Accelerating Towards Halloween

Vintage Stitchers met at Barbara's this week. Her home was already decorated for Halloween.

Diane was working on a scarf. The pattern is called "Lacy Leaves." She just had a copy with her, and there was no source, but she said it was from a booklet with four or five patterns.

Marilyn has been busy embroidering with her machine. She made some dish towels, like this:

and this:

She also had finished this wall hanging. Just the binding to go.

Rebecca showed us this framed cross stitch.

and this table runner, using hand-dyed wool.

We talked about our upcoming quilt retreat in Washington, Utah. DH and I will be taking the trailer down, so we can sleep in our own bed. Others are staying in local hotels. I think most people will be taking hand work, but I may take my Featherweight.

I picked up my Pine Burr quilt from the quilter on Friday. Just the binding to go. (You can get a glimpse of the backing at the upper corner folded over.)

The pattern was "Pine Burr Made Modern" from McCall's Quilting, May/June 2012, but it looks completely different because of the fabric/color choices and the fact that I elected to make the background scrappy.

Remember the Kaleidoscope fabrics I was expressing my admiration for last week? I ordered 12 of them for a new quilt. I'm leaning toward "Fresh" from Simply Retro with Camille Roskelley. It's sort of a quick and easy version of a block that looks like the LeMoyne Star.

In knitting news, my first Pucker Up sock is finished and the second started.

The pattern is Cookie A’s ”Wanida” from Sock Innovation. The yarn is Knit Picks Stroll Brights in “Pucker.”

What's on my needles: Pucker Up Socks. Still hoping to CO the March of the Fiber Animals Cardigan for DH. Finished a few more hexagons for the Busy Bee Throw.

What's on my Featherweight: Binding for the Pine Burr quilt.

What's on my wheel: Languishing, but I have some yummy spinning fiber to inspire me.

What's on my loom: Multi-scrap scarf, no progress since before the trip.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Lady Maybe by Julie Klassen on the Audible app. Now listening to A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce. This book is an award winner, and I can see why. Finished Blood Red from the library, an actual book. Delightful. Now reading Cut from the Same Cloth, by Kathleen Baldwin, one of my new favorite authors, from Kindle. This is the last of the "My Notorious Aunt" series. Funny.

What's in my wine glass: Foxhorn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon. Nice value.

What's my tip of the week: I save all those ends of bread no one wants to eat and keep them in the freezer. When I need bread crumbs, I thaw them, break them into pieces and grind them in the blender to use as topping on casseroles or any time I need bread crumbs.

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.

Love's Labors Found

This week Common Threads met at Janet's. She asked us to bring suggestions for gifts to make for neighbors or friends. Julie brought this book, Gifts from the Kitchen by Debbie G. Harman. It includes a CD with tags you can print out.

It's full of cookie recipes and other gifts suitable for neighbors, such as bean soup mix in a jar, which Karan also recommended. She made a bunch of these, with the jars all lines up on the counter. She said she felt like a chemist. Janet was making lace lid covers like this.

I brought the pattern for the scrubbie I like to crochet out of nylon net, nicely paired with a knitted washcloth.

We also had show-and-tell. Bernadette brought us this finished crocheted alphabet baby blanket.

Janet had finished another pair of convertible mitts.

Carol was working on this great embroidered chicken for a quilt wall hanging.

My Pink Monkey Socks are finished. Here they are on the blockers:

And on my feet:

They were a fun project. The pattern was Cookie A's Monkey Socks. The yarn is Knit Picks Stroll fingering yarn in "Dogwood Heather."

We had a great hike with the pups on Rocky's birthday, and I took them on another hike on Friday, because DH wanted to take the car to get the oil changed instead of going to Silver Sneakers. 

Happy Labor Day! Hope you can spend it doing something you like.

What's on my needles: Fair Isle Flower Socks. Still hoping to CO the March of the Fiber Animals Cardigan soon for DH. 

What's on my Featherweight: First Ladies Quilt. Still.

What's on my wheel: Languishing, but I have some yummy spinning fiber to inspire me.

What's on my loom: Multi-scrap scarf, no progress since before the trip.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: I gave up on Mercedes Lackey's Blood Red and returned it to Audible. The narrator was butchering the German language on the few words she needed for almost every other sentence. In its place, I downloaded her Steadfast, which was excellent. The main characters in Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters series are almost always repressed by other characters in some way, but this was the first one about an abused wife. Fascinating. Just started Jodi Taylor's A Trail Through Time, the next in the "Chronicles of St. Mary's" series, funny, full of adventure, all about historians who time travel. Finished Restless Hearts by Mona Ingram on the Kindle app. It was excellent, too, about a young woman who must survive in San Francisco's early days. Just started Mistaken Kiss by Kathleen Baldwin, also on the Kindle app. Good so far. (I plan to get Blood Red from the library. I think it will be a good read without the narrator.)

