HighFiber: April 2021

Monday, April 26, 2021

Hooray for Lifelines!

Oops!

If you look where the stitch marker is, you will see where I added a quadruple increase where it shouldn't be. I guess this pattern hasn't yet become mindless. The white line below that is the lifeline. I discovered the mistake a little late, but was happy the lifeline was in place. It's faster to re-knit the rows I had to frog than to try to pick up the stitches across the row where the mistake is. Why not just drop down and repair, you ask? Every stitch that didn't belong means extra yarn where it doesn't belong. The only way to get rid of all the extra yarn would be to cut it and weave it in. That's a lot of work, too, and then it might not look as good. But that's what lifelines are for, right? I have reknit the frogged rows without the mistake, moved my lifeline to right above where the mistake had been (using thread this time because I found the cotton yarn a bit too thick), and moved on. The marker now indicates only the center stitch.

After cleaning up my workroom, I sewed some buttons onto Pippa's overalls. The little knots were cute, but very time-consuming to untie and retie with costume changes.

I did a little more "repair" work that had piled up and then got busy making the rest of the clothes for Lotta, Daphne's birthday doll, so I can send her off in style. Pajamas were a necessity, now that she has a nice coat, so I made those next. (The bear will be going with Lotta, too. Pippa still has the tan bear, her special friend.)

I decided Pippa needed some leggings. These are made from some very stretchy exercise-attire fabric I bought the same time as the flannel for the PJs. Once I had the leggings done, I made her a blouse out of some quilting fabric I had. It's the same fabric as Pippa's blouse, but a different colorway. Lotta will get the shoes, too, because they go so well with the leggings.

Pippa had two knitted turtlenecks, because I had to make a second one to test my pattern. I decided to send one with Lotta. I had some denim-look leggings fabric left from a previous project, so I made another pair of leggings for Lotta, this time ankle-length. Pippa will keep her pink trainers. Lotta's shoes are identical, but white.

The blouse looks cute with a pleated skirt, so I made Lotta one like Pippa's, this one in some quilter's cotton fabric in a pattern that looks like fine burlap. I thought the color was perfect to go with the blouse.

It's great to have such a wonderful fabric stash.

My sourdough starter needs to be fed weekly, and I refuse to throw out edible food, so I decided to use some to make pizza dough. One loaf's worth of dough is enough for two pizzas. This one went into the freezer after baking.

This is the one we're eating. (That's chopped fresh basil in the background.)

The AeroGarden is coming along nicely. We've been using the salad greens, but the tomatoes aren't ready yet, as you can see.

Here's another view. I think we will have a lot of little tomatoes, once they start ripening.

We went to the dog park twice this week, including a visit on Friday right before the pups went to the groomer. They slept pretty much all day Saturday, and here they are Sunday afternoon, still tired.

We had sleet for about an hour during the afternoon.

There was some accumulation. It looks as if someone opened up a giant beanie baby.

This week's story was the 150th story in The Doll's Storybook. I'm trying to figure out what to put into the next physical book.

What's on my needles: The Brioche Shawl Feathers Shawl, continuing progress.

What's on my sewing machine: Sleep mask for Lotta.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. A little more progress this week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: You and Me. Jolena gets Mariah's help with a homework assignment that's supposed to prepare her for an English test.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished The Cornwalls Are Gone by James Patterson and Brendan DuBois. Now listening to Hope for the Best by Jodi Taylor.

What's in my wine glass: Sangiovese Negroamaro.

What's my tip of the week: Yukon Gold or Finnish potatoes can be used for any recipe that calls for russet potatoes, but for most purposes, you can get away with not peeling them before cooking. They usually require little or no scrubbing. Great time-saver!

Where's my book: Mariah: Stories from the Doll's Storybook is available from Amazon worldwide. Also available from BookBaby, Barnes & Noble and other booksellers. Royalties go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. The three stories in the book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. The stories (and links to them) are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

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.

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Monday, April 19, 2021

A Stitch in Time

First of all, there's the progress on the Brioche Shawl Feathers shawl.

The Brioche stitch is getting easy, although I sometimes need to review how to do some of the decreases. They only occur every few rows, so it isn't as if I can remember. At least I don't have to rerun the YouTube video each time anymore, however. Details of my project are here.

Here's Pippa, modeling the coat for Daphne's Lotta, who isn't allowed out of her box, but they are identical in size, so Pippa will do fine. Lotta has a blue dress that will go with this.

