FINISH! and a Wednesday WIP.

I couldn't be happier with this little baby, unless of course it was staying here with us. Once I got past my quilting block, I rolled and it's exactly how I envisioned it in my head. Isn't it nice when things work out that way?? Sadly - or hopefully happily for a friend - this is going off to live with a new baby girl. I could definitely see whipping up another of these.  In fact, I think I could probably take orders. . .

Stats -
*Background is Kona cotton in Aloe (Love! Could buy by the bolt!)
*The rest are Kona solids and prints from my stash
*52" square
*Based on a 12" block found here

I've also been busy working on this duffel bag for my upcoming trip to NYC. I've moved past most of the frightening (to me) instructions and now I'm just finishing up the side pieces. I'll post more pics and info when it's all done, hopefully this weekend. But I'm scooting in just under the wire to post for WIP Wednesday.


xoxoxoxo

Not a lazy Sunday

I'm finally getting around to working on this quilt again. I'm not sure what the hold up has been but I've had this total block against it. Plus all this week I've been in a totally crappy mood - so my poor little Bernina hasn't been on since last weekend - but it seems that's behind me now.

I should be finished with the quilting in a few hours and then can plop myself on the sofa with hours and hours of hand sewing that binding on ahead of me. With all of the handwork I've been doing lately I'm getting much speedier at my stitches. My plan is to have this all finished so that I can take it to my guild splinter group meeting on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, I never made a chance to call in on the Farmer's Wife this week so it looks like next week I'll be working on the double double.

xoxoxoxo

Back on track - sort of

I finally finished this sweater that I've been working on for months. It shouldn't have taken me as long as it did but I got spooked by having to pick up stitches at the cap sleeves and neck. It was so easy though.  Knit in the round, bottom up. Even the collar and cuffs were simple. I'm not entirely sure yet that I'm in love with the buttons that I chose but they're growing on me. And easily changed if I decide I really don't like them.

One weird thing happened with this sweater though. I got six skeins of Rowan yarn when I was heavily coerced by those evil Mason-Dixon ladies into joining the Rowan Society.  (And when I say heavily coerced, I mean that they mentioned that they joined on their blog and showed pictures of the yarn and magazine and I was helpless to the charms.  I'm easily led and I want to be a cool kid too. I did not re-up this year.  They didn't have another blog post making me think that I needed it.) It was the perfect yarn. And almost enough. I realized about 3/4 of the way through that I was going to need another skein to finish. I ordered it but of course it turned out not to be the same dye lot. It looked the same when I got it but as I got closer to actually needing it, I realized that it was ever so slightly off. Fortunately, I saved the rogue skein for the very last bit of the collar so there is about an inch at the edge of the collar that is a hair off of being the right color. I'm hoping that since it's on the edge it'll look intentional.  Maybe???

Free pattern found here. My only one tiny issue - and I knew this going in - is that the sweater is very boxy. It sort of accentuates that five pounds I desperately need to lose. . . Not the sweater's fault and I'm working on it.

So in addition to finally finishing the sweater last week, I also made up with my good friend, the Farmer's Wife. Here are my offerings, but I'm still woefully behind. I think I have to double up for the next six weeks to catch back up to where I need to be. Yikes.
Farmer's Wife blocks - Week 19
Completed
Goal: 145
Current: 36

25%

26 Cut Glass Dish

27 Darting Birds

28 Duck and Ducklings

29 Economy

30 End of Day

31 Evening Star

116 Balkan Puzzle
Pattern found here - http://www.quilt.com/BlockOfTheMonth/1997/BalkanPuzzle.html

xoxoxoxo

A long way to go

This is the start of a story about how this -

became this -

which would soon become lots of these. I can't imagine why these colors are so far off. We even tried pulling it into photoshop to correct the color and those pomegranate hexies will only look some form of red. Rest assured, those are pomegranate - a really lovely deep fushia. And on either side is a charcoal grey and a medium tone grey. I think I'm going to have to get it into sunshine so that you'll really be able to see the color. But I'm trying to keep to the goal of posting about this project at the first of every month and I don't want to smash my goal on the very first month.

AAAAHHHHH!! As much as I love my Go! Baby cutter, there is so much waste!

Facts -
1.  There are 1083 hexagons in this quilt top. I've made 36 so far so that means I'm 3.3% through the top.
2.  I'm doing all of these by hand.
3.  My plan at the moment is that I want to quilt these by hand. We'll see if I'm still up for the challenge when I finish the top.
4.  It's will be king sized when it's all done.
5.  The fabric is (in order from right to left) Kona cotton in Bahama Blue, Aloe, Medium Grey, Pomegranate, Charcoal and Bahama Blue again. I'll also be using Peacock but haven't gotten to that strip yet.
6.  I'm already starting to question my sanity and ask who thought this was a good idea and why did my good friends not stop me/have me committed?

All that aside, I think I'm in love with it, even if it is completely exhausting and I still have 96.7% left to go.

(I love the way the shadow echoes the side of the fabric.)

That's it for now, peeps. I'm off to cut more fabric for yo-yos and another secret-ish quilt and get a little closer to finishing MY VERY FIRST SWEATER!!!  Yippee!!!!

xoxoxoxo