Day 15 - Art Every Day - More Knitting Practice

Well, one thing I have learned is that learning to knit and watching Downton Abbey don't mix!  I am still ending up with more stitches than I started with and having to rip, rip, rip.  I can't keep track of where I am without focusing every minute. So here is the bit I stitched and it still doesn't look as it's supposed to.  I think I will pull it all off and have another try.  Part of the problem is that I did too many of the first two repeats before I switched to the second two repeats.

Day 14 - Art Every Day - Played with Stash

OK - does this count as Art Every Day?  lol! I know we all do it from time to time. I won these on ebay a while back.  These are Kensitas silks and  were put out by J. Wix & Sons of London in 1934 and 1935 in cigarette packs. It was a group of 60 of the medium/large variety and needless to say I did not pay the asking price that some are asking that sell them individually. I have seen them as high as $15.00 a piece. I paid about $1.21 per silkie. Yippee! These are actually embroidered and not just a photo put on fabric. I posted some close-ups so you can see how lovely they are. They are contained in paper envelopes and that's the image you see coming through the silky. Backed with a creamy white backing they'd be even more stunning. Most crazy quilters know them well and some have their own collections. Now I just need some fantastic ideas to showcase them in a quilt. I considered hexagons, but someone suggested they were being overdone these days. Any ideas? They are about 2 x 2-3/4 inch in size.

Day 13 - Art Every Day - Cutting linen

I signed up for a EGA class to sew a pillow cover using techniques of Schwalm embroidery.  I ordered the linen and had to cut one piece for the pillow cover and one piece for a practice piece. Then I put an edging around both pieces so it wouldn't unravel when I begin to stitch.  This is the type of thing I will procrastinate on for a month of Sundays so I'm glad it is done.

Day 12- Art Every Day - Tatted Angel

Day 12:  You may have wondered what happened to my tatted angel.  Well, I have made some progress on her, but accidentally closed a ring that needed to be joined to a picot on another ring so I had to try to open the ring again, which is NOT very easy on size 80 thread. I ended up having to cut it out and re-join the thread at one of the chains.  I made another mistake and couldn't bear to work on her for a while because my frustration level was elevated (lol!). So I put her down and here she lies. Now I am reinforcing to myself what I have found to be true for me.  ALWAYS try a new pattern in a size 20 thread, then move to a size 80 thread. Size 20 thread is greater in girth than the size 80 and is much easier to pick out when a mistake is made. I don't think it is as delicate and pretty as the size 80 is so I try and cut corners by not practicing the pattern first.  I'm just not that good yet.  Maybe some day I will be, but that day hasn't yet arrived.

So now at the bottom you can see where I didn't join the picots of the last chains of her skirt together on the left. By the time I noticed it was way too late to cut and correct in my opinion! It doesn't much matter to me any way because I will probably stitch her down to fabric and can join the two picots then.

Day 11 - Art Every Day - Crewel Embroidery

I went to my embroidery guild meeting this morning and  worked on this little sample of crewel embroidery.

I had already completed the outer petals and this morning I worked the inner petals.

Day 10: Art Every Day - Learning the Austrian Block Stitch

So I learned how to cast off and saved my little garter stitch sample for posterity.  Here's the link for casting off:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0plhuwVF4j0

Now I have decided to try a few of the patterns (well at least one) of the stitchesthat Craftsy gave me to stitch the socks with.  Today I tried the Austrian Block Pattern.  To do it I needed to learn several little stitches: K1-tbl (knit one through the back loop, RT (right twist), LT (left twist).  I found youtube videos to learn them.  Here's my sample so far although if you ask me it doesn't look like much! My light was poor - believe it or not, this is the same yarn I've been working with. Maybe I'll get a better picture tomorrow.

Day 9 - Art Every Day - Learning Continental Style Knitting

I started to knit my gauge swatch in the round (never done that before) and realized I needed to practice knitting continental style knitting first. When I first knit as a 20-yr-old or so I used the English method and I want to switch.

When I was try to stitch my gauge swatch, I was using aluminum needles to stitch in the round and my stitches kept falling off. When I decided I needed to practice the continental method on the flat I switched to bamboo and I don't have that problem too much now. Casting on and the knit stitches were easy for me to do in continental style knitting, but when I started stitching the purls I felt like I was stitching with my feet. After stitching this many rows I have developed a style and rhythm, but I still am quite slow with the purls. I started with 50 stitches on my needle and kept picking up stitches so I realize I have to count every time after I do a row. I also dropped a stitch.  I can now recognize a knit stitch verses a purl stitch. I am under no delusions.  Learning to knit a sock is going to take a while.  (-;

By the way, I didn't pull out all this knitting terminology out of my extensive brain matter (ha ha). I learned it in my Craftsy class and through various on-line resources. Although the continental style was demonstrated in the Craftsy class it was not taught so I used these You Tube videos to learn:

Continental Style vs English Style:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qooz_gTsZ_w
Casting on Continental Style:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfnAawBdrsY
How to knit Continental Style:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmHq6Bo_H-U
How to purl Continental Syle:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6XBTxJfggU