What's in my wine glass: Charles Shaw Shiraz (aka "Two-buck Chuck" or "Three-buck Chuck," depending on where you buy it, because it's produced in California, and shipping costs to locations outside the state affect the price), one of our all-time favorites.

What's my tip of the week: When I have a series of regular decreases on a knitting project that are supposed to end with a given number of stitches, I put a stitch marker right where I'm supposed to stop, so I don't have to keep counting sts. When I get to the last stitch (or a few sts before, if there's a vertical row or two of sts before it that are included in the final st count), I have to move the marker, but by then it's easy to keep track.

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.

Fine Finishes

The April Sunshine Socks are finished and on my feet.


The pattern is "Sunshine" from Sock Innovation by Cookie A. Yarn Regia 4-fädig in "00017." I plan to make most of the socks from this book.

Not one to let grass grow under my feet, or DH's, for that matter, I immediately cast on a pair of socks for him, using the "Diagonal Cross-Rib Socks" by Ann Budd, from Favorite Socks 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave. The diagonal goes in the opposite direction on the other sock, which should keep me entertained while knitting it, not that I ever have to worry about "Second Sock Syndrome." I'm using Stroll Tweed in "Rabbit Heather." I'm almost to the heel, but this photo, taken about halfway down the leg, will give you an idea. The color is much warmer, however, more a warm tan than the gray it appears in this photo. It may be the background that makes it appear gray. The color in the photo on the KP product page (follow this link) appears very accurate on my monitor.

Also finished is the Pine Burr quilt top:


The pattern for the quilt is McCall's Quilting May/June 2012 "Pine Burr Made Modern," although my quilt is very different from the one in the article. (This quilt is paper-pieced, in case you missed my earlier posts about it.) Common Threads gave me the opportunity to call upon Ellen and Karan to hold up the quilt top for a photo of the whole thing. 

We met this week at Margareth's. She has remodeled her loft to make a new place for her loom, so we had a tour.


She has her portable loom set up there, too.


There is a door that leads out to a little balcony. When the weather is nice, she can take her portable loom out there to weave and listen to the birds. Inside, she has a nice couch and a fireplace.

Most of us were knitting. Karan is almost done with her "Flying South Cardigan." She made the long-sleeved version. I have this in my queue on my Ravelry page. 

That evening, Ellen and I went to the monthly quilt guild meeting at Davidene's. Our topic was panels. We looked at a number of the panels the shop had available and brainstormed what you could do with each one.


We also looked at some finished quilts that used panels in them. We talked about what we liked or didn't like about them. Most of them were very nicely done.


One we liked was this monkey panel:


Someone turned it into this charming quilt, in which Snail's Trail blocks are used to represent the tails of monkeys.


These two quilt tops showed how important contrast can be. The design on the left has some nicely executed stars that unfortunately don't show up well because of the choice of fabrics. They needed more contrast between the fabrics. Also a problem was the choice of a fabric with a large, high-contrast pattern.


Most people stuck to the topic for their show-and-tell. For this holiday/winter quilt Bonnie used a panel and some homespuns.


Lynn showed us this pirate quilt she had made for "Talk Like a Pirate Day," September 19th, which is my DH's birthday. (He is a pirate, after all. Arrrrgh.)

Jill loves Twister blocks. She used some tiny ones in this quilt top.


This was supposed to be the back, but we thought she should make a separate quilt out of it and quilt it herself. (She's been practicing with her walking foot.)


Colleen made this to commemorate the fun she has with her golfing buddies.


Dianne is making a quilt using this "Sawtooth Cats" paper-pieced block. The tails are paper-pieced and appliquéd on. (This is not made from a panel.)


I tried to pass my Pine Burr quilt off as a panel, but they weren't buying it. At least it was paper-pieced, so it fit in with Dianne's kitties.

We finally got a really typical winter snow. The accumulation was eventually about 14" at our place, but the resorts on the other side of the mountain (Solitude, Alta and Brighton) got close to 28".

I hope that finishes winter for us, but we could still get snow through the beginning of July. The local resorts have closed for the season. Downhill skiers will have to journey to the other side of the mountain if they want to enjoy the snow and have access to lifts. Cross-country skiers and snowshoers will still find snow to enjoy for some time yet.


What's on my needles: The Diagonal Cross-Rib Socks for DH. Ready to CO his "March of the Fibres" cardi.

What's on my Featherweight: Starting work on the third block for the First Ladies Quilt.

What's on my wheel: Still Full Circle spinning fiber in "Pigeon."

What's on my loom: Still some warp for another scarf.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Mississippi Jack, because I couldn't wait to find out what happens next. Now I'm looking forward to the sixth book in the series. In the meantime, I've started Mariana by Susana Kearsley, also from the library on the Overdrive app. Still reading Jennifer Coburn's Tales from the Crib, on the Kindle app.

What's in my wine glass: Foxhorn Vineyards Merlot, the big bottle, for very big thirsts.

