Need Some Mother/Son Bonding Time?

What's even funnier than me trying to knit? How about my 13-year-old son attempting to knit?

I bought a kid's book on knitting. Yep. You read right. A kiddie book because it had pictures and simple to read words that made more sense than the book next to it. While I don't have plans to knit anything beyond this purse, I refuse to go down in defeat. Two stupid sticks are not going to win this battle. I will burn them after the purse is done though. Or give them to my kids as swords.

Between my sister, this book and some botched up attempts I can get ONE entire row done without the chains falling off. Woo Hoo! I tried a row two and my coordination failed on me. I lost everything. I went off and sulked. It's safer that way. Someone might get stabbed if I didn't.

My son has seen my attempts over the past couple of days and asked if he could try. In true teenager form, he said, "It can't be that hard Mom". I handed him the yarn and the needles and he started playing with them. I grabbed the book and he flipped through the pages and started to try the first part. He started laughing hysterically as he awkwardly tried to make the loops for casting on. I showed him how and I got out my other set of needles to show him how to do it.

He finally figured out how to do the casting on. Then I tried to show him the hard part; the knit stitch. He did great getting the needle under the yarn and then taking the yarn between the needles. It's the last part that gets us both and our attempts were pathetic. We started laughing hysterically and lost all our loops. We'd get started again, get a couple of them to work and lose the next one. Sigh. The two of us are hopeless. No kitting championship for either of us.

The 15 minutes of mother/son bonding has been wonderful though. Take full advantage of it when when they willingly give it to you.

Knitting Attempt

I've discovered I can't knit. LOL. Stupid knitting needles. Whomever thought of putting two sticks together and putting yarn through them had to be high on something. Or REALLY bored while their husband was trying to figure out how to make fire after 100 attemts. "Honey...I almost have it. Just one more try and we can eat sabre tooth tiger".

I shouldn't laugh. After all, I cut up perfectly good fabric just to sew it all back together again.

So..why attempt to learn to knit? I found a fabulous 1927 beaded purse pattern that I bought on Etsy from Patternsalacarte. The lady had redone the instructions for easier knitting as the original pattern items no longer exist. It's a stunning pattern and even while doing some online searching on beaded purse kits, nothing compared to it. There is no way I can knit with size 0000 (1.25) beading knitting needles and tatting thread at this point. So I figured I'd learn with larger ones. I've been frustrated all day since my sister isn't here. All I need to learn is the garter stitch for this purse and figure out how to put beads on. If I can do Hardanger, I can do this.

My sister is funny. She can crochet and knit but can't read patterns. I can read patterns as I can crochet but can't knit. My sister will be back later this afternoon. I had just wanted to show her I had learned a new skill.

Maybe I should go light off some fireworks. It's gotta be safer than killing myself with knitting needles at this point.

Hardanger Doily Done

I haven't had a chance to post in over a week.  I did get my Hardanger doily done today after working on it for two weeks.  

I ordered the delica beads and those things are WAY small.  I couldn't choose one color and bought several.  I loved them all when I put them next to the fabric I was using but settled on the transparent light rose/gold colored ones.  By the way, buy containers to put the beads in and label them.  My sister helped me pick out some as she and my mom do some beadwork.

I am SO glad I bought the DVD on doing Hardanger as well.  It was much easier to do the beadwork as I knew the stitches the directions where talking about.  Plus, when I got stuck a couple of times, I could refer back and watch her do the stitch over and over and over and over..LOL.  

Here's the doily:

From Blogger Pictures

And close-ups of the beadwork.  Click on them to get the detail work of the beads and their color:

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

Truthfully; the pictures still don't do it justice.  I still can't believe I got those tiny beads on and did the picots and the dove's eye stitches to keep them in place.  

I've enjoyed this so much I ordered a kit to make a table runner.  What was I thinking??  

Link Set Up For Compass Pattern

From Quilted with Love

WooHoo! I set up a link so you can just download my compass PDF file.  There are no written directions but if you'd like the pattern here it is:   Pink And Green Mariner's Compass

Hardanger Beadwork Project

After checking out the Singer Rotary cutter thingy I went over to the beading section.  I had purchased a magazine that had Hardanger embroidery and found a project I wanted to try.  However; I didn't have the magazine.  I knew it had beads and I thought it said the Swarovski ones.  I couldn't remember the size or what kind.  I just figured I'd wing it.  I don't think these are quite the "real" thing but they were 25% off and if they didn't work, I'd figure out something else.  Plus the more I looked at them, the prettier they got.  They just "called" to me.  I know nothing of beads either.  I picked up some needles and I'll see how it goes.

