Knitting Update

It has been awhile since I brought you up to date on all of the knitting I've been doing, so here we go. Above is a little set I made for a young man born on February 22. I suspect these items will be too big for him for a while yet.

This is another pair of size 18 men's socks for our dear friend. As you might imagine, it can be tricky finding socks that fit comfortably when you wear this size. I am planning to make several more pairs in the coming months. This is what was left of the grey yarn I used for the last pair I made for him. to avoid confusion between the two pairs, I added a single round of blue at the toe here.

Now that Liat has finished the army (after two years and 102 days), she is ready to have some fun! She and Avi will be going to Barcelona next week to see a Champions' League soccer game. Avi asked if I would make a hat for him, in case it is cold outside during the game.

I am currently working on another baby sweater and also trying to finish up the pair of socks I started for Meital months ago (in the hopes of giving them to her for Chanukah). I am nearly done with the second sock, and will be very glad to finally be able to give them to her.

Of course, I have plenty of other projects waiting in the wings! Including knitting up another scrap swatch to use as texture for my mono printing. What are you working on?

Gelli Plate Fun

At long last my Gelli Arts Gelli Plate has arrived! I got the smallest (6" x 6") size and while I love it, after only using it twice I am sure I want the medium (8" x 10") size. Maybe this summer I'll pick one up while we're in the States, along with some of the cool stencils I've seen online. All of the raves I've read online and heard on YouTube are true! This thing is so amazingly fun and addictive. I have only just barely gotten started using it and I can't wait to play some more. One of the things I was itching to try while I waited for the Gelli Plate to arrive was to use knitting as a texture...I knit up a 7" x 7" piece of 1 x 1 ribbing using up scrap yarn and as you can see in the above photo, the background on the right uses the knitting as a texture. How fun! Now of course I'm dying to knit up all kind of other patterns to try them out on the Gelli Plate. I love the idea of combining two of my favorite hobbies into one project.

One of the other textures I tried and loved was some of that rubber shelf liner. I happened to spot some on a trip to the hardware store with Avi (who of course couldn't figure out why I wanted it, lol).  Part of the challenge is going to be figuring out ways to use these backgrounds...some might get made into cards, others will become backgrounds in my art journal. I have seen people cut up their backgrounds and make them into mosaics, which also looks really cool.

Off to do more mono printing...next post I will catch you up on some of the knitting I've done lately.

Sidney Seligson 1895 - 1976

Today is the start of the Family History Writing Challenge. I decided to write about my paternal grandfather, Sidney Seligson 24 June 1895 - 24 March 1976.

Sidney was born to Kalman and Sutcha Seligson in or near Montreal, Canada on 24 June 1895. He was their third child and the first son. His older sisters were named Hannah and Marion. His family had emigrated to Canada sometime after 1890, but they didn't stay there long. By 1900  the family had moved to New York City. A second son, Philip, was born in New York. The third son and last child, Harold, was born in 1901.

The 1900 US Census shows Sidney, age 4, living with his parents, sisters and brother at 1326 5th Avenue near W. 111th Street. Kalman's occupation is listed as foreman in a factory. The census indicates that Kalman and Sutcha had been married for ten years, which matches with other findings. Also noted on the census is that the family arrived in the United States in 1896. I don't have positive confirmation of that yet.

I know all of this is very dry; unfortunately I don't have a lot of details for this far back in time. I am hoping that this project will motivate me to learn more, dig deeper, and fill in these gaps. The thing about genealogy, for me anyway, has been that I tend to think, "Oh, yeah I knew my grandparents, let's see how much farther back in time I can go." Now I realize that I need to take the time and learn as much as I can about the people who lived closer in time to me, especially since I am lucky enough to still be able to ask my father, and his brother, questions.

Care Package

 This week I sent off a package to a cousin in the U.S. It should have gone out weeks ago, but...well, I wasn't as efficient with my knitting as I should have been. This is more of a lap blanket; it is only about 42" long, but it should do the job. Yarn is Plymouth Encore Bulky, and the pattern is just a simple Harris Tweed stitch (for those who are interested, there are more details on my Ravelry project page).

