PROGRESS, PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS

The ribbing on the back is finished, and it does the trick: no more curling bottom on the back of the sweater.

Next step: hang and knit the second sleeve.  

  I had a lot of trouble with this, and it was pretty disconcerting because this was the first machine knitting I've done in a few years.  The trouble was that the yarn kept breaking.  That's a pretty big problem.  It had also curled up around the stitches, making very fat sections.  Not nice enough!  I took the sleeve off the machine.  That's when I discovered that the machine was not breaking the yarn--the yarn was already broken.  That whole ball of yarn had multiple breaks in it.  WOW! I thought--do I have a moth problem?  Even though it's been in a zipped plastic bag all this time?

I got out another ball of yarn, set it up in the machine, and there was no problem.  It was simply a bad ball of yarn.  The rest of the sleeve zipped up in no time.

Then I knit the ribbing of one of the side fronts by hand--that took one hour--and hung it on the machine to knit the rest of the side front.  My machine is very simple and doesn't do ribbing.  Here's how that looks, ready to go:

This is a view of the whole machine set up:

It took just 15 minutes to knit the rest of the side front by machine.  Jim said, Isn't that cheating?  No more than sewing a quilt together with a sewing machine, rather than taking  a month to hand sew all the seams!  I knit the other side ribbing and hung that on the machine.

But this time there were problems with the machine.  The carriage kept becoming hung up on the machine needles.  So I took the sweater off the machine and investigated.  First I read the manual to see if there was any information explaining this.  Nope!  I looked underneath the carriage and saw that the magnets that pull the needles up into position were pulling them so high that the carriage caught on them.  Why would it do that?  The manual gave no explanation.  So I went to the internet.

Thank goodness for Google!  I was able to find the explanation and a wonderfully instructive set of directions for how to fix this problem:

Turn the needle bed over and find, between the needles and the needle bed, a strip called "the sponge bar."  Aha, there it is.  It's the white 3/8" strip being pulled out from under the needles.  The manual never mentioned a "sponge bar."  You are supposed to check this sponge bar occasionally, and replace it when it gets old and compressed.  Well, this "sponge bar" is not just old, it's been deceased for a long time:

Again, thanks to Google, the solution is simple.  Go to the local hardware store and buy some 3/8" weather stripping.  Remove all the needles from the machine (that's all the needles in those two jars on the desk, sorted by colour) put the new weather stripping in the slot for the sponge bar.  Reinsert all the needles, that's not too hard, turn the needle bed back over, and you're good to go.  WONDERBAR!!!  It's fixed, and it's good as new!

Because the knitting must be weighted it stretches out very long and looks pretty weird.

But when you remove it from the machine, weights off, give it a good stretch, it turns into what you need.

The next step is to pick up and knit 145 stitches along the front for the front band.  It took me quite a while to figure out a neat way of picking up stitches for the band.  By about the third or fourth try I had it: insert a crochet hook in the space between the first and second stitches of the vertical knitting, draw up a stitch and put it on the needle.  It was actually pretty easy because there are 140 rows of knitting, so picking up 145 worked out quite easily.  I was near the end of row 3 on the front band (145 stitches in each row) when I realized that I was knitting the front band along the side seam and the armhole!

When you do a lot of handwork and want to do it well, you become very committed to taking out whatever isn't right.  So I more or less cheerfully took out all that work and started over, this time on the proper edge.

It took a long time to knit the front band because it's a lace pattern and is just over 4" wide.  But this morning I finished that right side front band:

It's pretty bumpy now.  It needs to be "blocked" -- made wet and dried while laid flat on a towel.  I'll finish the other side front band first, then block all five pieces of knitting, sew them together and be finished.  Then I really, really hope the sweater will fit me!

AND ANOTHER FINISH

Well, this one makes me really happy!  This quilt, Cascades, has been on our bed in AZ for two winters already, but was quilted only in the seams of the sashing.  I had always planned to do some hand quilting on it and so we took it home to Alberta for the summer. When I went to buy some hand quilting thread Brenda mentioned that it might be hard to hand quilt because it was all batiks.  Batiks are very finely woven and that makes it hard to get a hand quilting needle through.  I thanked her for mentioning that and thought, this would work well on the new Q'nique.  I think I've posted pictures of it on that machine.

