Stitches and Snow

It was a great week for quilting. Common Threads met at Janet's, and we had a variety of projects.

Ellen is working on the second block for her Home Sweet Home quilt. She isn't sure if she'll make all of the blocks or not, but she has a great start. (Her grandson said that the windows were crooked. I think this feature gives it charm, and that she should have told him it was on purpose.) It's the same pattern I used for the quilt over my mantle, completed in 2007, although I used a braided border, instead of the swags in the pattern:

Ginny was hand-quilting one of the King-sized pillow shams to go with a quilt she made a couple of years ago.

Janet was finishing up this quilt she started some time ago. It's one of the patterns from the Jelly Roll Quilts book.

She has vowed to make every quilt in the book. I have made several of the quilts in this book, too.

Margareth has been working on this cross-stitch:

Lynda had finished this beaded cowl and was working on another. (She modeled it while wearing a sweater she made 30 years ago):

The pattern for the cowl is "Ice Queen", found on Knitty.

Bernadette had finished this crocheted Daisy baby blanket:

I took the bunny litter along, and we took a group shot of all the Little Cotton Rabbits projects together, with Janet's elephant and Julie's elephant and fox. Julie is making the mouse now.

Our first real winter storm hit Saturday, and by Sunday morning it looked like this:

I had to take the photo during a brief moment when the sun was out, so you could see the berm. We had about 8" on the rail at this time, and more was coming down. This kind of "dump" isn't unusual, but it's very early to be getting this much snow at our 7200' elevation. However, Julie braved the beginnings of it on Saturday to bring me my "Reflections of Butterflies in Lemonade" quilt, which she quilted for me on her long-arm machine.

You may remember that this was a "disappearing hourglass" quilt, where you make a big hourglass block, cut it up and sew it back together after rotating the block segments. The instructions in The Missouri Star "Block" magazine called for starting with a layer cake (10" squares). I wanted to use some fat eighths, which are not 10", so I just calculated what I would need to get the size block needed to be the same as the instructions. I must have made a mistake in my calculations, however, because instead of having stars in my blocks, I had these floating things that looked like butterflies. Later, I watched the YouTube video, and figured out why this happened. In the magazine, Jenny Doan has you measure from the center seam and cut, then measure from that cut and cut again. In the video, she says to cut into nine equal squares. My hourglass blocks must have been slightly off. I'm happy with the effect, so nothing lost, but I learned something. At least all my "butterflies" are all floating the same distance from the seams. So I got lemonade. Appropriate, because the original design came from someone else's mistake. I'm sewing down the binding now. Then have to make a label. 

Since Thanksgiving is this week in the US, I thought my readers would appreciate this turkey:

I'm cooking for Thanksgiving dinner. We're having company, so I will have to do the "H-word," too. Happy Thanksgiving, US readers, and everyone have a happy week!

What's on my needles: The Johan socks and Mr. F's clothes. Still hand-quilting my Spring Flowers quilt, finished two of four appliqué blocks. Sewing the binding on my "Reflections" quilt

What's on my Featherweight: Silently waiting for the next sewing project.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished The Line by J. Horn from Audible, interesting book about witches in Savannah. Then I listened to Audible's Young Mrs. Savage by D. E. Stevenson, one of my favorite authors. She allows you to visit England and/or Scotland in an earlier time. Her characters are very real. Still reading Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel, from Book Bub.

What's my app of the week: KSL Weather Vortex. It's put out by a Salt Lake City TV station, but can be used anywhere. It's how I knew I wasn't going to risk going to church Sunday morning.

What's in my wine glass: Lindeman's Shiraz-Cabernet 2013. Very nice. The wine steward rarely selects a bad wine.

What's my tip of the week: When hand-quilting a quilt using a hoop, I like to keep the tension-adjusting screw to the left as much of the time as possible, to keep it out of the way of my quilting thread. For straight lines, I use masking tape, if I don't have a seam to follow. You can get tape in various widths to correspond to the space between quilting lines.

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.

Winter's Arrival

The first snowblowers of the season were heard Saturday morning.

Vintage Stitchers met on Thursday at Diane's. Carol brought her Kaffe Fassett quilt, ready for border:

Carol make the blocks for this quilt some time ago, a BOM, but she didn't like that the blocks were so plain, so she jazzed them up.

On the back, the quilter used dark thread in the sashing and borders.

Rebecca had made this embroidered pillow:

...and this red work quilt top.

