Trudging on

My head hurts. I hope I didn’t get a bug from my DH (WT). He was home with a raging sinus infection SINCE LAST THURSDAY. Having loved ones around all the time is both nice and not-so-nice.

Nice in that they are there, not-so-nice in that they are always there. *grin*

I bought huge piles of yarn at 3 Kittens Needle Arts because they had a whole ton on their front porch. The shop has new owner(s?) and they were clearing out old stock. I scored a bunch of Plymouth Sinsation (like Muench Touch Me) for some Vintage Velvet scarves (Interweaves Scarf Style). The reason I am so emphatic is that Sinsation is usually $13 a ball, and has about 1/2 the yardage of Touch Me, so that would make a pretty expensive scarf, right? How about at 75% off? Whooooweeeee! I didn’t know exactly how much to purchase, but I figured 8 skeins of each color that I could get would do it. We shall see. Here’s one of the colors I purchased:

I also bought a few skeins of for some striped tube socks for a Christmas gift for a young lady – lets call her Elf. I have in my mind something cool/funky and wanted to do a twirling 2 color thing with blue and purple, but I can’t seem to find the right yarn. The yarn I bought didn’t work – too thick. It will make great baby hats and mitts, so I just set that yarn aside for later.

The purple/blue hand dyed yarn that I dyed with this project in mind wasn’t enough yardage. So back to my stash of sock yarn and tried this out:

It is lovely (Trekking XXL) but too frumpy for Elf. I don’t have the heart to rip it out because I might make it into a sock for me – later.

So back to the stash again. I finally decided the Lisa Souza Sock! Merino in the Lime n Violet colorway would be perfect, and it is!

I am doing a K3, P2 cuff for 4 inches and then start spiraling the ribbing around in a long tube sock with a star toe. Elf is growing fast, so making a sock that fits just right with a heel and a definite foot length would be a issue – tube socks will work longer. The sock yarn is delicious, very soft but a bit thinner than most sock yarn I’ve used. I am using 0s to do the sock, where I usually use US 1s or US 1.5 (one of those type that isn’t a true 1 or a 2). Just this one sock yarn (vs. 2 for a spiral stripe) because it is already pretty funky looking. I hope Elf likes them.

Peace!

Knitting on ZenKnit?!?

I actually have some knitting news to share.

Finished one sock – another Ridged Feather (Sensational Knitted Socks). Here it is:

That’s good news, right? The bad news is that I started it on September 29th. The mate will have to wait because I am starting on my "super secret holiday projects". There may be other socks, there may be the finishing of projects that should have been completed some time ago – who knows?

And on that vein, I think I spent about one hour doing a very focused search for the marked up copy (notes and such) of the vest I promised my mother (was it for last Christmas or was it a birthday? Anyway…). By the time I found the notes/pattern, I had lost the energy to work on it, but it is good to go when the crave (read: guilt) strikes again.

I am both knitting the edge and working on the last 2 monster sections of the Moderne Log Cabin. I decided to do an applied i-cord using the dark blue. Here it is:

I thought about doing a multicolored edge but decided that I had enough of the dark blue to make all the way around. It is turning out nice, right? I wish I would have started it on the wrong side, so the raised edge would be on the right side, but it still looks good. I also wish I would have started it after I had finished the last 2 sections – because now I have this huge project with 3 balls of yarn tangling up every time I turn it around to do the next row. Live and learn I guess.

I am torn on keeping it for myself (original plan) or gifting it away. It is very comfy and warm without being too heavy and I am really liking the colors. If I gift it away I will definitely make another for myself using some of the new colors of Cotton-Ease that will be coming out.

Back to knitting now.

Peace!

Weather Reality has returned

It is a grey day here in Saint Paul, MN. Like it should be. I liked the warmer days for the last few, but they also kind of creeped me out. Something felt wrong. Like global warming kind of wrong.

Anyway…. I don’t think I mentioned that I was signed up for the Combination Knitting class with Annie Modesitt. The class was fabulous (inside joke). The class was through Original Sewing & Quilt Expo.

They had a lot of classes, but mostly catering to machine embroidery and sewing, and of course quilting. Cause you can see that they don’t have the word knit in the title of who they are (heh). But Three Kittens Needle Arts and a few other local and non local knit shops were there.

I thought this conference would be a good way to see a lot of fabric and new doohickies displayed and imagined many, many vendors with pre-cut fabric (fat quarters) and quilt kits and, you know, STUFF! There were plenty of vendors, but their displays were kind of jammed up or puny and there wasn’t a lot of fabric in any of them. Many, many women though – milling around and it was kind of loud in the vendor area. Most of the vendors sold sparkly stuff and there was a lot of machine embroidery there. Big machines cranking away, or large displays of the embroidery done up. Not what I am into.

The prizes were good enough for me to stick around until 5:15 when they were awarded (must be present to win). But I didn’t win any of them, and because of the time I hit major traffic. Kind of wish I hadn’t stayed so long. I did talk to a lot of nice people though.

Back to the class. I already knew how to do combination knitting, but I just wanted to experience Annie Modesitt. She is really something else – a very good something else. She is a good teacher and loves to knit – has a great energy and tells lots of funny stories. The class was kind of large, but we all had a chance to see her demo extra stuff and I think we all had fun, at least I did. If you ever get a chance to take a class with her – do!

Peace!

