Chronic Bitches

My best friends in the whole world are the women (and a few men) of the Chronic Bitches on Ravelry. This is a very candid and loving group for fiber artisans with chronic health conditions who are also of an LSG frame of mind. It’s a very active group and also very tight knit. (See what I did there?) I’ve had the privileged of meeting several of the CBs in person now. They’re all just as wonderful as you’d expect. Tonight I met up with Firefairy in Denver and Eloewien who’d flown in on a business trip from Virginia. We had a BLAST together. I felt like I was with sisters I’d had my entire life. There’s an absurdly tight bond that forms when people suffer through similar health conditions, horrific ‘treatment’ and discrimination from said conditions, AND all share a love of knitting. In short, there was much hugging and the sharing of a chocolate cake slice at IKEA.

I actually cried a little driving back down 25 toward my temporary home. I love these women so much and I really wish I could see them regularly.

After my last trip to Denver, when I met Firefairy for the first time, I designed a hexipuff chart just for her. I haven’t knit it yet, but she has and it’s adorable.

Long before, I made a puff for Eloewien too that just has her first name poorly embroidered on a puff of yarn she sent me. It looks so bad I’ve kept almost ripping it out. I think I will, but only after I knit up the puff I designed tonight just for her. She loves dragons and nearly all the yarn she had in her knitting bag was of these colors:

I hope you all like the dragon chart and feel the love shared between knitters as you make my gift to all of you my readers, FREE PUFF CHARTS!

Yard Sales FTW!

This weekend, I’m not feeling physically up to yard sale shopping, but last weekend, I got up at 8am and went yard sale shopping with my mom. I love hunting for treasures at yard sales! It’s actually easier now than it used to be when I last yard sale shopped much…before the first accident in 2006. Now, more and more sales are posted on Craigslist and the geniuses at YardSaleTreasureMap.com have made it super easy to utilize that information! It shows on a map display all the yard sales in your area. You can search items you want, like tools, craft supplies, or toys. You can also click on a pin in the map and see what that yard sale put in their ad. If you like the sale, you can click “add to itinerary.” Once you’ve selected the sales you want to visit, you can send the info the the corresponding android cell phone app to have the map work with your GPS to get you to all your sales! It’s so much better than driving around like a banshee chasing down little, impossible-to-read signs on the side of the road!

On my trip last weekend, mom bought some goodies for the house she and my stepdad are building for me to live in out east, my little farm. We found a beautiful brand new ceiling fan and matching overhead light for the living room, some pendant lights for the office/studio, and even a beautiful faucet for only $10 to put on the studio sink! I’m really looking forward to having the space to launch into Maple Wool Farm full force!

My finds came from a yard sale I’d bookmarked because it said they had a spinning wheel. The spinning wheel was late 1800s/early 1900s ish and as in HORRIBLE condition. It was missing more parts than it still had and the actual wheel part was in multiple pieces. It needed some serious restoration from a woodworker who would know how to do it without the use of modern fasteners to preserve the antique value and look in the wheel. When I asked about it, the guy said it was $100 firm and that it could only go to someone who would love it, not someone who would ruin it by spinning on it! After a bit of discussion, he realized I really knew my shit about spinning wheels and it was clear to me that he picks them up where he can and resells them in town. He asked me what I thought it was worth. My honest answer? $15 because while it is an antique, it’s missing so many parts it doesn’t even really look like a spinning wheel anymore. It’s not been kept up and is in need of massive restoration. Antique kindling isn’t worth more than modern kindling essentially. He got all huffy and told me that just dusting it off would ruin the value because OMG IT’S AN ANTIQUE. Wierdo. In all honesty, it probably wasn’t worth even trying to restore. I wanted it to be  because I’d love a traditional antique wheel (and a fancy pants floor loom for weaving woolen blankets), but it’s not like I’ve even got a place to put, much less use, those just yet.

His wife on the other hand actually wanted to sell craft supplies and had Sterilite drawers full of random craft bits. I found knitting needles. She said they were a dollar a pair and if I found any assorted stuff to just put it in a pile and she’s price it by the lot. Most of the needles were horrible bendy plastic ones that break very easily. Tucked in amongst them in the drawers were a few quality needles.

