No Jog Garter Stitch for Paired Decreases

I'm doing the "Flare Blanket" by Kerin Dimeler-Laurence
This blanket has color changes, is done in 100% garter stitch, in the round and decreases at 4 corners to obtain a square. That first corner is the subject of this blog post today!

Garter stitch Jogs! I know, they are annoying but for in the round garter stitch projects that have paired decreases on either side of the starting line, I have a solution.

Observe.

See the section that I have circled? Its done how the pattern is written. And how all in the round garter stitch pieces are done. You switch between knit and purl to obtain the garter stitch pattern. Its decreases are staggered due to the nature of knitting in the round, your decreases are gonna be at the beginning and end of a row and so they are not level with each other like the other 3 corners are.
Not very pretty.

This made my OCD go crazy. I had to fix it.

So here's how I did it so in case I forget it over the period of time to make this blanket.

It is noteworthy to mention: The fact that there are decreases on both sides of the marker is key here and most likely wont work in projects that doesn't decrease in these same spots. YMMV

~On the knit rows: p2tog the first two stitches and switch to knit the rest of the row.
~On the purl rows: knit first two stitches and switch to purl for rest of the row in pattern.

THAT'S IT!!
Doing those two steps will give you the section where the arrows are in the above picture.

Pretty ain't it?

I may be back to chat about the color changes in garter stitch in the round.

TTFN

45 degree tractor tire tracks quilt block

I was looking for a tractor tire track to put on my memory quilt and couldnt find one so I had my husband figure up the formula for the real 45 degree tire and then I made a pattern from that. I figured since I couldn't find one on the net, I would share mine.

     

The formula hubbs came up with is this: You figure out what size you want the "slug" or track and then the distance between the two tracks is half that and then the distance between the two tracks on the other side is 2.5 times that.

Here my plan for this border. Please note: some of the most basic details have been left out, if they need to be put in for clarity, please let me know.

I wanted a 6 inch border but I needed to make it look like tractor tracks in a 6 inch space so the smallest I could go would be a half inch so I decided that the track would be one inch, the small distance would be half inch and the large distance would be 2.5 inches but when I put it on there, that didnt look like a tractor track and so I reduced that one down to 2 inches. I added the extra for seam allowances and started to cut.

Heres what I did:

Cut a strip 1" wide, and 2.5" wide of the light tan, and a strip 1.5" wide of the dark and arrange them with the dark strip in the middle like this...

Then sew the strips together with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Then cut the finished strip into 6.5" blocks

and arrange like the friendship braid,

Lay one right piece and one left piece, right sides together, sew a ¼ inch seam allowance and you wind up with what looks like tractor tracks, but lets clean it up a bit.

Lay a 6" ruler down where the top tips of the tracks are hitting on either side of the center line like shown in the below picture.  

Trim, 

I added an inch wide border on either side of the tracks and added it to my quilt. Looks good eh? 

Enjoy this tut! Please let me know if there needs to be more details or if ive messed something up. 

TTFN

My new craft room (The big reveal)

MY CRAFT ROOM IS FINISHED!!

I've been waiting for about 10 years for this room to get finished. It was only worked on during vacations and various off days towards the end of this construction.

Moving in this room was a mess because I am into sooo many crafts and so organizing this room into sections was hard. It still isn't done right but as the days go by, I will arrange it better to suit my needs. Also, decorating will come later. This is a 15' x 13' room plus a large closet.

Enough babble, on with the pictures!! These were all taken at night because I couldn't wait to share with you.

Warning: this post is very picture heavy.

I'll put descriptions under each of the pictures. (click on any picture to embiggin.)

 A view from the door.

 First lets talk about this amazing table. Hubbs and I sat down and discussed what I wanted in a table and he took those things and mixed them with his engineering mind and ran with them! First, Check out the rulers he inset for me on 2 sides of the desk.

Shelf space on one side of the table.

More shelf space AND he made me 2 drawers for my stuff.

He inset my machine. One of my favorite features!

I have a space to hang all my rulers. And he made the desk have its own electricity. I have but to plug it in. Check out that power strip!

There is an outlet on the other side with a switch to turn the desk on or off.

Another outlet under the sewing machine well exclusively for the sewing machine and the light. How cool is that?? The whole thing is on casters so I can move it if I need/want to. I have an amazing desk to craft on thanks to my hubbs!!

Here is the yarn that would fit in my cubbies out in the room. I didnt know how to sort it so I did it by brand and type of yarn. The stuff in the basket is some of my cotton. There are scrap balls of yarn, current WIP's, and various other things in those brown baskets in the cubbies.

 Here is the rest of my cotton and around the corner there you can see my other machine and my serger.

And here is some of the yarn that didnt fit out in the room. There are 5 bins and 4 boxes plus a few straggler skeins. I also have a full bin of fun fur type yarn and another one of ladder yarn. I think I have too much yarn, Imma put some up on ebay. Hubbs said I needed to get to knittin...LOL

Here are all my knitting needles and a few tools. Off to the right of this picture is my swift and ball winder. and styrofoam head and shirt form and I have put the extension to our landline phone up here too so I dont kill myself running down the stairs to get the phone.

Here is some of my fabric. There is a bin full in the closet as well. I havent folded everything nice and neat but thats ok. I will eventually. My laptop is there too so I can keep in touch, look up patterns, or watch a tutorial while Im up here in the room. Also, I must have my music while Im working so, Pandora is always playing. Current sewing projects are in those cream color baskets in the cubbies.

Those drawers in the closet are all my scrap fabric. My sock blockers on the door.

He built me a little box to put my thread in for now, (actually this was a reject drawer and I snatched it up to use for my thread)

Here is my design wall and the rod hanging at the top is to display my latest quilt for picture taking and whatnot.

 Here is the embroidery section of the room. The bottom 2 drawers here are embroidery thread and the top two drawers are various beads. The third drawer has all my crochet needles in it. The 4th drawer has various glues and glue gun. The box next to the drawers was some of my mothers crafting stuff I still havent gone thro and put with my stuff.

My built in bookshelves. I still need to get some magazine holders, those are on the floor because they dont fit. :( Ive got my button collections there in those tins.

I decided to put my ironing station just on the other side of the desk because I couldnt figure out where would be the best place. This will do for now.

Im soooo proud of my new room and now the rest of the house will get a thorough cleaning now that my crap isnt shoved in whatever corner I could get it in.

My craft room is far from done. I still need to work in there for a while to get a feel for how I want stuff and I still want to decorate some, but I have been blessed with a space to create and for that I am truly grateful. Not to mention I can shut the door and get away for a bit.

TTFN

"Barnyard Happenings" Days of the Week flour sack towels.

I've been doing some embroidery work!

"Barnyard Happenings" Days of the Week flour sack towels. 

I thought I would share my pictures with yall since there aren't very many finished pictures of these out there to reference. I do hope these help someone.


Here they are individually: (click on any of them to embiggin.)

The quality of these pictures are as good as my little feeble skills can muster. Sorry.

I hope you enjoy!

TTFN

Aimee's Camouflage Rag Quilt

So my friend Aimee sent me a picture on facebook of a camo rag quilt and said "I WANT" Im a sucker so I caved and made her one. 

I went with 7 inch blocks and with 1/2 inch seam allowances, these are 6 inch finished blocks. The square of flannel that is in between is cut to 6 inch squares to avoid the seams.

The whole blanket measured 55x60 inches.

Here is the finished blankie. Aimee loves it!

Here is a close up.

I went with cotton fabric and the batting is a square of flannel.

The fabric came from this store: http://stores.ebay.com/Fabrics-From-The-Heart?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

And for those of you who need some help making one of these, here is a great tutorial:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0UQgeol-Zk

Knitted Pinwheel Motif

Knitted Pinwheel Motif 

I was making this blanket when it was brought to my attention that there wasn't a pinwheel motif done by knitting it! So I had to take care of that situation, didn't I? 

