Slipper boots

One of the first things I did when I got to Edmonton was go through my mum's yarn and find something to do these slippers in. I ended up using this quite coarse worsted weight wool that she bought in 1980 here in Auckland from a carpet manufacturer who sold their short ends (which aren't all that short!). This amazes me for two reasons, firstly that there was ever places like that in Auckland because there sure aren't now, and how beautifully things keep in Edmonton with the low humidity and lack of wool-munching insects! The range of colours she has is wonderful, I would love to know what the carpets were like! Anyways, I made mine two-tone because I wasn't sure if there was enough orange to do them, although in the end there was plenty.



The pattern is very quick and I think you could probably make a pair in 2-3 evenings without any trouble. You start by doing the cuff in the round, and then switch to rows to do the sides and back, then switch to rounds again and come around the bottom and across the top of the foot for a couple rounds, before switching to rows to finish up the top. The soles in the pattern don't have much shaping other than some increases and were very narrow, so I started with a couple more chains at the heel and then increased more and only on the outside of the front so it matched my feet more closely. The original has quite a square toe which doesn't really suit my very tapered toes although I do like the look of it in the book! My slippers have a much more shaped look at the end there which maybe doesn't look quite as neat but they fit beautifully.

Despite the coarseness of the wool they are surprisingly comfy and I don't need to wear socks or anything (as you can see by my scruffy legs, I need to prep more for photoshoots obviously!). I still need to put the leather on the bottoms. They are supremely warm and will be very nice on cold days, although perhaps a bit too warm at the moment!

Back

So I did have good intentions of blogging while away, and the app was there on my phone, but nope I was having too much fun! We crammed quite a bit into a month including camping and two trips to the mountains. Hazel had two extra weeks off school in addition to the two weeks term break, so I felt I had to make things at least mildly educational.

A rock circle we built in the Pembina River (engineering, hydrology, public art)


The girls playing down by the river near the campsite (engineering, environment)

On the train to Jasper with Jess and the girls. Instant noodles for breakfast after a 6am start - class all the way! (transport, nutrition, cultural differences)


Inukshuk at Angel Glacier pond (it was tiny, about 15cm high tops). I have totally fallen in love with inukshuks and plan to make a big one asap (cultural heritage, climate change, environment, engineering)

We picked lots of raspberries in the garden (food, sustainable living, foraging, eating what you grew)



Visited the Tyrell Museum (dinosaurs! evolution, fossils, teeth, general coolness)


Admired the prairies...  (landscape, crops, transport, spending hours in a car and not driving your family crazy)

 ...and the badlands... (landscape formation, not hiking before a violent thunder storm, how flash floods develop)

...and the Rockies again up at Lake Louise (environment, finding the nicest hotel in the world, hiking without whining, putting up with a little discomfort without whining, how good it feels when you get there). 

 

It wasn't all education, nature and pretty photos though, I did get in some crochet! I'd taken a couple books to show my friend Jess who wanted to learn to crochet (which she did) and I was taken by a sudden desire to make a bunny that's in Simple Crochet by Sara Sinaguglia for her daughter Amy's birthday present in February. It was a little down to the wire but I got there the day before we left. I made things a lot harder for myself by deciding that the only wool in my mum's stash that would do for the stripes was this gorgeous marigold crepe stuff, but it was in quite short lengths for reasons I was never entirely sure of, so it had to be tied together and it made things a lot slower. The inside was a total mess of ends but as it turns out Jess likes sewing in ends and she volunteered to do it. I would have liked to have spent a bit more time on the face, especially the whiskers and mouth, but needs must and overall I'm pretty happy with it. Hope Amy is too!

Mug cozies

I bought these lovely mugs from Porcelain Rove at the Auckland Art & Craft Fair a couple weekends ago and was so enthused about them that I fell into the same trap as I did in Sweden and didn't notice the lack of handles. Some sort of cosy was clearly called for! I didn't want to sew one as I thought it would obscure the applied patterns so I decided to crochet them. I tried two fan patterns and although both are nice I think I like the green one best. The white just doesn't show the pattern as well. They should work just fine for drinking tea though!

Bee blocks

Only a week until I head off to Canada for a month! Can't wait. :) Before I go I'm hoping to get my scrappy trip around the world quilt done up for an exhibition the Monday Modern group is having in September. I need to find some time without Ollie around so I can get it all laid out and basted. However, that's time that's hard to come by! The thing about pugs is that they just want to be with you all. the. time. Allthetime. If he's not by my feet he's on them, or trying to be on them, or on my lap. I know they call some small dogs 'lap dogs' but they really aren't good on laps like cats are, Ollie is always slipping off or having trouble knowing where his legs and paws should go. Anyways, despite Ollie and packing I'm hopeful!

