Finishing a Few Things

This was a big week for finishing things. Pippa's Winter Fair Isle Sweater is finished, for one.

The challenge was to get the motifs to come out evenly and still look OK on a smaller body.

With the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Knit Along starting on Wednesday, I had to cake up my yarn, which I did the night before.

I finished the first "clue" on Friday. The next clue comes out this coming Wednesday.

I needed something to work on in the meantime. One of the Ravelry groups dealing with dolls was having a footwear knit along, so I started these socks using Knit Picks Stroll Brights in "Pucker." (Don't adjust your computer. The color really is that bright!)

I think the only shoes they will fit over is this pair of sandals. A little wild, when it comes to color scheme.

I turned the corner on my whole-cloth quilt only to discover that I had much more quilting to do on the last edge. The cross-hatching goes quickly, though. It will give me some audio-book-listening time. The remaining unquilted edge is about 12" from the actual edge of the quilt.

I'm really, really enjoying my new thimble!

We celebrated the inauguration on Wednesday, the finish of a long campaign and the beginning of a new era.

We won't be able to close out the Covid-19 era for a while. We thought we would be able to make an appointment for getting the vaccine starting Saturday, but supplies were less than believed. Now seniors are being passed over in order to give the existing supply in the state to essential workers, including teachers. Many seniors are upset, but I don't begrudge teachers and existing workers their preferred spot in line. I'm happy to stay home because I can. We've signed up to be informed, however, when we become eligible. They expect to have vaccine for people 80+ February 8th. When those people have received the vaccine, they will drop the threshold to people 75+, which will include us.

A Ravelry friend who lives in Europe recently wrote that her friends often joke, "Stay negative!"

Please do!

What's on my needles: The Rose City Yarn Crawl's Mystery Knit Along.

What's on my sewing machine: Clothing repairs.

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

What's in The Doll's Storybook: This Is Who I Am! Mariah tries on a head scarf to see how she would look with one. She explains to some of the other dolls why she might want to wear one if she grew up, but she knows she won't grow up, because she's a doll.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Just finished The Thief of Lanwyn Manor by Sarah E. Ladd from Chirp. Now Listening to Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann from Audible.

What's in my wine glass: Atico Monastrell 2019.

What's my tip of the week: Basil will grow well on your windowsill if you keep the roots moist. I keep mine in a dish with water in the bottom.

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.

Stitch by Stitch and Drop by Drop

Pippa's Fair Isle sweater is coming along. I will probably finish it today. Here's the front.

This is the back, although it could also be the front, if Pippa decided to wear it as a cardigan.

I put holes in the button band as well as the buttonhole band. This works as a guide for where to place the buttons. I still need to trim the excess steek fabric from the inside and finish the facings.

Here's the graph for the sleeves. It's superimposed on the body graph, but it's easy to figure out how the pattern goes through the blue and green sections.

I had to cancel my order for my new Roxanne's Thimble from the first place we ordered from They didn't actually have my size in stock. However, a new order was placed with Colonial Needle Company, and it arrived on Saturday. Apparently the middle sizes are pretty hard to find, probably because more people need those sizes. Perfect fit, and I am using it now to work on my whole-cloth quilt.

We were supposed to take Rocky back to the animal ophthalmologist on Thursday, but she was called out of town on a family emergency. We had just run out of Rocky's medication drops. He gets these two, one drop in his left eye four times a day, at least 5 minutes apart. Then he gets artificial tears in both eyes, one drop morning and night. I tried to get it from our vet, but they don't carry it. However, the small bottle is available for humans by prescription (which he wrote for us) and the other is an over-the-counter medication, which we were able to find at the pharmacy.

The pups went to the groomer this week, and they look tidy again.

My supply of books on hand is shrinking. I've been selling then one or two at a time.

A couple of weeks ago, someone bought two books and sent me a check for $100. She said to give the excess to St. Jude, so I had an opportunity to use my fundraising page. I hand to get some help from someone at the organization to be able to provide a receipt for tax purposes, but now I know how to do it, so it will be easy when I need to do it again. I'm going to check with the publisher to see if my royalties can just go straight into the fundraising page, so I don't have to explain the extra income to Uncle Sam. (If you want, you can donate directly to St. Jude through my fundraising page. Hint, hint!) The money is coming in about like Rocky's medications: drop by drop. My contact at St. Jude, however, says that every little bit helps, and the need is great.

We thought we were going to be able to make an appointment to get vaccinated a week from today, but the expected supply of vaccine turned out to be fiction, so we're now expecting it to be after February 8th.

We managed to find time to walk. Our usual route is smaller than it used to be, but the pups are grateful.

What's on my needles: Still Pippa's Fair Isle sweater, but soon to CO for the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL.

What's on my sewing machine: Sitting idle for now.

