A Flock of Sheep.

The Board of DFW Fiber Fest do so much to create an event every year, a place for fiber people of all kinds to come together every year to revel in what we love.  I decided to make something to thank them, and created some sheep soaps with a relaxing green tea and cucumber fragrance.  I tried to do a decorative colouring but it looked accidental, and not in a good way, so I rebatched the soap (it's melt-and-pour, so that's easy) and ended up with a flock of green sheep with faint gold sparkle:

In case somebody has concerns about scent or other sensitivities, I included two goat-patterned soaps made with a goats-milk base and no added colour or scent.

Just in time, I finished the blanket:

It is 50"x63" - just enough!

Also, this morning, with a bit of yarn chicken, I finished another scarf:

The one on the left finished this morning; the other a few days ago.

Sorry it's so blurry - literally inches!

I have a few more things to report, but I am running short of time before services and departing.  L'Shana Tovah to all who celebrate the new year 5784 - may you be written for a sweet and happy year.

Finished the border, started another.

The blanket I began in June is closing on finished - but unfortunately, not as quickly as I hoped.  I finished the border this week, and grafted the beginning to end, and measured:

According to the Warm Up, America! website, an adult blanket is supposed to be 49"x63".  After the border was added (five and a half skeins of Bernat Super Value Stripes, I'm glad I bought the extra one), it measures 44 inches by roughly 60 inches:

I recognize that the WUA size is based upon 49 blocks measuring 7"x9" put into a seven-by-seven grid.  However, it seems better to me to come as close to their required measurements as possible.  Quick math shows mine is three inches short in length and five inches short in width - not a discrepancy than can be easily hidden when adding a quick crocheted border, which had been my plan.

So instead of simply adding a border and done, I am adding inches.  I picked up from the back so there would be echoing bands that appear to be slip-stitch on the front of the blanket.

And the blanket is back to being a big wad of knitting.

I plan to add eight rows (four ridges) of garter stitch all around, since that works out to about one inch.  Then I will bind off the short sides and add more on each of the long sides, then do a crocheted border around the whole thing to make it tidy and finished.  That should be the required size, or close enough if my guesses about the purples multi yarn quantity are correct.

I did take time to make another of the Bernat Alize Blanket-EZ Stripes scarves this afternoon:

I wanted to see I could accomplish it in an hour.  Once again it took about two hours and would have taken less had there not been some extraordinary tangles where the yarn had gone through loops of itself.  I was tempted to take a photo but was too focused on figuring out how to un-do it without having to cut - and I managed. 

This means my hope of doing one of the DFW Fiber Fest do-along patterns by next weekend have gone to nil.  I will try to have one or both done for next year.  And I'll need to do them quickly, as they might issue new patterns for next year - they've done a few in the past.

Yarn Chicken - Won!

In knitting or crocheting, when we're nearing the end of our yarn and have to finish something, and we're not sure we'll make it before the yarn runs out, we call it "yarn chicken".  I made it with the Simple Crescent Shawl:

Yarn is some ancient Berroco Topaz, about two balls.

Yes, ends need to be woven in.  I plan to do that, and the ends from last week, later, once the purples-and-pinks blanket is finished.  The additional yarn for it arrived, and I made sure to finish the shawl before I got back to it, but I've just finished the second colour repeat from the new skein.

Not too much else to report this week.  I have been gathering and organizing things for a community tag sale next Saturday morning.  Yes, there will be yarn included.  Also some pattern books.  Plus just about every window covering left by the previous owner, none of which are to my taste.  I'm keeping the livingroom rods as those are undistinguished but replaced the curtains and sheers.  I took down another set of rods and the finials are too big for the space and they scraped the walls.  That room is getting painted anyway, so the painter can repair things and I am getting rods that will fit.

I found out that the article I wrote in July was accepted for publication, and one of my weekend tasks is to make some small revisions to it.  I was also granted a co-byline for an article that I proofread and for which I provided a few suggestions, which was very kind of the original co-authors.

In the next two weeks I want to finish this blanket, and then the crochet do-along for DFW Fiber Fest.  I won't be there for the meet-up, but it will be fun to try to finish since I am starting so late.  I plan to use some yarn I purchased last year.  I crochet fast, shall report if I accomplish this goal.

Two hours, approximately.

A few weeks ago I attended a firsthand report about the H+H trade show, and one item reported about is yarn made of loops that creates graphical designs when the instructions are followed.  While at a Joann's to pick up some other things I found a couple balls of Bernat Blanket-EZ in the clearance bin, and since clearance items were an additional amount off that week, I bought a couple so I could try the yarn.

Scarf in progress - 10 loops wide.

Finished scarf - I could have left
two loops at the start.

 

It's fairly easy to do, once you get the first three or so rows done, and a rhythm.  The scarf took me about two hours, because I was attending one of my Sunday get-togethers, so got distracted, then had to pull out rows a couple times when I figured out I'd dropped the edge stitch.  So I started to count the stitches every few rows to be sure I had enough.  The finished scarf came out about 8" wide by 61" long, and is very thick and soft.  Not something I will use for anything else, but an interesting experiment.  The scarf is, like so many, going to Warm Up, America!

I also made a half-dozen blanket pieces from the leftover green and cream yarn, with a touch of leftover gold from my grandmother's birthday blanket:

Yes, the ones with flowers are slightly smaller - I added to them after photographing.

Otherwise, as far as yarn projects so, I am back to some of the UFOs to complete while I wait for the new skeins of Bernat Super Value Stripes to arrive.  Then it's back to the border on the purples-and-pinks blanket.

