Monthly Archives: July 2014

Pillow Fight! (And Mario QAL updates too!)

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So, Jean, who invited me on the Quilt Shop Hop Bus introduced herself as a “Beginner Quilter” in that she begins all her quilts.  This was a minor consolation when I was organizing my fabric space and discovered my Sewing Works in Progress was overflowing a 14 gallon tote.

So much to do…. Just need to find the time.
Its actually a bit more organized then it first appears.

Now, to be perfectly fair, the first photo makes the tote look rather unorganized, but in reality under the bag of eventual Christmas Cathedral Window Quilt and the loose future Mario QAL blocks its all sorted out by project.  But in my organizing I did find a few items that have languished in unfinished land for far too long.  Primarily there was a set of three needlepoint pillows where all the needlepoint work was done, but the actual making into pillows part was never done.  (One of which I posted about in July 2011, the other two were from even prior to that!)

So in an effort to finish some of the things… I forged ahead and finally finished making them into pillows.

Three pillows… all finished from my stash!
Sun and Moon Phases
Pink Hydrangea
Sunflowers
pillows from the back side.

The sunflower pillow I had actually bought material specifically for finishing.  (Though I bought way more, because at the time it made perfect sense that I would make several sort of matching pillows and want to finish them the same.)  The other two, I completed with stash fabric I’d originally bought for other uses.

So between the pillows and the two Mario QAL Blocks I made, it looks like I can at least close the lid of the WIP bin. (Until I need to get into it for the next project anyway!)

As I mentioned at the End of May in my last Super Mario Quilt-A-Long update, I am looking to do more than just 12 blocks in my quilt.  Mario’s princess will be in this castle quilt.  So I’m doubling up the next couple months to be sure I get all my blocks done for year end finishing.  This time I tackled two from the sky.

This cloud so happy, you'd think Bob Ross painted it.

This cloud is so happy, you’d think Bob Ross painted it.

IMG_20140721_154831

Ben said I should say this was an “8-bit” quality photo. (Instead of  admitting I took it with my cellphone in the later evening.)

Future blocks include, Peach, Green Mushroom, Coin, Fire Flower, and a few more!  I am aiming now for a 16 (4×4) block quilt.

Birdwatching Shawl: The Lady Cardinal

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It seems that knitting is so often inspired by Mother Nature, be it leaves, or flowers, and even birds.  Which being someone that likes to feed the birds and plant flowers.. this appeals to me. And so when I saw the Dreambird pattern, I knew just the person I wanted to make it for, and just the colors I wanted to make it in.  The pattern design is a bit bold, just like the impossible to miss Northern Cardinal.

Female Cardinals are one of the few singing Lady Songbirds.

Female Cardinals are one of the few singing Lady Songbirds.

However, I felt this would be a good chance to continue in my “Lady Birds” shawls I started with my Gamayun Evening Grosbeak Shawl.  I did need to bit of looking to find the right yarn colorations as I wanted some tonal changes, like the change in feathers.  Truthfully, we don’t get Northern Cardinals in Washington State, but they are very memorable as one of the birds I first learned about when I started birdwatching.

My "bird" perched on the heather and rockwork in my front yard.

My “bird” perched on the heather and rockwork in my front yard.

This pattern is rather different, its shaped entirely with the use of short rows and was a great lesson in the German Short Row technique.  It does use binding off and casting on at various places, so that the overall point of view is the wing of a bird, pinyons outstretched as it takes to flight. Since its mostly garter stitch, this is actually a pattern that difficulty-wise would be fine for a beginner; however, there is one caveat to that opinion.  The author of the pattern probably gives too much information in the full directions.  The intent is that you get the idea behind the design concept as you knit along.  The full directions are certainly worth reading, to get the technique if its new to you, and to pick up the pro-tips like how many stitches to carry your yarn along the backside when you change, but after the first feather or two, there is a simpler single page row by row count directions you will probably use most of the time.

Climbing Hydrangeas - the bird perch-able shawl model.

Climbing Hydrangeas – the bird perch-able shawl model.

Know Your Fiber: Grow Your Own Yarn Edition

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Remember when I was talking about Yarn Swapping previously?  Well my received yarn included some simply amazing 100% Bamboo yarn.

Its like they went out on an autumn drive, waves the yarn in the air and voila!

Its like they went out on an autumn drive, waved the yarn in the air and voila!

So this got me and a few of my friends curious as to how exactly one makes Bamboo yarn.   Consider if you will that Bamboo is indeed very woody in nature, even though it technically is a grass.  How exactly do you get silky softness from that?

Bamboo, staple of panda edibles and amazing wire work ninja fighting in the movies... and yarn.

Bamboo, staple of panda edibles and amazing wire work ninja fighting in the movies… and yarn.

Well after some digging around… there are two ways to make bamboo yarn.  One method is shared with making linen(flax), hemp and ramie plant based yarns.With that method, the fibrous material is soaked typically in water sometimes with added microbial help, to break down the outer hard layer and soften the under-layer of the stem, called the bast fibers.  This is called retting.   The long fibrous strands are then dried, and spun into yarn.

Another method is used to make what gets classified as more of a semi-synthetic fiber, such as rayon(wood), modal(wood), viscose rayon (wood), Lyocell/Tencel (also wood), etc – apparently we wear a lot of trees.

Wood you like to see my future yarn stash?

Wood you like to see my future yarn stash?

In this method, chips of wood/chunks of bamboo/bits o’ cotton (didn’t see that non-wood one coming did you?) are treated to a chemical bath to break apart the cellulose fibers that make up the plant and dissolve them into a pulp.  They can then be treated with other chemicals to add flame retardation or other desirable qualities if so desired.  And then finally… the pulp is then extruded through spinnerets into an acid base that hardens the fiber strands to prepare them for spinning.

Now… lest one of you points out that thus far I’ve only briefly mentioned the most famous of plant fibers… cotton yarn is not made using either of these methods.  Cotton has natural cellulose chains.  Whereas all the prior wood  was only about 40-50% cellulose, cotton is 90%.  Which means that you can comb/card and spin those fibers directly into yarn.

Oh plants... so helpful in giving us yarns for our friends allergic to the animal fibers.

Oh plants… so helpful in giving us yarns for our friends allergic to the animal fibers.

To be clear I do not know which method was used to make my yarn.. and honestly it doesn’t really matter… its a beautiful gift and I can’t wait to knit with it!  If I were to describe it… I’d say its like cotton and silk got together and had a love child.