What's my tip of the week: Need to measure butter for a recipe? Use a glass measuring cup big enough for about twice the amount you need. Fill it to a given amount with water (say 1 cup) and then add the butter until the water level reaches the measurement of the water and what you need in butter added together. Pour out the water, and you have the right amount of butter. This is more accurate than cutting up a stick of butter, and perhaps your butter doesn't come in stick form. It also works for other semi-solid ingredients, like cream cheese. If you're adding a liquid (milk or juice), you can use that instead of water. Then you can expand the technique to measuring yogurt or sour cream.


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.

Short and Sweet, and To the Point

This week saw the center of Pine Burr quilt finished.

Not too much else got done this week while I worked to put the blocks together. However, after all the work to paper-piece the blocks and larger cornerstones, it felt good to get it put together. This quilt is going to be way too big for my design wall.

Note: There are no curved seams. The curved effect is all done with straight seams.

I plan to sew a dark inner border around it (1" finished) and then the outer border using the grey fabric featured in the four blocks that run diagonally from upper left to lower right. In fact, the border strips are already cut and are folded up on the table in front of the quilt top. The pattern is from McCall's Quilting May/June 2012, "Pine Burr Made Modern." My version looks nothing like the quilt in the magazine, partly because the colors are different, and partly because most of the seams show up clearly because there are many different background fabrics, rather than the cream solid used in the quilt in the article.

I had a problem sewing the paper-pieced sections to the sashing while the paper was still on them, so I ended up taking the paper off. That left me with some bias edges, which I figured I could work with if I did it carefully. It worked fine, except that I didn't think about the crossed bars that go through the blocks. With no cornerstones to keep them lined up, some of them moved to one side or the other a bit. Out came the seam ripper! However, I found I could get them to line up if I folded each sashing strip in half, pressed a crease into it and then opened it up again. Then I pinned that crease to the center of the crossbar on the block. When I was ready to sew the next block to the other side of the sashing strip, I lined up the crossed bar of one block with the crossed bar of the one underneath and put a pin through each of the crossed-bar seams, right through the threads of the top seam, then through the threads of the bottom seam and back up through both seams, about an inch closer to the sashing. This held the crossed bars of the two blocks on top of each other. Then I put a pin through the crease of the sashing strip and the middle of the crossed bar of the block I hadn't sewn yet. I should have taken a photo, because it worked well. I had to do this with the sashing that connected the blocks into strips, and then with the sashing between the strips of blocks. Whew!

Vintage Stitchers met at Ellen's on Thursday. That was when I started picking the paper off the back of my blocks. Everyone had brought quilts to show the last meeting, so we didn't have much show-and-tell. I only got one photo. Here's Marilyn's latest quilt, all from 2 1/2" strips.

Quilters: The quilt guild meeting is this week, so I should have lots to show next week.

The April Sunshine socks have been coming along. Soon I'll be ready for the heel turn on the second sock.

If you haven't read my previous blog post, I should tell you that the pattern is Sunshine from Cookie A's book, Sock Innovation. The yarn is Regia 4 fädig 4 ply in the romantically named color "00017."

On Friday (after Silver Sneakers) DH and I went on a hike in Toll Canyon with the pups. There's still a little snow, but it's easy now to get through without boots, snowshoes or YakTrax. Here's Sunny sitting on the bench that overlooks where the year-round stream pools up to make a watering hole of sorts.

This weekend was devoted to birthday celebrations. Saturday we did FaceTime with Daphne and Zachary, so we could see Zachary blow out his candles on the cake for his third birthday. We captured some screen shots. (The happy grandparents can be seen in the upper left-hand corner, along with Rocky, who has his head on his daddy's shoulder. If he knows we are Skyping or FaceTiming, he always climbs up in someone's lap, so he can be seen.)

Because Ellen wasn't here for her birthday last month, I treated her to lunch on Sunday, and Joanie came along. Joanie missed Vintage Stitchers at Ellen's on Thursday, so she was happy to see Ellen, who just got here but will be leaving soon.

Since Ellen will only be here for another week, the three of us plan to do something together this week before she has to leave.

What's on my needles: Still working on the April Sunshine socks, with the second sock well underway.

What's on my Featherweight: Just the borders to do on the Pine Burr quilt.

What's on my wheel: Full Circle spinning fiber in "Pigeon."

What's on my loom: Still some warp for another scarf.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Under the Jolly Roger by L. A. Meyer, and then In the Belly of the Bloodhound by the same author, both from the library on the Overdrive app. Now listening to April Lady by Georgette Heyer, to get myself away from Bloody Jack for a bit, although I can't wait to find out what happens next. (Talk about cliffhangers!) Still reading Jennifer Coburn's Tales from the Crib, on the Kindle app.

What's in my wine glass: Lindeman's Cawarra Shiraz-Cabernet 2013. Always nice, especially in the big bottle.

What's my tip of the week: If you have a set of Knit Picks' blocking mats but need more than you have, you can buy mats that fit at a hardware store or some toy stores. Just take one of your mats along to make sure the connecting sections match. (Thanks to my friend Jo for this tip.)


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.