Hi, again.

I've been gone sooooo long.  I guess I just wasn't in the mood for blogging.

What's new here?  A most wonderful knitting project that is, of course, a mystery.  Suffice it to say that I'm loving this so much.  And I can't even show you a picture.  I will tell you that the yarn is Carrie Lace yarn, 1300 yards of 80/20 merino/silk, and soft and drapey and delicious.  This one is for the Light and Dark Lace club's April-ish edition.

Socks are back in my hands again.  Nothing terribly interesting to photograph.  I just want soothing, mindless sock knitting, but not in stockinette.  That's boring beyond belief, so some ribbing, some lace, etc.  Two pairs went to eldest Grandkid; turns out that he loves my cosy socks.  And 2 prs to Miss P, who also has fallen in love with Gram's socks.  When she was here last April, we went to the Statue of Liberty one soggy day, and came home soaking wet.  To warm her up, I lent her a pair of my woolly socks, and it was love at first wear.  She absconded with a bunch of them.  The child grew, and her foot is now an adult size 8, and my size 6 socks are a bit too small for her.  So, I've been pressed into sock mania.  And then, His Hubbo needed a new pair of sleeping socks, so that's what I'm working on at the moment.

I'd show you pics, but it turns out that the patterns I unvented for the lace socks turned out so nice, that I'm incorporating them in the Mystery Shawl.  So, no pics here either.  Sigh.

Here's what I can show you:  a doll outfit, a doll quilt in progress, and the first block that I'm making for Dear Jane, also in progress.

Miss P has been pestering me for a kimono, so I bought Joan Hind's kimono pattern and just finished it today.

Isn't it adorable? Lots of mistakes, but I hope she won't notice.  If she wants another one, I'll be happy to do it. I haven't sewn doll clothing in a few months, and got somewhat rusty, but did enjoy this a lot.

I have always wanted to make a log cabin quilt, even as far back as high school.  So, I finally got brave and made 8 little blocks, and sewed 4 of them together for a doll quilt.  I'll do the same with the leftover ones.  One to Miss P and one to Miss R.  You'll notice some blue lines; that's where I'm doing some fake quilting.  It'll all wash out with cold water when I'm done.

I'm going to take a class in hand quilting at The City Quilter early in Feb.  I don't know if my hands can handle it, but I'll give it a try.  I'm pretty sure I'll never become Wonder Quilter, but it would be nice to know how to actually do it properly, and I always like learning new things.

Speaking of new things, I am taking a Dear Jane class also at TCQ.  Help!  Teensy, weensy little bits of fabric.  Hand stitched.  Turning me into a crazy lady.  These little guys will finish up to around 4.5 inches.  Here's the first one I'm doing.  This is block A-13, and it has 21 pieces in it.  It's so tiny that I am using a magnifying lamp to see where I am.  Even the little needle is hard to thread, and I can still thread the sewing machine needle without difficulty.  This is some learning experience.  Take a look at the Dear Jane website to get an idea of the complexity of this project.  No, I don't plan on doing the entire thing; it'll take me years and years to finish it.  But I thought that some little wall hangings would be fun, or even a doll quilt.  Maybe no on the doll quilt; I'd be hysterical if one of the blocks fell apart in play.  Anyhow, this is what I have done since last Fri's class.  It's taken me hours to work this, although today's stitching went faster and better than the previous work.

It looks huge in the picture.  Nope, it's not.  I have a class once a month for the next 3 months, and each time we'll learn a new technique.  I'd like to go next time with 4 blocks done.  I'm going to look for the easiest ones.  BTW, there are no instructions, just a drawing of the block and a picture of Jane's block.  What a learning experience.

Chickens!

Chickens and Eggs!

We have a running joke with the grands about chickens.  We're always telling them awful chicken jokes, and we tease them nonstop about the birds.  They are now old enough to totally ignore us when we get on chicken toots.  Too bad.  We had fun with them.

I'm wild about chickens, myself.  I like to eat them, drink soup from them, admire their general chicken-ness.  So when I saw this crazy fabric, I had to get some.  Clearly I needed a chicken project bag.  And then I thought:  Well chickens and eggs go together (duh!), so I also had to get this one.

And here is my new clucky chicken and egg bag in progress:

How do you like your eggs? These are sunny-side up.  mmmmmm.  I like mine over medium, with a bit of runny yoke but no runny white.

Here's the bag all finished.  It wasn't that hard, given that I can't sew a straight seam, but getting the stupid ties into it just about put me over the edge.  And then I realized that the ribbon was navy and not black.  Too bad, 'cause I'm not doing that again.  My bag, my rules.

I can't seem to get the photography of the yellow right.  Think egg yolk, and sort of a batik fabric, and that's the color of the yellow next to the black stripes.

I got the idea from this blog.  Didn't have the fabric, but I did have my chickens, eggs, polka dots and lots of weird yellows.

It was a lot of fun and here's what I learned:

     a.  Fabric really stretches much more when cut crosswise rather than lengthwise.  I had read that somewhere, and I can tell you that it's the truth.  Good thing to know because I have the feeling that I'm going to do more log cabin projects, and cutting those logs, particularly the long ones, will be done on the lengthwise grain.  This one is important.  And now I know it from experience.

     b.  Fussy cutting (that's where I deliberately cut out my chicken) is neat.  Wastes a lot of fabric, but I have 1/2 yard of my chickens so I can probably make a dozen of these chickie bags.

     c.  Cursing when attempting to get that little safety pin through the side holes is entirely appropriate.  I had a good vent.

And now there's a project in it already:  a little cardigan for Miss P's AG doll.

Kitten With a Whiplash - All I have to say is cluck cluck.

Scrabblequeen  - I already put a project in it, and I'm happily knitting away.  I knit at night when it's too dark to sew. 

merrilymarylee - Cluck to you too.  I'm happy to say that I am indeed wearing a bra today.  I'm at the age where there is a bit of droop factor.