We’ve been seeing some fox on our trail cam this spring! The pictures are blurry, but the beastie is quite clearly not a cat or coyote. Probably a gray fox, as they are common ‘round here.
Fox
Grafting
I recently bought a sweater for my youngest and the sleeves were WAY too long. I knew this when I bought it, but figured I’d sew seams like I did for her jacket. Well, when I started investigating the construction, I saw that the sweater wasn’t just knit material sewn with thread, but actually knitted to shape and the seams joined with yarn. Hmm. I’ve seen a bunch of Pinterest pins on grafting, maybe I should try that.
I attacked the first sleeve by undoing the seam and using that yarn to stitch the cuff where I wanted it, then undid the knitting. Nope. It is functional, but not seamless.
On the second sleeve I removed the seam first again, then clipped the knitting at the top of what needed to go. I carefully (oh so carefully) undid the stitches and picked up the loops on a circular needle as I went. (I tried putting the circular needle in a row first, but kept accidentally switching rows.) I then frogged it (rip it rip it rip it), down to the cuff where I carefully picked up loops again on a circular needle.
The sleeve had more stitches than the cuff, so I had to center the cuff and use some of the now spare yarn to graft the loops from the two needles together following these directions. Then I sewed the seam and did have to trim some knit fabric off. I did accidentally graft from the inside, but it was a happy accident because the perl side went better with the sweater pattern!
Pet bed
Awhile ago I bought a pet blanket I intended to go in the car. It was fuzzy and water resistent, and I thought it would entice Griffin, our older dog, to the back seat. Well, the thing had two layers and wasn’t quilted, so was crazy slippery. Not good to cover car seats! Flash past the initial purchase, the failed attempts, and the months of no car rides (we are easing Missy back to the car rides), and the blanket and some left over egg crate foam were taking up space in my craft room. So I used the blanket to make a pet bed. I cut the foam to make two layers, cut enough fabric to cover, sewed velcro to close (next time I’ll do a zipper, which is easier to sew than velcro), and sewed the open seams. The pets now compete to lay on it.
Oh yeah, and it is National Puppy Day! I don’t think the cats got the memo.
Daffodils and tulips
These pictures are not from my yard as we are renovating our front beds and my husband is putting in irrigation. We went to gardens nearby to see the spring flowers and walk the trails.
Gimp yarn
I read about gimp yarn in Spin Off magazine, and thought it would be good to practice making different thicknesses of yarn. Gimp yarn uses a thin single and a thicker single plied to make a bumpy looking yarn.
I transferred the singles from my spindle to a niddy noddy, rinsed them to set the twist, then let them dry before winding them into cakes. I did all this rather than plying from cops because I wanted a smooth center pull for plying. To ply, I tucked the yarn cakes into an arm bag that I made long ago for carrying crochet yarn. They fit perfectly! And it is easy to feed the two singles from the bag and ply. I have also discovered that it is easier to get my spindle spinning counterclockwise if I flick the bottom instead of the top.
My singles don’t have an extreme difference in size, but it was enough to get the effect (which reminds me of my grandma’s rickrack trim).
