A New Quilt

 I have no idea when I actually started this thing. Most of the fabric came from a layer cake that I had for a few years. As usual, the layout is scrappy with not much organization. 

 

I'm about to give it a good wash and dry and end up with a lovely crinkle.

New quilts in progress

 It's 2025, and new quilts are in progress.The color is close to accurate!!

Just needs to get to the quilt shop for quilting.

 

I just started this today. All made with leftovers.

 

Knitting?  Just normal sweater in progress. I knit on auto-pilot. Quilting makes me think.

Getting around

After more than 3 months of my husband suffering with side effects of Keytruda, we are starting to see lots of improvement.  Whew!  What a relief!

He's doing out-patient PT twice/week and doing marvelously!  He can walk safely with a walker, with a cane, and with a shopping cart.  We bought an extra walker that he keeps in the trunk, and wherever he goes, he judges whether to use the walker or just the cane.  

Yes, you read that correctly!  He can drive again! The guy is getting around and loving it!  He's back to doing stuff that he likes:  markets (yes, he's a supermarket freak), thrift shops (yes, he loves thrift shops). It's pretty amazing.  Clearly, the meds are leaving his system.  His therapists say that he is strong and has good balance.  What they are working on is drop foot, and even that is improving.  He found a simple foot brace that's comfortable, and gives proper support. We don't know if this condition is permanent, but he can live almost normally at this point.

What's coming up in the medical world?  Sigh. Fasting blood test on Mon. (that's kind of normal, although he usually doesn't need to fast). On Wed, he has a kidney ultrasound and preps for Thurs PET scan. He sees the oncologist the following week for the PET and blood test results. We're hoping that there are no signs of the cancer.  At this stage, we know nothing, and if it's present, we don't know how it will be treated since immunotherapy is forever out of the picture.  But we'll deal with that when we come to it.

I'm feeling some relief as well as trepidation for the test results.  That's just the way it is.

I'm keeping my sanity as usual by knitting and quilting.

Here's what's on the needles:  a brown Shetland sweater.  It will have drop shoulders and a crew neckline and when it's finished and blocked, all this wonky color work will be smooth and perfect.  Trust me.  I've done tons of this kind of knitting.

The brown is a bit darker, and is a heather.  Beautiful stuff.  All the yarns are J & S Shetland and bought at The Woolly Thistle. I don't knit these things tightly, so a # 3 needle for rib and background, and a #4 for the color work. 

Quilting is wonderful.  The brown and green quilt on the previous post has made it to one of the kids. I donate them to kids and grands and my sister. 

I'm in process of sewing tops together.  Finished 1 with 3 to go. No pics yet. But here's a quilt that I just bound.

Real life color is a bit darker. The top picture is fairly close to reality.

Chisel quilt

 I was inspired by a quilt I saw online .  I have the die from Accuquilt, so decided to try this pattern.  So easy and fun to do.  One, just one, shape.  That's it.  Here are some pictures of it in progress:

Notice the wonky sewing.  Yep, that's how I sew.  I've tried every trick or foot in the book to sew a straight line.  Nope, it doesn't work.  And I don't press very well, either.  BUT, I can fudge very well.  And after it's all assembled, quilted and bound, then it gets a good machine wash and dry and crinkles, and all my mistakes vanish miraculously.  Trust me.

Fabric:  assorted stuff from all over the place.  The whites are leftovers from other quilts, backings and such.

Benjamin's quilt

 Hot off the presses, bound, crinkled and shipped out.  Log cabin with a lot of orange/turquoise fabrics, at least 30 different ones.

Finished and started

I actually finished a quilt.  I used William Morris reproduction fabrics (and, incidentally saw the original Strawberry Thief at the British Museum).

And started:  a new lace shawl, shown here it total lace blob moment.  Trust me, it will unblob when washed and blocked.

straythreads - We were in London a couple of weeks ago, and I actually got to see some ofWilliam Morris' fabrics and wall paper.  Such excitement!

A new quilt

A new quilt is in progress.  I finished the string quilt from some previous post, forgot to photograph it, and then dropped it off at the longarm quilter.  So no pics until it's back.

Of course I started another quilt.  This one is done all in Kaffe and friends fabric, and is a variation of a log cabin.

3 different fabrics for the center square, and then playing around with all those pretty colors and fabrics for the strips.  It is such fun to do!

On the knitting front, I very happily became canon fodder for Sock Madness:  too much pain in the wrists to keep on knitting quickly with splitty yarn and very slick needles.  I had fun, and now I'm doing other things, including this sweater.

These are swatches for me to practice the pattern and figure out gauge. The color is a bit more peach than shown. 

And here is a bit of the body.  You cannot tell anything from this picture since I have a bunch of stitches on a needle, and lace is blobby and messy until blocked.  The color is accurate here.  Yay, camera.

It's amazing what a photograph can do

I am playing with the layout for this new quilt.  I'm using my bed with the flannel duvet so that the blocks don't slip (and also because it's easier on my back than the floor).  But even when I stand back, I really can't get the effect of how those blocks interact with each other.  Enter the camera.

This might end up as my final layout.  I do love how I get secondary and even tertiary block interactions.  And now, looking at it, I can see a mistake in the top row.  No matter; nothing is sewn together.  Clearly my seam ripper and I will become close friends if I go this route.  I'm a knitter and knitters rip, so no big deal.

2018 resolutions

I rarely make New Year's resolutions, mostly because I never follow through on them, but this year I decided to make some.  We shall see if I actually accomplish all of them.  Hah.  Feel free to laugh.

1. Knit 6 sweaters.  This is not hard and I'll probably make it through.
2. Knit 6 shawls.  Ditto on this knitting.
3. Make 6 quilts. Uh huh.  Probably not, but at least I have some sort of goal.
4. Actually finish 6 quilts, quilting, binding and all.  Meh. Doubtful, but you never know.

First shawl of the year.  Look how far I've gotten since a couple of days ago.  It's remarkably pleasant to knit, even with the endless garter stitch rows.  You can see the swoopy part over on the top right.

The name of the shawl is Frozen Skies, but with my colorway, I think of it as Neapolitan Ice Cream.  There are some nice lace sections, which will look dopey until blocked.  That's just the way for knitted lace:  it needs a firm stretched-out blocking.

The new quilt is proceeding nicely.  I almost have it down-pat, i.e. I rip only every 3rd block.  I have to keep a block in front of me to make sure my pieces go where they should.  I need a name for this.  No ideas.

Photographed on top of the fluffy comforter.  That's why the hills and valleys.  I think this will be the layout I use.  The question is whether I put sashing between the 4-patch blocks.  I think so.

Sock and quilt

Here's where I am with the Eve's Temptation socks I started Wed night.  Zooming along is so pleasant.

Progress on my exploding block quilt. 

These are just laid out any which way.  I have too few to make any placement decisions.

Motoring along

Here are the newest blocks for Valse Brillante.  Can I tell you just how much fun these things are to make?  I might have to give up doing laundry and cooking.

A bit of quilting

A very nice change from all the knitting posts.  Here's the log cabin quilt; I just finished and have to press the row seams. 

Stats:  center blocks are 2.5" squares and the logs are 1.5".  I think I'm going to get this professionally quilted by someone.  It would take me the rest of my life, and I want to use it as a late winter/early spring quilt.

To celebrate finishing the flimsy, I decided to start an English paper piecing project, Valse Brillante by Willyne Hammerstein.

Here are the paper pieces, then the layout of my first block.

And both next to each other.