Well, yesterday morning I finished the free motion quilting on this quilt.  I did a lot more than I had planned, and I'm very happy with how it turned out.  I started with the border.  The first three leaves I sketched in with chalk and after that I quilted them free-motion.

                       

The theme was more or less floral, blooms (or leaves) four on a center.  As I went along I got better at it, and this is one of the later ones:

This quilt is now completely finished, packed in a big plastic zippered bag, ready to go back to Arizona.  I'm happy!

I did take out the sweater that had been abandoned a few years ago.  Last summer our younger daughter suggested a cure for the curling bottom of the sweater back: a ribbing should make it lay flat.  Good idea!

 

Here you see I've started taking apart the back, four inches up from the bottom.  The bottom is at the top in this photo.  You can see how it wants to curl up.  Wouldn't be nice on the back of the sweater!

In this close up you can see that above the "soon to be ribbing" I've inserted a circular needle to hold the stitches.  That enables me to unravel the bottom 4" of the back.  However, when yarn has been knitted for quite a while, it retains all the curlicues of the knit stitches and would not reknit nicely.  So somehow we have to remove all those "bends" in the yarn.  Here's how:  I sprayed the hank of yarn that I wound from the bottom 4" with lots of cool water and then stretched it slightly to dry.  It's drying on the inkle loom, very handy!

That worked well.  Later in the day I was able to start knitting the ribbing.  It's almost all finished now.

Another project that was restarted yesterday involves two high loft king sized polyester quilt batts that I bought a year ago to make a winter duvet for our bed.  When I unrolled the batts I realized they were extremely wrinkled and could not be used as they were.  What to do?  I did some reading on the net and decided to dampen them and see if they relaxed with some moisture.  I sprayed this batt quite thoroughly with cool water but here's the result.  Not very good!

 

I wouldn't want to put that in a quilt!

This morning I took the other batt, stuffed it into the front loading washer -- and I do mean stuffed -- put it to rinse in cold water and then tried to spin it.  I wouldn't spin because the washer hadn't emptied the water from the rinse.  I guess it was just too much for the washer to handle.

I took the very wet batt--dripping wet--and hung it on the clothesline to dry.  Here's the batt on the bed, finishing the drying process.  Very much improved!

 

Tomorrow I'll wet the other batt and let it dry on the line.  But I think I won't put it in the washer this time, maybe just spray it wet with the  hose.

Also this week -- Yes, it's been a very productive week! --I finished the blocks for another "sample" Disappearing Four Patch to hang up in the LQS, just as an example of what can be done with changing the colour choices.  These blocks need to be sewed together and then have a border added.  I like it a lot!

 

Now I think I'll sit down in the Sun Space with a glass of iced tea and the latest library book.  I just finished one this morning that I really enjoyed titled The Atomic City Girls by Janet Beard, about the young women who worked on uranium enrichment in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in 1944, '45, not knowing what it was they were working on.  They were just told to move the knobs so that the dials stayed in the right range.  Not until after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima were they told that they had been instrumental in making the uranium that went into the bomb.  The story focuses on one young woman and her experiences there.  This book was on the "new book display shelf".  I recommend it.

TWO FINISHES

I just finished Jim's sixth pair of socks.  These were made from odds and ends of yarn, three different yarns altogether.  The first sock went together easily, but for the second sock I used yarn from seven separate balls in order to make it match the first sock.  They turned out well.

And just a few days ago I finished a pair for our oldest grandson Tanner.  I mailed them yesterday, and the postage to send them to Ontario was about two dollars more than the cost of the yarn for the socks.  It's still worth it, though, as a "grandmotherly" expression of love.

That makes four pairs of socks finished since February 12.  Not bad!  I do feel almost addicted to making socks!  

Now I need to resurrect a project from several years ago--a lovely sweater for myself.  But my first impulse is to begin another pair of socks!  I have a few ideas: some thrummed socks for the Dear One and for my sister's husband.  Both those fellows love how warm and soft their hand knit socks are.  

The other idea is to try the method for the back of the heel, the slip one, knit one technique that makes the back of the heel thick and sturdy, and use that for the sole of the sock.  Would that work for the whole sole of the sock to make it thick and sturdy?  Would that make it last longer before holes are worn through?

