those scarves (7 in all) while making dinner last night. Can't beat that for multitasking.

Happy stitching,

Lisa

Whew. Out of my system, at last

It's been in my head for a while, actually since I made my last bag. I saw this 'bagsket' tutorial over at Foofanagle and filed it away for future reference. The last few days it's been like a song stuck in my head...I had to make one just to get it out of my system. Of course I will now have to make more, that's just the way I'm built.

I did things MOSTLY as presented in the tutorial, but changed a few things (surprise, surprise). Rather than re-write the whole works, I'll just catch you up to date on my modifications...

First, I made it with a 10" circle for the bottom, bringing on an avalanche of math. The bag was originally 12" tall, but I cut it down to 10" later in the game as it just seemed too tall.

The inside pocket: It's the black floral stripe in the photo at left - I didn't use a piece of bias for the top edge, I just turned it twice and topstitched it. I stitched the whole lining to a layer of black batting (to give the bag some body, but did not use interfacing). The pockets are segmented to hold specific tools. Lines were stitched from edge to edge across the short width to create the divisions and add vertical strength to what will eventually be the up/down axis of the bag.

Bottom (no photo): fused Timtex to the bottom before assembling outside of bag.

Once the lining was placed inside the outer bag (handles already stitched in place) I ran a line of stitching around the bag to hold the two layers together and keep the lining from collapsing inward.

Photo at right: The drawstring top...
I combined two things here, attaching the top and covering the top edge.

I put the drawstring top on the bag right sides together, matching the top raw edges. I stitched around the top through all layers using a 3/8" seam.

Then I flipped the drawstring top to the inside and stitched in the ditch around the top edge (photo left). You can see below how it looks once completed.

Trust me, it will all make much more sense if you click on over to the original tutorial.


And here it is, pressed into service for it's intended purpose:

I made it because the cats have taken an unhealthy interest in my knitting lately. Now I can pull the top closed and they won't be able to play 'unravel' anymore.


Happy stitching,

Lisa

From one of my older pattern books

I couldn't resist.

This is from one of the knitting pattern books I have from the early 1900's.

Something to knit for the man in your life, with clever buttons under the arms so that this lovely vest can be 'converted' to - ah, well, let's let the book speak for itself, shall we?

"This model is adjustable (I assume the author is talking about the vest and not the fella). For a sleeveless sweater it is buttoned down both sides under the arms as in the illustration to the left. When the thermometer runs so high that less protection is desirable the buttons may be unfastened and the sweater turned around for a chest and back protector with the ends buttoned into half sleeves as in the second illustration."

Is it me, or does he look happier with it as a vest? Perhaps he doesn't feel the need for chest and back protection? Or is he disturbed by the way his tie hangs down beneath?

I think there's just enough time before Christmas to make on one of these special gifts for that special man who finds himself in need of the occasional chest and back protection.

Happy stitching,

Lisa

What I've been up to

Okay, so it's my first attempt at a photo collage. I can see already how I could make it better.

Oh, and the bottom left corner...

An 'on the fly' fix for a customer who didn't see that this one block unit was rotated. (Nothing like getting most of the way through the first pass of quilting and finding one of these little guys.) Thank goodness for zippered leaders! I zipped it off, unpicked the unit, sewed it back in with my domestic machine, zipped the quilt back on. What could have taken well over an hour to do was done in 1/2 hour. Did I say thank goodness for zippers?

I don't use them TOO often, but when I need them they make a huge difference.


Happy stitching,
Lisa

Saturday we......

...unleashed the Christmas chaos...This is the first year that the boys did the tree completely on their own. It's beautiful.

Holly Jolly,

Lisa