January projects

I grew up in Southern California and there really wasn't any time of year when you couldn't be outside.  Living here in northeastern Ohio, there are days in January and February (and last November!) when it is simply too cold to do much outside except bundle up and walk the dogs as quickly as you can.  Lucky for me I have lots of indoor hobbies.  Here are a few of the projects I currently have going.

First up is an homage to Sophie Digard.  Her scarves and bags and work in general are a major inspiration for me.  I simply can't imagine doing crochet on such a tiny scale.  This past fall, after the Ladies Night at my boys' school (where I sold a TON of gloves and scarves) I splurged on this scarf.  This is classic Sophie Digard.  Tiny, tiny granny squares embellished with bits of velvet.  Stunning, isn't it?  I love it and it matches about 85% of my wardrobe, no joke.

So, in my lame attempt to flatter by imitation, I am crocheting a scarf.  Y'all know I'm a knitter.  Any crochet expert would cringe at my work on this but I'm persevering.  The yarn is Purl Soho line weight merino wool in a beautiful grey/blue.  Very thin.  If I was on knitting needles, I'd be on a size 4 probably.  The plan is to complete the scarf and then appliqué circles of velvet on top at each end.  I bought some velvet swatches on line which should get me plenty of circles for the appliqué.

 The work is pretty slow going because I'm just not as comfortable with crochet so I stop every row to count and make sure I've still got the right number of squares in the pattern.  I've had to rip a bit out when I got off pattern.  (sigh)

The velvets are pumpkin, eggplant, green, and ivory.  I think it will be great once complete.

 The next couple of projects are my attempt to use the techniques championed by Sue Spargo.  I came across her work by chance when searching for inspiration for my fabulous beret hat detailed here.  Sue Spargo did the leaves that are pictured in that post.  Amazing work.  This book is going to be my muse this year.  I've even signed up to take Sue's online class on Craftsy.com.  Check it out.

You may remember I've been working on stair risers for a long time.  Years.  I complete a new riser whenever I have a good idea which is, apparently, not often!  The previous efforts are detailed here.  I love my stairs and visitors to my house are always very impressed.



So, I finally came up with ideas for two of the remaining risers.  The first is inspired by Fraktur designs and I used a tulip pattern directly from Susan Feller's Design in a Box.  (Available here)  I bought this great product at a rug hooking retreat.  It has Fraktur patterns on card stock so I was able to scan the tulip and then print it out multiple times to make all my patterns.  The entire riser is about 36" wide and there is a tulip at each end with long curving stems crossing in the middle.  A heart seemed to be the perfect motif for the center.

You can see each little bit of the tulip is a different wool.  The inspiration wool was the main one on the heart and the base of the tulip.  All other wools were chosen based on their relationship with that wool.  Thus the orange and deep red and the fabulous green.  I embellished some of the portions using stitches from Sue Spargo's book.  

I'm also working on a stair riser that's dedicated to our town, Hudson, Ohio.  This is a bit of a "duh" moment since I can't believe I haven't done this one before.  As a refresher, Hudson was founded in 1799, 4 years before Ohio became a state.  We are fiercely proud of our history and our architecture.  Here's a shot of our main street:

I didn't think I had the artistic ability to pull off the row of stores from an angle like this so I am doing mine from head on.  No perspective required.  Obviously, a work in progress but here is some of the completed work.

 Each store front is a little different.  I am trying to duplicate color scheme as closely as possible.  This section of Main Street is almost entirely brick, either left red or painted.  It was once wood but there was a major fire in 1792 and this block was lost.  So they rebuilt in brick.  One block north is still all wood.  Part of the charm of this fantastic place.  My little post-it notes detail the trim and window colors so when I'm working in front of the TV I don't have to pull up a picture on my phone and try to determine which floss I should be using.

The beautiful clock tower will be added last.  It will sit in front of the two buildings on the far right.  The clock tower is brick and those 2 buildings are brick so I used 3 different red wools to delineate between the buildings.

Once these two risers are complete, I only have 1 more to do.  And, the final riser is very near the bottom so I probably won't do much detail since no one is going to want to squat down to look.  Something colorful and coordinating.  That shouldn't take too long to come up with an idea, should it?

So this is what's on the docket for January.  Oh, I almost forgot!  Of course, I have a knitting project on the needles.  I've been using Brooklyn Tweed wool almost exclusively for about 18 months and I'm knitting a pullover using a beautiful pale grey plus colorwork with all my leftover wools and a couple of additions.  I'll take some shots of that soon.  I finished about 1/2 of it over holiday break but I've put it aside while I'll working on the stair risers.  It'll keep.

