Spinning and Piecing

This week was taken up in part with quilting. Here is the third Pine Burr block:


And the fourth:

And the fifth:

I ended up taking Joanie to a couple of doctors' appointments on Monday and Tuesday. She was well enough to come to Vintage Stitchers when we met at Wasatch & Wool on Thursday:



We had some nice pastries, coffee and juice, and shared our latest projects with each other and the shop owner, Margaux, and one of the employees. Janet had made good progress on her Mystery Scarf KAL:


Brenda has been appliquéing the October "Bertie's Year" block:


Barbara worked on her Dresden Plate blocks. She brought her "Disappearing Hourglass" quilt top to share. She's trying to decide on whether to put on a border or not.


The store got some business from the ladies, which was good. My purchase was more spinning fiber, which I purchased with this past weekend's spin-in in mind, although I knew I wouldn't get to it during the event. It was lovely sitting with friends among all the yummy fiber and notions, and watching the snow fall outside. (Although the resorts can make snow when it's cold enough, we haven't seen much natural snow this year.)



When I got home, I got out Rocky's Sheep Sweater, which he had bitten a hole in while chewing on a toy. Here's what it looked like before the "incident."


The hole was right in the middle of the top band of pattern. I had been meaning to turn the neck ribbing into a turtleneck anyway, because the ribbing wanted to fold over, exposing the inside of the sweater, so I decided just to remove the whole neck and everything. I picked up the sts in the bottom round (top round in the photo) of solid blue, cut the yarn in one place above that round and picked out the cut row. Then I started knitting a new top pattern band. The sweater was knit from the neck down, so my pattern sts in that pattern band are upside-down in relation to the others, but I don't think it's too noticeable. After finishing with two rounds of the background color (Swish DK in "Lava Heather") I changed to the smaller needles and knit 3" of neck ribbing.


In the photo, you can see the new sts, which are right-side-up And look like this: v. The original ones, knit in the opposite direction, look like this:  ^. His other sweater really needed a wash, so it was good to get this done.

While waiting for the spin-in to start on Friday, I installed the new cord for my Featherweight, which had come in the mail on Thursday. It required opening up the foot pedal, removing the old cord and screwing in the new one. The old cord had nicks in it, and I discovered that there must also have been a break in the wire, because while I was using it the light (brand-new LED bulb) went out and the machine wouldn't run until I jiggled the cord. It probably wasn't safe anymore, so it was good to replace it. The new one came from April 1930s Featherweight Shoppe.

With the cord replaced, I started the fifth block of the Pine Burr quilt (see above).

This weekend was the Spin-in in the Knitting Community. I spun up the Greenwood Fiberworks hand-painted roving in "Lavender Hedgerow" that I had picked up at Wasatch & Wool on my birthday. It was great to be spinning again!

Finally, we had a visit from a couple of neighbors this past weekend: two adolescent moose. I only captured one of them on pixels, though. The other one had already run down the hill and across the back.

What's on my needles: Brick Cardigan, making progress on the yoke...still. Also the second Martha Washington's Wreath appliqué block for my First Ladies quilt.

What's on my Featherweight: Pine Burr, sixth block in the planning stage.

What's on my wheel: Back to the Full Circle spinning fiber in "Pigeon" I was spinning before the spin-in.

What's on my loom: Still some warp for another scarf, but still folded up.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished A Second Chance by Jodi Taylor. Looking forward to reading the next of the series of "The Chronicles of St. Mary's." Then listened to to Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson, and now on to Zero Day by David Baldacci, also from Audible. Also finished reading Charlotte Collins by Jennifer Becton on the Nook app and have gone on to reading Beyond the Cliffs of Kerry by Amanda Hughes on the Kindle app.

What's in my wine glass: Lindeman's Cawarra Shiraz-Cabernet 2013, a nice, acceptable wine.

What's my tip of the week: When paper-piecing, set the sewing machine stitch length for very short stitches. It will make the paper easier to remove.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.