I am a happy quilter. Yesterday I dragged all of the kids up to the President's Day sale at Joann's, hoping to come home with some packaged batting and a nice backing for my friend's quilt.

I've decided to experiment with polyester. I love the Warm and Natural batting, but maybe not all of my quilts need to be finished with my favorite stuff. Maybe I can skimp on some of the little experiments that the kids are going to drag around and make forts out of. Especially when it's on sale for 50% off with a 10% off purchase coupon. I bought four different brands to play with. Now I just need the quiet time to try some actual quilting.

There was also a half off sale on clearance fabrics and I must've hit the store just at the right time because they had a lot of nice cotton that worked out to $1.35 a yard. One print is perfect for that disappearing nine-patch I've been playing with -- and was actually cheaper than the solid cotton I'd planned to settle on. I'm not sure how many backings I wound up with, or which quilts they'll eventually go on, but I've got a lot more backing choices now.

If the four-year-old had been more cooperative, I might've realized what a good deal I was getting on the backing for my friend's quilt and bought enough of the same print for my own. Considering the mood he was in though, I did pretty good. I even remembered the black embroidery floss!

Today's job is to decide on a layout for my friend's quilt. The pattern is Scrappy Mountain Majesties and I've laid it out two different ways.

Stacked Lanterns:



Mirror Image Mountains:



There's also a "jagged diamonds" layout that I managed to miss because I could never get that picture to show up in my browser. I found it while I was looking for names to put with the pictures and if it looks anything like I imagine, I think I might like it best!

My Irish Chain is growing fast enough that I'm resisting the temptation to make more than eighty-one blocks. I keep finding shades of dark brown that I missed when I was sorting fabrics and then reminding myself that I can make something else with lots of browns. I've even got patterns in mind.



And this one is supposed to be a lap quilt -- I'm going to use some self control and not make it huge!

Today, I should be cleaning out the pantry so we can schedule the furnace repair guy. It's very hard to stay motivated. We have heat, the furnace just isn't working quite as well as it should. As soon as I clear the floor, someone will dump in a load of laundry, or a bag of junk, or six pairs of mis-matched shoes. And since it's likely that someone will be my husband, I can't win.

Besides, I've got quilt blocks calling to be assembled. If I get the Birds in the Air blocks together and the birds ironed on, I'll have blanket stitch to do when we watch TV tonight.

I pieced ninety-nine blocks so I'd have something to applique the birds onto. I'm not sure I needed the quilt to be this big, but I wasn't about to leave a single one of the birds off.



Isn't the tone-on-tone black print I found great?



Back to the pantry... Did I mention that it's dark and depressing in there? I think I'm going to set the timer for an hour and then sew some blocks together as a reward.

Jerry's must have an impressive selection of telephone wiring -- by the time Bill got home from his expedition, I'd managed to finish all sixty-four of the quilt blocks! The kids are spread out all over the floor in the front room, so I haven't had a chance to lay them out yet, but I'll post pictures when I can get some. This time, I'm going to remember to try the different variations.

I was looking for pictures of the Lady Jane Mystery Shawl on Ravelry and my search turned up this. Sorry it's a link to a PDF file, but I can't find any pictures that aren't on Ravelry. It's an amazingly detailed pineapple bag. I want one.

I need to make a quilt for a friend who's been having a rough time. Actually, far worse than a "rough time," but that description will do here. I need to make the quilt quickly and was thinking through my tops, trying to decide if that blue bargello was good enough, with another friend telling me that it was a great quilt and to go ahead and use it, and me reminding myself how disappointed I was with those fabric choices...

And then I saw the quilt I needed to make. I've been calling it a vision, but that doesn't sound right when I type it here. It wasn't a great spiritual revelation, just a crystal clear image of the fabrics and pattern I want to use. Not fabrics I actually owned at the time, but the fabric I wanted to go out and buy.

Joann's had the right fabrics.



Joann's NEVER has the right fabrics. I always go in there looking for some cheerful tiny prints, or something similarly vague and come out empty handed. But this time, even though I had something very specific in mind, they had it. It's never that easy.

I hoped to get the top cut and pieced in four days. While Bill took a nap this morning, I got the whole thing cut out and a bunch of piecing done. I think by the time he gets back from pricing telephone wire I might have half of the blocks.

There's not a doubt in my mind that this quilt isn't meant to be.

With the Glittering Gems top done and the Birds in the Air top ready to assemble, I had to step back and see what else I was working on before those two projects, and Mountain Majesties before them, took over my quilting life. I know there's the cat quilt (of course!) and the spool quilt, but beyond that, my memory gets a bit hazy. Don't ask what's on my knitting needles -- I'm not even sure where those are.

A few months back, I bought about eight of those plastic 12x12 boxes that are made for organizing scrapbook paper. They have got to be my best quilting notion/gadget/thingie ever! Assuming that I actually use them, I can put in the blocks and the parts of blocks and the pattern, snap them shut, and stack them up in the sewing room where they'll be sitting there safe and sound when I get back from whatever crazy detour dragged me away. I love my plastic boxes! If they ever go on sale that cheap again, I think I want a dozen more.

I was going to unstack the boxes last night and see what was in them, but I got pulled away by a cardboard box full of dark brown scraps that's been perched on top of my treadle machine for I-don't-know-how-long. Inspired by that Leaders and Enders page on Quiltville, I'd pulled the fabric and bought tea-dyed muslin to go with it and done the math, and then life got in the way and I never made it any farther.

So I did some cutting. And some sewing. And now I've got a pretty decent start on a scrappy Double Irish Chain --



It was so much fun I wanted to play with those blocks all night, but my body gave out on me at about 11:30. Stupid sleep deprivation -- won't let me quilt, but even though I'm too tired to stay upright, I toss and turn until 3am. I'll be so glad when we're all healthy and stop waking each other up. It has to happen sooner or later.

It's funny -- just about everything that was wrong earlier this week is still wrong, but I'm getting used to it all. The post office delivered the mailing label from our missing schoolbooks today. Just the label and a bunch of forms for me to fill out so they can try to find whatever it was attached to. It seems like the tracking number is still attached to the package, so hopefully that's intact and they can get us our books!

They also delivered some goodies --



That's twenty-two spools of thread from Connecting Threads, lots of neutrals and some colors for applique and quilting. I've been meaning to order more neutrals for a while now, since I'm going through it so fast and then I realized that I need red for Leif's chicken quilt. That's the first time I actually did the math and compared this stuff to the quilting thread at Joann's, even on sale. Wow, it's a huger difference than I ever realized!

So I ordered the bunch of neutrals I'd planned on, and the red, and some colors I think I'll need for upcoming quilts.

The book is Knitted Lace of Estonia. I haven't had a chance to do more than look at the pictures, but WOW!

The Stashbuster group is doing a Not So Ugly Sunshine Sampler. The first step was to come up with two yards of ugly fabric. I've got that!



Mom gave me the purple stuff and it's been sitting on the comfy chair in my sewing room for ages. Every time I went up there looking for something else, I'd see it and wonder what on earth I was ever going to use it for. So it's the first fabric I thought of when I read about this project, and there's almost exactly two yards.

I also needed yellow. Not sure if that had to be ugly or not, but I'm not using my good yellow for this project, and this stuff was lying near the ugly purple fabric. It's not ugly ugly, but I'm fairly sure it isn't cotton. That's got to count against it.

We have a choice of two blocks -- Old Maid's Puzzle or All Hallows. Of course I chose the one with more little pieces!



