small sample of my crazy quilt embroidery

About Me

I am a consumate crafter. I knit, quilt both sane and crazy, scrapbook, bead, mosaics and any other thing I can think of along the way. Someday I also hope to do real glass jewelery and stained glass but those have to wait until I have room and more time.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Time to Start the Tomten





Here it is the 1st of October and the temperatures are still 90!! And I have yet to see many Monarchs flying thru on their annual migration. Usually they stop over in my garden and they are easy to catch on camera. But today I spent quite a bit of time chasing one Common Swallowtail and never got a picture at all. Then I found the small weaver spider deep in my flower bed and she posed willingly. The sunset tonight was brilliant but not that colorful but still worthy of a shot.


I was on call this last weekend and got to knit quite a bit. And buy yarn!! I decided to tear out the Tidal Wave socks using Jitterbug because they were just too bright. So I moved on to a beautiful Jawoll Color in soft heathered colors and decided to try the JayWalker socks once again. The first time I tried on 0's and they were just too small to go over my heel. So I cast on on 2's, knit the recommended amount of ribbing and started the patterning. Tuesday at work was kind of slow and I got alot of knitting in. Almost down to the ankle before I decided to try them on. And guess what-too big!! So I ripped them all out, recast on onto 0's for the ribbing. I did more ribbing this time to keep from having the patterning from pulling the top of the sock down into a funny edge. 20 rows were just enough but I could have done a couple more and made it an even 2". Even tho I ended up with Tuesday as a wasted knitting day I still finished up with the sock on Monday morning. I love this sock, the color, the design, the feel of the yarn, the tapered toes I decided to do. I will be starting sock #2 tomorrow night but I doubt it will get done as fast as the first one.
So now for the start of my Tomten Jacket. I am a bit nervous but I am going to jump in with both feet. I bought 10 skeins of Cascade 220 in the new handpaint version. A little more pricey but a very pretty yarn. Mine is deep shades of navy. A very subtle variegation that will appear solid from a distance. I also bought a skein of a deep green heather to edge mine in. I plan on using as much of Brooklyn Tweeds modifications as I can gleen from his blog. Although I am not sure I can tell some of the things he did so I may have to adapt as I go along. I swatched on size 8 circulars and got 4.5 stitches per inch but decided to go ahead and make this project on 7's instead. It will give me a little denser fabric and keep me warmer. So for this week there are no pictures but by next week I hope to have something to post. In fact I am in the middle of casting on as I am writing this post. So I will go and get the remaining 40 stitches cast on and get started with my labor of love.....

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