Added at 3:15 p.m.:

It just seemed wrong to not have a photo, so I give you this:

Spencer on his new bed from Doctors Foster Smith.com. This bed is seriously huge; Spencer is a big 90+ dog. I was going to crop the photo so you wouldn’t see the mound of pillows and other junk, but it just seemed wrong to have just a bit of Guinevere’s butt in the photo. As you can see, she has been practicing being a black cat again.

Now I feel at Peace!

It must be a Libra thing

I am a Libra. That means I like balance and for things to be pleasing. I am also a recovering perfectionist and procrastinator. My theory is that that if you are a procrastinator you might be a very strong perfectionist. Take projects like knitting or quilting; if you have an unfinished object (UFO) then that project still has a chance of being perfect. Once it is finished, it is either perfect or more often, not. So, many perfectionists procrastinate the completion of projects.

I have worked mighty hard at giving up on both the perfectionism and procrastination. I finish many, many projects. I do whatever pleases me now, and love my weird ways. When I make a mistake that only I will notice, I try to balance it to suit me and in many ways that just means repeating the error for balance. Sounds weird, but it works. Like if I find that I made a mistake waaaaaaay up on the sock and I am at the toe, I just leave it, but repeat the exact same mistake in the other sock. Balance! And perfect in its own screwy logic way.

The reason I am rambling on about this is that I am realizing why I may have given up quilting in the 80s. The math, and having to deal with the fact that I love random/scrappy quilts but I cannot bear to be totally random.

Hence all the planning. I am heavy into it for the
Wash Day Stars.

I got my order lickety-split from Anna Lena’s. It is amazing how much fabric can be jammed into a priority "flat" envelope! It was bulging and had already popped open, but the fabrics were fine.

Once I received the fabrics, I had to start figuring out how to get 134 strips (6 of each 22 colors plus two extra strips) out of a possible 197 combinations of 2 colors (allowing for the fact that I would not put a red next to a red, blue next to blue. So I scanned my color choices and numbered them too. Now I am in the process of whittling down puey combinations (pink next to orange). Here is my fabric (25 fat quarters were in the bunch, I already set aside 3 prints that just don’t work for this quilt).

click for a better view

But this time, instead of worrying if it is "right" and procrastinate the finishing, I will keep plugging away until it is complete and I am sure I will love how it turns out.

Peace!

Everything old is new again

Still knitting away on my Modern Log Cabin (Mason Dixon Knitting). Here is a more up-to-date shot of my progress:

The red will be the last of that side (before border). After the red is complete I still have 2 HUGE squares to do, just to the right. -sigh-

It is so large now that I cannot take it out for public knitting. Back to socks and gift knitting when I am out and about.

***Knitting Content Ends***

Lately a lot of my time is put toward quilting. Not actually doing anything like quilting, mind you, but the all the planning and reading, reading, reading and planning, that goes with putting your toe back into the waters of an old consuming hobby.

Here’s what I have been reading and looking and planning with:
new reading material on the heap-o-books.

And:

old stuff from the heap-o-books. I have plenty more, just thought more photos of piles of books would be boring.

Besides all the mental stuff there has been some work/fun too. Like getting out the partially completed quilt tops and getting them ready to be finished. I am attempting to get some very old stains out of some of my double wedding ring pieces. I don’t think they will be 100% gone, but a little bit of stain will look like a nicely aged quilt. That is what I am telling myself.

I have also decided to just finish whatever I have – not resize or anything. Quilts don’t have to cover the whole bed (hang over and all).

And… some of my activity has been the purchase more fabric and books type of activity. Boy, online fabric selection is fantastic! Great deals.

I bought some 1930s fat quarters to make Wash Day Stars. I didn’t buy the kit because I want to change it up a bit. Instead of the yellow borders I would like a nice medium blue, I might also change some of the tones on the solid parts of the stars – orange instead of the purple, or just add orange into the mix. I might change the size up a bit too. From that website I did order 25 fat quarters of 1930s prints – assorted colors. Kind of sight-unseen, but I am not worried about it. That quilt and the store were one of the ones profiled in Better Homes and Gardens Quilt Sampler Magazine. I would link it but the website is horrible – too many pop-ups.

Some serious slobberific quilts and stores in that magazine. I drooled over it all the way to my 3-day weekend in Wausau, and keep going back to it every night to look at the pretty photos.

I have been also studying/dreaming/planning on the quilts in Quick & Easy Romantic Quilts. I bought my copy from Half-Price Books for $3.98. It is worth the cover price of $13.95 though.

There are many quilts in there that I would love to make and the funny thing is, I would want to follow the colors she used – not with the exact same prints, but following the color/tone. Knowing that, it was still somewhat exasperating to find what I was looking for. I guess it was easier than dragging myself to what might be several local quilt stores, but still:

I ended up purchasing more than enough fabric from Thousands of Bolts, Only One Nut.

Here is the quilt:

Indigo Sky

The fabric I ordered:

My Indigo Sky

I hope when the fabric arrives I won’t have to change anything, but adding some fabric to the heap is a reasonable thing. Just as long as it doesn’t get out-of-hand.

This post is ending soon, I promise 🙂
Chappysmom is having a contest called "Calendar Girl". She is asking that we post photos from November calendars . Here is one from Inner Reflections – from the Self-Realization fellowship (Paramahansa Yogananda). If you love nature photos you might want to check this one out, it has some of the best I have seen – better than the obvious nature choices (IMHO). I have been buying this calendar for several years now.

and to show that it is from November:

Here is a bright one from the calendar, Healing Mandalas:

and to show it is from November

Peace!