And this is the card that went with the blanket. My cousin is a big UCLA fan, so I tried to use the school colors. The yellow plaid paper is from Keeping Memories Alive (circa 1999?) and the stamp is a long-retired Close to My Heart stamp.

Right now I am busy working on socks and more socks, plus some fun baby items. I've got two sets of young friends expecting their first baby, so there will be lots of cute little projects on my needles for the next while. I am itching to make some cards, so I will need to carve out some time for that, too. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Top 10 of 2012

Happy New Year! I hope 2013 will be a wonderful year for all of you, filled with good health, happiness and many blessings.

Over at Operation Write Home they are asking people to post their favorite cards (10 of them) that they made for OWH in 2012. Here are mine, in no particular order:

 Actually, this one hasn't been sent yet! (oops) It is going in my next shipment.

 This one also hasn't gone yet. I thought it was too summery to send in the middle of winter.

I hope you enjoyed this little retrospective. I am hoping to average a card a day in 2013, most of them for OWH.

Still Using Scraps, and...

This blue plaid paper was actually already in the recycling box, but I rescued it yesterday (and its twin) and made two of these cards. The paper is by Keeping Memories Alive, the bird stickers are by Paper House Productions, the pine bough (just a teeny piece of a larger stamp) is by PSX, and the sentiment is Hero Arts. I used the Operation Write Home sketch #151. The circles were colored a bit with Distress Inks in the Frayed Burlap color. One card will go to OWH, and the other will go to a cousin of mine.

I copied this idea from a card I saw on Pinterest. It is very similar to a card design on OWH, not a challenge sketch I don't think, but an idea for using up scraps from the tutorial about Scrap Wrangling. Aside from the paper scraps, I used the leftover smiley flowers I used in a card a few days ago for the "bows" on the presents. Now that I get a good look at this card, I see I need to touch up the yellow ink around the sentiment before this goes in the OWH box.

And just in case my knitting friends were thinking I had abandoned my needles, I present two of my socks-in-progress. The blue one is the second of a pair for Meital, the grey is for someone very special.

I keep getting more and more inquiries about doing work for the Yizkor Book project. I have mentioned these before but it was a while ago. After the Holocaust, many of the survivors moved to Israel or America and began recording the story of their hometowns and the people in them. There is often a good deal of pre-WWII history in these books, along with accounts of the suffering endured by the townspeople during the Holocaust. There are descriptions of the town itself and of various events that took place there, character sketches of various people from the town, and so on. These are truly memorial books for places and people who are no more. Sometimes the chapters are full of funny stories, sometimes they are horrifying and tragic, and sometimes they are poetic. The Hebrew is almost always very elegant and lyrical, full of old fashioned terms and references from the Bible. Interesting and challenging work to be sure.

So I'm pretty busy on what is likely a four day weekend for most of you. I hope you're having fun!

Card Sketches

As you know, I most often use sketches from the collection at Operation Write Home for my card inspiration. I don't always follow them exactly, but they are not only a huge help but they also encourage me to think in new ways and try new things. But the card above is not (knowingly) based on an OWH sketch. I was wandering around YouTube the other day and watched a video by Paper Trey Ink called Make it Monday #69: Inspiration Into Unique Sketch. It was very interesting. The idea is to look at things you see in your everyday life and see if you can find inspiration for a card design. I have a much easier time following someone else's great idea than I do coming up with ideas on my own. This card is pretty much a CASE (copy and steal everything) of the card the gal on the video made.

I am happy to say that I used up even more scraps in the making of this card. The monkey is by Posh Impressions, and the saying was typed up in Word using the Kristen font. The monkey comes in a set that includes a cute vertically-oriented sentiment "I'm wild about you" but I thought this was more kid friendly. Too bad I don't have a stamp of a banana!

Only three days left until the New Year's Eve Paper Purging Party - I can't wait! Every time I leave my crafts room I think I should just go dump all of those tiny scraps now instead of waiting. But then I walk in there and decide I really should try to use just a few more scraps. I've got another scrap card in the works right now, in fact.