It was like putting together a puzzle and a lot of fun, even if I did wind up putting mine together a little bit wrong. I can always rip it out and fix it later. Or not.

I don't think it looks too bad the way it is. My only complaint is that I think I have to wait a whole month for the next block in the sampler.

That was the fun part of my day. I've also spent literally hours in an online chat trying to fix the problems with dh's tax software. I need the state portion. Clicking the button to download it doesn't work. I'm fairly sure that doing the same thing over and over and over isn't going to make it work, but the person I was talking to didn't agree with me. She finally told me to wait an hour and try the same thing again. Didn't work, so I'm getting ready to try again, hopefully with someone else.

Wish me luck!

Assembling the blocks into an actual quilt top is one of my least favorite parts of the process. I don't have a design wall or enough "safe" floor space to lay out the blocks and carefully consider their placement. When I get a couple of free hours where the kid are asleep or outside, I've got to work fast and do the whole thing start to finish. Not a lot of fun with something like that layered squares quilt or the 225 block rail fence (at least that one was totally worth the effort!)

Glittering Gems is only 42 blocks, and I made things easier by sewing all of the blocks into pairs yesterday. Laying out 21 blocks takes a lot less time, and so does shifting them around to make things look right.



I got the top together and added the pieced border -- doesn't it line up wonderfully! Now the only thing left to do before I can use the long arm in April is to figure out how to miter the border corners.

Tomorrow, if life cooperates, I get to assemble 99 blocks for Birds in the Air.

With all that's going on right now, it was either work on quilts today or go absolutely nuts.

Something took a big chunk out of our favorite barn cat...I got an early-morning call that a family member was headed for the emergency room by ambulance...our home school curriculum is sitting in the dead letter office in Minnesota, and even though I've got the tracking number, they can't send it to me unless I send a letter, and no one can tell me how long it will take them to respond or if they even will...the babies are coming down with whatever I've got...

The ER visit was serious, but it looks like things are going to be okay. Kitty is all stitched up and has already been back to the vet again because her toes were swelling -- and will probably be going back tomorrow. I'm trying not to think about the books, and I've done the best I can with the rest of it.

And I've quilted. I sewed together the few blocks for the Sparkling Gems quilt and cut fabric for the pieced border. And pieced the border strips.

I think it looks much better with the border --



than without it --



I'm going to leave off the solid border that the pattern calls for because this quilt is huge enough as it is. But after months of our love/hate relationship, I definitely wound up loving it.

That border fabric, which ties the quilt together much better than my first choice would have, was a shirt I found in the Goodwill bins last week! I started cutting pieces from the sleeves and yoke and still have the entire back left for other projects. How great is that?

Hopefully I'll get time soon to assemble the top and sew those pretty borders on.

I also finished the last blocks for my Birds in the air quilt, so now I've got those 99 blocks to assemble. Doesn't sound fun, but it might make for good stress relief. And the sooner I get it together, the sooner I can start appliqueing the cute little birdies!

Even though we have karate and bowling and have to stop and get my oldest son's glasses fixed for the umpteenth time, I think I'm looking forward to our trip to town tomorrow because the kids will be either doing something or strapped into their seat belts and not crawling all over me. Except for the two hours at the bowling alley, when I get to chase the littlest ones, but maybe they'll be content pretending to drive the video games shaped like race cars.

Today is my fifth day trying to fight off whatever this current bug is and, after lying in bed until four or five am coughing and then getting up bright and early to chase after Leif, I haven't had the energy to do much except sit on the couch reading World War Z - an Oral Account of the Zombie Wars and trying to convince the little guys that my shoulders aren't for sitting on. Between the book's creepy descriptions of grasping zombies and the two little bodies swarming over me all day long, there's no way I'm not going to have nightmares tonight!

But I do have a fuller appreciation of the my two older children who can understand that Mom is feeling lousy and can't talk without coughing up bits of lung. I can write them notes and gesture at them and they find the whole thing pretty entertaining.

And the best part of my day is that it's almost bedtime!

I got twenty-two more Birds in the Air blocks pieced last night, and I think I've found perfect fabric for the pieced border of Glittering Gems. The fabric I was planning to use is just too pink, so I was planning to buy something browner. Then I was tearing apart a shirt I got at the Goodwill bins last week and decided that it would be perfect. I just need to dig out the pattern and measure my fabric to make sure there's enough of it.

I keep stumbling across the Fabric Basket tutorial over at Pink Penguin. Probably the only reason I haven't tried one yet is that my dial up connection won't let me see all of the pictures at once and I'm going to need them to figure out the lining.

Crazy Mom Quilts had the idea of making them in different colors and using them to sort scraps. Isn't that brilliant?

And I think Alex would love a Fish to Sushi Plushie. For someone who doesn't actually eat the stuff, she's got a weird fascination with sushi. Now the question is whether I make it for her, or just print the pattern and give it to her?

I've got six tops waiting to be quilted (seven if you count that wall-hanging in the sewing room that probably should be quilted one of these days) and at least three more projects that will be tops soon. None of them (except the wallhanging) is more than five months old.

No wonder I'm trying to think of cheap ways to finish my quilts! It's not that I can't afford to buy decent backing and batting, but even with coupons and sales it would cost a small fortune to finish the tops I've got done now. And then the tops I'll have done six months from now.

So I'm prioritizing. I'll buy great backing and batting for the quilts I truly love. Some of these tops (like Layered Squares) may never get quilted for all I care. I spent a few evenings playing with scraps, I wasn't thrilled with the results, so why should I feel guilty for not investing more time and money?

But I could definitely use more utility quilts around the house, so I'm looking for cost-cutting ideas. So far the best I've been able to come up with are recycled sheets as backing or flannel instead of batting.

Any other ideas?

I found my next quilt! There was another scrap quilt I saw a couple of months ago that had a buzz saw look to it, but at the time I was intimidated by the construction, or didn't think I had the right colors, or I don't know --- something scared me off. And after I started Mountain Majesties and wanted to take another look at the pattern, I couldn't remember what library book I saw it in.

It's been nagging at me for a couple of weeks, not quite enough for me to start flipping through every book in the quilting section of the library with a three year old and a four year old at my side, but I did want to find that quilt pattern again.

But I don't have to go on a great huge quest! A few minutes ago I followed a link from the Stashbusters list and found Aunt Betty's Attic. I couldn't tell you how closely this resembles the quilt pattern I originally saw and I honestly don't care.

This is the quilt I want to make. I've got extra muslin left over from the flying bird blocks and I'm sure I must have some bright and cheerful fabric scraps that will work. I'm not going to stop by Craft Warehouse this week to see if they still have the wonderful vintagy fat quarters my friend just bought for her scrap quilt.

And while I'm digging out fabric for the bright and cheerful buzz saw blades, I'm going to see what I can find for Sew Much to Do.

Mountain Majesties

I was going to see how my blocks looked in the alternate layouts that the pattern suggested, but after seeing how they looked the other night, I forgot all about that plan until after they were sewn together. I knew I wanted to make another one of these quilts -- now I've got a reason!

Shirt buttons make a happy little plink when they're dropped into an old glass jar.

I've got fantasies about making so many utility quilts from old shirts that I fill up the entire jar and have to start on another one. Might be more realistic if I used one of the smaller jars, but this is the one that was in the front room when I started to tear up my first batch of shirts.

