Sun Flares on a Solstice Sleigh Ride

Sun Flares on a Solstice Sleigh Ride

For Christmas, I gave my family a sleigh ride.   Long-time neighbors to my parents have horses -- not just any horses, but those big Budwieser-type draft horses.  They offer sleigh / hay rides through the woods, with a stop at a bon fire where you can have a cook out . We kept it simple with s'mores and hot chocolate, cider, and tea.

It was a perfect day for a sleigh ride.  Not too cold.  Plenty of snow (almost 2 feet!) there (very little where we live). And a little winter sun for Solstice. 

Unfortunately, my Mom was not able to go along since she fell and injured her ankle.  She loves those horses, though.  And my Dad loves the woods. We had a nice time, even if it was just the four of us.

 Me with Oliver and my Dad watching the bonfire.

These are pics of the previous party coming back into the stable.



Oliver with Sophie back at Grappa and Gramma's house.

Here's a nice video from someone in Sweden sharing the experience of being on a one-horse open sleigh.  Just trying to capture the moment for my mom who missed out.  

Here's another one.  Sorry-- I don't know how to embed the videos from FB.

An now for some mood music:

Saving The Winter Roses Quilt

I finished this Winter Roses Quilt last year, but since we've been using it, I've noticed multiple places where the stitching on the quilt top has broken.    I've been wondering what went wrong?  I've never had this problem before in 15 years of quilting.

*  Was the quilting thread rotten?  No, I don't think so ...

*  Was it because I didn't wash it when it was done (as I usually do), helping all the layers, fabric, thread, and batting all come together as one unit?   This one has an old wool batt, and I have no place to lay it out flat to dry where it would stay clean ...

Then I found this article.  So it seems that I may not have used enough ties to keep it all stable and support the stitching in the quilt top.    So when we use it, or move it, or whatever, the quilt top moves against the batting and backing layers (not with them), and the only part that gives is the stitching until it breaks.

How to fix it?  Can this quilt be saved?
I went back over it stiching-in-the-ditch along the edges of the black blocks.  That created
a grid that will help to support the whole quilt, and repair some of the damage already done.

I could have added more yarn ties, but that wouldn't help all the places with broken threads needing repair.

The grid is done.  It' looks like a thick luxurious comforter now.   Nice and puffy.

But I still need to repair the "broken" blocks with hand stitching.  That will take some time ...

Purple Alpaca Mittens on the Addi Knitting Machine

  I did it!  I made a pair of toasty warm alpaca mittens on the little Addi Knitting Machine.

The first thing I did was to ply 3 balls of this wonderful purple Alpaca yarn (Thank you, Nancy Schmidt, for gifting me the yarn.) into a bulkier yarn.  The bulkier yarn seems to work better on the Addi where you only have 22 pins.  It makes for a tighter knit, less lacy product.    3 balls of yarn plied together was just enough to make 2 mittens.

Thanks to this video for showing me how to make mittens on the Addi:



You can get the official pdf pattern here on Ravelry.

As always with Addi tutorials, practice makes perfect.   I ripped it out several times before I was happy with the final product.  Fortunately, these knit up quickly on the Addi, compared to doing it by hand.

The crucial points are where you might be likely to drop stitches, such as when you are doubling up the cuff.  The hardest part for me was the thumb flap.  I kept losing stitches along the edges, and even had to put an extra stitch on the waste yarn because I kept losing them when I only caught 3.  I finally got it to work -- with a little practice.

Here's a detail shot of the thumb.  I thought this might come out a little clumsy, but it looks ok, and it's solid (no holes) with 6 stitches for the thumb flap. 

My pattern was slightly different from the video, in that I did 4-5 extra (29 total) rows for the thumb flap, and 3 more rows for the fingers (dome) part of the mitten.  It probably would have been ok with the recommended 30 rows for the dome. 

If I were to make them again (and I just might do that!), I might do a shorter cuff, too.  Maybe only 2/3 of what she did in the video.

