just another basket

Just another little basket from a day in the sewing room. I'm almost ready to bind off the socks. Grey winter days are good for sewing and snow is such a wonderful background for photography.--Ann--  basket listed on etsy.

Friendship Quilt

I seem to have been in a blogging slump as in not much blogging but lots of things accomplished in the sewing room. This has been a great quilt to work on with all these grey days nearing the end of winter. This was a Round Robin project with quilting friends from a couple moves ago. We each chose a theme and color/fabric palate, then passed our projects around and each added a block to each quilters project  and we didn't see our own until the projects had made the full circle of participants. My fabrics are Cabbage Rose from the 1990's so you can guess how long this project has been unfinished.Many of the blocks are from Nancy Odem's Rosewood Cottage series.  I tried lots of different free motion quilting designs with my new machine, 16 inches of throat space is marvelous.--Ann--

Design Wall

I I started the first of three commission quilts, queen size log cabin and fan combination quilts for the children of a country school classmate. I like the 12 log cabin blocks in the center of the top quilt better than the 4 log cabin blocks in the second. I think I will match the inside fan fabric for the first ring of fans and use the same fabric for the outside ring of fans also. The big curve is easy to sew easier than setting in a sleeve but the little black corner piece is a bugger to sew. Only a couple more dozen blocks to go.....--Ann-- lots of inspirations at Patchwork Times.

on and off the needles

 I just finished the merino and bamboo socks......soft and warm. I have been working on lots of projects sometimes I just need to so some power sewing, so I made a coil wrapped basket for my sock yarn. I made the base 11" x 14" it was floppy and awkward to sew, I used well over 100 feet of clothesline and barely put a dent in my basket of strips. Now my sock yarn is all in one place instead of a stack of cardboard boxes. Looks like I don't need to buy sock yarn for at least a year. I can pick a sock project for the next snow storm.

And we've  got snow.............

Socks are such a nice take along project for sitting at the dentist for a new crown on a cracked tooth. I am half way through the gusset, I like the way the color is clumping together because of the pattern, the short color changes are a bit monotonous.  I have made progress on the sweater but she has been having a bad sleeve day and is not very photogenic. I am making long sleeves without a pattern. I thought making it longer would be easy well it is until I start tapering.......and then the real challenge is so make the sleeves match since my arms match..........I'll be "ttinking" this afternoon on the sleeve again. --Ann-- check out all the knitting at Judy's

Design Wall

I had parts left from the first quilt (click) I must have been thinking I would make the first one 5 across and 6 down rather than 4 x 5 and this one is 3 x 4 blocks it will be a nice child size quilt. "How to" for sewing 30 degree triangles (click) Darlene Zimmerman makes it so easy. I just have to add the 1.5 inch border then the green stripe border then practice machine quilting on this one first. Lots of wonderful quilts at Judy's PatchworkTimes  I just had a flash from the past.... the green reminds me of a dress I wore in our high school play My Fair Lady.  I watched the movie on tv last night after the football game. As I watched I was remembering who played the many characters and the costumes. I was in a street scene, the ascot race scene and the ballroom scene. For the ascot the girls were all in bright bright blue and white satin dresses no two were alike. We must have worn hats but I can't remember. My dress for the ballroom was chartreuse green with a chiffon overlay it was very simple and elegant then the costume crew added sashing and sequins and then be-dazzeled me with some really gaudy gems. (I watched The Game Plan the other night too). I think the skirt was almost a full circle so lots of flow for the ballroom dance but there were so many couples on stage no one got the full effect of my dress. Its just as well I wasn't a very good dancer.--Ann--

on the needles

Happy day before Ground Hogs Day from the land of shifting snow. Earlier in the week our snow came at a nice angle then yesterday in the cold and wind it all got up and moved. I  made real progress on my top down sweater its long enough I can feel its warmth on my lap. I should be counting stitches on the sleeves and knitting those by super bowl. How long will they be by the end of the game?!

I get about half of a pattern repeat done every morning with my coffee. The short rows are just the right for sipping coffee in between. My coffee got cold working on the long rows of the sweater.

I had to start a new little project for the road last weekend. Daughter loved her new opal socks by the way. I'm keeping these and trying a new stitch pattern from Melissa Morgan-Oakes book. Its just p-k-slspwyb-k-p, translation-- purl, knit, slip stitch purlwise with yarn in back thats a lot of words for what actually happens, knit, purl and repeat to the end of the row then knit a row. Its good weather to knit and have a look at Judy's on the needles . --Ann--