Merry Christmas 2009

Some updates -- the Glenn Beck afghan was sent off. We have not received an acknowledgment that he received the box. I'm really disappointed. I would have expected at least a form letter thanking us. I won't participate in another afghan of that type. I donated squares to the Sarah Palin afghan and we didn't receive an acknowledgment on that one either.

In September I had thumb joint replacement surgery so it was really, really hard to do any type of crafting. I'm just now getting back to doing a little knitting. I'm working on the Sock Blankie until the Winter Term of the Harry Potter House Cup begins.

The pain of the carpal tunnel finally went away after 4-5 months. However, because of the carpal tunnel, I'm finding that I can only knit a few rows at a time and then I have to stop for the evening. Crocheting is only one or two rows before I have to stop. I can't just sit down and knit or crochet for the evening while I "watch" TV. I can't even spend time on the computer because my hand can't stay on the mouse for very long. This is all really frustrating. Hopefully the next time I post, I'll have better news that I can knit or crochet for longer periods of time.

Glenn Beck Afghan

The Glenn Beck afghan is almost done. The squares are finally crocheted together and now I'm crocheting the border in blue. After that there's the million tales to be woven in. Each block is 8" square. The afghan is 8 blocks across by 10 blocks down. The squares were donated by members of the Glenn Beck group on Ravelry.

It's been a while ...

I haven't been able to do much these last few months. In April, I sawed down 5 small trees and injured both hands. A nerve conductivity test was done and my right hand has severe carpal tunnel and my left hand has minimum carpal tunnel. I've tried chiropractic to no avail. Currently I'm doing acupuncture and stretching. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be working either. I've made an appointment with the orthopedist to discuss my options.

Vintage Sewing Machines

My hand crank sewing machine finally got some needed adjustments and is working great. It's a 1928 Singer. When the power went out Monday night, I was able to sew by candle light. It was kind of neat.

I am now the proud owner of 2 other vintage machines: a January 1941 Singer Featherweight and a Montgomery Ward Damascus manufactured by National Sewing Machine Company (NSMC) If a company ordered a large quantity of sewing machines, NSMC would put whatever name (aka badge) on the machine that the company wanted. Montgomery Ward chose Damascus.

I need to get some more bobbins that will fit the treadle and the hand crank. The bobbins aren't easy to find. My bobbins cannot have an internal length shorter than 1 1/8" and no longer than 1 1/4".

Updates

I have completed 42 blocks and 1 triangle for a total of 843 pieces so far for the Dear Jane quilt. I have 213 blocks left to go. I think I'll work on some of the triangles while I still have some of this batch of brown fabric.

Saturday is the quilt show in Trenton. I and two of my friends will be dressed in Civil War attire and demonstrating period crafts. I'll be spinning wool. While I'm at the quilt show, I need to get more brown fabric for the Dear Jane quilt.

The quilt show will end my unit's reenacting season for this year and I'm ready to go down for the summer. The situation with the economy will determine if we continue next season.

I have completed 14 of the 30 squares needed for the Cat Afghan for my grandson. I was hoping to have the afghan finished by the end of this month for the Potions OWL in the Harry Potter House Cup but I'm afraid that's not going to happen. On one hand, I'm really, really disappointed. On the other, as long as the afghan's finished by November, I'll be happy.

Dear Jane

I worked on my Dear Jane quilt this past weekend. At first, I couldn't decided which colors I wanted to do. Originally in 2003, I was going to copy the original quilt but I had trouble finding some of the colors in retro Civil War fabrics. Every color combination I thought of I loved. What stopped me was the amount of background fabric I would need. One option I had was to make a Scrap Jane where each block and background fabric would be different. I kept going back and forth with myself. I hate it when I can't make up my mind. I finally decided to look at which blocks I had made in 2003 and what color were they. Most of them were brown. Because I didn't want to remake all those blocks, I finally decided on using brown fabrics and unbleached muslin. I'm calling this one My Brown Jane. I made 6 blocks over the weekend.

I found a really great site for Dear Jane. It's called That Quilt. She has put up step-by-step instructions on how to assemble the blocks. Some of the blocks she has figured out an easier way of doing them which I greatly appreciate. Because of her, I won't get as frustrated and I may actually finish the quilt this time.

I'm still working on the Sock Yarn Blanket. It's coming along very well. It's not an afghan that will be completed quickly and I accept that. I ordered a "blanket starter kit". It has 50 mini-balls of sock yarn. Hopefully that will arrive soon. That should keep me going for a little while.

Quilting

I hope I'm not starting to cycle out of knitting and crocheting. I have some projects started and some commitments I must finish. But I think I'm cycling back into quilting which was my first love. I've started paper/foundation piecing the Harry Potter Quilt. I finished 8 blocks this weekend. This is a the square representing a mug of Butterbeer.

I'm also getting back into the Dear Jane Quilt. That quilt has 225 squares that are 4" square.

I was never crazy about foundation/paper piecing but I'm finally getting the hang of it.

I joined a Quilt Group that's very similar to Ravelry. It's going to take a bit to get used to it because it's format is quite different and it's still working out the kinks.

Sock Yarn Afghan

I have found an afghan that will use up all the leftover sock yarn. It's the Sock Yarn Blanket by Shelly Kang. It uses a mitered square. The pattern is on her blog. I've made my very first square. What's interesting about this afghan is there is no sewing of the squares. You knit the squares together as you go. I'm a member of a group on Ravelry dedicated to this particular afghan. Since this afghan takes a lot of different colored yarns, they have sock yarn swaps every month. This is certainly one of those afghans that will take a long time to complete. Because it's made with fingering yarn, it's very light. This afghan can also be made with worsted weight yarn.

I've also started crocheting the Cat Afghan for my grandson. I want to give it to him for either Christmas or his birthday.

The quilt bug has been nibbling at me again. I'll probably do some quilting while I'm knitting and crocheting. Usually I work on one craft at a time.

Snake Scarf

It's been a while since I last posted. The Winter 2009 term of the Harry Potter House Cup started in Ravelry. For my Defense Against the Dark Arts class, I knitted this scarf. The pattern is called Kureopatora scarf. I used 3 skeins of Noro Kureyon. From a distance it really looks like snake skin.