Beaded scarf and oven towel winner.

Well since I only received a couple of comments on the oven towels (shows how much people actually read my posts) I’ve decided to send them on to both girls so congrats Catherine and Jackie and I’ll need your addresses so if you could email those to me I’d appreciate it.

My next new thing to work on is a beaded scarf. Actually I need to make five of these for my daughter’s bridesmaids so I thought I’d better start working on them.

Start of the bead netting on the scarf.

Close-up.

This beaded net pattern is from a book “Simple Glass Beading” by Dorothy Wood. By the time I’m done there will be about 2.5 inches of netting with another 1.5 inches of fringe at the bottom. I’ve tried to match everything as closely as I can to the dress colour but obviously it’s not going to be a perfect match but hopefully the blue will be able to go with something else the girls own. They aren’t going to wear them down the aisle but I thought they would be nice to have around the shoulders in case the girls get chilly in the banquet hall. Hopefully my efforts won’t be a waste but I thought it would be appropriate to give the girls something from the bride’s mother.

Karen

Oven-Towel Tutorial

Since I’ve had someone ask me about how I make one of these towels I thought that I would post a tutorial on making one. This has got to be one of the easier crafts to make but it does require that you know how to crochet. They can be made with fabric but I like the crocheted ones better.

I’ve decided the easiest way to write this up is to post pictures of each step along the way. Depending on how fast you crochet, a towel will take about 1 hour to 1-1/2 hours to create.

The first step is to take a kitchen towel and divide it in half. Then either serge or zig-zag along the cut edges to re-enforce the edge.

The type of yarn I use is cotton 4-ply yarn. You could use normal acrylic yarn but I think the cotton washes up well.

I take the yarn, make a loop around a metal crochet hook (I use the largest of these small hooks) and then crochet into the corner of my towel with a single crochet stitch. I use a smaller metal crochet hook because the head of the hook is tiny enough to go through the towel easily. I just use this hook for my first foundation row of the towel. I then switch over to a regular size 4 or 4.5 hook for the rest of the rows.

Notice the serged edge of the towel. I insert my hook just before this serging so the stitch has no chance of working loose as it might if I hadn’t re-enforced the edge.

Showing the back of the starting point of the foundation row – catching the loose tail of yarn with the single crochet stitches. You could weave the loose starting tail of yarn in after you’re done the towel but it saves effort to just tuck it in behind and crochet over it as you go.

Space the single crochets about 3/8 inch apart. The idea is to have them close enough so the towel doesn’t really show through but far enough apart that they are not crammed in there.

Finished foundation row of single crochet with the stitches nicely spaced so the towel lays flat.

The first row is a row of single crochet into each previous stitch of the foundation row. Now having said that you can crochet any type of stitch you want but this is how I do it so…

The next row is a solid row of double crochet.

Now the next row you’ll want to start reducing the stitches so start the row off with two double crochets then skip a stitch, double crochet, skip a stitch, double crochet, etc…until you reach the last two (or three) stitches at the end of the row, double crochet the last two stitches.

The reason for starting and ending the row with two double crochet stitches is that it helps to re-enforce the ends. I have had towels that through time have had the cotton break at the ends of the rows so placing two stitches side by side helps to prevent this from occuring. Don’t worry if the stitch count doesn’t work out right at the end of the row. Sometimes you have to do three stitches it just depends on how many stitches you started out with.

Keep repeating these three rows – single crochet, double crochet, double crochet with skipped stitches – until you get down to six or seven stitches. Don’t ask me why but I find my towels always end up at six or seven stitches before I go into the tab. I prefer to have six stitches for working the tab so I just skip a stitch on the next row if I happen to end up at seven.

This is a matter of personal preference on my part having the six stitches. It will depend on the thickness of the yarn you use to crochet your towel with. I have a friend who uses the delicate cotton thread – the kind you use with the metal hooks so of course the stitch counts will all be off if you use this kind of yarn but you get the basic idea of making one of these towels anyhow.

For the crocheted tab I just repeat a double crochet row over and over. You can use whatever stitch you like to get the job done. As far as length is concerned I just eyeball it. You want the tab long enough to wrap around your oven handle (or refridgerator) but not so long that it’s too low to reach when drying your hands.

To create the button hole just skip a few stitches. The number of stitches you skip will depend on the size of the button you want to use. Just pick up the skipped stitches on the next row to close off the hole.

For example, I try to give a somewhat rounded edge to the end of my tab so when I make the buttonhole I start the row with a single crochet, then a half-double crochet, chain two (the hole), do a half-double crochet, then end with a single crochet.

For the next row I’ll work a single crochet, half-double crochet, double crochet, double crochet, half-double crochet, and a single crochet to end off the row.

