A Little Yarn On The Side

 I think I might have finished the quilt on Saturday were it not for my "helpers."  At least Valentino can be persuaded to nap on a different quilt.... I used a decorative quilting stitch to quilt the major seams in the quilt.  Now I'll do a little free-motion quilting on the border and I'll be ready for binding.  What do you think--I can bind it with the dark green of the little edge, the turquoise of the border, or do a scrappy binding in the same colors as the quilt?

It's not a sweater, but I do have a finished project for the year, and considering how little knitting I've done in the last couple years, I had almost forgotten what it felt like to finish something.  I was so excited that I immediately cast on another pair.  Yep, I swear that I'm going to make sweaters and I immediately go on a sock frenzy.  At least I've been showing dedication to the quilt.  It's a gift for friends who just bought their first house together, and I might, in the future, rethink anything involving 120 little quilt squares, and as I used some jellyroll strips for this quilt, there was a trip to a fabric store to find some accent fabrics for the border, and to give it a bit of accent, I decided to try a little accent technique I saw on a video once--taking a 1-inch strip of fabric folded in half and sewing it with the border so there's a small dimensional edge.  What I failed to pick up from the video was that it really needs to be do...

Was anyone else worn out by the holidays? Anyway, it is a new year and time for new crazy resolutions.  Now that I'm back to work, 100 finished projects is completely unreachable, but I think 50 again is good.  And the BIG goal is to finish 6 sweaters! Really, it shouldn't be that difficult as I think I have at least 6 in progress and 2 are really close to being finished, but I always get a bit squirrelly about definitive goals.  If I try to stay focused on something, all OTHER projects (or cleaning, or vacuuming, or laundry) start to look strangely attractive.  Such as being 6 days in to the new year and being obsessed with finishing a pair of socks.  But I'm going to do this!  I'm going to finish them!  And I'm either going to find some sweater wips or start some new ones!   And if that cleaning thing starts to look good suddenly, I'll probably find my sweater WIPs!  I think this could work!

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. I can't believe it's almost been a month! So, quick updates:  I found a way to fix the green spicy spiral!  The wedges need to be cut with the stratas going opposite directions, but I cut the first set going the same direction.  BUT, I had just enough fabric to create a fifth strata set and, double-checking everything, cut a new set of wedges in the right direction and was able to get it finished!  Really, this is the best pattern EVER.  Here's a better picture of the one in purple for my friend, which she loves. There was a time when I thought I would make quilts or shawls for each friend as they turned 50, but then I remembered how many really good friends I have.  So, it's table-runners! The kittens have taken to sewing like pros: and over the holidays we've made pajamas for both Andy and I, some new towels, and a new chiffon jacket for me.  Part of the reason for this sewing fren...

There comes a time when innocent people completely forget the horrors of moving, and in a moment of insanity--possibly brought on by noise, too many neighborhood rentals, high winds, and traffic congestion--decide to pack up everything they own and pay twice the estimate to large men who will scratch every stick of furniture and crush well-marked fragile boxes as they move it across town, where the gullible innocents will be so traumatized by the process that they will be unable to send out the annual holiday letter…. When I say that we moved in 2017, between cleaning and prepping the old house, selling it, finding a new house, all the negotiations and unpacking, it really does seem it’s what we did with the entire year.  Probably because it’s mostly true.  Toward the end of the year I was finally able, after 5 years of physical therapy, to return to outside sales, and I now sell business signs for an old client of mine.  We had to say goodbye to our oldest cat shorty a...

 The 50th birthday gift for my friend was finished yesterday! and I couldn't be happier.  I bought a set of 8 fat quarters from Craft Warehouse to make this, then ended up not liking one of the colors because it was just too jarring, so the ginormous fabric stash came to my rescue!  Yes, I did have other purple fat quarters on hand.  I don't think I'm learning good stash lessons here.  I was sewing the next strata together while working on the first one to be ahead on big gifts, so I got the 4 strata done and ironed and ready to cut... and totally messed up the cutting--to the point that it can't be a spicy spiral runner.  Oh yeah--it's in the Project Timeout bin right now and I am sulking with my knitting.  Sure, I make mistakes knitting as well, but frogging fixes almost everything......Too bad life isn't like that.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving.  Last year had been the first Thanksgiving we've really hosted, and we were able to have a friend over who had missed the last few Thanksgivings with health problems.  We lost him this summer, and he was absolutely one of my favorite people, but his widow and some of the family were able to join us and my parents came down, and I think it was as nice a day as it could have been for our first holiday without him.  Today we're decorating for Christmas, with LOTS of kitty help.  We got Valentino right before Christmas last year, but he wasn't here for the decorating, which is entirely fascinating for kitties--as is embroidery: We have 9 Christmas parties on the calendar so far, so I might not be as far ahead with hostess gifts as I thought I might be.  This weekend I'm also hoping to get started on some spicy spiral runners.  One of my closest friends is turning 50 shortly, so I wanted to do something special for her, a...