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 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.

Lots of goodies

I've been remiss in keeping up this blog, but I haven't been unproductive.  Here's what's in progress:

Quilting

 

One lonely little Whirligig block in progress.  Karen from Quilts...etc. has decided to take the plunge and make this quilt, too.  Given how awesome a quilter she is, she'll be done way before I even finish the next row.  Just take a look at her hand quilting and applique.

My Cake Mix quilt is now being assembled.  Top pic is of my placement.  Bottom one is actually sewn together.  I do love these Cake Mixes; it's the way for me to go with half-square triangles.  Perfection and no bias mess.  I ordered Brenda Henning's Triangulations for future HST moments.

One Exploding Block quilt back from the quilter, and now being bound.  I do love hand stitching my binding down.  Can't tell you why, but it is satisfying.

Knitting

One lace shawl needing a good blocking.  Mostly garter stitch with some easy and interesting lace bands.  Two skeins of sock yarn with leftovers, which will go into Miss P's never-ending mismatched socks.

The boring sleeve from Miss P's yoke sweater in progress.  I sent out a sleeve and the body for her to try on.  She's at least 5'7", so I can't base the fit on my size.  Now the pieces are back and make perfect TV watching knitting.  I'm looking forward to working on the yoke.

A brand new lace shawl from the amazing Anna Victoria.  This one is Mermaid's Lair, and it is a lovely challenge to knit.  I like her charts very much.  I'm not one for written directions, but give me a chart, and I'm a happy camper.  

Yes, the shawl looks like an old rag with a lot of holes.  In actuality, that's what it is:  a piece of knitting with a lot of holes (yarn-over) and decreases.  Wait until it's blocked!  I've stretched out a bit at the top so you can get an idea of who it will be.

And that's all.  Pardon me, now, while I get back to work on any and all of these goodies.

She quilts; she knits

And in between I bake bread and an occasional cake.  Cleaning?  Hah!  Cooking?  Only enough to survive.  Gimme yarn.  Gimme fabric.

Yarn is merino twin by Wollelfe, an amazing Austrian dyer.  She's on vacation at the moment, which is very good for my pocketbook.  875 yards of soft merino, fingering weight.

The pattern is Illumine, and you can find it on Ravelry, of course.  However did we knitters manage before Ravelry?  I'm number 1702, and the current number of members is 7,178,950!!!!! 

Also working on two mystery KALs (knit-alongs), so no pics until I'm finished.  But I can tell you that they are fun to do.

EPP continues slowly but surely.  2 more blocks and one more added to the quilt.

And 3 hibiscus flowers are blooming.