My yard sale finds

I pulled out a set of size 5 12″ nok Clover straight needles (identical to my favorite Bernat Aero needles), a set of 5 size four 16cm long double points of the same nok Clover brand, a set of 6 double points that upon returning home to measure turned out to be four size 2 and two size 1 16cm double points in nok CLover, and a set of four size 3 25cm long double points to bring me to four dollars for four sets of a needle brand I love and can’t buy new in the US! Seriously, Bernat Aero and it’s doppelgangers are the best needles out there for anything you except socks. I prefer square dpns for socks but that’s something else entirely.

The real prize at this sale was the extras I got for a dollar! My assortment pile included a stray nok Clover size 3 12″ straight needles, 34cm long, 4.5mm diameter Tunisian crochet hook in bamboo with the other end functioning as a sharpened knitting needle (talk about dual purpose!), a 6″ Westcott steel ruler with cork back, two stitch holders (like clamps in the garage, you can never have too many), a cable needle, a bent tip tapestry needle, and two steel crochet hooks, 1.50 and 1.80mm. I’m really excited about the little extras. I’ve never used a bent tip tapestry needle and am eager to try it out. I didn’t have either of those sizes in steel crochet hooks, and you just can’t have too many rulers or stitch holders. I know it seems a bit odd to buy a single size 3 straight needle, but these needles are so hard to find that I pick up even singles at yard sales and thrift shops. I’ve actually made several complete usable sets that way!

Time to get back to work here, walk the dogs, make a late breakfast, and the like, but be sure to give YardSaleTreasureMap.com a try next weekend to see what kinds of treasures you can find.

Spring is starting to bloom!

All of these mini skeins and hexipuffs are from Maple Wool Farm’s own Soda Pop Dyed series of yarns! Enjoy a bit of spring blossoming on your doorstep by ordering Maple Wool Farm mini skeins!

Little mini skein buds nourished with last fall’s hexipuffs!

To make your very own spring tee, simply find a well forked branch and ‘plant’ it in a pot full of small rocks or decorator marbles. Cover the rocks in hexipuffs and gently slide mini skeins in spring colors onto the tips of the branches of your yarn tree. A little tree like this would be stunning as a centerpiece on your Easter or Spring Celebration table!

Down to the wire, err, thread?

I’ve been very overwhelmed lately. Sadly, it doesn’t take much when you’re fighting with chronic pain and fatigue. I knew my brother’s birthday was approaching fast, but I didn’t have a clue what to do for him.

Last Thursday, I went to a lecture put on by Open Minded Skeptics and Pikes Peak Urban Gardens on organic gardening in the Pikes Peak region. I used to be quite active with the Bear Creek Community Gardens before I was disabled. I would really like to grow my own food again. Salad goes from blah to the tastiest lunch ever when it’s home grown, fresh, and full of flavor. I plan on having a large, accessible garden south of the gravel driveway where we’re building the cabin. A free refresher lecture seemed like a great way to get me out of this basement. I hate being stuck in the same little box of a space day in and day out. I envy even those who go from home to a cubical and back five days a week!

Anyhow, after the talk was over at 8:30 PM, I found myself at the library with a half hour until closing. I figured I might as well browse a bit. I always check to see if there’s anything I haven’t seen in the knitting section. There wasn’t this time, but I ended up checking through the neighboring embroidery section too since many embroidery charts are similar to knitting charts like I design. One book, Picture Your Pet in Cross Stitch by Claire Crompton jumped out at me. I flipped through it and saw a picture of two cockatiels that look almost exactly like my brother’s pair. I’m not a fan of cross stitch, but I brought it home with me anyhow.

On Saturday, I realized that my brother’s birthday was the very next day sometime in the late afternoon. Worried about what I could possibly do in that time frame on no budget, my mind wandered back to the cockatiels. I checked my meager box of embroidery floss to see what colors I had and what I needed from the store. I went to Hancock Fabrics first and saw a towel with a centerpiece of aida cloth woven in and decided that would be a much better idea than buying aida cloth and trying to get it framed and matted up in time. Since I had a 40% off coupon, it was certainly a cheaper option at only $5 after tax! Hancock Fabrics carries a terrible off-brand embroidery floss though. It doesn’t have the luster of DMC floss so I hopped in the car and drove on to the nearest Hobby Lobby to get real DMC floss.

