Tactile Textile Pleasure, 2016

A big storm is coming this weekend...well, big for South Carolina.  One to five inches of snow and ice.  This means that I'll spend the weekend outside, taking long walks with my camera and one very excited dog.  That won't leave me much room for my "year-end craft roundup" photos, so here is a supplemental post of last year's gift crafts! 

In 2016, I completed:

- a bulky-weight herringbone cowl
- a quilted wall hanging for the living room
- a pair of fair isle socks
- several pillow covers
- several sample quilt squares
- an embroidered shelf liner for our dining room hutch
- an embroidered sign for Todd's office
- my first vintage skirt
- a pair of mittens
- a lined baby cardigan
- a quilted pillow
- most of a quilt
- most of a shawl
- a set of embroidered napkins
- a cross stitched pin cushion

And, the projects below, kept hidden because they were gifts. First, I embroidered this garden journal cover for a friend, but loved it so much that I made another one for my mother-in-law (size is around 8" x 10").

I love all the little details and had a lot of fun making it.

I also knitted this hot water bottle cover for my mother-in-law.  I LOVE it, especially the pom poms, but it's knitted with fingering-weight yarn and took a little longer to knit than ones I've made in the past with thicker yarns.  Still, POM POMS!

I knitted a few small ornament-sized mittens and made little felt animals for the fronts, to send to a few friends.  I'm looking forward to doing more with felt in 2017!

I knitted this cardigan for our niece.  I made it a little oversized so it could bridge two winters.  I really like it!

I quilted this cheerful table runner for a friend.  It might be one of my favorite projects for 2016.  It was so much fun to make and I think I'm going to do one for our house!

 I knitted these mittens for a friend.  I had a terrible time with them because I made the mistake of using silk yarn (the mustard color) with wool yarn (the rest).  The tension was wonky and I didn't think they looked right at the end.  But, they do fit!

Finally, a failed project for myself.  I got a Kindle Fire mid-December and found an online tutorial for sewing a cute padded case.  A lost afternoon and two too-small attempts later...

...and I realized that my Kindle was possibly a different size than the example given.  Sigh.  I ended up making a padded pouch with a ribbon top.  No pattern, nothing fancy...except I did use one of my sewing machine's fancy stitches across the top.  I originally wanted a button-close top, but my machine ran out of thread mid-buttonhole and it took me 20 minutes to pick out all the thread, and when I surveyed the mangled remains I didn't have the courage to move forward.  I cut off the offending bit, hemmed the top, and inserted the ribbon.  It's perfectly functional!

By the way, am I the only one who can't say "fully functional" without thinking of this Star Trek episode?

So those were my 2016 gift and end-of-year projects.  Looking ahead, I have two embroidery projects I want to try.  Both are stockings.  The first is a plain white stocking embroidered with trees in several shades of green, with bronze beads as accents.  So pretty!

The next is also a stocking, but it's not a seasonal one.  I think it's so interesting and will enjoy seeing it up all year long!

Finally, my brother surprised me with this quilt kit, everything included.  It's folk art and not normally my style, but I love cats and, although it's hard to tell from the picture, the kit contains beautiful soft flannel fabrics in lovely earth tones. 

Here is January:

My goal is to quilt/embroider one square per month.  I need to pick up some interfacing at the store before getting started on this one.  Hooray for cats! 

I received this book for Christmas:

It contains the pattern for the dress that sparked my interest in vintage dressmaking:

Here's another variation:

It's a huge book and I anticipate that it will take me several months to get through it, going slowly and carefully, but I want to make this dress for next winter, to wear with a cardigan and tights.  Red plaid, like the fabric of my Kindle case.   So those are three projects, and I also have other knitting projects (I'm in the middle of a pair of socks and a shawl right now), and other craft projects in general, not to mention finishing my "butterflies and snails" quilt from last year.  It's hard to find time, so I've scheduled out 30 to 120 minute blocks of time throughout the week to keep me on task. 

Phew!  That's a lot, but I love to do it and my hands are always busy, even when I'm watching T.V., so I find little moments to get things done.  

Here's to another year of tactile textile pleasure!  :) 

burns and blisters and nausea, oh my!

We have some beautiful irises coming up in a side bed...

...but I was surprised to find a huge bare-root tangle of them by the side of the road.  Who would throw away irises?!?  They were so heavy that I couldn't lift them alone, and both Todd and I had to struggle to get them into the back of my car.

