Slow Sunday Stitching - January 4, 2026

New Year, New Start.  This time around, it's knitting.   My Christmas gift yarn didn't stay in the stash long enough to even get on the shelf!  It's going to be another Musselburgh Hat!  All the first crown increases are done and it's on the way down that long stretch of straight stocking stitch in the round to the second crown.   This is the hat that gets folded in half - one end inserted into the other - to make a double thick hat with four layers over the ears.  Toasty!

love the autumnal colors in this yarn

Hope everyone had a great holiday season.  I am so not ready for the start of the second semester on Tuesday.   This whole retirement career as a teacher is not great.  I'd rather be the fun grandma that does trips and outings than the one that has to nag about homework.  On the other hand, his grades are up.

Crafting is my solace, as always.   It's always been something that STAYS DONE - unlike housework, work or now teaching.  Except when it doesn't stay done.  Current example - remember the Willow LOSY Hat that I lost the game of yarn chicken on?   Well, that line where I subbed in another fuzzy yarn to finish off the crown bugged me enough that I couldn't bring myself to donate it when the time came.  My rule of thumb for charity knits is, "Would I gift this to a family member?"  The people getting my charity crafting deserve good materials and my best workmanship.  As it stood, this hat did not make the cut.

So that hat came home from church with me, unblessed and undonated.   And I ripped it back to just an inch and a half (and it was just as difficult to frog back as I had thought it would be), dug the green and white yarns out of the stash and reknit it with spiral stripes of white and cream (both paired with the willow green) up to the start of the crown.  Look, no nasty line of demarcation! There's about the same number of rows with just the cream/green at the top and bottom areas, so the addition of the white in the center looks deliberate and barely detectable.   Should have done that when I finished it the FIRST time.

now it passes the 'family' test for donations

And here's another 'second time around FFO'!   The repair on my grandson's Christmas Stocking is done!  (See the entire saga in this post).  

Was there needlework in and around all that knitting?  Yes.  I'm keeping up the 100 stitches or more a day on the Mead Dragon.  And working on the Garden Santa perforated paper ornament.

 

I've got about 3.5 hours in on him and he's at 494 / 1727 stitches or 28.60% (plus some backstitch and embellishments to put in at the end).  Hoping to finish off his cute garden clogs this afternoon!

Linking up with the SSS crew to see what they are all up to in the New Year.

Slow Sunday Stitching - December 28, 2025

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season.  I had a fairly quiet one, with just family at my son's house.  We did a taco bar.   I got some practical gifts - a vacuum sealer, a new drill (at my request), and sock yarn (though I think it will be a hat or cowl since it has yak fiber and silk in it). 

I'm sharing the December Temperature Log early since it will be a finish right after midnight on New Year's Eve.  December's specialty stitch is "Octagonal Eyelet".  Our high temps have been fairly warm, so we are not really into the blue part of the spectrum.

And here's a close up:

Look for the Finish on New Year's Day, though it will need to be framed at some point.

Today's Slow Stitching is hemming.  My granddaughter's other grandma bought her a couple pairs of lounge pants that are too long.   I've done one pair already, and here's the second pair in progress.  I do like using my vintage sewing bird when doing hemming or seam felling.  Being able to keep tension on the piece makes it so much easier.

Linking up with the other Slow Sunday Stitching folk.  (See this week's links here.)

A Christmas Stocking disaster - and the resolution

Riley, my son's dog, strikes again.   This is the same dog that ate the edge of Alexis' blanket as a puppy.  This time she targeted Carl's Christmas Stocking.   I think she was intrigued by the buttons that embellished the snowman, because she basically ate his head!

There were two of the 'mouth' beads left out of the five that were the mouth and eyes, so at least I can put eyes back on, and the metal carrot button the was the nose is more or less intact.  It's scratched up a bit, but still useable.

The yarn is a standard worsted weight single by Brown Sheep Co - a semi-local mill and is in stock over at the Yarn Barn of KS.  Road Trip!  I'll need one skein of the blue and one of white and just a tiny bit of black for the hat.

