My favourite finish of 2012

Here it is. My finished February Lady Sweater. In April. I started this July 22, 2011 and had the body done by September. Once I sat down and forced myself to cross this off my list, I was able to finish the sleeves quickly. I finished the second sleeve Friday night and put the buttons on Saturday morning before we went for our weekly trip to the library. I love it and am so happy with how it turned out. This is a free pattern on ravelry and has been cast on by almost 12,000 knitters!

First back shot that my daughter took. I really like this picture for some reason so I thought I'd share it.

The whole back. I haven't blocked it yet and am terrified to wash it. I have 1 skein left of this yarn and am deciding what to do with it. A cowl maybe?

Our local quilt show is this weekend. Quilts need to be turned in by 9am Friday morning. Neither of my quilts are finished and with a sick husband at home last week I didn't get much done. Yesterday was a beautiful day and all I wanted to do was sit outside and knit or read but I knew I had to finish my quilts. I did the next best thing. I brought my sewing machine and projects downstairs, opened the patio door  and started quilting. By 4pm I finished quilting both quilts. I trimmed off the excess back and batting after supper. Hope to bind my Oh My Stars quilt today, or at least get the binding made. 

Lots of stops and starts lead to lots of thread in my little garbage pail.

Peak at my colour challenge quilt. This quilt has to be faced. Have several tutorials on how to do this, just need to do it. It is only 18 x 36 inches. I have enough of the fabric that if I mess up I can quickly make another one.

A couple finishes and an almost finish

Here are a couple pictures of the cowl I finished for my SIL earlier this week. It will probably be a Christmas present or I may give it to her for her birthday in October so she can use it all winter. 

Here it is wrapped around my neck twice. It's still loose enough that I can tuck my chin in or pull it up higher over the bottom half of my face if it was really cold. Hopefully she'll like it.

Another picture.

Detail of the lace pattern. Again, I really like this pattern, easy to memorize and it is free on ravelry.

Made a lot of progress on the February Lady Cardigan that I am making for myself (another free ravelry pattern). I finished the first sleeve Thursday morning and since my husband, whose been home sick all week was still sleeping, I weaved in ends and started the second sleeve instead of trying to find the buttons in our bedroom. I tried the first sleeve on several times and decided to end it around my elbow. 

These are the buttons I wanted to put on the cardigan. I thought all 3 were flower shaped and was disappointed that one was circular. I got these on clearance at JoAnn's over a month ago. I went back to the store yesterday and searched all over but couldn't find any more. 

Luckily I had these 3 sitting at home as a back up plan. Not as interesting but still fun. I've been making such great progress on this cardigan that I am hopeful that it will be done by Monday. I timed myself and it takes about 10 minutes to do 1 pattern repeat and I have 9 more to do on the second sleeve, plus the garter stitch border. 2-3 hours and it should be done. Finally.

I might have finished the cardigan this morning but I opted to finish this novel instead.  "The Wife" by Meg Wolitzer. It was amazing. There's a great little twist near the end that I totally didn't see coming and makes you rethink the entire novel. Highly recommend it if you like Margaret Atwood - reminds me of early Atwood, think "Surfacing" and "Bodily Harm" but written by an American. (And yes, there is a difference between Canadian and American writers. And no, that's not a bad thing. They're just different. As they should be.)

Progress and Change

A lot has been going on around here. On a whim I started this cowl last Thursday. I have about 5 skeins of this sock yarn and have used this brand (different colours) to make socks and noticed it pills badly. I've been trying to decide what to do with it. I would hate to donate it and have someone buy it and discover how badly it pills after they make something. But I can't bring myself to throw it out - 1 skein maybe but not 5.  I wanted to use it but not for socks. I'd been searching scarfs and shawls with lace patterns since I am more likely to hand wash and lay flat to dry lace pieces than put them in the washer and dryer, like I do with my knitted socks. I found this free pattern on ravelry and is actually written by someone I knew in Michigan. It is a really fast knit if you are interested and since I used sock yarn (she used lace) I only needed to do 5 pattern repeats instead of 6. I finished it last night around midnight and have it blocking right now. I'll get better pictures once it is dry - the above picture was taken after completing 3 repeats.

