kweenskrafts

New Endeavours

Posted on July 30, 2018July 30, 2018 by kweenskrafts

I have been on a bit of a break from writing lately. My attention has been diverted to learning new things.

I’ve been reading… a lot!

I love to read and usually I read fantasy, historical fiction or sci-fi, but lately I’ve been reading for a purpose. The best way I can describe my recent state is that I was parched, wandering through a scorched desert of the known knowledge, and happened upon a crystal clear oasis of learning, wherein I gorged myself on new information and imbibed more skilled techniques.

Basically, I was roped in by a sale on books on a website that is geared toward crafty people. I splurged on myself and spent $20, but what I received were invaluable teachings for my favorite craft, knitting. I learned how to customize socks, all about different yarn fibers, how to knit lace, and the art of the top-down sweater. But I couldn’t just stop there.

I found an awesome book all about all natural soap-making, that went into details about different soap bases, how and when to use essential oils and fresh additives like herbs, flowers, and fruit.

This explosion of information took me on a natural progression from learning, to gathering. I began gathering the necessary supplies to make my first batch of soap, and gathering more yarn in the proper weights and fibers for new projects. Soon I had a schedule going of how I would spend my days, which days were for soap-making, trying to decide what kind of soap, what scent and/or properties it should have, and which days were for knitting, what types of projects, and which fibers I wanted to start with.

And then I reached a very critical moment, when my brain stopped whirling and my soul felt at peace. It was transformational, a real pivotal, enlightened moment.

And in that moment I realized I had forgotten to allot time for writing.

I know myself and I know that not taking time for writing is the quickest way to lose steam for a project. It’s easy to dream up ideas and plan out actions, but actions themselves are difficult. They take a level of focus that is hard for me to achieve at times.

Simply put, I procrastinate. I am the kween of starting tasks, but the court jester of completion. Without real deadlines, I find myself drifting between half-finished projects, in a daze of “what could be”. Listlessly flitting from one project to another, and never making much progress.

So, in an effort to combat this poor behavior I am holding myself accountable with this blog. I am tasking myself to start and finish 1 project a month. I need not finish the same project I start in that month, as many projects take months to complete, but I must start at least 1 and finish 1 each month.

July has been a wonderful month! I managed to start 3 knitting projects and I finished 2 of them before the end of the month. I made my first ever real pair of socks, that actually fit! Two of the books I bought were about sock knitting so I read up on fit and gauging and found out why all the socks I’ve knitted before never fit my feet. It turns out my feet are long a narrow and no sock pattern will fit me perfectly without some alterations.

Kween's Socks

These socks are knitted using Haute Knit Yarns Jimmy Sock in the colorway Teal Haute Rainbow, if you haven’t heard of them check out their Etsy shop. Super scrumptious yard! I used Lauren Slagle’s pattern Lolo’s Short Row Socks and I absolutely fell in love with short rows while making these socks!

My 2nd completed project has been great on many levels. In my never ending quest to support makers I reached out to another indie dyer who needed a sample made from her yarn to showcase the gorgeous new colorway. She offered a free skein of yarn, so of course I could not resist. I also wanted to see how the colorway would look all knitted up. Let’s just say I was not disappointed!

Sunshine Shawl

This shall measures about 55 inches long and I only used 1 skein of yarn! The colorway is Whatever, I’m a Mermaid and it’s full of lovely shades of blue and purple with just a hint of green and pink throughout to give it depth. Scarlett at Sunshine Dyeworks did a fantastic job and I hope she will be as happy with her shawl as I was when I finally saw it finished.

The other project I started is a custom blanket requested by 2 people I adore. I am hard at work on the pattern as I have to custom make it to get the right look. Here’s a peek at the test knit I am working on for it.

Mermaid Blanket - Progress 100 rows

If that pattern looks familiar then you have read my other blogs and I thank you! 😉

I hope I have inspired you to finish some projects, or perhaps start something new. I wish you all a wonderful end of July, and a very creative August!

Gardening, June Blogs

A Little Hard Work Goes a Long Way

Posted on June 13, 2018June 13, 2018 by kweenskrafts

Some of the best things in life are discards. That’s the reason behind the popular phrase:

“One man’s trash, is another man’s treasure”

As the child of a hippy I was ingrained with the principles of reduce, reuse, & recycle and I saw it in play at my great grandmother’s house everyday. She was a teenager during the Great Depression and that immensely shaped her way of life. It was the reason that even when she moved to a city she always grew a small vegetable garden. It was the reason she repurposed old card board boxes, and saved scraps of old fabric.