I stopped in at the thrift store again Saturday to drop off some old baby clothes and found two more shirts on sale for fifty-cents each. Neither is yellow, but they're both nice. And the owner had an unsalable shirt set aside for me -- wide blue and pink stripes. Unless I'm missing something really obvious, the "stain" is a teeny tiny dot of what looks like ink.

Those three are tumbling in the dryer with the rest of my laundry, and I found a red shirt this afternoon that's going in the next load.

I drove up to Good Will in Albany this afternoon to see if I could find some cheap tennis shoes for the kids to wear out in the mud. There were no little shoes, cheap or otherwise, and the men's shirts were running eight and nine dollars each. Which reminds me why I don't go into Good Will much anymore.

So we went to two other thrift stores. One has had really cheap sale racks sitting out front, so I thought it was worth a try. Sadly, all of the fifty cent clothing was t-shirts. Where was that rack when I was all excited to try the patterns in the Mason Dixon book?

The shirts inside were running about three bucks each, which is fine for shirts that you plan to wear, but more than my budget. They did have super cheap children's books, which seem to be getting harder to find, so we happily left with a stack of those.

The second store had 90% off of all pink tagged clothing. There were hardly any pink tags to be found, but I got my red shirt for forty cents and a Hawaiian shirt for Heath for thirty cents. By then the two little guys were getting ornery, so we had to leave before I could check for sweaters or fabric scraps. But I'm stopping back in there as soon as I can manage it.

I can't wait for the weather to warm up and garage sale season to start!

Last night, I finished piecing blocks for Mountain Majesties and played with the disappearing nine patch blocks some more. I do like the way it creates whirly-gig-thingies when I lay them out together:



I'm fairly sure I have enough squares to make a baby blanket, and I've got some ideas for a pieced border.

Yesterday, my best friend spent the day down here to work on her glorified nine patch. While she was pinning and sewing her curves, I worked on Mountain Majesties. The pieces have all been cut for a while now and those blocks were a perfect project for sitting and visiting while we quilted.

The more blocks I got together, the more I thought I disliked some of the colors. I wasn't going to give up on the project because there are so many fabrics in it that I absolutely love (including a few that I desperately wish I'd saved for my applique birds), but I was getting more and more disappointed, at least until I laid the blocks out a few minutes ago to take a picture.

I absolutely love it!



A few of the 1500 missing squares have found their way back to me and instead of pouting that most of the rest are probably never going to be seen again, at least not the way I want to see them, I'm experimenting with a disappearing nine patch. Not sure if I like it in two colors or not, but I've got a bunch of really bright juvenille prints that I'm sure I can do something fun with.

more birds in the air

I really like the way this quilt is coming out --



There are forty-seven blocks laid out here, and yes, they are facing the wrong way, but this is the best angle I could stand at without a bunch of Match Box cars showing up in the picture. Which leads to a problem -- If I'm going to keep making bigger and bigger quilts, I need a bigger floor.

The pattern is for a 72x87 inch quilt. I'd make it a bit smaller, but then I'd have to leave off some of the appliqued birds and I really do want the birds...

It's the cat quilt all over again, with fewer fabric choices.

And speaking of the cat quilt, I've made the unhappy decision that I need to let one of my cats go. It's an adorable kitty, but I used the same pink and black floral on my nine-patch and after several trips through the wash, that little square of fabric looks awful. So it won't be going in the cat quilt.

At least I discovered the problem before it became a permanent part of the quilt.

I also wish I'd saved every selvage I ever cut off of a piece of fabric. This afternoon, I stumbled across Selvagequilt.com and Selvage Blog. Now I desperately want to make potholders.

And I also almost want to knit a sweater.

Knitting Daily has a free pattern up for a worsted weight sweater -- Vienne. I'd absolutely be casting on for this if my brain could handle figuring out the right gauge or size or counting the stitches to cast on. But that toe up stockinette sock foot sitting on my little table is more than I want to think about knitting right now.

Another trip out to the sewing room, another armload of blue scraps for Birds in the Air. I'm having so much fun picking fabric for this one! If things work out the way I want them to, I won't do more than three or four blocks in any one print. Which means I need at least 25 different blues.

I'm fairly sure I can scrounge that many from the scrap bags, hopefully without dipping into the obnoxious novelty stuff. Bob the Builder isn't going into this quilt.

Last night, I cut and pieced another seven blocks, which brings the total up to fourteen. Out of ninety-nine, if I make the quilt the size the pattern calls for. I think that's a bit bigger than I want, but I can't decide how much smaller I do want to make it. So I'll keep making blocks and save the big decisions for later.

I also frogged Presto Chango and used the yarn to cast on for a pair of Caliente Socks. I love the design, but the pattern is confusing me. And the confusing part doesn't start until after the foot and heel are done. Guess if it doesn't work out, I can just add a few rows of ribbing and make anklets.

I went out to the sewing room to find some more blues for Birds in the Air and yikes! It's far worse out there than I remembered.

Along with the blue fabric, I was also trying to find yarn to knit a pair of Bella's Mittens and some heavy wool from a thrift store sweater to make Alex a bulky pair of socks. Usually, I can find what I want without a whole lot of rummaging, but tonight I'm at a total loss.

I need to reorganize that room, but until the temperature out there gets above 40-some degrees, it ain't gonna happen.

For now, I think I'll bring in the scrap bags one at a time and figure out what needs to be cut into strips and squares and what's nice enough to fold on the shelves. If I can get that done, I'll have a lot more floorspace when I do start working on things up there.

Tonight, though, I'm working on the birds.

I'm not sure if life is starting to settle down or not, but I did make some time to play this afternoon.

My friend called about her quilt. Guess what -- it's impossible to explain to someone over the phone how to piece a curved seam, even if you've both got the same book and are looking at the same picture. And especially if neither of you has ever done it before!

I wound up cutting pieces for a block of my own to see if I could make it work. And after a false start, I did --



Please ignore the hideous colors. I was using scraps that I'm absolutely sure I didn't mind wasting. The first curved seam didn't line up right, but the next two came out pretty darn good. Which means I can tackle some of the patterns I've been drooling over but held back on because I didn't know how to do curves.

I wanted to try some disappearing nine patch blocks, but my box of squares has vanished. Please tell me that my sons didn't take them while my back was turned. I've got plans for those!

So because I didn't have squares, I cut some triangles. I really want this quilt -- look at those applique birds! -- but hadn't tackled triangles yet. Not unless it was the sew a square and cut it in half variety.



They're not all that scary. Except for the 3/8" thing. My ruler doesn't have a good 3/8" line. I plan on making one with tape, now that I've found what the boys did with it.



I plan on doing the whole quilt in blues, if I can come up with enough of them. Shouldn't be a problem!

I'm ready to play!




My copy of Scraps & Shirttails was waiting for me at the post office yesterday. I'd ordered it from Amazon sight unseen (something I've never in my life done with a quilting book, especially not one that cost this much!) because I've been so dazzled by the patterns on Bonnie's Quiltville site.

Now that it's in my hands, I'm glad it worked out that way. If I'd flipped through it in the store, I might've talked myself out of buying it. I talk myself out of a lot of books. And this one is just too inspiring to miss. Cutting up thrift store shirts to make utility quilts? I can definitely get excited about that! Not that I should -- with Grandma's knack for finding treasures, I've probably added at least a hundred yards of thrift store scraps to my stash this month. And most of it isn't ugly.