I also took the plunge and started quilting my Oh My Stars quilt. I even registered it in the guild's quilt show on the 14th and 15th so I need to hurry up and finish it. I wanted the white fabric to disappear and so I began by doing a simple meandering stitch on all the white. And after seeing this quilt on flickr I knew I wanted to include spirals and decided to do them on the yellow stars. There is a spiral in the middle square, then I made points going off into the corners. They look like mini suns and I love it.

I was kind of stuck on what to do with the blue stars and tried a couple things that I ended up ripping out. I have finally decided just to outline each with blue thread. I didn't want to do anything to distract from the space fabric in the middle or the yellow stars. The yellow stars make this quilt and I am so happy I ran out of white background. I still need to finish the blue stars than I need to decide what I am going to do with the black spaces. It isn't in any of the pictures above, but if you look at the  quilt top here you will see that I replaced some star blocks with space themed fabric. I don't know what to do with them. And I'm not sure what to do with the border. I thought of straight lines to make the border look like a window frame but I figure the border will tell me what it needs when I get to it. I really want to bind and wash this and then decide how much more quilting it needs but I know I can't.

Been working away on the sleeves for my dad's cardigan. Finished the cuffs and have 13 more inches and 30 more stitches to add to each sleeve before they are ready to attach to the body. It's kind of fun to make two at a time but the yarn tangles are a bit of a headache.

It's been awhile since I posted any progress on this cardigan. I started making this for myself last July as my kids and I travelled across Canada on a train. My goal was to finish it by my birthday last September and I was pretty close. All I had left were the sleeves. I think I am going to only knit vests for the rest of my life. There's something about sleeves that just slow me down. I added a bit to the sleeves in December trying to get it done by the end of 2011 but that didn't happen either. Took it out this morning and got 2 lace repeats done. My biggest problem... I'm not sure how long I want the sleeves to be. There will be 1 1/2 inch garter stitch border at the end of the sleeve and I can't decide between short sleeve, 3/4 sleeve or long sleeve. Thoughts? 

I really do love the pattern and it is easy to memorize. It is a free pattern on ravelry and is quite popular (over 11,000 have been started). I think I need to finish it this month so I can enjoy it this spring (although with the snow we are getting today it doesn't feel much like spring). And what else has got me motivated to finish it? I finally have buttons for it. I told myself once I am done the first sleeve I am going to put the buttons on. I thought I was going to put round, wooden buttons on but I am going a totally different direction and am quite excited. About buttons!?! I amaze myself sometimes.

Now for the change I mentioned in my post title. Maybe some have noticed or maybe you haven't, but things have been disappearing from this blog. The link to my etsy store is gone because I am shutting it down; at least temporarily. I have completely lost all desire to make and sell my work and was more frustrated by the experience than anything. I have also been deleting some of the blogs I follow, not because I don't like them but they were becoming a time sucker. There are some I follow that I don't have listed. That will probably change as I am changing the title of this blog to something that more represents all of me and not just my quilting. The blog started as a place for me to share my quilts instead of doing it on our family blog which is mainly about our kids (and all though it isn't private, it really isn't interesting to anyone other than our family back in Canada). I know that my family are the main readers of this blog but having it separate gives them the option of looking at my quilts and stuff if they want to. 

So I am slowly changing things when I have the time and motivation. I won't say what the blog name will change to since the name which is available today may not be tomorrow or next week. And since I am a little nervous about moving everything I am trying to save it all before I make the move. The new blog will have a slightly different focus. Not only will it include my quilting, knitting and other crafty stuff, but it will include more of me. And I will probably either post less or write shorter posts. It's a lot of work and time to take pictures specifically for blog posts and write about them and sometimes it feels pointless. Personally, I am refocusing on my family and our impending move this summer. I am also focusing on writing. I'm glad that I rediscovered my love of writing last November but sometimes after spending all morning at the computer writing blog posts, reading blogs, updating ravelry and flickr, I don't have the energy to write. I am a great procrastinator so I am also taking myself off of pinterest as well. As much as I love it, I'm sick of the controversy that surrounds it and the people that are abusing it. I have already deleted a lot of my pins and am working on saving or deleting the rest.

To sum up - the blog name and its appearance are changing. Progress may be slow or there will be a lot of change at once. Hopefully you will all come along for the journey but I've realized that blogging, if it's going to take time away from my family and my writing, it needs to be something I enjoy, and feeling like I have to post sucks the enjoyment out of it. Thanks to everyone who reads and comments and to those who read but never comment. It's been an interesting experience and I am looking forward to the changes that the rest of 2012 will bring for me, my family and this blog.

