Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!  --Ann--

Gansey progress

I'm ready for sleeves.  Its nice to know how it fits as I go so I can rip accordingly.  So far so good except I may redo the neck with just a couple rows of garter stitch.  It feels too much like a turtle neck for me.  I wish the stitches showed up better in the photo.  The patterns are just simple knit purl combinations of zig zags, checks, diamonds, diagonals and stripes.  Easy peasy so far.  Pick up the stitches for the sleeves tonight.
The days keep getting a little cooler --Ann--

ta da da top done

 I was so excited to finished the borders on this over the weekend.  I bought the narrow diagonal plaid  for the backing and thought is would be good for the border but a wide chunk of it was too much, too busy for the border but a narrow strip works.  Again I was down to what do I have enough of for the squaring strips and the outside border.  So sadly I am out of so many of these prints.  Some were from designer lines that were meant to be connector fabrics that would connect other lines of fabric in a quilt.  The little tiny prints, the orange with the dots and the turquoise with the little spirals and dots and the 2 tone stripes and the red with the dots are a few of those fabrics.  They provide a place for the eye to rest from the larger busy prints.
Now to decide how to quilt it.  --Ann--

Kaleidoscope

 I always have to play with these blocks after they are all assembled just for the kaleidoscope effect.  I see possibilities where the outside segments could be assembled to look like cubes with the right combination of lights and darks.  Some arrangements look like clutter.

 I am back to the original plan with a straight grain on the outside of the hexagon.  Straight grains just make things lay flat with no ruffled edges.
We had a week and a half of glorious sunshine and long walks.  Now the gray skies have returned and I found my way back to my sewing room.  --Ann--

Sunshine

 More blue sky and sunshine outside there hasn't been much progress since that super windy day last week. Yesterday I went for a walk and walked 3 miles the sunshine felt so good on my face and back then I peeled off my sweater and the warmth of the sun felt even better. --Ann--

Gansey knitting

I started knitting a Gansey sweater because I needed a challenge.  The little sweater on the left is a sampler to get an understanding of what I am doing.  Recommended in the book.  So far it is just knitting in the round and the pattern changes are just knit and purl stitches.  Not too tough.  When I get to the shoulders I will do that part on the sampler then on my sweater.  This is sport weight yarn on #4 needles so it is taking some time.  I much prefer knitting from the top down.  Cozy evening as hubby changes the channel.       --Ann--

Sunnier days

I get more done on gloomy days it must be because I never tire of the color blue and the sky is so big and so blue.  Our fall is not so pretty as other years, the trees are not as colorful, these pics are from 2 years ago when the colors were magnificent.  Why is that?  Is is because we had an early freeze? Two weeks of dreary skies and rain? Not enough sunlight to photosynthesize the leaves? Or whatever they taught us in middle school science.  Anyway I have been auditioning fabrics for the next round of triangles for the star quilt, again my choices are determined by how much I have of a particular fabric.  I'm sad that I have used up so many of the fabrics I let my daughter choose when I was fabric shopping 20 some years ago.  She always picked the brightest and boldest colors and prints.  I would choose some connector fabrics to tie them together because our eyes need a place to rest after seeing so much color and activity like the blue sky.  --Ann--