Shocking News!

There has been more sewing.  I finished a fencing coat for a friend, a handful of quilt blocks, and some weaving.  But not one stitch of knitting.  I'm enjoying all the productivity.

The weather has become very nice.  It's going to become very hot and humid soon, but in the mean time we are enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. I'm planning some pots of flowers for the balcony.  There as been some grilling in the other apartments near ours.  It makes me wish I had a grill.

Most of the unpacking is done.  Still a lot of putting things away that needs to be finished.  Some of the putting away involves sorting and reboxing yarn and fabric.  I don't see that happening real soon.  It would be really nice to have that done, but it's down a long way on my list of projects. I much prefer getting some of the WIPs finished and off the list first.  It does make the piles smaller!

I was on Ravelry today and looked at my WIPs list.  It's horrifying, really.  And my sewing and weaving lists are just as bad.  So the sorting and reboxing will have to wait.

Next time, a post with real content.  I promise!

A finished object!

I started sewing this quilt in 1999.  It was a mystery quilt, where you bought the fabric but didn't know how the quilt would turn out before hand.  I finished all the blocks but when it came time to put them together I was really not happy with one of the fabrics I chose.  They sat in a box for all these years.  After this recent move I decided I really needed to finish it so I found the last issue and set about putting the blocks together.

I was missing one edge block, and one fabric needed to make that block.  I did find something close in my stash and made a new block.

I think that since I moved this project as many times as I have the fact that I had all the borders, all but one of the blocks and all but one of the fabrics in the same place is pretty amazing.  The block and fabric could both be here.  But this project had waited long enough and I was disinclined to spend too much time looking.  

Today I took it to a local shop to have it machine quilted.  It won't be cheap, after the paying for the backing, batting and quilting, but I'm delighted to have it finished, even with all it's flaws.

ETA - the pattern is Evening Stroll, the last clue was published in the Quiltmaker, Sept/Oct 1999 issue.  

A little sewing

I have a number of quilting projects in my pile of works in progress.  One of my favorite projects is Block of the Month quilts.  I have a disturbing number of them.  One of the issues with moving is that things get shoved into boxes and sometimes lost.  I'm still missing my good sewing scissors.

They will show up.  But in the mean time I've been organizing the sewing area, finding and sorting tools and projects.  Once the space was useable I rewarded myself with time to work on a couple of blocks for this quilt:

After I finished the first block I wondered where to put it so I didn't lose it while I continue with the sorting and stowing.  As usual, this led to some wondering the internet where I found a website that showed a 'block book' for storing the blocks.  I found fabric (doing more sorting and stowing as I went) and made this: 

The 'cover' is quilted fabric/batt sandwich, not fancy or heavily quilted.  The inner 'pages' are flannel, which because of it's nap, holds the blocks without pinning.  I didn't do anything to the the cut edges of the flannel so I will probably have some issues with fraying eventually.  But I will deal with that when the time comes.  

It turned out so well I'm making another for additional BOM projects that I'm working on.  

And how was your week? 

Just a little knitting

In the interest of not falling into old habits I'm writing even though there isn't much in the way of knitting content.

It was a quiet weekend filled with more unpacking, sorting, and putting stuff away.  Way too much looking for stuff, though.  That is the worst part of moving, relocating my things.  I decided to stop at the little quilt shop near my new place.  It's very nice and had many lovely and inspiring projects and fabrics.  I fell off the no new stuff wagon and bought a christmas quilt kit.  I really like the old world santa art and they had a nice sale.  Perhaps I will manage to get it sewn up by next winter holiday.

They also had this lovely item that made me think of my mother.

She loves both daffodils and yellow.  This project would be much too fussy for me though so she will need to find someone else to make it for her. 

Before I can start the lovely santa project I need to finish some other things I have in my project stash.  After hours of looking I finally found the project and most of the tools.  Then I had to get the sewing space cleaned out.  It had become a landing pad for a lot of things that hadn't been put away yet.  I'm still missing a lot of other tools but I had a great time doing a little sewing.  Brightened my weekend. 

Just so you all don't have wool withdrawal here is the first sleeve of a new cardigan. I've cast on the second sleeve and will be able to join the sleeves and knit the yoke soon.  The body is done as well but getting pictures off my phone is not as easy as I think it should be.  The pattern is Autumn Fire from Knitty.  It's almost too warm to wear it here already this spring, but fall is coming so I'll be ready when the time comes.  

Trying hard to get as many of my projects in progress done as possible.  Then I'll have to try hard to keep the project creep from happening, again.  Startitis is not my friend.  It's so hard to ignore the lure of new projects.

Where have I been?!

I've been having life.  All in all though, life is going well.  

I took a new job, moved, lost job, moved, acquired new job, moved and in between these there were the prerequisite 'life happens' bits as well.  Some of this happened before the blog became so neglected, but all the change and upheaval compounded.   

I've settled, in my own place and in my mind, and it's time I got back to taking care of this blog.  I enjoy doing it, but when I felt like I didn't have time to do what I wanted to do, I put things off until I found more time, which just never happens.  

I'm currently in search of a new car.  I'm torn between getting a second Toyota Prius or a Honda Fit.  I loved my old Prius.  I'm not sure that should preclude shopping around since I have the option, and the Honda is available in a color that is almost purple.  Test drives will happen Saturday.  Then I will take time to decide.  No reason to hurry the decision since I'll keep the car for at least a decade, if past experience is anything by which to judge.  

And now - time to run off the dream land