Category / Craft

Things that I’ve made

by princesshotflash

It’s been a while

The bougainvillea are blooming in Cora’s garden. I thought I’d share some color with you.

Since Mom passed, life has been more challenging than I thought it would be. The quietness of the house is the hardest thing to deal with. I didn’t realize how much energy Mom brought to the house. I know Dad feels it, too.

Dad and I are trying our best to deal with it in our own way. Dad keeps at his word-find puzzles and exercises with his caregivers. Let’s see if he will be up to doing some holiday drawings.

I’ve been busy trying to finish off half-finished projects and work through my fabric and yarn stash (I have more than I can ever use in my lifetime).

Odd-shaped scrap potholders

scraps for potholders
the odd shape pieces
the inspector
upcycling the binding scrap
adding some hand-stitching
finished

These are scraps from a donated quilt I made. I use as many scraps as possible to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Charity Knit Hats

wrong side of reverse stockinette
view of the right side
finished with pompom

It is one of four charity hats I’m making using the marling technique to use up my yarn stash. The pattern is It’s a Snap from Tin Can Knits.

Scrappy strips basket

building up the sides
the pile of skinny scraps

I’m using skinny strips, white binding (from the donated quilt project), and embroidery thread on this scrappy project.

I’m also working on quilt #8. It is for a friend’s friend, who gave me scrap fabric from her mom’s stash and asked if I could make her a quilt. I’m shooting for the end of November to finish the quilt so I can hand it off when I see my friend.

#8

last square
with batting
the backing
getting ready to quilt
quiltinng
stitches

That’s all for now. My sewing machine will be going out for service, so I will have more time for knitting and crocheting projects.

by princesshotflash

Sweater to Blanket

A long time ago, I knitted a sweater for Oat. He wanted a fisherman cable sweater, but he overestimated my knitting skills. He got something more in my realm of technical ability. I got the yarn from a sheep farm shop, Morehouse Farm. I was there for a photo shoot. This was in my distant past when I worked as a book designer. The yarn was squishy and soft. I knitted the sweater in double strands, it was super warm, so he didn’t wear it often. Here’s the sweater on our trip to Prague. It did great with all our walking around the city.

Oat and sweater in Prague

Once I moved back to Hawaii, I decided to repurpose the sweater into a blanket for my dad. Not that dad needed such a warm blanket in Hawaii but there a couple of weeks a year when a cozy warm blanket is appreciated.

I decided on a basketweave pattern with a chunky stockinette border. It was easy enough that if I put it down for a while I could pick right up. I made the blanket wide enough to cover a person and I would knit the blanket till I ran out of yarn.

Well, as expected, I put down the blanket, probably because it was too hot to knit a wool blanket. I think it’s been about at least four years of sitting is a bag waiting for the right moment. And I guess it’s the right moment. I’m not feeling creative to start a new project (I guess it part of the mourning process). And the weather has been cool and breezy. Things have fallen in place to finish this blanket.

Left to right: one of many balls of double-strand yarn, getting bigger, close-up of 3/5 basketweave pattern

It went quicker than I thought. I bought a Japanese floor chair (no legs, seat cushion with a back) to sit on in front of my monitor to watch my shows as I knitted. It took a little over two weeks to finished. There was a bit of yarn chicken at the end. But I won with about 12″ of yarn to spare.

Left to right: just the ends to weave in; I won yarn chicken

The finished size is w. 38″ x 42″. The pattern is a simple basketweave in a pattern of 3 stitches/ 5 stitches with a border of stockinette 8 stitches wide. It makes me happy that I finished a project. Maybe I can move to a new project soon.

by princesshotflash

What I made in 2023

I started a post the other day about my holiday baking. I couldn’t finish it. I was not feeling it. I decided to dump that post and start a new one about what I made in 2023.

I like doing these wrap-ups at the end of the year. It’s a great way to look back at what I accomplished. It does surprise me how much I got done.

Being a full-time caregiver sometimes feels like I’m a waitress or maid to my parents. This is the reason for my projects. It gives me purpose and keeps my sanity from the stress of caring for loved ones with dementia.

Here’s my rundown of all of my mades.

Stitching

I picked up stitching in 2022 as a way to quiet my brain. It really works. I do it in the morning with my cup of coffee.

Left to right: coaster made with machine and hand quilting, scrappy trivet, scrappy bowl

Lei-making

My beautiful pakalana plants were so fruitful in their second year. I made my ten girlfriends each a (at least three strands) pakalana lei for their birthday. Pakalana is seasonal, so the birthday leis were always a surprise as most of them arrived long after their birthday.

Many stages of leimaking

Quilting

I took on a commission in 2022 to create a quilt with the fabric provided. I could do any pattern, but it needed to be as big as possible. I got stuck for several months after finishing the quilt top. I made no move moment on this quilt. I decided to rework my workroom, which was the key to getting me going again. Now I’m on quilt #7. I got the bug.

