My Christmas decoration prototype and a new phone cover

I bought a set of Tandy Christmas stamps on sale.  Christmas has and hopefully always will be a special time for me.  (Yes! even at the tender age of 66 I still look forward to Christmas every year.)

What to do with these stamps was the next question?

I was trying them out so thought I would try and make a Christmas scene using them.  This was just on a test piece of leather.  The stamping is terrible, over impressed most of them and double stamped one.  aarrgghh!!! But it was only practice.

Even my husband commented that it wasn't my best work and he is rarely ever critical.

I was bound and determined though to salvage something out of it so I trimmed it down and wondered if it could be made into a Christmas tree decoration.  I stained the leather lightly leaving the indentations unstained so as to show up.  I added some glue glitter to write the current year on the back and put some glitter along the edges.  I trimmed it with some Christmas ribbon and made a loop for hanging it using some leather lace I had bought on sale along with the stamps.

Some of the stamps are disproportionate in size to each other.  For example see Santa on top of the roof!

I would never give it to anyone because it is so flawed but it will hang  on our Christmas tree this year and for many years to come.  I will work on my technique and come up with some other ideas.  I do like the idea of making family members and friends a leather Christmas tree decoration that they can keep.

I lost my cell phone case so had to make another.  The 'T' motif sewn on the front was a practice piece I had done for the centres of some coasters I had made last Christmas.  (Can you tell I hate to waste anything?)

So these are my latest projects.

Looking forward to working on some more decorations. Maybe star shaped or bell shaped.

The sweater is done

I finished the little hand knit sweater for our newest grandson Matthew.

I wasn't sure how it would look finished as it seemed to be a tad wide but it looks OK and I am happy with it.

I chose an opening neckline as I knitted one before and the baby didn't like it being pulled over it's head.  Should be no problems with this one.

Still busy on workshop projects, really, really hoping to get back to my knitting machines this winter.

Knitting and leatherwork update

We have been working on taking down our salt water fish tank.  This is no easy task.  It is a 135 gallon tank on a stand and had a multitude of apparatus connected to it to keep it going plus a sump tank.  The tanks are both emptied and mostly cleaned up.  The equipment has all been disconnected, re-tested, cleaned up and stored.  The base and stand are in the process of being refinished where necessary and restained and revarnished.  The top cabinet as almost done. No easy process for us two oldies!

Meantime I am working on a hand knit sweater for the latest grandchild who is now 3 months old.  I am using a pattern I used for our first grandson.  This one seems to be much bigger for some obscure reason and wider.  I thought I was using the same type of yarn but maybe this one is a bit thicker.  I have the back and front done so far.

The neckband and the strips for the right shoulder opening are done too.

The front pattern close up

The back

I also had a brainwave about my leatherwork.  I am still very much a beginner with this hobby.  I love to do the stamping and make patterns etc.  It isn't as easy as it sounds though and I always have to practice before I start on an item.  Plus I like to try out different patterns first. This uses up valuable leather.  I do buy scraps for practice but it is still not that cheap plus the nearest leather store in 75 miles away so can't just pop around the corner to buy some.

The brainwave is to use some modelling clay.  I had a spare 1 lb brick of it we bought last year.  It is very versatile stuff.  It had been in our shop all winter and summer and was still nice and supple.  I put it in a big ziplock bag and rolled it out.

New brick of modelling clay rolled out in ziplock bag

Border pattern tried out

Background effect tried out

Done for the day, too darned hot in the workshop this afternoon! So in readiness for next time I folded it all in and re shaped it ready to roll out next time. (see below)

                                

This will be a lifesaver for me.  No more wasted leather!

The cardigan fits perfectly

We spent a long weekend with some of the family at the lake so got chance to give out the gifts we made for them.

For some obscure reason I only took photos of the cardigan.

Sparkly glitter buttons and McVitie's Milk Chocolate biscuits (cookies)

Friday was hospital day.  My husband is undergoing chemo therapy to help abate the auto immune disease that attacks his muscles and nerves and we were in Columbia at the VA hospital for him to have his infusion.  So far so good.  He has been having this treatment since mid December last year and the signs are all good.

But, I digress.  I went to do some of our weekly shopping and to find some buttons for the cardigan I knitted for our grand daughter.

I had pondered for a while on what colour buttons to put on this cardi because it is multi coloured.  Was I going to pick just one colour button or try a variety of colurs that are in the cardigan?  I was still unsure when I went on my search.  The Wal*mart in Columbia is bigger than our nearest one and has more options.  They had packets of multi coloured buttons, single coloured ones and different shaped ones.  Then I spotted them!.  Sparkly glitter buttons.  Perfect.  They would pick up all the colours.

Then as I wandered through the food aisles I found another treat.  English McVitie's Chocolate digestive biscuits.

