Happy Chanukah!

Our favorite menorah, with the first night's candles.  The shamash (that's the one held by the Statue of Liberty) lights the other candles.  The first night's candle is right by the Immigration sign.

Happy Chanukah to all!

Snow

Our first snowstorm of the season.  Taken from our sunporch and through the screen door.

A good day to stay home and knit.

What's New

A finished sweater, a sweater with 3" to go on the body, and the last full row of the Whirligig quilt.  That's enough for the moment.

A cable sweater for me.  Started toward the end of Aug and finished about 4 weeks later.  Ordinarily, a sweater like this takes me 2.5 - 3 weeks, but we were away, so very little knitting done.  This top picture is the sweater before blocking.  Notice how different it looks once it's been wet blocked.

Me, being silly:

A new sweater for DD2.  Fingering weight yarn with a lace panel.  When blocked, that panel will measure a bit over 5".  It just looks small here because all those stitches are on a 24" circular needle and squooshed together.  Trust me, a good wet blocking will open it all up.

And of course, the Whirligig quilt!  I'm on the last full row, with 2 more blocks to be attached.  Then I have to do the borders to square it all up.  Finally, it will get a solid border of something or other that I need to buy.

And a pretty leaf on my deck.  Don't you love the veins?

Breakfast, Lunch and Tea Stitching

I was super-productive this week, stitching not only at breakfast, but also lunch, and afternoon tea.  EPP goes so slowly.  And I'm now at the stage when I want it all done.  I figure mid-February might be the end.  In the meantime, I'm forcing myself to buy fat quarters for the Lucy Boston quilt.  It's tough, but so it goes.  I'll post pics another day of my new fabric.  (You do realize that I have enough fabric to stock a quilt shop, but you can never have too much, right?)

Here are my individual blocks.  I have 17 assembled including these, and I need 2 more for the body of the quilt.  Then, sigh, I have to figure out the edge pieces.  Blech.

The next photos are of a row I started last week.  I have one more block to add and then this row is done.  Then a row of 9, followed by a row of 10 and I am finished!  Except for those edges.

In my knitting world, I have about 3" to go in finishing a sleeve, then adding the neck edge and blocking.  I have no pics of this jobbie, but will do it later this week.  Knitting, by the way, is inherently slow work, especially since I rarely use heavy yarns.  Give me lace (for shawls), fingering and sport wt, and I'm a happy camper.

Breakfast Stitching After a Week Away

So not much to show for a couple of weeks, but here's what I have.

A picture of the row I'm working on.

I forgot to take pictures of a complete row on the other side of the quilt.  So here you are.  Not the greatest photos, but you get what you get.

And an overall shot of part of the quilt.  I wish you could see this in real life; it's so much prettier than indoor shots on my kitchen floor.

That's it.  We were up in Maine last week.  We like to stay in Ogunquit, which is southern coastal Maine.  Went all over the place, up to Kennebunk, across to Boothbay, over to Dover, NH, etc. etc.  Kennebunk is a charming little town and so much nicer than the crazy Kennebunkport.  We did get to Portland, the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, a bunch of lighthouses, Alewives Fabrics in Nobleboro, and so on.  I came home with lots of fat quarters, which I'm going to fussy cut (I need my head examined) for a POTC quilt when I finish Whirligig.  I'm such an optimist.  grin.

Breakfast Stitching

Not much this week.  I've been somewhat under the weather.

Breakfast Stitching

A week late, but I just got back from Minneapolis yesterday.  We went to the State Fair on opening day.  Such fun!

More Whirligig  blocks and an entire row joined.

And the new row, photographed in sections since I can't get the entire thing in one picture.

Linking to Kathy's Quilts.  I do love her blog!


Thank you all for your lovely comments!  Breakfast slow stitching continues.

Breakfast Stitching

And here we are again with more Whirligig blocks, all done while eating breakfast with the Hubz.  We eat, chat, and I stitch.  It's quite delicious.

When I finish the above row, I'll have 6 rows done.  Yay!

Slow Stitching

And here we are, again.  3 more blocks and one joined to the quilt top.

I now have 6 rows joined with maybe 4-5 more, plus filling in the crenelations on the edges.  I made start calling this "porch stitching", because that's where I work it.