This is growing by leaps and bounds, a few minor mistakes here and there, but nothing that needs to be frogged.
I was looking through my craft books and look what I found. I’m pretty sure I bought this from a woman who was downsizing and needed to get rid of a lot of her craft books and supplies. I’m also pretty sure I thought this could be a basis for color work in knitting.
I am going to have fun. These look old and traditional.
This is what I was looking for. Published in 1972, with a forward by Moshe Dayan’s wife…. Jerusalem embroidery. I think I’ve owned this since 1972, never ever used it, but also, never let it go. (unlike some Alice Starmore and Elizabeth Zimmerman books). I think I kept it as an heirloom, never thinking I’d ever use it.
I’m changing my mind.
Not sure if I’ll make some small items, or larger ones.
This will be fun, the schematics are black and white symbols. The thread colors are DMC… Ok, I am officially shook. I just inputed numbers from almost 50 years ago and they are coming up the correct colors. I’m going to have to make some of these patterns!
Its still Hanukkah. Got to love my boys, Eyal made this menorah and they are using it! They even let him light the candles.
Opening his gifts. Every kid needs zingo! Sorry I didn’t get a smile.
Please ignore the bruise on her forehead, at her age, her uncle had about five in different gradations of discolor. She got jewelry. No, she won’t be able to play on her own yet, but she was soooo excited! I love how my granddaughters are such girls!!!
We had our last Grandma and me for a month. Before we headed out, she needed a nap. I don’t know who is happier, her or me.
I can see how this blog must be getting very boring for people. So I make things, sometimes walk the neighborhood and now I’m polishing silver. That is what life is like under lockdown. And with crime on the rise and our new DA deciding that we are the criminals and he won’t prosecute actual crime. I won’t be venturing downtown or other areas were being gentrified but now will slide back into hell-holes. So it’s the small things I do at home.
First of all, Happy Chanukah. My roses always give me a final hurrah every December. They do look nice with the Hanukkiah. Thank God, I’ll be seeing the kids and even going to friends one night.
About once a year I polish my silver. Yeah, it would be better to do it more often, but I don’t. Here are my Shabbat candle stick. See how lovely it is to have them polished. Oxygen is what allows life, it also causes tarnish on silver.
Look how beautiful! Once I finished the candlesticks I moved on to other silver. I inherited some from my grandmother, I also got a few pieces as wedding presents.
That was over 40 years ago, not sure that silver is a gift that is given any more.
At work, polishing the silver coffee set from my grandmother. I’ve never used it. It does have an input for an electrical cord. It is beautiful, it deserves more than once a year shining.
There is the sugar bowl, all shined up.
And the creamer, and the try. Btw, my candlesticks are rather cheap, so thin. This set and the tray are massive and are probably solid silver. So yes, there are some tarnish spots that may have eaten through, but I could work harder and probably eliminate them as well.
I am blessed to have a number of items from my grandmothers. Not a lot, and that is fine. I have no idea if my kids or grandkids will be interested in any of these heirlooms. Right now they are mine and I love them.
The tray and butter dish were wedding gifts. Actually I think we traded in something for the butter dish. The cobalt blue insert for the salt dish was lost long ago, but the other salt shaker works. And that little cup was gifted to me as a baby.
It took hours, to polish, but like my other handwork, it was quite relaxing.
Our overlords are locking everyone down. Average people are out and about, small business is being completely destroyed. I needed dinner last night and I’m sorry to say I went to a chain. I should have gone to one of the small local owned restaurants. Now Nail and hair salons are being closed again. How to demoralize a population in 10 easy steps.
Took the grandkids to the park. Yup, they have fenced in the playground, so the rest of the park was packed with people. Two older boys climbed the fence and were on the swings. My two just joined in with other kids to play. no masks on my guys or on some of the other kids. The insanity of government control has gone too far.
So I sit and stitch. I am now finding the floss tube, others who share their needle work. Unfortunately I found one cute young gay guy who does beautiful work. I started one of his uploads ‘I’m going political’ he said. Bye Felicia! I have plenty of political You Tubes (soon to be on Rumble, since You Tube will block them). Thank Goodness there are creatives out there who just share their creativity. Ah you will say, but you Leah are now sharing politics. Yeah, 6 people follow me. This is more of a diary than a voice to the masses.
