Hi, I'm back

It has been three months. Three months of Winter and ice and snow and sleet and rain and slippery roads and pavements. Three months of short days and long nights. Three months with my new knee, too. The beginning was painful and scary, but after two weeks in rehab at the end on January and beginning of February I have felt like I have a new, great knee. Rehab may sound like I had other issues than a not cooperating knee, but it really was like a physio therapy camp for elderly people. I had a nice young physio therapist who encouraged me to bend the new knee just a little beyond the intolerable limit, and she praised my courage for every fracture of an inch. I had my own program to follow in the warm pool, and another for the gym. After those two weeks I could leave the crutches and my old granny square stick and just walk. Even walk up and down the stairs again, to the PC and the sewing machine.

While I have been away from my blog, I have still been busy with some projects. This is a quilt I made for our dear grandson for his first Christmas:

A detail of the dog in the middle, made with some wool fabric and my usual recycled fabrics. I changed the original pattern a little by adding some background fabric and sashings.

After finishing this quilt I was only able to concentrate on lap projects. I filled my stash with various sock yarns and started knitting socks, one pair after another, two socks at a time.

Different sizes,

different patterns,

for men and women,

bedsocks too,

and otherwise girly socks. All the socks I knitted for Christmas are on the iPad and not my camera, but I think you all know by now what socks look like. I enjoyed experimenting with new ways to cast on or turn the heel, and I used knitting patterns from sweaters or mittens to knit new socks.

At the beginning of February all our snow was gone, we had several days of rain and above zero temperatures. On the 12th it turned colder and started to snow, and since that we have had more snowy days, cold nights and sunny days too. This is the time of winter sport holidays in our schools, and it means skiing and ice skating and enjoying the lighter, longer days and the winter at the same time.

Grey Autumn

I can't believe the whole grey November passed without a single posting. It was a very grey month, warm for the time of the year and not too rainy either. Just the dullest month of the whole year.

We had a little snow on the 21st, it lasted a couple of days making the world so much lighter.

My knitting has been grey too, and black. I learned a new technique in my class, and had to try it.

Here is a knitting tutorial for English rib in two colours. My teacher called this Brioche knit, it sounds more delicious!

Every row is knitted twice, first with one yarn and then with the other, and the result is a dark side and a light side.

What looks like a fault in the first picture, light grey colour, is a large buttonhole for the other end of the scarf. No knots needed!

On Friday I will get a new knee. I have dreamed of a pretty little knee, usually seen on young women with pretty slim legs. Then I thought it would look silly with my not at all slim legs and changed the plan and started dreaming of a knee the size it was when I was young. Then I found out that they just use parts they think are best for each patient. No future for me in shorts or mini skirts then ;o). I just hope my life as a Bionic Woman will be painless after the painful start they promised. For a while there will be no climbing the stairs to the sewing machine or this computer, so I will have to take a longer break from blogging again. I will be able to read blogs and comment on the little iPad.

I wish you all a stress free holiday season, see you next year!

Knitting for the Winter

Finishing the mystery quilt top apparently took all my quilting energy for a while, so I have just been knitting for two little girls, Miss Yellow

and Miss Purple,

these too for her,

and for their mother Silver Darling.

The brilliant colours of our Autumn are almost gone, and almost composted too already.

Remember this view from May, when the forest around our place was cleared so the trees can grow better, and Mr K. asked if he could clear away some trees they had cut down? 

Well, they were happy to say yes, and so he did some harvesting, and now there is this nice pile of logs seasoning and waiting for further sawing so we can burn them in our fireplace, not this Winter but the next one, and maybe some years after that too.

Today was the first day with ice on the ground at places all day long, and even the shallow parts of the ponds had a thin ice cover. Visiting swans were there together with the usual ducks, they must stay until the cygnets have learned to master their wings for the migration.

Mystery Quilt top Finished

As I mentioned earlier, I was having problems with my mystery quilt dimensions. For a slim, tall man I wanted the quilt to be clearly longer than it was wide, and Kaaren's design kept the difference at 4" only. Therefore I decided to add my own row to both ends, and a 1" solid border to frame it.

I had enough 2" squares in my sorted scraps, so I made 4-patches in blues and reds with white.

