Departures and Arrivals

The quilt my friends and I worked on together for Habitat for Humanity's local fundraiser arrived in its new home and is installed on the wall.

It's all about homes for people, and it's good to see the quilt in a home of its own. Many thanks to Davidene at Davidene's Quilt Shop for helping me find the perfect border fabric, and to the ladies from Vintage Stitchers and Park City Quilt Guild for working on it.

There was no stitching group last week because it was the 5th Thursday. However, there was a lot going on. The girls said goodbye to the horses, Blackie and Brownie.

They helped me braid the manes and tails, so the hair wouldn't tangle during their trip to Texas to meet some real horses and a couple of the grandkids. (They provided moral support, while I did the actual combing and braiding.) 

These are really good-quality horses for dolls this size. The dolls can sit on top of them with no fear of having the horses topple over, as happens with some horses made for dolls. The feet are spread enough apart that they are very stable. (Stable...horses? I sense a joke there.) 

Blackie and Brownie went into a very large box, along with a few little presents, and are now on their way, expected to arrive on Thursday, but in plenty of time for Christmas.

No sooner were Blackie and Brownie on their way to Texas than Matti (My Sibling "Matty") arrived. 

He's getting acquainted with the girls. He will live with me for a while and act as a model for clothes for the dolls belonging to our three grandsons (more of his kind, but with varying eye and hair color). Dolly and Matty have soft, cuddly bodies, like American Girl dolls. When his services are no longer needed as a model, he will go to a new home to benefit a charity not yet chosen, along with a trunkful of clothes. Matty has a special mission, though, which you can read about if you visit the My Sibling Doll website.

Also arriving in plenty of time for Christmas but too late for Thanksgiving, are the blossoms on our "Christmas Cactus" which I'm told by an online friend who knows these things, is really a Thanksgiving Cactus, Schlumbergera truncata. 

He says to keep it where we can see it, but with not too much light and not too warm. (Ha-ha! No worries about being too warm in our house!)

We had one arrival that didn't happen as scheduled. I was expecting Kidz 'n' Cats Alister (pre-loved) to arrive from Houston. His previous owner/mother?/significant other tells me he speaks Southern. That should be interesting. Anyway, he was supposed to arrive Saturday, but there was some kind of problem, and the tracking record has that he was on his way to Park City from Salt Lake City Saturday morning, arrived back in Salt Lake City Sunday morning and left again within a few minutes. Personally, I think they are covering up for the fact that he jumped ship in Park City to take advantage of the fresh snow at one of the local ski resorts, having heard that a good time to ski in Park City is Sunday morning, because most people are in church. I'm hoping he arrives today (Monday). Alister is a refugee from the floods in Houston. I expect he won't want to see water again for a while.

I'm working on a project for Lilli & Fleur Couture. It's a doll knitting pattern, but that's all I can say. (To knit for dolls, not for dolls to knit for themselves.)

For some cuteness, our younger granddaughter, Daphne, appeared in the Ballet La Crosse production of A Little Princess. This was her first performance where people had to pay to get in. Here she was last summer, during our camping trip, practicing some graceful moves on a tree stump.

Here she is with her mother after a successful performance.

What's on my needles:  A project for Lilli & Fleur Couture.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Music for Park City Singers.

What's in my wine glass: Fish Eye Shiraz, 2015. (Mandy says 2015 is a good year. She is a Götz Katie 2015.)

What's my tip of the week: A knitting tip. Knitting in the round is easy and creates stitches that are more even than knitting and purling, but unless you have a steek, you end up with a point that sticks up where you tie off your yarn. 

You can simply connect to the other end of your last row, and it will look OK, but for a really nice finish, you can make it look like one continuous line of stitches along the edge. Here's how I do it. Break the yarn and then pull it through the last stitch. This locks the yarn so it won't ravel.

Find the two legs of the stitch at the top of the first vertical row of stitches at the beginning of the row, shown at the left of the jog in the photo above. Insert your yarn needle threaded with the tail under each leg in either direction (front to back or back to front), avoiding any other stitches below that stitch. It should look like this. (I inserted it front to back.)

Pull the needle through the stitch and insert it into the middle of the stitch the yarn tail emerges from. (Find where the yarn comes out of that last stitch you made and insert your needle there. In this photo, I've turned my work around, so the last stitch knitted is on the left. The inside of my work (a doll sweater sleeve) is under my thumb.

Pull the needle through to the WS and run it through a few stitches to secure it, then cut it off, and you have a nice, neat edge.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.