Notions Organized - Update!

Of course as you use things, sometimes you need to update the organization scheme.  This morning I did a little update on my notions tables.  I had my needle sets stowed in a typing table that my father and I made back when I was in high school.  I taught myself to type one summer on my Mom’s old IBM Selectric type writer (she had upgraded to one that had memory cards!).  This piece of furniture is sturdy (made of 3/4 inch plywood) and it sits behind my daybed to help keep it from shifting on the hardwood floor).

This is basically where the needle sets used to live.

The stitch marker tin basket moved to the top of the two drawer stack, and a few more stitch marker holders were stowed in it.  And where the stitch markers used to be, a box that holds most of my needle sets.  The top drawer holds my ChiaGoo sets, and the bottom drawer holds random loose needles.  Mostly from Jimmy Beans Wool Advent calendars.

Not all of them fit, hence the ones in the drawer, and if you go back to the first picture, there is a set stowed behind the lotions and wool wash basket on the left.  And to far right in the top photo you can just see the back of one of my looms, which also helps prevent my day bed from shifting.  More about that later.  And where, might you ask, are the darning needles?  Those live in a Jimmy Beans Wool mug commemorating 20 years of business on my coffee table.

More about the coffee table later.  Of course I have more knitting needles than are organized here, and those all live downstairs in my studio.

Tins of straight and double point knitting needles hang out with the bulk of my knitting books.  The circular needles that I have bought as individuals live in shoe boxes sorted by size and cable length.

Regular tip - mostly Addi.

Lace tip, plus my sock knitting needles from KnitPicks - my favorite method of knitting socks is on two 16” circular needles.

And the overflow box, of the larger sizes I almost never use, plus wooden needles (all the other ones are metal).

More Studio Organizing!

As you go down the stairs to the basement, there is a “foyer” area that mimics the one upstairs, that separates my studio (to the left) from my husband’s study (to the right) that had a lot of unused wall space.  The shelves were part of the booth infrastructure that I used to take to the Bead & Button show and they fit perfectly, all we had to do was buy the mounting hardware.  These shelves hold my sewing patterns, and a few other odds and ends.

This is the facing wall.  I have had the “file cabinets” (stacking file drawers) for a while, they also hold sewing patterns, and are surrounded by an overflow of yarn in pest proof bags and boxes.  If you turn to the left to go into my studio, you see the back side of the grid wall that now surrounds my beading station.

I have a lot of project bags, and on the left is a swift that conveniently disassembles for storage, and beneath that is a scroll frame for needlework - I have done embroidery and needlepoint in the past, and will do more of that in the future.  I had four boxes of grid wall - each containing three grids - from the booth infrastructure, and this is one box.  As you enter my studio, you can see my display of pins.  That is an Inkle loom that is resting on the top of the grid.  You can also see a beading loom, and my Niddy Noddy hanging on the other side of the grid.  So my beading corner holds more than just beading supplies because grid wall is just so great for providing storage.

And here is the beading corner itself:

Chock full of stuff.  The table is a computer table with a pullout keyboard tray that my mother gave me years ago.  The top surface is expanded by a piece of veneered plywood that has been stained natural.  My beading trays are neatly organized in the space that would hold an old desktop computer.  There are also a couple of stacking drawers that hold random beads and other odds and ends.  Those are beading kits that are hanging along the top of the grid wall, almost all of them designed by my sister Virginia, who I worked for every year at the Bead & Button show.  Taking a closer look:

The kits on the left are from Earthfaire, those on the right are by my sister.  The cubbies along the back are part of Jimmy Beans Wool Advent calendar boxes, back when they were more sturdy, and are useful for stashing all manner of little things, including a lot of random beads that I’ve accumulated.  Of course I have an Ott light for illuminating my work.  On the side panel are more goodies:

The aforementioned Inkle Loom and a beading loom, plus a small pin loom, more bead kits by my sister, and some sewing notions, because again the storage area offered by the grid is just so useful.  In the background you can see my main bead storage.  I blogged about that in my third blog post back on May 25, 2009.  Since that post I have double my bead stash storage.  And since my very first blog post back on May 10, 2009 I have largely gotten my yarn stash under control, in the sense that most of it is catalogued on Ravelry and is organized by yarn weight.  It is ginormous, but the growth rate has slowed, and should slow even further as I have retired and will no longer have the extra money for buying anything that catches my eye.  Time instead to start working through the stash that I have of all my crafting supplies.

Wallflowers - Sixty-Eight Puffs Incorporated!