You never know when hard times will hit and your capacity to see the possibilities in different objects can be the difference between having what you need and having nothing.

When I started my garden this year I bought tomato cages for my tomatoes and also for my cucumbers because I experimented with vertically growing them last year and loved it! I was looking for large tomato cages and was only able to find regular sized ones.

I was super bummed. But as luck would have it a neighbor was wanting to get rid 2 super large tomato cages. These tomato cages are amazing! They are as tall as me, and are easily 20 years old, with these large stakes that you have to pound into the ground to keep them in place.

The holes are big enough to fit my hands through and easily pick the tasty cucumbers, even the biggest ones! The only problem they had were that they were rusted from years of use. But I knew exactly how to solve that problem!

So off I went to favorite home improvement store for some metal sandpaper (Yes, the sandpaper you use on metal is different from the sandpaper you use on wood. If you didn’t know this before, file it away for future use because it’s important!). While there I also bought a couple of cans of Rust-oleum spray paint, and I found a beautiful sage green color!

After about 2.5 hours of good old fashioned elbow grease and all the sandpaper I bought, I had some rust-free tomato cages, sorely in need of a pretty coat of paint. Add another roughly 30 minutes for spray painting and then overnight drying, just to make sure all the paint was set properly, and I had a wonderful climbing trellis for cucumbers!

I did the math on my project vs. the tomato cages I originally bought for the cucumbers. I spend about $15 on 2 tomato cages, that were not what I really wanted, while the other cage project cost me about $15 in sandpaper and paint, and 3 hours of labor, but were more perfect for my purpose than anything I could find to buy. I find that a very worthwhile investment because now I have have them and they are rustproof for years to come!

I know my grandparents would be very proud of me for not giving up on my vision and not shying away from the little bit of hard work that stood in my way. I also know that they would very happy with the pickles I plan to make from my crop of cucumbers this year!

Now I just need to wait for the cucumbers…

… I’ll try to be patient.

June Blogs, knitting

Changing It Up

Posted on June 5, 2018June 6, 2018 by kweenskrafts

As a knitter of many years, there are times when doing the same thing is more detrimental to my goals than I realize. Sometimes the only thing to do is change it up.

Sample Eyelet Baby Blanket I have a favorite baby blanket pattern. I have knit the same pattern in different colors, sizes and with different twists. My recent favorite was for an awesome friend who likes colorful and unique things, so her blanket got a bunch of different colored stripes in variegated sizes! I still love the pattern and find it’s classic beauty just wonderful. I also like that it has eyelets because babies are notoriously warm and no one wants to give a baby heatstroke while they sleep.

So when I found out another friend was pregnant I knew I had to make a baby blanket for her. For this one I wanted the blanket to have more earth tones, but to still be vibrant for their baby girl. I spent a lot of time searching for the perfect yarn for this project. I knew I wanted it to be cotton, so they could easily wash it when it got messy. I also knew that the yarn needed to have lots of greens. I was so focused on the yarn, that I just assumed I would make the blanket, the pattern was never in question.

I was so happy starting the project. I cast on and my needles were flying. About 4 inches into the first blanket, I realized I made a mistake when altering the pattern for the finished size I wanted. I had 2 stitches too few. Oh well, no big deal. I just pulled it all out and started anew with the correct number of stitches cast on this time.

I made it to about 3 inches this time when I realized I messed up again. I took out 2 rows, but still could not find the mistake. I pulled out another row and a half, sure that I could fix it and be back on my happy road to completion. No such luck, I was at a loss. Not only could I not find the mistake, but when I tried to knit the pattern I kept making the same mistakes.

About 2 hours later, I was ready to set the small blanket start on fire. Nothing I did was making a difference and I was wondering if I had completely lost the skill needed to knit anything. The pattern is very easy, a simple yarn over eyelet on a basic stockinette stitch, how could it possibly be this hard?!

I decided to try a different pattern, something still easy, but different from what I as using. I pulled out an old pattern book that I’ve had for over a decade and browsed the patterns, looking for a pattern that had holes for air flow, but wasn’t too crazy. Something that would be timeless and fun. I decided on this Chalice pattern.

