Owl Inspiration

My mother is extremely hard to buy presents for. She's 84, has a houseful of stuff, usually doesn't want or need anything more, and is also extremely picky. I have many anecdotes of times when she asked for something specific, I took pains to get her exactly what she said she wanted, and she still wasn't happy with it. I'm generally good at conceiving and preparing presents for people and don't have much trouble coming up with ideas for any of the other people on my list, but it's a challenge to come up with a Mother's Day, birthday, and Christmas present for Mum every year. 

Fortunately there are a few ideas or idea-generating techniques I can fall back on. While the clothes I've bought or made for her have almost never passed muster with her, I am good at picking out jewelry that's to her taste, so I can give her a new pair of earrings, a brooch, or a necklace occasionally. She likes movies, so DVDs can be a good option. She loves to garden, so something for her garden makes a good gift for Mother's Day. She also has some use for notebooks and notecards. Two other possible avenues are Irish/Celtic things, or owl stuff. Mum's ancestry is over half Irish, she was brought up by her Irish-born maternal grandparents, and she has always felt very connected to her Irish roots and likes Irish things. Mum thinks owls are very cute ("They're wise, and they have big eyes,") so all year round, whenever and wherever I shop, I keep an eye out for Irish things or cute, useful owl-themed items that she might like. Over the years I've given my mother an owl brooch, owl fabric tote bags, an owl trivet, owl potholders, an owl tea towel, a red plastic owl kitchen timer, and an owl cushion I knitted for her. 

If I'm stuck for an idea I go to Winners or Home Sense or some such store or browse around looking for something she might like and be able to use, which often works. If I'm really stuck, I can ask my mother directly what she wants, though I prefer to surprise her and sometimes even she can't think of anything she wants. 

This year when casting about for a good Christmas gift idea, I thought owl stationery might be a good direction. Perhaps I could get her an owl notebook, owl letter paper or notecards and envelopes, and maybe even an owl pen to go with them. I searched online but couldn't find anything suitable in the way of an owl notebook or owl notecards. Then it occurred to me that perhaps I could make her some stationery using stencils.

 

 

 

 

Dollarama has carried a cute little owl stamp set for several years, and I had always thought of my mother whenever I saw it, but never bought it because I didn't think she'd have a use for it. Then when I came up with the idea of making a stationery set for my mother, I thought it would do very well for the purpose, so I bought it. But when I experimented with it, I was disappointed. I couldn't seem to get the kind of clean, sharp images I wanted with it. It was much more a child's arts and crafts plaything that anything that was going to produce the level of artwork my mother would approve of. I dumped the owl stamp set in the cardboard box of kids' art supplies I keep on hand for when children visit me, and went back to the stencilling board. After first looking in Michaels for an owl stencil of the right size, I purchased the stencil above online. 

 

 

 

I had plenty of card stock, watercolour paper, and envelopes on hand for the notecards, plus a reasonable selection of craft paint for the stencils. I tried to find an inexpensive notebook with a plain cover that could be stencilled, but didn't have any luck with that. As for pens, I searched all the stores within walking distance of my house, then bought the set of four you see depicted above online. They're quite cute, and while I had my misgivings about their potential quality, when they arrived and I tested them, I was pleased to find that they write fluidly, are comfortable to grip, and feel well-balanced in the hand. 

 

 

      

When it came time to make the cards, I decided I would make 10 cards in a smaller 3.5" x 6.5" size and 10 in a larger 5.5" x 7.5" size, given that I had envelopes in both sizes on hand. To make the cards, I cut card stock to double the size of the intended card and folded it, then cut 24 corresponding frontispieces out of watercolour paper which I could attach to the folded notecards with double-sided plastic tape once I had the stencilling done. Because I could also use the front or the back of the watercolour paper frontispieces for stencilling unless a particular piece had a watermark on it, this gave me a fairly generous amount of leeway for screwing up during the stencilling process, which I was confident I would need. 

I was right about that. I enjoyed the stencilling process, but it wasn't without its moments of sick dread, when I was sure the results were going to look bad. Putting on my painting shirt and mucking about with paint took me back to my art school days of over twenty years ago, when both my classroom and homework hours made me feel like a little kid, happily playing with art supplies, while also at the same time hoping anxiously that the results didn't look like something a little kid would produce.

