Group Therapy

I am a big fan of group crafting. With many years of lone ranger crafting, I have really come to enjoy having company. Some people never had issues with groups. I have seen groups as risky -- I might reveal something or hear something that I wished I hadn't. But I like the camaraderie now. Maybe I've loosened up. Maybe I figured out how to be there without talking. I have no idea.

Progress check: the prayer shawl is now bicolor. I will probably quit when I run out yarn. I must save some yarn for fringe.

The quilt has not been stitched upon since I bought the new thread (two days ago). I finished stitching in the ditch for all the "vertical legs" that go around the individual blocks. Yeah, that reads clear as mud. I guess I'm saying that I have half the quilting finished. Next step will be to stitch the horizontal legs. Step after that will be to choose one shape near the center, the interior of the block. Shouldn't take too long.

Crazy Wonky Houses Quilt -- closer to done!

My progress:

I am halfway done with connecting all the blocks. I have *just* enough fabric to go in between the rows. The stripes will be oriented opposite of the sashing, and I'm OK with that.

Connecting the blocks into rows goes really fast. I'm pretty excited to say that a baby presented itself to me this winter. His baptism is this weekend, so I may be able to give this quilt to him on Sunday.

I also ripped out the blue Homespun prayer shawl that I started an embarrassingly long time ago. It was much too wide. I reworked it to fit on the needles better. Substituting R.E. with family movie night and watching Liberty's Kids for history every day means that we've a LOT of TV. So I've gotten this skein of yarn almost completely worked into a shawl. I'll need to get more by next Prayer Shawl meeting.

knitting this week

I really truly knitted this week! My church's Prayer Shawl Ministry met on Monday. 'Love the fellowship and the brainless knitting "pattern" of the shawls.

Another "pattern" has been on my mind, so I started it with white acrylic yarn, size 15 circular knitting needles. It's gonna be long. I know, you can dip the cable in hot water to get rid of the curl. I'm not worried about it.

my craft activity this week

it's been a slow week for crafting. on top of being the regular, crazy-schedule class day, running home school kids around town, my birthday was yesterday.

i had my hilarious nephews over for a couple hours. D's marble maze is just a tube. It was the tallest maze. The marble goes straight down. No bends, no curves, no frills. He thought it was "the best one."

Then we have B-man's marble maze. He took the slide and tried to make it more predictable by adding a length of tubing to the end. After many tests and "G" of GAIN's advice, he shortened the tube. They were really funny.

My boys made lemon bars instead of a cake for me. "A" of GAIN decided to top the bars with a "3" candle and nine individual candles -- it made for quite the blaze. So now I am publicly proclaiming my age for the first time ever: I am 39 years old. Still haven't said it out loud, but this is a first step.

As I look back on the crafting I did, I find that there was some productivity. I painted three more eggshells for eggshell dioramas. I accidentally gave away too many for Christmas, and when "I" of GAIN didn't find the one she chose (which I had forgotten), I figured that I could replace it with another one.

I also started to lengthen the prayer shawl started many moons ago. I picked up some yarn from my parish's fun knitting group. There was no ball band, but I'm assuming that this yarn is Lion Brand Homespun. I also read about using T-shirts to make tubular yarn (it's expensive. I bought some before Purl's closed.), and with all the Vacation Bible School T-shirts that leaders have to wear, I've amassed a collection to harvest. I've set aside a shirt (from the theme year of Fiesta!) to test.

I'll end this really long post with shots of this week's watercolors. "I" of GAIN and I like this calendar. I've hyperlinked because I'm getting questions. (Mine came from Barnes and Noble.)

crafts and yogurt

progress on the wastebasket: very good. this is a promising project. dh Mr. TellBlast gave approval to its looks this morning.

progress on current prayer shawl: poor. I've knitted only once or twice this week.

progress on G's jean quilt: still at a standstill. My wonderful partner brought her walking foot over. The quilt is too thick to fit. The crazy quilt came together so easily with the batting and backing with the same foot. Denim is too thick. I'll probably sew little spots like a button, or duvet instead. I'll make decisions about how to place them. And I had such a cool quilting pattern in my mind.

yogurt: it's great. I am crazy serious about my love for crockpot yogurt. My third batch is just as thick as the second, but I let it sit for 3, not 5, hours. I am wondering if the culture being in (unflavored whole milk yogurt) vs. (vanilla 2% milk yogurt) makes the difference. Everything else I use is exactly the same -- Heartland whole milk in the glass bottle, crockpot, and the culture (yogurt).