A look at the back. I’ve seen discussions of how the back must look perfect. I remember this idea from when I was first taught to embroider at age 6. But, unlike the Chinese, who had the most delicate embroidery done with silk on the finest of silk, there will always be a front and a back. Meanwhile those Chinese used little girls to do the embroidery, and they were blind by the age of 10.
So as far as I can see, my back is beautiful, neat and orderly.
I had to frog, or actually rip out a lot of stitches. Not sharing images of that, but it is so easy to make mistakes, and when I do, it can really throw things off balance. And yet, I do love how great this is looking.
Every night I knit, a lot of frogging going on here as well, but the sweater is growing as well. Can’t wait to wear it.
Bless my son in law. He put up a Hanukkah decoration. Since as I mentioned, few people see my posts. I share images of the grandkids here. Not many out on my social media, because rightfully so, my kids don’t want that out in public. There is hardly anything public about this space.
As much as I love the process of making a quilt. Gifting it in person is really the best thing ever. My friend Dan just bought a 112 year old Craftsman house. And now he is learning about what he has. Needless to say, the moment I set foot in the house I knew what quilt I had to make. First of all a new home deserves a quilt, second of all, I knew it had to be Weeping Willow.
I keep most gift bags I receive. I don’t remember what came in this, but it is the absolutely perfect for gifting this quilt.
Dan receiving this quilt. Can you tell that he loves it already?? Yeah, this is why I give special people a quilt. You know that a big part of me goes into every handmade item I make. And a quilt, with the hours of work and effort, it has a lot of me, not just the fabric and thread.
Immediately he sat down on his reading chair with the quilt. And yes, got to take the glasses off. Which is a little ironic, since the quilt is on a reading chair.
This is the chair under the window. The quilt basically looks great anywhere in this house.
Ok, I get it, the radiant smile is more apparent without glasses. Dan has a roommate, who is quite taken with the quilt, but he only gets to enjoy it from afar. The quilt is now part of the evening ritual of sitting and reading. Yes, it has made the experience much cozier. This is exactly why we crafters love giving out the labor of our hands, we know that a handmade gift has something in it that can’t be found in a store-bought item.
And now, to point out some of the incredible details of this house. Notice the brown tile above the built-in bookshelf. I’m sure this is original to the house. Yes, I love these kind of details.
Here is a broader image of the house. Yes, I know purist would immediately say, strip off that white paint and get back to the original wood. I would say, and I know Dan agrees, the white makes the space so much brighter, and you know what. A bright home matters. The details in the woodwork, in the picture rail in the dining room beyond, the ceiling details. LOVE IT! Now I am very happy in my 1950 home, I am actually working with a designer for the first time in my life to redo some rooms. But the fact that I can visit this beauty, makes me very happy indeed.
The reason why I chose the green backing is because of the tile around the fireplace. Now, I have to be honest, it really really bugs me. I am sure this is expensive marble tile, but there is too much, and it doesn’t work in a Craftsman house. But, not my house, the house is old, it has had many owners, and someone did this. It is not the worst thing they could have done. Dan likes it. Heck, I played off it for the back of the quilt. It’s all good
I didn’t take pictures of the front porch, which is amazing, or the backyard, which is also amazing. A previous owner turned the backyard into and incredible, edible space. He planted some exotic citrus trees, one of them is a Kafir lime. A tree priced in Thailand and in Thai cuisine. Not so much for the fruit, but for the leaves.
The fruit is gnarly looking. The leaves are interesting, double leaves. I brought some home and made some Thai Curry. Was it the red paste? Or did the leaves actually make a difference in the curry? I’m going with, the leaves made a difference. Btw, it’s like bay leaves, you cook with them, but don’t eat them.
I never claimed to be someone who marches to her own drum. I know that I am very susceptible to prevailing winds in the culture. Yes, advertising works, I know I’ve bought items because of advertising. The same is true of the crafts I partake in. I find myself following trends. So I picked up knitting again 15 years ago when it was cool, I restarted my quilting when the Modern Movement showed up.
