Quilts & Knits | Opari Australian Shepherds | Kathy Glaes

Heaps of Socks

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:16:59 -0400

I tried for years to teach myself the art of knitting socks, but wrestling with 4 or 5 double pointed knitting needles just discouraged me (I have very little manual dexterity). However, once I quit smoking and needed little projects to keep my hands busy, I discovered that some clever soul had figured out how to use two short circular needles (12"-16" in US size 2-4) to knit socks. I could do that!! I found instructions and got right into it. I have knit probably 2 or 3 dozen pairs by now. They are fast, portable and the sock yarns come in an endless variety of fun, self-striping, self-patterning colors so you don't have to keep changing yarns or figure out what to do with all the loose ends.

Icelandic lopi sweater

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:21:44 -0400

The Icelandic Lopi breed of sheep produce lightweight, long-stapled fleece for very warm sweaters. The traditional Lopi sweater is knit in the natural shades of wool produced by the sheep: light cream through various browns to grays and blacks. Since the 1980s, though, manufacturers like Reynolds and Alafoss have been dyeing Lopi into gorgeous shades. This sweater was made in 1998 with Alafoss Lopi from a pattern in one of their pattern books. It is my all-time favorite sweater that I have made. There are no seams other than about 6 stitches in the armpits.

Red Tri Scarf

Thu, 01 Dec 2005 19:31:44 -0500

The Lion Brand Fun Fur color for this is "Chocolate"

Black Tri Scarf

Thu, 01 Dec 2005 19:28:01 -0500

Over the past several years I have knit dozens and dozens of scarves in Aussie colors. I use Lion Brand Fun Fur for the black, blue merle and red tri body colors, as well as the copper and white trim. The red merle color is harder to find, but sometimes is available from JoAnn's. It's one of their house brands. Any "eyelash" yarn you find will work on these. Here are the directions:

One skein of the body color (black, chocolate, or the blue or red merle looking color)
One skein each of white and copper (leave off the copper if you are making a bi-color scarf). The trim yarns last for 3-4 scarves.
Size 11 or 13 knitting needles

Cast on 15 stitches in copper. Knit 8 rows in garter stitch (knit every row). Break off yarn, tie on the white yarn and knit 12 rows in garter stitch. Break off yarn and tie on the body color yarn and knit the full skein in garter stitch. Knit 12 rows in white, knit 8 rows in copper, bind off. Weave in tails.

Tiny tutu

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 18:09:27 -0400

When I quit smoking I was knitting obsessively so I wouldn't run out and buy ciggies (it's been 4 years now!). So I found a book called Knitting for Dogs. There were these cute little tutu looking sweaters in fuzzy yarn. I found some adorable confetti cotton tape style yarn in the clearance bin at JoAnn's and bought about 20 skeins at least. I made over a dozen chihuahua sized tutus in every color combination I could. I have sold 8 so far.

Serenity's hoodie

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 12:27:59 -0400

I made a multi-colored fun yarn hoodie for my granddaughter Serenity. It probably fit her growing body for about a week or two, but she loved it because it had all her favorite colors in it.

Knitted gift bag

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:33:30 -0500

When I recently visited Charleston, SC, for my niece's wedding, Bridget and I hit the farmer and flea market downtown. One vendor had the prettiest hand-spun, hand-dyed yarns. This is the softest merino wool I have ever touched. I made the bag for my sister Faith, whose daughter got married.

Corgi tote bag, back

Sat, 31 May 2008 09:33:34 -0400

This corgi's ears are a touch small. I think I am going to have to go back and re-do them a bit larger. The bag is for a friend who has corgis.

