New Knit Socks (et al.)

 Some more crafty updates today!  Earlier this year my senior graduate student graduated and she got a taxidermied mouse as a graduation present.  She asked me to make it a lab coat and a knitted shawl.  The lab coat was ok, but I decided to make the shawl crocheted intead of knitted.  No pattern, but I think it came out ok.  Sadly I don't have any pictures of the mouse wearing these items.  Science crafty mice for the win!

Also earler this summer, while at a wonderful cerebrovascular biology conference, I knitted a pair of socks.  I the same general approach I always do but I screwed up the heels twice.  And after un-knitting once, I gave up after the second time.  Somehow the socks are the right length but the heels are gigantic.  The were frankensocks (to use up scrap yarn) and I love all the colors, but I just wish the heels weren't so big.  I guess if I ever have lower extremity edema they'll be great.  Of course I'm wearing them anyway!  I saw a book called "How to knit socks that fit" and I think I need to get it!

Miscellaneous knitting and crochet

 Having now past both Christmas and Valentine's day I thought I'd share a bunch of knit and crochet projects from the last 4-5 months.  Some of them were gifts and some not, but I'd never had a chance to blog about any of them.

First up are these ankle socks.  This pair of ankle socks uses leftover yarn from two other pairs.  I wanted to do something different for the cuff so I followed this cute short row petal pattern I found in a sock knitting book.  Unfortunately I thought I had the pattern memorized and sort of screwed myself up for the bind off but they came out cute.

These socks were for my mom, I actually knit them for her a couple of years ago but I used crappy yarn for the heels and it had worn through.  Therewasn't really much point to mending them, so I took them apart and knit new heels and a cuff.  I gave them back to her and hope she can wear them.  And the moral of the story is never knit socks with anything except sock yarn.

This year I also really committed to learning colorwork.  I started by working on a colorwork tote bag but transitioned away from that (a WIP I'll get back to at some point) to start on some hats as presents.  A couple of years ago my mom gave me the knitting the national parks book which has colorwork hat patterns for each national park.

I started out by making the Yellowstone one as a Christmas present for my friend Brett and the Saguaro National Park one for my friend Melody.  Doing those two colorwork projects helped me build my skills.  I'm still not great at it, but I'm currently knitting a colorwork sweather with fingering weight yarn so I'm still getting better!

Brett also wanted a resistance hat, so I also knit him this pink pussy hat.  He should have a warm head all winter.   In the top hat picture you can actually see one of my crafty Christmas presents from my mom, she pieced and quilted me a table runner with little red priuses carrying christmas trees!  For years every Thanksgiving I'd cut a Christmas tree in New Mexico and tie it to the top of my prius and drive it back the 500 miles to Oklahoma.  There were a few touch and go trips in there including one memorable time it almost blew off the side and a kind man at a gas station had to help me re-secure it.  I still get a tree in New Mexico each Thanksgiving but my Subaru is long enough the tree can fit inside.

My brother-in-law really likes turtles so my sister crocheted him this one.  I'd seen some cute turtle costumes online so I thought I'd make a tank costume for the turtle since my brother-in-law is also a historical artillery enthusiast.  I didn't have a pattern, just sort of made it up as I went along, so the proportions are a bit off but I think he came out cute.

My good friend Carolyn also likes turtles and Brett bought her this one from a local craft fair.  I crocheted it a stegosaurus costume because everyone needs a dinosaur costume.  He also looks a little like a spiny koopa from Mario, but adorable all the same.

Finally, for this year's family valentines I crocheted everyone hearts.  I sort of made these up as I went along too- kind of a modified granny square based on a picture of one I saw online.  It was a fun way to use up some scrap yarn.

After all that, there won't be any more small projects for a while now.  I have to focus all my limited knitting time on my dinosaur colorwork sweater!  I expect it will take quite a long time to finish.

New Quilt-Chinle Formation

 Our art quilt group had a call titled "4 Common Corners: Rocks" and even though I live in Oklahoma we were all supposed to be inspired by some rocky something in one of the 4 corners states.  I picked the Chinle formation which forms part of the beautiful red striped badlands in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.  

In parallel, I'd been working on knitting the Goji shawl pattern (here's a picture of it) using some hand dyed yarn I bought one year at the kelyville fiber festival.  I loved the 3D little undulating bits.  They reminded me of bird nests or caves something, but I didn't really need another shawl like that. 