So for the last few years I’m seeing more info about cross-stitch. I have embroidered labels for my quilts, using some of the more modern designs. I even cross-stitched a few, especially the last one, with the Kipling Quote.
The book, Retro Cross Stitch is full of great patterns. I’m jumping in in the deep end and making this wonderful Old style travel poster.
Yes, I went on Craftsy and watched a class, where I learned some very valuable things about cross-stitch. I have also begun following some FlossTube Chanels on You Tube. Yes, I have succumbed.
Instead of the cheap Aida cloth at Joann’s, I ordered some linen and thread from The Fat Quarter shop. Turns out it isn’t really linen, but I do have to actually count the threads, which yes, is causing some problems. I also ordered some snap frames and thread holders. If I’m going to do this, I’m doing it right with all the bells and whistles. I even bought a new printer, my old one wouldn’t scan and I was out of of colored ink… so yeah a new printer.
At the moment I am enjoying having the fabric taut, although I may try another project, on real linen that isn’t in a frame and then I’ll try the sewing method instead of the stabbing one.
Ok, maybe I got a little too close with my macro lens…
Yes, there have been times when I’ve had to remove stitches, things weren’t lining up, all part of the process.
Yay! I get to use another color. No, I didn’t use all the brick red yet, one thing I’m discovering is that if I go ahead and move too far off to create more of the design, I tend to get more mistakes
This is looking so cool! Btw, have I mentioned that I don’t particularly like the cutesy cross-stitch? I am intrigued by antique designs, or new ones that are based on antiques. I absolutely love the style of the images in this book. But the cutesy stuff, no thanks.
The ’tile’ background is great.
Watching FlossTube, a number of people mentioned these magnetic cords. Yep, I bought some. Two are taming all of my recharging wires, which were quite the bird nest. Here are two that are holding back some excess fabric on the back, I was snagging it with my needle.
View from the back.
I may have to unpick some of that yellow, this is the problem with random stitches. Right now, I’ve moved back to the woman and will work on her, even if it means, switching out a lot of colors.
I do find this work to be quite meditative. Which these days, is something I really really need.
Every evening I knit, it is very relaxing, I’m not in a race, the sweater will be completed when it is finished.
The row on the blue background was supposed to be a mirror image of the pattern in the middle of the yoke. I made one small mistake and it is not exactly the same. Which is fine, this is how patterns are created.
The body of the sweater is finished. I was sort of trying to get the patterns to line up in the front. Nope, I didn’t succeed, but really who cares, there will be a blue button band. If someone notices and comments, my answer will be: I’m not a machine, I’m a human. I have created a sweater which is artistic but I’m to going for some mechanical level of perfection.
I’m hoping that I have created something that is pleasing to the eye, the distribution of dark against light.
Looking from this angle I’m seeing how the yoke is differentiated from the body, because of the circle vs. the straight knitting.
The back is beautiful, no breaks. I did repeat the narrow blue stripe between patterns, repetition makes the whole easier on the eye.
Here you see the move from yoke to body even better. It will be very interesting to see what happens when I knit the sleeves.
Then it was on to sewing, making some dresses for Shira.
I love sewing her dresses! She is growing so fast, it is scary.
This fabric is a knit. It is a polyester velvet. A little tricker to work with, but oh my – how gorgeous. How festive how lovely!
Took these two to Polywog park, it’s always fun to explore a new playground!
Before I started the quilting, I read a blog post about not over quilting, if you want a nice soft cuddly quilt. We are so used to seeing magazines and IG posts of gorgeous perfect quilts. But they are meant to be used, a full size one is, maybe not wall quilts. So I had started quilting, and basically over quilting. This is the only row that has quilting on the dark colors. Not only did I not repeat that anywhere else, I didn’t bother to take out these stitches. Its’ not a mistake, it adds character.
The quilting itself took time, I worked with off white thread and stitched in the ditch, sort of. So each ‘block’ is quilted in zig-zag along the middle and along the edges. I didn’t want to run the thread across the lattice, so there were a lot of starts and stops. No I didn’t bury any threads, I sewed in place to secure the ends. I’m sure there are some tails still out there.
