Day Five - God's Eyes and Bracelets

Today's craft for Camp E.D.G.E. was God's Eyes for the little ones and macrame bracelets/bookmarks for the older ones.

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Last night I prepped a few things for today. The wooden craft sticks were glued to form x's. Yarn was cut to manageable lengths for little hands to manage. For the macrame: the pieces of hemp string were cut to size as well.

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I think the God's Eyes turned out very nice. The little ones needed help tieing knots to start and finish their lengths of yarn and some of them didn't quite get the hang of how to wrap the yarn, but they are all very proud of what they've made!

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The older kids enjoyed the macrame too! Some of them took longer picking out 4 pony beads in colors they liked than the actual knotting itself! But they seemed to have fun.

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It's been a whirlwind of a week! VBS is over and we're off for BC. We'll be spending a week and a bit with G's family at his Mom's and for a wedding for one of his cousin's children and then a bit less than a week with mine at some wonderful cabins on Arrow Lake in Nakusp. I am actually looking forward to the long drive to Toronto to catch our plane. I think it will be a nice break from the busyness of this past week. And I'll be knitting!

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Day Four - Painted Log Medallions

Today's Camp E.D.G.E. craft was a bit lighter on prep and finishing for me! Yesterday's Tshirts were a big job - but sooo worth it! The kids all looked great in their bright shirts and they were really happy with them.

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"God Loves Me!" log medallions

One of my friends provided me with a few lengths of pin cherry branches from some clearing they were doing about their property and G used his chop saw to cut them into 1/2 inch thick rounds. I drilled a hole in each one near the edge.

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Each kid received a medallion and painted to their hearts content. For the younger children I used tempura paint for easier cleanup. For the older kids I used acrylic craft paints. Once the medallions were dry, the helpers wrote "God Loves Me" on each of the littler kids medallions with permanent marker. The older children's medallions weren't quite dry enough - so they'll write on theirs at home. If they wish, the kids can thread a piece of string through the hole and hang their medallion around their necks, the doorknobs to their bedrooms or any where they'd like for decoration!

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Day Three - Tie Dye Tshirts

What summer camp would be complete without a tie-dyed Tshirt? And that's just what we did at our Camp E.D.G.E. VBS today!

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This was tons of fun and turned out way better than I expected. The three different age groups all required different amounts of help with this project, but everyone had fun.

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Last night I prepared the dye: one package of RIT dye, 1 cup of salt and 12 cups of boiling water for each of the six colors. Once the dye was cool enough, I transferred it to 500mL bottles: 6 bottles for each of the six colors.

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Each child received a white Tshirt that had been washed and dried. Using a permanent marker, their wrote their names on the inside of the hem. Then they "tied" their shirts with elastic bands. When everyone had their shirts "tied" tightly, we trekked outside to the dying station.

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To dye the shirts, the 500mL bottles were adapted with a "squirt bottle" cap. An extra cap had a 4mm hole drilled into it and the dye was squirted onto each section of the shirt, either by the kids or by the helpers depending on the kids abilities. Once all sections were dyed, the shirt was popped into a Ziploc freezer bag, with as much air squeezed out as possible. (I've found that Ziploc freezer bag plastic and zippers stand up best to the abuse this craft puts them through - thanks Ziploc!). And the kids were done for now.

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Rit dye needs moist heat to set the dye onto the cotton Tshirts. So into the "oven steamer" they went. I set my oven to 250 degrees F, poured boiling water into the bottom of my roasting pan, and set the bagged shirts in a single layer on a rack over the water. Put a lid on it, or sealed with foil and baked for 90 minutes, and checked occassionally to make sure the roasting pan hadn't boiled dry.

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Then the shirts were taken out of the roasting pan, rinsed in cold water and thrown in the washing maching and dryer. These are some amazing shirts! I can't wait to see what the kids think of them tomorrow!

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Day Two - Star Power

Today's Camp E.D.G.E. theme was the Trek to Bethlehem: and the star the wise men followed on their journey to Bethlehem.

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The littlest kids made salt dough stars with yellow salt dough, which they painted with tempura paint in whatever manner pleased them. A hole poked in one point of the star will allow them to hang their star somewhere in their house to enjoy.