When I got home, guy pal met me there to help me figure out how to work on my Maple Wool Farm logo in Photoshop. It’s a pain, but I’m making progress. I was finally able to sit down and start working on my brother’s birthday towel around 8PM on the 24th. My mom helped make sure the design was centered right on the canvas. I HATE starting out on a new cross stitch project because I hate trying to get the design centered. I worked until about 4AM with a break to make some boxed macaroni and cheese I found in the back of my cupboard. Finally, I was too tired to keep going. I was starting to make mistakes. I got to bed just after 5AM and was out of bed again by noon after a fitful sleep as usual. By 12:30PM, I’d checked my email and gotten back down to the stitching. Around 1PM, I finished all the cross stitching and by 2:30PM, I’d finished all the back stitching and was heading off to iron the piece. Near the end, I even decided that maybe cross stitching isn’t so bad. It uses a fair bit of shoulder movement, but didn’t irritate my shoulder pain. I’m actually thinking I should cross stitch more just to work my shoulder more. I’ll have to look into software to design my own cross stitch designs though so I can sell my finished work.

I decided to take pictures in my mom’s half bath upstairs because the yellow of the walls really punches up the towel. I also suggested to my brother that he pick up a yellow towel to put behind this one to frame it nicely on his towel rack.

Working with that many shades of grey so close together in value was a pain, but the lifelike result was really worth it!

Then I finally got to move on to wrapping. I consider wrapping to be an important part of a handmade gift. It’s like the packaging selling a product at a shop. I picked  out two bottoms of folding Christmas boxes to make one white box. I lined it with plain white tissue paper. To spice it up a bit, I used a couple scrapbooking stickers inside as the seal to hold the tissues closed, just like something fine from a very upscale shop. With the work I put into this towel, it would have to come from one hell of an upscale shop!

Then, since I don’t have any manly birthday wrapping paper, I used some faintly striped brown kraft paper and some curling ribbons. I added another sticker to the front of the package in place of a card since my brother was ringing the doorbell as I was finishing up the bow!

Not too shabby for a last minute gift, huh?

Scroll Saw Dragon Pendant

About a month ago I started a project for a friend of mine from my online fiber artists with chronic pain support group, the Chronic Bitches. She loves dragons, and was oogling the many free dragon patterns in Steve Good’s scroll saw pattern catalog. Since I had many pieces of thin board on hand from the dog and cat pendants I’ve made, I figured I’d jump right in with the dragon pendant.

These are the first three dog necklaces I made and won runner up in the Gorilla Glue Contest on Lumber Jocks!

When I first started looking at the pdf for the necklace, I was shocked. This was just WAY too big to have be a necklace in my book. My chest isn’t that big, there’s space taken up with boobs! I pulled the image over to Microsoft Word for easy scaling with rulers. It’s amazing how often I use Word for pattern making actually. My reduced pattern measures 2 inches wide and just a smidge over 3 inches tall. I kept the same proportions as the original so my pendant wouldn’t end up elongated or smooshed looking.

I mounted up my pattern to some 1/8 inch thick walnut, drilled a few holes, and started cutting. It wasn’t long before I realized I had missed some of the entry holes I would need, that I wasn’t good enough to cut such bitty details accurately, and that getting so tense trying to cut something so small was only making my pain worse in my shoulders and upper back. I set the pendant on the back edge of my Excaliber’s table and proceeded to ignore it for a full month while I worked on other projects like my inkle looms, some toy cars for charity, and another Siamese cat necklace.

Tonight I went down to my friend’s garage to visit with my saw. I had to prepare a set of necklace blanks for a small workshop I’m teaching tomorrow night on how I make my inlay dog and cat necklaces. We’ll be making one of my favorite dog breeds tomorrow, the border collie! Once I got all my border collie blanks done, I still had a little time left before it was time to head home. The dragon pendant was glaring at me from the back of the scroll saw table. I fished out a size 60 drill bit, put in the bitty holes, and had a go at it since I already had a 00 reverse tooth blade in the saw.

