As mentioned in my previous post, my lack of posting to my blog did not mean a lack of making things in the home. That would be silly 😜 Going through my camera roll, I've looked through the things I'm making now and selected the things I've done in January.
Sewing Projects
My nonne made this quilt at least 10 years ago, possibly as much as 20; the patches are mostly from fabrics she used to make me and my brother clothes in our childhood. I recognize shorts my brother wore in the summers, sundresses that were their own layer in the summers and worn as pinafores in the winters. There's some leftovers from a quilt back she made to fit my bed when I was 8 and pillowcases she made my brother. It's been in my life for nearly as long as it's existed, but it didn't start getting heavy use until a couple years ago. As a consequence, a lot of the patches are separating now, so I've had to sit with it and reattach them. It's fiddly work, but very satisfying once you step back and see the progress you've made. Something like 80% of the patches came loose after the last wash, and I'm down to about 20% of the patches left to work. I only work on it in the mornings, when I have the best light, and even then only for an hour because it's very physically tiring. I am also guilty of not working on it *every* morning, because, well, it's not very *fun* and I have enough boring housework to do that some mornings I just really don't want to start the day with tedium. So progress is slow.
My daughter has outgrown the child-sized face masks I made her five years ago, so I'm making some bigger ones now. I had never tried couching before, and since it's a very linear technique, I thought it might be interesting to use to make lettering. The overlay is sparse on purpose, because I thought that might make a nice stripey contrast in the letters. I'm not sure I like it though. In this color choice, it reminds me of bugs for some reason. My daughter doesn't hate it, so I'm not ripping it out, but I would definitely do it differently in the future. I still have to embroider the back panel; I'm thinking of an all over pattern, but I haven't decided on one yet, so this is on the back burner for now.
Then there's this skirt I've been working on for my daughter. I first cut this out about 6 years ago but before I could get it finished, it was packed up for the move. She has since grown substantially in height and a bit in width, so I had to do some alterations on the waistband. Now that it's fitting in the waist, it's 4-6 inches too short. So, I'm planning to head to the fabric store to find a suitable fabric (or possibly more than one) to add as tiers underneath. This has the added benefit of keeping it usable as she continues to grow, as I can continue to add tiers as needed.
Knitting
My first knitting project of the year technically started in December of 2024, but since I bound off in 2025, it counts. This was my first self-drafted stranded color work socks, and while there's several things I think I would do differently in the future, I'm really happy with how they turned out. The toe looks very pointy, but it looks and fit much more rounded on the foot. I also extended the height of the heel, both on the sole and back of the foot, because I'm hoping it makes it a little easier to repair going forward. We'll see!
Speaking of repairs, I consider sock darning a subset of knitting because I'm duplicate stitching (and on occasion, re-knitting portions) so here's the first sock repair of the year. These socks are about 3 years old, but they get a lot of wear, since the socks above are only my 4th pair, and a lot of my much older commercial socks are deteriorating as well. Plus, the wool socks are much warmer than the commercial cotton and nylon socks, so in the winters I've been alternating between my 4 pairs of socks, rotating them daily to try and spread out the wear. But there's only so much the rotation can do, so I've been doing a lot of repairs this winter.
This is the repair, and to be honest, I'm not loving how patchy these have become, but these are literally scrap socks, made from yarn that was not intended to be for socks, so to be honest, I think they've fared well, considering. They are also too big, which I think contributes to the wear as well. The socks I've made since that are much smaller and more fitted to the foot are wearing better.
Another repair, this time on the heel. It always amazes me how quickly holes can grow, especially without me noticing that I'm walking on a hole. This one was a pain in the ass too because it involves the turn in the short rows from narrowing to widening and it would have been really annoying to fix so I just stabilized the hole and stitched a new heel on top, like so:
It's a compromised between picking out the old heel and replacing it and patching it. Most of the old heel is still there, providing extra strength to the rest of the heel, and if it breaks in the same place, I can patch that area again while keeping the same protection for the rest of the heel intact. After a couple of consecutive patches, I can remove the top heel and work another one, or if the original heal wears away more, I can take out one or both heels and redo, which leaves me with a lot of options going forward.
Then, my third pair of socks, of course, also needed repair. You can see there's already a large tan patch that's showing signs of wear right below the patch that I had already started before remembering to photograph the hole. It's a smaller hole, so I decided to just do a spot repair. The large patch underneath covers 2 holes and at least two areas that were wearing thin, so it was a relatively easier repair than it looks from the outside.