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Since the dough and paint were still wet they will take these home with them tomorrow. They will still need more drying time at home, but will be sturdy enough to make the trip!

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Salt Dough:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 cup water (may be less - start with less and add up to 1 cup)

Roll the dough out flat and used star shape cookie cutters. Let air dry several days.

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The older group made string art stars. This pattern was printed onto cardstock for them.

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They chose the colors of the thread and did a dot-to-dot method to produce starry works of art. Ater securing the end of the thread with a piece of tape, the thread goes from "1" to "1", then from "2" to "2", then "3" to "3", "4" to "4", and so on. Repeat for each segment. Once the "sewing" was done, a second piece of cardstock was glued to the back.

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Very pretty!

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Day One - Shrinky Dinks

We interupt your regularly scheduled knitting and spinning...

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... for Camp E.D.G.E. I'm the crafts director for the VBS our church is putting on this week. I've had lots of fun prepping the crafts for all the little ones. Each day this week, I'll be showcasing what we've had fun with.

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What can I say. Kid's are always amazed by the power of shrinking craft plastic. For the littlest kids, I gave them each a piece of Shrinky Dinks with the Camp E.D.G.E. mascot Sparx already traced on. They colored them, then came to the kitchen to watch them shrink. Then we trekked back to the craft station to print our names on the back and attach magnets. The older children traced their own Camp E.D.G.E. mascots onto the plastic, before coloring and shrinking. Lot's of fun!

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There will be no knitting or spinning this week as I'm also packing to go on a family vacation out west. We leave Friday right after our final VBS session. There may be sporadic blogging while I'm on vacay as B will be bringing her laptop and has given me permission to use it occassionally!

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Can you handle the cuteness!

A few weeks ago I came across this pattern. Mini Alien by Barbara Prime (Rav link). This little guy had B and I giggling and ooohing! I decided to make just one to tuck into the mittens for my niece for Christmas, but I can tell I'll be making more of these!

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Minny is just 1.75 inches tall and can hover easily as most aliens can! Although the pattern calls for DK weight wool, I used worsted and went up a needle size. Once I inserted the plastic safety eyes, I used pliers to snap half the post off as Minny's head is so tiny the posts were causing weird bumps and angles in the head.

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Meet You at the Fair

The newest PogKnits pattern was inspired by the Phat Fiber Box August theme: Meet me at the Fair.

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Among all the wondrous things at the fair, the food is always a big draw. Corn dogs are one of my favorites. Meet Pogo – feel free to have a bite if you can catch him.
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This pattern is suitable for someone who can knit in the round on double pointed needles. The size of the project combined with the worsted weight wool, make it a great, quick project. Other skills required are increasing and decreasing, embroidery, making I-cord, and seaming.
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Available as a Ravelry download or through my Etsy shop (see sidebar)
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This link will redirect you to Paypal through Ravelry's shopping basket
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"What are you going to do with all that yarn you've spun?"

G asked me that question the other day and thought it would be nice if I knit something for his mom's upcoming birthday.

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So we went through my growing stash of handspun yarn and selected this for a scarf for his mom. I love how this June is for Jag scarf (scroll down to see the June scarf) turned out. Despite having almost 50 yards less than the pattern called for I still managed to get the finished size the pattern indicated! I loved this pattern. The changes from stockinette to eyelets kept it interesting and made it a quick knit. I hope G's mom will love it too.

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A Whirlwind Day away

I have sufficiently recovered from yesterday's travelling to write something about it.

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We had planned a day trip to Sudbury for yesterday as B & M needed new figure skates. While there, we thought we should visit Science North just for some fun.

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Since Sudbury is 4 hours away and we wanted to do the trip in one day, we woke up at 5:00am. I packed a yummy cooler with bacon and cheddar biscuits (made by B), yogurt and fruit for breakfast. And potato salad, sandwiches, more fruit and oreos for lunch and we were on the road by 6:00am. We saw some beautiful wildlife on the drive. A cow moose and her two calves were looking to cross the highway. The little calves were staying back near the trees while Mama was closer to the road checking for traffic. A little while later we saw a weasel cross the road! I have never seen a live weasel before! Just to clarify, I've not seen any dead ones either - just pictures in books). And we also saw a coyote trotting cockily by the side of the road.