Brenda had two quilt tops finished. First, this one:

...and then if you can't sleep at night, you can read your quilt.

Barbara bought this Christmas quilt kit at a Whimsy Cottage quilt shop long ago when it was in Heber City.

I can't show you my knitting/crocheting project, because it's a secret, but here's an example of a previous project, also counting as this week's cuteness: Johan wearing the owl hat I made for his brother more than two years ago:

Here's the link to Ravelry page for the project.

What's on my needles: The Johan socks and Mr. F's clothes, plus a small project I can't show you yet. Still hand-quilting my Spring Flowers quilt, working on the second of four appliqué blocks.

What's on my Featherweight: Silently waiting for the next sewing project.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: The Line by J. Horn from Audible. Still reading Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel, from Book Bub.

What's my app of the week: KSL Weather, for up-to-date weather anywhere there's a weather station.

What's in my wine glass: The big box, Block Red Shiraz. It says, "Bottled April 29, 2014, so it's really fresh! Actually, it's pretty good.

What's my tip of the week: If you want to know if you have enough yarn to make another of the same project you've just made from the same yarn, weigh the finished project and then weight the leftover yarn. If your yarn weighs as much or more than your project, you will have enough.

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.

Hare-brained Scheme

It might have been a hare-brained scheme to make four bunnies, but I finished the third boy bunny, this one for Johan.


Here's what he looks like without his little kimono. He's wearing garter-stitch booties and soaker, actually knitted as part of the legs and body.


I made the girl bunny a sweater using the same pattern as the baby kimono, the Ballerina Wrap Cardigan. out of the same Stroll fingering yarn as I used in the dress and tights.

All of the yarn used came from scraps left over from other projects. In fact, the only yarn I bought was the white for the baby bunny and the Cascade Ultra Pima for the boys' outfits and the baby's kimono, so it was an inexpensive project. Now that I have finished knitting the bunnies, there's a KAL for making any of the Little Cotton Rabbits projects for holiday gifts, but you had to CO and finish between November 8, and December 25th. Too late for me, but I'll be happy to watch from the sidelines.

After finishing the last bunny, I got back to hand-quilting my Spring Flowers quilt.


I have the second of the four appliqué blocks partly quilted. I'm quilting around all the appliqué motifs and quilting inside each of the diamond shapes as well as in the ditch on the diamonds. The background will have diagonal quilting lines from corner to corner, except for the strips of partial LeMoyne stars heading in the N-S-E-W directions, where the quilting goes orthogonally (horizontal and vertical) from the center to the border. I finished that quilting first, so I don't make a mistake and accidentally quilt on the diagonal where it's supposed to be horizontal or vertical, if that makes sense.

Common Threads met this week at Margareth's.


Evidence of Margareth's weaving were found everywhere. She showed us some new projects, but I can't show them, because she plans on entering them in a show. After the show, I'll bless you with a small, mini-Margareth-weavings show. That will be in January. However, Karan was willing to show off her shawl.


Margareth was working on a hat, made from two strands of yarn held together:


Lynda had finished this baby sweater, similar to another one she made earlier. Here's the front:


Here's the back. I like the sheep in the middle, watching where Baby has been.


She used the fiber from her angora bunny for the sheep.

In other news this week, the oven in our gas stove went out, so we had the appliance repair man come and fix it and have a look at our dryer. The problem with the stove was the igniter, which he replaced. The dryer just had some lint clogging the inside, and it worked fine after he removed it. Now the clothes dry much faster, and the dial advances as it should. I mentioned the sound the washer makes, and he thought it sounded like the motor is getting ready to go out. I hope it doesn't go out while all the babies are here for Christmas! (We bought our Maytag washer and dryer in 1982.)

The Wisconsin grandkids had a visit from their other grandparents over Halloween. Here's Zachary giving his fork a little help, photo courtesy of Bubbye.

We're into the second week of the time change, and I'm still waiting for my "extra hour of sleep." Sunny and I are waking up an hour too early every morning. [Sigh!]

Special Note: If you don't read the text of my blog posts, you may have the impression that I'm some kind of super woman. Most, of the projects shown in my blog are produced by friends. Of course, if you don't read my blog text, you won't be reading this.

What's on my needles: The Johan socks and Mr. F's clothes. Back to hand-quilting my Spring Flowers quilt, working on the second of four appliqué blocks.

What's on my Featherweight: Silently waiting for the next sewing project.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Reading The Long Way Home by Karen McQuestion, which was one of Audible's Daily Deals. Good story, and it makes ghosts and psychic abilities seem everyday. I would like to read other books by the same author. Still reading Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel, from Book Bub.

