1 Hour Felt Hat

Materials: 1 4-ounce skein US Worsted Weight Wool
Suggested gauge on skein pkg 17st/21 rws = 4 inches
I used Shepherd’s Wool from stonehedgefibermill.com

Machine: LK 150 mid-gauge
Tension: Highest tension on the machine and antenna tension set at the highest
(Loosest)

Directions:
With waste yarn cast on 100 stitches and hang cast on comb and weights (we want this heavy to help make big open stitches). Knit about 5 rows, end with carriage on the left.
Knit 1 row ravel cord.

E-wrap over ravel cord with main yarn (2 stitches on needles).
Knit 56 rows.

Begin Decrease Rows
*Transfer every 3rd stitch to the stitch next to it (right or left doesn’t matter but continue the same direction all the way across). Push empty needles out of work.
Knit around 4 or 5 rows waste yarn. Remove weights and cast on comb and take work off the machine (or use a garter bar but beware, these stitches are very loose and you can lose them easily).*

Rehang the stitches on 67 needles. (check to make sure you have 2 stitches on every other needle.
Replace cast on comb and weights (important to keep the weight on the hat while knitting). Knit 3 rows then repeat decreases *-*
Rehang the stitches on 45 needles.

Repeat from * to *
Rehang stitches on 31 needles.

Repeat from * to *
Rehang stitches on 16 needles

Knit 2 rows then
Transfer EVERY OTHER stitch to the needle next to it.
Rehang stitches and knit 2 rows.

Cut thread long enough to run through the open stitches with tapestry needle or double eye needle and mattress stitch the seam. Weave any ends you may have.

Put the hat in a pillowcase to keep the fuzzies out of your washing machine and tie the top shut or use a lingerie bag if it has small holes. Using just hot water (turn off the cold water tap) Add just a smidgeon of soap and run the washer through the wash cycle. Stop it and check the hat. It probably will need to go through the wash cycle again, reset the washer and when its half way through the second cycle check it. Try it on. If it fits you the way you want it to fit, it’s done. If it could shrink some more, continue with the cycle. Beware, it can felt very quickly at this point and suddenly it will fit your favorite teddy.

Once the hat is the size you want, wring dry and shape it the way you want it to look when finished and place it over a bowl or similar object to help hold its shape while it dries. Set it aside on the bowl to dry. Decorate with beads or chain or ribbon if you wish. Another idea is to needle felt a flower on it or wear it just as it is.

Living Room Painting is Done

TG, my DIL is ambitious. She came over to paint a little 8 x 8 wall that is between kitchen and living room, right next to the entry way. When I moved here she mentioned that she wants to try one of the "faux" techniques that are so popular now. Suede was the one she liked. Well, of course that piqued my interest so I went to several of the paint stores and looked at the faux stuff. I ended up liking "color wash" so when she emailed me that Sherwin Williams was having a weekend sale, I went to get my paint. I already had the samples that I've been looking at often so I pretty much knew the exact colors I wanted. I ended up with "Biscuit" for the majority of the living room, its sort of an off-white with a creamy base, not beige but very light beige. I should mention that the color when I moved in is pale green. I've never had a green wall and although its ok, its dingy and obviously been green for a very long time.

For The WALL , I wanted a darker reddish/berry color, more toward the berry than the red. So Saturday we started. She was planning on doing the red wall on Saturday so all I got was the berry colorwash stuff. I taped and she painted. That wall took longer to tape than to paint so when she was nearly finished she mentioned she really could do more if there were more to do so off I went to the paint store for the Biscuit paint. (no I didn't buy that color because of the dog--it just happened to be the color I picked). She ended up painting all but the wall that starts in the living room and ends all the way down the hall..so that still has to be done but it looks great.

Sunday she came back over and did the "faux colorwash" treatment...which we totally hated so we decided to just paint that color over the first color and be done with it. Its not quite as berry as I'd like but its done and some day I may give it another coat of a darker berry color but right now, ITS DONE!!!

Here's Biscuit...the off-white-creamy color


And here's the wall, on the left is the first coat, on the right is the finished coat but it looks very red in these 2 photos.

Yesterday my son came over and finished up by hanging my huge mirror that's been sitting on the floor since I moved in. Love the mirror but its so heavy I was afraid it would actually tear the doggone sheetrock down. So far, its fine. I changed the lighting on this to try to show the real color, it just comes out way too red in the pictures and its really a reddish berry color, this shows it better....