Having finished up some deadline knitting, I am back to working on my Wallflowers and today I got the rest of the sixty-eight puffs from Chapter 8 Part 1 through Part 3 incorporated.  I worked these in production mode.

I took a page from Kim and Betsy on the Fleece and Harmony video podcast and started putting my rings onto knitting needles to corral them and keep them safe.

I also have the eight Pebbles made for Part 4.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

Notions Organized!

Since starting my terminal leave on October 21, prior to my retirement at the end of the year, I have been busy getting things organized around the house and in my studio.  One of the things I have done is get my notions organized.  I do not have a before photo, but previously these two folding end tables held two black plastic crates that had books, and the two small stacking drawers on the right. With a couple of organizers on top to hold things.  Those items have since been repurposed in my studio - more on that in a later post.

 

The two folding end tables came from the booth infrastructure that I used to bring to the Bead and Button Show every year.  But that all ended in 2020 with the magazine folding along with the show.  Originally I only had two of those tables, but one year I forgot them and had to pick some up en route (during my stop-over at my parents house in Yellow Springs, Ohio) and I ended up with six of them.  They have come in handy.  Underneath those tables is the heating/cooling vent.

The cabinet on the left is a DMC thread cabinet that I also brought to the show.  As part of my organizing around the house I was going through the booth infrastructure looking for useful things and remembered that I had it.  I also grabbed a couple of baskets that came as part of Godiva gift baskets.

Going from left to right:

This basket holds hand creams and wool wash.  The stitch holder containers in front are my Coco knits ones, which are my favorites.

The top of the thread cabinet provides a nice horizontal surface for odd things (one really cannot have enough horizontal surfaces).  I also have a lot of mugs, which are getting used to hold tools.  In this case crochet hooks and stitch holders.  Inside the thread cabinet are, from top to bottom:

More crochet hooks.  Can you have too many?

Scissors, tape measures, stitch stoppers, yarn bobbins, clips, and needle gauges.

Row counters, stitch holders, cable needles, and hiding in the back, rulers.

More useful flat space on top of the two drawer set.  The top drawer currently holds my ChiaGoo mini sets and the bottom drawer holds random things from Finder Seeker puzzles.

And on the right, a couple of needle sets, including the ChiaGoo Forte 2.0, and a basket holding tins of stitch markers and progress keepers.   It is astonishing how many I have collected.  It was so nice going around the house and digging in to project bags and odd boxes and finding notions and putting them in their new homes.  This is set up next to my daybed in the living room, where I do the bulk of my knitting and crochet, so everything is conveniently at hand, and neatly organized.

On the far right is an Ott lamp, with Claude the Octopus holding a crocheted Coronavirus, cause where else would you put them?

Kalona - Body Finished!

According to the date stamp on the photo, I finished up the knitting on the body of the cardigan on November 30.  One of the things that I discovered when I got to the final raglan decreases is that one sleeve had more stitches remaining than the other.  Three more stitches to be exact.  I have no idea how that happened.  I’ve checked everything over and can’t figure it out, so I just did extra decreases to get rid of them and moved on.  I picked up the stitches for the collar and got it established before setting this project aside to work on a secret project that I will share this weekend.  Obviously I did not finish this by the end of the Berroco Cardi Party knit along (end of November), but that is fine.  I had other priorities to deal with.

Pattern:  Kalona by Alison Green

Yarn:  Berroco Ultra Wool Fine

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Kalona - Sleeves and Body Joined!

In the end, I did decide to lengthen the sleeves to full length.  I continued with the increases at the same frequency all the way up.  Yesterday I finished the second sleeve up to the joining point and joined everything together and started working the raglan decreases.  The pattern calls for decreasing 2 stitches with each decrease for 3 decrease rows before settling in to the standard of decreasing 1 stitch with each decrease.  I did not do this, instead I am just doing the standard decrease of 1 stitch at each decrease, and will work more decrease rows as I want more depth in the armhole.  I will end up with more sleeve stitches because of lengthening the sleeves and my extra increases.  When I get to the end of the called for raglan decreases I will see if I want to work additional sleeve decreases.  I do have broad shoulders and more muscular upper arms, so the extra stitches in the sleeve will not be a problem for me (and are actually needed for a better fit).

Pattern:  Kalona by Alison Green

Yarn:  Berroco Ultra Wool Fine

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Queen Conch Shawl - Finished!

