Celebrations

I think the older we get the longer we should celebrate our birthdays. It was mine on the first of October I started celebrating almost 2 weeks ago when I went shopping with daughter, I bought yarn and she started knitting. Less than a week later I was in the yarn shop again and bought yarn for a sweater. Oldest son bought 4 balls of Donegal tweed in Ireland last summer. I was at a loss for what to knit with 4 balls of yarn not quite enough for a vest for me. Anyway there is a striped sweater at the shop made from tweed fingerling, it is knit from a black or navy with a rainbow of horizontal stripes between. The colored yarns are all earthy, it would be a great sweater to wear with jeans. I explained what I had in mind to the gal in the shop and she directed me to tweeds in the appropriate weight and some others that I would have to knit double then I saw this variegated tweed in the right weight I thought I could knit to the color change then knit a couple rows of my grey then knit the next  stretch of color.They thought it was a great combination and pulled out a pattern. Might start today because it is rainy and chilly.  Happy birthday to me.

Hubby took me out for lunch at my favorite restaurant. We went out for supper Saturday night, I had salmon it was delicious. Son brought me a half dozen beautiful bug free apples from his tree. I got birthday wishes in church. I found birthday cards in the mail, my very dearest friend sent this beautiful bouquet of flowers, thank you Ann.

My quilting friends came for lunch on Wednesday. I served lunch on my mother's dishes.
 My mother bought the forget-me-not plates with her weaving money to go with the blue tea set she bought in Sweden in 1952, they are the palest blue. I used my Fostoria goblets and Tyrone crystal wine glasses, I almost got out the sterling silver but that is tucked away in daughter's room because I don't have room in my cupboards for it. Then I would have had to buy a silk blouse and dress slacks to be dressed up enough for the luncheon. It was elegant yet casual and a delightful afternoon.  It's only the 3rd of October I plan to celebrate a couple more weeks.--Finding reason to celebrate the everyday things along with the milestones.--Ann--

Design wall

The last few days I have been flitting from one project to the next. I knit a little, read a little, sew a little, arrange a little and repeat in no particular order.  I've placed all the parts on the wall except the square-up border parts and the right edge. I wanted the circles to continue to the edge so I have 10 complete circles in each row rather than cut them off with the square edge of the blocks. Cover the half blocks rows with your fingers and see what a difference it makes.  I squared the skinny triangle to complete the half blocks. Now to figure out a method to keep-them-in-order-while-I-sew-them-into-blocks. The 4 skinny triangles have to be in 4 different blocks to make the 4 point star, so each block has 4 different fabrics in the skinny triangles which affects 4 different stars.  I'm calling this quilt Afterimage because I was seeing spots in front of me like the flash of a camera after spending an hour or so arranging the pieces.

 Sometimes I have a really short attention span so I started this quilt for a baby boy. I'm just going to sew and flip scraps around the tractors then square up to 10 1/2 - 12 1/2 inches and either sash or just sew the blocks side by side. I can see the little guy putting off nap time because he needs to find the tractors that match. We'll see how big it gets. Mindless sewing and trimming.......sometimes I need that.

And I did a little machine quilting on my glorified nine patch. Not sure what I am going to stitch in the ovals between the 9 patches but I'll figure it out when I'm doing something else.

 I finished the labels for the 3 commission quilts with lots of goofs and start overs. I put the wrong quilt name on one quilt label so I picked out the stitches and re did it then when I was looking at border stitches I saw that I was a letter short on  a name so had to do the whole thing over and left it for a couple days but yesterday when I picked it up again everything went together as smooth as could be. Do you every have days like that when one project is all problems but a different project just falls into place?
Tomorrow is my birthday! --Ann--
Linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday and be inspired.

on and off the needles

 

I just started these footies, Bunny Hop Anklets from Knit Picks to use some of my left overs. It is an easy pattern to knit and very stretchy. Interesting how the colors of the yarn have grouped together.The first pair striped all the way.

This pattern has a heel that looks like it will stay up, there are 60 rows of wrap and turn and I can always add the bunny tail if they slide down in my shoes.