I also grabbed some ferns and 'mystery tubers' that were mixed in with the irises.  Now, I didn't know if they would grow, but I chopped the heavy mass into four parts and planted them around the bird feeder in our back yard.  They looked pretty terrible and droopy, and some are starting to yellow already, but success!  Three of the four bunches have already put up flower stalks.

I'll leave them up until all the foliage yellows, and then chop them back.  I have a feeling that they'll look amazing next year!

Meanwhile, it's been leaves...

leaves...

...and more leaves.

The beds have been positively choked with them, and next year I will rake them out BEFORE things start to grow.  Todd and I have been raking diligently, though...

...and thankfully, they're slowly getting cleaned out.

Since I've been spending so much time outside, it wasn't long before I noticed this...

...and this:

...and this:

Yes, like most everyone else in South Carolina, we have red imported fire ants (Solenopsis invicta).  They look like the normal small black ants I saw in Indiana, and their nests are just a little bit bigger than the Indiana ant nests.  But people here have some real horror stories about these southern pests:

"They're super aggressive.  They swarm.  They bite you with their jaws and then sting you.  They're vicious and their stings and bites swell up and fill with pus. They itch like crazy and get infected easily."

"They destroy plants and local insects and kill small animals that step in their nests."  

"They are next to impossible to kill."

Red imported fire ants are native to South America but have been in the U.S. since the 1930s.  They aren't bothered a bit by droughts or floods.  They actually use their legs to bond together into a cohesive floating mass and can travel easily over water that way, as seen in this video.  Fire ants are found in every southern state and up the east and west coasts.  Besides destroying local plant, animal, and insect life, they apparently chew on insulated wires and cause damage there.  An average nest has over 250,000 fire ants, and people actually die from their venom!  From gardentech.com:  "A fire ant's sting burns, blisters, and causes nausea, vomiting, disorientation, dizziness, asthma, and shock. In sensitive victims, the sting can cause anaphylactic shock or even death."   As much as I hate to use chemicals, Todd and I are going to put out some kill powder this week to try to eradicate these colonies.  Until they're gone, I'm going to be limiting my outside work (burns and  blisters and nausea, oh my!).

Most of our camillias and azaleas have stopped flowering.  The bulbs are gone, and the helleborus are getting there.  The irises only last a few days in water, so I've been suffering a bit from lack of flowers in the house.  I have been pretty spoiled by the winter and spring full of flowers here, and the summer flowers (magnolia, butterfly bush, gardenia, most of the clematis vines, etc.) haven't started flowering yet.  Today I noticed these tulip tree 'flowers' all over the lawn:

They barely have a stem, but I have narrow-necked vases to support their little stubs.

Ahhhh...that feels better!

I've been doing some work in the house while I wait out these fire ants.  I bought this old bench at a yard sale YEARS ago for $20:

My original plan was to strip it down to the original wood and either remove the pain from the wicker or cover it with fabric.  Needless to say, 15 years later, it still looks the same as when I bought it.  This week, at least, I was able to cover the bottom seat with a nice heavy fabric.

Next I'll work on the top part, which doesn't detach as easily as the bottom.  Baby steps!

I also finally put together the mini greenhouse I bought at IKEA 2 years ago for $14.  I set it up on a $3 wine rack I'd bought, planning to rip out the wine cradles and make it into a plant stand.  Well, apparently Scotty was right when he said, "You canno' change the laws of physics", because apparently those cradles are integral to the structural integrity of the stand (per my husband).  Oh, well.  The top is a perfect fit for the greenhouse, and I'll figure out how to get rid of the cradles eventually.

I love it.

I divided up different sedum plants that I already owned and put them in various containers.

I love the different shapes and textures of sedums.  I am totally delighted with this setup.

I've also been knitting.  Using Mary Mucklestone's "200 Fair Isle Motifs" book, I drew up a schematic:

Using scrap yarn, I knitted up the patterns:

It's a hot water bottle cover for my brother-in-law (his wife said that he needed one) and I'm really pleased with how it turned out!

I love any chance I get to do stranded knitting.

I will try to get that extra post up this week...it's just been so busy.  Hope you're having a great spring!

Lurky Turkey (Vulture)

First came the rain...

...and then came the frost.

The temperature dropped so quickly that the dew literally froze on the grass blades.

Just one crispy, chilly day of frost, with a promise of many more to come.

This time of year, Todd always gets the call from my mother: her gutters need to be cleaned out.

I like going down to my mother's, because her new house stands on the site of the house where I grew up, in the country. She's adopted lots of cats, who always come running when company comes.

Most are pretty skittish, almost half-wild cats who spend most of their time outdoors, but she has a few spoiled indoor cats who drowse indifferently when you bend to pet them.