Even though I always have lots of projects going at once, when one of them gets close to being done I will often focus on it until it is finished, and that is mostly what happened with this shawl.  Once I had found a good border color and a good bead color and got the border started I ended up coming back to it and working on it to the exclusion of the other projects that are high on my “to do” list.  I am very happy with how this one turned out, and I’m also happy to be using up my old Advent sets.  The rest of this particular set is really two 9-skein gradiances, although I could have used them as a single 24-skein gradiance, if I had wanted to.

This is the Queen Conch set.

The Sea Urchins set.

The Beyond the Breakers set.

The Beyond the Breakers set flows in to the Sea Urchins set (right most skein to left most skein) and the Sea Urchins set flows in to the Queen Conch set (right most skein to right most skein).  But figuring out something that takes all 24 skeins is non-trivial.  I’ve done it twice.  For the two 9-skein sets I’m thinking about some short sleeve top-down pullovers.  I’ve been collecting patterns.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Verve and Sundara Yarn High Twist Sock

Needle:   US 4 (3.5 mm)

Queen Conch Shawl - Body Done and Border Started!

Once I had finished the border on the Cindy Shawl, I transferred this project to my Della Q Hatbox and started working the border.

Finding a good color for the border was quite a challenge.  The yarn of the shawl is The Unique Sheep Verve, which is a fairly hard sock yarn, so I knew I needed a similar yarn for the border.  I searched in my stash for all of my sturdier sock yarns and made a list of likely candidates, and where they were stashed and then just went diving.  In the end I picked Sundara Yarn - HIgh Twist Sock in “Oh, The Places You Will Go”.  The next challenge was the beads.  It took me a while, but in the end I settled on Matte/Raku Teal/Plum.  The colors were not something that I originally thought of, but I’m very happy with how it is all coming out.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Verve and Sundara Yarn High Twist Sock

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Joy to the World - Cindy - Finished!

I finished this shawl up on this past Sunday (October 27) and got it on the blocking mats that morning.  The border went very quickly and I just love how it came out.  The colors are so beautiful, and bright, and they make me happy.

With the completion of this shawl, I have used up all of the Grinch Advent Set.  Yay!  Another Advent set knitted up (I have so many!).

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Wallflowers - Dark Corners Done!

I finally finished connecting the corners for my blanket.  Of course I worked in production mode style on the flowers themselves.

I finished them up back on September 29.  Jezebel helped by curling up on the blanket when I was attaching them.  Now I’m on to Chapter 8 and making 68 puff hexis, once again working in production mode so I’m making all of the center rings (round 1), and then I’ll do all of round 2, etc.  So far I’ve made 17 of round 1 rings in my B4 color.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

 

Joy to the World - Grinch - Finished!

I actually finished this shawl back on October 12, but when I was laying it out to block I received a nasty shock.  An insect had gotten at it between the time I had finished the body (June 18) and when I started working the edging (September 28).

I was dismayed and horrified.  What was I to do?  I used up all of the yarn, so there were no scraps for darning.  After it was dry I carefully folded it up and put it in a zip lock plastic bag while I thought about possible ways to fix it.  Given that this is superwash, how would I secure my fix?  Even if I found a yarn to use.  In the end I decided to get some silk mohair in a similar color.  Of course picking a color from the web is always a challenge, so I erred on the dark side.  Here is the fix.

You can still see the ends that I haven’t secured.  Fortunately the whole was not too big and I was able to duplicate stitch and fill in what was missing.  The mohair makes the yarn sticky so I’m not too worried about it working out, and the silk makes it strong, plus it is lace weight so it doesn’t add bulk to the repair.  This will now be my go to method if something like this happens again.

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Joy to the World - Cindy - Body Done and Border Started!

I finished up the body back on October 13 and started the edging not too long after.  I really love the colors of this one, it just make me smile.  I did actually run out of the miniskeins on the last row of the center triangle, so I just finished up with the blue, which made the three needle bind off convenient as the yarn was already attached.

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Kalona - Body and One Sleeve

I finished up the body (up to the arm holes) almost a week ago - lots of knitting time in the office - and immediately cast on the first sleeve.

I knew that I was probably going to be starting the sleeve, so I had grabbed the appropriate needles and made sure I had the pattern in my phone knitCompanion app, but forgot to grab a stitch marker, so I had to improvise with a piece of yarn.  Of course once I got past the lace the sleeve went quickly.

I’m almost done with what the pattern calls for, but I’m debating making the sleeves full length, and adding more increases to give me a bit more room.  I need to check the schematics on the sleeve diameter and the width for the shoulders and see if more room would be a good thing.  I did buy an extra skein of yarn, so I have plenty.

Pattern:  Kalona by Alison Green

Yarn:  Berroco Ultra Wool Fine

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)