For the smaller cards, I chose two shades: cerulean blue and silver sterling. To keep two or more shades of paint pure and distinct when stencilling, one would probably have to stencil the different colours separately. Being that I was working on this project on Christmas Eve and was pressed for time, I did both shades at once, which resulted in some blending of the shades, but I thought it made for a prettier and more interesting look than two flat shades would have done. Doing colours separately or together could be a design choice, depending on the effect one wants. What wasn't a design choice was the bleeding of colours over the defining lines of the stencil. It's crucial to make sure that one doesn't use too much paint when stencilling, as one wants a clean, sharp image. 

I did all twelve of the smaller frontispieces, flipping some over for a second chance when necessary, then selected the ten best pieces, photographed above. I was modestly pleased with the result. I also think I did a pretty good job of centering the images given that I didn't do any measuring or marking -- I just eyeballed it.

  

 

 

 

Once the smaller frontispieces were done and set aside to dry, I began work on the larger set. For the bigger cards, I chose leaf green and spun gold paints, and the larger owl stencil. The combination worked less well than the blue and silver of the smaller notecards, probably because the gold was too light a shade to have the visual impact it needed. I got the bottle of cerulean blue and added it in to the mix, sometimes painting over the existing gold once it dried, sometimes flipping over the frontispiece for fresh start. When all twelve cards were done, I picked out the ten best cards, which you see depicted above. They didn't look so bad in the end, though I still think the smaller cards turned out better.

 

 

Once the frontispieces were dry and I'd assembled the cards by sticking them in place on the folded notecards, I packed them and the owl pens in a box I had on hand, one that had been the box for a fancy photo album I'd been given. It was just the right size for this set, and made for both convenient storage and decent presentation.

I think my owl stationery set idea translated into reality fairly well, and that the result is something my mother will at least not be embarrassed to fill with her still-perfect old school elementary schoolteacher's script. The set doesn't quite have the level of professional design and polish I was hoping to achieve, but it's cute and workmanlike. 

The Better Late Than Never Top

 

Several years ago, after being forced to discard a worn-out brown cotton thrift shop top that had been a very useful, reliable piece while I had it, I decided that I'd replace it with a hand knitted brown cotton top that I could wear with a number of my skirts, shorts, and trousers in summer. I searched Ravelry for a suitable pattern in a fingering weight yarn, couldn't find one, and promptly decided I would just have to design one myself. I envisioned a sleeveless top with a stockinette body and an Art Nouveau-style panel of stitchwork running up the front.

Then I needed yarn. I looked at similar projects on Ravelry to get an idea of how much yarn I needed, and concluded that this project would call for about 200 grams, and that I should get 250 grams to be on the safe side. But I had some difficulty in finding the dark brown cotton fingering yarn I wanted. I checked all my usual go-to yarn stores (Romni Wools, Ewe Knit, Michaels, Mary Maxim, Spinrite), and none of them had a cotton fingering in the shade of brown I wanted. Brown can be a difficult colour to work with, as it comes in so many shades. I often can't find the kind of rich dark brown that I use as a base neutral in my wardrobe, and even when I can, it often comes in an unfortunate tone -- purplish, pinkish, or greyish -- that does not look right with the other, autumnal-tone items from my wardrobe. But I was sure that the yarn I wanted must be out there somewhere, and I turned to Ravelry's invaluable yarn search function to find it. Eventually I tracked down a yarn that was just right: Knit Picks Comfy Fingering in Coffee. I always find ordering online to be a bit of a crap shoot, because I can't be sure the yarn I order will have the right colour tone and a nice feel to it, and so I placed my order with some trepidation, but upon arrival, this yarn proved to be exactly what I wanted. The colour was just right and it was a lovely yarn to work with and, true to its name, comfy to wear.   

Then I had the yarn, a vision of what the top would look like, and good intentions... and the yarn just sat there from the time I received it in June 2019 until June 2022. At that point I decided I wanted to wear the top to my parents' 60th anniversary party in August with one particular skirt of mine, and that it was time to get cracking on this project. Realistically, I wouldn't have time to fuss around and create my own stitchwork pattern for the front panel, but I had five different knitting stitch reference books, and surely I could find a suitable stitch pattern in one of those. Accordingly I went through all of those five books. I looked for something that had an Art Nouveau feel to it. Eventually I settled on pattern #1 from the Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible by Hitomi Shida. 

