The project-a-month resolution: January

Although it usually takes me a long time to get around to finishing a quilt, when I do finally decide to tackle this stage, I generally get obsessed and finish it pretty quickly. This project was like that. I've put in a couple of hours every day, mostly in front of the TV but occasionally when I should have been editing a cookbook, and it's done.


My favourite parts of quiltmaking are constructing the individual blocks (especially when they can be chain-pieced, a process that combines production-line efficiency and speed with the satisfaction of hand work), and then sewing down the binding. I know that many other quilters hate this bit, but I find it really pleasurable. For one thing, it means the quilt is almost finished, and that's always a relief (and frequently a surprise). For another, it's the kind of repetitive, basic hand-sewing that I find really meditative and therapeutic. And once I work up a rhythm, it's surprisingly quick. I can get through metres in no time. Very satisfying.


The quilting on this quilt is basic, but that's how I like it. The object of this exercise is to finish things, not to labour intensively over intricate heirlooms – so job done, I think.  

I've outline-quilted the centres of the blocks and run a line of quilting 
down the sashing strips.   

The border and binding. The finished size is 105 x 130 cm (41 x 51 inches). 

Three spare blocks, randomly placed on the back of the quilt.

So that's one unfinished project down, eleven to go. A good start to the crafting year, I say. 

New Year's craft resolutions

Lately, I've been seized by an uncharacteristic urge to tidy things up and sort things out, and by an even more uncharacteristic urge to act on the first urge. As a result I've completed and lodged three overdue tax returns and, less important but more relevant to this blog, I've sorted out my wool and fabric stashes. This is useful in one way but does rather hammer home what a ludicrous amount of it all I have. 


Although goal-setting has always been an alien concept to me, it occurred to me today that there might be a way to both whittle down my hoard and revive this moribund blog. 


So, here is my New Year's craft resolution: finish one neglected project a month. 


It's the quilts that are really bugging me at the moment, as they are so large and represent so much money, time and storage space. So first up is one that I started five or six years ago. The fabrics are jaunty 1930s reproductions.

The design is by Ruth van Haeff and is from Handmade Style: Quilt by Murdoch Books.

There are two different blocks, one of which has a retro fabric in the centre showing a slightly harrassed-looking woman washing and ironing, supervised by a small black dog and what appears to be one of the Flowerpot Men.

I've just noticed that I've cut the fabric in such a way as to leave two feet macabrely dangling at the top of the block. Oops.

I last worked on the quilt about three years ago, and had finished piecing all the blocks. Today I cut all the sashing strips and sewed them to the blocks to complete the quilt top, as well as preparing the backing and sandwiching the whole lot together. 


I ended up with an odd number of blocks, as I ran out of fabric and refused, for once, to buy more. I've machine-appliquéd the three spare blocks to the plain white backing, so as not to waste them (or, worse, hoard them in a drawer for the next twenty years in the hope of finding a use for them). 

As a bonus, I found everything I needed among my stash rather than having to go out and buy anything extra or new. The background fabric isn't the perfect colour – a cheery aqua would have been ideal, but I decided to go with what I had, which is a gumleaf green. That means the only extra thing I will need to buy is a small amount of fabric for the binding. 


Now it's all ready to start quilting tonight while I watch Grand Designs on TV. I call that a pretty productive and thrifty crafternoon. 

Making time

I'm constantly moaning to myself that I don't have enough time to make all the things that I want to make. It hasn't escaped me that this is because I spend a lot of time in front of the TV. I keep telling myself that this has to stop; but as much as I love making things, sitting in front of the TV is just easier. After a day of brain-straining work like editing, sitting and staring mindlessly at moving pictures appeals strongly.

Two Fridays ago, though, there was nothing on the TV and I really couldn't face re-watching a DVD that I've watched several times already (namely any Jane Austen adaptation). So instead I got out a quilt that I've been meaning to finish. I love Japanese fabrics, and this is about the fourth quilt, and the most recent, that I've started which uses them. None of the others is finished either. (The first I started was so enormous that I don't think I'll ever be able to lay it out and sandwich it together unless I borrow someone's ballroom, or maybe a sailmaker's loft.)

The design is by Ruth van Haeff and is from Handmade Style: Quilt by Murdoch Books.

I made the top of this one about six years ago, and the backing about two years ago, then stopped where I normally stop – at the thought of having to put it all together then quilt it. This is a throw-size quilt, though, so it's just small enough to be assembled on my table, which takes a lot of the tedium out of the process.

