High Fiber—Coming Down the Home Stretch

The big news on the fiber front this week is my Dogwood Blossoms. The steeks are done.

In the photo, you can just see the front is cut open. The armscye steeks are also cut. I used my sewing machine to sew on each side of the cutting line before I took the scissors to it. I'm getting pretty relaxed about cutting steeks now. My first one was the Classic Lines Cardigan. I "watched" a number of other people cut theirs before I dared do mine. Now I've done five sweaters that required steeks. I'll be picking up stitches all along the fronts and around the neck to make a button/button-hole band and sewing the sleeves in.

As I expected, the sleeves aren't long enough, which is why I put them on waste yarn. I'm adding to the top of the sleeves. Afterthought pockets are also planned. I'm hoping to wear this sweater this winter.

I'm just recovering from a bad cold, which kept me from knitting or quilting for a couple of weeks. Yes, I was so sick I couldn't enjoy my usual fiber fun, but I'm almost back to normal. We had planned to have friends in for Thanksgiving, but didn't invite anyone after I got sick, so we had a quiet dinner alone together, which was nice. I felt good enough to cook by then. I had no plans to shop on Black Friday, so I just took it easy, and we had leftovers.

Saturday I participated in the Shop Small movement by visiting a small yarn shop and a quilt shop in Salt Lake City. At the yarn shop, I bought some buttons for my Dogwood Blossoms sweater. I can't talk about my other purchases, because they are intended as gifts, and the recipients might read my blog. However, I was aiming for 50% or my purchases to be Made in the USA. I was able to hit 67%, which is good, because it will balance off some items I had already bought.

The bathroom remodel is making progress. The powder room is finished enough to use. All that's left to do is put on the trim around the doors, stain and finish the doors and add the towel ring, a toilet-paper holder and a small shelf over the toilet to hold items. The broom closet still needs shelves and hooks to hold the brooms, mops, brushes, etc.

The master bath is coming along, too. The vanity is done except for the knobs and pulls. Just to remind you of what we had before, here's the old master vanity:

Here's the new one from almost the same spot. As you can see, we moved a wall to add all this room for a two-sink vanity, a bigger shower and a new closet.
This was the old shower, barely as big as a phone booth:

Here's the new shower stall, nice and roomy!

We still have some things to do in the master bath, too. Just as with the powder room, we need to add the trim to the doorways, and stain and finish the doors. Then the hardware needs to be installed on all the doors, as well as the cabinet doors and drawers. The toilet-paper holder and towel racks need to be installed. We have rods for the closets, and those have to go in before we can put clothes away. My job will be to paint the ceiling and the walls where the changes were made, including the enlarged attic access.

Today we get new insulation in our attic. I'm looking forward to being toasty this winter for a change! Well, I'm off to check out the Cyber Monday sales....

What's on my needles: Dogwood Blossoms
What's on my wheel: Full Circle Roving in "Pigeon."
What's on my iPad: The House of the Deer by D. E. Stevenson from Audible and Odd Interlude by Dean Koontz from the iBookstore.
What's in my wine glass: Copper Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon. Nice choice!

Note: This blog post was produced entirely on the MacBook, using the iPad for photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for or cleaned.

Tags: DogwoodBlossoms, FairIsle, Palette, bathroom, cardigan, colorwork, remodel, shopping, steeks

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Comment by Peggy Stuart on November 29, 2012 at 10:20pm: Oooo, what fun! Please keep us informed of the reactions! (The baby's reaction, too!)

Comment by Buffy Joseph on November 29, 2012 at 3:13pm: Haha! Thanks, Peggy & Cheryl.

On a side note, I've decided to make another Baby Surprise Jacket, this time with Lorna's Laces yarn dyed in SF Giants colors (orange & black). This will be a present for my dad (who is a HUGE Giants fan), but the sweater will be for my niece (which he will also love). The yarn is self-striping, so we'll see how the sweater turns out!

Comment by cherylbwaters on November 29, 2012 at 9:53am: You are always cute, Buffy! That's a given.

Comment by Peggy Stuart on November 29, 2012 at 5:53am: You're pretty cute, too, Buffy! And I've seen you in person!

Comment by Buffy Joseph on November 28, 2012 at 10:45pm: Thanks everyone for the comments on my niece.

BTW, I notice while all of you say how cute she is, no one mentions how cute I am! :D

Comment by Peggy Stuart on November 28, 2012 at 7:44pm: Great idea!

Comment by angelkarhu on November 28, 2012 at 3:04pm: Theres steeked socks too. Knit the first one toe up and then the second one from the cuff down and then steek them apart. Its a Star Athena pattern on ravelry.

Comment by Peggy Stuart on November 28, 2012 at 11:12am: I think Knitting Daily or someone had a steeked Teddy Bear sweater. You don't need to print the whole thing. The charts are for both colorways, pullover and cardigan and not all the sizes on one chart, so you can just print what you need. I found Mary Scott Huff's The New Stranded Colorwork a good source for finishing suggestions. She uses ribbon to cover a lot of the raw edges of the steaks. In Feitelson's book on Fair Isle, the instructions have you turn under one vertical row of sts and sew it down. I've done that, too.

Comment by Beverly Roberts on November 28, 2012 at 10:36am: the thing that scares me about the steeks on my Palette Sampler is the vague instructions about where to sew it down...I need to get it out and look at the instructions again (It could be that I was having a brain cloud when I read them...LOL). But the idea of doing a Teddy Bear sweater with steeks is a good one and I will attempt to find a freebie for one on Ravelry. In the meantime, I finally caved and bought the Dogwood Blossoms Sweater Pattern, but not the yarn...I have so much Palette I thought I might check my inventory first. The pattern has 44 pages!!! I have successfully put off buying the expensive color inkjet refill for a long time now, but I guess I will finally have to cave to that as well! I sure do wish KP had published/actual paper patterns!

Comment by angelkarhu on November 28, 2012 at 10:17am: I knit a short sleeve sweater for myself over the summer. Its the blue one on ravelry page. Wore it with a turtleneck on Thanksgiving. Should of made the smaller size.