Repairing a crochet bedspread, and preserving a family heirloom

So, I keep hearing how amazing something I did is, and how in awe some people are, but to be truthful, I don't think I did anything that incredible. Yeah, I'm proud of myself because I did something new, and it worked better than I though it was going to, but I don't really see it as anything as amazing as others have said. I will admit to a guilty flush of pleasure at hearing other people praise my work, but all I did was fix an old blanket.

I've had a few people ask me how I did it, and, well a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a few for you. I've had a few more admit that they never thought about repairing a blanket like this, and wouldn't know where to begin, so hopefully this will help.

Original damage

I got lucky, this was right on a seam, so I didn't have to try to pull tension just perfect like if it had been in the middle of a piece. I sat down with my thread and a bunch of hooks, and just kept making the center of the square with each different hook until I matched the gauge. Ended up with size 5 steel hook, and size 10 thread.

The pattern is a pretty simple center out block, with popcorn stitches up to the edges on a double crochet background as the design. The popcorn stitches took a little playing around but eventually I noticed they were treble crochet grouped in 5.

I decided I wanted to rebuild the damaged part, as this was bottom center of a bedspread, and would be very visible if used. I had originally thought of trying to sew it back together, but like the perfectionist I am, I couldn't bring myself to do that. I started to carefully pick out the damaged thread, and unraveled stitches until I got to a point where the thread was still good, and tied the thread off at the top of a stitch. I got really lucky, there were more good stitches left on the lower rows, than on the rows above them, so I didn't have to pull out good stitches, or try to pick them up from the bottom as I went.

First half damage picked out and tied off. 

Once I got this damage cleaned out, I attached with a slip stitch to the top of the bottom right popcorn, leaving a long tail, probably at least 6 inches. I then worked the missing 3 double crochet between the two popcorn stitches, slip stitched into the top of the left popcorn, tied it off and left a long tail again. For the top row, again, I attached to the right popcorn, made 3 double crochet, a 5 treble crochet popcorn in the next double crochet, then three more double crochet, and attached to the left popcorn. The result was this:

First half repaired

Now to repeat on the other half, clean it out, and restitch the missing parts. This time I had a bit more to remove and re-do. I ended up needing to redo two popcorn stitches on this side, but thankfully only one row needed work. There was still a good double crochet stitch to the right of the missing part, so I tied that off securely, and used a slip stitch to join new thread to it. Then I filled in the two missing double crochet, a popcorn, three more double crochet, another popcorn, and one final double crochet. Joined to the existing stitch on the left with a slip stitch, and tied off securely.

Second side cleaned out.

New work filled in

I don't have a picture of it, but I tied the new and old strings together at the beginning and end of each row, but didn't trim them. I left them long, so it can be washed once or twice to make sure it'll hold, then I'll weave them in and make it all neat and tidy.

Unfortunately, this blanket sat in a smoker's house for a while before they quit smoking, and it doesn't seem like it got cleaned after they quit. It was a really weird dingy yellow, probably from a combination of age, and  smoke. So I ended up soaking it in the bathtub with some Seventh Generation Oxy Clean.

Oxy is all bubbly and working it's magic

The color of the water after soaking for only ten minutes. YUCK!!! 

After soaking it a second time, and feeling it was mostly clean, I had to figure out how to rinse this thing. Rinsing it out made me wish I had a giant pool, or lots of helping hands. Thankfully we have one of those shower heads you can detach and use as a sprayer, so I situated the blanket as spread out as I could and spray. I had tried draining and refilling the tub with water and gently swishing the blanket around, but it just didn't seem to get clearer water even after several rinses. So I used that sprayer part to start at one end of the blanket and rinse and shift and rinse until all the water was running out clear. I don't think I've spent that long in a bathtub since I was a kid and played in the tub in the summer to cool down!

Once it was all rinsed, I rolled it up and tried to squeeze out as much water as I could. This blanket in over 50 years old, so I was trying not to put too much stress on it. I didn't really want to have to make more repairs. Once it was as dry as I could get it, I tried to pick the thing up. Yeah, not happening. I think it had to weigh 50 pounds. Big, strong husband to the rescue. He picked it up (didn't look that heavy at all when he did it!) and carted it to the washing machine for me, and I put it through a couple gentle rinse and spin cycles, just to make sure it was all rinsed out.

It still weighed quite a bit after that, but more manageable. I didn't want to put it through the dryer, and being winter, and colder than the freezer outside, I draped it over the ironing board, and one of the couches to dry. It made a great little tent! It took a couple of days to dry, but it finally did, and it was so much whiter.

The repaired section after the cleaning. Much, much less noticeable. 

I packed it back up to give back to my mother-in-law, and waited till Christmas day. I'm glad I did, because she was so happy to have it back and repaired. Here's a few shots of the bedspread on her guest bed.

