Bag Lady

 I've become a bag lady.  Can't get enough of them.  I donated a couple of bags to family members last weekend and found myself bagless.  Well, not exactly.  I have a gazillion project bags, but I was down to only 2 of the ones I've been making.  So, what's a girl to do?  Make a couple more, natch.

 The first one is from some fabric by Riley Blake, and it's a sock project size.

The next two are bigger project size.  I fussy cut the pink one to center that pretty print.  It is centered, but my photograph isn't. 

I might be bagged-out, at least for a week or two.

The Light and Dark Lace Club sign-ups are now closed.  I did list a few yarns on Etsy.  You can see them over on the right.

Passover news:  There are matzoh crumbs everywhere.  Too bad I don't have white floors. 

Off to block the most humongous shawl I've ever knitted.  It's enormous.  I'm small so it quite overwhelms me, but for my taller and larger customes (which probably is everybody), it'll really swoop and look quite elegant.  No pics.  Mystery KAL, you know.

Doll quilt

Finished!  One adorable little doll quilt.  I love this little thing.  I really do.  It was easy to sew, fun to hand quilt, and I suffered mightily with joining the binding.  I did it, but I could have done better.  And that's why little quilts are neat:  you get to try out lots of stuff without a huge investment of either money or time. 

 I used charm squares for the blocks.  Some fabric or other for the back and binding.  One of the corners looks a bit off, but it's not; it's just my photography.  Thermore batting.  I like how I can make small stitches with this batting, but I like the feel of cotton batting more.  No shrinkage on the batting; it's polyester, but the fabric shrank a bit all on its own, so now it looks nice and crinkly.

Here's the book:  40 Fabulous Quick-Cut Quilts by Evelyn Sloppy.  I borrowed it first from the library and fell in love with almost all the quilts.  The pattern I used is this:

  And it's really really easy.  Looks like lots of blocks on point and biased, but it's not.  I like it so much that I want to do it in a lap quilt and have collected a lot of fabric to use for it.

And now, like it or not, I have to clean house.  Tomorrow is the first seder; and they're all coming.  So, mop, dust cloth, and cleaning supplies, here I come.

In between cleaning.....

I'm working on the mystery KAL Transitions Shawl, so-called because there are 4 patterns in the body of the shawl and each one transitions into the next one, and then, of course, the Never-ending Border.  Really never-ending, too.  Trust me on that one.  Interested?  You can register for the Light & Dark Lace Club, April edition right in my Etsy shop!

And a bit of sewing:

My first mug rug, slightly wonky 'cause I can't sew a straight line.  I did this as a quilt as you go project.  Tons of fun, too.  And, nope, it's not at an angle; that's the photography.  The strips, however, are somewhat angled.  I love this little guy.  I walk around the house yelling "mug rug" to Hiz Hubz.  He rolls his eyes.

Almost finished is this little doll quilt.  I'm stitching down the binding.  Yep, the blue lines will go away when I finish and run some cold water on the piece.  I hand quilted this, not very well, but good enough.  For the batting, I used Thermore, which is this thin piece of polyester, and the needle just slides through it.  I like the feel of cotton batting more, but I do better work (sort of) on the Thermore.  The pattern is from a book by Evelyn Sloppy.  It kind of looks like sail boats to me.  I really enjoyed doing this one, and I may make it again, in a lap size with red, white, and blue fabrics.  Sometime.

And now I have to get back to work.  I'd rather be knitting, sewing, reading, anything but cleaning.

Oh, and does anyone want a nasty left knee?  The fool thing, which hasn't bothered me in weeks, has now decided to hurt like hell.  Advil, here I come.

A Passover Poem (with thanks to Clement Clarke Moore) by Ruth Greenwald

‘Twas a few days before Passover

‘Twas a few days before Passover,

And all through the house,

A certain woman was cleaning, and so was her spouse.

The mess they had made

The whole year before

Had to be sorted, tidied, tossed-out, and stored.

The kids were coming, the friends were, too,

And the couple was terrified,

Over how much to do.

So they both knuckled down

Under all of the stress,

And started to work on their own messy mess.

“Do we really need this,

Do we really need that?

Oh dear, it’s a good thing we don’t have a cat.”

And this, my dear friends,

Is what we must do,

In order not to annoy all the kids and the crew.

Ruth Greenwald

And that is the story of my life for the next few days!

Light & Dark Lace Club - Sign-ups are here!

 

It's now time to sign up for the April/May edition of the Light & Dark Lace Club.   This one will start late April.

Here are the colorways:

Carnation, Cornflower, Lemonade, Cucumber, and Dusty Apricot.  

The yarn is Carrie Lace yarn:  1300 yards of 80/20 merino/silk in a lovely lace weight.

The price is $36 + first class shipping. This includes one skein of yarn in the colorway you want, plus the pattern which is emailed out in clues and worked up as a KAL.  There's a lovely group on Ravelry for discussions and problems.

You may buy as many skeins as you like, and I'll refund the pattern cost ($5 for club members) for the extra skeins.

Where can you purchase?  In my Etsy shop, of course:  http://fritzl.etsy.com

I have plenty of yarn, so don't worry if there are only a few openings shown.  I add as the orders come in.

Here's a preview of our mystery KAL.  Yep, I know.  you can't see much of anything, but it is a Mystery!  I'm doing mine in Cucumber, and I love working with the yarn and the color.  Lovely, lovely yarn!  This is going to be a nice size garment, given that amazing yardage.

Questions?  Ask me here, and I'll answer.

Here are some pics of the last project, the Forever Shawl.

  

You know what today is.

The first day of Spring!

So that means that it's time for the annual Spring Poem.

Here it is!  The Spring Poem

High up, over the tops
Of the feathery grasses, the grasshoppers hop.
They won't eat their suppers,
They will not obey
Their grasshopper mothers and fathers who say:
"Listen my children, this must be stopped.
Now is the time your last hop should be hopped.
So come eat your suppers and go to your beds."
But the little grasshoppers just shake their green heads.
"no, no," the naughty ones say.

"All we have time to do now is to play.

If we are hungry we'll nip at a fly,
Or nibble a blueberry as we go by.
But not now. Now we must hop.
And no one, but no one can make us stop."

The end

I've been in hospital Mommie mode, but she's home now and very happy to be there.  She's way too old for any kind of procedure let alone an angioplasty.  But she's walking on the bad foot, and eating, and very  cheery.  Now if I can just de-stress....... 

I'm still here

But stressed.  The Mommie has to have angioplasty on Monday, and given her advanced age, I'm very nervous about it.  On the good side, she's in pretty good shape.  On the bad side, she's 97. 

I've done a bit of sewing, and a lot of nervous knitting, not a bit of which I can show you.  And a bit of dyeing, too.  Here are the colors for the next edition of the Light and Dark Lace Club.

The colors, except for the blue, are all spring pastels.  I wanted the blue to be lighter, but when I dyed it, it looked so totally washed out, that I went a bit darker.

They'll be up for sale sometime next week, depending on Mom's procedure.  Just thought I'd tempt you a bit.

Here's the latest doll quilt.  This time I'm using Hobbs Thermore as the batting, and the needle just slides through it so easily.  I rather like it, maybe even better than the all cotton one I've been using.

And that's it.  Spending tons of time going back and forth to doctors, having tests done, stressing out.  You who have done elder care know the routine.