The plan is to run a lifeline just at the bottom of the top (name) band in the last row of red, drop off the bottom of the stocking.  Then rip back to just below the "neck" row, reknit the damaged area, kitchner stitch the top back on and then add the snowman's head and hat back on with Swiss Darning, and put back the eyes and nose embellishments.   I've done similar 'sweater surgery' before and it works out fine.  Any knitted item that's made of stocking stitch can be cut apart and reknit in either direction.  Only works for plain knitting, though.

Monday 12/22/2025

Materials acquired.  The gals at the Yarn Barn were so nice; they even found a scrap of black, so I didn't have to buy an entire 190-yard skein for the twenty or so Swiss darning stitches I need for the top hat!   The blue is only off by a dyelot difference, so if I pull back two or three intact rows and knit it up striping the old and new yarns, it should trick the eye into blending the two very close shades.   It's only when there's a stark dividing line that dyelot changes get problematic. 

Lifelines run and starting to pull out the damaged section.  We are at the 'it looks worse before it looks better' stage.

Tuesday 12/23/2025

The top is all pulled back to the lifeline.  I used my interchangeable needle set cable as a lifeline because all I will need to do is put on a needle tip and it will be ready to kitchner.

And the bottom of the stocking is about halfway to the grafting point.   I had to go one row further down than I'd originally intended due to the way mom did the intarsia section originally, but that's fine.  I think I matched my mom's gauge pretty well, and the stripes to disguise the dyelot change seem to be doing their job sufficiently.  You can sort of see that there are stripes, but there's no line of demarcation.  And the Swiss Darning embroidery and the face embellishments will push all the blue into the background in the end.

12/24/2025 Wednesday

Kitchner has started.  It's a long way around this thing comparted to sock toes!

And kitchner is done!  Back seam all put back together, too.   Ready for the swiss darning.

12/26/2025 Friday

The snowman is no longer headless (or hatless).   He does, however, need a good blocking.   We were not able to find the rest of the beads that were chewed off to be able to give him a mouth, so I have some Mill Hill pony beads coming from 123Stitch.   Hopefully they will be here early next week. 

12/31/2025

He's blocking and the beads are 'ready to ship'.  So hopefully this will be finished soon.

1/2/2026

Carl's only comment was 'finally'!  LOL.  He has no idea.

Mending Monday - "Running" a damaged sock

An almost forgotten skill these days is mending (either re-weaving or swiss darning) socks.   I've used Swiss Darning to embellish socks (like Bob's Christmas Stocking), but it can also be used to reinforce thin spots that develop as socks wear out.   If the fabric of the sock is worn all the way through, 'running' the sock was used to put a patch on it.  Basically small running stitches are placed horizontally and vertically to  fill in the hole.  The yarn on this sock is an Aran weight, so I was able to actually weave over the vertical stitches to further reinforce the patch.

My Red House Socks (Ravelry link) didn't love being worn almost daily over the last couple of winters and they finally wore through under the ball of the foot.   I found some leftover yarn that's a close match, though it's two ply instead of the original bulky singles yarn.  I used Swiss Darning on the outside of the sock and 'ran' the inside in plain weave.  Hopefully the two layers will felt together while sandwiching the remaining bit of the destroyed layer between them.

Swiss Darn on the outside

"Running" (ie weaving) on the inside

The "before' damage - just barely hanging on!

 

Mending Monday: Drawstrings

 This little patchwork cotton pouch came with a jewelry purchase just before the pandemic hit.   The necklace went into the jewelry box and I started using the pouch to store my hairpins in my purse.  When my hair (which is fairly long) is put up, it makes resting my head against the back of the seat in the car quite uncomfortable.  So I put my hair up once I get to the office and take it down prior to my commute home.   There's no reason to have a sore neck after the hour plus drive!   But hairpins get lost in the bottom of a purse, so corralling them is necessary.

