I don’t want you to think I’ve abandoned this blog completely, what with one post a week on average! So here are a few of my latest Monday Faves. Click on the photos for more details!
I hope they inspire you to knit, quilt, sew, crochet, take more photos, hug your pets and enjoy the colors in your life!
I really wanted to post this last night but my latest WIP was just not ready to be photographed early enough. So this morning, quickly before I start my day, I’m taking a few minutes to take a couple pictures and post.
Yes, I admit to yet another WIP. It was really a surprise project as I found out yesterday that my colleague, who just had a baby 2 months ago, was going to have her boyfriend bring in the baby next week to our office. I then decided that it was more than time for me to finally knit her a little something. I decided on the Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap.
After casting on the smallest amount I stitches I cast on and knit the edge. I quickly realized that there was no way this was going to fit a baby’s head, as it looked like it would fit my head. I measured and checked online and indeed, it would fit a older child’s head, not exactly what I was going for. So I took it all out and after yet another failed cast on (too short tail for the long tail cast on) I finally succeeded in starting a hat that I think should fit. But I will really only find out next week, if I manage to finish the hat on time!
Meanwhile, I have been working on winnowing down my single socks. My latest cast on is the second Marigold sock I’m knitting out of Madelinetosh Sock in Chamomille. I’m really looking forward to wearing these!
I’m on the home stretch now, with only the cuff to knit. I would have finished them before the end of the March I think, but now with the extra baby hat, I’m not sure I will. After I finish this pair, my single socks count will be down to 3 plus a fourth that needs to be finished before I can knit the pair. Not bad, I’m almost seeing the end of it now.
My last WIP is a quilting WIP. I get to work on it a little here and there but I’ve only 6 blocks left to sew and I’ll be ready for sashing! Here are the existing blocks in no real particular order.
I’ve joined the Mod Sampler Quilt A Long and am having a great time with it. Of course, lots of people have already finished their quilts, but I think that always happens in A-Longs.
I guess I should mention my weaving project as well. But as there is a saga involved, I will keep it for another post!
I’ve got a lot of things to talk about for once, so I’ll just do a Random Wednesday. At least that way I’ll cover them all, albeit shortly, rather than forgetting!
First of all, I want to thank all of you who’ve said all these wonderful things about my orange quilt and sock. I really, really appreciated every single compliment! Since the last post I’ve sandwiched the quilt and have started quilting it. The quilting pattern I’ve chosen is the most complicated I’ve done so far so it might be a while before I get it all done. The turquoise and pink backing is perfect for the quilt, even DH complimented on it!
Knitting
I’ve finished another pair of socks, the pair I was hoping to get done in March. The socks are the Sockamania KAL pattern of last May which I knit in Kollage Yarns 1/2 N 1/2, a wool and milk blend, yeah, I did say milk… The yarn is really soft and was nice to knit with. We’ll see how it wears though.
I’ve made a few mistakes, especially knitting the second sock, but it’s nothing dramatic. They’re a tad on the big side, just like the Rococo socks I finished a little while back so next time I see my mom, if they fit her, they’re hers! If not, I’ll just wear them as is.
Weaving
My weaving class is going well. At last week’s class I finished warping the loom and starting weaving. In the photo below you can see at the bottom a scrap yarn section, then I wove a stabilizing in tabby weave and then I started a rose path weave (the little diamonds)
At last night’s class I wove about 3 feet of rose path. It’s going really fast and I should have the scarf done by the end of another class or two. I’m using a skein of Shivaya Naturals Fingering Merino for the warp (the darker color) and Yarn Sprout Merino Sock for the weft (the light pink).
Quilting
Last weekend I had the chance to participate in Denyse Schmidt’s Improvisational Patchwork Workshop at her studio in Bridgeport, CT. I love her prints and her design aesthetic like knitters love Elizabeth Zimmerman, so it was really an awesome treat to be able to meet her and do a workshop with her. There were 7 other participants, Denyse and her assistant Richard. Richard was awesome, he would go around re threading the sewing machines, picking up bits of thread and pieces of fabric laying around. I would love to have someone like him around when I’m sewing! Denyse is wonderful and super interesting. The workshop was definitely worth doing and I hope to be able to do Part II next year! I came back with a few goodies from her studio as well as some great pictures, which you can all see here. If you want more details about how the workshop went just ask in the comments and I’ll answer your questions.
Random Random
My aunt sent me the link to this today. Hilarious!
For some reason unbeknownst to me, two of my WIPs are in a color I’d never thought I’d ever use. As you can guess by the title, this color is Orange.
My first one is something you’ve seen just recently, but it does look a bit different than a few days ago!
I decided to go against the sashing, but just because I couldn’t find any fabric in the stash to use. Last night after work, I just started sewing and within a couple hours I had a finished quilt top. I think that’s the fastest quilt top I’ve ever sewn! I’ve found this great fabric that I’ll use for the backing so all I still have to figure out is the binding.
My other orange project is my Fast Forward socks. I finished the first one a few days ago.
The pattern and the yarn work really well together and the fit is perfect. I’m looking forward to wearing a pair of orange socks, although I don’t really have anything that will match the socks!
Orange you glad it’s not banana?
The last few days I’ve had quite a bit of time to work on knitting (I finished one sock and am making very good progress on another one) but I got quite a bit of quilting done as well.
All this quilting was spurred by a quilt-along organized by Elizabeth from Oh, Fransson!. Elizabeth is an amazing quilter and sews really beautiful quilts that appeal to me very much so when she decided to organize a quilt-along, I couldn’t resist. If you’re interested, you can check out the details here.
Before we get started with cutting and sewing, I really wanted to clear out some of my backlog of quilts, so this is what I did over the weekend.
I had a quilt that only needed a binding so after an evening piecing the binding and another few hours of machine sewing, my quilt was done! It was very windy outside so I only got a couple pictures of the quilt.
and the pieced back
The quilt is now on the back of the couch and all I want to do now is sew new matching pillow covers!
A few months ago I had sewn together small scrappy quilt blocks and this weekend I finally got around to finishing each block with orange sashing. I got a lot of blocks so the quilt will be quite big. A friend of mine suggested that I add an additional sashing around the blocks in another color, but I don’t know yet if I should or not.
What do you think? And if I do add sashing, which color?
Now I’m all ready for the Mod Sampler quiltalong! I’m still waiting for a couple pieces of fabric to come in but here are most fabrics that I will be using.
Can you tell I’m addicted to Denyse Schmidt prints? : ) I can’t wait to get started!
It’s crazy how much sock knitting I can accomplish when I’m not working on a sweater…
Since I finished my Calvert cardigan, I’ve knitted the second sock to my Rococos (seen in my last post), made good progress on both the first Herringbone Rib sock (foot and heel complete) and my first Spring Forward sock (foot, heel and half of leg done) and finally cast on to the second Celebrations sock.
I knitted the first Celebrations sock for the Sockamania KAL back in May of last year. I had a real hard time of it but this second time around is going much better. I’ve only 2 repeats to go before I have to knit the heel. I made a little mistake on one of the cables, it’s hard to see on the photo but you might be able to see it if you look on the biggest picture. All the cabling is hard on my wrist so I didn’t feel like ripping back to correct it.
I’m really happy to be finally catching up to all these single socks I have accumulated over the last year. After I finish this pair, there are 3 singles socks that need a mate plus 2 socks that need to be completed and that need a mate. Hopefully I wont start knitting some new ones before I’m caught up!
In other good news, my box bags will be available at tonight’s update at yarn4socks! You can check them out here! I really hope they work well! If they do, I see a lot more box bags in my future! I’ll always be offering them here first though.
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