Here are my notes from watching the video:

1) Knit 5 rows (or more) on waste yarn.  Use a contrasting color so it's easy to see.
2) Make a slip knot in your main yarn, and loop it on the first peg.  Knit 30 rows for the cuff.
3) Fold over the cuff by reaching into the middle of your tube and attaching Row 1 (after the waste yarn) to Row 30.  This takes a little time ...
4) Knit 12 rows to the base of the thumb.  Go slow with the first row, as it will be the hardest.  Watch the stitches and make sure they drop below the lip so you don't lose them.
5) For thumb (16:41 min in the video),  Switch to Flat Panel knitting on 6 stitches only.  Secure the 3-4 stitches on either side of your thumb flab onto waste yarn as they are likely to fall off.  This is stitches 7-8-9-10 and 19-20-21-22.    Knit 29 rows for the thumb flap (She says 25 in the video). The lst row should be facing <.
6) Pick up the stitches on the waste yarn to either side of the thumb flap.  Try not to split the yarn.  Place them back on the open needles.  Don't remove the waste yarn until you know the stitches are secure.  It will be easy enough to pull out when you're finished.
7) Knit 30 rows for the dome of the mitten to cover your fingers.  You can add more rows if needed to fit your hand.  This will vary with the yarn you may be using, and the size of your hand.
8) On the last row, cut a long tail, and thread it through the final row of stitches on the needles.  This will create a draw-string action to cinch up the top of your mitten.  Secure the tail.
9) Turn the mitten inside out and stitch up the sides of the thumb.

That's it!  Toasty and warm!

Now I'm trying to decide if I will make a lining for these ... I guess I should try them without first to see if it's needed.

Dyeing Wool Mittens Wine Red

Red Woolen Mittens

I got a new pair of wool mittens for the winter at Fleet Farm.  I know I know-- I haven't been to any craft shows where I could buy the sweater mittens, and I'm tired of patching my old ones.  These wool mittens from Fleet are certainly serviceable, and will be warm with a thrummy lining (probably just a sock).  But I wasn't crazy about the neutral color, so ...  using what I know about using Procion dye on wool, I dyed them my favorite red wine color.

Woolen Mittens as purchased in a neutral color.

I let them soak overnight in a bucket of water with a drop of Dawn dish soap.  The Dawn helps in case there's any finish on the wool that might affect the take-up of the dye.  I knew the lining would not dye because it's acrylic.

In the morning, I mixed up a batch of dye concentrate:

1 tsp dye powder
1 cup warm water
Pour into a bottle with a tight-fitting lid and shake-shake-shake until dye is dissolved.

In the dye pot:
1-1/2 T salt
1/3 cup white vinegar
Enough water to submerge the mittens.
Heat to a low simmer.

Peering into the dye pot with wine red dye.

Add the dye concentrate. Add the pre-soaked, but wrung out wool mittens.
Let them simmer for about 1 hour.  It's amazing to see the dye bath exhaust like it does with the wool dye and food coloring.  I never see that with Procion on cotton.

Normally, you'd add soda ash to the mix with Procion dye, but this is damaging to protein fibers like silk and wool.  Instead, we add vinegar and heat to make the dye set.  I've had very good luck with this method, as explained on Dharma's website.

Let them cool, then rinse them out.  Let them dry, and be warm all winter!

Additional notes:
It took more than a week of letting these soak out excess dye.  I think that was due to the acrylic content of the liners.  In the end, I put them back on the stove and simmered them another 2 hours with water and a little vinegar in hopes of stabilizing the remaining dye.

These mittens also had a clumsy oversize shape, so I employed the ladders stitch to take them in a bit and round the tops off.  Now they look more normal!

 

Toasty and warm for winter dog walks! 

Arts & Crafts Treasures from the Holiday Folk Fair in Milwaukee (and then some ...)

Me, Vicki and Oliver with an Uly - Little Beehive from the Czech Pastry Stand.

Most years my family tries to attend the annual Holiday Folk Fair in Milwaukee.  It's always the weekend before Thanksgiving.  When I was in junior high / high school, the language clubs always took several buses down to the Folk Fair.  That's where I fell in love with it!   The food, the costumes, colors, dancing, music.  For me, it is America's rich tapestry of Immigrants and cultures coming together -- and we are ALL Immigrants here unless you're a Native American.