Wow, double bonus.

So a good shopping day for me.

Here is the cardigan with the sparkly buttons.  The photos do not show how sparkly they really are but they give an idea.

                                               The treat of the day

Finished wristband/bracelets

Here are the finished wristbands/bracelets for the upcoming family visit.

The cardigan is finished....well almost!

I have knitted the cardigan for our grand daughte and sewn it all together.  I still need to get some buttons and sew them on but our closest store is 35 miles away so it will have to wait until our next shopping trip.

I tooled our grandson's belt.  We have to get a buckle for it, that's a different trip or an online purchase.  My husband stained it and I finished the sides and the back.  Will post another photo when it is finished.

 

 

I have tooled a couple of bracelets.  One for our daughter in law and one for the son. My husband will stain them and I will put in the snaps.  We will be seeing them in a couple of weeks so we need to get on and finish all these things.

 

This is just a plain bracelet we made, our son might prefer a plain one.

 

 

So that's it for now.  Doing this on our laptop to give it a try.  I am a bit old fashioned and like my desktop but the World Cup is on so I can watch it and do this if I use the laptop.

Another Knitting and leatherwork update

Well, the knitting project is now in it's third phase.  As I blogged previously the first attempt at a cardigan for our granddaughter failed as it was a top down pattern and I misunderstood the pattern and made a huge mistake......so I undid it.  I did all the knitting for the second attempt but when I sewed it together it was not what I wanted, so yep, it got unraveled too.  So I dug through all my patterns and found a traditional style children's cardigan so now I have knitted the back and the two fronts and am working on the sleeves for it.  We are meeting up with them at the end of the month so I am on track to get it done by then.  I knit at night when we sit down to watch the TV.

As for the leatherwork we finally finished the quiver.  This was our biggest project to date and the most challenging.  We had no pattern or quiver to copy from so we had to start from scratch with just an idea.  My husband knew what he wanted so we just improvised at every stage.  He is very happy with the finished product.

I also made a couple of bracelets for the grandkids for when we see them at the end of the month.

Now we just have a belt to make for the grandson.

Weather has been hot and wet these past couple of weeks so the mowing has ground to a halt.  We tried a couple of days ago and managed to get close to the house done but we both got our tractors stuck so we have given up trying to do anymore until it dries up a bit.


Maybe, one day, I'll get back to my knitting machines.

Knitting and leatherwork update and $50 well spent!

Since my last post I have hand knitted the top.  It's a new concept.  A square and a rectangle then stitched together in such a way that they make a vest (waistcoat for my English friends)  I have yet to stitch them together but the knitting is all done.

Nothing done on the machines lately but feeling good that I got some hand knitting done.

With the improvement in the weather we can now get out and work in the workshop.  It is quite big and way too costly to heat in the winter.

My husband has an autoimmune disease which attacks his muscles and nerves.  Just before Christmas they started him on a regimen of a chemo drug that they use to treat blood cancers.  They found it helps with his type of disease.  He is doing much better and has improved so much that he is doing projects again.  He is delighted as am I.

We have been working on better organizing the workshop and getting rid of excess 'stuff' and building an L shaped work bench with shelving for a new project he is looking to undertake. We also did some rewiring in the house and put in a water softener and a new toilet.

In between all that and trying to get one of our riding mowers working we have done a few leather projects.

We made a belt for our neighbour last year who helps us out a lot. He really likes it and wears it all the time.  This year he came up with a brass buckle that had sentimental value to him and asked if we could make a belt for it too.  We were happy to oblige as it was a way to say Thank You again to him.

It was a combined effort.  My husband cut the leather for the strap.  I did the patterning , he did the coloring and I did the finishing.

Then I made a couple of keyrings for my two brothers.  As ususal I forgot to take pictures when they were totally finished but here a couple of their work in progress.

Then we ventured onto our latest project and work in progress.  A quiver for my husband's crossbow arrows.

This has been quite a lengthy project which still has quite a bit to do to complete it.  Pictures at the stage we're at with final pictures to follow.

It is lined with shearling.  Again, a joint effort.  His design, my stitching and patterning  but his logo design based on his McTavish roots.

And now to the $50 well spent part.

Doing the patterning requires metal stamps and a mallet.  This process can be very iffy.  If the stamp moves you get a double imprint and it is difficult to get an even and good embedded imprint.  Sometimes, your fingers get pinched holding the stamp.  All in all not a satisfactory process not to mention the noise when you thump a stamp 20 or so times to get the imprint.

I had drooled over a stamp press in the Tandy catalogue but it is $600.  We don't have that sort of money to spend on a tool for our hobby so we just soldiered on with the mallets.  One day I was looking on ebay and looking through the leather tools, something I do quite often to get ideas for our leatherwork.  Someone was selling a metal plate and a rubber pad together with a press for $150.  Now it wasn't the Tandy press but the person had put together a video on how to use the press with the plate and rubber pad.  It was amazing to see how much easier it is to do the patterning with a press.

