The Incredible Disappearing Yarn Tail
Posted by: Marcy on: March 23, 2009
As much as I love to knit, weaving in the ends when finished is just not my favorite part. I can’t seem to finish off neatly enough to suit me and it irritates the daylights out of me!! I am always quick to point out to my knitting friend Kim that you are the only one that will know where the booboos are, but of course I don’t listen to my own advice. You never know when the knitting police will jump out and examine your stitches!!
For that reason alone, I love to crochet. It’s just so much easier to deal with those pesky ends.
This is a way of working in the beginning yarn tail that I’ve used for years. I’m sure others have found this also, I just haven’t stumbled across it on line. I’ve never had a problem using it. It gives your work a nice clean beginning without a yarn end hanging there.
I start weaving after completing the first row. In this case I am working on a baby cap in a ripple pattern (crocheting in back loop only). I’ve already chained 1 and turned. This picture shows the end before I start. I always give the end a good tug to make sure it’s not loose.
At this point, I took my hook and put it through the back loop and then kind of wiggled it down through the single crochet vertical bar under the loop, then hooked the tail end and pulled it up through.
Now I’m ready to start crocheting the second row. I put my hook through the back loop and at the same time, lay the end across so that when I yarn over and pull through, I’m securing the end in the stitch.
I continue across the row in the same manner until I’m getting to the end of my tail. I give it a little tug to the left to make it a little longer (your work to the right will contract a little in response to that little tug), crochet a few more stitches, then I take the already worked end to the right and pull it back into the right length. Voila! The yarn disappears under all the single crochets that you’ve done and there’s no more end.
. . . on a steeck
Posted by: Marcy on: March 22, 2009
What can you say about a ventriloquist that uses a jalapeno…….on a steeck?
It just boggles the mind!
Prepare to laugh………………
Are you ready for OMG cute?
Posted by: Marcy on: March 22, 2009
I’ve had a very productive weekend. Friday evening I started a sweater for GrandDolly called Girls Cap Sleeved Spring Top. I have had this yarn forever, it seems like, and didn’t know what I would make with it. Then I found this great sweater tutorial. (The pattern is here at Soulful Hues Hobbies & Random Thoughts.) I finished it tonight, blocked it and can’t wait to put it on GrandDolly tomorrow. Check this out!!
And this is the finished sweater on GrandDolly — loves to have her picture taken with her Pepe. When I put the sweater on her, she kept saying “Meme, for me??” like I’d never given her anything before!! Poor deprived GrandDolly!
Pepe and GrandDolly
Catching up — Part I
Posted by: Marcy on: March 21, 2009
So, yeah, I haven’t added anything to this blog since December. But don’t think that I’ve been laying on the sofa eating bonbons. I have been knitting and sewing and crocheting up a storm!
This is my sewing/computer room — my very CLEAN and organized sewing/computer room. Clean as the proverbial whistle. Well, except for the cat in my yarn box under the table. Can you see the white paw?
I was going to post the before pictures but it was just too depressing to document. Suffice it to say that it was just impossible to find anything that I wanted. Not necessarily a fun thing to do, but it had to be done.
In my case at least, having a room so clean makes me just itch to do something!!
Shortly after the holidays, I received an email from Connecting Threads advertising Mama’s Cottons 2 Sampler fabrics. I tell ya, this fabric positively shrieked at me to buy it!!Yummy, yummy! There haven’t been many times when I ran to get my credit card to buy something, but this was one of them. I didn’t even know what I would make with it, but figured I would hear another shriek when I found it.
As luck would have it, I stumbled across this .pdf file for burp cloths at the Michael Miller Fabrics website.
I also found a darling bib pattern on Etsy at jcasa and this was the result of that chance encounter. This is one really great bib pattern — doesn’t take long and cute as a bug’s ear. I’ve started trying freemotion quilting on them (which always scared the daylights out of me) and it’s working pretty well – of course it’s a small area to quilt, but it’s good practice.
This is how the bibs looked after washing and drying. Just love that old quilty look!!
And this is just the first round. The burp cloths and bibs are for my niece who is having another boy in April but there are plenty of pink, green and lavendar fabrics still left from the fat quarter package. Darling Daughter is having another GrandDolly or a GrandWeeLad in September so perhaps I’ll be using those pink ones. Or maybe not. We won’t know until next month.
More later.
Photo Hunt – Yellow
Posted by: Marcy on: March 21, 2009
- In: PhotoHunt| photos
- 3 Comments
A most precious shade of yellow — GrandDolly’s hair
Finally, signs of spring
Posted by: Marcy on: March 21, 2009
- In: CT
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Nothing says spring to me like purple crocuses. It was heartwarming to see them poking their little heads through the leaves. It almost hurts your eyes to look at them.
Sunday Scribblings – “I come from…”
Posted by: Marcy on: March 20, 2009
I come from…
…the baby boomer generation. Born in 1954 to a mother that was practically a baby herself, my childhood was shaped by her fears and insecurities. They became my fears and insecurities.
…the early, mid and late sixties, where I learned that important leaders could be a target for hatred that would culminate in murder, that your childhood could be swept out from underneath you in a heartbeat, and men could walk on the moon.
…the seventies, where I learned to deal with death, believe that I was so insignificant that I had to turn myself into something that I wasn’t in order to be loved, became a mother, and started to realize that changes needed to be made because I couldn’t always duck a right hook.