All my scrappy quilts. One was commission piece plus seven for donation or gifts.

Knitting

My knitting has been the back seat to my quilting; I have only finished a few items this year.

Left to right, top to bottom: Grandma Nancy’s shawl; Blocking Boneyard and Grandma Nancy’s Shawls in the sun; mitts for a friend; Orange loves to help; Zabutons to throw pillows; Zig zag pillow; February hat; Zick zack scarf

Finishing up          

These are the partially finished projects that were gifted to me that I finished up this year. On Instagram, there’s a group called Loose Ends, that finishes up projects for the loved one. I guess this is my own Loose Ends project. I tried to return the finished project to the giver, or I gifted the project to someone special.

Left to right: This Hawaiian quilt pillow only needed quilting one little corner. I turned it into a pillow by adding an envelope back and binding it in some gifted fabric (in the perfect prints and color), then I made a pillow insert to finish off; I got three embroidered panels she made while recuperating from broken ankles. I turned one of the panels into Komebukuro (rice bag in Japanese) to hold her next project.

I’m stopping here or at this rate, I’ll never publish this before the end of 2024. I hope I have another productive crafty year. Happy New Year!

by princesshotflash

Things are changing

I started this post last night while lying in bed after my dad woke me up at 2am. I heard someone in the kitchen moving around, and I got up to see who it was. I expect to see my mom as her dementia has been fussing with her internal clock, and she wakes up at all hours in the early morning. But instead, I found my dad in a state. He asked me what was going on. I didn’t understand what he was talking about. He said why did I wake him up. I told him I didn’t do that. I was sleeping. I take it he didn’t believe me and went back to his room mad at me.

Well, this just added to my bad mom day, and going back to sleep took a while. I tried to compose this post in my head but refused to get up and start writing on my computer.

Mom’s day reminder
Mom and Orange taking a nap

Besides composing my post in my head, I started to think about how things are probably changing in my life. I think my parents (my mom, for sure) are entering a new phase of dementia. Mom has changed at a rapid speed, and I think she is now in the middle stage. My dad has been stable for quite a while, but I think Mom’s changes have stressed my dad to have this episode last night.

I have appointments for my parent to join an adult daycare group two days a week. I hope it’s not too late for my mom. My hope was the added stimulation of people and activities would help my parent’s dementia or at least slow it down. I also looked forward to having time for myself. I should stay positive that they are okay to join. It is so hard to see her change so quickly.

I’m trying to keep myself busy so I don’t get into a caregivers funk. It is really hard not to let it get to you. I’m do a lot of handwork, it some how keeps the anxiety a bay for me. I’m working on quilt #6, making a pouch for my double points, and knitting on the Noro scarf. Here’s some pictures of my progress.

hand stitching binding
attaching binding
cutting binding
quilt back
quilt top

Quilt #6 for a friend

getting ready to hand quilt
Mamo print, batting, denim
Mamo print

Zipper pouch for my double point needles. Using a Mamo print scrap with denim for the rest of the pouch. Quilting the scap as a Hawaiian quilt patch.

Noro scarf still going
My little helper

I’m still working on my Noro scarf. I’m kind of feeling like it is endless. I’m aiming for the end of the year to finish it up.

I guess that’s it for now. I probably could on and on. But I’ll stop here for now. I need to run out and do some errands while the caregiver is here.

by princesshotflash

Unneeded Items

I am sharing a project I started from the scraps of the donation quilts I’ve been working on. The fabric for the donation quilts comes from the adult bibs from the hospital’s acute care facility. The hospital’s volunteer crafter created them but didn’t need them anymore. I eventually got them to reuse as material for donation quilts to sell at the hospital’s thrift shop.

My pile of bibs in multiple stages of trimmings

For the donation quilts, I trimmed off the neck area and the finished edges to get a large area of fabric to cut my pieces. I had about 20+ bibs, which makes for much trimming waste of the bib’s neckties and finished edges. I thought I could make wrap cord bowls or trivets from the trimmings. It’s like a version of my denim seam trivet I made during the pandemic.

my pile of trimmings
wrapping and stitching
turning the sides

This is definitely a form of slow stitching.

I used the neckties (bias tape) as a cord, then wrapped and twisted the strips of fabric from the finished edges around them. I stitched around the wrapped cord to secure and connect the rows. I laid the wrapped cord on top of the previous row to build up the sides. I ended it by folding it under itself and stitching it tight so it would come apart.

Where my embroidery floss lives
plus a trivet

Two finished pieces

There is still a bunch of trimmings left and more to make. I hope I can use all of it. Reuse, Reduce, Recycle.