A Little Yarn On The Side

Quilting with a striped fabric might be the fast lane to the funny farm. Yesterday I picked up the blocks off the guest bed and put them on a shelf in the sewing room. I don't know what possessed me--it isn't like cleaning is one of my great joys in life. Today when I got it back out to see how the two new blocks fit in, I discovered that everything depends on HOW the blocks are laid out--like which one starts what row & everything. NOW I have to figure out how I had it laid out before I picked it up because I started 3 of the same block that theoretically might finish the darn thing.... so one of us is in need of a "time out." And a drink. Most of today was spent out in the sunshine planting things, but I did get a few rows in on this which looks like a new project, I realize, but it really isn't. I started this last month on the trip to McCall, but had so little done that it was too embarrassing to photograph. It's a shawl my mother picked out as...

Here in the "Global Menopause" climate, we're swinging between 50 degrees overnight and 80 degrees in the afternoon, so I have figured it out: Knit in the morning! The Kauni cardigan got some attention today and the yoke cardigan has a finished back! In general, I would say this is an incredibly stupid design for a sweater. The sweater has a yoke, which in 99 cases out of 100, would be knit in the round so as to eliminate seams. Not this one. Originally I had planned to just knit it in the round anyway, but the pattern calls for a zipper within the yoke. Checking Ravelry, some people felt it was fine without the zipper and some added it. I thought it would be easier to do a few useless seams than to cut a hole for a zipper. I haven't actually put a zipper in a sweater yet, but the only thing I can think of that might make a zipper in a knitted garment worse is to combine it with a steek. I shudder at the very thought... This is a wool yarn, but it might get som...

It is 74 degrees right now, all of my knitting projects are wool, and I'm just not feeling the love right now. I really, really, REALLY want a cotton knitting project right now. I even have cotton yarn in my stash, since one of the perks to having a really big stash is, well, having lots of yarn to choose from. But I already have all these other projects, and I believe I declared April to be sort of a "finish what you have already started" month (thinking I was safe with just 11 days to go), but I really, really, REALLY want to play with cotton. It's spring, darn it! Who wants to think about being cold??????

I'm in the process of making more blocks for this: and I think 2 of them are actually not going to work. To fit, all of the trees have to be standing up, and then the blocks have to fit into the overall pinwheel pattern, which gets very confusing. I think I'm doing a 5 by 6 quilt, so I need 7 more blocks, and to save my sanity I have laid this out ahead of time to see which direction to cut the blocks. I am a slow learner, but eventually I get there. I have made an executive decision--there will be no April "Project of the Month." I have already finished 2 projects and have ....well, a whole bunch still to go, so April will belatedly be, "Finish Some of Those Darn Projects I've Already Started" month. I have 11 days and an embarrassing number of projects going. Now, we'll just have to see what I can get done before May 1. Of course, the real question is "Can I finish enough projects to make the sewing room a little less frightening?...

Theo, my sweet little kitty sidekick who has endured 6 weeks of a leg cast, dose after dose of various medicines, the famous Kitty Valium episode, 6 weeks of hydrotherapy can now OFFICIALLY be declared "back to normal." He has just presented me with a partially-still-alive bird. And as I am too much of a softy to put the bird out of its misery, I have opted to lock the two of them in the room, grab my knitting, and flee. I'm not proud when it comes to animals in my bedroom. I guess we can call him "recovered."

So, I suppose you might be wondering how the April "Project of the Month" is progressing. It would be here which would make it "none." Now that it's already the 16th, I think I'm a little behind. I had a free day today and had originally planned to cut out the pattern, but when I started clearing off the table in the sewing room, I thought it best to finish the last Christmas gift bag, then there was a gift that was 99% done that was just waiting around for a zipper, so I finished that and can now add another 2 3/8 yards of fabric to the tally--though no pictures since it's a surprise. I'd like to pretend that finishing those two projects left me with a clean project table, but that just removed the layers down to the green quilt, and since it seemed silly to pack away that stuff while it still needed to be worked on, I cut out several more blocks and I'll hope that I'm getting the new blocks in the places I need them, then when I needed ...

Andy has a cousin getting married in June, and I would like to make them a gift. She made us the most marvelous ceramic owl candle-holder & is quite the artist in general, so she would appreciate handmade gifts, and she & the husband are just really nice people in general, so I want to make them something. I used to knit Christmas stockings-- usually in red & green with candles or wreaths on the leg-- but then I got tired of that design & modified the pattern to make this which I really like. The problem is, there are also 2 children so we're talking about 4 stockings by June (or later--let's be honest, not a lot of my handmade gifts are delivered on time....) not to mention all the other knitting projects going on right now..... I could sew Christmas stockings, or maybe finish one of the Christmas quilts since they might already have Christmas stockings....What would be a good wedding gift?