She also found the quilt top, which I think I intercepted on its way to the antique mall. I'm the only one who loves it. (Or was, until Alex saw it.) If it wasn't entirely hand pieced, I'd have no qualms about quilting it and putting it on my bed. But it is, and I've got a feeling it might be too old and fragile for us to use and abuse.

So for now it's folded on the rocking chair in my bedroom where I can admire that gorgeous yellow sashing.

I did give in to temptation and drive to the thrift store this morning to check there 75% off all clothing sale. Three men's shirts came home with me, all of them such neat prints I'm hesitant to cut into them. But those butery yellow plaids are going to make fantastic stars and I'm sure I've got enough blue to go with them. If not, I've got an excuse to buy more shirts.

I think my iron is sick. I plugged it in this afternoon and it didn't get very hot. Why couldn't I have found out before I made the trip to Walmart for cold medicine this afternoon? Now I've got to drag four kids out again sooner than I'd planned, or try to convince Bill to pick up a new one for me.

The poor thing is close to twenty years old and even though it spent most of that life gathering dust in the backs of closets, it's also been dropped quite a few times. I'm pretty sure I got my money's worth, but I want the thing to work TONIGHT!

Maybe it heard me tell Janet that I was thinking of buying a new one and it's getting even.

Yesterday wasn't much fun, but I did manage to stop at Joann's to buy a few yards of nice muslin for a new quilt I'm dying to try. Mom gave me a big garbage bags of quilting scraps she wanted to be rid of and Grandma showed up at karate with two bags she'd just found at the thrift store.

They're perfect stuff to hack up for the Scrap User's System and I was sure I was going to have some time to play with them after the kids are in bed tonight.

I've even found the pattern I want to cut pieces for -- Scrappy Mountain Majesties. Maybe the iron will be just healthy enough to get me through a few hours of quilting tonight.

Or I could knit myself a pair of mittens. I think Give a Hoot might be even cuter than those cabled snowmen.

Friday, Bill drove me up to Woodland Woolworks to get a Japanese stitch book. I spent the whole trip up there giddily fantasizing about finally having it in my very own hands. They were out of the book I wanted. They were out of every Japanese stitch book they carry, so I couldn't even settle for a different one. So now I'm waiting for my first choice to be mailed to me, which will take a couple of weeks.

I could've called them to see if they had the book first, but I wanted to look at yarn. Bill was buying me Christmas goodies, and on top of that, I've got the money from the second digital camera to spend. I was all set to splurge and couldn't find a single skein that I wanted to take home, not even in the sale room.

I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm not an LYS shopper. Even if I go in with money in my hand, planning to buy yarn, I tend to leave empty-handed. So I'll stick with Knitpicks and Elann and the LYSs won't miss my business since I never shopped there much anyway.

I did pick up Knitting Lace Triangles by Evelyn Clark and rode home with the book open in my lap, planning to cast on for the Sand Dollar Shawl and deciding between two yarns already in my stash, and later I ordered a couple of other books I've been wanting from Amazon and put together an order form to replace the Denise cables I keep losing lately.

One of my first non-stash busting plans for 2009 is to make sure I've got enough thread and pins and darning needles and other important little things that I don't come to a screeching halt mid-project on the one morning I'm awake early and my kids aren't.

A friend came over to quilt with me this morning and while we were talking, I pieced blocks for my Sparkling Gems Quilt. I spent the first few days of the year finishing all of the corner units and cutting the 4 1/4" squares I still needed and now I've only got eight more blocks to piece -- I can handle that!



This thing is huge, and it'll be a bit huger once I get the pieced border done. I'm hoping that I can get the border done, since my sewing machine has been throwing fits all day. I've cleaned it. I've rethreaded it. The needle is new.

Guess the brat is just due for a tantrum.

I've been fabric shopping -- or at least trying to -- twice so far this week, but the selection was pretty dismal. I was helping my friend pick out fabric for her next couple of quilts and since fat quarters are on sale again, I wanted to find some more light browns for the spool quilt, and some really dark browns for the Irish chain I'm suddenly planning, and some reds for the red scrap quilt... I didn't find much.

And the yarn selection was worse! Michael's has SWS on sale for $1.50 a skein. I was sure they'd be out of that, but they were out of EVERYTHING! Joann's was just as bad, and even Walmart, who didn't have anything on sale, was the most picked over I've ever seen it. Hopefully it means they'll be bringing in something new and wonderful, but I'm not holding my breath.

I did get some great backing fabric at Joann's for $1.50 a yard. One is a kind of odd blue and brown vine pattern, but I think it'll be perfect for that blue bargello quilt I just finished. Janet gave me a basting gun for Christmas, so I think I'll use some of that polyester batting my sister handed down to me and try doing another quilt on my machine. Translation -- I want an excuse to play with my new toy and I'm not giving up rare longarm time for that quilt!

Thanks for the feedback on it, which I really appreciated. It definitely helps to have another set of eyes.

Since I haven't picked up my knitting needles in I don't know how long, I guess it's safe to list my end-of-the-year project totals for 2008 -- my first successful adult sweater, three shawls, four cowls/scarves, four hats, four pairs of mittens, five pairs of adult socks (four in fingering weight one in worsted), five pairs of toddler socks, six bags, six sweaters for the kids, six bookmarks, two washrags, a lobster, a miniature knitting bag, a baby sweater, and a pair of slippers.

That adds up to fifty-one knitting projects, a much higher number than I expected since I spent so much of this year not knitting.

I also pieced eight quit tops, most within the past couple of months, and quilted four of them.

I'm not even ready to guess at what I'll knit next year. I'd have to cheat nad look at my sidebar or Ravelry page to list what's on my needles now. But I do have some definite plans for my quilts.

I'll get to them tomorrow.

Wow, this thing went together fast! I thought I might be able to finish before the end of 2008 if I really worked at it, but the whole thing went together in two short early mornings.



Try to ignore the little boy in the background -- this is the only shot I managed where one wasn't running in front of the quilt!

All of the quilters around me have been wanting to try a bargello quilt -- everyone but me. Then I saw the Scrappy Bargello pattern at Quiltville and fell in love with the quilt at the top of the page and started pulling out fabric.

There was a lot of blue and a little bit of green in the first bag I grabbed, so I wound up with a blue quilt. Not much of this was planned out, except for the dark blue -- and that's the color I don't like in the finished quilt! If I was doing it again, I'd add more dark strips or leave them out entirely. One of the lighter fabrics has a cream background and those strips kept jumping out at me every time I got the dark blue positioned the way I wanted it.

I'm considering this quilt a near miss. It came out better than I expected considering my total lack of planning, but if it wasn't for those two or three dark and cream fabrics, I think I'd absolutely love it.

I definitely have to make a huge scrappy one like the one in the top picture!

There will be lots more pictures here since I got TWO digital cameras for Christmas, one from my husband and one from my parents. Of course I'm only keeping the one Bill bought, because it's is the one he bought and I'd already opened it up and started figuring out how to use it before I got the second one.

It's itty-bitty. That was my biggest criteria for a camera, that it be small enough to carry around in my purse. And inexpensive enough that Bill won't divorce me if something happens to it. The old camera killed itself, but I was always too worried about it getting lost or stolen from the stroller to take it with us. And the new cameras he wants have price tags that make me cringe. Not that I don't want him to buy one, I just don't plan on ever touching it.




The weather did clear up enough for the family to drive down on Christmas day. Grandma brought this lovely gal, which was my real present.

The other present, which I'd asked her to slap a bow onto because I didn't want to hear Bill gripe about it, not that he's serious or that I pay much attention, was her latest thrift store find. By weight, I'm guessing that box has seventy five yards of quilting cotton in it, and most of it looks like quilt shop stuff. And it's all in colors that I would've picked out myself...and seventy-five yards of it?!

I'm going to have some serious fun figuring out what to do with that windfall.

For the past week I've been dying to quilt, but I had too much other stuff to get done and the family kept undoing it all faster than I could catch up. I didn't even have anything good on my knitting needles to distract myself with.

Friday night, I found a pattern online, dug some scraps out of the sewing room, and started cutting. A hundred and twenty eight strips sounded like a lot, but Saturday I cut a little more and by then I had all that I needed.

This morning, I got up at five-thirty and started sewing. Even taking time for a shower and breakfast and helping the kids get ready, I had half of the quilt pieced before it was time to leave for church. I got more done at nape time, and probably could've finished the whole top if I hadn't decided to take a break and play online.



I'm not sure I like the way the dark fabrics are falling, but maybe once I get the fourth panel done, I can shift them around and come up with something better. Or not. It's a quickie scrap quilt and I'm not going to stress about it.

I'm so glad I got Grandma's scrappy log cabin quilt done before Christmas instead of making the sane choice and giving her the one I made for myself. It feels good that I made one just for her. Well that, and I'm a selfish brat who didn't want to give up my own quilt.



Hers is the one on the left, the one that's quilted and bound and ready to be wrapped in pretty paper. After wrestling to quilt it on my machine, I think I'll wait for a chance to do mine on the long arm. I don't have batting for it here at the house. If I did, I bet I'd suddenly feel up for another wrestling match.

Have I mentioned how pleased with these quilts I am? I love that there are two of them.

I had a moment of absolute panic this afternoon when I decided to throw in the towel and make a couple of chicken blocks instead of cleaning house for company that isn't going to come. The magazine with the pattern wasn't next to my sewing machine. It wasn't in the dining room, wasn't in the stacks of magazines and patterns I'd moved up to the real sewing room, didn't seem to be anywhere at all...

A couple of hours later, after the frantic search had resulted in a very tidy dining room, I found it in a basket in the kitchen. And I still haven't started a block because after digging out my stack of pretty red and black chickeny prints, I decided that I should probably pre-wash them instead of gambling that they won't run.



Quinn's mouse mittens went out to play in the snow and had a trip through the washing machine before I got a chance to take pictures. So they're a bit misshapen, but it's so adorable to watch the little guys play with them. Did you know that mouse mittens eat people?

"The tree has Christmas in it!"

Except for Leif, Christmas spirit is in short supply around this house. I had plans. We were going to see Santa....and to see the lights because I absolutely had to hear Leif's reaction to street after street of Christmas houses....and to bake cookies with Grandma...And the weather has been so uncooperative that I don't even think the grandparents and great-grandparents are going to make it down to see us on Christmas day.

My shopping was done in three mad dashes, one of them on icy roads I had no business driving on, but by the time I realized how bad it was I'd already driven fifty miles and was so close to my destination that I wasn't going home empty-handed. So I do have presents for my kids and husband, and a ton of candy and little goodies for the stockings. Hopefully I have enough paper.

The frustrating part (and the part I probably shouldn't complain too much about!) is that the roads here are absolutely fine. We had some snow this morning which didn't last for long, and a little dusting within the past hour or so, but nothing that would keep me from leaving the house. It's the places I want to go to that are all snowed and iced in. And we're the ones who live in the foothills.

I spent a couple of hours yesterday sorting through my little dining room sewing corner and hauling stuff out to the real sewing room. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't actually getting rid of anything, that it's all just a few feet further away and that I could bring it all back as soon as company has come and gone. That was when I still thought company was coming.

Hopefully I did a careful enough job that I'll be able to find what I put up there. I did finally stumble across the dinosaur quilt top which has been missing since Thanksgiving. For no reason I can imagine, it was folded up in my knitting basket, which I had to sort through after I got up to answer the phone and the little guys upended my full glass of diet Coke into it.

Only 82 more strips to sew together and the blocks for the Christmas Log Cabin will be done! I can probably manage that tonight and get the blocks assembled tomorrow morning. Having that top together will be a huge relief. If the weather will warm up enough that I can pick up backing and batting later this week, I'll be even happier.

Mom's present is done. After changing my mind about the slippers, I couldn't get excited enough about the cowl, so I decided to do socks. The pattern for the Traveler socks I wanted to make wouldn't download, so I wound up doing a pair of worsted weight Horcrux socks. I really do like that pattern.

And I've still got at least two more bookmarks to knit. I just printed out a bunch of new patterns from Ravelry. At least a couple of them have to be exciting enough for me to cast on tonight.

After those log cabin blocks are done.

I don't think I have enough scraps

I found exactly what I needed to distract myself with today -- Quiltville! The link I originally followed was to the Leaders and Enders article, and then I wandered from there to the Scrap User's System.

I didn't even get to look at the free patterns on the sidebar, but I don't think I have enough scraps to make all of the quilts I fell in love with on that site!

It's that time of year when something in my brain suddenly flips from "It's still too early to shop/knit for Christmas" to "Time is running out! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!"

I've spent a week or so in deep denial, but now it's time to make an actual list and get to work. Not that I'll stick to my list, but at least having one would be good. I think.

So here goes:

1) the log cabin quilt

I've decided that Grandma needs a log cabin quilt. I'm too selfish to give away the one I made for myself, which means piecing another top. So far I've got thirteen of the thirty-five blocks done.

2) something for mom

I was going to make her the Aran Isle Slippers from the Holiday IK. I bought yarn to make those slippers. Then I read the pattern. I'm not going to even think about picking up that many stitches, not after struggling with the cuffs of the Ribby Slipper Socks.

So I need a new plan. I've got lots of ideas and yarn, but I keep changing my mind.

3) bookmarks

I'd like to make bookmarks for the children's librarians, but I'm not positive how many of them there are. I think I need five.

For a while there, it felt like I was doing nothing but quilting. Now the pendulum has swung the other direction and I'm knitting non-stop.

My Life is Uneven Cowl is done, but I can't find it right now to take a picture. There's really not much to take a picture of -- mine looks like the one in the pattern picture, except it's a spicy orange color and I don't look as cute wearing it. But it was a fun knit, once I got used to the big needles and yarn. I did the math -- there are less stitches in the whole cowl than in one of those bookmarks I've been knitting.



The Ribby Slipper Socks (Interweave Knits Holiday 2008) I made as a Christmas gift are done and completely underwhelming. The pictures in the magazine are cute, and the slippers look okay when they're on a human foot, but the heel and toe construction are just less refined than I'd expect from an IK pattern. I'd planned on making pairs for my kids, but I think I'm going to experiment with a short row heel and different toe.



And the Snowman Mittens are done -- these, I love! I used up the rest of the white acrylic I'd scounged for the bones of the turkey hat and, if a migraine hadn't derailed my progress, probably could have had the pair done in one long evening. For something that looks so neat, it's really just stockinette and seed stitch, with a couple of cable twists to shape the snowmen. The colors in the picture are weird, but my first try was orange. How does white yarn photograph as ORANGE? (I know, probably something to do with the background fabric and the fact that I really need a new camera.

The designer also has a free pattern for a toddler sweater called Waffles for Brunch. I want to dig up some yarn and swatch to see if I can make that one for Quinn or Leif.