The only issue is that the drawstrings on the bag were made of a lightweight yarn and broke almost immediately.   Now that we are approaching having to go back to the office at least part of the time, I need to get the drawstrings replaced so the pouch can serve it's purpose.  I had the tools for making twisted cord out to do the finishing on the Sweetheart Sewing Tin, so I took the opportunity make enough cord for this repair as well.   This is a 2 ply cord out of embroidery floss; each ply is four full strands of floss.  Any larger cord would not fit through the casing, it's pretty snug as it is.

Back in business.

Mending Monday: Alexis' ripple afghan

 Back in 2015 I made each of the grandkids a ripple afghan.  Alexis' recently fell afoul of their puppy.

 

If it had been a tear on the final edge, it would have just been a matter of pulling it back to the first intact row and securing the ends.  But Riley (puppy) ate the foundation chain.   So I had to pick out the first four rows stitch by stitch; I went back to the grey that was between the pink and peach.

That left the base 'post' of each intact stitch waving in the wind.  Can't leave it like that, of course; they are more stable than knit stitches, but they WILL pull out eventually.  I am only a casual crocheter, so I fudged a fix.  On each stitch, I hooked one leg of the post through the other, then did a single stitch with the working end and the post.  I put one chain stitch between each single at the top of the ripples and worked two together twice at the valley of the ripples.   

I think it looks pretty good.   My grandson once told his teacher, "Mimi can fix anything."  My reputation is intact LOL!

Mending Monday: Darn it

I love hand knit socks.   They fit in ways that commercial socks cannot, at least once you get a couple of pairs under your needles and know how to modify a pattern to get a good fit.   I have only had one pair (my first pair of stranded colorwork socks) not be successful.  And that was just because I didn't account enough for the fact that colorwork doesn't stretch.  For someone with more 'normal' arches, they would have fit fine, but I have high arches and a wide foot and need extra stretch in the instep. 

But I do have to admit, there is down side of only wearing hand knit socks.   When they are damaged, it is heartbreaking.  Especially if they are a favorite pair or a newer pair.

This pair is a favorite pair.  They are the perfect shade of pink to go with one of my most flattering tops that is pink, cream and brown patterned.   They make me smile, and the yarn was dyed by a local dyer.   So when they were snagged (which it totally my fault for wearing them without shoes and going down into the basement), I was determined not to trash them. 

Darning to the rescue.

This is my darning egg, it's a generic Dritz one, nothing fancy or vintage.   I know my grandmother and even my mom had darning eggs.  My grandmother's was a very cool one made out of some black rock, maybe hard coal.  But I haven't come across them.  I think my sister may have the rock one, she was fascinated by it when she was little. 

Basically you do three or four duplicate stitches / Swiss Darning before the snag and three or four after.  The ends will felt down into the original knitting, so just cut the ends off about a quarter of an inch long on the inside.

All better.  This is the same yarn, by the way, the original pair has been washed many times and has faded and stained a bit from being inside of shoes.   It's on the sole, so no worries.

Mending Monday: hems for brown slacks

I did a LOT of laundry this weekend.   And discovered when hanging up my favorite pair of dress slacks for work, that I've managed to rip out BOTH hems.

I don't set up a machine to do such a small repair.   I actually enjoy hemming.   You can see where I started on the right hem underneath before I thought to take a photo. 

I'm using just a standard dressmaker's stitch but the bight going into the turned up hem is quite deep - about a quarter inch.   That's because the raw edge on these was originally over cast (overlocked), then hemmed up.   As you can see on the left side one, the overlock stitch is totally missing in a lot of places.  Either it was not well done originally, or pulled out with the hem.   That's a real issue with chain stitch machines - get ahold of just the right place and the entire thing unzips itself.    Good for a feedbag or the top of a sugar package.  Not so good with hems.

So the new stitches have to do double duty to secure that edge from unraveling and hold the hem.
And all fixed and ready to wear tomorrow.

Yes, that's the back side of "Millennium" in the 'done' picture.  My needlework chair has the best light in the house.  So I tend to settle there to do all types of hand work.