Corgi tote bag, front

Sat, 31 May 2008 09:32:16 -0400

As an experiment to see if I could do this, I knit and felted a tote bag (15" wide x 11.5" high x 3" deep, adapted from "Summer in the City Tote, p. 26, Pursenalities by Eva Wiechmann). I used photos of Pembroke Welsh Corgis as a template for the dogs and needle felted them directly onto the bag using some wool I'd had spun from sheep my dogs herd as well as purchased wools and yarns that I had on hand. The red-brown color on the dogs is a combination of a dark rust yarn and some yellow wool that I blended with wool carders until I got a good corgi red color. The yellow, orange, red/pink, purple and light blue yarns were the pieces of the natural wool that I dyed with Kool-Aid. See the back of the tote on the next page.

Celtic Knot Purse

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:18:27 -0400

This pattern was in the Winter 2007 Interweave Knits magazine. I hadn't completely finished it yet, although it has been lightly felted. It was knit from Lamb's Pride worsted weight yarn (single strand) on US size 9 (5.5 mm) needles. The base is stabilized with plastic mesh craft canvas inside a knitted tube. The light felting called for in the pattern leaves the bag very soft and not very sturdy--too soft to use as a purse, I think, without some help. I am going to sew a fabric lining with a zipper pocket and a cell phone pocket to give it more strength and stability. I bought two styles of buttons, but I can't decide which one to use. One is a long oval wood button, the color of the background wool (which is more subdued than the photo shows--like old oak--not so orangey), the other is a pewter triangle with a Celtic knot design similar to the bottom part of the knot on the bag. I love that one but I don't know if pewter will look good on this color.

The purse is 16" wide at the base, 14" wide at the top x 11" high. The sides at the bottom are 4" deep and narrow to 1.5" deep at the top. The knots are outlined with a deep forest green.

Felted tote bag

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:20:27 -0400

10" high x 14" wide x 4.5" deep. Handles are 24" long each. This was knit from double stranded Paton's Classic Wool, although the free pattern from KnitPicks.com calls for the body to be a single strand of their Peruvian bulky yarn and the background to the Swedish braid pattern to be double stranded worsted weight Peruvian yarn. I made it deeper than the pattern seemed to be coming out (no pre-felted or final measurements were given in the pattern). It's a heavyweight, sturdy tote bag with a flat bottom.

Knitted cable purse

Wed, 17 May 2006 16:14:28 -0400

Hand knit purses are all the rage. This took about an hour to knit with big fat needles and doubled bulky weight yarn. The lining is a pre-made canvas tote bag. The free pattern can be downloaded on the KnitPicks website.

Pink rose bowl

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 19:42:43 -0400

retro hexagon bowl reversed

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 14:14:09 -0400

Retro hexagon bowl

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 14:15:26 -0400

Chili bowls reversed

Sun, 18 Sep 2005 20:22:42 -0400

Chili bowls

Sun, 18 Sep 2005 20:20:57 -0400

A couple years ago my sister Bridget sent me a book on how to make fabric bowls. These are so cool and they are reversible.

ASHGI quilt blocks

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:18:38 -0400

You can see in these blocks the cowgirls and their Australian shepherd cowdogs. I could not resist this fabric!

ASHGI raffle quilt

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:12:54 -0400

This is an interrupted rail fence pattern with fussy cut alternate blocks featuring cowgirls and Aussies (and border collies). It was the hot ticket raffle item at the 2005 ASCA National Specialty. Ann DeChant, Sundew Aussies, won it. The next photo is a detail of a couple of blocks. The quilt fits a twin size bed and is all flannel.

ARPH benefit quilt

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:18:51 -0400

This was my first rather lame attempt at a photo quilt featuring ARPH dogs from around the U.S. The Aussie fabric was pretty cool but hard to line up to get full heads.

Benefit raffle quilt

Fri, 04 Jan 2002 19:59:52 -0500

This was made for a raffle to benefit a beloved member of the Aussie community whose husband had suddenly died. There were a number of great items in the raffle and tickets were being sold over the Internet. On the ticket you were to name the item you wanted to take a chance on. I bought 10 tickets and picked a number of cool items I would like. I wrote on 1 ticket that it was for this quilt, thinking that if I won I would send it to the woman who was being benefitted because she was a good friend of the artist Sandy Case, whose art is featured on the quilt. My ticket was drawn by the emcee, to much hooting and laughing. The widow was ecstatic to receive the quilt. I think her late husband had a hand in that drawing!

