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.

I think I lost a monkey or two.



The pattern for Alex's quilt called for five little applique monkeys, but I got sick of them and didn't make that many. I'm sure I made at least three... but when I unfolded the top on Tuesday afternoon to get it ready for quilting, there were only two little monkeys.

Oh well. I'm not doing more of them. I just want this quilt to be done. It has issues. I made spectacular mistakes with the cutting. I used the wrong presser foot so my seams weren't 1/4 inch and the blocks didn't go together right. I quilted it yesterday when all I really wanted was to finish fast so we could go get some lunch and the thread kept breaking, so I'd lose track of where I was and which way I was looping, and Leif would grab onto my leg...

I hate it less now that it's quilted, but I'm never going to love this quilt. I do need to stay motivated enough to find the fabric I bought for the binding, because Alex wants it done NOW. She's only been waiting, um, eighteen months for me to finally finish it.

After the quilt was off the machine and we'd had lunch, we headed to Walmart so I could buy four skeins of Caron Simply Soft to cast on for a February Ladies Sweater. I've got some in my stash, but I really wanted to use one of those wonderful dark colors I fell in love with a few months ago -- and there wasn't more than a skein or two of each color. They're phasing it out.

I dragged the kids to three different stores, complaining about it the whole way, and never did find one of the colors I had my heart set on. I got a few other skeins to use for sweaters for the baby boys because one store had it marked down to $1.50 a skein, but I'm really annoyed about this.

Simply Soft is my favorite box store yarn, especially for sweaters for the kids. I could fall in love with a pattern and have the yarn in my hands fifteen minutes later -- if it was grocery shopping day.

The next closest place I know of that carries it is Michaels, fifty miles from home. If they still have it. I haven't had the heart to call and check.

I'm giddy.

I've been this way for two days now, all excited about the opportunity to play with yarn and fabric, which hasn't actually happened yet, but it's going to. Soon. Maybe within the next hour, if I'm not so totally wiped out by nap time that I crawl into bed myself.

We're back from our trip, the one that got cancelled and rescheduled so many times I spent my summer not knowing if I was coming or going or leaving tomorrow. The trip was great -- in ten days we drove through parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho...oh, yeah, and back into Oregon.

Brown Sheep is in Nebraska. I've been suggesting a detour in that direction for a couple of years now and my wonderful husband, the same one who usually won't stop at Joann's so I can pick up a skein of yarn, drove through three states so I could shop for yarn. And didn't bat at eye at the two huge bags Alex and I walked out of there with -- although he did ask which kid I was going to leave behind to make room for them.

So now in addition to all of the stuff I was excited about casting on when we got back, I've got enough Cotton Fleece for three tops, wool for a French Market Bag, and a bunch of Cotton Fine and some sock yarn. And I'm not sure what else -- it was hard to shop and keep Leif from running off and helping Alex pick out her own yarn at the same time. Not everything I meant to buy made it into my bag, and since I haven't had a chance to go through it yet, I don't know what all came home with me.

Lately I'm finding more and more new patterns I want to buy. The trick is going to be walking that fine line between "I'll wait to order until I'm ready to start knitting the project" and "I'll die if this becomes unavailable before I order it." I'm not sure which category that alligator scarf fell into, but I've bought the pattern and knit the project, so I don't need to worry about that one anymore.

Today I found a pattern for a knit jackalope. We spend a lot of time traveling in the southwest, so my kiddos know all about jackalopes and would probably love to have one. Not that I plan on sharing.

I love the Kelso Lace Cardigan and Spring Vines is just plain gorgeous. I'm not sure what yarn would do that pattern justice and is within my budget. But I'm keeping my eyes open.

Flora is such a pretty little wisp of lace, and the pattern is only four bucks and calls for one skein of Shadow. I could handle that -- especially since I already have the yarn.

Cat Mittens and Fisherman's Friend both make my heart go pitty pat, but I'm not going to let myself buy more patterns for colorwork mittens until I finish some of the ones I've already got planned.

This really is an illness

I spent the past two afternoons fighting the layered squares quilt, which was an absolute bear to assemble. After lots of struggling and whining and grabbing for the seam ripper, I've finally got the top together.



The pattern calls for a wide border, but this quilt needs to hide for a while before I decide whether I've got the necessary enthusiasm to buy it pretty fabric. Right now, I don't like it enough to spend extra money on it. I'm tempted to just quilt the thing and bind it and call it done the way it is.

My biggest problem was that the squares are laid out in horizontal rows. The piecing is done in diagonal rows and I couldn't wrap my head around the whole thing. Towards the end, the layout was getting easier and I started to think that this quilt might look really nice in some bright florals and that if I used post-its and note paper and numbered the blocks...

I'm trying to talk myself out of it.



And, speaking of illness, I felted the second Dumpling Bag yesterday after putting away the quilt for the day. This one is in Paton's SWS, which is prettier than the yarn I used for the first one, but that pink stripe is too bright for me to love. I think the Paint Box will be better, but I can't remember which safe place I hid it in.

So I cast on for a double dumpling with some purple wool that spent its previous life as a thrift store sweater.

There would be pictures, but the camera is throwing its worst tantrum to date. I'm afraid the blog may be photoless for a while. (edited to add the pictures I took after more camera-fighting)

How much fabric?!

Earlier this week, I saw something in one of my quilt magazines about how many yards of fabric and spools of thread the members of their editorial staff had stashed. They estimated that three yards of fabric weighs a pound so, with an actual formula for figuring out how what that mountain of oddly shaped scraps in the sewing room adds up to, I called my mom and double-dog-dared her to take an inventory of her own stash while I was doing mine.

She wasn't nearly as excited as I was. I think her tentative agreement was mostly to shut me up for the moment. But that's okay. We both know she's got a whole lot of fabric.

What I didn't realize was how much fabric I've accumulated. I'm not done weighing and adding yet and the total is already more than triple what I thought was a high guess.

This is kind of exciting. I keep finding patterns for neat scrap quilts, and it looks like I've enough fabric to keep making them. This is exciting!

After the kid were in bed last night, I started cutting fabric for the new quilt. I really wanted to make this one, even though the construction scares me to death.

It's not assembled in blocks. You're supposed to lay the whole thing out on a design wall and sew it together a piece at a time.



I'm sure that works just fine for people who have design walls that aren't part of a sloping ceiling and can keep their sewing machine next to those design walls. I don't fit that criteria.

But I want this quilt, so I laid out the fabric on the flannel side of an old table cloth and as soon as the kiddos are in bed, I'm going to start piecing. Hopefully I can get it all together before something scary happens.