Latvian Mittens (Wool)

This year, I was on a mission to get a pair of Latvian or Nordic knitted wool mittens.  The kind with the pointy (as opposed to rounded) ends.  Why?
     1) For practical reasons to keep my hands warm this winter, and
     2) to study them -- the patterns, shape, color work.   I want to figure out how to make these on a circular loom. [Stay tuned!]  I picked out this blue-white-green pair.  Aren't they pretty?    A lady in the booth says she knows the woman in the Old Country whom makes these, along with weavings on sale in their booth.  They are a little thin to be practical for the coldest days here, but I can add an additional lining.    

I've been following Latvian / Nordic mitten patterns on Pinterest and Ravelry.  I think I can use my circular looms to make these -- once I figure out how to do the color work elegants.

They also have a section where people demonstrate traditional crafts such as spinning or knitting.    Some years, they've even had a loom with someone weaving.  My husband particularly likes the Wisconsin Wood Turner's Booth, where they do demonstrations, and sell wooden items.

 Seam Ripper with Maple Burl Handle

At the Wisconsin Wood Turner's Booth, I picked up a beautiful seam ripper with a maple burl handle.  The sharp tip can be hidden away for safe-keeping, when not in use.  After a lifetime of sewing (and un-sewing when necessary), I thought it was about time I gifted myself a pretty seam ripper.  Now I can retire the cheap extruded plastic handled one I've been using all these years.

PHOTO - yarn bowl
The gentleman was also selling a beautiful cherry yarn bowl.  I convinced CL to purchase this for me for Christmas -- since I"m making him a pair of socks.  What can I say -- I'm partial to cherry wood.

PHOTO
CL purchased a couple of ceramic items from the Polish stand.  We were also looking at butter dishes (Turns out our old elegant silver butter dish is full of lead, so it has been retired.), but settled on a couple of smaller dishes to replace a few that broke at home.

Woolen Sweater from Poland

Ok -- So not purchased at the Folk Fair by me, but perhaps someone did at some time?  I picked this up in a trek through the local St Vincent de Paul thrift store.  What else would I do on a vacation day? You never know what one-of-a kind treasure you'll find there!  And I did drop some things off. 

100% Wool, and big enough to fit me.  Not felted and shrunk up.  I saw the tag and interpreted Pollak as Poland.  Now I see it was made in Hong Kong.  Sigh!  Not Poland after all.  Still -- It fits in with the northern European style, and is something I can plan on wearing to the Folk Fair next year.  ;-)    100% wool for only $12.  It's still a deal in my mind!

100% Alpaca Wool Sweater, cut out from Lands End at StV for $8!

And it's in my colors with that olive green. 

The Bolivian stand at the Folk Fair was selling alpaca sweaters for $240.

We used to have a Lands End Outlet Mall here in town, so my guess is that it had been returned and someone purchased it at a bargain, but surrendered it for whatever reason.

So again -- Not purchased at the Folk Fair proper, but very much in the style.  Very much wool!

When I went to check out at St Vinny's, the girl asked me if I was going to an Ugly Sweater Party.   I said, "No -- These are beautiful sweaters and in classic styles.  Not ugly at all!"  I think she realized she'd put her foot in her mouth.  But I understood where she was coming from.  They'd put together a couple racks of winter sweaters, some of them suitable for an ugly sweater party.  But not these treasures!

Now for some swirls of color and costumes from the dancers.  I know these are not great pictures.  My phone is old, so you'll have to be satisfied with the abstract versions, that pristine perfect action shots. 

 The Polish Dancers

The Scottish Dancers (along with the Pipers)

 

Mexico  -  Wow!  What a head dress!

Progress on a Few Fiber Fronts

I'm making good progress on the Red Circles Scarf.  This is about 10 inches into the 43-inch section in the middle of the scarf.  Anyone who weaves will tell you how satisfying it is to see such a pattern develop.  

I am using some weighted tent clips to help keep the selvedges straight and even.  