Here is what I came up with. 

How stinkin cute!?! 

This hasn't been tested yet, but hopefully by the end of the day I should have a few knitters addicted done with these little cuties. They only take about 20 mins once you've done a few they will just fly off the needles!

If you are interested in testing this out for me, please let me know!

Here is the pattern:

Knitted Pinwheel Motif

You need a small amount of yarn, I used worsted here.

Im using a US 8 here but whatever size needle you want to use is good too. Just remember, the yarn and needle size will effect the final size of the motif. Play around with different sizes to get what you want or have a whole blanket of different size motifs by using different size yarn and needles! How fun!!

Special stitches:
bo1- pick up second stitch on left hand needle as if to purl and pull it over the first stitch on left hand needle and off. Knit the remaining stitch.

Cast on 6
Round 1- [yo, k1] 6 total times
Round 2- [yo, k2] 6 total times
Round 3- [yo kfb, bo1]6 total times
Round 4- [yo, kfb, k1, bo1]6 total times

Repeat round 4 increasing the number knit after the "kfb" in the repeat until that number hits 12 or you look at it and say thats big enough. :) My goal was 6". But it could be a good size blanket if you just keep going!

On your last round before bind off- cut out the yarn overs : [kfb, k1, bo1]6 total times
This will "taper" the swirls off to nothing and when you do one over the other bind off, it will look fabulous!!

Let me know if you have any questions. I would love pictures of this done!! PLEASE?

This one was done with a US8 and Plymoth Yarn Encore 

I will be making a blanket in colorbox colors from the knitted pinwheel motif for my son.  I will post pictures when Im done. 

TTFN

Pickled Beets

My family LOVES pickled beets so I make some every year, but the last couple of years have been pretty rocky with the canned beets. 

I canned some about 4 years ago that we LOVED and the next year didnt taste all that good. We tried again the next year, still nothin. 

This year, I was talking to my neighbor and her and her husband have a recipe that her family loves so I decided to try it. 

I FOUND IT! These taste AMAZING!! 

This is what I was doing wrong those years: I thought it was the variety that made them taste good, no, I apparently pickled them and didnt remember doing it. I thought I just canned them with water.

Anyway, I will be canning the rest of them just like this and I am putting this here so next year, when I say to myself; "How did I can those?" I can come here and find out.

Here is the recipe: (I will be canning more this weekend so if yall want more details and pictures, let me know in the comments.)

Pickled Beets (the test run)

So I went out to the garden and picked about 8 golfball(ish) sized beets and cooked them for about 15 mins, peeled them, sliced them and then put them in a bowl.

For the syrup, in a saucepan I combined....

2 cups of sugar

1 1/2 cup of white vinegar

1/2 cup of water

1/4 teaspoon of salt

I brought all that to a boil and poured it all in the bowl with the beets. After letting it set in the fridge for a couple days so all the flavors could melt together, I put them on the table for dinner(afternoon meal) and they were a big hit! 

When I can these I will put the sliced beets in jars and pour the juices in the jars, put the lids and rings on and seal. 

Here is more detail as to how to can beets.

If you make these, please come back and let me know if you like them too! My neighbor would be ecstatic to know that!

As a side note for all the yarn dyers: The juices from these beets when you are done eating them make EXCELLENT dye for the yarn! 

TTFN

Baked Beef Liver and Onions

Most folks cringe when they hear the word "liver"

I ran across this recipe on one of the cooking forums for a different way to make liver! YAY!
Ok so Im gonna take you thro the recipe with pictures. If you wanna skip thro the pictures, the written out recipe is at the end.

First you get you a bowl and put your italian dressing in it and your liver, cover it up and put it in the fridge and forget it for a couple hours.

Then about an hour before you wanna eat supper, you gather all of this stuff plus flour for dredging:

6 bacon slices(crumbled) (better make you an extra for eating while cooking)

2 cups sliced onion

2 cans mushrooms drained and keep the juice.

dry white wine

Using the same pan you used to cook the bacon, saute your onions, put them aside.