And here's the completed top. It took me much longer to knit than I hoped, though I suppose that's to be expected when there's no pattern and one is just figuring out the mechanics as one goes along. The back, which is plain stockinette, knitted up very quickly and without issue, but I had some difficulty figuring out some of the instructions for the lace panel for the front. There was one particular stitch arrangement I just couldn't seem to figure out from the instructions. After a week of being effectively stalled in one place, I got the hang of it and began to progress again. I finished the front, did the seaming, and then I knitted the neckband, only to find I had picked up too many stitches for it, so much so I didn't even bother to try it on. I ripped the neckband out and did it again, and this time discovered that while the neckband was fine in itself, I had made the neckline too low for my or anyone else's comfort. It wasn't indecent, but I am 49 now and it is time for me to start covering it up and putting it away. I took out the neckband and the shoulder seams and ripped the front back to where I began the neckline, and added another repeat of the lace pattern before shaping the neckline and reknitting each side to the shoulders. I re-seamed the shoulders and put the neckband in again, then moved onto the armhole bands, where again my first attempt involved too many stitches. I ripped out and redid it with 112 stitches instead of 128, and this time it worked, so from then on it was clear sailing to do the other armhole band and weave in the ends of yarn. I am pleased with the finished piece. The shaping is good, the lace panel is very pretty, and the yarn I used is perfect. 

The jersey print skirt that you see in the photo above used to be a dress, which I had originally made circa 2005. Thirteen years later the dress had become dated and too young for me and I no longer wanted to wear it, but as documented in this post about three skirts that I made out of former dresses, I loved the fabric so much I couldn't bear to throw it out, and in 2018 I cut it down into a skirt that I can wear until it's worn out. I am so happy to now have this knitted top to wear with it, as they work very well together. I had hoped to wear this outfit to my parents' diamond anniversary in August, but with all the difficulties I ran into, and given that I was also concurrently working on my grandnephew Bug's birthday sweater, which had to take precedence, it was not finished in time. Instead I paired the jersey skirt with a dark brown silk top I had sewed for myself in 2018. That combination made a nice outfit too, even if cotton would have been better than silk for such a warm day.

It makes me wince to think of how, in 2012, I bought a silk polyester fabric to make a dress for my parents' 50th anniversary, and didn't get it made that year. I made that dress in 2018 (as well as a coordinating velvet clutch, no less) with the idea that I'd wear it to my nephew's wedding in Alberta, but then when I couldn't afford to go to Alberta for the wedding, I comforted myself with the idea that at least the dress was ready for my parents' 60th anniversary in 2022. However, when my family planned the diamond anniversary celebration, it was not a formal dinner at a rented venue as their golden anniversary had been, but an informal, outdoor, "come and go" event at my oldest brother's farm, at which all the children and even some of the younger adults were running around barefoot. A number of the women there were wearing very simple, casual dresses, but that silk cocktail dress would have looked absurdly out of place. (That poor dress! Is it fated never to be worn?) So I planned this knitted top, which would go so nicely with my print jersey skirt... and didn't get it finished in time either... and now I have a pattern of not being able to finish projects in time for my parents' anniversary parties. Hopefully I'll be able to get my act together a little better for my parents' 70th/platinum anniversary in 2032. It'll be my last chance to do so, because after that occasion, they will be all out of precious metal/gemstone anniversaries and will be proceeding to their "rust and decay" anniversaries. Moreover by that time, even as their second-youngest child, whatever I make for me will need to coordinate with support hose.     

A Christmas Sweater

On New Year's Eve 2021, I spent my evening doing some knitting project planning and organizing for the coming year... in between swigs of homemade Bailey's. (Don't tell me knitters don't know how to party.) I'd picked out a pattern for my honorary niece Olivia's Christmas 2022 sweater the previous August, but when I was writing up my yarn shopping list for the coming year on New Year's Eve, I checked my stash to see if I had anything suitable.

