Restless needles

I have to have a project on my knitting needles at all times. If I don't, I feel at loose ends. I like the security of knowing I can be knitting on something if I'm watching television or riding in the car.

Here are a few of my March-April projects.

The owl, a rather odd-looking specimen, I admit, is from Purl Bee. I chose the pattern because I like the criss-cross design in the owl's body.

On Christmas Eve we were at our friends' home, and a very pregnant guest mentioned that her baby's room would be decorated with owls. My ears perked up. I love an excuse to knit baby things, so I made a mental note to  knit an owl for the baby's room.

Here's the completed cardigan for little Phoebe. It's a size 3-4. I wrote about my problems with this pattern in an earlier post. The finished cardigan came out OK. I still need to find just the right button for it. I'm thinking something large and bling-y is in order. The pattern is Sirdar's #1401; the yarn is Sirdar Snuggly DK.

My eight-year-old great niece, Violet, mentioned in February that she desperately needed a pair of fingerless gloves. I almost weakened and gave her a rather fancy pair I'd made for someone else. Then I decided to make her a pair of plain ones using leftover sock yarn. It's not that I think Violet isn't worthy of a pair of fancy fingerless gloves, but she's eight. Eight-year-olds lose things. I'd share the pattern if I could find it. It's no doubt from Ravelry, where I find tons of excellent, mostly free, patterns. I noticed Violet was wearing her new gloves as she left our home on Easter Sunday.

Violet's mother Rachel and I are going to have a craft fair at a strawberry festival at the end of June. I've been making several strawberry-themed  things for the fair, the next two items among them.

At left is a knitted and felted purse. It sports a strawberry design on the front and a lining of strawberry-strewn cotton.

The strawberry hat is knitted in garter stitch with strawberry leaves and stem attached.

It'll be interesting to see if any of our craft items actually sell. I learned long ago that pricing handmade items is tricky. Either the buyer is insulted by the price, or the seller is. Most buyers don't place much value on handmade items, so it's ridiculous to put an accurate price on, say, the handbag above. If I followed the rule of thumb of pricing for  the handbag, I'd charge twice the price of the yarn plus the value of my time. Let's say the yarn was $8, so that times two is $16. Let's say I spent four hours knitting the handbag, another hour machine-felting it, an hour adding the lining, two hours knitting and felting the embellishments….that's 8 hours of my time. Let's say I feel $10 per hour is fair pay. That's $80 for my time, $16 for my materials….$96. Absolutely no one attending the strawberry festival will be willing to pay $96 for a hand knitted, felted, and embellished (AND lined) strawberry handbag. I can almost guarantee you that. I'll probably put a price of $30 on it, and I'll probably be bringing it back home with me at the end of the craft fair!

I like to keep a sock project on my needles at all times. That way, when I finish a bigger project and am in that between-projects zone, I can always pick up the socks and work on them. My one and only sock pattern is by Yankee Knitter. It's a great sock pattern, very well written. I love Yankee Knitter knitting patterns.

I started these socks last August and worked on them here and there over the next several months. In fact, I got sick and tired of them. But now they're done. DONE, I tell you. They'll make a nice addition to my drawer of wool socks, and wool socks are my sock of choice in the winter. They are so much warmer than cotton socks!

So that's what my needles and I have been up to.

Dabbling in cold porcelain

Our eight-year-old great niece, Violet, came for a two-night sleepover earlier this week, so she and I  got right to work on a new project: making cold porcelain.

Cold porcelain isn't actually porcelain. It's made of corn starch, white glue, a dab of Vaseline, and some water. (I add a few drops of tea tree oil to prevent the items we made from developing a mold or fungus.)

I found several recipes for cold porcelain on Pinterest while I was looking for recipes for homemade polymer clay. The two might be one and the same; I'm not sure.

I got the white glue at Dollar Tree, two 4-ounce bottles for, you guessed it, $1. I used maybe 1/4 box of corn starch. In other words, the cost for making cold porcelain is minimal.

Cold porcelain creations on Pinterest are much more detailed and complicated than those that Violet and I undertook. We're novices, though, and some of the Pinterest cold porcelain creators are artists, from the looks of things.

Violet sculpted a cat, a bird, and, of course, a violet blossom.

I used cookie cutters to make what will eventually become gift tags.

The porcelain takes 3-4 days to dry, so I'm just now putting layers of ModPodge on mine. Next I'll spray them with an acrylic sealer.

Maybe I'll mix up another batch of cold porcelain and branch out a bit with my creations. It's fun stuff to work with, and I'm sure the possible creations are almost limitless.

Honoring

On Tuesday morning, April 1, Ken and I left here bright and early for the 45-minute drive to Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth.

We were there to attend a ceremony to honor eight of Ken's ancestors: George Osborn, Sr., and his seven sons, all of whom served our country at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. George, Sr., joined the military two days after the first shots were fired in Lexington, MA, on April 19, 1775.

George Osborn's seven sons followed suit, the youngest being only eleven years old when he was assigned to a ship in the Massachusetts Navy.

That's quite a remarkable military record for any family, and when Ken's second-cousin Stephen uncovered this family history, he made arrangements to have the eight Osborns honored at the April 1, 2014 ceremony.

The day could not have been more beautiful in front of Portland Head Light at Fort Williams Park. Nor could it have been colder. A brisk wind blew off the ocean the entire time we were there.

There's Portland Head Light herself, looking stunning, as usual.

Five of George Osborn's descendants, including Ken, were presented with American flags as mementos of the Osborn family's service.

It was a beautiful ceremony and a humbling occasion. You can read more about it here.