The snowman mittens came out too big for Quinn, but fit Alex nicely. So now I'm halfway through a pair of Mouse Mittens for him. And I've got to take a serious look at my Christmas knitting to figure out what I actually plan to do and how long it's going to take.

I finished a pair of slippers last night that look fine on human feet but really stupid just lying there. Which makes me have second thoughts about using them as a gift. Can you just see me on Christmas Day -- "Put them on, they really look better than that!" or "Close you eyes and hold your feet still while I unwrap this and put it on you!"

Haven't tried it yet, but I hope that stuffing them with crumpled newspaper and give them some shape in the package.

Now that the slippers are done, I'm working on my Life is Uneven Cowl. That pattern calls for size 17 needles which I don't have, so I'm using 15s. It really is like knitting on broomsticks. But I'm loving the color of the yarn and the squooshy garter stitch and thinking maybe it would make a great vest. When I'm not fighting the broomsticks and glad I didn't get a skein in another color to make that other cowl pattern I found.

I'm fickle. I know it.

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, Alex went through the newspaper and cut out every turkey she could find and made a HUGE collage to take to my parents for Thanksgiving dinner. I wish I could capture her enthusiasm in words. The girl was absolutely giddy about her project, which started out on three sheets of construction paper and then doubled in size again. I think she used every bit of glue and tape she could get her hands on.



And because I'm just as nuts as my eleven-year-old, I decided to knit her a turkey hat. I cast on at 5:00 Wednesday night when I dropped her off for karate and really tried to get it done in time for dinner Thanksgiving afternoon. I was one leg short. Alex worked on it in the back seat on the way to Mom and Dad's ("Mom, were you knitting really really tight? Is it going to make a difference that I don't knit that tight? Is this what you mean when you say something is fiddly....") but I still couldn't get that last bit of bone done in time for dinner.

Alex's enthusiasm for the newsprint turkeys? That's how I feel about cowls this week. Even though I still haven't worn the one I knit for myself last year, I'm printing out patterns and adding them to my Ravelry queue and dreaming of casting on.

There's the Life is Uneven Cowl. I didn't have any Thick and Quick left in my stash and didn't really want to go out and buy a skein, but it was three bucks at the Michael's Black Friday Sale and "spice" is an absolutely gorgeous color. I wish it came in Wool-Ease and I could make myself a sweater.

That's just the latest in a growing list of the things. There's the smoke ring pattern I ordered from Elann a couple of years ago and never worked up the nerve to cast on...and I've still got the mohair and beads for Ice Queen...and yarn set aside for a Wavy Lace Wimple, and the Mobius Cowl, if I can ever manage to do that cast on again.

Elann has two new cowls in their free patterns section -- Bird's Nest Smoke Ring and Silken Smoke. And they've got a pattern for Drooping Elm Socks, which are toe up and have a ruffle and I must knit NOW.

And I also stumbled across the new issue of Knotions, which has an amazing pair of lace knee-highs and a an equally wonderful pair of cabled mittens. I think the socks are beyond me, but I've got perfect yarn for those Magic Mirror Mittens...

Black Friday Yarn

For the first time in I don't know how long, I went Black Friday shopping with only one small child in tow! Quinn had a doctor's appointment at 11am, so I had to bring him along. He was a little trooper and happily accepted bribes of chips and a milkshake and his choice of a toy from the Dollar Tree. (That was after the poor little guy, who'd been begging for a firetruck all morning long, finally found a cheap Hot Wheels one and I found out that the line to pay for it was going to take at least an hour.)

I got the two biggest items I was hoping for, and a raincheck for the third. Oh, and a whole bunch of Paton's Stretch Sock and Paton's Kroy stripes for $2.62 a skein. My math was off, so I didn't realize that with the 25% off purchase coupon, the Wool-Ease was only $1.64 or I would've bought more of that.

There's a lot more I'd like to ramble on about, but I've been up since 3am and my body is threatening to shut down with or without my agreement.

I made more bookmarks!



Both are knitted with Brown Sheep Cotton Fine on size 2 needles, and both patterns are from the Monthly Bookmark KAL. The pink one is the Shetland Lace bookmark, and the green one is the Leaf on Leaf bookmark.

I love the way this yarn works up and wish I'd bought more single skeins while we were at the outlet store. But I did get enough for a shawl and three scarves, so I guess I shouldn't sulk because I want to make bookmarks in more pretty colors.

I also finished another quilt top – which is good, but I’m going to go broke buying batting and backing for all of these!



The dinosaur blocks are pages from a cloth book panel I found at Walmart two years ago. I bought it with the intention of making it into a quilt for Heath, bought some fabric to go with it, and set the whole thing aside until I had time to actually put it together.

I knew I wanted to mix pieced blocks with the pages and kept coming up with different ideas, but nothing clicked well enough for me to start cutting. Then I talked my friend through her log cabin quilt and saw how fast that went together. I decided to see if I had enough dino fabrics to make it work. But I was sure I didn’t, so I never looked.

I pulled out the fabric on Saturday afternoon and there were actually three lights and three darks. I pieced all of the blocks in one sitting, then added spacer strips to the pages and put the top together last night.

I’m shocked at the results – doesn’t it almost look like I knew what I was doing when I bought the fabric and put it together?! One of the corners is off by at least a half inch because I made a mistake when I was squaring up the blocks (which are rectangles, because I didn’t get the spacer strips quite right), but it’s a baby quilt. Even if I did have enough fabric to make another block, I’m not sure if I would.

A couple of weeks ago, Bill ordered the fancy new mixer he's been wanting. The plan is to start baking most of our bread, and since the mixer got here, we've been baking more than we've bought. And grinding our own grain to make the whole wheat flour. It's all very fun and intimidating.

I handle the cleanup, not the baking, because the fancy new mixer scares me. I'm either going to break it or lose a hand. But I did finally work up the courage to mix a batch of play-dough for the little guys. It's by far the best batch I've made in my entire mommying career.

All four kids have been playing with it for the past two days. They've tried to spin pizzas. Alex made a long snake and used it to successfully jump rope. Quinn and Leif have made tacos and boats and a series of other sculptures that all look exactly the same.

I'm now the world's biggest fan of home-made play dough.

And after a lot of staring at yarn and needles and making up excuses to avoid starting the lace pattern on my new cardigan, I finally knit something --



It's the November 15 pattern from the Monthly Bookmark Yahoo group. There's supposed to be a tassel, but I want to use the rest of this yarn to make socks for the boys and if I didn't have enough because I'd embellished a bookmark, I'd kick myself.

There's a stomach bug in the house, so I kept the kids home from church today and pulled out the quilt I didn't get to work on Saturday night. My tentative deadline for the show and tell quilts turned out to be two weeks off, so I only have three more days left to see how much I can get done.

Earlier this week, I spent a late night transforming the rail fence quilt from 225 loose blocks to an assembled quilt top. It took forever, but the results were worth it.



If I pushed myself over the next three days, I thought I could also have get the log cabin quilt done and ready to show off. Five blocks a day was do-able, even if it didn't sound fun.

So this morning I plugged in the sewing machine and the iron and lost myself in the whir of the sewing machine and the zip of the rotary cutter and the growing combinations of narrow scraps. By dinner time, I had finished all of the blocks I needed for the entire quilt. And a couple more, because I've decided to make another one just like it for a Christmas gift.