…the eighties, where I started rebelling against the total control that he was trying to crush me with, started realizing that I couldn’t change him but that I could change me, and spent a lot of time in the self help section of the library.
…the nineties, where it finally all ended much more quietly than I ever would have believed, I became a single mother, started rebuilding my life and self-esteem, and became truly happy for the first time.
…and in this last decade, I find that I am lucky to be able to look back and see where I have come from, arriving in 2009 relatively unscathed. I have learned along the way that in order to survive and be happy that you have to be able to forgive — but if total forgiveness is out of the question, I will at least forget as much as I can.
Sunday Scribblings — Late
Posted by: Marcy on: December 19, 2008
Yes, this is going to be another somewhat sappy post.
Have your ever heard “Waiting on a Woman” by Brad Paisley? It is the absolute truth for many women, but not this one. I am painfully punctual and hyperventilate any time we are running even the smallest bit late.
Sweet Baboo is never concerned by time. He takes his time showering, shaving, getting dressed. (Meanwhile, I am ready and waiting with my coat on, sweating.) He combs his hair and proceeds to “become attired”. (Saying that he is getting dressed just doesn’t cover it.) He asks me 2 or 3 times, does this look OK? Would the other shirt be better? What about these shoes? (Still sweating. Trying to be adult and not pout.) Combs hair again. Brushes teeth. Finds wallet and keys. Combs hair yet again. (I have to say tho, he really does have great hair for a guy his age.) Makes a cup of coffee. Checks time. (Not that we’re on time, of course. I think he just checks to make sure that it’s still the same day. Or maybe just to dig at me and my little time compulsion.) Okay — turn down the heat, put on coat, check that wallet and comb is in back pocket, comb hair, pick up coffee cup and finally, FINALLY out the door.
I am totally not kidding.
But there is just no way to be even slightly miffed about this.
Because…….
Yesterday, while I was at work and he was home “puttering”, he was quietly preparing a surprise for me. A surprise that I wasn’t aware of until bedtime.
And get your mind out of the gutter!
He had taken the alarm clock apart, taken the plastic face off and colored the area where the light shines through showing the numbers with a red magic marker. Then replaced the lens of the clock, reset the time and alarm, and plugged it back in.
You see, I had complained the day before that the green light from the numbers lit up the whole bedroom when I was trying to sleep and I should probably look into buying a clock with red numbers.
(Sigh)
Honey, you can make us as late as you like.
Told you it was sappy. And also true.
Click the link. Enjoy the video.
Sunday Scribblings — Tradition
Posted by: Marcy on: December 7, 2008
During my doomed marriage, I tried to normalize holidays for Darling Daughter by introducing traditions.
One of the first was for both of us (DD and me) to go to a tree farm to pick out our Christmas tree. After all, who could resist the name “Troll Knoll Tree Farm”? Well, apparently DD could resist after the first year we tried it.
I tried to interest her in sewing and crafty items one year, thinking that it would be something we could do together every year. She tolerated my intentions for that one year but let me know that she wouldn’t be participating next year.
Ditto with baking and cooking for the Thanksgiving and Christmas day meals. Zero interest. Mega attitude.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that she was directing me on which traditions she wanted and which she didn’t.
I bought her a nutcracker soldier one year for the holidays. I saw another the next year and bought that one too. The following year, when we were taking the ornaments out, I was reminded that I needed to get her another nutcracker because now it was a tradition. Who knew?
Back when she was really little, I was very frustrated by the overpriced Easter baskets, toys, candy, etc. I bought a brown wicker basket, filled it with green fabric strips, tossed in a couple of books, some raisins, and Peeps (can’t forgo all of the sugar) and she was happy as a little clam. She still has the basket and the fabric strips and she fills it now for GrandDolly.
One year when she was a teenager, we took a ride through town and the outlying villages, just looking at the lights on Christmas Eve. The next year, I was reminded that we needed to do it again because it was tradition. And so we did.
The newest and funniest tradition that my DD likes to talk about every year, is that there is at least one gift that I forget to give her. It seems that within a month or so after the holidays, I find something stashed in a closet that I forgot to wrap. I feel
I guess the best traditions are the ones that you don’t know you are starting.
Please stand by — a bit of crowing is in order
Posted by: Marcy on: December 1, 2008
- In: Ramblings
- 3 Comments
Okay, I probably whine a bit too much about my hands, I admit it. But when it becomes difficult for me to sew, something MUST be done.
So this is what I done. Meet my new friend Audrey. Audrey A-Line Baby Lock. My sewing friend Kim is going to be SOOOOO jealous.
So here’s the scoop. I finished the chenille and floral quilt for LJD’s daughter, but not without alot of hair pulling and turning the air blueing. My old machine (which was only two years old, but hey what the heck) was giving me fits with the needle thread constantly drawing back and out of the eye, and turning the handwheel is just not fun for me anymore. Inserting the bobbin into the case and then into the machine was also maddening — my fingers are just too stiff to do it easily. And then there is the needle threader, which in order to use, you need two hands, one foot, and a prayer. So I decided it was time to bite the bullet, pull out the charge card and get myself a needle up/needle down, drop in bobbin, built in needle threader does everything but make my coffee in the morning sewing machine.
“Ahhhhh,” she sighs contentedley, extremely pleased with herself.) “I am a very, very happy camper.”