Here you have it, condensed zigzags and outlines of the lattice. That is harder to see because I used green thread on the back. So yeah, lets be honest this is a pretty densely quilted quilt.
I love how this came out.
I took some artistic photos.
The quilting has made this into a more three dimensional object. But everything is still nice flat and smooth. That is about to change. This is meant to be a cuddle quilt on a couch or chair. It needs to get fluffy and crinkly. I used cotton batting, as I worked on it, it was compact and smooth. Then I threw this into the washer and dryer.
You can see how much more crinkly this has become!
This might not be the best before image, because there was a lot of drag as I quilted.
Here it is out of the wash, there is a lot more crinkle. Take my word for it, it is also much fluffier, softer and cuddlier as well.
It hasn’t in any way ruined the effect of those real narrow sharp saw teeth. The bold graphics are still here.
I am very very happy with the results. Now I need to gift it to a friend who recently bought a house. A 110 year old Craftsman house, I can’t think of a more perfect quilt for him and his new home.
For years I’ve been glue basting my quilts outside. I’d pull out the folding table outside and it was a pain. On the last quilt I made, the huge white one, I did the basting outside, but I just went back to using safety pins. It worked fine. One of the things I learned is to use monofilament and the walking foot and do a basic grid along block lines.
Remember this table? I use it all the time, but with only one leaf open. So here’s the duh moment, open up that leaf and use this table to baste the quilt!
It works beautifully! I don’t have to schlep things outside, I don’t have to wrestle a table from the garage. Sure, this quilt isn’t all that large, but I think I’ve decided that I probably won’t be making king or queen size quilts much anymore.
Why do we get stuck in old habits and forget to look around and learn new ones?
Using the pins works just fine. I don’t place them too close together. I have all the layers stretch on the table and suddenly it isn’t an onerous task.
I probably could have worked with regular cotton thread, brown thread since I quilted along all of the lattice strips. And no, I don’t like monofilament, it broke a lot. I did get the job done. Now to figure out the rest of the quilting.
I really had to zoom in with my macro lens for you to see this.
In other news, I get to go back to Grandma and me with Einav!!!! Here she is with her friend Scarlett. They met 10 months ago, then we had that awful long hiatus. And here they are back together. During the lockdown Scarlett had some major surgery on her scalp, thank God, it all worked out, so that helmet isn’t for vanity, but for a serious issue. God Bless America, she got amazing treatment and is doing extremely well. Although it looks like each girl is eating her own snack, nope, the grabbed food from one another, it just makes my heart sing.
I hate the lockdown, I hate that kids are isolated. I really hate what it is doing to my special needs grandson. But for my six year old grandson, I’m seeing silver linings. He is meeting classmates at the park, he plays with the neighbors. And together we go on long walks. this is the second time we went to the pier. Look at that deep blue ocean, it calms my soul. So we watched the fishermen, we were surprised that the lifeguard station didn’t put out the daily information about the water temps and the tide times.
We sat together on a bench on the pier and watched the surfers and talked about what they are doing and how they are doing it. I have no doubt that one of these days Westley will be one of them. Right now he is learning to paddle board on the inner harbor and is also learning how to boogie board.
On our walk home we passed a huge mural which is part of the Hermosa Beach Murals Project. Which btw, is a good effort, they do sell posters of the murals, I’m all in favor of renewing through art.
This is not my picture, I downloaded it. This mural is being painted by Hermosa Beach resident Chris Coakley, go read his bio, fascinating.
Also, not my photograph, no way I could capture this all. Yes, I LOVE this, great art! This is Hermosa Beach in 1909. So Westley and I stopped and looked at this and admired the pier, the few old buildings and the trolly.
This got us taking about the trolly, I explained that back then, trollies ran all over southern CA. We were up on Manhattan Blvd, but one street closer to the beach is Hermosa Ave. I said to Westley: you know how Hermosa is a divided street, with a median with plants in the middle? Oh yes, they have gone to the median to get succulent cuttings. Well, at every cross street we could look down and see the median. Guess what, that is where the trolly tracks used to be!
