Design Wall and On the Needles

I am pretending to be Judy today and stating that nothing has changed on my design wall since my last post.  I have all the first three blocks for the Alphabet BOM completed and am ready to sew the sashing on.  This will be done before the next blocks come out on Feb 1. 





And just to show that I have started on to catch up on the old BOMs, here is a new fish.  I was kind of surprised that the face fabric makes her look like she is smiling.  Since I am getting to the end of this FatCatPatterns BOM, I am beginning to think of how I want to set them and even a little about the quilting. 







I wanted to show a close-up of the orange fabric.  It is embroidered batik and I think it adds a lot to the texture of the fins.  I am going to put fray-check on the cut-off areas of the embroidery because I think it will ravel with washing.  I used a similar fabric on a quilted jacket and it has worn well so I was pleased to find a use for at least a little part of this fabric, too.










This is how far I had gotten on my first toe-up socks when I decided that I had been so busy trying to learn the M1L and M1R increase that I didn’t pay attention to the pattern about how many stitches I needed on each needle.  I love this yarn but the socks are going to be too small.  So I took the advice of several knitters and unraveled them.  I will be restarting them later this week.







Meanwhile I had sent for a selection of new needles and wanted to try them so I decided to start a new pair of toe-up socks.  This time I paid close attention to not only the increase technique, which was much easier now, but how many stitches I had.







I also worked very hard to have the yarn coming out of each yarn ball with the same colors.  Look, so far the stripes match.  I don’t really care if they are perfectly matched but I would like them to be close.  The toes are finished so now it is on to the instep and then I get to learn a new heel.  The fun never stops here.

Speaking of fun, our granddaughter and her son moved from AL to NC this weekend.  The family here is struggling to begin the adjustment of having the 5 year old, who has been the center of attention his whole life, living 700 miles away.  But we are also hoping that this is a beginning to a wonderful new life for them.

And now it is time for me to get ready to hunker down for the snow and ice that is about to descend on us tomorrow.  I am doing laundry today as well as getting a little sewing room setup in the house so I don’t have to go outside for anything except to provide relief for the dogs.

Hope everyone has a great, and warm, week.  See ya later:  Gari