Kentucky Quilt Quilted

I'll share the exciting news first: I have finished the hand quilting on the old quilt top from Kentucky that I have been working on! All the flowers are done and so are all of the setting triangles between them.

It's been about a six weeks since I last wrote about it, and since then, I have done nothing but quilt, quilt, quilt whenever I have been sitting on the couch. (And it's football season, so that is a lot of time!) I found working on the setting triangles was nice "straight line" work as I tried to watch the games.

I also had to replace the fabric in four of the flowers. (I thought I was done after three, but then found a flower I had missed!) Here is how I did it:

I put a piece of paper under the quilt where I wanted to replace the flower fabric.

I poked a pin through the fabric and paper at all of the seam intersections and then connected the dots, which yielded a pattern like so:

(Where I've written "pin" indicates the pin on the quilt so that I could make sure to keep the shape lined up.) I figured the quilt was so irregular that there was no way I was going to be able to use an "idealized" six-petaled flower and have it work in the block. The blocks are wonky; I may as well work with it.

After numbering the pieces, I cut them out and taped them to the fabric so I could mark a 1/4" seam on all sides:

Then I cut out the shapes:

I kept the paper on while I hand stitched the seams between the petals. It helped keep things lined up and gave me a reference for where to sew.

Removing the paper yields the flower:

After setting the seams and pressing them all in one direction (not for any good quilting reason; just because I couldn't make myself do it any other way):

And presto majesto, you have a replacement flower:

Yes, I could have cut out one piece of fabric in this shape, but I wanted to keep the block more authentic with the seams between the petals.

I then picked out the seams around the flower and took it out of the quilt. I was lucky with the first block that all of the seams were pressed away from the flower. So all of these muslin parallelograms are pressed under and ready to receive the new fabric.

I simply laid in the new shape (matching the "pin" marking I made at the start) and put the folded edges of the muslin parallelograms over it. I then basted it in place. I tried pins at first, but they allowed for too  much shifting of the fabric.

Once basted, I hand stitched the muslin down using an applique stitch.

Once the outside edges were done, I removed the center hexagon from the old flower, pressed it well and basted and stitched it down over the center of the flower.

Once again, I got lucky as all the seams were pressed toward the centre. For some of the later blocks, I had to iron the edges of the centre piece over. It was a weird fabric--definitely not 100% cotton--and didn't iron well, but we managed. Again, basting with thread helps a lot.

And after quilting and removing the basting, you have a brand new block!!

Here are the other new fabrics I used to replace frayed flowers. A nice stripe:

I studied stripes already in the quilt to see how they handled them. (Where they parallel to a certain side? Did they all line up? Did they run around the block?) And it looked like they matched the stripe to one side seam in each piece, but didn't worry about how they lined up in the block. So that's what I did and I still ended up with a sort of pattern.

The stripe was an older fabric, but this floral was quite new:

I thought it would blend in well enough. In this case, I radiated the stems of the flowers on the print from the centre of the flower.

And for the fourth flower that I discovered later, I used this "Persian pickle" pattern. Well, it's not quite a paisley but I thought it was close enough!

In this case, I deliberately matched two sets of designs that alternate around the block. I cut these pieces from leftover strips from the library quilt I made. I didn't have the right pieces to make six matching blocks (sort of a kaleidoscope effect), but I think this is nice too.

So now that part is done. I'm going to quilt the outer blocks that I added later by machine. I think it's appropriate since they were added later, and there's no way I could hand quilt through the sheeting fabric (as in, sheets cut up to use as fabric). I had a thought to remove them entirely, but by then I had quilted to the edges and couldn't take them off anymore! (Or not without more work than I was willing to do.)

Now I'm debating adding a wide border to make this more of a queen size or whether to just add a binding and call it done. I'll have a while to think about it because I have some other projects to get to and need to put this aside. (Or I'm going to try. My obsessiveness has latched onto this pretty hard. We'll see if I can transfer it to another project!)

Meanwhile I'm pretty pleased with having it done, improvement in my hand quilting skills, all the fun fabrics in the quilt, the look of the quilted fabric, and the fact that this really didn't take very long once I started actually doing it.

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!

Once there was a sweater.

A blocky sweater, kind of wide and short, but much loved by its owner. I think I originally picked it up second hand for Troy, and it is a very well-wearing sweater.

But not indestructible-wearing. Near the end of last winter, Troy pointed out the neckline that was failing and asked if I could mend it before next winter.