Surprisingly, my skills have improved enough over the past month or so for me to be able to fly through making the pendant. Sure, I still spent about an hour finishing the cuts and another hour sanding down to a 600 grit paper and gently buffing in a mineral oil and beeswax finish, but still, I was flying compared to a month ago. I’m so excited to have it done! Before long maybe I’ll actually be able to do some of the more advanced ornaments from the book I got last year! I’d really wanted to make the train ornament for my dad and the motorcycle for my brother, but I messed up and broke the spokes in the wheels of both. I hope by next Christmas I can fly through those ornaments and give them out!

I love how it came out!

Tags: blade, chinese, craft, dragon, dragons, fantasy, free, jewelry, necklace, pattern, pendant, project, scroll saw, scrollsaw, walnut, wioodworking, wood, wooden, woodwork, woodworking, working

Happy Valentines’ Day in Hexipuffs!

I don’t have much of anything planned today beyond cleaning, cooking, and puffing since I’m single. I did however make one BIG special valentine to share with everyone I love!

Happy Valentines Day!

Also, one important thing I learned today that you’ll probably find helpful is that unseamed hexipuffs photograph best on a black matte background like polar fleece fabric. It really helps the puffs pop where as designs like this heart were impossible to see when the puffs were photographed on a white sheet. I’ve also decided I rather like the heart layout, not for my scrap quilt beekeeper’s, but maybe for a baby beekeeper’s quilt of unpuffs knit from a DK or worsted weight soft acrylic with a heart of pinks and reds surrounded by a sea of undulating green with a border in shades of purple!

Knitting in an Igloo

I’ve always wanted to build an igloo. This is particularly funny because I do not like the cold, can’t lift much, and do not like getting wet out in the snow. I’ve also never had enough snow, but I got lucky this past Thursday!

I went to a knit group that meets in Black Forest, about 40 minutes from where I live now and only about 5 minutes from where I’ll be living eventually. I had a fine time with the ladies at knit group but just wasn’t done when group was over. I decided to drive by my property to just give it a hug since I was in such a good mood. Plus, I wanted to see how much snow there was. My friend in Black Forest said they’d had 20 inches earlier in the week when we’d only gotten a light dusting in the Springs.

When I got to my property, this is what I saw:

I figured I’d shovel the driveway since I needed experience shoveling a gravel driveway. I got about two feet of the driveway shoveled before I decided to play in the snow instead because shoveling gravel is hard to do and not as fun as shoveling normally is. I walked over toward my little tree in the front yard and fell past my knees into a ditch that I forgot was there. I was in awe of how much snow I had to play with…and a little frustrated that I was wearing thin sneakers instead of snow boots!

The snow was pretty powdery, but with my mini snow shovel, emergency trunk gloves, and a little bit of melting the snow with my breath and patting it down as it iced back up, I made this:

It was pretty small because I only have so much energy and strength per day. It’s still bigger and better than the last igloo I made  back in March 2010. I couldn’t fit in the old igloo which was sad, but I just didn’t have enough snow to make it bigger. It was much better construction snow though, partially iced up from the wind blowing over it and days in the sun. I’d actually cut it into blocks with the sides of my hands. Scribbles, my Miniature Schnauzer/Pyrenean Shepherd mix, fit inside though. This is one of my favorite photos of her as she actually looks more like a wild dog than a timid toy size dog.

Anyhow, I really wanted to get inside this newer igloo. I went back to the car to get a woven blanket to keep my bum dry and my knitting because really, how many people can say they’ve knit inside an igloo?

Somehow in my head, I’d envisioned crawling inside the igloo, turning around, and sitting down with my feet sticking out the door. When I actually bent down to do this, there was just no way. I couldn’t even kneel down and twist into it. I’d made the door too small on my little pod of an igloo. Ultimately, I snugged up the hood on my hoodie (I didn’t even have a jacket with me that day), squatted down in front of the igloo, and fell backward into it landing on my butt. Of course the force of coming down and back like that kept me rocking backward. My head and shoulders hit the back of the igloo with a thunk. I closed my eyes and mouth expecting to be flat on my back buried in the snow of a failed igloo. Amazingly enough, the igloo held! When I opened my eyes, I was leaning against the back wall of the igloo with my feet sticking out the door and a slight wet spot on the side of my leg where my hips were too wide to fit through the narrow doorway of the igloo without rubbing. I was thrilled. Bucket list kinds of thrilled.

