01 | December | 2012 | Justquiltin with Denise Russart

It did end up being a productive day. The living room is tidy (except for that rack of socks drying in the corner) the socks, along with some other laundry got done. Breakfast bar cleared, table cleared of “stuff” (that’s my walk in the door and drop stuff place which I’m going to try NOT to do anymore.)

I cleaned up the rest of the outdoor stuff – the ceramic pots that need to come inside for the winter. I dragged in the slate topped table to try to get the legs off it but they the screws are rusted in place. I don’t really have anywhere inside I want to have that table sitting all winter so it’s tipped on it’s side against the building outside. It may or may not survive the winter outside but we shall see. The birdfeeders have been moved to their winter locations (where I’ll easily be able to reach them to refill them without having to jump into the snowbank) and I filled them up to keep the birds happy. Garbage and recycling taken out, and a few other putzy jobs done like straightening up the laundry room.

Have several possible ideas drawn in EQ for the two new Hoffman collections I need to do patterns for. One of them uses one of the bird blocks so if they don’t want that pattern we may do it on the blog. Will have to wait and see which designs they like but I can’t go much farther with them this weekend since I need the jpgs and have to wait until Monday to down load them so made myself shut EQ when I was done so I didn’t waste the rest of the afternoon playing with quilt designs.

So after that I decided I needed a knitting break. And because I don’t have enough things in progress, I started on something new. But I think the pattern is so cute I just couldn’t wait to get started. Plus, as I was looking through a yarn basket, I found the perfect yarn I forgot was in there.

That’s a big ball of yarn – I had started knitting something else with it but didn’t like it so ripped it all back out. The pattern is Ruffled Neckwrap and I just think it’s adorable in the pattern image so hope it is in reality too. You start with the “ruffle” so there’s over 350 stitches on that needle right now – it takes a bit to get across a row – but I’m anxious to see how it turns out.

My dinner smells like it’s nearly done and I’m starving. It will be an evening of knitting and watch movies once I get the laundry on my bed put away. Too bad no quilting elves cleaned the sewing room while I was doing other stuff!

Denise

As I was trying to show you yesterday, the Black Friday sale yarn shipments, yes shipmentS” have arrived. I dumped them out of their boxes to bring them home and this is a tall (size of a paper grocery sack except a bit wider) reuseable grocery tote. See I got it all in one bag – that can’t be too bad can it?? I’ll dump it out later to show you what’s really in it.

I also loaded a photo yesterday (that one worked) to my ongoing 12 in 2012 page of all the socks finished so far. I just finished pair 19!!! and I’m thinking I should be able to finish a 20th pair before the end of December (maybe).

Here is pair 19 – looking a bit stretched out since I took the photo after I took them off last night. This the last pair I had started but didn’t get finished during Socktoberfest — it’s Opal yarn.

I’ve also gotten a bit sidetracked from the socks because I wanted to knit on something other than socks — which is about the only think I’ve knit for a year now! (I am going to be issuing myself a new knitting challenge in 2013 but it will not only involve socks!)

Anyway, I started working on another “One Row Handspun Scarf” that is super simple and of course mine is not hand spun. I made a couple of these a few years ago as christmas gifts for the bosses and a friend. I’m using two different sock yarns held together. It’s great for those sock yarns that maybe you decided you don’t really like or don’t want to use for socks. Just find two yarns that sort of coordinate — I usually use a solid or semi sold and then one with lots of different colors in it. This one is very dark teal solid — that yarn (I lost the label for it) is way skinnier than I like to use for sock yarn) and the colored one is Poems Sock yarn. Poems yarn is lovely with its long color changes but I personally would never use for socks since I don’t think it will hold up. But the two of them together in the scarf are gorgeous and a nice weight scarf.

One last photo for now since my coffee break is over and I have to get back to my “tidying” up the apartment. Here’s part of my tidy….. “… the stockings were hung by the christmas tree with care???”

Well it was the one place they would be out of my way while I was cleaning (and there is a heat vent in the ceiling right above them). Now back to my cleaning after I finally get dressed and pop some muffins in the oven.