 

I'm also starting  a new pair of socks.  This set is for my husband, so I have to make some adjustments to the pattern to fit his larger foot.  Easy enough!

The color is a lovely deep leaf green that I dyed a few weeks ago.   

Here are the skeins drying by the heating vent.   

 

They have a lovely gradient of greens.   

 Here is the toe of the sock emerging from the circular knitting loom, while the Kitchener cast-on keeps everything in order.  Don't you love how this yarn is knitting up? Yummy!

Cranes Quilt Top for Vicki

I finished the quilt top for Vicki's Cranes, in anticipation of her arrival back in WI next week.

It still needs to be sandwiched and quilted and otherwise finished, but finishing the top is half the battle!

 

Here's a detail shot of one of the moons, appliqued down. 

 

This is the pattern.  I bought a kit a few years ago, and finally got it together for her.  

Teal Blue Socks

 I finished that pair of teal blue socks I started back in September with that Chic Sheep merino yarn that I dyed myself.  I am very pleased with the way they turned out!

 

I used the Knitted Knocker Loom from CinDWood Looms.

The pattern was based on one of Hypnotic Hysteria's videos.  Unfortunately, her You Tube account was hacked, and she lost over 700 videos.   Heartbreaking and so demoralizing. I guess she didn't have any backups at home.  I wish I could help her recover those videos.

I had a few notes from watching the old sock-making videos, so I was able to do it this time without consulting the videos, which are no longer available.    [So sad!]

From my notes (to fit my foot):

     Use the CinDWood Knitted Knocker Loom

 

     Kitchener Cast-on (I like this because it feels like weaving, and leaved a seamless join)

     Work the toe box with with 9 decreases / increases

     Then start working in the round for  65 rows

     Work the heel with 9 decreases / increases on the opposite half of the toe

     Work in the round 45 rows for leg

     For Cuff: 20 rows of 2 Knit and 2 Purl

     Super Stretchy Bind off.

Here's the yarn I was using, dyed back in May.  The link includes a video on the dyeing method--which has become my all-time favorite for dyeing yarn.

This time, I had a second circular knitting loom, so I could work each step at roughly the same time, so avoid the second sock syndrome (where you finish the first sock, but don't have the heart to start the second one).   That worked out very well.

On to the next pair of socks for my husband in leaf green and deep navy.

Eureka! It's Working: Weaving the Red and Black Circle Scarf on the Loom

It's working!  The set-up for the Circle Scarf Pattern is working!

This is 2 pattern repeats of the circles

On Sunday, I was almost ready to begin weaving on this new project.  I spent last weekend threading and tying on the warp.  I had forgotten that getting ready to weave (preparations) takes as much time as weaving itself.  But it's worth it!

This wkd, it was fixing broken warp strings and crossed threads and other necessary tasks.  This yarn (merino and cashmere) is much finer than anything I've used previously.  I am finding that the old glass Penzy's spice jars I use to hang repair warps off the back beam are too heavy for this yarn.    Lighter alternatives are an old film canister, 1 plastic Penzy's spice jar, and 2 plastic canisters designed for bead storage.  This way, I can wrap the extra warp yardage around the body of the jar, add a few pennies for weight, and secure the available length with the cap.  Best of all worlds!  No more broken warp strings!  They seem to be working well for what I need on this project. 

The next step it so set up the treadle sequences with beads, so I can keep track of there I am in the pattern.  There are 36 picks to the pattern repeat, plus a black tabby pick between every row. I wonder if I'll have enough beads or room to track it all!

 

Here I had the beads all  laid out on a baking tray with a washcloth to keep the beads from rolling away.   The numbered beads correspond to the chart on the legal pad above.   While I was working on this, my kid asked, "What's Mumma doing?"  My husband said,"Shhh!  She's programming."  Why yes-- essentially that is what I was doing.  CL's grandfather was the guy who programmed the looms in the woolen mills in France where they lived.  And today CL is a programmer.  He explains it as breaking a job down into the smallest tasks and writing code to complete all the steps one at a time.