From Blogger Pictures

I got home and realized I had the wrong beads and way wrong size.  Duh.  Those are way way tiny.  

From Blogger Pictures

They are delica beads. 192 rose colored ones.  Oh well.  I'll just have to be more creative with the inside cutwork with the ones I bought.  The DVD I bought is really great and I may be able to just fake it.  The purple is just way to pretty not to use.

I did an online search of delica beads.  I'm lost.  LOL. 

 

Anyone Tried The Singer Rotary Cutter?

Okay.  Something other than me babbling on about compass quilts. 

I went to JoAnn fabrics today and found one of those Singer automatic rotary cutter thingies.  They wanted 90 bucks for it with 30 bucks off.  At 60 bucks I couldn't justify it even for curiousity's sake.  I opened the box and there's a pedal so small that I'd squash it within seconds as I have big feet.  The evil clerk was giving me dirty looks and it was packaged so that I'd really have to take it apart to check it out.  Is it worth it?  I don't know.  The price and the foot pedal turned me off right there.

If some has braved the price tag, let us know.  60 bucks is a lot of thread, fabric and other stuff that would go to better use.  Neato idea, but way expensive.

I won a contest!!  I got the nicest set of fabric bowls!  She needed a name for her beautiful quilt and I won.  Check out her blog at Quilt And Bitch

to see her beautiful appliqued quilt.  Thank you so much!  They are beautiful! 

From Blogger Pictures

The brown spot that looks like an iron mark is..an iron mark.  My son and my nephew were goofing off and knocked over the iron.  They didn't bother to pick it back up and I found it a few minutes later melting the carpet.  

Mariner's Compass Tutorial Part 2 Up

I got the second part of the mariner's compass up on YouTube today!  I had to edit out 44 seconds as we went over the alloted 10 minutes.  iMovie and I are NOT good friends.  I do have a better idea on editing, but it's still a challenge.  While iMovie will upload to YouTube in 18 minutes, it still took several hours for YouTube to finally configure it.

Here it is:

    

Mariner's Compass Tutorial

My daughter and spent the day making movies.  We did several movies on making a mariner's compass block that I designed and made the PDF file for.  Since YouTube only allows 10 minute videos, this has been quite the challenge.  I didn't get the idea until after I'd paper pieced everything.  The first video was accidentally set on a fast speed which made a 9 minute video turn into a 30 second one.  Once we got that fixed, we were able to put the block together in several sections.  It took 4 hours to upload this section but we had a blast. 

Wanna see it?

Once we get the others edited on iMovie for time, I'll post them.  If I can figure that out.  LOL.  Not sure I'm that impressed with it.

Free Paper Pieced Mariner's Compass

Muwahahahah!  My evil genius mind may have done it!  I had a recommendation for a free PDF maker and installed it over on XP.  Once I changed the printer settings on EQ6 to the PDF printer my Mariner's Compass file is now a *GASP!!* PDF file for downloading!  I know it works because I saved the file to my USB stick and tested it back over on the Mac side.  Here's the PDF link: Pink And Green Mariner's Compass

Wait..there is a slight catch.  If you want this file ALL you are getting are the paper piecing patterns.  There are no directions.  They are labeled in order by numbers/letters but you need a working knowledge of paper piecing.  The first border is 1 inch finished and the second border is a 2 inch finished border.  The block itself is 12 inch finished without the borders.  

DO the LIGHT fabric on all the points FIRST if you want it too look like this:  

From Quilted with Love

If you don't, it looks "off" as I did it the wrong way.  LOL.

If you feel intimidated, it's actually much easier than it looks.  You are only working with 3 sections of paper piecing.  The green points are one section.  The purple points are one section.  The last set of points is made up of 4 pieces; the two background pieces and the point colors.

The last set of points must be sewn in the correct order that they are labeled.  The green pieces are inset seams but are very easy to do.  I haven't done the circle part yet.