Quilting and knitting

I'm back to the sewing machine!  Finally!  After months of not touching it.  Little 5" blocks with corners.  All sorts of William Morris prints.  14 rows x 14 rows.  A bit larger than my usual lap quilts.  I am so enjoying this.  It's good to have the quilting mojo back again.

Knitting is going on while I'm waiting for the first round of Sock Madness.  Finished and accepted for the qualifying round.  But you know that I cannot be without anything on the needles.  So I started a lovely shawl, Roiling Waters, and bought yarn for it from Earthfaire.  I'm using the yarns from kit A.  I rarely buy kits, but Ellen does such a lovely job of putting yarns together, and her prices are reasonable, so why do it all myself?  She also does amazing bead bracelets, etc.  Check her out!

I'm still here

Just didn't have much to blog about.  But I finished a gorgeous beaded shawl and it's now blocking.

You can only see a bit of this because it's really large for a crescent shawl.  104" X 17".  I'll get the tall Hubz with the large wingspan to hold this when it dries.  The pattern is Each to Each Shawl and I bought a kit (which I never, ever do) from Earthfaire.  I used the Lucas colorway.  The yarn is Freia Ombré Fingering weight, and it's 70 merino/30 silk.  Just wonderful to knit with.  So why the kit?  I figured that it was just easier to try out a new yarn for me, plus get matching beads.  Her service is great and I'll buy from her again. 

I find myself uninterested with socks at the moment.  There's always a pair on the needles for mindless, TV knitting, but that's it, at least for now.  What's obsessing me are shawls and scarves.  Lace, lace and more lace, with an interesting new technique for me:  mosaic knitting with lace.  I bought Mosaic and Lace Knits and fell in love with the ideas.  I've done a lot of mosaic and other slip stitch knitting, but never with this complexity.  This is fun and challenging with both knits and purls on the right and wrong sides and the fun of lace, too.  Good stuff.

Yarn is KnitPicks Palette; needle is a size 2, since I'm a loose knitter.  Colors are cream and Bluebell.

Quilting?  I don't remember what that is.  All I want to do is knit.  My poor quilts in progress.  But I'll get back to them and then will not want to knit.  So it goes.