DISAPPEARING FOUR PATCH

In June I will be demonstrating a "Nicely Nesting Disappearing Four Patch" quilt block at our LQS.  I made up a series of notes on how to do this for people to take home so they can duplicate the block.  Here are those instructions:

DISAPPEARING FOUR PATCH

Preparations:  For each block, cut 2 dark 5 1/4" squares and 2 light 5 1/4" squares.

These blocks will finish at about 7 1/2" so decide how many blocks you need for your quilt.  Then do yourself a favour and clean all the accumulated lint out of your machine and put in a new needle.  Now wind about 3 bobbins.  Now you're ready.

Chain piece the dark squares and light squares right sides together.  Snip them apart and press the seam into the fabric.  Open the squares, spritz and press the seam toward the dark fabric.

Place two of these on your cutting board, dark squares to the left and light to the right.

Cut 1 1/2" from the center seam, 

Rotate a quarter turn, cut 1 3/4" from the cut edge.  

Rotate a quarter turn, cut 1 1/2" from the center seam same as the first cut, rotate a quarter turn and cut 1 3/4" from the cut edge, same as before.

Rotate back to the beginning position.  You have three columns of squares.  Take the outside squares on the bottom row and switch them.  Then take the middle square in the next row from the bottom and reverse it.  Now your block looks like this:

Take two outside pieces in the next row up and switch them.  Then reverse the square in the middle of the top row.  Now your block looks like this:

Take each square in the middle vertical row and lay it on top of the square to the left of that row:

Do that with all four middle pieces.  Take your block to the sewing machine and stitch these pieces from the middle vertical row to the pieces underneath them, down their right-hand sides.  DO NOT CUT THESE PIECES APART.  Open up these pieces so they are right side up.

Now lay the pieces in the right hand vertical row on top of the middle row.  Sew these together on their right hand sides.  DO NOT CUT THESE PIECES APART.  We are forming a "web" of the block that will keep all pieces in their proper place.

Now press these seams toward the dark fabrics.

Turn over the block and carefully repress the seams, making sure they are very flat.  Then turn the right hand row, face down on the next row.  Sew this seam on the right hand side.

Repeat this with the other rows.

Now take your seam ripper and take out the stitches of the middle vertical seam where you crossed it with this last seam.  Do that for each row.

When you press the whole block you will be able to open these three intersections and press them flat.

Turn the block right side up and repress these seams nice and flat.  Take it to your cutting board and "square it up."  Place the 4" line of your bias square on the middle seam os the block, both vertical and horizontal.  Congratulations!  You've made a beautiful, perfectly nesting four patch block.

FINISHED DISAPPEARING 4 PATCH

Well, that quilt started last week is now complete:

The inspiration for this quilt was two-fold: My friend Susan gave me a box of material samples and in it was a set of brights.  Twenty of these bright blocks were from that set.  Another nine were from some other material she had given me earlier.  Just one of the brights in a block was from the stash in the closet.  The various off whites were also from some previously gifted fabric.  But while the top was "from the stash" the borders, binding and backing were bought this week.  I'm really happy with this cheerful lap quilt.

The other inspiration for this quilt was a desire I've had to do another "demo" day at the LQS, part of the local drug store.  Their fabric department is extensive and aimed at quilters.  It's such a wonderful resource here in this small town.  If it weren't for that department we'd have to drive an hour to source some good fabric and/or thread!

So, to support them and help them sell fabric and notions, every now and then I'll do a "demo" day.  I make a quilt in the pattern that will be demonstrated to hang up there to advertise the coming "demo" day.  Then I prepare the materials for another quilt in the same pattern, possibly in different materials.  I take my machine and all the makings for the quilt, plus printed instructions that I've prepared, and go to IDA to set up on the "demo" day.  It's a fun day of sewing, combined with showing interested people how to make the blocks for this quilt.

I've already purchased material for the "demo" Disappearing 4 Patch.  It's a new series of 9 brights in the same design and 2 meters of a black fabric.  It, too, will be a cheerful bright quilt.

If you look up "Disappearing 4 Patch" on the web, you can find instructions, but I've changed them just a bit in order to have all the seams "nesting."  Even all the seams sewed when putting the top together are nested.  The intersections are opened up on the back side, and that makes them press nice and flat.

The center seam on the top row of blocks has its intersection pressed open into the charming little four patch.  The seam of the row beneath that has not been opened.

It's often little details like that that give a quilt the "polish" that we enjoy!