The repaired section is right in the middle at the bottom edge of the mattress.

This one I just thought was a cool shot

So that's it, that's what I did. I repaired an old blanket. My mother-in-law remembers her mom working on this when she was just a child. Now it'll be a family heirloom to be passed on to future generations.

Reflections, A new year, and new experiments

Sitting here listening to the rain pitter-patter on the sun room roof, wrapped up in a blanket, with a kitten snuggled on my feet, with a wonderful cup of hot tea, felt like the perfect time to sit and reflect on the past year, all the ups, downs, successes and failures. I won't bore you with the bad, but some of the goods from last year were getting closer to some of my friends and family through planning my wedding, I was able to leave my job where I was overly stressed (and also on a contrasting schedule with hubby) so that I could spend more time with him, and with my mom who needed three surgeries. Had THE MOST PERFECT WEDDING I could have ever wished for. Sadly for our bank account, I always wanted the fairy tale, over the top, royal type of wedding, but we did it. Got to meet many of my new family on my husband's side at the wedding. Traveled for the first time out of the country, to the UK. Went to the ocean for the first time IN SCOTLAND, went dolphin watching, again in Scotland, slept in a castle, played ping pong in a throne room, washed laundry in the castle, and hung it to dry in front of a fireplace (I know, I'm different), flew in a propeller plane, and spent hours driving through Scottish and Irish countryside. The final day of our trip, we spent hours at Guinness brew house, fell in love with the drink, and the people of both countries all over again. My mom made it through surgeries on both her shoulders, now we are working on getting things lined up for her back, and my mother-in-law was able to move closer to us and the rest of the family. Made some new friends, and reconnected with long lost friends. Learned how to make several things that we use on a regular basis, and have been able to spend more time with my husband, and our family.

My bouquet from the wedding.

Just like so many people, I've decided to set some resolutions. Not specifically new year's resolutions, just goals I want to accomplish this year in my ongoing quest to live a healthier, happier life.

1. Experiment more in the kitchen with healthy foods
2. Reduce use of chemicals in our lives by making more cleaning products (this should also help reduce plastic we use since we won't be buying the stuff in the plastic)
3. Allow myself to be happier by accepting that I can't do everything, and what I do, doesn't have to be perfect. Accept that I'm allowed to make mistakes. Yes I'm a perfectionist. 
4. Grow and can more of our own vegetables
5. Get my craft projects organized, cataloged, and down to a more manageable number

So, in an effort to to complete the craft project resolution, I'm finishing up pairs of socks that I had previously started. I got a pair of dark green socks, and 1 out of a pair of light green socks, both for my hubby, and working on the second of a pair of socks for myself. I know I've covered this in a previous post, but it's nice to get everything down in one spot.

My first self designed sock!

Light green sock for hubby

Start of the toe of the second sock.

As for experimenting more in the kitchen, the other night I tried making foil packet lime pepper chicken, with mashed rutabaga, and steamed broccoli. Turned out pretty well, even with the calamity of the rutabaga eating the knife. 

I started to peel the rutabaga, which was tricky because of the waxy coating, but muscled through it. Sliced a little off the bottom so it wouldn't roll when I'm cutting it, and started to cut it in half. This is about as far as I got the knife through and I couldn't get it to go any more. When I went to pull the knife out it just didn't budge! This is our sharpest knife, and since hubby was a chef for many years, he keeps them pretty sharp. I tried everything I could think of to get the knife out, but no luck. I even (shame on me) grabbed a hold of the knife with both hands and shook it to try to dislodge it. About half way through I realized what a sight I must be. Shaking this knife with a giant rutabaga on it, my hair coming undone, yelling (more growling I think) in frustration. This is the point I started laughing uncontrollably  and ended up kneeling on the kitchen floor, knife still in hand, laughing so hard I was holding my stomach and crying! An adventure indeed! By time I collected myself I simply had to share this moment with a few of my friends and proceeded to text/email them. The modern age of sharing EVERYTHING! 

I ended up leaving the monster on the cutting board and went to preparing the chicken.

Lime Pepper Chicken:

2 Cleaned, and skinless chicken breast

Pinch of Kosher Salt

2 tsp Lime Pepper herb mix

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp dill

sliced onion (these are like half onion, half chives we found at the farmer's market), they are sweet onions

Olive oil

2 Radishes, sliced

lime juice

2 TBSP chicken broth

2 Pats of butter

2 Squares foil to wrap chicken in

Take 2 tsp lime pepper, 1 tsp onion powder, and dill and mix them all together, breaking up any clumps. 

Sprinkle a little salt on the chicken, then coat both sides with the herb mix.

Drizzle some olive oil over the chicken, then turn it to get the oil on the foil, then turn it again so the oiled side is back up. 

