On the Needles

 It was a lazy night of knitting last night so I never got the On the Needles report posted.   And I actually have something off the needles – at least temporarily.

First up, this is my CF Featherweight KAL Cardigan.  That pile is all the pieces .  The back is already blocked.  The fronts are all curled up so they look like nothing and the two sleeves which I just finished.  So hopefully I’ll get the rest of the pieces blocked this weekend so I can start sewing it together.  It will then go back on the needles because there is a wide ribbing band on the fronts edges and around the neck.  It’s been a bit longer slog making this because it’s fingering weight yarn but not bad.  I can see more fingering weight sweaters in my future.  The pieces are headed for a soak as soon as I get off the computer.  I’m anxious to see this one finished.

Then there is the CF cardigan style, low hip length vest I’m making.  It will have vee neck and just a single button or clasp at the end of the vee to close it.  Very simple stockinette stitch with garter hems and edging.  Something to wear a plain turtle neck or other long sleeved tee under.

This is the back and it’s nearly finished.  DK weight yarn so it seems to go so much quicker than the fingering weight sweater of course.  I think I should get the back finished this weekend and cast on the fronts, which I may work both at the same time

and then lastly,

 My CF Stonington which is for the Deep Winter KAL.  This one is in Miss Babbs Yowza, which is a light worsted weight so knits up quickly too.  Can’t wait to get this one finished since my other Yowza sweater is my favorite to wear. This one is a cardigan and I bought some great buttons for it.   I’m just past the first armhole decreases so working my way up the rest of the armhole on the back.  I made great progress on this one this week because some klutz was not watching where she was walking in the dark one night, missed a step, mangled her knee and spent a day at home with the heating pad and ice and knitting all day.  The mangled knee doesn’t hurt to walk anymore but has lovely bruises all down the side and I fell on salt crystals and sort of slid (the salt on the sidewalk) and those little buggers sliced my knee up just like road rash.  Not a great way to get in an extra day of knitting.

And believe it or not – no yarn ordered yet this year – woo hooo 17 days. ROFLOL.  Now I will admit I was looking at some yesterday on line because I found a really great sale.  It’s expensive to knit sweaters, especially when you are not a small size and are tall and I found some great looking wool/mulberry silk blend yarn that’s more than half off so a very significant savings in a sweater quantity.  I’m still debating on it tho.  And although there was all kinds of Wollmeise at TLE earlier in the week, there were not any colors I could not live without so didn’t get any– now that’s self control! 🙂

 

 

Did you win the giveaway?

I just mailed out today the goodies – Dog Pound Pals calendar, Knitter’s Gifts totebag, and Knitter’s Gift notebook  from the last giveaway but not all the winners have  responded to give me their mailing address and claim their prize.

I emailed privately; the winners were listed in a new year’s blog post; not much else I can do so this is the final warning.  Anyone I’ve gotten no response from, who has not contacted me by the end of the week, those items are mine mine all mine to do with as I choose.  No whining allowed if you haven’t been paying attention – I don’t want an email a month from now telling me you won something. 🙂

Knitter’s Gifts makers – are you ready for the next installment??  You are? heck that means I need to remember to write it up in the next couple of days. LOL I just thought of that today – that this weekend is more joining of things together (of course, not that I’m that far along because I still have blocks to make as usual).   January is really flying by for me – I need to get hopping and get a few more things done!

Design Wall Monday – Jan. 12, 2015

  I did actually get the flying geese sections sewn together for the center of the quilt yesterday afternoon so here’s where my Moda Challenge quilt is at the moment.  All the pieces are on the design wall so I just need to start sewing all those blocks in to the long horizontal rows.

Since I sewed a bit longer than planned, I did not get the sewing room tidied up so I could lay out the wedding quilt to get it layered.  That’s on the agenda next before finishing this challenge quilt since I still have a month or two before the challenge has to be done.

 

Once I quit sewing I did make great progress on my CF Feather Weight KAL sweater.  I should be able to knock out that final sleeve – only about 40 rows of sleeve cap to go.

Sweater patterns and other knitting

I am so in love with this sweater pattern.   It was released just a few days ago and I just keep going back and looking at it.  It is up next I think on my list of sweaters to make – perhaps in some pretty spring color.  I will NOT cast it on now.  It will be my reward when I finish at least one of the sweaters I’m currently working on.

There’s the featherweight with only one sleeve and front edging to do, the vest I’ve got the back about half done on and the Deep Winter KAL sweater which I’ve been currently working on.  There is a spring short-sleeved pullover to finish sleeves on but just not what I want to be working on when the temperatures are below zero.

 This is definitely want I need to get back to working on also.  My wiggle wrap.  I started this after the frigid days of last winter so I would have a wrap long enough and wide enough to wear over my winter coat and wrap around my head and shoulders to keep those winter blasts out.  I definitely could have used it last week so I may put this back out to be my bus knitting project until (rather than one of the sweaters) until it’s finished.