Here are the beads installed on the beater.  This is by far the most complicated weave structure I've ever attempted with 36 picks per pattern repeat.  There's not a lot of room on the left side to push the "done" beads over.   But I'm learning to work with it ...

You might ask, "Why bother with beads, if you have the iWeaveIt program on your iPad?"  Good question.  I find that the action of swiping beads is much more akin to the act of throwing a shuttle.  It would be a completely different action to stop and touch a screen.  The beads work for me--and they are low tech.

The Red beads correspond to throwing the shuttle towards A treadle with the notation A<  and the brown beads to B>.  It helps me keep track of the tabby picks, and which direction I should be going with them. 

Tieing up the Treadles
I used the pattern recommendations with 1 change.  The pattern recommended the tabby treadles both off to the left side.  I am more used to having those be treadle 1 and 6, at the edges of the treadle field.  They call this a walking pattern -- I guess with a little wider stance than it would be if they were right next to each other.   This also helps me keep track of where I'm going with the black tabby yarn.    I am always throwing the shuttle towards the tabby peddle that is down.  For example, if peddle A is down, I'd be starting on the right side, throwing the shuttle to the left.  I also have to be conscious of the floating selvedges.  The mantra for that is OVER the floater on the way in, and UNDER the floater on the way out of the shed.  This is working out much easier than I thought it would.

Then the 1-2-3-4 shafts for the pattern are all in between the tabby peddles like so:
A-1-2-3-4-B

A and B are the tabby treadles lifting shafts 1+3 and 2+4 respectively.
1-2-3-4 are set up for the Red Circle pattern weave structure.

2 colors: Red and Black, which means 2 shuttles.  I had planned to use my favorite Schacht cherry shuttles.  I have one big and one small, but since the scarf is only 7 inches wide, the larger Schacht shuttle seems like overkill, and otherwise inappropriate for this job.  My other smaller shuttles (the antique ones) are quite a bit lighter in weight than the Schacht cherry.  The Padauk one might work as it is the most similar in size and weight, though not the kayak shape I love so much.  Then again,   it might be a good excuse to purchase a second Schacht cherry 11-inch shuttle and a few more 4-inch bobbins.  I just got some birthday money in the mail! 

The Pattern
The weave structure on this project is more complicated, too.  A Shadow weave in a circle pattern.  So it's not the standard straight draw threading for the heddles.  I had to pay attention!     The pattern was a kit from Yarn Barn of Kansas.   I don't see it on their website anymore, or I would link you to it.

So last night, I wanted to run through the bead sequence that tells me what treadles to push, and what yarn (black or red) to push through the open shed.  Just a test run to make sure everything is on track.    The bead string is so long (36 picks of red, and 36 picks of black) that it runs almost the entire length of my beater bar.  I was a little afraid that I would lose track as there's not much space between the done beads and the to-do beads.  I'm learning to pull the beater bar where the beads open to make sure they don't shift inadvertently. 

I can see why they call it shadow weave.  The black threads are tabby, or common cloth.  They hang out in the background and give stability and structure to the cloth, while the red strings make the gorgeous circle pattern.  Every pick of the red gets a corresponding pick of the black to support it.

This time, I am also holding back on the overall tension of the warp, for fear of breaking more strings.  I'm learning to be gentle with this merino as warp.  I'm also being extra gentle with the reed, and not slamming the yarn into place -- just very gently pushing it in line.  And it's working!

Every step takes thought and time, and every issue takes time to solve.  But this isn't rocket science.  I can work through it step-by-step, and get the problems fixed.  Any setback is a problem to be solved and worked through, not a crisis that derails the whole project.

And when it works, and I get to see the pattern emerging like it should -- OMG, this could be addicting!  What a thrill!
 

If you've stayed with me this far, let me say there 1 mistake in the photo at the top of this post.  One line out of place.  Can you see it?  It doesn't look too bad, and I was far enough past it when I noticed, that I did not want to undo several rows in between.

I wanted a challenge, but I think I will be happy to go back to weaving rugs with a simple common cloth or twill pattern -- Then I can use up some of the Pendleton strips I dyed last summer.