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Once in Sudbury, our first stop was Jump! B is advancing further and further in this sport and we felt she needed to have a proper fitting rather than mail ordering a pair based on a faxed copy of a tracing of her foot. Her new skates should arrive here within a week (they didn't have her size in stock). She will be getting Jackson DJ2700 boot with a Gam G4SS blade. She is very excited for skating to begin again and I'm glad we'll be on vacation for the two weeks before skate camp or she might drive us all crazy spinning and practicing jumps on the hardwood floor in the living room. Turns out M does not need new skates, just that these need to be stretched for width in the toe. This is good, since I was already missing an arm and a leg from buying B's!

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Then it was off to Science North. We had plenty of fun. M's favorite part was the K'nex speedway. He spend most of his time building racers and testing them out. B and I challenged each other on "The Body Zone". We raced up stairs and sprinted together. She also enjoyed watching a "blue coat" dissect a cow's eyeball. The resident beaver also caught her attention, he was much more lively this time than the last time we were there. He even came right up to the glass as if he was trying to sniff her.

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Then it was off to DQ for Blizzards. We so rarely get to enjoy these that it's always such a treat when we can! On the way home I read several chapters of T.H. White's the "Sword in the Stone" to the kids.

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And I've almost finished the second Urban Necessity - I'd forgotten that I'd have almost 8 hours of knitting time with the ride to and from Sudbury!

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It's so cold I'm singing Jingle Bells

Although today is turning out nice, we've had a few mornings when it's been only 5 degrees Celcius. It's strange how cool weather turns my thoughts to knitting. No, actually, I knit all the time so the cold weather just makes me feel it's justified!

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I'm continuing with the Christmas knitting. I decided to start some Urban Neccesities (ravelry link) for my BIL. I've got one done, and am midway through the increases for the thumb gusset on the second.

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I took a brief break from knitting to make up some gift bags with fabric that I had in my stash. Yes, I also have a fabric stash. And no, it's not quite as large as my yarn stash. I'm quite happy with how these turned out.

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It's possible I might finish the Urban Neccessities before we leave for our trip... but we'll see.

Christmas in July

We'll be off in a few weeks to visit my family. It will be great to see my siblings, their spouses and my neices and nephews again. It's been two years, sigh. Fortunately I've seen my parents a bit more often than that. They were here for a visit last fall and it will be good to see them again too. So... because I hate paying postage, I'm in a flurry of Christmas knitting.

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I've already made a pair of mittens for my sister's youngest,

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but now I have a pair for her boy too.

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For my sister's oldest, I paid for her to take a drop spindle class for her birthday a month ago, and so this is for her Christmas present! This spindle is similar to the one I made for me out of a bead from Michael's and a nicely carved dowel.

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I plan to make a pair of Anemoi's for my sister and some fingerless gloves with a flap to cover the fingers for my BIL. These I won't likely get to until later, but at least I won't have to worry about the spindle getting damaged in the mail.

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I'm not very good at waiting...

... so I plied the singles last night. Twice. I decided it would go more quickly if I plied the singles on my wheel. I can't make lace weight singles on my wheel, but I can ply them on it! I wasn't really paying attention to how much twist I was adding and also found it tough to decide how much plying twist to add with the wheel since I'd spun them on a spindle. Turns out I had totally underplied the yarn. So I wound it into a ball and ran it through the wheel again to add some more. This time the yarn looked much more balanced. After a little "soak and thwack" and some drying it was ready to knit with this morning!

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I have 2oz of light fingering weight/lace weight yarn about 300 yds.

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And I've decided not to knit "Inconceivable". I finished the first 16 rows and decided while I love the idea of this wrap and all it's versatility, it just isn't me. So I decided to knit something I know I love. A few years ago I knit the Rectangle Cover Shawl from Knitpicks for my SIL and I loved it (I don't think it's available for download anymore). I've decided to use my handspun for a slightly smaller version for me.

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So far 30 rows. This will be frogged however - one of the hazards of jumping into a project without much forethought. I just checked how much of the lovely colored batts I have left and am beginning to suspect I may run out before the shawl is as long as I would like. What I should have done, was spun one ounce of singles with the colorful stuff blended in and one ounce of the corrie without the color and plied them together. Not really knowing how to unply something, and guessing that would be quite an undertaking, I think I'll spin up 2oz of the corrie and knit from the two balls, alternating rows. I'll still have to spin up more of the color-blended and more plain to finish the wrap... but I'm game!