For the final row I repeat the previous row. It doesn’t look the greatest but it’s a bit better than a flat ending. I then cut the yarn leaving a long enough tail so I can hide it by weaving it through the crocheted stitches.

I generally sew the button at the base of the tab. If the towel is for yourself you can take it to the oven and postion the button however best fits the handle.

That’s basically it. I don’t angst over anything, it’s a very basic peice of work that you can adjust however you like. I consider my towels the bare-bones versions. If you’re really into crochet I’m sure you could come up with all sorts of patterns to work into the crocheted base. I like to give these towels away at Christmas to people who aren’t expecting a little gift – mostly the seniors at my church, it brightens their day to have them know someone cares about them.

It’s my turn to pass-it-forward so I’ve decided to have a draw for one of these towels. If you’d like to be entered into the draw then please leave a comment and I’ll put your name into the draw. I’ll pull the winner’s name next week sometime.
Karen

Spring Fever!

I see the last time that I’ve posted has been April 15th, a week ago. In some ways it seems like forever. I’m not sure we had a Spring here in Whitby, Ontario, Canada. For about a week now the tempratures have been around the 70 F/21 C degree range during the day. We have had little rain as well for April so what that has meant is that I’ve had perfect conditions for working on the garden out back.

Last year I left it to late and by the time I went out the ground was rock hard. We have a clay based soil where the garden is and unless you work on it first thing during the Spring it becomes unmanagable. I suppose if I had help (talking hubby here) then it wouldn’t have been a problem but I admit with a bad back I just gave in last year and did nothing.

Since I’ve had perfect weather conditions and the soil is breaking nicely I’ve been out back this past week working away for about 2-3 hours each day trying to wrestle this thing into submission. 

Perennials in top half of garden.

It didn’t help to leave the garden untouched for a year because now I have all sorts of weed roots that need digging up so as I turn the soil I’m constantly bending over picking out the roots. If I don’t pick out the roots then I’ll just get more weeds so…it’s been a long slog and I’ve about 2-3 more days work left before I figure I’ll have the garden soil all turned.

Unturned part of garden.

Raspberry stumps and weeds. I’ve removed all of the raspberries but two as I’m fed-up with trying to keep them under control. The coons get the berries anyway so what’s the point?

After working on this garden I have the decision to make of whether or not to turn over a smaller bed farther back that is completely overgrown or to take out the existing flowers and add them to the big garden. The problem is that I have four peony bushes back there and they take up a lot of space and I’m not sure I want to sacrifice the room in the main garden, which is why I created the smaller flower bed in the first place but it’s a major pain to keep the grass out of this bed.

View of entire garden and back of house, note large “dead” cherry tree. You don’t get the perspective but it is a good-sized garden.

We finally lost our cherry tree last summer to fire blight. Unfortunately we didn’t realise thats what was wrong with it until to late.  It’s a huge tree but needs to come down. We also lost one of our maple trees and will have to dig out the stump. Of course the husband didn’t want to fork out the money to get some men to come in to reduce the stump because of course he and the two strong healthy boys can do the work. That was last June and needless to say the stump is still there and most likely will stay that way for who knows how long. All I know is that the replacement tree is not going to be put into the ground until the stump is removed and Spring is supposed to be the time to plant. It kind of burns me that I might be the one that has to dig it out. At some point you ask yourself “okay exactly what are you doing around the house?”. This always leads me to the notorious Ann Landers question “Are you better off with him or without him?”. I usually only think these thoughts when I’m feeling hard done by and put out. It doesn’t seem to matter that my husband goes off to work everyday because in my head there are certain jobs I regard as a man’s and to my mind removing tree stumps is one of them.

Dead cherry tree, yes it is big isn’t it?

Maple tree stump and it’s huge. Well it’ll seem huge once “someone” starts to dig it out.

So much work to do…so many things to fix…and now that I think of it…so many things to make.

Karen

UFO #2 Completed…finally.

Well after a couple of weeks of quilting and binding I have officially finished the second UFO for 2008; this one only took about three years to complete. I have to admit that the sun is too bright on the quilt, it does look much better in person.

Butterflies Are Free.

This was a basic quilt with plain outline quilting for the most part. I did quilt some butterflies into the yellow squares and along the border. Originally, I had penciled in on the black border, a solid line of butterflies as that’s what the stencil called for but when I got back into the quilt I realised that I didn’t want to spend the time doing that and I felt the butterflies would stand out more if they just meandered along the border.

Meandering butterflies hand-quilted along black border.

Butterfly material from VIP Cranston. Unfortunately you can’t see the quilted butterfly in the yellow square.

Well now that I’ve done this lap-quilt I guess it’s on to the next UFO. The pattern for the above quilt came from “More Quilts From The Quiltmaker’s Gift” and the pattern is called “Snowflake” If you ever have the opportunity to pick up either The Quiltmaker’s Gift or More Quilts From (The Quiltermaker’s Gift) I encourage you to do so. These books are full of lovely quilts and even if you never make a quilt the books are so beautifully put together it’s worth the price just to browse through them to get ideas.