The last time I felt the bucket list kind of thrilled was when guy pal took my brother and I to the Arizona Science Center and we all took turns on the bed of nails. There is nothing better for an itchy back than wiggling on a bed of nails.

With a little wiggling in the igloo, I ended up feeling quite comfortable there too. It was so much warmer than I’d expected it to be! Even though my feet stuck out, I’d constructed the igloo against the wind, so my feet, even with wet socks stayed warm enough for me to be comfortable. Originally, I’d planned to only knit one round, 81 stitches, on my Mini Mochi socks before heading back to the car and getting on with my errands. It was so comfy and quiet inside my well insulated and sound proofed igloo that I knit in there for about an hour. It was so warm inside that my bare hands didn’t even get cold!

Eventually, I had to pack up and get on with my errands, but I kept smiling like that for the rest of the day. Igloos are cool. Spending a couple hours outside building an igloo and knitting on a warm pair of wool socks makes me feel quite sure of my survival skills for when I’m in the frozen north hiding from zombies. I should probably put my igloo and wool sock making skills on my dating site profile. Surely men want a woman who can hold her own in the zombie apocalypse.

13 New Hexipuffs put me at 175!

Here are the first 13 hexipuffs of February 2012:

The castle puff is from the duplicate stitch tricks tutorial. The cat puff and one of the matching puffs are made from Premier Yarns Serenity in Lavender Topaz. I’d received enough for a single puff in a swap and mentioned to a friend on Monday that I wanted more of it for puffing. She offered to give me two puffs worth from one of her balls of Lavender Topaz destined for sock knitting. I duplicate stitched a black cat on one of them to forever immortalize her in my quilt. It’s actually quite appropriate as she’s had black cats as long as I’ve known her and her name is Kat! Before Kat offered me some of her Lavender Topaz yarn, I’d also mentioned on Ravelry that I’d loved these colors and was shy on purples. Did anyone have any? Ajsgramma said she had some Purple Spice in the same brand of yarn that she’d be happy to send me! Her yarn arrived and I knit it up into the two fake isle puffs here. The two semi solid purples and two semi solid pinks are some of the Maple Wool Farm soda pop kettle dyed yarn! I love how bright and summery the soda colors are. The three green/blue/purple ones are from a swap on Ravelry from Minibrrdie. She sent me several wonderful yarns in exchange for a hand turned nostepinne from my woodshop. I made that this weekend and am getting ready to send it off to her. I actually like it better than the darker one I made for myself about 7 months back. I think it’s got a better weight in the hand, but I do like the deep beading of mine’s handle. Looks like I need to spend more time getting comfortable with my lathe so I can perfect a nostepinne design.

So there you have it! Thirteen brand new puffs to add to my puff pile and a beautiful pine nostepinne to head out for a swap. I’m particularly happy with the past 8 days of puffing because each yarn has a story, from swapped and gifted yarn from friends, to pictures representing my friends (the castle is in honor of a friend who’s making 1:24 scale castle dollhouses with me for fun, but more on that another day), to some of my own soda pop yarn!

The next batch of puffs is going to be a Valentines set done in all lovey-dovey colors because I’ve got a shortage of pinks and purples in my quilt. I’m not a big fan of Valentines, but I’ll try. I guess I’m just of the belief that it’s too commercialized and that someone who loves me can tell me any day, and it’s more special when it’s unexpected! Plus, my valentine won’t be bringing me chocolates. He’s furry and can’t have chocolate. Maybe I’ll commemorate the day by making a puff of him! I’ve already got the chart ready and waiting.

Will you be making a special hexipuff to put a bit of your loved one in your quilt?

Duplicate Stitch Tricks and More Free Charts

I’ve been a but quiet for a while due to increased pain levels and being busy as a bee designing new hexipuff charts for the Beekeeper’s Quilt!

The new charts are primarily a series of buildings and more flags. The reason I’m making so many flag designs is that I’m trying to collect mini skeins from as many countries as I can and knit them into puffs for my quilt! I will be knitting each flag as I receive yarn from that country. If you’d like to send one in from your country, shoot me a message on Ravelry! I’m Swamps42 over there. So far I’m set for yarn from the United States and Canada only! I am expecting yarn from Cuba and the UK any day now though!