All I have left to do is hem the dining room curtains. For some reason the person who lived here before me had the draps but apparently made new ones and took the hems out of the others. The others match the living room drapes and I absolutely love those living room drapes so want them back up in the dining room. So today's job is to embroider a Thanksgiving Tweet flag and then the drapes. NO---Focus Roz! I want to make covers for those red cushions on the wicker chair...its way too red as it is now and I bought upholstery fabric for it so I'll do that today. Guess I'd better get off computer and get busy....

Autumn Tweets make Garden Flag

I bought myself a little garden flag holder because of a brainstorm I had that I could embroider designs on flag fabric. After I bought the fabric I wasn't so sure it was a good idea because embroidery has to be hooped really tight to keep it from puckering around the stitches and the designs I wanted to use were from Embroidery Library. Some of Embroidery Library's designs are a bit dense which was my concern. Anyway today I decided to tackle the project. I had bought Sport Nylon from Jo-Ann's which was recommended by the Babylock on-line projects. They happened to have a garden flag as a project. They recommended doing a 4-thread overlock around all 4 edges of the flat to keep the fabric from fraying so I did that, even though I haven't used my serger in a very long time. What the heck, its good to use these things if you have them, isn't it?

I must say it turned out pretty cute. I decided to put a cute dog under the birds just because everyone who walks by my house knows I have the little white dog behind my gate. I wish I had offset him a little but it was a matter of being able to hoop the flag farther down after I finished the Tweets, there wasn't room to hoop it tight if I had moved the dog over much farther so next time I think I'll do the embroidering first and then hem the flag,

Next flag will be Thanksgiving. I want to get some little hooks of some kind to attach the flag to the flag holder. Right now in case you can't tell, I'm using red paper clips, a bit ugly but one has to do what one has to do in a pinch. Besides, since the flag has to be inside my courtyard (nothing allowed outside the courtyard after October 30 because of snow plowing right up to the garage doors...so no one can tell from the road how I hooked that sucker up to the holder anyway. I'm really happy with the whole idea of the Tweets being using for the flag. Good Grief, I think I have a Tweet for every season...so glad I thought of it.

So My House Nearly Burned Down--WARNING!

Yesterday I was rushing around getting ready for a Dr's apt so wasn't paying a lot of attention to my surroundings. As I came out of the dressing room into the bedroom I noticed smoke coming from near my embroidery machine--was it smoke? Was it steam from a cup of coffee? I went to investigate and good grief!!!

I have one of those wonderful lamps from Jo-Ann Fabrics that has a daylight and a large magnifying glass attached to it, perfect when I'm doing something on the machine. It sits next to the machine of course. My sewing room faces South and is very bright when the sun beams in during the day. In fact if I'm sewing I have to draw the blind behind the machine to keep from blinding myself. THAT is what happened. The sun was beaming in and reflecting off that huge magnifying glass and actually had burned 2 little holes in the cover I put over my machine--which I put over it to protect it from the sun.

I like the fact that the sun beams in because it heats the room which might be a bit cold to work in otherwise but wow, I never gave it a thought when I placed that lamp near the machine. Imagine if I had left already, my house might have burned. My expensive embroidery machine could have been toast. I'm horrified with the thought.

Luckily the magnifying glass can be removed so I took it off the stand and put it in a cupboard so that its handy when I want to use it but not burning holes in my stuff when I don't want to use it.

Lesson learned, I hope if anyone reading this has one of those magnifying glass/lamps you learn from what happened to mine and we can all avoid the awful consequences.

Kitchen's Done

Actually the guys were finished yesterday but I wanted to make my herb clock that I've dreamed up the day I bought the place. There's a couple little pieces of tile with herbs on them in the kitchen and so I thought, since I have this nickel colored clock I should embroider a clock with herbs in it. I searched around and the only design I could find that I liked in this larger than the usual embroidered clock was at Embroidery Library (www.emblibrary.com) Also it was the only clock design that was big enough to fit inside my clock. Unfortunately its bigger than my embroidery hoop so I spent 3 days working on how I was going to split the doggone design up and sew it out. I've only split a couple designs and really hesitate to do it for fear I'll screw it up. There are excellent directions in the Yahoo Group (MKEmbroidery) that our friend Sheila wrote for us, I highly suggest using her directions, they aren't complicated and long winded as some directions are. I also read the directions on Embroidery Library's project pages about hooping clocks and used parts of both directions. Anyway, that's neither here nor there, I finally got the nerve up to do it last night. This morning I took the clock apart, put the newly embroidered face in it and it turned out even better than I hoped. So here's the final kitchen with the new granite counters, new faucet, new sink and of course, the clock.

