Happy New Year’s Eve!

I’m racing the clock tonight  regarding the 12 in 2012 sock challenge.  I’ve more than met my challenge number of 12 pairs of socks but I’ve got one more I’ve been working on  – the Candle Power socks – and I’ve just got a few rows of the toe on the second sock to finish and I can count one more pair finished in 2012 that will not end up in my UFK (unfinished knitting) pile for next year’s challenge.  So stay tuned for that final report on the 12 in 2011 Challenge.  Are you ready to join in next year’s challenge – do you have UFKs you want to get finished.  The Sticks ‘N Strings Challenge hopefully will help me get some of those UFKs finished – check it out at the button in the sidebar.  And hopefully help me not buy “much” new yarn per the challenge rules I set for myself.  Now I will fess up — Eat Sleep Knit carries the Skein cashmere blend sock yarns I love and their website says they will not be restocked since the manufacturer will be discontinuing that particular line.  OH NO!  Yes, I had to nab three more hanks today before I can’t get them anymore. 😉

I spent the weekend visiting with my parents, home (well in Wisconsin and Iowa from their now home of Arizona) for the holidays.  They have determined after the massive snow storm and cold weather that they do not miss the Wisconsin winters at all. LOL  But nice visit with them and my older brother and family and one of my nephews and his girlfriend.  Alas my sister and the rest of her family ended up not being able to join us due to their being really sick.    I forgot to take very many photos and those that I did turned out badly because I was shooting in a really sunny room which showed the sun but not the people well but look at this  face

  That’s Zoey – one of my niece’s dogs.  She sat and posed for me so nicely that I just don’t know why they say she’s a bit of a  hellion. LOL  She was very sweet.

Now to crank up the heat (it’s 11 degrees and I had to wait an add’l 20 minutes at the bus stop since I just missed the bus I really wanted) and then go get that sock done!

A safe, healthy and happy new year to all!

Denise

Final progress

 

Well time for me to call it quits on the sewing for tonight, find some dinner, clear away a bit of the sewing mess (since I had moving to my dining table to sew to avoid the chilly sewing room).   It’s been a very relaxing  – but busy with all the knitting, baking and sewing – 4 days off which turned to 6 days off thanks to Mother Nature and the dump of snow. 

I’ll have to bury the ends on my Honey Cowl tonight so I can test it out in the cold tomorrow.

I did play a few minutes in EQ today and as I was looking at the bird designs I’d done so far and trying to figure out how to draw a bird a “hand” so it could hold on to something, I thought of friend Judy in Texas and started giggling to myself (okay not really giggling since I’m not really a “giggly” type of person with perhaps the exception of the quilting vacation where we had left over fresh strawberry margaritas that we had stuck in the freezer and decided to eat the next day — with a spoon since they were like snow cones and it wasn’t until we had a goodly amount that we realized there’s a sort of delayed reaction till the alcohol in them kicks in when they are that frozen and sweet and it really wasn’t just sorbet we were eating  — then, yes, giggly could describe me and perhaps Judy) 😉  anyway………. it was making me smile as a Texas  bird idea popped into my head.  So I did a quick drawing of it and sent it off to her “Tweetin – Texas Style”     Although as I look at it again the name “Jay Walkin” also comes to mind too. LOL

It’s by no means a completed drawing since the boots and hat aren’t quite right and would need some more work if I decided to do anything further with it, but I had to send the picture off to her.  There is something that just strikes me so funny about those skinny bird legs in boots of any kind.

   Okay – off the computer and find some dinner.   Tomorrow will be a busy day.

Which border fabric?

  My original EQ7 drawing had two borders added before the pieced border in basically the colors shown on the right of the quilt — hence the reason I bought those fabrics.  The green IN the quilt  drawing was more lime green and not the darker green I used. 

If you scroll down 4 or so blog posts you’ll see the EQ drawing of the whole quilt.

The fabrics on the right are all from the same fabric line used in the crayons but those specfic fabrics haven’t been used in the quilt.

As I was looking at all of these I decided the first border would actually be the background fabric.  So I cut the strips then hopped back on the computer to see how long they needed to be.  In the meantime I colored in the quilt image with the background fabric replacing the color I had in the first border strip.  It just didn’t look right.  It needs to be the black fabric to sort of rein in all those crayons — back to the cutting table.

So, the next border added will be black – which fabric would you use  for the next plain border, keeping in mind that there will be a pieced border added after that with colors from the center of the quilt.  I think I have already made my decision, but what color would you pick — the bright blue on the left, lime green, raspberry, toast, or blueberry?

