Hello, 2021!

I spent my birthday plotting out a new chart for a smaller doll sweater. I've been knitting it this week. I'm already almost to the neck.

It should have been easy to plot, because it's so small, which means I can make it bigger on the screen. The problem was to get the motifs to work on the smaller area. It's for Pippa, and she has a smaller chest.

Here's the more or less finished chart. 

I ran out of free charts with the body, so instead of using a separate chart for the sleeve, I drew the outline of the sleeve on the body with magenta, so the motifs fall in the right places. I really should do this with the others charts, so I can make more charts with Stitch Fiddle without having to delete any. I could do more, but I would have to pay, and I don't make enough of these charts to make it worth paying.

I had this yarn left over from last year's Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Knit Along. It's Magpie Fibers Swanky Sock yarn in Hell S Bells and Alloy. I really like working with it, and it has a very nice drape. It would have been a shame to have wasted this nice yarn. I'm surprised how well it shows the stitches.

It's fairly slick, so I'm somewhat concerned about cutting the steek, but once I've sewn the stitches down on each side, it should stay put...I think.

I got a package with a birthday present and a Christmas present. I don't know which is which, but it doesn't matter, since my birthday is the day after Christmas. 

The fabric is all fat quarters, perfect for quilting. Some of the cute motifs make me think the boys might have had some input into the choices. There are also some batiks, which I love, and some pretty prints. They could all go into one quilt, but there's no reason some of them couldn't serve as a focus fabric for their own color scheme.

The yarn is lovely. It's Cedar House Yarns' Sapling Sock in a soft adobe pink with shades of brown. The colorway is called "Painted Hills." 

I immediately thought of the upcoming Mystery Knit Along for the Rose City Yarn Crawl. I'm unlikely to be going, since it will be in March, but it could happen, and there's no reason I can't participate in the KAL. The pattern, Meditations, calls for two colors. Variegated is not recommended, because the stitches need to stand out. The uneven coloration in hand-dyed or kettle-dyed yarns is good, though. The two colorways should have good contrast, just like in a quilt. I gave Knotty Lamb a call, since that's where my yarn came from, and asked them if their "Bark" from the same line of yarn would look OK with "Painted Hills." The person I talked with, who put down her knitting to help me, thought it would be a good choice, so it's on its way to me. Here's how it looked on their website.

As you know, we ended 2020 this past week. I was never so glad to get rid of a year as I was to kiss 2020 goodbye. I had some good times, but the virus hanging over us every time we needed to go anywhere took away a lot of the fun. I feel so lucky, though. DH and I are introverts. We have each other. We have two dogs. We are not alone. My heart goes out to people who are extroverts and have no one living with them. That must be difficult.

I decided the problem with 2020 was that we hadn't eaten enough black-eyed peas on January 1, 2020. This year I made a bigger pot of the tasty legumes. They were yummy, and we ate as many as we could fit.

As you may know, we're supposed to have one day of good luck for every black-eyed pea we eat on New Year's Day. It's a tradition. I'm hoping there were 365 of them in that bowl I ate. 

Rocky needed an infected wound cleaned out and sewed up right before Christmas. He wasn't coping well with the plastic cone they sent him home with, and he wasn't biting or licking his stitches, so we took it off. At the vet's check on Monday, however, we were told that he had been rubbing his eye and needed a cone, but maybe a smaller one. I made him one that afternoon, using the same blue fleece fabric as his lightweight jacket. I lined it with another color fleece fabric, because I didn't have enough of the blue. I used a heavyweight interfacing to give it some body. Stylish, no?

He has gradually learned to get around, eat and drink while wearing the cone. It really needs washing now, though.

The story on Friday was about remembering what had happened during the year. The dolls had lots of happy memories (not being subject to a virus) and talked about their favorite memories in "Eight Favorite Things."

Next year, they will be doing this the day before New Year's Eve. Follow the stories here.

What's on my needles: A Fair Isle sweater for Pippa, pattern in development.

What's on my sewing machine: My Eversewn Sparrow 15 did a great job sewing through the thick interfacing. It's calling to me, though.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Getting close to the first corner on the swag.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Eight Favorite Things. The dolls sit around the fire on New Year's Eve and discuss the past year. Each doll has a favorite memory.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still Elsewhere by Dean Koontz. It's riveting.

