Surprised

I just finished three-days-in-a-row at work. All three were very busy nights. I feel like a slug today. The plan is to blog a bit, hang out on the computer catching up, watch The Big Bang Theory and knit on my Kate Shopping Shawl, and then maybe work on some piecing for a bit and then hit the sack. Exciting, no? I don't know how I keep up.

In relation to the title of this post, what surprised me is how productive I managed to be on Sunday. I finished piecing three blocks for the Civil War Stars. I really, really, really love these blocks. Although I have expanded my stash into batiks and modern fabrics, my true love is repro fabrics and traditional quilting though I don't do traditional hand piecing and hand quilting. I'm pretty certain that had our foremothers had electricity and a sewing machine, many of them would have opted to machine piece. And, I don't have any qualms about machine quilting a quilt. Unless I have to do it. The thought of stuffing a ginormous queen-sized quilt through my machine gives me the vapors. I don't have a problem with sending it out.

Looks like I'm off on a tangent again. Back to Sunday. So, I finished working on some partially pieced Civil War Stars, and I managed to knit a fair amount of my Kate Shopping Shawl while watching Food Network Star and Falling Skies. Love both of those shows, and thank God that Penny Davidi was given the heave-ho last week. What was with her? "Bring back sexy to the kitchen"? Ugh. Not working, So, "Stilettos in the Kitchen"? Then, "Middle Eastern Mama"? Yikes. First of all, I don't usually feel very sexy in the kitchen. I don't want to vamp it up while I'm sauteeing shrimp. One extra thought wanders across your mind, and damn, you have rubberized shrimp. Then, who the hell wants to cook while wearing stilettos? Didn't that go out with Donna Reed and the Beaver's mom? Third, she didn't come across as a Mama, unless it was Ma Barker (google her if you don't know the name). Penny always made me think of Phil Collin;s deep dark song "Mama". There was nothing warm and fuzzy about this crazy woman, I figured she was a goner the week she started meowing and hissing at Mary Beth at the end of the show in front of the judges panel. But no, she hung on a bit longer.

Geez, my mind is really wandering today isn't it? The really big surprise on Sunday was that I managed to finish piecing my 1930's repro fabric Spring quilt. I don't have any pictures yet because this quilt is huge, and I need a couple of tall people to hold it up for me to get a good shot of it. I still have to applique the vines in the large white triangles, but that shouldn't take too long, unless I decide not to do it, in which case it won't take any time at all. I decided not to do applique flowers - I did yo-yo flowers, and I think it was a good choice. I like the way they look - a bit fun, and not too serious. The light, bright colors of this quilt make me think of fun, and I think the yo-yo's are right in line with that. I have to get the binding together, but I can do that while this creation is out at the quilters.

Yay for progress!

Knitting At Night...

...which was the original intent of this blog, after all. I haven't been doing too much of quilting or knitting lately, mostly just wiped out by this stupendously hot weather, and general lethargy. I hate summer for a reason. I have no energy at all, even though I'm in central air conditioning most of the time.

Anyhoo, I'm sure that all two of you who read this blog saw the picture of the Duchess of Cambridge taken right after her marriage - off on a shopping trip to the local supermarket. While that may be amazing enough, that a Royal would go off food shopping, what was really amazing was that gorgeous green ruffled shawl she tossed over her jeans and white t-shirt. Like 98 million other women, I instantly coveted that shawl. And where else to go to look for a pattern but Ravelry? I found two that I liked. One is very true to what she was wearing, done in 2300 yards (!) of lace yarn on size 1 needles; the other is a similar one done in a worsted weight on size 8 needles. Well, wanting a bit of instant gratification (and also because I don't have any suitable lace yarn in my stash), I started on the one done in worsted. Just so happens I had 4 skeins of Patons wool in my stash.

Not in the color I wanted, of course, but a denim-y heathered blue, which will at least go with the jeans that I spend 90% of my life in. Of course, now all I have to do is lose some weight, get some decent hair, and drop 30 years from my life and then I can look like Kate!

I've been looking for lace weight yarn; I forgot how expensive it is! Normally, spending $23 for a skein of yarn for a shawl will not make my hair stand on end - it's a pretty reasonable price for a shawl. However, since I need 2300 yards, that translates to 4 or 5 skeins, which is going to break the bank for me, unless I want to give up eating for a while. And come to think of it, I DID want to lose some weight...