ARPH benefit small raffle quilt

Fri, 24 May 2002 13:26:32 -0400

This was made for an ARPH benefit raffle held by the Mid-Atlantic Australian Shepherd Club in 2002. Three of the dogs are ARPH dogs we fostered. The dog in the upper left is Clancy, an ARPH referral dog we adopted at age 11. This is also done with the photo printed on special fabric.

Scatterlings of Africa

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:42:48 -0500

Queen-size quilt that took me about 9 years to finish. It is named for a song by the South African rock group Johnny Clegg & Juluka. The blocks are a pattern called Lewis & Clark, which I chose for the outward moving points. I used small pinwheel blocks to divide the sashing and to imply stars. The inner and outer dogtooth borders continue the outward movement. The blocks and sashing are hand quilted. the dogtooth borders and inner black border are machine quilted.

STAR Aussie rescue benefit quilt

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:23:28 -0400

I made this for South Texas Aussie Rescue to raffle at a fund raiser. I printed photos onto fabric of Aussies that had been adopted from STAR.

Techie baby quilt

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:13:39 -0400

A traditional rail fence pattern done in fabrics that feature computer equipment and electronic boards.

Ohio Star baby quilt

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:12:28 -0400

An Ohio Star baby quilt.

Bear Paw baby quilt

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:13:46 -0400

The center design is a printed panel from Thimbleberries. I framed it with a dark maroon print and surrounded that with half bear paw blocks.

Stuffed quilt angel

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:13:23 -0400

Yet another Christmas gift for another co-worker.

Queen-sized applique quilt

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:16:31 -0400

I designed and produced this quilt to be raffled to offset the cost of holding the South Central Rose District's annual show hosted by the Austin, TX, Rose Society. It is pretty heavily quillted, and I finished it the night before the show.

Applique traditional rose blocks

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:16:35 -0400

I made this for my in-law's 50th anniversary. It was my first applique project.

Applique hearts memory quilt

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:15:26 -0400

This was made for a co-worker who was retiring. All the employees signed a square.

Small country style wall hanging

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:12:52 -0400

This was a gift for another co-worker another Christmas. It was a small Thimbleberries kit that came in an envelope with all the fabrics and notions to complete it. There are buttons in the flower centers and sashing intersections.

Paper pieced Christmas Tree

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:12:59 -0400

After I finished this I vowed never to make another paper pieced project. I just didn't get the concept and spent more time ripping seams and cutting new fabric than is reasonable for such a small quilt (12" x 18"). It was a secret santa gift for a woman at work. There are tiny Christmas charms for decoration on the tree.

Southwest vest back

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:18:17 -0400

Aroooo! Watch out for the snake!

Southwest applique vest

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:18:24 -0400

This is the front of a vest I designed and made for a colleague who was from New Mexico. I had never made an applique garment before, so there were some challenges. She loved the vest and wore it frequently. See the back in the next photo.

Double Irish Chain

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:13:58 -0400

This double Irish chain quilt was made with large scale tropical prints with merging colors, giving the whole quilt a softer watercolor effect.

Ocean Waves

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:18:32 -0400

This is a traditional ocean waves pattern made with a Hoffman print that had Australian Aborigine motifs on it, set off with complementary colors of fabrics. I gave it to my son Chris when he lived in NYC.

Virginia Reel

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:16:19 -0400

This was a single block that I put together in a hurry and put borders around so I would have something to work on one weekend in 1989 when I accompanied my husband to a rose grower's seminar.

First quilt

Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:15:15 -0400

My first quilt, made in 1988, was a flying geese pattern done in miniature. There are over 1200 pieces, and the finished quilt measures 30"x 30". I figured that if I could finish that, I could finish anything.