Many Things

 I will start this blog post out with a picture of our really cute great granddaughter, Scarlett, who turned 1 year old today.  She is so much fun to show as she loves the camera as much as the camera loves her.

 I have been knitting.  Here you can see the two front pieces of the cardigan I am currently working on.  And I hope you can see where I have started the increases on both sides of the slip stitch.  These increases will be the beginning of the wide collar.  I have to say I am really impressed with my ability to knit both fronts with the opposing increases.  On the other hand it has been pretty easy and I again will credit having learned to knit two socks at the same time.
                                                                                                               

And speaking of socks, here are my leftover socks.  I have completed one heel and half of the other.  I hope to be done with these this week as I really want to wear these very colorful socks. 

I think I will be making more of these, they are really fun to do. 

I have done a little sewing.  

~

These are some simple blocks

I am making for some easy sewing, trying to get back to it.  I have several applique blocks I need to be working on but I need to get my cutting table cleared off before I can work on them.

The centers of these blocks are these

charm squares that I have had for

quite some time and didn't come up

with an idea for them.  They are being

sewn onto some 2 1/2" strips.  I am

trying to make them as different from

each other as possible.

This is my design wall.  The interesting thing about it is that it hasn't changed since Spring.  Well, that's not quite true.  Some of the blocks that were on it have fallen off and I haven't yet been able to pick them up off the floor and put them back.  However, I am feeling so much better that I am hoping that I will soon be more productive in my quilting again.  I did take the bobbin out of my Handi Quilter and start to  see if I could figure out why the thread is being cut while I was quilting.  And then I will begin to work on the quilts that became UFOs when I became sick.  And then I will have something new on my design wall, I hope.

But for now I will leave you with this terrific picture of Abby, the sweetheart who sleeps under the covers of my bed.  She has to have her nose outside the covers and I think she thinks she can't be seen.  But on this morning she could be seen twice, on the bed and in the mirror.  I had a pretty good laugh before I could get up and start my day.

Please forgive the mess this post appears to have.  Blogger is making it very difficult to write my post and I have been unable to upload a post from Live Writer.  But despite this: have a great week, I plan to.  Gari

                                                            

Reorganization

My design wall does not change much these days but I am beginning to sew my blocks together.  By this time next week I hope to have several more together and maybe even a flimsy.


















I spent several days moving furniture out of this area while I prepared to move 3 white bookshelves in.



























Then I emptied a bookshelf in the room next door and began moving it into the cutting and knitting room.  You may notice that there is not a lot of wiggle room to slide this piece of furniture through.


























And the space didn’t get any bigger as we moved along.  I should explain that I had by this time moved all my fabric stash out of the former storage areas so it was filling the cutting table, a couple of laundry baskets, and an executive office chair …… with some overflowing.






















  I finally got that shelving unit in place while DH built two more new sets and all three were finally in the room on Friday.  The began the task of putting the fabric on the shelves.  You may be able to see that I have uncovered almost half of the cutting table.









And I am slowly filling up all the space.  I put all the batiks in the first section.  Oh, my,they almost glow.  The rest are being filled with quilter’s cotton.  Every time I move from room to room I try to carry a small pile of fabric. 

At the rate I am going I should have it all on the shelves by 2015,  that is if Bonnie Hunter’s mystery doesn’t take up all my time in December.    But really, I still have about 5 shelves worth of fabric still sitting in the other room, waiting for me to make bunches of trips so I guess I better get busy. 
Gari


As usual I am linking with Patchwork Times.

It’s Monday so Here We Go Again

Here is my design wall today.  The only owls up there are the last ones that need to be appliqued: they are there to remind me to get them done this month.  The BOM of the week is the Alphabet BOM. 






They are being nicer this month and there are only two blocks  this month.  Here is a picture of the pieced part of the blocks, which I have not yet started.






I did get the letters drawn and fused to the fabric, ready to applique when the pieces parts are completed.








My plan is to get these blocks done this week and then do some more sewing on Celtic Solstice.  I realized, Sunday, that I can’t remember what I was doing so I also get to spend some time rereading the pattern parts.




I have been doing some knitting and got the foot and heels done on both.  I am always amazed at how easy these heels are to do, and quick.  So now all I have left is the ribbing which I do rather short.  Now I do have to tell on myself, when I started the heels on these socks, for some reason I did the heels on different sides.  It was a little confusing  but worked out in the end. 



I think this week I am going to spend some time reading through the sweater pattern I got and then maybe even cast on the beginning stitches.  I have been procrastinating starting this because I am not sure I am ready for something so big.  But I can’t just knit socks forever.




The last thing I worked on was to begin quilting my mug rugs.  I started with the background but still have the figure to do.  Everything is set up so I can do a little quilting whenever I get tired of what ever else I am doing. 




Our weekend ended very nicely.  Our granddaughter, her husband and son came from NC for a very short business trip and we were able to visit with them over breakfast Sunday morning.  She only recently moved to NC (husband is in the Marines) where she has encountered winter like she never had in AL.  It was fun to see how well they all were doing and to help send them on their way back to their new home.

And now lets get on with all the projects we have planned for this week.  I am also including some Spring Cleaning and  am planning to put together several bags of clothes and other stuff for Goodwill/Salvation Army.  I love stuff but find I am living in a world of clutter, both in the house and the studio.  So I am going to work, little by little, on clearing out some of it.

Have a great week, folks, I know I will.  Gari

BOMs in the Spotlight

My design wall shows that I am currently working on BOMs.  I have all the appliqueing done on all of the completed blocks, not an easy feat.  The blocks, again, went on the wall so that I can check out what fabrics I have used and then I can choose what I will use for the new ones, again 3 on a limb. 





I began working on my BOMs with the new letters.  I have to tell you that all those little curlicues were not easy to cut out but here they are, ready to go when the rest of the blocks are done.















 So I got busy on the B is for basket.  I have to admit that I have never made a basket block so I had to really read the directions carefully.














But I had no problem with the handle: I can do applique easy peasy.















And here we are, the basket is ready for applique.  But that will have to wait until tomorrow. 
















I have been working on mug rugs recently.  This is a free block from FatCatPatterns and an easy one for this purpose.  He is done and ready for quilting. 














And I got the applique done on the “no more coffee” mug rug.  I think this is the look I have when I go to the pot and find that DH has taken the last of the coffee and didn’t refill the pot.














I even have two more coffee MGs ready to do the applique and I have drawn two more.  These are going to be my “need to do some stitching” items.  And they make me laugh every time I look at them so they are relaxing to work on.

Here, in the Deep South, we have finally gotten some nice weather.  Today I was able to sit on the deck, with the sun shining and the temp at 72F, and knit.  And we are supposed to have 60 – 70F weather for at least the next week and I am cheering!

I hope everyone who reads this has a great week.  My plan is to sew, knit, sew, knit, and sew some more.  Gari

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