Other Projects

I needed an easy sock pattern for a recent road trip, so I cast on "Primavera" with some Lorna's Laces in the Franklin Habit Panopticon colorway. Fun pooling and the pattern had just enough difficulty to keep it interesting across Texas.
Our house is slowly being overrun with Barbie dolls, and most of the time they are nekkid. A quick search on Ravelry brought me to this...which will probably end up under the bed like the clothes the dolls came with!
And, my Arizona Centennial Postage Stamp quilt. 196 pieces done, only 1804 to go!! Hopefully you can see the gold star which is the center of the state flag. If you have any red, navy blue or butter yellow scraps, I can definitely put them to use!

4 years and counting

Tomorrow is my blog-iversary! WOW. Can't believe it's been that long, time flies, my baby is growing up, you know all the cliches.My other works-in-progress...

The test swatch for a lace shawl. In my dreams, I hope to have it finished to wear at a wedding in June. LOL - don't hold your breath! Counting yarn overs, k2tog and ssk takes concentration which is difficult to find when a pre-schooler is in the room.
Most of my time has been spent on this paper pieced quilt. 42 blocks, 40 pieces per block. Yeah, it took a while! Now I can have fun quilting it. And you'll have to wait for the final reveal since it's a gift and I don't want to ruin the surprise :-)
Finally, what every girl needs in Phoenix, a wool sweater. At least it's short sleeved! The pattern, Bob, comes from Knitty.com. This is much easier to work on while Kendra plays, so there is hope of seeing a finished product in a few weeks. Of course, then it will sit in the closet until the temperature drops back down to 60 degrees...perhaps this will debut for Thanksgiving dinner!

Knitting Update

I do have to mention my blog-iversary during this Winter Olympic season. I joined the first Knitting Olympics, the brain-child of Stephanie McPhee Pearl, the Yarn Harlot. She will be knitting a gorgeous Dale of Norway fair isle sweater. Yes, from cast on to finished sweater in 17 days. She is a knitting legend. I will be plodding along on my socks:I finished the front of a sweater vest. The yellow marks show where I have to cut the steeks to make the V-neck. I'm a little nervous at the prospect of attacking my knitting with scissors, but my mom says it helps to think of it as fabric :-)
Here is a tempting little quilt project that I may use as a reward for passing the halfway mark on my paper-piecing stars. A Valentine Sudoku!

New Project!

We bought a new Christmas tree, and I'm looking forward to decorating it tonight. Bentley says we'll have some popcorn, too, and I always watch "The Sound of Music" when I put up my tree. Not really a classic Christmas tale, but it was always on TV during the holidays when I was little, so there's the "tradition."

I cast on for a sweater vest. It uses two colors of Noro variegated yarn. I love watching the new colors emerge! This is a testament to my increasing skill as a knitter...it is working up very quickly.
The mitered blanket is about halfway done. Yes, I *have* been working on it for years! I finished the individual blocks a few months ago, and I started the seaming process. Note my two different techniques. The right side is done with crochet, and the left is mattress stitch. I'm kicking myself because I tried to figure out mattress stitch from a book, decided it didn't look good, and went with crochet. The crochet doesn't look very good either, but it was faster than my interpretation of mattress stitch! Over Thanksgiving, my mom taught me the right way to do mattress stitch, which doesn't take very long, and makes an invisible seam. You guessed it, I will be taking out all the crochet seams. This project has taken so long that it is worth doing the best I can.

The purple beast left my house a couple weeks ago, hooray! I am taking a break from quilting for other people so I can work on a few of my own projects. I dove right into this beauty.

Paper pieced, 40 pieces per block, and I need 42 blocks. Oh, and to make things exciting, it needs to be done (pieced, quilted and bound) by mid-June. (No, I can't quit my day job)
1680 pieces to sew, plus picking off all the paper...I'll play Scarlett O'Hara and think about that tomorrow!

Crafty

Big news first...I'm finally an aunt! My brother picked up his son this morning and they will be home this weekend. Woo-Hoo!

I've been knitting small projects. They're great for the sense of accomplishment when you finish. First is the lace cuff for a pair of socks:And a ruffled tee for Baby K. I knit this in the round, so there are no seams! Just a few ends to weave in.

My Lenten discipline of exercise is not going so well...I was busy with a quilting deadline and missed Friday, then today I came home and vegged on the couch since I had a killer headache all day at school. I guess some is better than none, and habits take time to build, yada yada yada. (can you tell I'm really good at rationalization?!?!)

Errands

Phew...I finished the hanging sleeve on my show entries last night at 9:30pm. Dropped them off today at 10am. As the saying goes, if it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done! The show is next weekend. I volunteered to work for my longarm chapter...we are selling raffle tickets to win free longarm quilting services. I love the show atmosphere and the thrill of seeing my own work on display.

In the meantime, I have been knitting the ruffley edge to baby K's tank top:And went a little wild for polka dots! Baby K pulled the purple fabric off the shelf, so I got that for Grandma to make a sundress. The other two will go in the Block-of-the-Month that I am working on.
We'll see how long I keep up...I made the feathered star center and the four-patch border and several of the stars for the outer border. The pattern calls for several additional scrappy borders. March is pinwheels and then we do some more stars. I'm not sure I want something that big and scrappy. Something about it is not working for me. I like what I've done so far, so I've been thinking about adding just one more border and keeping it as a wall hanging.

What I really need is focus! I have several tops ready for the longarm, a couple that need binding that I've promised to Quilts of Valor, plus several personal designs that I want to play with. Do I have an audience interested in testing some patterns?!?

Quilt Lesson

I gave my friend Michelle her first quilting lesson today. Isn't it fun to share hobbies with friends?!? A few months ago we went shopping and the pattern "Reel Fine" appealed to her. She is an experienced sewer, so I assured her that while the pattern looks difficult, she could handle it step by step. She fell in love with some batiks:
(What looks like two pieces on the right is actually from a single piece of variegated fabric)
I made a sample of the pattern in EQ6 so she could see how the colors went together:


She cut everything for a queen size quilt in just a couple hours, and when she started sewing, she said, "You know, this isn't brain surgery." Yep, step by step is all it takes! She wants more lessons as she puts the blocks together. Oh wow, an excuse to quilt all day! "Sorry honey, Michelle needs my help...I'll be back in time for dinner." :-)

Here's a sneak peek of a quilt that will be entered in a show in a couple weeks. I'm about halfway done with the binding. I had fun with the meandering leaves.And I'm almost done with the body of baby K's knitted t-shirt. I love watching variegated yarn knit up. It's always a surprise.

Summer Recap

It's been a lazy summer.

Lots of laying around...and kicking back...
Baby K has a few quirks. Notice how carefully she colors each corner of the paper:
I've been knitting some. Blue socks:
And a multi-color sweater, knit sideways from one sleeve across the body to the other.
As my last treat of the summer before school starts (meetings this week, students on Monday), I am going to see "Swing Vote." Should be a good laugh before I begin teaching my US Government class.

Longer than...

I haven't posted in Longer Than three weeks...oops! The last few weeks of school were pretty hectic. A fellow teacher and I decided to do a painting project in our rooms after finals, so we scrambled around with primer and paint before doing our end-of-year checkout. Crazy, but it's much nicer looking at dark "Chinese Porcelain" blue cabinets rather than 70's formica orange.

The minute I was done at school, I came home to quilt and knit! My 100-inch stole is now as long as my six foot couch...two inches per day and it might be done on time.
I gifted a work-in-progress Graduation quilt (no photos yet). I felt bad wrapping the top up and then taking it back 30 seconds after the recipient opened it, but there was no way I could get it quilted this weekend. So, that's the first project on the longarm next week.

In the meantime, I have been making pinwheels for a block swap. I decided to do some stash-busting for this project - 16 blocks. Imagine my surprise when a fat quarter only made two 12.5 inch blocks! So, I dug around in the stash some more and found several blues to use. The colors in the top right are the majority of the blocks.

Progress

I'm a few hours early for WIP Wednesday. This is the status of my knitting projects:

I'm past the fiddly cuff and into the groove of the baubles on the second Winterberry sock from the Limited Edition TOFUtsies club. It's hard to rationalize personal knitting time when I have monster deadlines looming, but I manage to overcome those obstacles ;-)

And the ordination stole is now Longer Than Baby K's favorite push toy...maybe 20 inches done or so? I'm probably overestimating, but I will be sitting down to work on it in a minute, so it's a moot point.

Baby K has some cute games that she plays with the rocks in the backyard...I'll get some pictures of that tomorrow. Happy Stitching!

Hospital Knitting

Last Friday, I was in the mood for some basic knitting. Little did I know this project would be perfect for the hospital waiting room! I started with a seed-stitch border, and the center design will be a four-patch of stockinette. You can see in the middle where I change from knits to purls. I'm aiming for about a 24" square baby blanket...we'll see if I have enough yarn! This is left over from the log cabin blanket I finished last fall. Since there is no real plan, if I run out of yarn the alternative is to rip it out and do something multi-colored.

I took my Rockin Socks along. I am almost to the heel of sock #2.