 My 13th pair of socks for 2013, I think daughter will love them. Trekking yarn

 I also finished The Age of Brass and Steam shawl Zauberball yarn but I am not thrilled with it. I have not blocked it yet because I may rip and start over. It's a good thing yarn is so forgiving. My last row of eyelet is in my final rows and my cast off is tighter than it should be. It curls. There are yarn overs at the beginning and end of each row, my purl rows have a much looser yarn over than my knit rows which is why I have a sharp inside curve and an almost straight inside curve. Any advice from fellow knitters??-- Ann-- Linking to Judy's On the Needles

wonderful weekend

I had a wonderful weekend with darling daughter. She has a job as a dental hygienist 90 miles away. In the last couple years there was a report in a major publication about job happiness and dental hygienists were at the top of the list. She worked  M-W last week and W-F this week (doesn't that schedule make for a happy employee?)  she had a really long weekend so we spent a day shopping in Sioux Falls and had a wonderful lunch, she bought new jeans, I got thread and backing for a quilt, we tried on shoes but didn't buy any, she found a wedding present for a classmate and some kitchen stuff for her apartment and we still had time to go to the yarn shop. I wasn't looking for anything in particular she was picking out yarn for the next pair of socks she thought I was going to knit for her then she saw some bulky yarn for mittens and thought I should knit her another pair of mittens, I knit her a pair last winter. Then I suggested since she has time.... her usual work week is T-Th....and since she would be home until Tuesday I would teach her how to knit socks but then decided on mittens because they use bigger needles and fatter yarn and only have 26 stitches cast on and knit fast. So I bought the yarn  and the needles and told her that her learning to knit mittens would be her birthday present to me. I also bought her size 6 circular square needles to refresh her memory on knitting in general and I knew she needed to learn to purl for the mittens. So Saturday we begin the lesson, refresher on casting on, she immediately got a sliver from the square needles,  but thought she could continue even with an injury.  The wood on the needle was split so her stitches caught (those needles are going back to the shop) we switch knitting she works on mine and I look at hers then start over, she knits a couple rows I show her how to purl, she purls a row then knits then purls. So then we start the mittens and everything went swimmingly. By Sunday afternoon we were finishing the point and starting the second mitten.

I knit a pair right along side to refresh my memory and so she could see what I was doing rather than doing it for her, and I will have another pair of mittens for a Christmas gift. Hers are a Malabrigo yarn and the grey are a Lovikka yarn from Sweden. Next time she comes home or I go visit her we will do the thumbs. Cherishing mother daughter time.--Ann--

Drum Roll Please

I just finished the third queen size Log Cabin Fan quilt. Joy is the word that came to mind as I was working on this one. The bright blue colors are joy! Now to make the labels and enjoy them for another two weeks before I hand them over to the new owner. The first quilt (click) is Harmony, the second quilt (click) is Serenity and this one is Joy.--Ann--

Design Wall

 I have put lots more pieces on the wall for this winding ways quilt. The top photo is all natural light and no skinny triangles in place, the negative space of the 4 point star really pops out. The next photos were taken with the track lights on in my sewing room and no flash. I have rearranged pieces so the blocks are light, dark, light, dark and the light and dark are relative to what is next to it. Last night I started placing the skinny triangles at first I just was going light, dark with random colors  but being a person who likes some things very orderly I matched 4 skinny triangles in the outside points of the star. They will still be light, dark but with a plan, the matching star points accentuates the stars and circles.

And so many parts to go........I need one more row on the right side to make the quilt 11 blocks across and lots more on the bottom for 11 blocks down. That's only 1452 pieces with curved seams. Curved piecing is not as difficult as setting in a sleeve or collar. Happy sewing and linking to Judy's Design Wall Monday and Marelize's Anything Goes at Stitch by Stitch for lots of inspiration.~~Ann~~

Quilting the 3rd queen

The third log cabin and fan quilt is almost finished. It has been a lot more work with thread tension problems. I finally blew in the bobbin case to get the lint out. Amazing how a tiny bit of lint can mess up the tension. So there have been many starts and stops and re threading of the bobbin. The 1st click and 2nd click quilts. I quilted with straight lines, palm leaves using the half circle arcs, in the log cabin blocks, free motion loops and swags and echo curves in the fan blocks, and in this quilt I quilted a feather circle in the middle with echos. I wasn't brave enough to try free motion feathers in the log cabins or fan background. Someday on another quilt that isn't a commission piece I will do free motion feathers. Have a look at all the quilting at Leah's. Happy Quilting--Ann--