Chalice Pattern Start

The new pattern challenged me. It was new and I had to pay attention to my needles and the pattern. And as I worked the blanket I found I liked the subtle texture that it gave the blanket. Working with the yarn I was unsure how the variegation would look in the pattern, but the more of the blanket I knitted, the more I liked everything about it. And the more I liked it, the faster my needles flew through the rows.

I realized 1 very important thing, just because you have done something a certain way with great success for a long time, doesn’t mean that nothing needs to change. Change is not necessarily scary or something you do because you have to. It can also be an opportunity, an opportunity to learn, and to grow. To challenge yourself to be better than you were before.

You never know what you can accomplish if you don’t push yourself outside of your comfort zone every now and then.

Change can be frightening, and the temptation is often to resist it. But change almost always provides opportunities – to learn new things, to rethink tired processes, and to improve the way we work. – Klaus Schwab

This is the blanket at about 75% completion
Chalice Baby Blanket

Gardening, May Blogs

Home Gardens: Always a WIP

Posted on May 28, 2018June 6, 2018 by kweenskrafts

If any of you are gardeners or plant tenders than you understand that every garden, every year and every plant is always a work in progress (WIP). Everything, from the choosing where to plant to turning over the dirt, is a constant game of tweaking and changing.

I am always scouring books, websites and online videos for the more information on how to grow my plants as naturally as possible. This year I researched what I could grow along side my laundry list of herbs, veggies and fruits, that would keep unwanted, harmful pests away. As usually I found some useful information, some things I already new and some weird stuff that on further investigation was complete gibberish.

This year my biggest discoveries changed my whole approach to my garden.

I found out that my Cucumber Beetle (pictured below) infestation was so terrible because the garden patch had not been tilled in several years. So about 1 month before the last predicted freeze, I rented a lovely gas-powered tiller, and tilled my garden bed… a lot!

I also found out that several varieties of flowers and herbs work as bug repellent just by being in your garden and growing. I researched the flowers and herbs to find which ones would grow best in my climate and settled on Marigolds, Nasturtium, and Garlic chives as people the most beneficial to my garden.

Another bit of information I gleaned was that while a completely segmented garden area might be easy to navigate, it does not always make for the tastiest or most prolific plants. Several sources suggested planting based on how you use the produce, for example, who doesn’t love tomatoes and basil? It’s a classic pairing, great in soups, on pizza, in sandwiches or on a nice sliced baguette with a bit of mozzarella. So why not grow your basil with your tomatoes?

Basil is also a natural pest control, but I learned that last year, in my garden ravaged by Cucumber Beetles The 5 basil plants had the only untouched foliage in my entire garden, and honey bees were very pleased with them as well. So this year I grouped herbs with my vegetables to give them the best chance of success. Here’s the map of my garden I created before planting to ensure maximum yield while still preserving some kind of walkway to be able to harvest all the tastiness:

Not shown here are numerous garlic chives and scallions planted around the other plants.

This year is a test to see if this style of gardening is in fact better for the plants, and also to see how well the additional flowers and herbs (and all the tilling) worked to keep the harmful pests away. Also new for this season will be the addition of several hundred lady bugs to the yard! I’m anxiously waiting for them to arrive.

I am still researching more things about gardening. Please don’t think I am an expert, for I am surely not. This is only my second season, and my first real experience with actual gardening. Having been born and raised in a city, all my previous garden endeavors have been contained to pots.

What are some of your favorite gardening tips? Have you learned any garden related tricks from your own green thumbs? I would love to hear from you.

May Blogs

The Journey Begins

Posted on May 23, 2018June 6, 2018 by kweenskrafts

Truly the journey began almost 20 years ago, but today a new chapter opens with me branching out of my comfort zone and putting myself out here on the web for all to see.

I am not an expert at anything really, I am merely a person who loves to do things the old fashioned way. I prefer paper books over a Kindle, (though I do have one), organic gardening over pesticides, and home-cooked meals over eating out.

I love making things. I have made and refinished furniture. I have wrapped loved ones in blankets and scarves I made myself. I have grown vegetables from seeds and turned them into tasty treats. If I could I would feed the world from my garden and kitchen, and clothe them from my yarn bin.

My maternal grandma was an artist and a lifetime art student. She was never satisfied with mastering one art form, she had to try her hand at as many as she could. She taught me to see life, really see it. See the beauty in ugliest parts, see the possibilities in disasters. Her perspective helped me through many dark times, but more importantly it helped me see the benefit of doing things for myself, the benefit of creation.

And that is a gift that keeps on giving.