Drizzle a little lime juice over the chicken
Sprinkle sliced onions over chicken
Lay a few slices of radish on top, then top with a pat of butter
Put 1 TBSP broth on top of each chicken, then fold foil in half over chicken, fold and crimp the three open sides shut so nothing leaks out.

Put in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Check to make sure chicken is fully cooked before eating please!

Hubby came home, and managed to get the rutabaga chopped and we got that boiled and mashed just like it was potato. Steamed up some broccoli, which was then tossed with butter and a little garlic powder.

So yummy! I didn't realize it, but the lime pepper mix I bought had chili peppers in it, so it was a bit spicy for me, but moist and tender, and full of flavor! The rutabaga tastes kind of like a potato, but is slightly sweeter, with a very light carrot type of flavor. I ended up using the left overs to make something like potato pancakes in the morning with chives and garlic. That was amazing! I think we'll be buying rutabagas more often.

Not too shabby for my first time with a new vegetable!!

Well that's it for now, off to do some laundry so I can use up the store bought stuff, and plan dinner for tonight, baked ginger and lemongrass salmon and asparagus with a creamy dill sauce I think. Maybe work on my fair isle double knit hot pad some more since it's almost finished.

Take care, and happy creating!

Toe up socks

So, one of my resolutions this year was to decrease the number of ongoing projects I have. In an effort to complete this I have been finishing up socks that I have had cast on for the past 4 months. Well, I hurt my back Thursday sliding around on some of our wonderful ice we get here this time of year, and haven't really been able to get off the couch since without lots of pain. All this rest is helping, but it's taking it's sweet old time.

So anyways, I decided it's a perfect time to work on some of these old projects, namely socks, Light weight, normally requires a decent chunk of uninterrupted time, and I can't go anywhere, perfect! Well, I get to the bind off on a pair for hubby, but the first bind off I did was WAY to tight, he couldn't even get it over his heel. So I looked up an elastic bind off online, and did that. It was plenty elastic but it just didn't bounce back, so he has this frilly ring around the top of his sock now. Would be REALLY cute on a little girls sock, but not on someone who looks like they should be a linebacker for the pro's.

Frilly top, and I kinda made the cuff about 2 inches too short.

I followed the bind off technique I found at Slip Slip Knit for this. Not so great for me for socks, but I think it will work beautifully on some lace patterns I also have on needles waiting to be finished.

I have a second pair of socks on the needles for hubby, and a pair for myself (my first attempt at designing my own!) and I really wanted to find a nice solid, easy to do bind off that would be stretchy enough to accommodate a large foot sliding into it, but resilient enough to spring back. Back to the interwebs we go.

I made up four swatches of different bind offs, to see how they responded to being tugged, and stretched and all that. One stood out as a simply amazing sock bind off.

 These samples here are following the bind off on Slip Slip Knit's page. A little slouchy at the top, but definitely stretchy.

 This one worked up great, a little time consuming, but very stretchy, and very resilient as it would snap back to shape after being stretched. I found this one on Knitty.com. I completed a sock with this, and it turned out well, but I had to slightly alter it for 2x2 ribbing, as this was written for 1x1.

I tried a few others that were equally as stretchy, but not nearly resilient. They are a k1p1 invisible bind off I saw on Pinterest a while back, from Cranky Girl on wordpress.

k1p1 invisible bind off

I'm not sure what one I would use this for in the future. I used this for one of the sock, and it ended up kind of frilly. Once I got the hang of it, it was quick work, but just not what I was looking for. It might make a nice edging on a hoodie around the hood, it's less noticeable, especially if in a solid color, and won't be stretched out too much. I'll have to keep that in mind for a project I want to try.

The last one that I thought even worth mentioning is Elizabeth Zimmerman's sewn bind off. This is VERY loose, but I was disappointed in how it stayed stretched out. It'll be great for that cowl neck sweater I want to make though! This one is pretty simple. Just take a threaded tapestry needle, and go from right to left through two stitches, turn around, skip first stitch, and go left through right through the second stitch, and pull it off the needle, over and over.

Here is my finished sock, the first of my own design, with a 1/2 inch 2x2 ribbed cuff. You can't really see it too well, but I put 5 columns of three stranded braids across the top of the sock. It made it a bit more snug, which I like, but also much more time consuming. Happy Sock!!

Well, I do believe that is all for tonight, tomorrow I hope to get the last three inches of another sock for hubby done, I'm driving myself nuts with the 1x1 ribbing, of course I started this sock throwing, instead of picking, and my tension is too different to switch now. Bleh. Well, I know better for next time, and what is life if not one giant learning experience, especially for those of us who are creative!

Good night, and Happy Stitching!

Shameless Plug

Hi All,

Just a quick shameless little plug....

Check out my knitting page at Betterfly

Thanks, and Happy Knitting!

