High Fiber--Talented Friends and Craftsmen

Common Threads met at Julie's on Thursday. Julie had this Halloween quilt on the wall:

The blocks were pieced, but the "appliqué" squares are cheater cloth. (For non-quilters, cheater cloth is cloth printed to look like pieced or appliquéd fabric.) Jean made one just like this, her first quilt! She backed it with Minky fabric (sort of a plush fabric, good for backing quilts for babies, young people and pretty much anyone else).

You may remember Karan's wedding quilt blocks from a couple of weeks ago. She has finished piecing the quilt and has it ready for machine quilting.

Julie also showed off one of her Crazy hearts quilts. She and some friends made these for couples getting married. The couple gets to pick the colors. She says the men cut, and the women (and some of the men) sew the blocks together. This one has some raw-edge machine-appliquéd hearts added.

Julie has a long-arm quilting machine, which she uses to machine-quilt her own quilts and those of others for hire. It takes up most of what would have been the living room in her home.

Common Threads members also knit. Jean's making a sock-yarn blanket. I'll show her progress in a year or two. (Actually, she stays with one project at a time, so she tends to get things done.)

Speaking of getting things done, Lynda was making socks using a self-striping yarn she liked but a sock pattern she realized wasn't any fun to knit. She had the first sock almost done, when she frogged (ripped out) the entire thing and started over with a new pattern for some simple, fast socks. She's wearing these now!

I've been making some progress on my Dogwood Blossoms Cardigan. I've finished the Dogwood Blossoms motif and am working my way toward the shoulder. In this photo, you can see the completed row of flowers, and the armscye steek stitches slightly right of center. There's another armscye steek on the other side. This is where I will cut the fabric and insert a sleeve.

I should mention again that I have changed out a few of the colors and changed the pattern to drop-shoulder, which is more suited to my figure. Thanks go to Elizabeth Zimmermann and her books, as well as the Knit Picks Knitting Community, for giving me the skills to make adjustments to knitting patterns!

In the meantime, the tile installer has been working on the bathrooms. The powder room floor is finished, and he has this much of the shower stall done. Quilters will appreciate the extra effort of placing the tiles (blocks) on point. 

You can just see two of the square holes that will contain Kokopelli-themed decorative tiles. Next week we should have a photo of the finished shower stall. We should get the floor tiles in this week, too. The heating wires are already installed and covered with cement, ready to have the tiles on top.

Last week I showed Soren in his Jasper Diamond Hoodie, and although it was a cute photo, you can see the sweater better in this photo:

The yarn is Knit Picks Stroll sport in "Stream Heather." My experience has shown that items made from this yarn come out of the washer and dryer in excellent condition, something new mothers appreciate!

I don't want to overwhelm you with adorableness, but there will be more coming. Stay tuned!

What's on my needles: Dogwood Blossoms, progress described above.

What's on my wheel: Full Circle Roving in "Pigeon." There probably won't be much progress until after the election, due to phone-banking and canvassing trips.
What's on my iPad: Still Dean Koontz's Odd Apocalypse. Interesting story, as usual!
What's in my wine glass: Concha y Toro Frontera Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot 2011. The big bottle. It will last a couple of days, but tasty!

Note: This blog post was produced entirely on the MacBook. The iPad was used to process photos. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for or cleaned.