Wednesday was my father's birthday so I went over early to leave decorations and banana muffins and a card.  Thursday I made a pizza for him for dinner, because Mom made one of his favourite meals on Wednesday.  Saturday we had a family lunch.  Otherwise it's been a fairly normal week.

Miscalculated.

This has been a week of slow-but-steady on the purples-and-pinks blanket.  As I rounded the corner to the third side, though, I had to start the third - and last - skein of Bernat Super Value Stripes yarn.  This meant that my calculations were seriously off, and I wouldn't have enough to make the whole border in the same yarn:

The long edge at left is about 60", so this is almost a 
finished blanket.  I'll add a border to hide the edge.

So, my options are to frog the border and restart with fewer stitches, or find more of the yarn.  Luckily the yarn is still in production, just no longer available at "the usual suspects" in terms of big chains.  I would have to order it from a specialty vendor, or directly from the manufacturer.  It costs more than the $4.99 original-at-shop price (I bought the skein shown on clearance for $3.00) but still a savings over my time to frog and restart, then add more border to the blanket.

While I am trying very much to stashbust with this, primarily the yarns I had collected in honor of Mari from which to make a blanket, my time is worth more than the cost of another skein.  If I couldn't find the yarn it would be a different matter.

Once I get to the end of this skein and know if I need one or two skeins of the yarn, I will pause until it arrives.  No worries, I have plenty to do!  My father's birthday is this week, and he requested a pizza, so I have to make the dough.  I'm also going to make a batch of banana muffins and drop them off when I do my walk on the morning of his birthday later this week.

Delivered

I finished the commissioned blanket, and since I had time and yarn I made a cowl, hat, and fingerless mitts because the recipient is going to school in New York.

This is what I was given as a starting point:

   

Not the blanket - three photographs, luckily with a measuring tape included in the image.  I think having just photographs, and mostly of the border, is why I was the only person to volunteer when the grandmother said she and the mother wanted a duplicate of the "lovey" as it was too precious to risk going to college.  The new one would be in college colours, and they would supply the yarn.

That was in the spring.

They had to choose the yarn, getting the colours correct, and finally in mid-July the grandmother provided two skeins of Caron Simply Soft, one in Dark Sage and one in Off White.  Realizing they had no no idea about the real yarn requirements, I used a supersavings coupon from Michaels to order more of the Off White.  Then the grandmother dropped off two more skeins, having understood my concern.  So I had two of the Dark Sage, and five Off White.  And about a month in which to do this, given when the girl goes off to college.

First thing was to determine the pattern and gauge.  Luckily I could print the top photo at about life size, so I could use it for pattern-checking:

Size H/8 (5.00MM) hook did it.  If you look closely, you can see the swatch exactly covers the pattern.

Then I did the necessary calculations to figure out how many stitches to start, and off I went!  Lots of crocheting back-and-forth.  Luckily it's a simple repeat and I could soon do it with minimal attention.  I will not bore you with all the progress photos, but the center piece took just past three skeins.

Although the original doesn't appear to have a full round of single crochet before the accent colour, I did it for stability and tidiness.  Then it was one round of sc in green, two rows of double crochet (dc) in green, one more of sc in green, and rows of sc, dc, and sc in white.

The border matches!

For the hat and mitts I used a Caron pattern, making the wrist longer and adding three-row stripes.  The cowl/neckwarmer is just 100 stitches, same striping pattern, in K2P2 ribbing.

I kept the extra yarn and will use it to make blanket pieces for Warm Up, America!  There is very little of the green left, and less than a full skein of the cream, so I cannot do a scarf.  Those will be a handy carry-along project, since the blanket I am working on for WUA is too big to carry and work on conveniently - especially give how hot is our weather right now!

A pizza for my parents.

After seeing the pizza I made for myself, my parents strongly hinted that they wanted to try one.  My mother had some pizza dough from the local CSA languishing in her freezer, and a bountiful basil plant.  I still had half a log or so of fresh mozzarella.  So:

My brother gave us a lot of tomatoes.

Work has been busy, and on the side I did a presentation for one of my professional organizations, as well as preparing several resource documents for them, and drafting most of an article on the presentation topic.  I expect to finish that this week.

I finished the commissioned blanket and have started fingerless mitts out of the leftover yarn; I'll also make a hat.  Since the recipient is a runner, probably not a scarf, but maybe a cowl.  I have a whole skein of the green left, and one of cream, although the latter is one of the extras I bought as insurance.  The blanket took most of four skeins of cream and one of green.  A full post about it will happen someday.

I need to finish the test-knit mitt that goes with the sock.  I decided to use a different yarn in case I don't have enough of the cake I was given to make both socks and a pair of mitts.

I've been involved in an exam-question-writing project for another professional organization, which is fun but I apparently completely forgot how to format new references.  However, I think I am back in my stride and hopefully out of the red zone this week.

My crepe myrtle suddenly bloomed like crazy earlier this week, and I thought I got a good photo of it, but couldn't find it when I went to upload.  So I took a replacement but this is after a storm so it's not quite as bouffant as it was:

The branches are so heavy with flowers over the walkway
that I have to duck, which is very unusual.

I've been able to get out most mornings for walks, except one day when it started raining before I got too far, so I turned back to home.  Today I walked over 20,000 steps, which is not a record but very unusual unless I am on vacation someplace and doing lots of exploring.  That was due to a combination of lots of morning walking (two, if you want to be particular, because I had to go out a second time) and doing things to pull out items for the upcoming community tag sale and organize other things and so on around the house.