I marked out the quilting design on Friday night, pinned the lot together on Saturday morning, then spent an enjoyable few hours stitching away to the accompaniment of George Michael and the Buena Vista Social Club. I pretty soon got a blister and quite sore fingers, but as it hurt even more whenever I came back to it after a break, I decided just to sew through the pain. (Yeah, I'm hard).

I did a bit more to the quilting most nights last week (much of it in front of the TV, killing two recreational birds with one stone and making me feel less guilty about watching the box). Last night I attached the binding, and voilà, one more unfinished project finished.

I'm now inspired to tackle another neglected quilting project – once my blisters have healed.

Sorted — sort of

One of the annoying things about all my craft supplies is that they're not organised. Both yarn and fabric live in three different places, none of which is logically arranged, and my general sewing stuff lives mostly – but not entirely – in two drawers. Plus there are assorted bits and pieces – beading equipment, cutting mats, patterns, ribbons and plenty more – stashed throughout the house. The result is a lot of frustrating and messy rummaging whenever I want to do anything, which of course exacerbates my constant procrastination problem.

Yesterday I decided to take in hand one small but frequently used section of it: my knitting needles, of which I have a lot. They had been stored in three different places – how sensible! Some were randomly scattered, others still in their packets, some in a plastic box (I don't like plastic storage; it's practical, yes, but not pretty, especially the box in question, which was designed to hold one's toothbrush and toothpaste).

Now they, plus accessories such as needle gauges, cable needles and stitch holders, as well as my crochet hooks, are all here:

 

When it's not in use I can roll it up quite compactly. The roll doesn't fit some of the other doodads, such as the cables and tags for my interchangeable needle tips, but I made a matchy-matchy zippered pouch for them. 




That leaves my fixed circular needles, the ones you can't unscrew, which are a bit more of a problem. I haven't yet come up with anything that really works for these, so that's a problem for another day. In the meantime, a small section of the craft hoard is sorted.

That feels better.

Craft withdrawal

There hasn’t been much craft going on around my way for the last couple of months. There hasn’t been much exercise, proper nutrition or socialising either, all due to a huge edit I've been doing. That's done now though, to my relief, and as soon as it was finished I headed straight for the craft. Although I've done some mindless knitting in front the of the TV, and have finished a simple scarf for my friend Siobhan, I haven't done anything that required planning or more than half a brain, and I've been missing it. 

First up was finishing off the chunky pinkish-purple lace scarf I started at Easter. I made two halves the same — lace ends and a 1x1 rib for the central part — intending to graft the two pieces together along the middle of the scarf. In my usual fashion I didn't bother researching this technique until the two bits were completed. Then I discovered that it's apparently quite hard to graft 1x1 rib, especially if you want it to be invisible. Bugger.


Despite that I did a couple of test swatches in 1x1 rib and attempted to graft them together. Within five minutes it became apparent that this was beyond me, so I ended up doing a three-needle cast-off to join the two pieces. Not ideal, but better than having another unfinished project on my hands. 


And while I love the result as a knitted object, I don't love it on me. Note to self: opposites attract. Chunky knits look good on skinny chicks. Not on me. On me, finer yarns work better. If I remember this, I'll waste much less time and yarn making things that don't really suit me.

On the plus side, though, it's warm. I'm going to the Blue Mountains for the weekend soon and this is the first thing I will pack. I still love this pattern though and I might make it in a finer yarn. One day. 


Then a couple of weekends ago I went to the annual craft fair at Darling Harbour. I went in suffering craft withdrawal and came out suffering craft overload and pulsating retinas due to the large number of migraine-inducingly bright quilts on display. I also came out with two more lots of yarn, one of which, a silk from Kaalund Yarns, I've already crocheted up into yet another scarf. This project doesn't really belong in this blog — it's finished, after all — but I'm pretty chuffed with myself for completing it so quickly. That's enough pink scarves for the moment, though!

The pattern is one row of double-treble clusters and three rows of double crochet.

The other skein of yarn is a peacock-coloured laceweight silk. I want to make a lace shawl out of that, despite my previous misadventures with lace, but that's a longer-term project. Much longer.

When in doubt, read the instructions

Winter is my favourite season by far. The more clothes I'm wearing, the happier I am. Boots, socks, coats, gloves, scarves – especially scarves. I like my clothes to fly well under the radar; I'm not confident with colour or the way I look, so I wear mostly black, but in winter I like to spice it up with a burst of colour in the form of a scarf.