They know they're going to be fed soon!

My mother has an incredible green thumb that I can only hope to develop with time. The front of her house is a showcase for her hanging plants. She has the traditional ones, but also some unusual jade plants. Some are twisted...

...some look like peas on strings...

...and some are jagged and stick-like.

But what I'm really envious of is her flowers. While my marigolds turned brown, my zinnias flopped over, and my indoor house plants always on death's door, her flowers have thrived. Even after a frost!

She has mums of all colors.

Her Christmas cacti are budding out, right on schedule.

Unbelievably, she has huge mounds of columbines flourishing in the back yard...mine have been dead since mid-May.

Roses twine and bloom everywhere.

Her ruffled petunias are still opening faithfully. Mine? Dead since June. I can't seem to deadhead quickly enough to keep them blooming.

Masses of sweet william...one of my favorites...bloom sturdily in pots.

The whole back of the house, and the garage, have a long, lush border of impatiens.

Really, it's not fair! I guess I'll have to try harder next year.

As we were driving down the road after finishing, we saw something that we never see in the city...a turkey vulture.

These scavengers can weigh up to five pounds. Interestingly, they don't sing like most birds. Instead, they make a low, unearthly hissing noise that reminds me of a propane torch. A good recording is found here: Turkey vulture sounds

I hope we can go bird watching in that area soon!

With the weather changing, I wanted to knit a cover for my hot water bottle. I'm a bit of an addict. To me, there's nothing cozier than heating up the hot water bottle and putting it in my lap, under a blanket, when I'm snuggling on the couch, or at the foot of the bed at nighttime. It creates a heat that's penetrating and long-lasting. The rubber is too hot to place against skin, though, so a cover is needed.

It was quite a journey. First, I selected a pattern that required you to knit two halves of the cover and then sew them together at the end. I avoid sewing when I can, so I decided to try Judy's Magic Cast-On. By weaving the yarn around two needles, you create a cohesive twist that you can knit up from. I've never tried to cast on 60+ stitches this way, though, and in the end, it fell apart.

I moved on to a crochet provisional cast-on. They're simple...you use a crochet hook to "knit" a chain of stitches with waste yarn...

...and then, using your main color,you knit into the waste yarn stitches and continue with your project from there. At the end, you remove the waste yarn, put the live stitches on needles, and graft them together to seamlessly close the space.

I then knit the entire cover in Misti Alpaca baby alpaca. It's wonderfully soft and the colors are so vibrant.

The pattern utilized bobbles to form a "berry tree" on the front of the cover.

It was perfect, and soft, and beautiful...but I ended up frogging the project. I had selected the wrong yarn. As beautiful as the alpaca was, it didn't have any 'give' and didn't cling to the hot water bottle. Instead, it hung like a sack, and a bit too loosely.

I knit another cozy with a simple cable pattern - in wool.

It was knit top-down, and the bottom was closed up tidily with a 3-needle bind off.

I made an i-cord string for the neck.

A long journey, but some good lessons learned!

It was another long journey that brought me to a recipe staple that I now make twice a week. I traditionally have disliked scones. They're too dry and crumbly, and I've never been fond of the taste. However, I thought a scone with a redeeming ingredient, like pumpkin, might be tasty. I tried several recipes before combining two of my favorite and coming up with a recipe that I am very pleased with. It's tender, moist, and not too sweet. It's almost like a pumpkin cake, but without all the eggs and oil that moisten most pumpkin recipes.

Spicy Pumpkin Scones
Adapted from Brown Eyed Baker
Makes 8 - 12 scones

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
7 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cardamon (optional)
6 tablespoons cold butter
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk

Icing
2 ounces cream cheese
1/4 - 1/2 cup powdered sugar
pumpkin pie spice (to taste)
1/4 teaspoon milk

Directions
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Mix together dry ingredients.

With all these spices, it has to be good!

Once combined, cut butter into mixture until pieces are pea-sized. In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients and fold into the flour/butter bowl. The key is to barely handle the dough. If you over-mix, the scones will be tough. I use my hands to mix it just until it holds together. There will still be a lot of flour showing. That's all right!

Dump your dough onto your baking stone or cookie sheet and carefully pat it into a circle. Your dough should be about an inch thick. Use a pizza cutter to lightly score the dough into triangle shapes.

Bake for 15 minutes. Mix up your frosting and thinly spread it over the top.

Truly, this has become my favorite pumpkin recipe. It's so quick to throw together and the taste is just amazing. One batch lasts a little over a day in this house...if I'm lucky!

I hope you'll give it a try. Enjoy!