Then I did more research on presses and found that Harbor Freight sold the very same press for a lot less money and it was on sale for $50.

The guy on ebay also sold the metal plate and rubber pad without the press for $15 so I bought those from him and the press from Harbor Freight.

Here is my new press and my re-arranged work area.

My husband bolted it down for me which was very hard on him as he had to get underneath the bench to strengthen it but he is such a sweetheart, I just love him to bits.

Didn't go quite as I planned but I found a gem of a pattern to use instead

Well, my attempt to make the cardigan I blogged about in my last post was not successful.  I misread the pattern and started the ribbing down the front at the wrong place so I had to unwind it all about a quarter of the way down.  So the hunt for another pattern was on.  I wanted something simple.  I knit without looking if its ribbing or plain knitting but when increasing/decreasing or patterns come into play then I need to concentrate and look and that pattern involved a lot of that.  I knit at night when watching TV so I wanted easy.

After a lot of searching both in stores and online I finally found a simple pattern.

One that can be made any size and use a variety of pattern stitches or just plain old knitting.  It's a novel idea and I am so happy I found it.  I decided to knit it in moss (seed) stitch. I started it two nights ago and I am already a third of the way through the first rectangle.

Here is the link to it: 

http://www.laylock.org/blog/2012/10/coze-easy-knit-vest-pattern/

Picking up the knitting needles again

Because of time restraints to machine knit I have decided to do some hand knitting.  We usually sit down for an hour or so at night to watch TV so I thought I could knit by hand again.  This is what I used to do before getting my machines.  I have wrestled with going back to hand knitting when I have three knitting machines which knit so much faster but when you consider that I haven't completed anything on them in over a year then that argument seem a tad futile.  So I found a pattern to knit for my 6 yr old grand daughter.  I owe her an item as I made the two grandsons the vests I blogged about earlier.

I love the pattern I have found but it will be a challenge as it is knitted all in one from the neck down.  Usually I knit the back and fronts separately from the bottom up.  So something a bit different.  I bought the yarn and found the pattern online.  I had all the listed needles except one set of double pointed needles size 6 but I can pick them up on my next trip into town.  They are not needed straight away.  Also the main body is knitted on those weird needles attached by wire.  I have never used those before either so it will be interesting!  Fortunately, I inherited a supply of those type of needles from my mum in law along with some sets of double pointed ones.

My grand daughter is 6 and a half and it will probably take me a few months to knit so I am making it in size 8.  They usually come to visit at the end of June when she will be almost 7 so the size 6 would be too small.  Also they live in California so the short sleeves are perfect for her.

I am excited to start this project but also sad that I won't be making it on the machine.

Also the weather is beginning to warm up so we will be able to get out to the workshop again to make some leather things. It has been a long winter and our workshop is too big to heat so we don't get out there to work.  Working on leather is something my husband can do sitting down.  On the upside, the chemo treatment seems to be working and he is regaining some of his strength.  We have managed over the winter to do some much needed plumbing jobs and some rewiring.  This fulfills his need to be doing things but not so much mine.  He suffers greatly after working a couple of hours but his self esteem is bolstered.

I like my knitting, sewing and leather work.  That's where I get my satisfaction.  As my blog title says.....'I like making things'

This is how it has to be.

I have just read a post on Suzy's blog.  A great and detailed post about her Bond machine.  She is a very talented lady who owns several knitting machines and uses them all.  She has made many garments and other things on her machines.  I envy her.  I don't have the time I would like to spend with my machines.

I think about knitting all the time, I research a lot and read blogs etc about knitting.  That is easy for me to do, my computer is in my kitchen in a custom made computer hutch.  I can take five minutes here and there to do that and if I have to stop it's no big deal.  I blog too because I can do that in bits and pieces.

My knitting room is upstairs and I have two machines set up in the spare bedroom.  When I am up there I am in a world of my own, oblivious to anything else.  Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of the time to spend in there.

My husband is sick.  He has a chronic auto immune disease which is very debilitating.  He is currently having chemo treatment in a bid to slow it down.  This takes up a lot of our time going back and forth to the hospital 150 miles away.  Then on days he feels a bit better we try and catch up with the many jobs around the place that need doing.

My knitting is on a back burner. I do what I can when I can.  I just have time to try things right now but not complete anything.

This is how it has to be.  I am not going to grieve any more over not being able to machine knit as much as I'd like. Might have to go back to the knitting needles lol.

A life without machine knitting is much better than the alternative.

I know, I know, a lot of excuses and not much knitting!