Bright green patch complete, and you can see that, at first, the gauge on the patch is tighter than the sock underneath, causing it to draw in a bit. After wearing, it equalizes, so I don't fuss about it. I do actually aim to be slightly tighter because I know the knitting has relaxed some with all the wear. I figure having the tension be a little tighter helps protect the fabric, but it's not like I've done any science about it, it's just a gut feeling I have.
And that brings me through January. There were also some other projects, mostly spinning, that I was working on, but which I did not photograph, so it's not something I'm able to share visually. I bought a few alpaca fleeces back in the summer of 2024, and I've been working through them and sampling with them. Two of the fleeces are gorgeous and have not required much work at all to clean and comb and spin, but the other had so, so many guard hairs. It's been an education on best methods of de-hairing and even then, on letting go of a lot of beautiful fiber, because it just will not spin up how you hope. This is the first fiber I've ever spun with that gave me a hair splinter (!!!) while spinning it, and it's disappointing how beautiful the fiber can look and how soft the hair can feel unspun only to find that adding even the slightest of twist turns those soft, lovely hairs into a sharp and prickly twine. The fiber isn't a total bust, as I can use it for a new quilted coat I've been wanting to make, as well as the at least 1-3 new bed quilts I'd like to make as well. The hair is soft as long as it's unspun, so methods of use unspun will be for the best and luckily I have plans that include unspun fiber. If I didn't, this would have been a much bigger disappointment.
Also, I knew going in that alpaca had a reputation for being incredibly dusty, and I thought I was prepared, but boy, I was not. I triple washed each section of fleece, carding it before washing to loosen as much dust and dirt as possible (and believe me, it did! I had to wear a dust mask while carding it raw because it releases a very large amount of dust in that process) and yet still, still as I'm spinning it, it leaves dust on my hands. After a spinning session, I have to wash my hands because of how much dust is on my fingers. The rinse water looks clear after a triple wash, so I have no idea what else I can do to clean this fiber before spinning. It just holds dirt like you wouldn't believe, and without looking dirty, too. I suppose that should be a good thing in the sense of if I'm behind on laundering, you wouldn't know it, but it makes me feel a little icky to think that possibly after spinning and washing again, and even through the dyeing process, there could still be a decent amount of barnyard dirt trapped in there. I don't think of myself as squeamish generally, but that makes me shudder a bit when I think about it, so I mostly don't!
What I'm working on now
I've started wearing my hair up more as I enter middle age, in particular under a headscarf, because it protects my hair from dust and sun damage, meaning I have to wash and condition it less frequently, but still have healthy hair. Plus, I got tired of brushing my hair back over my shoulder as I cook, clean, etc. Not having hair in the food is another big benefit, too. I had been using those larger, longer scarves you can buy in the store, some of which are really pretty, but the extra length, which is great for using different types of wrap, are really heavy if you fold them up to be shorter for around the house stuff. I still use them when going out in the winter, because wrapping a scarf around your head and neck really keeps the wind chill off, but in the house, it's just too heavy and cumbersome. Enter the knitted headscarf. I actually have 3 others that I've made and use regularly, so I wanted to add some more in different colors and styles. I usually make them like a triangular shawl and stop when they feel long enough, but they tend to slip forward or back on my head if I'm working hard, and having to push and pull them back into place is annoying, so I got the idea to make longer ties that can wrap around the top of my head, maybe helping to keep the scarf in place. I don't know, it worked for a hat I made like 5 or 6 years ago, so maybe it'll work here, too.
A close up shot of the texture. I got the stitch from the Barbara Walker Treasury, it's called "Dew Drops." It's a fun and easy to memorize little 4 row lace repeat that kind of reminds me of crocuses. Wrong color, but the small little teardrop shape reminds me of the buds when they first emerge in spring. And speaking of which, I saw some crocuses emerging about two weeks ago, so spring is definitely under way by now, even though the temperatures continue to dip every few days.
Close up of the straps. I got the stitch from Barbara Walker also, this one is called "Primrose Edging." I worked it by itself for the 30 inches needed to wrap around the way I wanted, then started working it with a stitch of the scarf at the straight side so that it would attach perpendicularly.
I've also been working on spinning up the alpaca; this is an experiment I did where I combined several grades and colors of the wool together, hoping it would give a look sort of like a calico/tortoiseshell cat. So far on the spindle, I think a lot of the distinction I had in the fiber was lost, but I'm going to chain ply it to try and preserve whatever bands of distinct color there is. I don't have any plans for the yarn itself, which is unusual for me; right now my inclination is to include it in my scrap yarn blanket, or possibly use it to practice weaving, which potentially would look very interesting. We'll see when it's finished how I'm feeling.
And that's it for today! See you tomorrow.
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