What are you working on this winter?

Ella's cushion -- Dresden plate pattern done in wool.

This is Ella's cushion.  Ella is my 22-month-old Field Spaniel that thinks she's a lap dog.  She certainly believes she fits perfectly on this cushion and that well, frankly, she owns it.  Adults can perch their feet on a small corner but should, by no means, feel the cushion is theirs.

The cushion cover was made by me using various leftover wools.  The red panel is a wool and possum blend that didn't felt as tightly as I wanted and, as you can see, was weak, leading to a hole.  The center section is a sturdy wool tweed, knit in a wide rib and then smocked using the red yarn to tie the panels together.  The variegated panel was a yarn I hand-dyed myself that just happened to match the other two.  I knit and felted the three panels, sewed them together, and made a cushion for this lazy Susan ottoman we have.

Obviously, once the holes appeared, I started thinking of how to replace the cushion and what I wanted.  The original cushion was thicker and was a boring tapestry thing that came with the ottoman.  I didn't even wait for that to wear out before making the paneled cushion.

The new cushion would use a Dresden Plate quilting pattern.  I've posted about my love of American quilts before.  I never get tired of the play of pattern.  Naturally, I gravitated for the color wheel classic of red/blue/yellow.  I even found a 12-panel Dresden Plate pattern to use, planning for 4 repeats of the colors.  But, that green kept sneaking in to the pile.  The couch opposite this ottoman is dark green leather.  So, green always feels right.

 Here's the layout of the panels.  I had 2 fabrics in each color.  Every panel has texture of some kind -- plaid or stripe or whatever.  Most are hand-dyed by me or someone like me.

Now to the stitching.  Given that Ella was going to lay on this thing, it needed to be strong.  So, I machine-stitched the panels together along their long sides.  Then I blanket stitched the entire motif to the background wool.  This was tricky because it is big.  The motif measures 20 inches across.

After doing the outside, I very carefully pinned and started going over each long side with another type of blanket stitch.  This stitching was reinforcement and I did it to make sure everything stayed put with a 35-pound dog jumping up onto it.

Finally, I made a penny rug center to cover the big hole.  That was the hardest part to sew on because the rough cut hole kept shifting.  I probably should have basted everything on first but it was too late for that.  I just made do.

Below are shots of the finished cushion made using some foam from the craft store.  I love the final product, especially since the only supply I actually had to buy was the foam for the cushion!  What that tells me is that I have WAY too much wool in storage in my cedar closet.  I better come up with some more projects QUICK!!

As you can see, Ella approves.  Good dog.

Rumplestiltskin Challenge -- The Fraktur wall hanging

I am completely fascinated by Frakturs.  They normally take the form of wedding announcements or commemoration of other important events.  And, they are normally done on paper.  I have a great book, Fraktur, by Ruthanne Hartung, and the motifs in this wall hanging were modified from ones in the book. I have plans to do a hooked rug in the same genre.

I began work on this during the Christmas holiday.  If you know me, you know I am completely unable to just sit and watch TV.  I have to have something to do with my hands.  If I'm between projects, I get this glassy look in my eyes and I start to twitch and sweat until I have some wool in my hands and am ready for the evening's work.  My husband thinks I'm nuts.

Even though I started this before I even knew about the Rumplestiltskin Challenge, it certainly qualifies.  I didn't buy a thing.  I even had the dowel for the back to make sure it was hanging straight!

The background red wool is one of my favorite colors.  It looks very much like the wool I used for my poinsettias this year.  I always include blue and mustard in things I make for my house because much of my trim (and all the wallpaper in this foyer) is mustard.  Blue complements mustard.  Funny how that color wheel comes in handy from time to time!  The rest of the colors were just bits and pieces from my bins of wool.  I love plaid so there's a lot of plaid in every motif.  I was so happy to use up some very small bits of favorite plaids like in the smallest heart and the central star in the star circle motif.  It's like having old friends around.

I should mention the eggs in the wooden bowl.  They are hardshell gourds (appropriately called Easter Egg gourds) that I grew myself many years ago.  A fabulous local artist named Rebekah Smith painted them for me.  She also did the Early American stenciling in my living room.  A true American folk artist.  The bird nests in the bowl are all gathered from my yard after the babies have flown the nest.  One year a robin built a nest in the hanging bird feeder we have right outside our tv room window.  It was fabulous having a nest only a foot outside the window.  When all the babies had flown away, I got out a ladder and salvaged the nest.

Remember the Granny Square afghan?  I'm finishing up 2 tote bags from that this week.  Watch for a post later in the week with finished product pictures.