I’ve been knitting socks while visiting my mother in hospital, and I continued while sitting with her after she went home, as I couldn’t do anything complicated. I did the second sock of the blue pair (Opal yarn), and then I couldn’t resist starting on the yarn which I dyed at the workshop in February. Both were knitted on 2.25mm Brittany dpns. Here is a detail – click on the image to see the whole photo.
We were driving home from visiting my mother in hospital this afternoon when we noticed this cherry tree with an amazing carpet of petals beneath it. We just had to stop and get some photos.
As you can see in the first picture, there is still a lot of blossom left on the tree, so it seems surprising that there can be so much on the ground, but the flowers are double, so there are a lot of petals per blossom!
I tried the Thing-a-Day challenge in February but only managed to complete something on 10 days (17 items total), and that was a struggle. Too many of the things I like to make require more than a day. I was visiting a new-to-me blog today, Myrna Wacknov’s “Creativity Journey”, and the header describes her personal challenge, which is to “work on my art every day and create a minimum of 2 finished pieces each week.” That seems a more manageable challenge than the Thing-a-Day, so I might try to do something similar once I get past the project which is currently bogging me down, and once my mother is out of hospital and we get into some sort of routine.
Stolen from a friend’s blog …
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My own knitting has been going well, though slowly. I have almost finished a pair of Regia socks, as they have been my mindless knitting while visiting my mother in hospital (mainly on the journeys to and fro). As she isn’t likely to go home for a while yet, I needed to set up my next ‘car knitting’ project, so I’ve started on the yarn from the dyed sock blank. I have finished one toe, but as I’ve not used this yarn before and I didn’t swatch (bad Jenny!), I may have to do a bit of ripping after a couple more inches to adjust the number of stitches. At least I’ll have something to keep my fingers busy, so I won’t mind too much if that happens.
The challenge is to go through April without buying any new craft materials, tools or supplies, in honour of the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day on April 22. I did buy a craft book yesterday, but I’m claiming that doesn’t count as a tool or supply. We are also supposed to make at least one new project this month entirely from our stash. Well, I have a suitable one planned for as soon as I finish my most urgent current project, so that shouldn’t be a problem. However, I have no self-control where craft supplies are concerned, so wish me luck!
Between still not feeling well myself and having to deal with the situation with my mother, I haven’t got much done over the past few weeks, but I have finally got around to unravelling the sock blank I dyed back in February at the Procion MX workshop. It had been knitted with 2 strands of yarn held together (one for each sock) so as I unravelled it, I made it into 2 loose piles. The yarn was very curly after being dyed and washed as knitted fabric, so I had to wind it into skeins and steam them before I could wind them into balls.
One re-wound, one to go ...
So who is knitting again? Not me – I never stopped knitting, though I’ve definitely slowed down as I got distracted by other crafts. My mother, though, hadn’t knitted for 20 or 30 years, but she is in hospital and one of the occupational therapy activities is knitting.
On the day after she was moved to this hospital (a rehab facility), I saw the woman in the next bed to her was knitting a garter stitch square in thick yarn on straight needles. That led to a conversation about knitting socks, which used to be her favourite knitting. I happened to be wearing socks knitted with Opal faux-fairisle yarn, which really impressed her, even though I explained the yarn did all the hard work. I’m going to take in my current sock project (Opal again, but striped rather than faux-fairisle) to show her, and perhaps some of my fancy sock yarn stash. Perhaps she will want to try socks again, but I think my mother will stick with garter squares. The row of rib in the middle was unintentional, but it’s now a decorative feature. :-)
I’ve not been making much this week as I was very sick over the weekend and I’m still not really recovered, so I’ve nothing of my own to post, but I just want to draw attention to a friend’s work. Opal spins and knits but she also makes lovely jewellery, so of course she also makes stitch markers for her Etsy shop. She has a giveaway for a set of similar markers on her blog.
Another small journal, for a friend this time. I think I am on a black & white & bright kick after using that colour scheme for quilt blocks for a swap. This one is 3″ x 4.2″ x 0.5″. It is coptic-stitched, with 7 5-sheet signatures of 5.6″ by 3.9″ 90 gsm printer paper (well, 3 sheets are red paper of similar weight). The cover is stamped Tyvek again, and the thread is Anchor #20 crochet cotton.
Well, the block isn’t very special, but the reason for making it is. On swap-bot, some of us are making blocks for a quilt to donate in memory of Cheryl LaVon, a member who died a year ago. The theme is “nature”, and she liked deep rich colours, so I hope she would have liked this Churn Dash block:
