Fancy Fulness

Yup, I'm still giddy about my pink lace. I absolutely love this shawl! The pattern, the yarn, the needles -- it all worked together just right.



The pattern was relatively easy to keep track of. With the wide edging and whatever that pretty pattern in the middle is (at first I thought the chart looked like hearts, but now I don't see those at all), it was quickly obvious if my stitches weren't lining up the way they should.

The wide border is gorgeous and I have a feeling I may use it again on something else.



Knitpicks Shadow is my absolute favorite lace weight yarn. I'm sure I spent more on the diet Coke I drank while knitting this than on the yarn. It took just a couple of yards from the second skein to finish the last rows.

I definitely need more Harmony circulars.

I checked this book out from the elementary school library over and over and over. It was full of fascinating things I just knew I could never try -- projects involving plaster and sharp knives and dead fish!



Out of the blue, I thought about it the other day, just a passing wisp of memory that couldn't go anywhere because I didn't know any actual details about the book, just that it had instructions for making prints with paint and dead fish and punching holes in empty tin cans to make lanterns.

I wasn't looking for it this afternoon. I was trying to hurry the kids out of the library so we could go meet Grandma across town and Alex needed a book with directions for braiding hemp bracelets and I was out of patience and bypassed the computers and helpful librarians to see if something would jump off the shelves at us. I wasn't even looking at the shelf this book was on, but the familiar spine jumped out at me.

While Alex was in karate, I flipped through it. The text is all handwritten, and I remember struggling to read it. I don't remember actually trying to make any of the projects, although I'm sure I would've tried some of the little paper ones.

Now that I'm all grown up and can buy plaster and risk my own fingers playing with tin cans, there are other things to be inspired and intimidated by. Like a whole stack of Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazines that I got off of Freecycle this morning.

I've been seduced by that magazine since I first saw it at the grocery store, but $8 an issue is a lot and there were always a couple of quilting or knitting magazines that I wanted more. I actually know how to quilt and knit. There's the possibility that I'll do more than drool over those.

I'm seriously loving Freecycle. It even found a happy home for our old love seat and chair, which weren't quite ready for the landfill yet.

Can I just stay home and knit?

Our new furniture was delivered four days ago and I'm still a bit giddy -- and also terrified that the kids are going to do something destructive to it. I could just sit here and knit forever. Especially in the recliner. I'd rather look at the pretty flowered couches, but I'd rather knit in the recliner.



I'm on clue six of Fancy Fulness and had to cheat just a bit to fix a mistake I couldn't find -- but I think everything is okay now.



After a couple of days of sorting and cutting, I can't decide whether I like the new scrap quilt or hate it. I love the picture in the magazine and mine has potential. But I don't know if I should tear apart the blocks I've got done and replace the bright fabrics that are nagging at me, or have faith that it'll all work out and use more of those colors.

Today has been gorgeous. The kids ran wild outside for hours and I spent time in the sewing room sorting fabric to find the right colors for two new quilts I'd like to start soon. And for the three scrap quilts I'm already working on. Then the mountain of fabric got overwhelming and I sat and flipped through old quilting magazines and found another five or six projects to fall in love with.

I will work my way through these scraps!

Now that the binding for the shaded nine-patch is mostly on, I'm feeling motivated to finish more quilt tops. Binding had intimidated me, to the point that I thought I'd probably never manage to do it right. I was just going to make a bunch of unfinished quilt tops to hand down to my future grandchildren.

Turns out that binding isn't like seaming sweaters. You cut it and iron it and sew it on and although my hand sewing leaves a lot to be desired, it's on the back. And these aren't heirlooms.

Pink Lace!

Things have finally settled down enough for me to pull out Fancy Fulness and finish clues three and four. I'm not sure why I'm so excited about knitting pink lace, but it seems like the neatest thing ever and once I get going I have a hard time putting it back down.

When I first downloaded the chart, I had a strong feeling that my Fancy Fulness should be be pink. I didn't have any, so the pattern sat for a while until I remembered the reddish pink lace weight Bill bought me for my birthday last year. Maybe I'd been thinking of that yarn the whole time and that was where the odd pink urge came from.

Turns out I absolutely hate that yarn. Then I remembered some pink fingering weight that was given to me a while back and was all set to cast on with that when I saw the new Shadows colors.

This is the right pink.

The Tribbles are multiplying quickly. I finished #5 in the drive thru while waiting for my dinner. When did tomatoes become a source of terror? And why can't I have cilantro or onions on my burrito either? I don't want the tomatoes if they're going to kill me, but the other trimmings would have been nice.

I might be getting a bit crabby. It's not helping that I've been going to bed hours earlier than usual and feeling just as exhausted as I do when I stay up knitting until 2am. So why have I been sacrificing my best knitting time?

Probably because I'm too tired to do anything but tribbles.

What I want to do is figure out Noviembre. I almost knew a little Spanish once.

It's a tribble!



The yarn and needles and first six rows of this have been riding around in my purse for months now. I dug it out this afternoon while Bill was comparison shopping for tires and I was in the car with my napping babies.

As soon as we got home, I headed to the sewing room to see what other scraps of kitchen cotton I could dig out. I need more of these!

That's such a great idea!

Too many of my knitting and quilting projects start with that thought and turn out not to be much fun at all.

And then there was last night's little adventure. The kids from our church had the chance to sleep with the sharks at the aquarium. Doesn't that just sound like the coolest thing ever? When we found out about the trip a couple of months ago, I got my kids signed up and got myself signed up as a chaperone. We scheduled our vacation around it.

I couldn't manage a decent picture of where we slept without getting anyone else in the shot, but I found a picture of the tunnel. We were in the tube with the sharks. I spent most of the night lying awake and watching leopard sharks and bat rays drift past, sandwiched between my two littlest guys.

We were supposed to get up at a quarter to seven. I don't know what time Quinn and Leif started taking turns waking up and immediately going back to sleep, but it was a lot earlier than that. If I'd had my knitting with me, it would've been fine, but were weren't supposed to have anything in the tunnel but bedding and I thought smuggling in a sock and dpns would have been a bit ridiculous.

It would have been smart. Those sharks were absolutely fascinating for the first few hours, but I sure could've used something to keep my hands busy.

It was a once in a childhood opportunity that I'm sure the big kids will remember forever, and I'm glad we went. But I am ready to collapse from exhaustion.