I used thinner yarn and smaller needles with a gauge of 41 sts/ 4" or 10cm over k2, p1 rib with the smaller needles (2.5mm), not stretched. Details on the project are here. Our daffodils are coming up, and Pippa discovered one in the back yard while we did the photo shoot.

Rocky's light blue fleece jacket is in the laundry, so I made him a new one, this time in red.

Just in time for it to warm up here.

I spent some time tidying up my workroom. I still have more to do, and I want to get the loom put together. When everything is off the floor, I'll bring Beatrice (my Eufy robot vacuum) in here and turn her loose. I should have taken a "before" photo.

DH has been meeting with a group of Madroña Vineyards fans. I was able to join him on Thursday. Everyone received the same wines (see below) and we had a virtual wine-tasting. (The wine was real, but the meeting was via Zoom.) We tried the 2002 and the 2017 Nebbiolo. The 2002 was fantastic. We should perhaps get some more of the 2017 and store it in the wine fridge, although it's risky (a power outage or fridge failure could damage the result)...and there's no room in the wine fridge.

We discovered Madroña Vineyards when we lived in Utah and were active in the Park City Mountain Sports Club. Friends talked of it, so we stopped there when we were in California.

My kit for the Kevät sweater arrived in the mailbox Thursday, but it was very late when the mail was delivered, so I picked it up on Friday.

DDIL and I will be doing these as a KAL. I have the cropped version and she is making the full-length one. The pattern is here.

I found out this past week that I will be getting monthly reports from Book Baby on sales of the book. Each month's report will be for the month three months before, so the first report I received was for December. The report in May will be for January, etc.

I hope to get a bit more quilting done this week, but I need to finish outfitting Lotta, so I can mail her off the beginning of May.

What's on my needles: Finished the winter coat for Lotta. Still working on the Brioche Shawl Feathers Shawl. I replaced two buttons on my Dogwood Blossoms Cardigan.

What's on my sewing machine: PJs for Lotta, all ready to cut out, and then some leggings for her. Rocky's indoor fleece jacket, done, and some buttons sewn on Pippa's overalls.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. I got to move the hoop again.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: "A Science Experiment, Part 2."

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman, and now listening to The Other Emily, Dean Koontz' new novel.

What's in my wine glass: Madroña Vinyard's Nebbiola 2002. Delicious. It changes character with each food, and always delightful. A new favorite.

What's my tip of the week: You know those cans where you have a pull tab instead of using a can opener? They leave a rim around the top that makes it difficult to get all of the contents out. I have just discovered that you can actually use the can opener to remove that rim cleanly if you want. I don't know if this works on all cans, but it worked great on a coffee can and then some canned pumpkin.

Monday, April 12, 2021

Blossoms and Feathers

The Brioche Shawl Feathers shawl is coming along.

I put in a lifeline, which I move every few inches. The buttons are to keep the lifeline from coming out. It's fairly complicated, so I have to pay attention when I knit, but it's entertaining, and I'm getting accustomed to putting my stitches back together properly when I make a mistake. If I'm watching TV, the hand-quilting is a better choice for something to work on.

I do need to CO a project for the KAL in the Goetz Doll Lovers group on Ravelry, though. I plan to make something for Daphne's birthday doll. This will be the Cabbagetown Jacket, which makes a nice winter coat, but I'm sizing it down for the Little Kidz doll Lotta.

I've rewritten my Wonderland Turtle turtleneck pattern for Emil's book, including instructions for sizing it for the plumper American Girl Dolls. I think it looks good on Emil, though. I plan to include the pattern at the end of the three stories in the book.

Spring is trying to come to Bend. The daffodils are starting to bloom.

The cherub in our backyard is keeping an eye on some little white flowers. DH says they're weeds, but the cherub and I think they're pretty. Not much else is blooming outdoors yet.

Indoors, however is another matter. The tomato blossoms are fading and the little tomatoes are growing.

Speaking of growing, Zachary turned nine on Thursday.

They celebrated after school on Tuesday, however, because his parents were scheduled to get their second dose of the Moderna vaccine on Wednesday, and they wanted to be prepared in case it made them sick. It did. Fortunately, they were well again within 24 hours and happy to be finished with the vaccine.

I put a "Shop Now" button on the Facebook page for The Doll's Storybook. It goes to the BookBaby store, rather than to Amazon or Barnes & Noble. This is because when you buy through the BookBaby store, $7.48 goes to pediatric cancer research and treatment, but when the book is purchased elsewhere they only get $1.26. The book still costs the same. However, people who get free shipping from a particular bookseller will save that cost. Anyone who would prefer to do that can donate through our fundraising page.

