Cabin Crafted

Tag: crochet

  • Traditions

    When we married almost 49 years ago, I started what would become a tradition. When our first child was expected, I crocheted my husband and soon to be Dad a Christmas stocking and as my old felt childhood one was faded and torn, also crocheted one for me. They say Dad and Mom on them. Our three children each got a crewel work stocking that I did.

    When our daughter had her son she asked me about 6 weeks before Christmas if I was going to make him a stocking. I did, but it was quilted. Then youngest son and his wife were expecting and daughter was expecting her second, and by then I was knitting, so I got to work. He had adopted his wife’s son and they had a daughter as did my daughter, so I knit 3 different stockings that year.

    Between remarriages, adoptions, and more births, we are now grandparents to 12 grandkids and one on the way. Along the way, I knit two for someone basically for cost, something I won’t do again, but I am currently knitting my 15th stocking. The eldest step grandson, we have only met a couple of times, and he doesn’t have one I made, but his sister does.

    I try to have one for the child’s first Christmas in our family. A couple have been their second Christmas, but each one is lined with quilting cotton and has a small cross-stitched tag that reads “Made with love, Mom or Grandmom and the year.” And each one has their name duplicate stitched at the top.

    Each one is different. As I don’t know if the one due before Christmas is a boy or girl, I am making two and will put one away once I know and have a name to add.

    I wish they could all be lined up together for a picture

  • Fiber Arts and Needles

    Knitters and spinners are picky about their equipment.  They find what they like and are ardent supporters of their favorites.  Sometimes it takes a while to settle into what “works” best for them.

    I am no exception.  When I was just picking up knitting again, I would buy inexpensive needles in the size I needed for the project at hand.  As I got to be a better knitter, I learned that better needles lasted longer and were smoother to use, but I have never been a fan of metal needles, they make my hands hurt and have an off odor.  I also have learned that I prefer the shorter 3-4 inch length tips to the longer 5-6 inch one again as they don’t seem to aggravate my arthritis in my hands as much.  One of the products that has come out in more recent years are needles with interchangeable tips so that you need fewer needles and can change the cord to suit the project.  I loved interchangeable tips until my hand strength lessened due to age and the aforementioned arthritis and I could no longer tighten the connectors enough to even knit through a single row on a sweater without them coming partially or fully unscrewed.  Reluctantly, I advertised and sold my interchangeable sets on the social network for lovers of needle crafts, Ravelry.  I have thought about this problem more and more in the past year and have wondered why the designers of this style needle don’t use reverse threaded connectors, so that as you knit, you automatically tighten rather than loosen the connection.

    The problem has sent me off in search of non metal, 3-4″ fixed circular needles in a size small enough to make a hat and long enough to knit a sweater or do the magic loop technique to close up the top of a hat.  The funds from selling my beloved interchangeables will just cover the needles in the most common sizes I use in two lengths, so now instead of having one compact case of tips and cables, I will have a basket full of needles.

    The hand issues have also forced me to seek crochet hooks with larger shafts or the Clover brand that has the butterscotch colored flattened plastic handle with a thumb pad.

    I have never gotten adept at using double pointed needles and have told my daughter that I would teach her to use them, but I feel like I’m playing pick up sticks with them.

    It is all our different opinions that keep the companies in business.  Now I’m off to find an Etsy shop that sells a circular needle case that isn’t notebook sized to store my fixed circulars in once they come.  And to work on my sweater with the craft store metal needle with long tips until my new ones come..

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    The pattern is Estelle, the yarn Quince and Co. Lark in Delft.  At least I can still knit.