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Inconceivable

I decided to do a knit-a-long this summer. I wanted to try spinning laceweight and the Inconceivable Wrap KAL caught my eye. The pattern was available July 1st and many knitters are posting wonderful progress so far. But I haven't even cast on yet. I wanted to blend some of my Phat Fiber Box samples with a neutral roving like to get an amazing yarn like this (be sure to click on the picture to zoom in). But wasn't happy with what I had in my stash. So I ordered some light grey Corriedale roving and am finally out of the starting blocks.

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From left to right:

"Beach Glass" batt from Giffordables

Mohair Locks from Wonders Mohair

"Ocean" batt from Corgi Hill Farm

"Sitka Spruce" roving from Northern Lights Fiber Co.

and some of the light grey corrie blended with the samples

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I've spun up 2 ounces so far and will ply them tomorrow. A little soaking... time to dry... and then, I'll be able to cast on. Hopefully if the humidity stays low, I'll cast on tomorrow night!

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This 2oz won't be enough to do the wrap, so I'll be spinning and knitting a-long on this one!

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Ready to Spin

I've finally worked through the miscellaneous brown fluff that came with my wheel and my bobbins are empty and ready to spin something new.

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I've got three big skeins of worsted weight totalling 790 yards. This was a big project, but it was good to learn more about spinning and plying on wool that meant nothing to me! The only thing I know about this stuff is that it said NZ brown on the box that contained it. It was quite dirty and I got a chance to learn about washing and carding too! As it is, I'm actually very happy with the yarn.

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Good Morning, Charlotte!

One of our favorite stories is Charlotte's Web by EB White. I usually read it to the kids every year or so. And this web reminded me it's time to put it back into the bedtime story lineup.

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B and I saw this web on our run this morning and after seeing this one, we saw them everywhere. It made you realize how many spiders are out there - a rather creepy thought! Fortunately there where no beautiful misted webs on the running track!

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Thumb Wrestler's Sweaters - A free pattern

We've been trying to find ways to discourage a bad habit. To that end, the Thumb Wrestler's Sweaters were invented!
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Pattern:

Needles: 3.25mm dpns

Yarn: worsted weight

Size: to fit 9 year old thumbs

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Cast on 10 sts using the backward loop method. Join and knit in the round for 7 rounds. To keep the cast off edge stretchy, knit 1, *slip it back to the left hand needle, k2tog*. Repeat from * to * until all the stitches have been cast off. Break yarn and weave in ends. Repeat if you wish to have a sweater for each thumb.

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M was hesitant for me to share this pattern until he realized it might help others to not suck their thumbs too.
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Vampire Batt Yarn (pardon the pun)

I finished spinning the yarn that I started on June 19th.

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I spun 4 thin singles and plied them to produce this yummy squishy 4 ounces/212 yards of worsted weight yarn.

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I have always found andean plying to be somewhat problematic. It seemed to be fine when I spun just a bit of fluff as a test to see what I wanted a particular batt or roving to become, but it was one of the main motivators for buying a wheel: whenever I tried to ply a larger amount of singles, things got tangled and I ended up loosing much loved fiber to untangleable snarls.

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So this yarn was a test of something I read here. This yarn was entirely spindle-spun. I spun one ounce of the batt on to each of two spindles and then wound them tightly together into an outside-pull ball, so as to keep the singles under tension. I repeated with the remaining two ounces. Then I placed each 2 ply ball into a coffee mug and plyed the 4 plies together. I'm very pleased with the result. I know I could have spun this more quickly on my wheel, but I'm glad to know that I can do this too!

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44 divided by 294 is 15%

And that's how far I am on M's new blanket. I think the goal I set for myself of 10 rows a day was a bit over optimistic. Each row has 219 stitches. That's a whopping goal of 2190 stitches a day. Do-able if the kids were still in school, but I'm having too much fun with them to sit under a blanket knitting like crazy. M is still pleased to see progress - so I will continue, but on a less ambitious scale. Like maybe 4 rows a day!

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