The first picture is the closest in color to the actual yarn I'm using. Unfortunately, my camera chose to focus on the skein, and not the project, which I didn't notice til I uploaded. I'm feeling way too lazy to set this up again, so the second shot was taken at the same time, just without flash. It's a bit more green than the yarn, but it shows off the detail a little better.

I'm still qilting. Still working on green pyramids, and I have started pinning the last few rows of my 1930's sunshine quilt together. Ireally want to be done with that quilt. I just need to sew on the last few rows, and then applique the vines. I'm doing the flowers for the vines as yo-yo's, so they will be attached after this quilt is quilted. This quilt is pretty big, so I think I'm sending it out to a quilter. I have a lot of other tops in various stages of piecing, so I'd rather work on them.

Sweet Pea

A squick return to the original intent of this blog, knitting. The Susan B. Anderson "Sweet Pea" baby hat, for a coworker. Pattern available on Ravelry.

Break Time!

Taking a quick break from quilting to go back to the original intent of this blog - knitting! One of my coworkers is having a baby girl next week, so I'm knitting a baby hat for her. Or trying to, at least. I've knitted this hat several times in the last few months, but this is a variatin with a peapod on top. I started knitting the other night, but messed up while watching My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Honestly, that show is like watching a train wreck - I can't look away. So anyway, pulled it off the needles, and then restarted on a 16" circular. Ugh. I didn't like the way it knitted on that needle, so pulled it off and restarted on dpns. Knitting merrily away, and Mica comes into the room, sees what I'm doing, crouches down, wiggles that butt, and takes a flying leap into my lap. 15 pounds of pussycat landing in your lap at high velocity hurts, let me tell you. He snatches the yarn in his mouth, jumps off, yanks, and the entire thing comes off the needles. Grrr. Another restart. I'd have had the damn thing done if I didn't have to do restarts. I'll post a shot of it when I'm done. In the meantime, this is the last hat I knitted. It's the Upside Down Daisy Hat from Susan Anderson's Itty-Bitty Baby Hats.

What I Did Today

Yarn swift in action, half of the yarn wound up, the rest waiting in line, and no cats tangled in it!


Gremlin taking a well-deserved nap. We all know how tough it is to supervise yarn winding.


Megan demonstrating how to drink from the new cat foundtain without sloshing water all over the floor or one's front fur, like some of those sloppy guys do.


More storm action from the passage of Hurricane Noel yesterday in Long Branch.

Last Christmas, as usual, my kids asked what I wanted for the holidays. As usual, I didn't have a clue. Finally, about two days before Christmas, I mentioned that I would like an umbrella swift and a ball winder. Keep in mind we're talking about five boys here. With minimal explanation and confusion, they not only figured out what I was talking about, but they actually managed to find these items locally. Turned out to be two of the best and most useful gifts I've gotten.

Since I was still feeling rotten today, most likely from the same illness that featured yesterday's dreams about delivering babies in France, I just hung around the house today, except for a quick trip to Dunkin' Donuts. Gotta have that coffee. Did a blogslog for a while, checked out Flickr, and then decided to get busy winding up that Philosopher's wool I want to knit.

Before the swift and winder arrived in my house, I used to put on a clean pair of socks, drape the skein of yarn over my feet, sit on the couch, prop my feet on the coffee table, and wind. It would take me 20-30 minutes to wind each skein that way, counting time it took to occasionally detangle the yarn from itself, or the odd cat whose curiosity got the best of him. Granted, it was also pretty aerobic, because I had to keep stretching forward to fiddle with the yarn draped on my tootsies. However, at 20-30 minutes per skein, you can see this was time consuming for 11-14 skeins of yarn. Quite an investment in time. I'd rather be spending that time knitting. Now, I can wind 11 skeins in less than 30 minutes, and that counts the time it takes to detangle a curious cat from the yarn leading from the swift to the winder. Mr. B, Muffin, and Gremlin were today's helpers.

Now I just have to get motivated to start knitting this stuff. It's Sunday night, and Sunday night tv is the pits. Nothing on I want to watch, and I've already watched AMC's Madmen on demand a ton of times; I need to see the first episodes, and they aren't on On Demand at his point in time.