Things have been busy here.  My husband is undergoing a regimen of chemo treatment in a bid to try and slow down the auto immune disease that is attacking him.  That has meant a lot of trips to the hospital 150 miles away.  Also in between those trips we have been dealing with plumbing and electrical problems and some days we are just too plain tuckered to do anything.

I did do a little on the machines yesterday.  I tried ribbing on standard using every fourth stitch with thicker yarn.  It was not too successful although not a total failure either, so more work needed to perfect that.  I also tried mock rib on the bulky machine and that turned out well.  I need to try tuck stitch on it with the thicker yarn to see how that goes, that's a job for another day.

I think that worsted weight (double knitting) will be the best to use on it overall but I do want to make a bulky cardigan for my husband as that is what he wants.  Haven't found the yarn for that yet. It will knit '5' yarn OK but not the super bulky '6'.

I need to revisit Suzy's video on Cricketer's cable.  I tried some cable on the bulky yesterday but it was pulling on the needles too much.  I think her cable will be better to do on it.

Changing the subject, here are a few photos of leather stuff I did for Christmas gifts.  I forgot to take pictures of a lot of the things I made though.

New handy dandy hole puncher made life a lot simpler

The last keyring was one I had rejected as I made a mistake on it but I salvaged it for myself and managed to disguise the error.  I really like it.    

That's all for now.  Another hospital trip tomorrow and then hopefully a little warmer weather coming in.

The LC2 is working!

Thanks to Suzy whose blog is I follow, the LC2 is working.  She put up a video for me on how to use the LC2 on her blog.  From that I was able to ascertain where I might have gone wrong.  After replacing all the 70 needles that I had bent the latches on, I tried again.  This time I only used 50 needles. Unfortunately though, I still had problems.  At least this time I knew it wasn't down to user error.  This time I only bent the latches on about 20 needles as I could tell pretty quickly it wasn't knitting correctly and stopped. When I slowly ran the carriage over the knitting I could see that it was the sinker plate that was bending the latches.

So, I examined the sinker plate and spotted that the left and right underside of it were not symmetrical.  I asked Suzy if she would post pictures of the underside of her LC2 sinker plate, which she most graciously did.

From the pictures I could identify which side of mine was incorrect.

Where the arrow is pointing is where it had gone wrong on mine.  The large metal plate below and to the left of the arrow has a piece that bends downward at the arrow and it had somehow hooked itself over the metal plate that is just to the right of it.  I was able to unhook it quite easily.

So, after replacing those 20 needles, gingerly, I tried it again.

This time I used even less, just 40 needles.  I had just paid $55 for 100 needles and wasn't wanting to shell out another $55. I had at this point replaced 90 needles!

I also used a different lace punch card just in case the first one was somehow compromised.

So, I followed all the steps as per Suzy's video and joy oh joy, it worked this time.  I did a full round of the punch card and then some stockinette then casted off.  And NO bent latches.

I was flying high.  I was so excited.


I did notice one place where the hole didn't form properly but overall it did just fine.

I am sure with practice I will get better at it.

When I showed my husband the knitted piece he burst out laughing.  He thought it was hilarious that I had spent all this time, effort and money to make knitting with holes in.  He was very happy for me but totally bemused.

I have actually had the lace carriage for over a year.  It came with a knitting machine I had purchased in August 2012.  I have been pondering since then on whether or not it was repairable, looking at it from time to time to see if I could get the top off to look underneath  and had just about given up on it when I found the website on how to strip it down and free the drums and also found the supplier that I can get parts from.

It was this past November that I actually started the repairs on it. It was not without it's moments (see previous posts).  But now, two months later I have it working.

I became a bit obsessed with getting it to work.  It became a challenge! Suzy aptly said that us women won't let these machines beat us and she is right.

I don't have anything that I need in a hurry to make using it so I am going to get back onto the SK155 and make my poor husband the sweater or cardigan I have been promising him forever.  When I have done that I will make something for my youngest grand daughter using the lace carriage.

With respect to the SK155, the insurance cheque went through OK and I have decided just to repair the lid by buying the two plastic ends for it.  The needle bed is attached to the bottom, not quite as it should be but it is functional and I have to glue on the end plastic thing which is just cosmetic.  The machine knits just fine.  I also bought the missing left RC lever and holder and can put that in now I know how to take off the cover.

This has been quite a learning period for me.  I feel better knowing that I can make simple repairs and obtain parts.

My thanks go out again to Suzy whose help was invaluable to me.

Her blog is listed down the right hand side of my home page.  It is called 'My knitting machines and me"  Check it out, she has an amazing set of videos she has made and lots of patterns posted.  Also she has photos of garments and other things she has knitted.  She is a very talented lady.

Also thank you to 'Pieces of Kate' blog who has a post on how to strip down the carriage to clean the drums.  There is a link to her post in previous posts of mine.