What's on my needles: The Brioche Shawl Feathers Shawl, making progress. Also ready to CO a winter coat for Lotta.

What's on my sewing machine: PJs for Lotta...soon.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. A little more progress this week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: http://thedollsstorybook.blogspot.com

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished The Black Madonna by Stella Riley. Now listening to The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman, recommended to me by an online friend..

What's in my wine glass: Monastrell Bacanisimo Red from Spain. Not bad.

What's my tip of the week: If you rinse more lettuce leaves than you need for your salad, you can store them in a plastic bag or container with paper towels. They will keep longer.

Monday, April 5, 2021

More Brioche, Adventures in Publishing and Easter

The adventures with brioche knitting continue. Here's how it looked on Friday.

By Sunday, it looked like this.

It has been an adventure so far. I misread Row 52 and didn't discover it until I was ready for Row 80. I had to frog back and pick up the stitches from Row 49, to get them all back on the needle correctly. A lifeline wouldn't have helped, because I would have moved it to above that spot. However, it was a good lesson in the structure of the stitch, as was my next mistake. That came when I thought I had a mistake a couple of rows down from where I was knitting. I tried to fix it. It turned out not to be a mistake, but then I couldn't get the stitches back the way they were and had to tink back two rows. The rows are getting longer, so I need to be more careful. I put in a lifeline yesterday.

The cap I knitted for myself a year ago was too big. It came down over my eyes. I had been thinking of shrinking it, but it wasn't until a friend, who had the same problem with a cap, gave his the treatment. Encouraged by his success, I resolved to give it a try this past week. Here's what it looked like before.

And here is the result after washing in hot water with soap and rinsing in cold.

The shrinkage was a lot more vertically than horizontally, which was what I needed. It's still a bit big, but at least I can wear it now. It's much better. I wore it when we went to the dog park on Saturday.

It was a big week for The Doll's Storybook. I managed to do photo shoots for the three stories I had already written, so I'm scheduled through April 23rd.

I learned that as of April 2nd, the book had sold 135 copies worldwide and earned more than $200 for pediatric cancer treatment and research. That doesn't count the books I've sold from home. I found out also that the royalties from Book Baby's bookstore is much greater than from other book sellers. They charge about $5 for shipping, so if you don't get free shipping from other book sellers, it's better to buy from them. Barnes and Noble has it in stock online now, and they have free shipping for members, or you can pick it up in their stores.

Our local yarn shop has decided to stock the book. I gave the owner/manager three copies on consignment along with links to the patterns for the sweaters the dolls are shown wearing in the book. Her idea was to market it to customers to go along with doll clothes they would knit for a child's doll. Now I'm thinking of including a pattern in the next book.

I still have a box with about 50 copies at my house. When most of those are sold, I will put out another book. I'm already working on Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook.

We're starting to see the beginnings of some tomatoes in the AeroGarden. DH uses a small artist's paintbrush to pollinate the flowers. I don't know if this is needed, but we're getting tomatoes. This was Wednesday.

By Sunday, the tomatoes were more obvious and easier to see.

I worked on tidying my fiber studio a bit and managed to get through all the papers. There is still a lot to do, however.

Here's Sunday's service on YouTube. Our piece is at about 1:01, but there is other lovely music as well:

For this week's cuteness, here are the Oregon grandsons. They are back to in-person learning now.

What's on my needles: Brioche Shawl Feathers.

What's on my sewing machine: Dust.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. A little more progress this week. Very little.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Jolena lets Pippa watch her make bread in "Rising to the Occasion."

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Black Madonna by Stella Riley. It's a very long book, but I have less than four hours to go.

What's in my wine glass: Sishaye Shiraz 2019 from South Africa. "Sishaye" is Zulu for "Splash." It's the result of a partnership between winemaker Pieter Carstens and Splash Wines.

What's my tip of the week: If you're using interchangeable needles, you can use the little holes in them for putting in a lifeline. I like to use dental floss. Just tie one end through the little hole in the needle you're knitting with. It will carry that end through to the other end. Then cut it off, leaving enough hanging from each end that you don't have to worry about the stitches slipping off, or you can thread each end through a button and tie it. The button will keep it in place. If you find a mistake you can't fix, you can remove your work from the needles, rip back to the lifeline and then pick up the stitches from the lifeline, leaving it in place as you work, just in case. You can either leave it in place until you've finished the project or remove it to reuse higher up, if you're sure everything is correct. It's good to have two, so you can leave one in place while you put in the other.