 

This is the Sverrigsgade pattern, designed by Sanne Bjerregaard. It's a free pattern, it's quite strikingly attractive and visually interesting, and as multi-coloured striped patterns tend to be, it's an excellent stash buster. I love the colourway used in the sample pattern, and had rather hoped to replicate it, but after a look through my stash, I wound up going with the alternate palette I found there. When it came down to my paying what is for me a considerable chunk of money to buy the ideal yarn for this project, or using the suitable and attractive no-cost yarn from my stash, it was an easy call.  

I had in my storage box of DK yarn 200 grams of a tan-coloured yarn that I'd bought online from Mary Maxim and that proved not to be the right shade for my purpose when it arrived. I would have returned it, but the Mary Maxim customer service person told me it would cost me more to send it back than the refund would be, so I sighed resignedly, kept it, and simply ordered more in the right shade. I decided those two inadvertently purchased skeins would work quite well as the main colour for this design. I also had small amounts of red, wine, dark green, and kelly green DK yarn left over from other projects that I thought worked together well and went fairly well with the tan, and so would do for the contrast colours.

The completed sweater in a size six. I'm pretty pleased with it. The colourway isn't bad at all for something put together out of odds and ends while not entirely sober. It has a Christmassy look, which is a plus for a Christmas present, but not so much so that it can't be worn all winter. It will also suit Olivia's colouring of brown hair, olive eyes, and faintly olive-tinged fair skin quite well. This pattern is well-written and knitted up without any problems. I was keeping an anxious eye on the red yarn, as I feared it might run out before the sweater was done, but it went the distance. I went with neutral buttons on the shoulder, as I couldn't seem to match any of the contrast colours in the sweater to any of the buttons Fabricland carries. 

I've also purchased a dollar store suncatcher painting kit and a thrift shop copy of The Borrowers for Olivia's Christmas present, but the present isn't yet complete. I have a plan to make something else to go with it, something special that warrants its own post, so watch this space.

Not So Little Boy Blue

My grandnephew Bug turned nine in July 2022. Like a good knitter and a passable great-aunt, I began planning his birthday present sweater well in advance. Ravelry tells me I added the pattern I used for his sweater to my queue on August 26, 2021.  

The design I chose was the one you see pictured above, the imaginatively named 1208-02, by Sandnes Design. I've had my eye on this pattern since Bug was a preschooler and have always thought it had quite a bit of style. In December 2021, when Romni Wools was having its annual December sale, I bought the yarn for the project: Drops Karisma in Vert Mix (colour 50) for the main colour, and Light Pearl Gray (colour 72) for the contrast. I had to go with marbled gray buttons for the placket as the blue proved impossible to match. 

And here's the finished product, made in a size 10. The pattern wasn't the best written and I wound up having to redo the sleeve cap, armhole, and shoulder shaping a few times -- as well as recalculate and rewrite the directions -- before I got it right. But eventually the sweater was completed and I was pleased with the result. Bug received his birthday present in August, at my parents' 60th wedding anniversary party. He put it on to model it for us and then refused to take it off, despite repeated urgings from his mother, for what must have been close to an hour, even though the temperature couldn't have been much under 30 degrees Celsius. But hey, it was a brand new sweater and we all told Bug how handsome he looked in it, and I have known many a grown man more susceptible to flattery than Bug was being that day. It was a little big on him, but not unwearably so, and I consider that ideal as it means he can probably get two years of wear out of it rather than just one before he grows out of it. 

The lovely tweedy blue colour really suited Bug. He has light brown hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, and blue is very much his colour. I've made him nine sweaters in his life and seven of the nine have been blue or partly blue. I keep telling myself that I need to make Bug's sweaters in a variety of colours, that he'll get tired of wearing blue, but then I go yarn shopping and see a beautiful blue yarn that would look soooo good on him, and I just can't resist. Oh well, I have used a variety of shades of blue and different designs, and I doubt Bug feels like he's getting the same sweater from me every year.      

Besides the sweater, Bug got binoculars with a compass built into it and two Hot Wheels cars. I don't know how good the binoculars are (they were $4 at Dollarama), but they should do well enough for a toy.  

And yes, I've already picked out the design I'm going to use for his tenth birthday sweater. 