It looked like more damage to me than just mending a seam. (I really was worried about moth damage, but I don't think there was any.) I figured on ripping out the neckline and reknitting it. I had two little balls from my grey colour-changing yarn

and decided to start with the darker end.

As the project was turning around in my mind, I thought why just mend the sweater? Why not make it even better?

So before ripping out the collar, I marked some lines to turn this sweater into a V-neck.

Troy has a thing about things pressing on his neck and he much prefers V-necks. And I thought, "I can do that!"

Next step, I pulled out the collar.

It was a little weird because it was knit from the outside edge in and then knit onto the sweater body. Very strange. I can only guess that this makes it possible for them to machine knit the ribbing before attaching it to the sweater.

Once that was off, I stitched along the chalk line and then went right beside it with a slight zig zag.

Next step? You know it....cut!

Since this is a Fix it Friday post, I will also mention that while I had the black thread on the machine, I stitched up the failing leather wallet I use as a tool kit.

It's needed it for a while (of course) and I was so happy to be able to repack it with my accessories and be sure they weren't going to fall out the side!

Back to the sweater...I picked up some stitches around the neck and did some 3x3 rib (which is what the original collar was), making sure to decrease at the centre front to make the V nice and pointy.

I did not do anything to cover up the raw edge on the inside. The extra row of zig zag should be plenty to keep things together.

This is a sturdy, "sticky" wool and I have no trepidation about how it will wear and hold together.

And there you go! In the time it took me to watch the latest Inspector Lewis, Troy has a not-just-mended-but-much-improved sweater!

Fix It Fridays (2)

So I had these socks:

They were fine socks. I made them back in the summer of 2009. (Obviously, I finished them on a road trip.)

But as I wore these socks, I realized that they really were too big. Too long in the foot. They were knit from the toe up, and I hadn't made careful enough calculations about how many rows the heel would take.

So I have worn these socks over the last couple years, but not often. They would slide around on my foot too much and would bunch up in shoes and boots. Not good.

Time for a Fix It Friday intervention.

First: figure out how much too big they are:

and make a plan. Since they were knit from the toe up, I couldn't just ravel them from the toe. (You can't undo your knitting from the "bottom.") I would have to snip them some distance up from the toe and then knit the stitches to make a new toe. I did some careful calculations about how far back I should snip them, redid them when I didn't like the results and took the plunge.

I snipped a thread just over an inch back from where my toe ended, and tinked out the row, picking up stitches as I went:

Once I had a whole row out, I had a sock on the  needles and a dismembered toe:

(I was surprised at how disconcerting it was. It was unmistakably a toe and should be attached to a foot.)

Then I rejoined the yarn and pulled out more as I needed it directly from the "old" toe. I joined in about the crudest way I will let myself--I knit six to seven stitches with both yarns held together before continuing with the new yarn. (The crudest method would be a knot--I will never allow myself that!)

And then started shaping the toe immediately:

This was a very wide sock (72 sts) so I did decreases every other row to 48 stitches and then did the decreases every row to hurry things along. Otherwise the toe was way, way too long.

At 24 stitches (12 each side), I tried them on one last time to make sure,

Troy calls this the "catfish."

and then kitchenered them together:

Then I had one sock done:

If you can't see the difference between the right and left, I sure could feel it! Success!

Then I had to repeat it for the second sock. Also success!

I was left with two extra toes:

They look sad to me. I will not be saving them. Even with the infrequent wearings, the yarn was rather hard-worn and is not worth trying to use again. Plus, I still have some left over from the original ball if I ever need any of it for darning.

At the end of the process, I was playing with this leftover strand:

Troy saw it and asked what it was. I said it was a row of knitting, and it is. Every row looks like this, and it is just because they interlock with each other that it all stays together. Most yarns have a pretty strong memory and when you ravel it, it is kinky like this. In general wool has more memory than cotton, but they all do this. It's a very interesting texture to play with.
Fix It Fridays Summary:
Project 1: shorten sweater sleeves
Cost: $0
Time: ~1 hour

Project 2: shorten socks
Cost: $0
Time: ~4 hours



You wouldn't necessarily think my two Fix It Fridays projects have anything to do with each other, but after posting the summary, it occurs to me that they are the identical repair. And I fixed them both in the same way--snip a thread, undo a row to get live stitches on your needles, and knit back down the other way. On the sleeve I only needed to bind off the stitches, and on the sock I had to knit a new toe to finish it off. Otherwise, they are the same!

I am very happy with this fix and plan to wear my socks today to celebrate.

These are some self-satisfied socks!