After adding another thin brown border all around it was time to use the French Braid snake. It was just the required length +3"!

For the 4 ½" cornerstones I designed a tree block, and finally added a 3" border in the  same blue fabric as in the cornerstones around the houses.

I'm pleased with the size of the quilt now, and therefore I'm not going to add the 6½" final border with Prairie Points but stopping here.

I delivered the baby hats this week, and now my evening project has been knitting these just so,

and these for two little very well behaving boys

who are grandchildren to my big brother. He had a big birthday party and I gave him this Bear Paw quilt you already know from my exhibition last Spring. On his fishing trips to Alaska he has seen bears, so I thought the pattern would be perfect for him. Not to mention that I wanted to make some bear paw blocks.

This has been a good Autumn, with not too much rain and some really wonderful sunny days, like this two weeks ago

but now the same trees have shed most of their leaves, and we are having real frost of -5C on clear nights.

These trees are aspens, the birches are almost bare already. All flowers have been cut down, Ericas replace them for the winter.

French Braid

Back to working on the Mystery QAL. The French Braid was a very slow process, no chain sewing at all. I needed over 240", six meters and some.

I decided to make one huge snake so nothing gets wasted when I cut the ends straight. I'm going to add my personal touch to the quilt at this stage to make it a little longer so I don't know yet what length the braid is going to me in my quilt.

I have added some new fabrics to the mix but am still keeping my palette limited to the colours I have already used.

The Nature's palette is adding shades of yellow and brown and reducing the greens to minimum.

Ligularia Dentata. We moved these from the old garden of my FIL this Summer to replace the rose bushes which didn't like this place in the shadow of the house. Now the roses grow in front of the house and these handsome beauties obviously have found their place here.

End of Tour de Baby Hat

 The cyclists have reached their destination and so has my knitting. There is still one hat on the needles, but

66 hats are here, all ready to be delivered to the maternity ward for new babies. Some of my hats ended up rather large so I decided to take them to the Red Cross collection point where they take donations for the refugees who come to our cold country with so little. Winter clothes are needed, and anything for little babies.

Our grandson has naturally grown out of the white outfit I knitted before he was born, so I made him a new set. The hat covers the ears and forehead, the size is for right now so I can see myself knitting a Winter version very soon. The mittens are without thumbs, but the next pair must be with thumbs so he can hold his shovel or make his first snowballs. The socks are once again train socks (if you click the link, you find the English translation of the pattern, and the story behind the socks).

I made him two bibs too now that he is eating delicious food with a spoon.

September means often the beginning of new classes or hobbies, for me too. I'm taking a class in yarn techniques, just once a month for an evening. Last week we started with Bavarian crochet. With the big holes this will be no good as a potholder, but when it grows a little, it could be a nice dishcloth.

For dessert a picture of my flower box in August to remind of the Summer that is clearly ending.

Flying Geese, Dresden Plates and more hats for babies

After a lot of cutting and sewing, all 88 geese are flying in a nice formation around the houses of this mystery quilt I'm making after Kaaren's design.

The corners have blue Dresden Plates appliquéd on yellow table cloth (really, this was a self-made tablecloth for a Summer party some years ago).

I like trying new blocks in a small scale, like just four Dresdens. I only have made a Dresden plate block once before in my life, when I made a bag after Stephanie's pattern.

Then of course I have been knitting. The broadcast from the Vuelta is usually just a little over an hour so these baby hats are not strictly Grand Tour hats. I simply like to keep my hands busy when I'm watching something not too demanding or interesting on TV, and so there are 11 new hats for my bag to be taken to the maternity ward. I try to make them for every taste, for boys and girls, small heads and bigger ones. It is fun to try out new patterns, and I happened to develop a new one too: the white hat in the middle was going to be 2 tog, yarn over, purl 1 but I started accidentally with ssk, yarn over, purl 1 and so the zig zag pattern is softer than 

in this yellow one in the middle of the front row. Oh, I see these make together already 21, my goal for the Vuelta. I still have some yarn left, and the Vuelta ends on this coming Sunday.

Maybe 70 hats instead of the intended 63 would make a nicer number?