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

What's in The Doll's Storybook: A Story About a Boy. Emil goes to Mariah for help writing a story. Billy plans to provide the illustrations using photography.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Elsewhere by Dean Koontz. Now listening to The Thief of Lanwyn Manor by Sarah E. Ladd from Chirp. This website works a little differently from Audible. You don't have any membership dues, no credits to collect or use, and the audiobooks are really cheap...if they have what you want as a special deal. The app works in a way similar to the Audible app. It's a good compliment to Audible if you listen to a lot of audiobooks.

What's in my wine glass: Château Agnel Minervois 2017. Unusual.

What's my tip of the week: Face mask brackets, similar to these, can be very useful if you have to wear a mask for a long period. It keeps the fabric from going into your nose when you inhale. I've found that if you can get used to wearing glasses, hearing aids or a bra, you can get used to wearing a mask, especially if you do a few things to make them more comfortable. We will be wearing masks for a while, I believe.

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 Quiet Week"

It may have been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, but not at my place. 

As I'm sure was the case with most people, especially in the US, we spent a lot of time in front of the TV on Wednesday. It seriously cut into my knitting time, although hand-quilting can be done without paying too much attention.

The yarn for my Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Knit Along (KAL) has been set aside and is ready for the first clue, due January 20th. You may remember that I got the first skein of Cedar House Yarns Sapling Sock in "Painted Hills" for Christmas or birthday, I'm not sure which. It seems appropriate for the KAL, but I needed another yarn, one with high contrast. I went to the website for Knotty Lamb, where the first skein came from, and picked "Bark" to go with it. I think they will be good together.

"Bark" had an adventure getting to me, however, although it was no fault of mine nor of Knotty Lamb. The USPS had it listed as "out for delivery," but it didn't turn up. I checked the tracking again and got "insufficient address," and indicated it was being sent back, which made no sense, because it showed up on my informed delivery page. If they knew it was mine, like the other pieces of mail, they knew where to deliver it. I suspect it fell back behind something in the truck and then the mail carrier hit the wrong key when he was reporting it as delayed. Our postal workers have always been overworked, and this year, with the pandemic, that effect has been multiplied, and many voters went to mail-in or absentee ballots with many mail workers out sick. I hope next year is better for them.

I did get a little knitting in, though, "little" being the operative word. Pippa is very small, so her sweater moves along quickly when I spend the time on it. Yesterday I finished the work on the body. I put the shoulder stitches on waste yarn, cut the steeks and sewed two rows of machine stitching down each side just inside where I have to pick up stitches for the sleeves, button/buttonhole bands and neckband. Then I blocked it using steam on the inside.

Here's how it looked on the right side.

Then I put double pointed needles through the shoulder stitches and removed the waste yarn. I will Kitchener (graft) the shoulders. It could be done with a 3-needle bind-off, but I'm trying to limit anything that adds to thickness, because of the small scale.

When I checked to see how far I was with the whole-cloth quilt, I was amazed to see I was almost done with the third corner. The fourth side still has quite a bit of cross-hatching, but I'm pleased finally to be making some progress.

I had the usually photo shoot for The Doll's Storybook. Action shots are always more interesting. Here's Mandy, figuring out how many stitches to make Pippa's sweater, which will be like the one I've made before for the larger dolls. Math is involved.

Veronika has an easier time. She just prints the patterns at 80%. Then she checks to make sure the pieces are big enough and adds a little to the seam allowance, so she can still sew the seams at 1/4".

Monday saw me at the post office again, mailing two books to a "customer" who bought two books and paid me $100, with the excess to go to St. Jude. I made the deposit to my fundraising page, which can be found here. I won't get anything from the publisher until March 1st, so it was nice to have something to start the fundraising. When I finish selling the books I have on hand or it's down to just a few, I can publish the second book. People sometimes post photos of their books when they arrive, and it's fun to see them in other countries.

Rocky had his stitches out on Monday. I phone-banked Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday morning I went to the dentist. I couldn't get my phone to charge, so I ended up on the phone (using my iPad and Google Voice) with Apple for a while. It corrected the problem, but not before I had to wave through the window to get the dentist's receptionist to know I was there.

Rocky is getting three different eye drops. Two of them are used four times a day, but not at the same time, and then the artificial tears are first thing in the morning and last thing at night. At least he has finished his antibiotics. He's still getting his thyroid and blood-pressure medication every 12 hours.

What's on my needles: Pippa's Fair Isle Sweater.

What's on my sewing machine: Steeks!

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

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Baby Doll. Pippa and Mandy discuss how children grow but dolls don't.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: I listened to Dean Koontz's Elsewhere a little more. It's a fascinating book. In normal times, I would be listening a lot more.

What's in my wine glass: Sishaye Consult 2019 from South Africa. Another nice one.

What's my tip of the week: If you're sweeping up crumbs or dust but can't get the last little bit, there's no need to get out the vacuum. Use a little painters' tape, masking tape or other sticky tape to pat on the dust or crumbs. Easy!

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. Proceeds go to St. Jude.

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.

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.