Hand Quilting

Having no knitting on the go, but wanting something that was "easy on the brain" after a long, intense day at work, I have pulled out the Kentucky quilt I was hand quilting. (But you know, hadn't work on in so long it was more like I was not hand quilting it.)

I got stuck when I timed it and realized it takes me two hours to do one flower. That means it's unlikely I could ever do more than one in an evening. That is a lot of time before this is done. But not wanting to just chuck it, I kept it around. And now I am working on it again. Everything has a season.

Because even if something takes a long time to finish, if you keep at it you at least have a chance of finishing it. If you never work on it, you're right--it's never going to get finished.

I had been trying to get away without pinning the layers because they are already basted by the buttons I had applied to the quilt in its previous life as a duvet cover. But I was starting to run into problems with the backing shifting around. So now I pin around each flower as I get to it. Safety pins so I won't stab myself repeatedly.

I put a pin in around each outside edge and then pin inside each petal of the flower from the backside so my thread won't got caught on the pins all the time. Seems to be working.

Another thing I've learned is to start the block next to an unquilted block so I don't have to cut my thread in between and can quilt continuously from one to the next.

You can start at any point where the two blocks touch; in the case above, I've started where the arrow is pointing. It only works for two blocks in a row, but that is still more than just doing one block at a time.

In previous stints of working on this quilt, I have avoided the blocks that needed to be repaired. A couple of the fabrics are quite thin and didn't stand up to the use. In this block you can see that I stitched up both horizontal seams in the pictures:

They were fraying horribly, but I just resewed the seam overlapping one fabric with the other. It's not exactly an invisible repair, but I think as you get a little further away, you will agree that it's not noticeable:

As soon as I repaired it, I quilted the block so that the fabric would have the support that it needs. I hope it will last for a while now.

There are still other blocks that I think I will have to replace the fabric. This one is frayed so badly in so many spots that I don't think I can save it:

I added the pins for support while I'm working on the rest of the quilt. But whole seams have frayed away:

and I don't think there's enough left for me to put it back together. I have some fabric someone gave me that they had had for years and I'm thinking some of that might match the "vintage" of these fabrics.

But there are others like this one:

that just need a little TLC and then I think they'll be fine.

I've been working from one corner of the quilt. I didn't want to jump around the quilt, and this helps me stay focused. (And prevents missing a block, which would be easy to do!) I'm in the middle of block #14. My recollection says there are 64 flowers. I don't want to recount now because whatever the exact number is, I still have a long way to go. But 14 is a lot better than the 5(?) or so that I had before I started stitching again. And don't remind me that once the flowers are done, I'll have to stitch all the connecting triangles and then the border blocks. I'll face that when I get there!

I've been enjoying the stitching. I enjoy many of the fabrics in the flowers so that makes it a pleasure to work on them. Many of them are not so lovely (and some are thick and hard to stitch through on top of that) but I am motivated to get those done too so I can move on to one I like more. It's all good.

And with this snap of cooler weather that's come upon us, I'm happy to have a quilt over my lap as I work!

Fix it Friday: Boro Style

It's Fix it Friday around here and I am using Boro stitching with its original intent--fixing work pants. A pair of mine and a pair of Troy's.

Putting my Squam learning to good use! (Hmm...not that I couldn't mend pants before, but I'm having more fun doing it this way. And that means it's actually getting done!)

Spring Squam 2015: Day 3. Extras and a Walk

Day 3 (Saturday) dawned bright and sunny and warm. It was such a gift after the cooler days that had proceeded it. Everyone was excited to be finishing up their last class and attending the Art Fair on Saturday night. The atmosphere was excited, although tinged with the knowledge that it was our last day.

I dressed in my now-temperature-appropriate capris and my two-tosh Scarpetta. And not to trust first impressions of the weather, I wore my orange tulip socks again!

The morning was spent in class which I wrote about here. The afternoon schedule was free with a couple more "Extras" offered. The first one was billed as making your own perfume (no thanks) and turned out to be more about making home skin products. I skipped it and went for the walk I had been intending to take at last Squam!

Or, not really the intended walk because I headed out to find the path that goes up West Rattlesnake Mountain (1,243 ft), but I couldn't find the entrance to the path from the road. So I took a much more clearly marked path that mostly followed the road and didn't involve any steep climbs.

I enjoyed getting out, getting moving and, I'll say it again, the glorious weather. (Too cool for me to sit in the shade, but perfect for walking or sitting in the sun.)

I bent down and saw little things like this slip of a plant pushing its way up through the matted leaves:

And this tiny frog:

And I looked up and saw the sun play on needles

and leaves.

These leaves had apparently fallen on the road and then been either pushed into the dirt, or covered by a thin layer of dirt.

I was fascinated with how it looked like a stain or an impression of leaves. But there were still real leaves under there.

After the walk, I returned to my dock, switched my wool shirt for a tshirt and soaked my feet in the cold lake water.

I also enjoyed a lie-down on the dock in the sun. The cool breeze couldn't find me there and I was so happy to be laying there.

The second "Extra" of the afternoon was on Boro stitching taught by Samantha Hoyt Lindgren.