That kind of history lesson only happens when one is out and about experiencing the world. I am so grateful I have these moments to share with my grandson. A silver lining to the awfulness of what the world is going through.
I should have known when I couldn’t find this pattern on Judy Neimeyers site that not many people made it. It is hard! But I kept at it because, there is something so unusual and unique about it.
Top is done! It was a very long road getting here, and an expensive project to boot. That is OK, this is the third quilt I’ve made this year. I have ordered the materials for a serious cross stitch project. So quilting will be on the back burner for a few months.
Here is the pile of the final blocks. Yay! I forgot, now I need to pull out the papers. It was suggested to just pull the centers out, leaving the sides in to stabilize the blocks. Heck no! My least favorite thing is removing the papers.
Ugh! I hate this. I love the kind of blocks one gets with paper piecing, I cannot stand the process of removing the paper.
This is what the wastebasket and floor look like. And it’s not like I’m getting all the paper out, many bits and pieces remain.
I’m going row by row, I would shoot myself if I sat there and removed all the papers first.
And this is why taking pictures along the way is so important. I simply didn’t see the two blocks that were upside down. I was very careful not to make this mistake again. Guess what, on the final row guess what mistake I made again! Grrr
Much better!
Almost there! Mirrors are also wonderful tools. In this case, makes it look like a real long quilt.
It is looking so good! really three dimensional. Trying to figure out how to quilt it.
Oh, another thing, the pattern called for using solid black in the background, I opted for dark brown. Another advantage of using batik is that there were four different patterns for the sawtooth bands. Because batik appears the same on both sides, I was spared a lot of work!! The same was true of the diagonal background strips, I simply cut them and flipped them which ever way they needed to be.
Take a close look, a lot of paper scrapes. This is the last you will see of them, they will simply be quilted into the quilt and no one will know. It turns out that antique English paper pieced quilts often have the complete paper still in there. I am happy to say that I bought a wide backing for this one. Another thing I’m getting tired of doing is piecing backs. It was a way of conserving fabric, but these days, one can find wide backing at a reasonable price. Since this one isn’t that large, I will be using the width of the fabric for the length, it will be fine.
And now, to rest and ponder how I will quilt this. It won’t be intricate, but knowing me, it will be more work than is necessary.
As the wuflu ramps up again, (remember flu season? Even if this is not a flu, these kind of diseases kick in when the weather gets cold). Grandma and me started up again, it was a delight to take Einav back here. One other girl, her exact age, also a red head came back as well. Scarlett was all over Einav, in some ways a little too much, but for us grandmas, it was great to see.
That is teacher Julie, telling the stories. I am so proud, before the lockdown, or maybe during the lockdown (the lockdown hasn’t ended here btw). We must have discussed embroidery – well Julie has started to embroider and she is hooked. I am so happy for her and so proud of my influence.
She is at the drunken sailor stage of walking, this will pass too quickly! The sweater is one I made for her brother, he wasn’t happy to see it one her. I don’t know that he wore it much, its’ perfect for her, for maybe another month.
Speaking of sweaters, I frogged what I had started, it all just felt too big, went down a size and started over.
There is a formula for this style of yoke. Basically, every 2.5″ there is a row of increases. As the yoke grows, there are less increases, so the shape remains. I needed to plan those increases in the solid rows between patterns. so the first one happened on the first white row at the top. Then after the blue plus signs, another row of increases.
Larger diamonds and more increases.
I have now put the sleeves on waste yarn and am working on the body of the sweater. One thing that will repeat often is the blue band with the white beads. Also, the center band is there for steeking, this will be a cardigan, not a pullover. A lot of planning going into this project.
Yay! I’m done with needing patterns to fit into 2.5″ increments, so now I can add in a large pattern. Yes, many mistakes are being made, some are corrected, some are ignored, but all in all I really love this project.
On the quilt, there are three bands of zigzags that are different from what I’ve done so far.
Only five left to go! I can’t wait, I just want to put this together already! Although I do have another Judy Niemeyer pattern, I think it’s going to be a while before I do it. Paper piecing is amazing, but I’m ready for something else. You will find out soon what that something else is. There are no idle hands here.