Christmas, New Years, and Life

Ok, I know I said I would get a post up a few days after Christmas, but I kinda forgot about the crazy cleaning that takes place between Christmas and New Years, and then forgot about the mess we always make for sauerkraut and pork. Especially when we get to have a bunch of people over! I loved every second of it too. Well except for when my lemon meringue pie didn't set up, and I had to run to the store to get a dessert while everyone was still sitting at the house :(. I'm putting off the cleaning from New Year's Day to work on this (shame on me, I'm being a bad housewife)

Christmas went well, we missed a few people due to colds, and work, but most of us were there. We had Christmas dinner at my mother-in-laws house, and OH MY GOD that ham was delicious!! I ate way more than I should have, but it was all so tasty!! I have to get the recipe from her for these cookies called Angel Squares I think. I like them better than rum balls and coconut macaroons, and if you know me...well that's saying something.

So now let's back track a little to the Saturday before Christmas, and Katie's birthday bowling bash! I made Lemon Curd Coconut Cupcakes and they seemed to be quite a hit. Of course I forgot to take my usual gazillion pictures until after they were half gone....

Lemon Curd Coconut Cupcakes

nothing to fancy about these, but here's the recipe.
Basic vanilla cake recipe
2 1/2 Cups AP flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
3/4 cup whole milk

Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl. In another bowl, beat sugar, butter, and vanilla until smooth and fluffy (it's very important to make sure there are no chunks of butter, as that will make a gooey under-baked mess). Add eggs one at a time, beating until well combined. Add flour and milk alternately in two additions, beating until just blended. Pour into cupcake tins line with paper, and bake at 325º about 20 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool, then fill a pastry bag with Lemon Curd. You can buy some at the store, or make it yourself. If you make it yourself, I find that the Lemon filling for a lemon meringue pie works beautifully. If you don't know how to make that, check out Betty Crocker Classic Lemon Meringue for the filling. Using a large tip (or the one made for filling), squeeze lemon curd into the center of each cupcake until you start to feel the cupcake swell. If some oozes out, just spread it on top and let it air dry so the icing will stick.

For the icing:
1 1/2 cup coconut flakes
3 TBsp butter, softened
8 oz marscapone cheese
2 2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp Vanilla

Combine and beat all ingredients until smooth. This icing is too soft to really do anything fancy with, so just glop it on top and try not to eat it all before it makes it to the cupcakes.

A big part of our Christmas gifts to everyone this year were cookies! On top of traditional chocolate chip cookies, I made these three

Almond Sugar Cookies

I didn't get any pictures, but I put them in these cute little clear baggies with red stripes and tied them up with ribbon. 

Checkerboard Shortbread Cookies

For the checkerboard cookies, I'll have to do the recipe with lots of pictures showing how to make the cookies at a later time. This post is already going to be ginormous.

Apple-Cinnamon-Raisin-Oatmeal Cookies with Maple Icing

These are by far the most amazing oatmeal cookies I have ever had, and I will be making these again, if I can remember how I did it.







I also made some peppermint fudge, and peppermint bark to give out this year. It was my first time making peppermint bark, and that was an experience in and of itself. I had tried to melt white chocolate for some other cookies I had made, but ended up throwing it all out cause I couldn't get it to melt well, it just seized up. So for peppermint bark I chopped up those Hershey's mint kisses, and spread them on top of milk chocolate I had already melted and poured onto a cookie sheet. In my research for how to melt the white chocolate successfully, I found a video that showed a French Chocolatier using a heat gun during the tempering process. This sparked my imagination, and I pulled out our heat gun. Well, this melted the chopped pieces on top, but to get warm enough to let the top stick to the bottom, the top was browning. So I popped it in the oven for about 10 minutes, and viola! We have peppermint bark!

Melted, and cooled milk chocolate

Chopping an entire bag of Kisses

I also made Peppermint Chocolate Fudge!!

2 pkg semi-sweet Bakers Chocolate squares
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp peppermint extract

Melt chocolate and milk in double boiler, add peppermint, pour into foil lined pan, cool, cut ENJOY! I sprinkled a little sea salt on which made it absolutely delectable.

I also ended up making coupon name tags for everyone this year. Thanks to Microsoft having all sorts of templates out there, I found some really pretty Christmas themed ones, and printed them out of heavy paper.

Here are a few more things I made for Christmas but won't go too far into detail. 

Lotion Squares (more in my post from 12/1

Body Scrub

Crochet doily for my MIL

Lotion that worked!

Name tags for the sweet treat bags

Vanilla Peppermint Chapstick

Book tote bag for Pam

Tote for Melinda

Tote for Dd

Peppermint swirl cheesecake!

Well that's it for now, I need to get to cleaning so I stop stressing about how bad the house looks. I'll be back later with a post on mess free soy candles, so stay tuned.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and a Happy New Year.