The sock was a big hit with the little girls who came to visit my brother's roommate. One of them was practically in my lap watching me knit! She even asked if I would make her some - oh my. I kindly explained that it would take too long. ;-)

And I came home to a new Rockin Sock kit:
The color is "Flower Power." This month the theme is "Summer of Love" - a throwback to 1967 hippies. Personally, I think of more yellow and orange with the turquoise and purple of that era, but whatever...the 2007 yarn is gorgeous!

First Day Jitters

for Mommy, not Baby K! She enjoyed daycare as much as we thought she would, given her extroverted personality. What a little charmer.

She was tired when she got home, since she didn't take at nap. Too busy playing!

And in knitting news, I got bored with my socks and returned to plain garter stitch...

This is the last panel for my striped vest. I am about 30 rows from the end, then I can get busy seaming. I knit the ends in as I went along, so that is one less obstacle to a finished object :-)

Stitch-n-Pitch

The goodie bag had light up needles! Pretty cool...now I just need a pattern that calls for size 19 and I'm ready to knit in the dark.

I managed to finish something at the game - the log cabin blanket I started in the hospital when baby K was born. We didn't know if it was going to be boy or a girl, so I picked out some green and yellow yarn. (yes, the colors on your screen are horrid representations!) It's now a doll blanket, because I don't like how the colors sit next to each other. If I were going to do it again with these yarns, I would use the same color on two consecutive sides - put the lighter colors inside and then use the darker colors on the next round.

Since I have quite a bit of yarn left over, I might knit some four patch blankets. In all my spare time. In between socks and quilts. Over the next twenty years ;-)

Onto the next thing

One week until the Rockin Sock Club yarn gets mailed! And probably another week to arrive in my mailbox. It's like counting down to Christmas, yipee!! I want to be able to cast on right away when my RSC kit arrives, so I am in the planning stages with the two skeins pictured. On the left is "Stars and Stripes" by Fortissima. I am thinking of a plain ribbed leg and stockinette foot to let the sel-patterning yarn really shine. On the right is my Socktoberfest yarn from Scout. The plan is to create a pair of Halloween knee-highs for October '07. I need to get some contrasting plain yarn for the cuff, heel and toe. Black or purple...what do you suggest?

And the top shows the alpaca yarn for my current project. I started the Left Back of a sweater vest. All knit stitches, so it works up very quickly. The multi-color alternates for a striped vest. After the left back panel is finished, I just have to knit a small wedge and seam the 5 pieces together. Good thing I have lots of TV to watch this weekend...that means quality knitting time. (On the schedule: Amazing Race, Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters on Sunday, 24 on Monday)

I wore my Jaywalkers to school yesterday. It made me so happy to look at my feet :-) I will need to adjust my wardrobe to better showcase the hand-knits.

Plans for the three-day weekend...taxes (yuck, but not very painful with the adoption tax credit!). Monday I will run down to the LQS for some backing and batting. Last night I finished the Color Blocks top. I think today I will pull out my 2005 Blocks of the Month...that project got stalled in month 7! It's a Marti Michell pattern, so there are lots of little pieces to cut out with templates.

I want to take a long walk with Baby K today to enjoy the 80 degree weather. My condolences to those of you in the frozen tundra of the Midwest!!

Jaywalker update

See, I told you in-progress photos are boring! Here we have 75% of my first pair of Jaywalkers. I think it's pretty cool that, although I knew I did not start with the same color, the stripes look amazingly match-y!! Just about one row off at the very top. Which makes it easy to measure the foot length ;-) Looks like I need three blue stripes before my toe decreases!

B. is out on a walk with Baby K right now. I got out of it because I had to take my car in for its emissions check. I was sitting at a stop light this morning, noticing the personalized plates next to me, when I had that sinking feeling that I had missed a deadline. Yep - a week late renewing my vehicle registration! Only an $8 late fee, not too bad.

Although, thinking of my missed walk, I definitely need the exercise! I am about over my cold, just the drippy nose stage now. SO, next week, I'll be back at the gym. Maybe I can actually make it the recommended 3 times per week! That hasn't happened yet in the year that I've had my Curves membership!!!

Abrupt change of subject - Could Grey's Anatomy have been any more depressing last night?!? B's comment was that, of course, Meredith won't drown, because then it wouldn't be Grey's Anatomy! I wanted to watch Men in Trees, if only to cheer up, but I was about to fall asleep, so we recorded it and we'll watch it tonight after the basketball game...or maybe save it for Saturday since there's generally nothing on then! I'm looking forward to the Amazing Race All-Stars which begins on Sunday.