Style and Polish

My grandniece Cauliflower turned 13 in August 2022. I have, until this year, been alternately making a dress for her on her "odd" years and a sweater on her "evens", but the dress I made her for eleventh birthday was the last one I am ever likely to sew for her. She's reached the age where she needs her dresses fitted on her, and I can't do that as I so seldom see her, so it's sweaters from now on. My sister-in-law tells me this is just as well, as Cauliflower isn't currently as much into dresses as she was when she was little, and would probably prefer to get a sweater for her birthday anyway. 

This year my project plan began with my finding 100 grams of bright blue (left over from a cardigan I made for my father years ago) and 190 grams of Patons Decor in Rose Temptation (left over from a cardigan I made for me) in my stash, deciding they looked nice together, and then looking for a sweater design that would be suitable for them both, with the addition of some new yarn in a coordinating main colour. 

This year I directed my search among the adult-size designs, instead of children's patterns, as Cauliflower has recently begun to wear extra small women's sizes. It didn't take me long to settle on the Vintersol sweater, designed by Jennifer Steingass, which I would be knitting in its smallest size. I already owned a copy of it as I have used the design before to make a sweater for me, so that was a cost-efficient plus. Not that a teenaged girl would want to wear the same style of sweater as her middle-aged great aunt, but again, I seldom see her, and will just have to remember not to wear that particular sweater around her for the next few years. 

For my main colour of yarn, I went to Michaels with a yarn sampler of the two colours I already had, and selected Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Riverside, or as I'd describe it, a rich dark blue which is just a few shades shy of navy. I bought three skeins of yarn one skein at a time with Michael's coupons, which brought the total cost of this project to $16.59. 

The finished sweater. It didn't photograph all that well -- the rose colour looks a little psychedelic -- but I am quite pleased with its actual appearance, and Cauliflower liked it too. The design is so effective, and the colours work together well. She plans to pair it with navy blue leggings and wear it to her figure skating lessons.    

Along with the sweater, Cauliflower received a manicure kit I put together for her. Every year I mark her and her younger brother's progress towards maturity through their gifts, figuring out what clothing size they'll be, and weighing the age appropriateness of the other gifts I get them. Thirteen is too old for toys, but there are plenty of useful things that can be packaged in a fun and attractive way for a brand new teenaged girl. I think thirteen is still a little young for makeup -- high school is surely soon enough for girls to start wearing cosmetics -- but Cauliflower is certainly old enough to do her nails if she wants to, and I know from my own revamp of my manicure kit what a pleasure it is to have a well-organized and good-looking kit to use. So I decided to put together a manicure kit for her. I made a fabric case to hold the various items, and also ordered a book online (secondhand, but it's good as new) that will tell her everything she needs to know in order to do her nails to a professional standard.

Besides the larger case seen above, I sewed a tissue case and two smaller vanity cases to go inside the kit.  I had remnants of the red polka dot and the blue, red, and white print fabrics you see above on hand, and though they were from separate projects they work together very prettily. I had the zippers for the vanity case in my zipper box too, salvaged from worn-out items but still in good shape. I just had to buy one red zipper for the larger case.

Then I bought a manicure set, emery boards, nail polish remover, and an array of nail polish from the dollar store. My own practice is to keep just two shades of nail polish on hand, plus a bottle of clear polish. I have never in my life used an entire bottle of nail polish before it got too old and hardened to be usable, so buying only two colours keeps the wastefulness down, and besides, I know what I like: an old rose and a light, shimmery copper. Both colours are visually pleasing to me, go well with my skin tone, and are low-key enough to go with most of my clothes without clashing. But then that's me, a middle-aged woman who knows what her lane is and is content to stay in it, while Cauliflower is a young girl who needs to play and experiment and find out what she likes and what suits her. For her I bought a selection of nail polishes that I thought would suit her colouring.

As with my own manicure kit, I put cotton balls and swabs in the one case, and emery boards in the other, but Cauliflower will be able to organize her kit however she likes now that she has it. There is also room in the larger case for her to add equipment/supplies to the basics I've provided if she wishes to.

I gave Cauliflower's birthday present to her this past weekend, and she seemed very pleased with everything. The sweater and manicure set don't seem to me to be such a bad gift for a newly minted teenager, and will hopefully help Cauliflower embark on her teens in style.