Counters Are Here!!!

What a mess, the guy called and told me to empty the cupboards because they didn't want to mess anything up when they came. So--I used plastic totes and my sewing cases and hauled the food and dishes out of the kitchen to the dining room. I even took the drawers out and hauled them over to the corner of the DR. I put the quilt over the table so I wouldn't scratch it with all the stuff. Keep in mind I haven't finished unpacking the stuff for the kitchen because I knew this day was coming. I may never unpack the rest of the stuff.....
THEN the destruction guy came. His job was to remove all the original counters.

Turns out the disposal needs to be replaced so he's bringing me a new one and will install it when he comes back. Meanwhile, Sears installer had screwed up the installation of the dishwasher, it was a little wonkey and this guy fixed that since he had to side mount the washer--it was top mounted before. Yaaay for him for fixing the messy installation. My impression of this whole company has gone up already.

After he got the counters and sink and disposal and junk out of the house, the granite guys came over. They had the granite, already cut and ready to install with them. I hid out in the back room because I heard them saying something about one piece was very big and they needed another person to help them get it into the house. Turns out they don't like carrying these big pieces of granite flat, they prefer to turn them on the side to carry in but because of the little galley kitchen, apparently it was a problem...but I was hiding out trying not to listen. This whole job started at 8:15 a.m. and ended around 4 p.m. Yaaay for them, they got it done. New sink is installed, the granite is in place and now for the back splashes. Yes, I had to get granite back splashes because the original tiles don't go down below the original backsplashes of course...and I really didn't want to get new tiles although in retrospect, I wonder if it would have been cheaper to get new kitchen tiles or even just wallpaper rather than granite back splashes. Oh well, too late to think of that now. So--here's the picture of what was done yesterday.
The messy spot on the right corner is where the kitchen garage thingy goes, I think they are going to put the backsplash on first and then reinstall that. (whoops, I just put the stuff back in the cupboard...guess it needs to come back out...)
Once these guys left the owner of the company came back over and remeasured everything for the backsplashes. Apparently the backsplashes are cut and polished but he makes sure that they will fit now that the counters are on since the new counters are probably a different height than the old ones. This morning they are fine-tuning them and will be bringing them over some time today.
Meanwhile, the owner told me the new faucet hasn't come in yet, it may be here today or tomorrow. Phooey! I really would like a finished sink--with faucets-- since its impossible to cook anything without a sink to toss crumbs in (so I found out last night when I fixed Biscuit's supper---he can't eat a TV dinner, after all.

The counters are beautiful. Here's a close-up...if you look into the depths of the granite you can see fabulous colors. One way you look you see shiny spots of silver and another way you see sapphire. WOW! So pretty!!

Next post will hopefully be the finished deal. I'm really glad I went with this granite company rather than with Lowes or Home Depot. The price was a little more but obviously worth it. I don't think they would have taken all the time to measure and re-measure and make absolutely sure things were right. I KNOW they wouldn't have repositioned my dishwasher so the door wasn't wonkey anymore.

Got the Blasted Drivers License

Got it! Went prepared with bills showing my address, passport, Social Security Card, SC drivers license, etc, etc....and registered to vote. Honestly, I told the guy I had never been in the Secretary of State office so often since I flunked the driving test when I was 20 (well---it wasn't my fault they asked me questions about rum runners (SC) and of course, I didn't know why you wouldn't have a smoke screen in the car, I thought it got cigarette smoke out of the car..turns out it blasts smoke out behind the car to divert anyone who might be following you There was something about brakes that made the car turn around on a dime which I thought would be handy, turned out it was the same sort of thing the smoke screen was. Who Knew?

Bonus was, I stopped at a cabinet-maker shop and he's making shelves for me for the sewing room cabinets that are the same price as the ones at Lowes and Home Depot that don't fit. Yaaay!