What's in my wine glass: Mildiani Family Winery's RKATSITELI White Dry 2018, product of Georgia. Not that Georgia; the other one. It's quite nice.

What's my tip of the week: I plan to get the Covid-19 vaccine as soon as we're eligible. I won't jump in front of healthcare workers, however. They need it more than I do, so I'll wait my turn. 

Where's my book: Mariah: Stories from the Doll's Storybook is available from Amazon worldwide. Also available from BookBaby and other booksellers. Royalties go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment.

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.

A Week of Raking in Goodies

This week I'm showing off a lot of things that got raked in over the last couple of weeks. First Christmas:

My daughter and my younger granddaughter picked out the yummy set of fat quarters for me for Christmas, and Santa put this wonderful Mitten book in my stocking. I've already picked out the mittens I hope to make from the selection in the book, and I have several things in mind for the fabric.

This week we celebrated New Year's Eve by staying up until midnight and drinking an entire bottle (for two of us) of very expensive sparkling wine from Costco.

I already had the black-eyed peas soaking for our Hoppin' John recipe, traditional for New Year's Day.

On New Year's Day, we watched the Rose Bowl Game, which was very exciting, because we could cheer for both teams: the Oregon Ducks and the Wisconsin Badgers. It was a great game, because the lead kept changing hands. We discovered that our younger dog, Dusty, is a Ducks fan. Every time we said "The Ducks are gonna score!" he ran around in circles and grabbed a toy to shake senseless. The Ducks raked in the win, which made Dusty very happy. We're gratified that Wisconsin did so well, too, though.

The Wisconsin grandkids raked in bicycles for their dolls after they got back from Texas. Here's Daphne's Hannah riding hers. Zachary's bicycle is in the background. This is a well-made bicycle sold at Target. I was able to order it online with free delivery to their local store. (Looks like Hannah has been doing gymnastics.)

Saturday we went to a town hall held by one of our senators, Jeff Merkley. He took time for a photo op with me. (He's bigger in person!)

I found his answers to questions very thoughtful and easy to understand. I hear he has done more than 400 of these, so I guess he has it worked out. I'm glad he's one of my senators.

Sunday was the twelfth day of Christmas. We had our Christmas pageant. In this case it was the Christ Child who raked in the goodies: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Maybe not every child's dream present, but I doubt He was surprised by it. The applause for the children was enthusiastic.

Members of the choir wore halos while we sang as the angel chorus. I took this selfie with one of my fellow sopranos and was amazed that the halos seemed so real in the photo.

That's probably the closest I'll ever get to raking in a real halo.

Sunday evening we went to a benefit concert put on at my church for The Family Kitchen, a soup kitchen that provides meals for anyone who walks in the door, no questions asked. My church subsidizes the running of this organization by providing volunteers and the physical space, along with some money for running it, but needs help from outside to meet the needs. Two Oregon singing groups, True North Band and Down Range, generously donated their talents to raise money for feeding the hungry.

Down Range warmed up the crowd. I could have listened to them all evening. (These guys are about my age and survived the "Great Folk Music Scare" by learning to play...folk music.)

After a few numbers, True North Band came on. They perform blue-grass, folk and country numbers in their own style.

The lyrics were wonderful. They made us laugh; they made us cry. The music was lovely and beautifully performed. We bought CDs from both groups, which also went to Family Kitchen.

When we got home, the Golden Globe Awards were on, so we watched. We were so, so, so excited to learn that Laika's Missing Link (to which our son contributed and what helps support his family) won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. This is the first Golden Globe Award raked in by Laika! (If you're a regular reader of my blog, you may know of my connection to this winner.)

Mr. Link was shocked to learn that he had won. He wasn't even at the awards ceremony.
"What? I won?"

There were three Disney films nominated, and Pixar usually wins, so it must be a good film, not just because I think so. I suggest you get a copy or find a way to watch it. (Your purchase helps my family!) Here's the proof:

Then I received this in the mail from our interim choir director:

Lucky me! Clearly, she wants to be sure everyone comes to practice on Wednesday. What prize do you think I'll rake in? (I'm hoping for the chocolate chip cookie.) My life is already full.

What's on my needles: Maine Memories still. Making progress. I'm almost done with the two-color section of the pattern. It will continue in plain purple from there.