Keepin' busy

3 quilts basted and ready for quilting. Top quilt is my Fat Quarter Stars QAL top, middle is a colour challenge quilt for our guild's quilt show (on April 14th and 15th) and the big one at the bottom is my Oh My Stars QAL top. I know how I want to quilt the colour challenge one but the other two I am completely stumped. The Oh My Stars quilt is my March UFO so I would like to finish it this week. 

After two weeks of rainy, snowy, cold weather, the sun finally shone yesterday afternoon and I was able to do a little knitting outside. This is a cardigan for my dad. This picture shows the true colour of the yarn - a dark navy blue.

Here it is inside. Yarn is incredibly frustrating to take pictures of.  This is the body of the cardigan until the bottom of the armholes. I placed it on a piece of waste yarn and after I finish making the sleeves, I'll be adding them to the body and then knitting them all together until the end. I may have to end my yarn diet for this cardigan as I think I will need a skein or two to finish it.

No knitting outside today. The rain is back and it brought its friend hail. 

Good Mail

Being on a fabric and yarn diet this year, I was pretty excited to win a skein of yarn for participating in the sock KAL hosted by Jen of Knitting Like Crazy, last month. The yarn arrived today. It's lovely.

"Burnt Ember". 100% Superwash Merino. It's very soft.

So, I guess I need to wind this and start on a pair of socks.

Friday Night Sew-In?

Linking up at Heidi's blog for Friday Night Sew-In. Go here to visit Heidi's blog to see what others did last night.

So I had plans to quilt last night. I had 3 different projects ready for me to work on. Fabric cut waiting to be put together. But I didn't even touch my sewing machine. Thursday evening we made it to the walk-in-clinic 20 minutes before they closed to confirm that our son had pink eye. By the time we picked up the drops and some Hot Wheels for the little guy, it was way past bed time. He had a terrible night. It reminded me of having a newborn and getting up every time he made a sound. He would cry out in his sleep and by yesterday morning, the last thing I wanted to do was sew. And since every drop is a struggle (he needs 4 a day in each eye), I was emotionally exhausted by the time he went to bed last night and just wanted to crash. So my husband and I finally watched the series finally of "Star Trek:Voyager" on netflix and called it a night. But I was able to do some knitting yesterday.

I only had 7 rows left to knit on this shawl before we ran out to the clinic Thursday. I never got back to it that night. Happy to say I was able to finish it Friday and my daughter helped take some pictures this morning. The purple yarn was given to me for Christmas from my son. I ran out and decided to use grey to finish it off.

This shawl is for me to use around the house.

This is the Oaklet shawl and is a free pattern on ravelry.

It still needs to be blocked, which will stretch out the lace in the border.

Don't forget to visit Heidi and other FNSI participants.

QAL Switcheroo

I ended Monday's post with this photo of possible borders for the Oh My Stars QAL quilt top. Since I was thinking about one QAL, I got out the blocks for the Fat Quarter Stars QAL (FQSQAL) as well. I had 2 blocks left to make but looking at the 10 I had, I kind of fell out of love with the project. I had no desire to do the last two blocks and I didn't really want the finished quilt on a bed but on a wall. And while I looked at my two QAL's I noticed something...

... the yellow I was using for one looked good with the other. Here is the yellow that I had been using as the background for the FQSQAL beside the Oh My Stars quilt top. I like it. Debating on putting a square of space fabric in the corners - I think probably not. I cut these at 4 1/2 inches and I am hoping this will be enough of a border.

Closer look. There are dots in the yellow. 

And the orange I had been leaning towards for the Oh My Stars border is now the sashing for the FQSQAL top. I picked the first 9 and made a wall hanging. It is about 46 inches square right now. I don't think I will be adding another border. If I had made the last 2 blocks, I wouldn't have enough orange to sash them, so I'm glad I stopped at 10.

In the corners I used a green from the Frolic fabric line. I had used a brown and a white fat quarter from that line in some of the blocks. I really like the orange with these blocks. Brings out the orange in the fabrics used in some of the blocks. Going to use block #10 and some scraps to make a pieced backing. 

Our landlord is showing our house this afternoon and my tea is done. Time to get off the computer and clean-up.