I also want to get back to work on my Art Deco shawl I started a year go on New Year’s  – all my various Camp Loopy projects last year pushed aside some of the knitting and sewing projects so time to get them moving along again.

So this afternoon I think I’ll see if I can’t get the feather weight sweater sleeve closer to finished and find where I stashed the wiggle wrap, plug in some movies and knit away the afternoon.   I’ve been busy this a.m. — baked half a batch of chocolate chip cookies (stuck the rest of the dough in the freezer for some other day), there is honey wheat bread dough rising in the oven which should just about be ready to be shaped into  some crusty rolls to go with the pot of French onion soup I made this morning that is simmering away and nearly done.    My favorite soup!

A few more pieces ready

 Last night I finished sewing the missing rows of flying geese at the bottom of the quilt and got the other larger filler sections and background cut.

Today’s plan – figure out the colors for the flying geese that go in the remaining open space and get those made.  Then I’ll be ready to start sewing all those blocks together.

Flying geese

Well most of my flock of geese are now done.

 I’ve got blocks for two rows to make before that very bottom row, then I can cut the filler sections for the middle and figure out what color geese go in the center diamond formation.  But it’s coming along nicely.

I’ll get the rest of the geese triangle cut and then get to my tidying up the sewing room.  Unlike Mary Poppins, I cannot just snap my fingers and have it tidy itself! Drat!  Then to decide chicken and rice stir fry, or use shrimp or maybe both.  Such tough decisions I have to make today! 🙂

Saturday Stitching time

I haven’t been able to decide what goodies I want to bake today – bars, scones, cookies – so decided to head into the sewing room.  So far I’ve been rather productive in there but looking around, I do need to clear away some of the clutter from last weekend’s mystery quilt making so I can get the wedding quilt layered on the table and get to quilting it.

In the meantime tho, I’ve been working on more flying geese blocks for my Moda challenge quilt and, because I want to use the large design wall to lay out the challenge quilt pieces so I can figure out how many more geese of each color I need, I decided I’d better quickly get the rows to my mystery quilt sewn so I can take it off the design wall.

  Here it is, rows all sewn.  Now it can come off the design wall and I’ll get back to it after I get the wedding quilt finished.

So a bit of pressing on the geese blocks I stitched this morning and then I’ll add the other triangle to them and get them all up on the design wall so I can see where I’m at.

Then a bit of straightening up of the sewing room as I do some baking and maybe find some lunch – I will deserve a treat if I tidy the sewing room before it actually becomes a disaster area again!  Then perhaps tomorrow I can get busy and get the wedding quilt layered.

On the Needles – 1-9-15

 Well it’s a very bad photo but this color does not want to photo graph well today.   Here’s the actual color of this yarn – a pretty dark purple

But, it’s the back of my Deep Winter KAL Sweater – a CF Stonington.  It’s progressing nicely – much quicker than my fingering weight featherweight sweater but I still work on a few rows of the sleeves for that sweater then go back to this one.  Pretty good progress for five days of knitting around work.

I had ordered some buttons for this sweater but in my hopping back and forth looking at various buttons, I messed up and ordered the wrong size buttons (but aren’t these “winter tree” buttons cute).  But they are very pretty buttons and will go on a different sweater.  So I ordered different buttons from the same Etsy store and now have these lovely pinecone buttons, which will be so perfect for this sweater style.    If you’re looking for buttons – I highly recommend that Etsy shop — excellent customer service and wonderful buttons.  In both orders I received a free button of another style – when I got the trees,  I had also been contemplating the pinecones and that happened to be the button Mr. Gilmore included free — which clinched the deal that I needed to order those for this sweater.  When I got the pine cones, I got another wonderful button – Three Daffodils – so pretty – I will be needing more of those in the future.  So I’ve found my new button source for my hand knits – I’m a very happy customer.

Two Day Sale – Pieced Blocks

Two day sale on all pieced blocks from EQ Boutique to add to your EQ7 libraries!  See them all here.

Design Wall – Monday, January 5, 2015

Can I go back on vacation again?  Having to get out of my jammies this a.m. and walk out into the 2 degree weather – that made me want to go burrow back under my blankies!  But I survived.  It could be worse (and actually it will be later this week) LOL. Oh well, I’m back in where it’s warm now.

As promised, here’s my mystery quilt top – Seeing Stars – up on the design wall.  I still need to sew the rows together.  I love the big blocks (the large starburst blocks are 25″) and the simplicity of the solid fabrics.

If you made this – mine may look a little different because I substituted my yellow fabric (I love yellow) for the background fabric the directions called for in the very center of the starburst blocks.  The colors are all just a tad brighter than the photo since when I turned on the light in the sewing room one of the bulbs in one of my floor lamps blew out (you know, those expensive new lightbulbs that are supposed to just last and last – ha! they definitely don’t around here).

Anyway, I think it may end up getting hung behind the sofa.  And it will end up with binding in the blue.

If you want the pattern, you need to be sure to download it before the end of January, when it will go away.