Karen

More Swag

Well I finally went nuts sitting inside the house working on my quilting project waiting for my running shoes to show up via the UPS man. I spent all of yesterday waiting for him to arrive with a pair of running shoes that I’d ordered online and what a waste of time that was as it was probably one of the nicest days so far this spring. Today I decided enough of that so I went out this afternoon and wouldn’t you know it he showed up as I was out but was kind enough to leave my parcel outside the door so I didn’t have to drive to some far off depot to track the package down. I’d managed to find a pair of runners online in the same size and style I usually buy but these were $50.00 cheaper as they are now discountinued.

Each year New Balance (and probably every other company out there) update their shoes. Something usually changes maybe it’s the colour or maybe something else but basically its the same shoe but at the new price for the new year. I have a size ten foot with a 4E width. I can’t get this size in a women’s shoe (well I probably could but we won’t go there) so I go into the men’s department to find my shoes. Even going into the men’s department doesn’t always work because they tend not to carry 4E widths. New Balance seems to be the only brand name that will carry the larger sizes in the bigger widths. Long story short, you “pay through the nose” and by that I mean I get dinged around $139.00 plus tax (somewhere around $150) every time I buy new shoes.

My problem is that I have a bad back. One leg is slightly longer than the other and over the years my back has twisted somewhat so I need a decent shoe with support. The shoe arch/support wears down before the actual shoe does; maybe because I’m a bit overweight but probably not. They say you should replace your shoes every six months and even less than that if you do a lot of exercise. I replace mine maybe once every nine months or so. I can tell when I need new shoes because my back starts hurting again. So I was extremely happy when I went online and found the exact same shoe but at $89.00.

Anyhow, I digress. I went out today and stopped off at the local fabric store to buy some more quilting thread. I was running low on the one colour so decided to buy some more plus I wanted to get a couple more of the ceramic buttons so I could finish making the second purse from the left-over fabric from my outrageously expensive class. Well in all honestly the people at the store didn’t force me to buy the material I chose but it was pricey none the less. I picked up a couple of buttons but they didn’t have the quilting thread I wanted so on to the next stop, which was the quilting store.

Needless to say the quilting store didn’t have the thread I wanted but they did have this really neat calendar. You know the ones where each month you get a different quilt and the pattern to make it. Hmm…very nice I thought but it’s already April. At that point the quilt store owner has noticed my interest in it and said 75% off, some quick math and $5 bucks later I’m now the proud owner of a calendar I’ll probably never use but hey, one day I might make one of those quilts.

I also picked up some more quilting needles (I hand quilt). I just picked up two packages of quilting needles when I was down in the states on my trip. If you’re ever tempted to buy Dritz quilting needles, don’t bother they’re junk. I went through about 12 of them on about a border and a half of my quilt before I found another unused package of needles in my sewing room. Needless to say it only took the one needle to finish off the quilt. The Dritz kept bending no matter how careful I tried to be. The steel just wasn’t strong enough; my quilt wasn’t very thick.

After the quilting shop I went on to visit the local chain fabric store and sure enough there was the thread in the colour I wanted and the brand I like. It just so happened that Coats and Clark thread was on for 50% off so needless to say I grabbed a few spools of the varigated thread. The two bigger spools were regular $20 so now seemed like a good time to buy. Needless to say at the checkout they have their little specials they try to push and off course I fell for the Olfa cutter at half price. I already have one but at half price it was about the same cost as a replacement blade so I figured I wasn’t out any money and…it’s cute. Enough damage done, just don’t tell the hubby.

Swag from fabric and quilt shops.
Back of calendar and various quilts.

Karen

Spring has sprung…

Well finally the weather seems to be cooperating and the snow is almost gone. When we travelled to Niagra falls last weekend it seemed most of their snow had disappeared. It was somewhat of a shock to come home and see the remaining drifts around the house but now I can say we’re almost snow free and I have bulbs that are starting to peek through the ground and crocuses blooming in their glory. It’s funny but the purple ones for some reason always seem to pop up first.

Daffodils growing near house.

Crocuses in lawn.

Crocus and daffodils in front garden.

I have tulips planted as well but the bunnies always find them and chew off the buds, yummy I guess. The daffodils must taste bitter because they always leave those alone;  it’s a shame but what are you going to do. Well I could try protecting them with fencing but I can’t be bothered putting it up and down for the couple of weeks its needed…maybe one of these years (yeah right).

I’ve been busy working on another UFO at the moment but it’s very time consuming so the project if I keep on track should be finished next week sometime. Meanwhile I’ll do a sneak peak and keep people guessing…

Butterfly.

Karen