Blocks Done

  My crayon blocks are done and just need to be sewn into their rows.  These have been so quick and fun to make.  The hardest part was my background fabric.  It is white with a slightly cream marbling on it.  I think I managed to get them all right side out and if not – heck you cannot tell.

I’ve  been having a “Christmas Carol” marathon while I’ve been sewing yesterday and today.  It’s one of my favorite holiday movies and I have probably 4 or 5 different versions of it.  But now I think it’s time to switch to something else — another all time Christmas classic — Santa Claus Conquers the Martians — LOL 

 

Happy Christmas Morning to All!

  It’s a bright and sunny Christmas day here.   The coffee is brewing, I’ve got a carmel sticky bun warming, so it is at its ultimate gooiest, and then I think I’ll have to get dressed so I can get back to sewing on my crayon quilt.  May your holiday season be a joyous one.

I started knitting last night on my second Candle Power sock.  I may just be able to squeak one more finished pair of socks in before the end of the year. 🙂

Cinnamon Rolls and Crayons

Yep – both are nearly finished.  I decided I needed something good for breakfast tomorrow so mixed up some sweet roll dough.

   One cinnamon raisin and walnut  (rectangular pan) and the other two are pecan sticky rolls.  Just waiting for the oven to preheat so I can stick them in.  My co-workers in my area of the office will be vary glad I baked when I take them the leftovers on Wednesday for breakfast.

 

I also now have a pile of crayon blocks all done.  Just finished pressing the last ones so now I can start assembling them into blocks.  But I think I’ll save that for tomorrow.

 I think I may need to go make a fresh pot of coffee because I just ‘might’ need to taste test one of those rolls when they come out of the oven.  

Time for a bit of knitting I think.

Coloring Outside the Lines – Design Wall Monday

Design wall Monday – I looked at my walls  and CTS is still up on the big design wall waiting to be finished and the other one still has the leaf blocks and one of the bird blocks I was working on.  Boring – nothing new so I decided to get busy finally this afternoon.

It seems ages (or at least weeks) since I’ve done any sewing.  All those fabrics I finally ironed are now being cut up into crayons for Coloring Outside the Lines.  Before cutting them all, I did a test run of one of the longer crayons.  It turned out perfect and so easy.  I originally was going to paper piece the crayon point section but then remembered the Quilthouse Tri Tool and Recs Tool by Darlene Zimmerman and Joy Hoffman stuck among my various rulers.  These make doing those points and side pieces so easy because the end of one is notched allowing you to line up the pieces exactly.

Now I can get busy and get all the other colors cut out.  I was originally going to make a larger quilt but I think I’ll start with the smaller version first.  Even the border pieces can be made with the Tri/Recs tools.

See what everyone else has on their design wall at patchworktimes.

Honey Cowl Finished

 

The Honey Cowl is done! and Looks pretty darn good with my coat if I do say so myself.  If the weather is windy and cold, it turned out long enough for me to pull up over my head.     Now what do I want to knit on next???

Darn and Drat!

  My mitten was coming along nicely – doesn’t  it look cute.  I”m at the end of the cuff section at this point and slipped it on and it clearly is not going to be big enough for me – I do not have a small hand.  And this is one of those pairs of mittens that look straight from cuff to top of mitten (meaning the same width all the way).  My favorite mittens have increases after you finish the cuff and move on to the base of the hand — which makes perfect sense because my hand gets wider there. 

So back to the drawing board.  These will get ripped out because I’m not going to invest the time into something I can’t wear.  But darn they were looking pretty.

 

On another note – anyone have a wordpress.com blog and are you having issues with the media/photo loader.  They changed it not long ago so you saw all the recentlly added photos, it would show when it was added and an edit screen came up at the side.  Now when I add a photo (for the past two day or so) I can’t see what I’m loading – the page is blank yet it is still loading the photo.  I’ve gotten very good at guessing how long it takes to load and when I click “add to post,” then I can see it in the post.   Very wierd and annoying indeed.

 

Lovely stack of fabrics

 

There they are — all those lovely colors are pressed.  I just need to find the background fabric that goes with these which I safely stuck “somewhere”.  Then I can start cutting out a new quilt (cause I simply don’t have enough others in the work!) 😉

Ran a quick errand — much easier to get around outside since with the sun out the last two days things are finally melting a bit.  My nice icicle collection is still “hanging in there”.  Since they’re not hanging over my door waiting to spear me in the head, I’ll let them go for now and not knock them off.

Now to find the needles I need for those mittens – yarn is wound and I’m ready to start.  I think holiday movies and knitting will be the evening’s entertainment.