It was pretty bulky yarn, and I wound up with three fairly small pieces of knitting, but I really loved the texture.  I felted them all so they'd feel more like fabric.  Unfortunately one more skein of yarn I'd added in from my stash didn't wind up felting properly, so I couldn't use it.

 However I was struggling with how to incorporate the knitted pieces into a quilt.  It just didn't feel like enough, so I started experimenting with little limpet/barnacle shapes I made out of quilted cast-offs to complement the knitted pieces.  

At first I tried laying them out on a white quilted background, but they just didn't feel right so in the end I painted the background to feel sort of sky-and-rocks-ish and then stitched all the dimensional elements on the top.

It's not my favorite piece ever but it filled the brief and I love all the 3D elements.

Chinle formation, 2024, c. Shannon Conley, 40"H x 30"W x 3"D

The artist statement reads: "The Chinle formation is a Triassic-era geological formation that spreads throughout the 4 Corners region.  In many parts of the Colorado Plateau its colorful stratigraphy is exposed in classic regional landscapes, forming stripey red rock formations against the clear blue southwestern sky."

Miscellaneous Crafty Projects 2024

 As I try to catch up on quilts, I've realized there are a bunch of small crafty projects from this year I also haven't shared, so today is a roundup of those.  

Up first are a pair of book covers, the first is out of my favorite star wars fabric for one of my work notebooks.  I added some fun purple sequin trim that's been in my stash forever and that I had no idea what I was ever going to do with.

A little more sophisticated is this pieced leather book cover I made for my mom.  She and my dad had a catastrophic fire early this summer in which they lost their camper and big truck.  It was really really awful, and among many other things, my mom lost her national geographic US National Park Sites book.  She'd been collecting the National Park Passport stamps in that book for many many years.  My sister and I bought her a new book and then called all the National Parks after looking up the dates of my parents' travels and asked them to send us a replacement passport cancellation stamp.  We wound up collecting over 90 different NPS sites.  The book is a large hardcover and I made a cover for it out of some leftover leather scraps I had in my stash.  The fun trim on the front is because I had to sort of piece/applique the leather scraps together because I didn't have enough big pieces left.  The inner flaps are my favorite yellow hippo fabric I got years ago to make a wallet for mom.  

Last year I made a boxy bag for my nephew Alex and more recently I also made one for my niece Anna.  I like the boxy bags, they're pretty capacious and they go together easily.  The one I made from Anna used some super fun agate fabric I ordered from spoonflower and a really cool zipper with fun woven trim as the zipper tape.  I have no idea where it came from but it was great for this kind of project where the zipper could be really visible.

My nephew Alex turned 11 this summer, and he's always been a guinea pig lover.  He doesn't have any pet guinea pigs anymore, but he and my niece and brother-in-law volunteer as often as they can at a local guinea pig rescue.  I decided to make Alex a guinea pig throw pillow as part of his birhtday present.  I used the free-motion couching technique,  another technique I illustrated for Quilting Arts TV.  The whole surface of the pillow is covered with yarn.  I think it turned out cute.

I haven't accomplished very much knitting this year, but I did manage to finish one pair of ankle socks.  I like these socks for summer especially when the regular tall handknit socks are just too warm.  I like the color-  I wear a lot of turquoise and purple so these fit into the wardrobe rotation fairly well.

Finally, the most recent crafty project was this small embroidery I made for my friend Tamas who got married this summer.  I was super excited to get to attend his wedding while I was in Hungary just a few weeks ago.  The design is loosely inspired by their wedding invitation.  I really like the colors, but the letters could definitely have been better.  I guess it turned out ok. 

Recent Crafty Gifts

 It seems like a good time for a catch-up posts on some crafty gifts from the last few months.  

These are the most recent to be finished, a pair of Jelly Roll socks for Becky's birthday.  I love knitting socks and I love wearing hand knit socks, and except in deep winter, I especially love ankle socks, so I thought I'd make some for Becky.

Then before that, it was my mom's birthday.  This is from the Sew Sweetness wallet trio.  I've made it twice before, one of them I gave to Becky and then this hippo one for mom.   Mom's has worn out so it was time for a new one.

It's actually made from some scraps of the same fabric I used for a Weekender bag for mom back in 2014.

And then finally, I made a boxy bag for Alex.  The "Buckner" labeled handle and the brown fabric were in a box of stuff my sister's mother-in-law (Hi Mary Alice!) destashed to me and I thought it would be fun to make it up into a little bag. 

I love making and sharing little projects like these.  And of course, now we're into Christmas crafting season so I'm sure more gifts will be forthcoming.