What's on my sewing machine: Getting ready to sew Victorian costumes for two lucky dolls for Valentine's Day.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Another week with no progress. One of my New Year's resolutions, though, is to finish it THIS YEAR.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Together. Emil wants to know what the other dolls did together before he arrived. This story is a review of some of the activities the dolls participated in during the past year. They enjoyed the fireplace app on my iPad while they reminisced.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still Blowout by Rachel Maddow. It's a great story with lots of detail, but it has been a busy few weeks. I have used up most of the Audible credits I had accumulated by giving audiobooks as Christmas presents. Johan is listening to Ramona Quimby by Beverly Cleary and Tracy Dockray. (It was on his wish list, and much cheaper as a download.) The Wisconsin grands are listening with their parents to the Harry Potter books, although they have both read the first book as a physical book. They also have Into the Wild by Erin Hunter for the kids and Harry Potter and the History of Magic by Ben Davies for their parents, two literature professors. Our older son has a 3-month subscription to Audible, so he can pick out his own book and buy more if he wants. He commutes a long way to work, so audiobooks are a good way to pass the time.

What's in my wine glass: Terra d'ora Zinfandel 2016. Always nice.

What's my tip of the week: I'm getting a Roomba knockoff (a Christmas present). I will let you know how it works out.

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.

A Winter's Tale

The "So-not-my-palette Cardigan" is finished.

I elected to work two "afterthought pockets" in the front. I did this by picking up stitches where I wanted the pocket and working a ribbed band. Then I picked up stitches two rounds/rows above those stitches to make the pocket lining. 

If you pick up and knit at least one row before cutting the center stitch in the round/row between the two sets of picked-up stitches, it's easier to deal with the floats (strands that hang out in the back) created during the process of knitting with two colors. 

For blocking, I got out the wooly board. It took a few minutes to figure out how to put it together again. I set the wooly board with the washed (still wet) cardigan under a ceiling fan. In the morning, I added a smaller, tabletop fan to help finish the job.

When it was dry, I added some reinforcement stitches to some of the steek facings, using my sewing machine. Then I trimmed close to the stitching, and finally I sewed the facings down to the inside of the sweater using a blanket stitch.

With most of the family gone, I had a chance to have a look at some of the craft supplies I received for Christmas and birthday, which included a stack of fat quarters from The Stitchin' Post in Sister, OR, a special presser foot for my Featherweight with a built-in quarter inch (on top of the fat quarters) and some lovely yarn to make...a shawl, maybe? I sense a theme, colorwise.

Winter has continued to attack. This was our back deck after two days of sunlight and before this weekend's storm. That table is 60" in diameter, which should give you an idea of the depth of the snow.

DGD1 came here, not just for fun, but to work, doing photoshoots with models in SLC. She had to cancel a photoshoot on Thursday because of the snow. She has a two-wheel drive car, useful in California but not so good here in January. Wednesday, she couldn't even get back to the house, but had to park at a gas station down by the freeway at the foot of the road to our house. I had to go pick her up, and I felt as if I were taking my life in my hands, even with 4X4. I had to drive her back down there at 8:00 AM to get her car. Finally, on Friday (between storms), she packed up and moved to stay with a friend down in Salt Lake Valley, where they don't get so much snow.

Dusty is missing her. He evidently knows she hasn't left the state. He keeps going to the door and whining, but he doesn't want to go out.

What's on my needles: The Trickle Brick socks, again, but no progress so far this week.

What's on my Featherweight: Ready for new quilting. I used her to reinforce the steek facings for my "So-not-my-palette Cardigan," so she's still sitting out.

What's on my loom: Working on the scarf I started more than two years ago. 

What's on my wheel: Stanzi is set up again with more Full Circle spinning fiber.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished An Irish Country Christmas by Patrick Taylor, a delightful story. Now listening to Agatha Raisin and Quiche of Death by M. C. Beaton. A cozy mystery. I think there may be more in the series. Now reading Lord Haversham Takes Command by Heidi Ashworth on the Kindle app. There are a lot of grammar/typesetting errors, but the story is entertaining and sometimes funny.

What's in my wine glass: Crane Lake Malbec, always a good value.

What's my tip of the week: If you live in a place where you're subject to extreme cold in the winter time, leave the cabinet doors under the bathroom sinks open to enable heat to enter and protect your pipes from freezing. We learned this several years ago the hard way.

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 were harmed during the production of this blog post.