Knittin'

Last Friday night was the opening night for the Smitten show at the Merrymeeting Art Gallery. The gallery is very small, intimate. On one wall the mittens were hung from tree branches. I got my second pair entered in time for the opening. There were felted mittens, old mittens, new mittens, wonderful mittens knit in gorgeous colors.

My friend Betsy had a display in the entryway of her Irish knit mittens. All were knit with local knitting worsted in the traditional off white color. She made one pair extra big and felted them by putting them in the washer a couple of times. Beautiful cables and baubles.

Angela (sorry I don't know her last name) had a number of pairs of stunning Latvian mittens on display. Very fine yarn, finer than my blackberry mittens which are in sport weight, probably knit in fingering weight yarn like my Fiesta mittens. She knit her mittens based on the designs in Lizbeth Upitis definitive book on Latvian mittens.

Betsy and I took Angela's Latvian mitten workshop on Saturday. There were four of us and we each brought our own needles and yarn to try out some patterns and techniques. I attempted the loopy fringe that is at the bottom of the cuff on some of the mittens in the cover photo. There are many different patterns, many patterns come from specific regions of Latvia. Angela told us that (in the past I suppose) a Latvian woman would have to have knit 250 pairs of mittens before she could get married. Mittens are very important culturally in Latvia. The girls learn to knit when they are old enough to hold needles, about 4 years old. How about you? Were you knitting when you were 4? 250 pairs, that's really 500 mittens! I bet they knit socks, too. I'm such a slacker.

My own copy of Latvian Mittens arrived today from Amazon. I have next week off thanks to comp time. Guess what I plan on doing? Knitting! At the workshop Angela had use four needles instead of three (plus a working needle). I've never used four needles before, but Angela said that the patterns divide better on four needles so I will give it a try.

Speaking of knitting, I came across this slideshow in my web travels. Photos of Shetland complete with wooly sheep and a Shetland pony! What really blew me away are the photos of fair isle samples, drawer after drawer of them. Who says you have to produce something? A swatch is very satisfying. Probably what I should do with the Latvian patterns. Here's the link.

Not forgetting quilting! I'm making a log cabin Christmas tree skirt. It is the pattern where you make six log cabin diamonds and sew them together. I'll take some photos soon.

Smitten with Mittens

These are "Fiesta Mittens" pattern by Lucy Neatby. These were a fun project. The stitch on the front is the swallowtail pattern. It is made by increasing four stitches in one stitch and on the next row K2Tog, then drop stitches, then SSK, this gives the slant to the stitches on either side. Made with fingering weight wool yarn. From a kit by Blackberry Ridge. I hope I can get these into the show along with my Blackberry Mittens. The Blackberries are in, but I just finished these Fiesta mittens.

Did you know that in Canada they say mitts not mittens?

Please come to the show in beautiful downtown Bowdoinham! Mittens galore and sculptures of hands.......

Smitten: Hands and their Coverings
November 12 - December 19, 2010
Saturdays 10 - 1 or by appointment

** Opening Friday November 12 **
5:00 - 8:00 PM

Merrymeeting Arts Center
Cathance Landing, at the foot of Main Street
9 Main Street, Bowdoinham

Maine Quilts 2010 redux

J301. Swirling Leaves by Lynn Jourdan, Cape Porpoise. (41 x 41) This quilt was made as part of a year-long round robin. We started out with a center block of our choice and each month received instructions from another member of the group on what kind of border to add to our own quilt. It was a fun challenge! I liked the fact that in this round robin we each worked on our own quilt. Original design. Machine pieced, hand appliquéd, hand quilted.

Did you know you can look at all the quilts from Maine Quilts 2010 online? Yes, you can! All the quilts are grouped in categories-art quilts, display quilts, judged quilts, etc. Have fun!

Show and Tell

At Maine Quilts this year a vendor from Lancaster, PA had this wonderful little lady holding a mass of holly branches. There were several other designs taken from old lithographs, I think. One was a little girl and a bear done in green which was lovely, too. The red border print came from the same vendor. It was packaged as a 3 inch wide strip and so many yards long, wrapped in cellophane. The vendor had numerous pre-cut squares of fabric all wrapped in cellophane. It was a very appealing display and the fabrics did not get frayed like you usually see.

I designed this quilt using EQ7. My first design with Electric Quilt. I really wanted to make that brown frame around the lady and it worked like a charm with the program. I only had to fudge a little when I actually sewed it together. The fudging part is the border between the red strip and the outer border, just had to make sure it was the right width for everything to fit.

This was a practice piece for machine quilting. It is all very well and good to practice on bits and pieces, but best way to practice is to quilt a real piece and finish it off. Don't you find that when you actually finish a piece it looks so much better than you had expected? Sometimes a ho-hum piece looks terrific once it is quilted and the binding is on.

I free motion quilted around the oval flowers in the red strip and then doodled around so that the ovals really pop up. I like the cross-hatching around my lady, but think it might look better if I had used off-white thread instead of the darker color. Still, it's good to try and see how it looks. If I had used neutral maybe I would be saying I should have tried a darker thread. There's always the NEXT quilt, isn't there?

Overall, I really like this piece. It kind of looks like "instant ancestors". I have it in my sewing room.


I'm thinking of calling this piece "Morris Mountain" because I used William Morris fabrics and there is "Morse Mountain" near Popham Beach where we like to hike.

Back Road Quilters had Jo Diggs come to a recent meeting. She did a lecture/slide show/trunk show with many of her wonderful landscapes. I was inspired to make this piece. It measures 16x26 inches. Hand appliqued. Machine quilted.


Here's a view to show the quilting. I used matching thread for each section; that's a lot of thread changing.


On the needles:
or rather off the needles!

Blackberry Mittens from Blackberry Ridge in Wisconsin. Pattern by Anne Bosch. These are made with fingering weight yarn which is quite finer than the usual worsted I use for most mittens. I really like the braided cuff. These are going into a mitten show at Merrymeeting Art Gallery in Bowdoinham in November. I'm making another pair and will show you those when I finish.

That's all for now! Get out and vote!