Knitting

I don't knit.

Or, at least, I didn't used to.

But then a trend started at quilt guild. A trend of people bringing knitting projects to work on during the business-y part of the meeting. Just a few at first, and now I'd say about a fourth to a third have needles clicking every month.

The socks are not tempting at all to me. That just looks complicated. But the idea of it was appealing. I don't do much handwork, and what I do is often too large to manage in the confined space of my chair in my row at the meeting.

So Kate's blog post about this super easy knitting pattern with only one stitch to learn and hardly any pattern to remember caused me to go "Hmmm..."

I tried it at first with pretty, fuzzy yarn.  That was a disaster.  It's awfully hard to see how many stitches there are and the needle keeps poking through the strand.

Finally I decided to try it with cheap, plain old yarn.  Yarn that was left over from when my oldest had to make a Heritage Doll and we used the yarn for hair.  Yarn that has no beautiful hue or variegation, but is just plain old brown.

It works!  I can see my stitches and count them and the needle doesn't poke through.  It's not beautiful, but Kate is right about it being both amusing and addictive.

Here's what I have so far:

Maybe some day I'll be able to do it in yarn that a person might want to add to their wardrobe instead of doll-hair brown.  Maybe this will be the only pattern I'll ever knit and I'll have a collection of these in every color.  Or maybe I'll give it up and go back to my quilts.

How many of you knit or do other types of crafty/arty/hobby (?) stuff besides quilting?

Kate's Famous!

Kate's that *darn*kat pattern was picked as a favorite children's pattern on Sew, Mama, Sew! The model is her darling daughter.

Congratulations!

Clean

So I was reading my friend Kate's blog post about making her own laundry detergent and I couldn't resist trying it out myself. One of the comments she got on her original post was that she has two little girls, and the poster wanted to see how the homemade stuff stood up to a load of boy clothes.

Let me tell you, I put it up against the ultimate in boy clothes - a load of the stuff my husband and sons (ages 11 and 13) wore to play paintball on Sunday in the muddy cold. The before and after pictures say it all:

The clothes came out at least as clean as when I use regular detergent plus OxiClean, if not cleaner. They definitely smelled better. It's not so much a scent, but a lack of scent and a definite clean air smell. Like clear water or fresh air. In fact, I like this new concoction so much that I've been using it for every load, including my delicates. I can't wait to try it on a quilt.

Speaking of quilts, I finally finished piecing my last kaleidoscope blocks based on your voting. Since there were four blocks that were definitely in the lead and I only needed three, I had a tough decision. But when I looked at my original set, there was one that jumped out at me and was way too red (bottom left corner in the first picture). So I took that one out and made the four winners. Thanks for voting! I'll keep you up to date as I work on this quilt.

Have a great week!