I had the last two bee blocks to finish up for the start of the month, I forgot to take photos of Heather's but here is Stacey's. She just wanted us to do a 12 1/2" block for her, our choice, from the four fabrics she supplied. I decided to have a look through Modern Blocks (the 99 blocks one) to see if anything took my fancy and ended up doing 'Stuck in the Middle'. I really liked it, quick and effective.



I've never really seen the appeal of the cross-hatched fabrics, though I know they're popular, but in a block like this I can see their advantage, they really conceal the seams well, as did the yellow dots although they show more in the photo. I thought that made the block even more effective, as the shapes really do look like they're set into each other.

Advancing my crochet

Although doilies look really tricky, I don't actually think they are - you just get lots of bang for your buck by going around and around doing different stitches. To me getting increases and decreases in the right places and remembering how many stitches you've done is far trickier so I was quite nervous when I started out on Rada the Rat by Lydia Tresselt on Ravelry.

I needn't have worried though, it's a great pattern and I'm so pleased with how it's going. I only have a photo of the legs so far, although I've done the (super cute) head and ears, hands and tail as well. I'm just really chuffed to have produced actual feet! I did the decreases and then suddenly there were feet and they looked even better stuffed. And then I managed to join the legs together and begin the body and it looks good! Well sort of, if you don't examine between the legs too closely - but then you woudn't would you because you're not a perv.



I've had to stop at this point though, as I ran out of wool! I need to get to the shop again and am crossing my fingers and toes that they still carry it and that the colourway isn't too different to what I have. Mat suggested I could just start a new colour and make it look like he's got a top on and I guess that would be ok too, although I'd like to go all the way in the same colour.

Scrappy tripalong pillow

I realised when I came to parcel my swap items up that I tend to craft large, and if I ever do another swap I need to work on my small items! Kristel was much more savvy and sent a wonderful array of little things in a padded envelope, I sent a gigantic box. What actually took up the space and required a box were the two tin can lanterns we sent, but also this pillow case - no I didn't send the inner but it's quite bulky sewn up. I had some blocks left over from putting together my scrappy tripalong quilt top and coincidentally four of them were exactly the right size to make a pillowcase that fits what we call a Euro pillow (not sure what Europeans call that size...)

I came across the technique of quilting the scrappy tripalong blocks with a line either side of every second seam on Red Pepper Quilts, and it works really well. I also went diagonally to try and emphasise the diamond pattern which wasn't particularly obvious on just a cushion, partly because of the prints and also because one of the blocks was put together slightly wrong but it was a pillow by the time I figured it out. Can you spot where I stuffed up? It was backed with plain linen quilted with wavy lines. Hazel was very dismissive of that technique, felt it wasn't attractive and was appalled I was going to be sending it to poor Kristel who could not fail to be displeased. Children, they are so free with their opinions! I haven't had any complaints back btw ;) She liked the front though, and so do I. I'm not sure if I have enough blocks to do one for myself, not that they take a long time to make up or anything!

Talking about the Euro pillow makes me think of a topic I often wonder about - here in NZ, and in Canada from memory, furniture and other items are often advertised as "European design" or "Italian design" or "made in Germany" and all these terms are used to tell us that it's really stylish or that it's well-made, or both. So what I always wonder is how those items are advertised in those countries - do Europeans assume that things made there are stylish like we do here? Or that if it's made in Germany it won't fall apart in 2 weeks? Well actually that's usually true of the stuff that gets here, but I bet they make crap stuff too. Do Italians like to be told shoes are made with Italian leather? Drat, now I've got Ricardo Montalban saying "rich Corinthian leather" in my head, over and over again...

Doilies

A little while ago I did a crafty swap with Kristel (one of my favourite bloggers) in the Netherlands, and as part of my parcel I made her a runner sort of thing with doilies scattered across it. The pattern is from Simple Crochet, although I didn't do all the doilies and the runner isn't quite as long I think. I still liked how it turned out (apologies for the poor photos, some were totally out of focus when I came to look at them but the runner was long gone!)



That photo was taken at our old house, makes me feel a bit nostalgic and sad!

The doilies were all done in either Perle 5 or crochet cotton #10 (or was it #20...) and I really liked the contrast in texture that gave. Some of the patterns in the book didn't seem to work right and I had to add or subtract stitches to get them to sit flat, but in general the results were great.













The last one is via Instagram, which I still love, because the orginal sitting on Flickr has been squashed down and is all distorted. Does anyone else have this problem when exporting images from iPhoto? It happens to some images and not to others, sometimes not at all, sometimes really frequently - always compressed vertically. It's weird.