Using the same pan, dredge your liver pieces, and brown them. This is kinda important that you dont cook them too much, just brown them.

When you get them browned, put them in a 8x8 baking dish.

See all those yummy crumbs and stuff in the pan there? You want them.

Put your mushroom juice in a measuring cup and put the wine in till you have one cup. Put that in your pan with all the yummy drippings, some salt and pepper to taste, and stir it up mixing all the drippings and the wine and mushroom juice up till its boiling and then turn off your heat and take the pan off the burner.

Now you put your mushrooms, and onions on top of the liver, then pour the liquid mixture you just made in your pan on top of that, then finish it off with the bacon pieces.

Then you put this in your oven uncovered for 30ish mins and serve. Im putting mashed potatoes, and green beans with mine. A salad would be nice too!


Here is the recipe without the pictures:

Baked Beef Liver

2 lbs beef liver (could use other types of liver, I just havent tried any, let me know how that works for ya!)

1/2 cup Italian salad dressing

flour

6 bacon slices

2 cups sliced onion

1 can mushrooms

dry white wine

salt/pepper


Marinate liver in dressing several hours in refrigerator. Drain, coat with flour. In large skillet, saute bacon until crisp. Drain, crumble, set aside. Add onion to skillet, saute for 5 minutes. Remove and set aside. In same skillet, saute liver 3 minutes on each side and remove to 8" x 8" baking dish. Reserve drippings.

Drain mushrooms, reserving liquid. In 1-cup measure combine mushroom liquid with wine to meausre 1 cup. Add to drippings in skillet with salt and pepper. Bring to boil and remove from heat. Pour onions and mushrooms over liver, then pour wine sauce over the liver and top with crumbled bacon. Bake 45 minutes at 325F.

If you make this, please let me know some feedback!

TTFN

Steering Wheel Cover (free pattern!)

Hubbs and I got a different car less than a month ago and its had to have some things fixed on it so I just got it back from the last thing getting fixed.

Meanwhile back at the crafting chair.....

I decided I wanted to yarn bomb my steering wheel. Well, it gets cold and well, hot. The yarn will act as a insulator. Besides, its my car, and I can. 

So I got my pattern books out and found one that I liked and then went stash diving and found some single skeins of yarn that told me they wanted to be the "chosen ones", and made this. 

My son was playing around with it and put it on as a scarf and I found it to be quite attractive as a doubled up infinity scarf! But alas, this was destined to be around my steering wheel.

So I took it to the car and put my new cover on the wheel.

Im not sure what happened to the colors here...
the pic above is more like the true colors 

Sewed it on....

And now, I have a handmade, purty wheel insulator from the cold/heat/dirt!! And added some much needed color inside my car. Now, I need to make something for the shifter.....

                                    

Steering Wheel Cover 

Please note: this was written down after the fact and in just a few mins. Im sure there are mistakes, things  could be written better, or things left out, however, Ive read this a couple times and THINK everything is there. Please dont hesitate to comment with a question or comment!

Please note 2: THIS HAS NOT BEEN TESTED! however, if you would like to make this all nice and officially perfect, I would love you for a thousand years! Just let me know your outcome, uncandid thoughts, and send me pics!

Worsted weight yarn: dont know the amount yet.
"G" hook

ch 13

Row 2- [sc, dc] across, ch1 turn 

Repeat row 2 for desired length. Switch up colors as desired. 

Note: after you have done a few rows, PLEASE take it out to your car and make sure it will go around the wheel from front to back. (clear as mud? anyone wanna word that better?)

Note: you will want a bit of stretching going on so, depending on the stitch pattern you use, how stretchy it is, stop about a couple of inches short of all the way around your wheel. 

Finishing: sew/graft the two ends together. Working one of the outside edges, using desired color, do one row of dc's all the way around, slip stitch to join and fasten off. Repeat for other side.

Put on your steering wheel and whip stitch it on!  

TTFN