With the weather cooling down here now, I want more scarves, so I've dropped the unfinished projects and the things I've been making for for other people. Right now it's me, me, me, sweetie.

The latest project is a lace scarf in lovely Malabrigo yarn that I bought last winter, in the appropriately named shade of Hollyhock.

It's a thickish (maybe 10-ply/Aran or so) single-ply wool yarn with
a lovely felt-like feel to it. I'm knitting it on 6mm needles.

 I started it on Easter Thursday in preparation for a weekend away. Being impatient, I didn't test out the pattern first, even though it was a new one, and much more complicated than any I'd tried before.

This, predictably, backfired on me. After two days of pretty solid knitting I had about 30 centimetres done. It wasn't right, though. The repeats kept going wonky and I couldn't work out why – until I realised I'd simply skipped part of the pattern. As my father used to say: 'When in doubt, read the instructions'.

'Do you think it's worth it?' my mother said, as she watched me rip back all but the first six rows and start again. And later: 'I think I'd give up if I were you.'

I didn't, though. I finished one end and am now doing the other separately, so they'll be symmetrical. I'll do stocking stitch or rib for the central section – I need to have a play and see what looks best – then graft them together. I don't think I'll block the whole thing as I really like the honeycomb effect, but I will block the very ends just so they don't curl up.

The pattern is a 16-row repeat called Leaf Lace and the idea for the scarf came from one
that took my eye on the highly distracting Purlbee site, which is full of lovely projects.

'How many scarves do you need?' a friend once asked me. I think her reasoning was that you've only got one neck, so you only need one scarf – but if I followed that kind of logic I'd only have one pair of undies. I think that with scarves, as with undies, more is more. Every couple of years I have a cull, and give to charity the scarves that have gone out of favour. I like knitting scarves as they are an achievable project for the easily bored and distracted (like me), you can generally do them in front of the telly or on the bus, and they give you a chance to try new patterns and new yarns without having to shell out masses of money.

And they make great presents, when I can stop thinking about myself.

Perfectionism vs pragmatism

Another project I've just resurrected is a scarf I made last winter. Although it was nominally completed, I've never worn it because I couldn't quite get the finishing touches right. I thought I'd finished it once, then I tried to block it. Blocking, for non-knitters, is a technique often used for lace knitting. Unblocked lace can tend to look like an old dishrag, and blocking makes the lace pattern open up nicely so that it's more distinctive. To do it, you wet the finished knitting, stretch the bejesus out of it, pin it out on the floor while it's damp and then let it dry.  

What it will look  like if I ever get around to blocking it.
I did this by sticky taping the scarf to the table.
If only real blocking were that easy.

What blocking also does, sometimes, is make the thing about twice as long as you thought it would be. So it was with this scarf. Once I'd laboriously blocked it, it ended up more than three metres long. I unpinned it and ripped it back to a less stupid length, but I still didn't know what to do with the ends. Fringing, a different lace pattern? I tried two different types of fringing but the ends kept curling up and looking stupid, and I couldn't think of how to prevent this other than by adding beads to the fringe, which I knew would just clack about frantically every time I moved and irritate the hell out of me, so I chucked it in the knitting basket and ignored it for a year. 

Last night it got to me, so I just decided to fix it as best I could. With one eye on Paper Giants on the telly* and another on the scarf, I undid the fringing, ripped back the curling ends and cast them off again. Then I replaced the fringing. 

Fringed but as yet unblocked.

Neat edges! Ever since I learnt that you can neaten your edges
by slipping the first stitch of every row, that's what I've done.
It doesn't matter on edges that you won't see, such as in the seams of a garment,
but it's nice for edges that are on show. 

 

The scarf still not the way I wanted it to be, but I just can't get it to match the idealised but vague mental picture I've got of it. However, a scarf around the neck is worth several in the knitting basket, and I really like the the stitch pattern and the yarn (Filatura di Crosa Multicolour, a mohair with subtly morphing colours). 

 I might or might not get around to blocking it again, but in the meantime, I'm going to wear it just so I can tick another project off the list. Roll on, winter!



* I enjoyed Paper Giants, but were the 1970s really that groovy and daggily glamorous? Maybe they were if you worked at Cleo and got to photograph nude actors and write articles that would make religious conservatives rant themselves into non-existence. But if you were a brainy, bookish teenage girl growing up amid the beach culture of the Central Coast … not so much.