Category Archive: Life
Socks and Excitement
After finishing the first pair of “boring brown socks”, I looked in his sock area. He has 7 pair that
Experimental quilt
Today, I decided to see how it would go if I could sew and quilt the strips at one time. Using left over heavy batting I pieced it with a wide zigzag to make a section 44 x 54″.
Then I took some of my cut strips from days past that were the full width of the fabric. If they weren’t, but there was more than one piece, I pieced them to get the width I wanted.
I laid out the backing and sprayed it. Then put the batting on top of it and marked it so I’d have some type of guide. The first piece was put right side up on one edge and the second on top of that piece, but upside down. Each piece had to be pressed before the next one was added.
I continued in that way until I had enough pieces to cover the batting.
Even with having marked the batting, I had trouble keeping straight rows. I’m not sure how much the heavy batting had to do with that and how much was just me.
Now that the rows are together, I squared it up and it is ready for binding. All finished in one day. But I think I would rather spend a day sewing rows together for 2 or more quilts and then spend the time quilting them. I think it would be faster and neater. However, I do have another quilt nearly finished. at 42 x 51″.
Knitting in the car
DH likes me to go with him when possible. So today was a shopping day – meaning mostly we needed to get posts and such to put up the tomato T-posts. We brought a load of 4 x 4s home which are sitting in my spot in the garage and went back and purchased 5 more (he insists we don’t need a truck). From there, we needed shavings to put around the potatoes, because dirt will be too heavy for where they are. I will have to get more tomorrow as my “truck” wouldn’t hold more and I need some for the chicken pen. Anyway, from there, we went to get dog kibble and then the grocery store for lettuce and tomatoes. I took along the socks I’ve been knitting for him and was able to stay in the car for all of this except the dog food and grocery store. So, I was able to get about 5″ done today. it would have been such a waste if I hadn’t had a project ready. Well, not really, I would have grabbed yarn for another dishcloth. But I was so happy to make so much headway on the socks today.
If all goes as planned, we will have help putting up the tomato “stakes” Sunday and then I can show them to you.
More quilts needed
Our church has one day a month where they pass out sandwiches, clothing and blankets to the street people. They need more quilts and blankets. There seem to be a number of people with children who live in cars. So this morning, I took out some of those squares I cut out last week and started making a multi color quilt that won’t show dirt too rapidly. I have 3 weeks until our turn again, so will get busy and see if I can get 2 or 3 small and/or medium size quilts done by then. These are 3″ squares that make a 10″ finished square. I made some strip quilts before which they really liked, so that is also a possibility.
“On Grandpa’s Pond”
This quilt should was a block of the month last year by “Two sisters and a quilt”. I’m sure some cold child will be quite happy with it. It measures 40 x 45″. I’m happy as well because it is finished. I think I will stay away from raw edge applique as it’s not my favorite. However, if I started it, then I feel I have to finish it.
Take along knitting
This has been my take a long project this week. The pattern would have shown up better if I had used a solid color. However, this is usable and that’s the reason for making them.
Look how beautiful the hyacinths are!
This is Beau, the Pyrenees, who thought he should have his photo taken instead of the flowers. He is a wonderful dog, as long as he thinks we and the other creatures who live here are safe. With him here, the coyotes and other wild ones stay outside the fence. And I doubt people we don’t know would come inside the fence either.
Repairing a hole
Getting this type of hole after you have already repaired the sock once, is not good.
The next thing was to find the remnants of the yarn. Then after putting in a lifeline, it was time to cut off the toe and pull yarn to the point I could pick up the stitches.
This accomplished I just reknit the toe, however I think that I may have gone a row to far. Even so wearing it will round it back out. That is the reason I knit 2 at a time, they come out the same size. So now this sock should give me a few more years.
Bill’s brown socks
These are just plain boring brown socks as requested. The most interesting thing about them is the yarn, which is Regia superwash wool. They are 100 gram balls (guess there will be 2 pair). 75% wool, 25% polyamide. It is dimensionally stable, hard-wearing machine washable up to 40 degree C, no felting, dryer proof and 10 YEAR Regia Guarantee This is the first yarn that I have come across with a 10 year guarantee.
Scraps and a cat bed
For the cat bed(or small dog), I sewed enough scraps together to make a piece about 20 x 26. If you have a cat carrier, you might want to measure to see what you want for a finished piece.
I then folded it in half so the length stayed about 20″. This does not have to be perfect. I then sewed across one end to make it square, and down one side. Do not trim, because you will be filling it with scraps anyway.
I stuffed the pillow with scraps from the wastebasket that were too small to make usable pieces and then pinned the end shut. You don’t want to over stuff as this is a bed.
I then zigzagged that end together.
These are the two sides of the pillow which ended up about 18 x 12. These are filled with scrap fabrics so will probably take too long to dry to be worth washing them. When too dirty, we just toss them.
I had all my scraps cut into usable pieces and stacked in accordance to sizes\. When I went to put them away, I found another small drawer full of uncut scraps, which I will cut up tonight so this will be all finished. I’m not in any rush to use them, because it always seems like there is a need for these pieces, so now they are ready.
Lunch and shopping
There was so much rain overnight and all day today that it was necessary to “think on other things” So out to lunch we went with youngest daughter and son-in-law. They chose a Vietnamese restaurant and these are a couple of the foods we had. The one above is spring rolls.
This is a vegetable fried rice, which was also very good.
From there we went to REI in downtown Seattle. This is an adventure!. We saw the waterfalls as we went from the parking garage to the store. It is manmade, but beautiful. Then on into the store.
The children have a lovely play area. In fact the store, which is an athletic store has various types of situations so that one can try out the merchandise and see if it works for you. There is a climbing wall, some trails, a small hiking area, etc. I did not see a body of water for the kayaks though. I think they missed that one. The photo below is as close as I could get to try to show the enormity of space. This is truly a tourist adventure if one is in Seattle. What did we get? Raincoats.