Vanilla Yogurt Recipe

1/2 c. crockpot yogurt
1/8 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. white sugar

I hesitate to use vanilla because of the thickness issue. (Same with honey. And we're on our last jar, which I blame on A's grandpa.) For yogurt with fruit, we frequently go without vanilla extract. It enhances the flavor, but is difficult for my 8 yo (actually all of us) to measure in that amount. We usually just drop the fruit in a cup, cover it with a little sugar to make it weep a bit, then spoon a bunch of yogurt over the top. Mmmm.

Sticks and yogurt

On the sticks: a prayer shawl! I'm using my remnants. I feel awful not using the donated yarn from parishioners. I'll get a picture up and list colorways once the shawl is long enough to photograph nicely.

Yogurt: I accidentally forgot about my crockpot full of milk last Wed. Instead of resting for 3 hours, it rested for 5 hours. An impromptu visit to Living History Farms made me forget. Fear of wrecked yogurt fell upon me during the five minute ride home. I proceeded with the recipe as if I hadn't left the milk sitting longer than instructed. The result? Thicker yogurt! Making a note to use the longer time.

For those of you who aren't ready to make your own yogurt, you may want to head over to fellow Iowa home school mom Darcy's blog. She's giving away Stoneyfield Farms Yo Baby yogurt, along with other Stoneyfield Farms stuff (bib, bowl, etc.) The contest ends on Sunday, July 5th at 11:59pm CST.

Olio

*** edited to include photos ***

Of note:

1. Two new denim potholders in the works. I just need to bind them.

2. New prayer shawl slowly getting done. It will contain the leftovers of all the Lion Homespun yarn that I own.

3. 'N' of GAIN found morel mushrooms in our yard! we've never seen them in our yard. ever. ten years. never seen before. Story: he's mowing the backyard. he makes one pass along the fence, shuts the mower off, and runs through the house looking for me, (I'm in the front yard.) yelling for me to come quick. everyone is in alarm but me (I can't hear him since i'm in the front yard), thinking that something is wrong. 'g' of gain thinks maybe he injured his foot. 'a' of gain thinks he ran over a branch that we missed during yard clean-up and broke the mower. mr. gain has no idea what is going on, but it must be bad -- you don't want to hear your child to say anything like 'come quick' when he's running the mower. by the time N gets to me, he says, 'I found morel mushrooms! Come look!' Three big ones, in our backyard. They were too old to eat, but oh so cool to find.

4. We have a yellow bee-eating bird in our yard. Flycatcher is my guess, but I see no wing bars or eye ring. it's odd. In this photo, it's sitting on the wooden fence.

5. The bees are doing well. a little burr comb, but very manageable. no scale, no mites (as thought earlier).

6. plantings are doing well. I moved lilacs from the homeplace to the front and back yards, thinned lamb's ear (stachys 'big ears') and moved to the mailbox (a school bus hit the neighbor's mailbox last year), and thinned the daylilies and moved to pots. so far, all the bulbs I bought from the Botanical Center last fall have come up, except the fall blooming crocuses. irises from friends and family are just beginning to bloom. *** update: the lilacs in the front yard are being eaten by a rabbit. I wasn't sure that I wanted in the front anyway. ***

7. My baby turns 15 this week! Here she is with her bees. She also ate the first strawberry of the season this afternoon. We will be flush with berries. Currently they are difficult to harvest, so we're looking for a tiller so we can move them to be more practically placed in the yard.


I have no idea what the deal is with the keyboard and mouse tonight, so if there are letters missing or improperly cased or in the middle of a random word, I blame the hardware. I'm just too fast for everything to keep up with me.