Of the new charts, which are all posted for free via the hexipuff chart tab at the top of this page, the castle is the one that tempted me most to get out a needle and do some duplicate stitching. Duplicate stitched puffs take much longer than a plain puff, for me about an hour and a half longer. I do think it’s worth it though, don’t you?

The chart

The resulting puff

Whenever I post picture of my duplicate stitched puffs on Ravelry, my inbox is filled with PMs from people asking how I get my duplicate stitched puffs to look just right. Common problems with duplicate stitching include the background color showing through, the puff looking bunched up, the duplicate stitching unraveling over time, and the design not being centered on the finished puff. I’m pretty good about responding with my tricks, but doesn’t it seem better to have a photo tutorial to send folks to with all the tricks I’ve learned over time through my own successes and failures?

The Duplicate Stitch Tutorial of Win

***I’m assuming you know the basics of how to duplicate stitch by following the Vs of existing stitches. If you have no idea what duplicate stitching is or how to do it, please visit a beginners tutorial and then come back here for all the tricks that take your basic duplicate stitching and make it look professional!

Of course, first you need to pick a chart and knit your puff with the appropriate background color(s). Here I’ve chosen the castle chart. The background in this chart is two different colors. I cast on with green yarn and switched to blue just before starting the increase row to move up to 16 stitches. I then finished out the hexipuff as per my usual modifications. I use Judy’s magic cast on and eliminate the last knit even at 10 stitches row as the three needle bind off counts as this row if you want a puff that isn’t top heavy. Don’t bind off the puff yet. Just stop knitting after the decrease down to 10 stitches row. Split the stitches on the front of your puff onto two needles and leave all the back stitches on one needle. This will make it easier to get in and out of the puff to weave in ends.

Next, thread your needle with your first color working form the top of the puff down. I’m doing grey. Turn the puff inside out and weave in your ends. The appropriate way to weave in ends requires you to split the ply (or fibers in a single ply) of the existing stitches, purls on the inside of a puff. I usually go one direction horizontally, back, and then up or down one or two stitches just to be sure my yarn is really solid and will hold up to repeated washings. If you’re using something really slippery, like a silk, you may want to run it through a few more times just to be sure. By splitting the ply, you not only assure yourself that your tail won’t be visible from the outside of the puff, but it also provides a more secure grab on your yarn tail.

Now, turn your puff right side out and decide on which stitch to begin with. I find the best results come from duplicate stitching a design from the top down. You will get more complete coverage with your top yarn, but we’ll get there. For now, pick your first stitch at the top of the design. If you are knitting your puffs with the same modifications that I am, your loops on the needles are the bottom row of 10 stitches in the chart. So the third stitch down from the needles on the first stitch on the right hand side of the right hand needle is the furthest top right stitch of the castle!

One of the most important tricks I’ve learned in duplicate stitching is the importance of NOT making twisted stitches. This means that to get a smooth stockinette finish on your duplicate stitching, you need to take directions into account. If you’re moving to a stitch left of the current stitch, you need to go through the current stitch from the right to the left, moving toward the next leftward stitch. Alternatively, if you’re working right to left on a row, you need to move right to left when you insert the needle under the V of the stitch above. Here you can see me working from left to right and so I’m inserting the needle left to right. Remember to work your duplicate stitching somewhat loosely! You want it to be soft and stretchable just like the original knitting!

The other big trick you’ll notice here is that since I’m on the second duplicate stitch of the row, I can pick up only the grey V of the stitch above and not the underlying original blue stitch. This helps prevent any blue yarn from showing through the crook of the V in the duplicate stitch!

It can also be very helpful to grab a bit of fiber or even a full ply of yarn from the neighboring stitch as you’re continuing along a row. This helps prevent your background from showing through in vertical stripes, an otherwise common problem. Here I’m working from right to left and have grabbed a bit of the grey yarn from the previous stitch to the right to help the current stitch and the one to the right stay snugged up against one another.

Continue working top down and side to side in this manner until your first color of duplicate stitching is complete.

Carefully turn your puff inside out again and weave in the tail of your duplicate stitching yarn just as you did when you were starting out. Now, you have loops of both your background yarn and your working yarn, grey. You can split the ply and weave your tail into any of these. If you weave into grey purls, your tail will not show up between stitches on the front of the puff. Of course a mixture or even all background yarn is fine too, just so long as your tail is securely woven in through the ply or fibers of the existing yarn.