Boro stitching is similar to Sashiko, but Samantha explained that whereas Sashiko was used by the rich to decorate and embellish fabric, Boro was used by the working class to mend everyday clothing. It is normally done on denim or other heavy duty fabrics, but like any technique you can use it for what you want.

I had a pair of pants with me that were ripping along the top inside pocket seams. I also had some extra denim. First thing was to decide if you want the patch fabric to be on the inside or outside. Since I was dealing with pockets and flaps, I pinned the patch on the inside.

The jeans were made from a stretch denim but the patch fabric was not, so I placed the patch on the bias so it would have a little stretch to match the main fabric.

I then stitched through the layers with a sturdy quilting thread. There is special Japanese thread or floss made just for this stitching. Or you can use pearl cotton if you can't find the Japanese stuff. In this case, I liked that the quilting thread matched the jeans. I didn't want to draw a lot of attention to my butt.

You can do any pattern: horizontal lines, vertical lines, concentric circles or squares, diagonals or you can echo the shape of the rip you're mending. Or another variation was random small stitches that look like little grains of rice!

You can see that I chose to work horizontally. I had to open the pockets and stitch from inside them so I wouldn't sew the pockets shut.

Samantha thought my stitches were a little larger than they should be (I confess I was rushing to get them done!) so she suggested adding the vertical stitching as reinforcement.

You can also see that the knots are on the outside! You don't have to, but that is what is traditional. It is a real "honesty" in mending...you're not trying to blend or make it disappear but at the same time you're still making it beautiful. I'm sure you can imagine some garments look better after the mending than they did originally!

Once I had finished the stitching, I cut away the patch from the inside close to the stitching. I didn't do anything to finish the edges. Denim is too thick to be folding the edges over and I really don't think it will ravel. I suppose if I were really concerned about it, I could have just done a whip stitch around the edges, but I didn't.

I was so excited to be able to wear these pants again, I wasted no time in putting them on as I changed for the Art Fair. Here I am showing off the mend (not my butt, in case that is not clear!)

I also added my "Mesa" sweater as I expected the evening to be cooler.

And to keep you up-to-date with the knitting progress, I was still working away at the necklace.

I had some time during the beginning of the embroidery class when Joetta was talking to us and on Friday evening when I invited myself and my roommate over to the neighbouring cabin. (I was not about to spend a lonely night in my cabin while the rest slept the evening away!) We had a nice time knitting, chatting and sometimes being quiet. (You're not surprised most knitters are introverts, right?)

By this point I had the pattern "down" so I could make progress fairly quickly. It would be nice to finish it within the time frame of this trip and it was looking like it might be possible...

Fix It Friday: Mending Socks

I learned to darn socks in grade school using the weaving method. It's not exactly something I enjoy and I don't really like the result, but it works. But recently I read a great post about different ways you could mend a sock. One of them involved knitting (as in knitting a patch over the spot). That appealed to me a lot more.

Then I happened to ask my sister how the socks I gave her in December were working out. :significant pause: Then she said that they had a big hole ripped in them and I should never give her socks again because she doesn't deserve them. Since I was coming home soon, I told her to save the socks and I would see what I could do. I tracked down the left over yarn from the socks and took it with me.

After our conversation, I started to think about which particular socks I gave her and I remembered that I had problem with that yarn being moth-eaten in spots. Of course I repaired/extracted all the bad spots I found, but there was a good chance that I just missed one and the hole wasn't my sister's fault at all!

When I got the socks, I discovered that the "huge hole" was not so big. (She was smart enough not to continue wearing them once they were holey.) And it looks to me more likely caused by evil insects and not the wayward nail at her desk at work.

I put a small dessert bowl in the sock so I could see what I was doing and had some room in which to work. I could see a few stitches that had come undone and the two ends of the strand that had been eaten apart. But they were so short, there was nothing I could do with them as they were.

The first thing I did was put the stitches I could see onto some dpns so they didn't ravel further. I then picked one of the strands and undid it as I followed its path exactly with a needle and new strand of yarn:

I'm pulling out the existing strand to the left, but only
after I've inserted the needle so I can follow it with the
mending yarn.

In this way I was able to duplicate the knitting while making the end long enough to work with.

Now I have a long end (held by my fingers) that I can work in.
The other strand is the end of the mending yarn. I've already
threaded the needle on the other end of the mending yarn
so I can begin closing the hole.

Then I "sewed" (or Kitchenered) the two sides of the hole together. There were only two or three stitches on each side. I did the best I could matching what I thought should be knit stitches and purl stitches, but it may not have been perfect.

 Here the hole is closed and secure:

 but now I have another too-short end at the other side (held by my fingers).

So I repeated the process of undoing the short end, while following its path with the needle to replace it with the mending yarn. After a few stitches, I had a long enough end to work with on this side too:

I then worked in three of the ends on the inside of the sock. I noticed that the central spine of the sock design didn't quite line up (you can see it in the picture above), so I took the mending yarn still on the needle and duplicate stitched over a short section of the "spine" to correct the mismatched stitch.

Et voila:

You can hardly see the patch and the sock should be good as new.

For some reason darning is a lot more interesting to me when I can knit it, even if the "knitting" is done with a darning needle. I'll try to keep this in mind as I expect more of my own socks will start to wear out.