Prayer shawl finished

I finished the prayer shawl by adding fringe. Unsure if the Homespun yarn will maintain its integrity as fringe. I chose one skein of yarn from the basket and will work it with the remaining yarn from my last shawl to create a new shawl. Unsure if it will have fringe.

During the meeting, the leader read a card to us from a recent recipient, and I was touched. Many stories about the effect of prayer shawls from a faith community have affected me as I work on projects for this ministry.

Reading Karen's post about taking a class with her daughter reminded me of our prayer shawl ministry. We meet monthly, and we always have at least one school ager in the mix. The most consistent school kid is a 7th grader, and she made a presentation to her 4-H group about knitting. She invited everyone in the group to learn to knit at our Prayer Shawl meeting, so we had two kids and mom learn to knit tonight! Last meeting, we had 4th graders knitting with us, as well as a college freshman.

Multi-age learning, leisure and life skills are things that I have striven for in my adult life. I am thankful that I have the freedom to explore all sorts of things to satisfy my quest for the new, new to me, thing. I think I was really narrow in my view of education until my freshman year of college. At that time, I visited a professor, and he said, "You don't have to be enrolled in a college course to learn something." He then gestured with his arm to the wall of full bookshelves behind him. He had a very diverse collection of reading material. Until that time, I think I was wearing blinders. Thank you, Sam, wherever you are!

Prayer Shawl

Our parish re-started a Prayer Shawl Ministry in the fall, thanks to a high school alumnus. We're a small yet consistent group of people. Here is my current work in progress (WIP), created with Lion Brand Homespun. I am knitting a plain garter stitch on size 13 needles, using two skeins of the color Antique and one skein of Nouveau (the random stripe). Although our current request list is shawls for children, I would like this shawl to be for a man or woman. This will be my second prayer shawl for the ministry. I try to begin work with a prayer and think positive thoughts while knitting. When I complete it, I'll attach a nice tag and sign it, sending my positive prayers along with it.

I hadn't used Homespun since the godson hoodie sweater. Once you figure out the tension needed to use this yarn, knitting with it is a snap. Figuring out the tension can take a little while. In fact, I know a few people have thrown Homespun in the trashcan, never making it out of the "figure it out" period.

I want to talk a little about needles here. My last shawl was made with a pair of aluminum needles, probably the first ones I bought for "A" of GAIN Academy. That means I wanted a minimum investment until I knew the hobby was a lasting, not a passing, one. I can't stand them. The yarn slips off them and they make a noise that bugs me. I cannot say that I am a fan of plastic, but the needles in the picture here, also an early (cheap) purchase, are wonderfully quiet. They are warm and quiet. I think all of my wooden needles are wonderful to touch. However, I have no long wooden needles. I haven't shopped for long needles, but now I wonder if I have ever seen long wooden needles. I'll have to pay attention the next time I shop.

Two items of crafty news from the weekend: I am still crazy quilting, but I think I'm going to quit. An empty scrap drawer just won't happen right now. I want to be done and move on. I'll size up everything and think about a quilt top, batting, and backing this week.

I was able to finish my sister's drapes this afternoon. It was a quick job. If I can finish something quickly, I am very pleased. So I was happy. She and my SIL and my mom also gave me rocking birthday gifts this evening. I am multiple times happy.

Next potential WIP: cloth napkins. The goal is 25¢ per napkin. So I have some math to do before hitting the remnant baskets at the stores.

new to me

My prayer shawl (all scrunched up) and my non-white quilling.

Shhhhhhh!

The latest project is under wraps. I cannot say more than, "I am experimenting and developing a gift."

On the semi-public front, our church re-started its prayer shawl ministry. I started a prayer shawl last night after having my hands blessed (and yarn and needles, too) with the group. I decided to use a foofy yarn. After hearing people's stories about wearing the shawls to chemo and back and forth to the doctor, I thought that comfort is nice, but style is nice, too. I'll get a photo up when I have more length on my project.