What's my app of the week: Craftsy...again! They recently gave me a choice of any class not in my primary category. (I could only choose one, so I picked knitting, since there was more for me to learn, I thought.) I picked Peggy Martin's "Quick-Strip Paper Piecing." Then they had a surprise sale! I picked up Stacey Trock's "Amigurumi: Woodland Animals," thinking I would improve my crochet skills and maybe use up some scraps making toys for the grands. The only thing I don't like is, when they have a sale, they give me a notification, which shows up on my phone and my iPad, in addition to the email they send. If I read it one place, it still stays on each device until I delete it from that device.

What's in my wine glass: Blackstone Mendoza Malbec 2011, coincidentally the same vintage as DH's "new" Impreza. The fate of his old 1998 Legacy Wagon is still undetermined. However, I'm certain the Malbec has a better bouquet and flavor, although the finish on the Impreza is pretty nice.

What's my tip of the week: If you need to slice vegetables that are rounded, like carrots, radishes, zucchini, etc., and you're in a hurry, slice them lengthwise first. They they will lie flat while you quickly slice them. Of course, this only works if you're happy  with half-moon shapes.

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.

The Last Bunny...by a Hare.

I finished the second boy bunny, this one for Soren.


He and Zachy's bunny have the same attire, although the bunnies look very different, so we won't get them mixed up at Christmas. Daphne's bunny is wearing Mary Janes, actually knitted as her feet. The two boy bunnies get Nikes (also knitted as their feet), in honor of Soren and Johan's mother, who works for the company:

Like the undies, this is a departure from the pattern instructions from Little Cotton Rabbits, which have them bare except for the clothes that come off.

I've made a good start on Johan's Baby Boy Bunny. The head is done.

I don't know if you can tell, but this bunny has blue eyes, like most human babies. I thought about giving him pink eyes, like real white bunnies, but decided this was cuter. This bunny will be wearing a soaker and booties, knitted as part of the body and feet, along with a baby sweater, which will be removable. Watch for him (finished, with any luck) next week.

There was no stitching group this week, because it was a fifth Thursday, but Joanie and I went to Ogden for the antique fair on Saturday. I didn't find anything to buy at the fair, but found some sock yarn at The Needlepoint Joint, where we always stop when we make these trips. I've been wanting socks to match my new turtleneck, and this yarn will be perfect!


We also finally got our first snow of the season on Sunday, but very late for the first snow. Usually it comes in September. At least I have a nice cozy nest for curling up with my knitting or quilting.

We turned our clocks back Saturday night. I think it's a dumb idea, but we're stuck with it. I will be tired and hungry for the next three weeks until I adjust, although I've been trying to stay up later and eat later, to prepare. No one asked me.

But to end on a positive note, here's some cuteness for this week:

What's on my needles: Johan's Baby Boy Bunny. Also still the Johan socks (for me) and Mr. F's clothes. My quilting needles are still working on the hand-quilting of my Spring Flowers quilt.

What's on my Featherweight: Crystal Stars is still with the quilter for custom quilting when she finishes the Reflections quilt.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Just One Damn Thing After Another, the first volume of Jodi Taylor's "The Chronicles of St. Mary's." Then I listened to Strange Highways by Dean Koontz, and now Last Wool and Testament by Molly MacRae, another of Audible's "Daily Deals" recently, as was the Jodi Taylor book. Koontz has been a favorite for years, but now I have two more authors I've discovered through Audible's "Daily Deal," each the first of a series. Just finished with Cheryl Bradshaw's I Have a Secret, from Book Bub and starting Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel, also from Book Bub.

What's my app of the week: Goodreads. When I see the Daily Deal from Audible each day, or a book from Book Bub that isn't free, and it sounds interesting, I go to the Goodreads app and look it up to see what others have to say about it.

What's in my wine glass: Woodbridge Zinfandel 2013, a nice value.

What's my tip of the week: When you have to measure a liquid for a recipe that also calls for a solid that's harder to measure, such as butter or yogurt, use a measuring cup large enough for both, put the liquid in first to the correct measurement, then add the solid until it reaches the level of the two added together. Say you want to measure a half cup of butter and a cup of milk. Fill the measuring cup to the 1 C mark, then add the butter until the total reaches the 1 1/2 C mark. This only works, of course, if they two ingredients are added at the same time.

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.