A Little Yarn On The Side

So the fabric stash is large.  I don't know the exact size, but I'm pretty sure there are small quilt shops with less.  It would probably help to use some of the more space-consuming fabrics, but I'm working on more spicy spiral runners.  I'm trying three at a time, and two are fully cut out and in process of being sewn together, but I keep running into furry snags on the last one...  Each one is made from a set of 8 fat quarters, and I remembered having two of the three sets.  We'll call this "mental stash" because I am using up stash I didn't even remember having.  Or buying.  Astoundingly, I don't even remember ironing these, and I must have as they were prewashed.  This tendency is going to make sorting out the sewing room full of surprises.............:)

And the quilt finally arrived at its new home last night.  I tried taking a picture of the finished quilt before packing it for shipping, but I'm not as fast as Theo.  There are a lot of mistakes on this quilt, but it's done, the recipients love it almost as much as the cats did, and I really do love how it looks, errors and all.   When it was done, I immediately started Andy's Valentine shirt, which didn't get completed for Valentine's Day, but I finished it before the end of February, so that counts as "on time" in our world.  We've had a leak in the roof, we're fighting with our lousy insurance (Farm Bureau, in case you need to know who never to use), had company visiting, and on top of all that, I had recently been contacted by a recruiter and after lots of chats and meetings, I'll be changing jobs shortly.  This will be my last week at my existing job, I'm taking 2 weeks off between, and start March 18.  I'm excited. ...

But when I do, it's one you're in a hurry to finish. In spite of my helper, I've quilted the border and I'm ready for the binding.   I was originally thinking about a scrappy binding sort of like this:  but I'm now thinking about going with the dark green for the binding.  I love how the tiny little bead of green looks, and it feels like the dark green binding completes it.  The other option was the turquoise of the border, but that feels a bit unresolved. Decisions, decisions, decisions. I finally got a picture of the finished socks, and as it's February 10, I thought it time to start on Andy's Valentine shirt:  I picked up this fun print earlier this year,  and got the pattern pieces cut out last night while the kittens guarded the quilt.  The shirt only takes 2 yards of 60-inch-wide fabric, so it's not a big stash-burner, but I don't even know what kind of project would make a visible dent in the fabric stash.  An...

The pink socks are finished, but besides the fun of dpns impaling everything and sliding out of the knitting, I might need to concede that stoplight knitting that's a bit easier to see might be helpful, or I could just pretend I'm doing this to hit my 6-sweater goal for the year and age has got nothing to do with it.....  At any rate, there's a new sweater using worsted-weight yarn keeping me company these days.  It's a free pattern from Drops Design , and since it's an easy pattern, it's easy to stop and start, though hopefully more "start" than "stop" as there is that finished sweater goal.  It's a cotton sweater, so if I can convince myself to finish it in some pretense of project monogamy, I could actually wear it during whatever bizarre pattern of weather will pass for spring this year.  Now if I can just not be seduced by more sock yarn............

 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!