I wish I could do that every time I quilt, losing track of how many pieces I've put together already and how many more there are to go and how many more hours that's going to take.... It felt so good to just sew. Now and then I'd break to play with the kids, or fix a snack, or refill my diet Coke, and I'd realize I was well past my goal for the day. Then I'd decide to do a few more strips. It was fun. I may do more later, after the kids are in bed.

Earlier this afternoon, I finished piecing the last of the 225 rail fence blocks. Now I've just got to assemble them into an actual quilt top. That sounds more intimidating than making them all in the first place, but after laying most of them out yesterday to see how many more squares I needed and what colors I wanted them to be, I'm in love.



I saw a picture of an old scrappy rail fence quilt in one of my quilting magazines that made my heart go pitty pat, but there wasn't a pattern and I forgot about it until I found a similar quilt in a book Mom had loaned me. She needed the book back, so I wrote down the number and size of the rectangles that I needed. By the time I started cutting, I couldn't remember what the other two quilts had looked like. Not that it would've helped since I'm sure my fabric stash doesn't match what was in a hundred year old scrap bag.

This whole thing has been a leap of faith. The more pieces I cut and stitched, the more doubts kept creeping in. I didn't know if I was wasting perfectly decent fabric.

I'm almost as excited about the scrappy log cabin squares. Which is what I did with the rest of my afternoon.



And I got an email from Elann that the first two Barbara Walker Treasuries are back in stock. So I spent my $50 whatever their freuqent buyer thing is called and they're on their way. I've been checking them out from the library over and over and over -- I definitely need my own copies.

My house has been taken over by knitting and quilting this week.

Sunday, one friend was calling me about a too-good-to-be-true yarn clearance sale and another was calling me about the quilt she was working on. Between the two of them, the phone rang at least every half hour. Sometimes they both called at the same time. The clearance markdowns turned out to be a false rumor, but I send that friend off with a Knitpicks catalog so she'll be able to get wool almost as inexpensive as the sale yarn would have been, with a much better range of colors. The other friend got her quilt finished. And I'm sure I must've accomplished something.

Yesterday, I got up hours before the kids and managed to play with three of my scrap quilts. And knit. Alex found the pieces for a quilt we'd cut out well over a year ago and, in a flurry of 12 year old activity, she got the top pieced. It needs borders.

So today we went to Joann's to buy her some fabric. I'd planned on staying home, but the diaper supply was critical and Joann's is sorta almost next to Costco. We now have everything except for bread. They moved the bread and the diapers and after looping through the entire store three times I decided that we can do without bread. The new mixer came yesterday and Bill is going to bake some anyway.

I looked for fabric to back the Dot to Dot quilt, but if they had anything perfect, I missed it. The little guys weren't as fascinated by the choice of red or yellow or blue as Alex and I were, so by the time we got that decided, it was time to pay for our goodies and bolt for the door. I did buy myself the IK Holiday issue and the new Vogue Knitting, which saves me the stop I was going to make tomorrow. Unless I manage to find the sewing bag pattern I'm looking for. Then I'll be back to buy the novelty print I fell in love with.

I've challenged myself to see how many new quilt tops I can have finished before Mom gets back from Arizona and we get together to play show and tell. Dot to Dot was the first one. The cat quilt will not be done by then. Don't ask when the cat quilt will be done, or if I've been working on it.

Scrappy Squares



15 of 25 or 42 blocks finished

Try to picture white sashing between the blocks. This is the one that calls for two thousand and some two inch squares. I've only got three hundred or so more to cut and I'm thinking of making the quilt smaller than the 80 1/2 x 92 1/2 the pattern calls for. So I've got fifteen blocks done out of either twenty-five or forty-two or something in between.

Sparkling Gems



16 of 42 blocks finished

After I finished and laid out the first eight blocks, I was ready to ditch the whole project. Now I'm at sixteen blocks (out of forty-two) and back in love.

Rail Fence



40 of 225 blocks finished

Log Cabin



1 of 35 blocks finished

And there's the dinosaur quilt (maybe another 20 blocks)... and the spool quilt (147 blocks)...and the cats...

I've got 26 days to go. Maybe a few more or less.

And Christmas knitting.

This is fun!

Lately, I've felt more like knitting and quilting than I've felt like writing about knitting and quilting. Which isn't a bad thing -- I'm getting things actually done! -- but when I finally do sit down to try and type, I've got too many things going on to cram into one post. The camera situation doesn't help. I've been fighting the thing for months until finally, on the last trip, it thew its worst tantrum to date. I turned around in my seat to see if Leif was sleeping and saw something red flashing in the depths of my tote bag. There weren't any toys or tennis shoes or anything else that should've been lighting up in there, so I reached back to investigate and the stupid camera (which was turned off) was HOT.

I still take pictures, but I put in the batteries, take the pictures fast, and immediately pull them back out. Which is a huge pain.

Eventually we'll get a camera that actually works, but for now pictures are going to come in spurts and only when I've got something that excites me enough to fight with the batteries.

I've been knitting. The lobster is done and he's not as cute as the one in the pattern photos, but I like him better than I thought I would. I'll take some pictures of him later.

I finally got around to starting the shark hat again, this time knitting from the teeth up to the tail because I was sick of redoing the tail and fin and hoping that the rest would somehow work out once I got that far. It's actually working this time!

And I'm plodding away on Alex's tank top. It should fit this time. If the kid doesn't grow too much between now and spring.

More Cat Patterns

Someone found my blog by searching for "scrappy cat quilts" and that seemed like such a good idea I had to go take a look myself and see what the rest of the results were.

I didn't realize how many patterns for cat quilts there are out there -- and how many of them are free online! There's a list at Cats and People Who Quilt and a different one at Free Quilt Patterns. Some of the links are dead, because that's the way the world works, but there are some really cute ones still available.

I adore "Cat and Her Favorites" and "Dress" at Kitten's Mitten.They're both way beyond my technical skills, but I've got both patterns downloaded for someday.

Done!

I absolutely can't wait until April to quilt this on the longarm. I'm not sure I have the nerve to try freemotion quilting it on my machine, but I've got such a perfect image of the quilting design I want to use, and I know the perfect backing is out there somewhere. I've just got to do some shopping.

Felting this bag was way too stressful.



The base and handles lost all stitch definition before the body even started to felt. The stupid Whirlpool Cabrio throws in spin cycles whenever it feels like it (I think it's trying to balance the load) and I wound up with those permanent creases I'd read so many warnings about. Then the hot water ran out along with the last of my patience.

I threw it in the washer again the next day and it came out better than I'd hoped for. The sides are a little lopsided, but I think that's probably a blocking problem that I can fix if I ever find anything the right size to block it around.

I'm going to take a break from felting for a while. After the double dumpling disaster, I don't have the nerves for it.

The yarn I used for the embroidery felted more than the yarn I used for the bag itself, so it pulled in the middle and left it shaped more like a peanut than a dumpling.




I wound up taking a seam ripper to the embroidery and prying it loose from the rest of the bag. It took two hours to pick every bit of green fluff out, but after felting it a bit more, I did wind up with the pretty bag I would've had if I'd gone with my first instinct and left off the vine.

I don't know when to stop.

I’ve been working on the scrappy cat quilt off and on for months. At first, I hoped I might be able to scrounge up enough similar but different dark florals for sixteen blocks. Then it looked like I’d be able to get twenty, maybe twenty four…



I kept digging through my stash and finding more fabrics, then Mom contributed a few of her scraps, then I found a great estate sale. Whoever that woman was, she’d stashed exactly the fabric I need for my cats and it’s no longer a question of whether I’ll be able to find enough different fabrics, it’s a matter of when to stop.