Cut the excess grey yarn, thread your needle with black yarn, and weave in the end just like you did to begin working with the grey yarn at the beginning. Turn the puff right side out, and insert your needle through the first stitch. Remember to work from the top of the puff down. It is also important when filling areas like windows here to catch a bit of the wall yarn on either side of the window to make sure the stitches stay snugged up against one another and no blue yarn shows through. Here I’ve grabbed a bit of the right side’s grey wall fiber, the two V legs of the black duplicate stitch above, and a bit of the left side’s grey wall fiber. This stitch is sure to stay snugged into place and banish the blue to the background where it belongs!

Again work from the top down filling all the black stitches. If you need to strand across an area on the back, try to catch a bit of the black yarn underneath the purls of grey duplicate stitches on the back to help secure it. Remember to keep a loose tension as you’re duplicate stitching. If you don’t allow your duplicate stitching yarn to be fluffy, you won’t get good coverage. This is why embroidery floss is not good for covering large areas in duplicate stitch. My preferred fiber for duplicate stitching is the same fingering weight yarn I’ve used to knit the puff. I used all Knit Picks Palette colors to do the castle.

When you’re done with your final color of duplicate stitching, weave in it’s end on the inside as before and turn the puff right side out. I like to stretch my puff in each direction at this point to help the stitches settle into place and make sure there aren’t any gaps or mistakes. The reason a bit of background yarn shows through at the bottom of the door is because there is no stitch below it. Your bottom stitches will look like this unless you also duplicate the purl inside the V. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth it. You can barely see the background with the zoom and flash on a camera. In person you’d really, really have to be looking.

Stuff your puff and bind off. Weave in your final tails and enjoy your perfect picture puff!

Remember guys, if you knit a puff with my charts I’d love to see it and feature your hexipuff on my blog! Drop me a line in the comments here or to swamps42 on Ravelry!

Tags: beekeeper, beekeepers, craft, crafting, design, detail, duplicate, flag, free, handmade, hexi, hexipuff, knit, knitted, knitting, pattern, picture, project, projects, puff, puffs, quilt, quilts, set, stitch, stitching, technique, tiny owl knits, tinyowlknits, tips, TOK, tricks, tutorial, yarn

Hexipuff Update: 153 Puffs!

I finished two bright yellow puffs today to finish out a set of 14 honey colored puffs from some yarn I bought specifically to mini skein up for puffs. I of course had to knit up two puffs of each color to get some sample photos for the mini skein listings on etsy. These puffs are just so soft and smushy! I really love this set. You just can’t get more appropriate colors for the beekeeper’s quilt than honey and pollen inspired!

Then, because I accidentally knocked the basket of puffs over a couple days ago, I wanted to make sure I had found all my puffs and that my puff count was updated on my whiteboard. This meant I had to dump out all my puffs, stir them up, roll around in them, and lay them out. I can’t wait until I have a bathtub to put them in AND to get to roll around in that tub with them all! Only after my hexipuff bath can seaming begin. In the meantime, here’s what 153 puffs in an all inclusive color scheme looks like:

After that, I shuffled them up and took a gradient photo. While I will be seaming my puffs in the random arrangement, I like to look at the gradient from time to time and see if there are any colors I desperately need more of. Currently, it looks as though I’m a bit heavy on browns, but as I’m working my way through 100 colors of Palette starting with the browns, I knew I was going to be brown heavy.

And just to make sure you get your money’s worth here in the puff department, here’s the sea of puffs and the heap I rolled in!

I love my puffs. Storage is getting to be more and more of a problem though. I managed to cram 150 puffs into a lined basket I picked up at a yard sale a couple years ago, and I’ve got a small dollar store bin holding the 3 puff overflow. Space for bins is at a premium though as I’m living in such a small flat right now. If money were no object, I’d love to sew a beanbag-sized bag of a very see-through mesh fabric and use the puffs for the quilt in progress as additional seating for when I have company. Tell me, what are you using to store your puffs? Do you have any plans in place for what happens when they overflow your current container? Even if you’re not a puffer, have you got any good ideas for puff storage in a small studio apartment?