Yesterday, I laid out the blocks I had finished and compared them to the big bag of fabric scraps that might be cats in hiding. The plan was to pick enough fabrics to make a total of 36 blocks (would make the quilt 66x81). But I kept finding great ones I don’t want to leave out and now I’m thinking maybe I should make 42 blocks (which would make the quilt 77x81)…

I thought I was making a little throw for the couch, not something to fit a bed! The crazy part is that I don’t particularly enjoy making these blocks, but I’m in love with the idea of them.

I’d be perfectly happy with a bed-sized quilt – I’m just not sure I want to piece all of those cats. And I’m afraid that the second I call it done and quilt it, I’ll wish I’d made it bigger. It doesn’t help that somewhere in my sewing room are another six cats I cut and then misplaced. I was keeping the pieces separate between the pages of a notebook, so the odds are high that the kids took off with the book and they’re gone forever. I’ve finally given up on those.

This whole project has me feeling weirdly compelled. I never look at my quilts as future heirlooms, but I see grandbabies snuggled under this one. And in that silly daydream, it’s a bed quilt…

For now, I’ve set aside enough dark florals to bring my total up to 42 blocks and I’ll cut out the pieces before putting them back in with the rest of my stash. Then I’ll see how many I actually feel like piecing. I won’t be able to use Mom’s longarm until April anyway, so I’ve got time to wait and see.

And now that I’ve figured out how much to set aside for the cats, I can use the rest of my wonderful darks to start a scrappy spool quilt. Which is what I really really want to make right now. I also want to start another cat quilt.

Yesterday afternoon Bill took a nap, the kids wanted to play outside while it was still sunny, and in that short stretch of time, I got more done than I would've imagined possible.

The last muslin squares for the dot to dot quilt are cut and the dots are fused in place. Now I've got to do the buttonhole stitch, which I can work on while the kids are doing schoolwork or we're watching tv in the evenings.

I finished the top stitching on the candy skull bag I started with Alex and a friend a couple of weeks ago --



It wasn't the best project for the two girls to start on, and my own bag didn't come as nicely as I'd hoped it would. I bought this fabric a while back and always meant to use it for a bag, but now that it's done I'm wishing I'd saved it for a better project.

I also got the pieces of the lobster together, except for the claws. Having him look more like a lobster makes me feel a little more inspired to cast on for those.

After the kids were in bed, I finished Alex's new cardigan.



Pattern: Fresh Picked Color 3/4 Sleeve Cardigan (a Lion Brand freebie)
Yarn: Vanna's Choice Solid (3 skeins)
Needles: Denise 10

I read the pattern and reread the pattern and was sure I knew what I was doing -- and totally forgot the shaping at the tops of the sleeves until I'd joined them to the body and knit ten or fifteen more rows. It took an entire evening to frog back to the point where the pieces joined and get them separated and then get them back on the needles and ladder up the stitches that had dropped too far down and I came within an inch of tossing the whole thing.

A disaster at a time I'm getting better at fixing these things.

Next project to tackle is the French Market Bag. I'm almost ready to start dividing it for the handles.

What's on my needles

I didn't realize I had so many WIPs going, then I got a good look at my sidebar and my Ravelry page. Yikes! There's been so much going on lately that I completely lost track of what I had set aside.

Then I started looking for needles to cast on a few new projects and had to figure out why there weren't any. Weird thing is that most of these aren't using the needles I'm looking for. They must be in the bottom of an abandoned knitting bag somewhere.

So, in an effort to actually figure out what I was knitting before the rest of my life got in the way, here's a current list of WIPs with progress reports --

Fresh Picked Color Cardigan

I thought this one was in an endless black hole, but as of last night the bottom section is finally long enough and I've only got ten more rows on the second sleeve. Then it's on to the yoke and I'll finally have a Denise cable free to start my own cardigan -- hooray!

French Market Bag

After the instant gratification of the Dumpling Bags, this thing is taking forever and ever and ever...

Lobster

Mine is nowhere near as cute as the one in the pattern pictures. But he's done except for his claws, so I might as well finish him.

Alex's Tank

I've already almost finished this project once, but it was too small so I started over and then I cut my hand and had to put it aside and now it's too cold for tank tops even if I do finish the thing.

Shark Bite Hat

I've got an idea for starting over from the teeth up, but not the time or enthusiasm.

Noviembre Socks

Were going just fine until I cut my hand. I really should finish them.

Casablanca KAL

I was doing great until the clues started to get really long and I didn't think I could keep up, so I didn't try too hard. I should get it out and try to figure out what clue I left off on.

Mystic Waters

Got set aside before a trip and forgotten after we got home.

B&B Pullover

I'm sure it's around here someplace.

Alterknits Wrap

Got shuffled up to the sewing room. I think the pattern is actually with it this time.

Dot to Dot

Have I mentioned that I love the new quilt?



The pattern is Dot to Dot (Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting, January/February 2007). I don't remember seeing it when I first got the magazine, but it leaped out at me when I was flipping through some back issues a couple of months ago. I've become just a little obsessed with finding patterns that will use up the scrap bags but won't leave me with a dozen quilts that all look the same.

The big dots really show off some gorgeous prints I like but wouldn't want to base an entire quilt on. I decided to do the blanket stitch by hand instead of machine, expecting it to take forever, but the whole thing is going together fast.

I didn't have enough muslin to cut all of the dot blocks at once, so I've got sixteen or so of those to go, then it's ready to be assembled.

I finally got a big chunk of time to myself. Translation -- I was up until 2am, first playing with the new quilt and then adding a few rows to a cardigan for Alex. When I did finally make myself go to bed, my mind was still racing so I didn't actually fall asleep until several hours later. Leif, who fell asleep really early last night, crawled up onto me at about seven to tell me he loved me.

I'm running on maybe three hours of sleep and not much caffeine -- yet -- and can't wait to pull out the sewing machine and piece more blocks.

I'm happily drowning in yarn and fabric and ideas, which I haven't had time to blog about. I've got a couple dozen different projects I want to be working on and it seems like every time I turn around, I find more things to add to the list. Which is fine with me. Some will get done and some will never get started, and I'll have a lot of fun planning them in my head.

Oh, and I'm no longer sulking about the Simply Soft.

Last Friday I went up to Salem to help a friend with a quilting project. Which means I spent the evening telling her "I'd go ahead and leave it, but every other quilter in the world would probably tell you to rip it out." At least when I tell her she should redo something, she takes me seriously. Despite my hopeless attitude toward quilting accuracy, her log cabin came out gorgeous.

And since I was up there anyway, we stopped at the one Walmart I didn't have time to hit when I was looking for Simply Soft. That store had plenty of it marked down, but not the colors I was pining for. They called the store in Dallas (hey, it's only another fifteen miles each way) and they had six skeins of one of the colors and would hold them for me.

They didn't actually hold the yarn, but when I got there, they had plenty -- including the colors they said they were out of. I'm not going to complain about that. If they have to get rid of my favorite yarn, at least I got to pick up a bunch of it on clearance. I have enough Simply Soft to last a long, long time.

Grandma found me two more huge bags of quilting scraps at the thrift store and this afternoon I went through them both and pulled out everything that didn't fit even my loose definition of quilting cotton. I saved the solid colors and some wool and the rest is in a huge bag that I need to find a home for. Tomorrow I think I'm going to try to tackle the rest of the scrap bags.