Quilt Again

I loaded up the only quilt top that I had enough backing for-

all of my fabrics are smaller pieces because I have used up the bigger ones!

Anyway,  I loaded it up and started quilted free hand this time.

It uses a completely different part of my brain

than when  I use a pantograph and trace the pattern with the laser!

Life is Precious

 The sock-that-never-ends did get finished!

It is knit on a 2.0 mm needle and so it is a very tight knit

which feels good and cushiony on my feet now 

but that is the reason it took longer-well, that and the misery 

over the heel 3x and the fact that it was top down (not my favorite way)

and I finished it once already but it was too short and so I had to rip out  the toe

and add another inch of foot and do the toe again.......

 I only had 3 yards leftover--I am relieved I was able to get one sock out of this skein 

but it was a close call.

 Speaking of a close call -

Bill was standing to the right of the orange tree 

when he heard a CRACK overhead

and was able to move just enough to get brushed by the branches

instead of being crushed by the 1000+lbs of Live Oak wood.

Hurricanes weaken trees with their wind and rain-

Matthew, Irma and Dorian took their toll on this one.

We will cut it back to nothing but trunk and let it sprout out new growth-

we don't trust its long graceful branches anymore!

In a lighter train of thought, 

I cast on the second Gansey sock-

I'm hoping I will knit this one with a LOT less drama. 

Because I really want to knit Fall socks with THIS yarn instead!

TNT

 I am loving the embroidery;  consequently, I am doing a lot of it!

 These two free Christmas designs are from CozyBlue;

I used #3 embroidery cotton.

And I have the next design to start today!

(Since these embroideries are done with heavier home spun type fabric,

I had to use Kim's trick of using water soluble stabilizer to draw

my design, stitch through it and then wash it away when finished!)

Curcuma Beauty

 Look at how beautiful this plant it is!

It is a perennial; 

one I had never heard of but I loved the height and long blooming time for this plant.

It is doing great and I love learning about a new plant!

 Here is something I don't do too often--bake!

It is a Ghirardelli Brownie mix--Caramel Turtle--but you put the mix into cupcake papers,

saving the caramel for the frosting. 

 The recipe is on the box--it has been tempting me for months so

I gave it a go today when my youngest son and family came for a visit today--it was beyond superb!

Give it a try!

And after a day of snuggles, fun and swimming,

I enjoyed a good sit and knit on my socks that will never end!

A Honey Pot

 I enjoyed putting this quilt top together--
a very nice  sized lap quilt of 36" x 48"
Now this is the 4th finished little top and I need to get to the fabric store
 to buy some appropriate backings. 
This one needs a real bee fabric!

 I also finished off the skein when making the hat with a pom-pom.
now this will be the first of many sets for the donation pile!

And the hibiscus are still very happily putting out a bloom every few days-
isn't it beautiful!?

Cleaning up; Post-Dorian

 The front porch has been reorganized, cleaned and thinned down--it is easy to get too many pots

along the long walk and it closes in on me!  

Tomorrow, I will begin to weed the garden in front of the porch--

I have to take advantage of the early morning because the temperatures are going to soar again.

 I did something for the sheer joy of it--I bought a fairy house with a few residents!

I put a little frog inside (figurine not real!) for a surprise.

I set this on the base of a big pot holding my Corn Plant.

 When I was completely exhausted, 

I cooled off in the pool and then came in to knit a pair of mittens!

That is too funny to me!  

I couldn't imagine needing to wear a pair of these any time soon!

I used an acrylic skein for these charity mittens-

 The mittens won't match but will be fun to wear, I think. 

 These will fit a 8-10 year old.

See what I mean!  

I want to see if I can get a pair of mittens and a matching hat from the one skein.

The mittens are style one from a machine knitting course I am doing right now.

It is good to learn something new each week or so!

What have you learned this week?!

Ogre's Ears!

 Isn't this a pretty succulent?!

It is called Ogre's Ears!  What a great name.

It is a gift from my neighbor;  

I hope it is hardy because I would really like this one to make it!

 I enjoyed building my honeycombs yesterday--they go together more slowly because of the Y seams but at least they are going together very accurately!

And Gladys about did me on on that foolish heel!

Give me a toe-up sock any day!!!!!!!!

The heel and gusset gobbled up much more yarn, it was thick and clunky,

and the numbers didn't work out over and over.

I ripped it out and did a short row heel and now I am way down the foot!

Knitter, know thyself!

I might just knit the other sock toe-up and see how it turns out! HA!

Bee Sweet

 I cut out a bunch of golden blocks for a honeycomb--

this lap quilt will be for a friend who is a beekeeper!

The first of the bands from Dorian make itself known.

Turn up the volume-you can hear the wind/driving rain.

TNT

The little embroidery from Wal-Mart,

a JanLynn Needlecraft Design,

is finished and ready to hang on the wall.

There is only one little hitch-I don't have a hoop to mound it in!

One is too large and the other too small!

It will rest in this one until I can get out to the store again!

I can wait!

I'm also forcing myself to work on this old, old, old crewel kit.
If it didn't have a pattern of so much satin fill stitch,
I would just do this in outline stitch and enjoy it more.
I still might play with breaking up this pattern
so I will finally finish it.
This is a kit to make a purse-
I even have the hardware still after all of these decades!

The Results are Socks

 The machine knit tube over 60 needles has become a pair of socks!

These are customized socks for my oldest granddaughter, Abigail!

Made from two skeins (1 1/2 really) of KnitPicks Felici yarn in the Great Gatsby colorway.

Since this is still experimental to me,

I didn't think to repeat the colors to the right point to make

the socks matching but she won't mind, 

I hope! lol

I used the same knitting pattern to decrease the toes and heels-

Kitchener stitching to close both..

I have cast on a new pair of socks to be made by hand this time-

I am missing some fancy stitching!

I am knitting Gladys by General Hogbuffer.

The Flax colorway from  Paton Kroy yarn.

#1 needles (2.25mm) over 64 stitches.

More to come but if I go silent-

know I am well ;

just in the middle of a 

visit with Dorian!

Getting the Blocks Lined Up!

It was a sewing day, since I considered we might be out of power soon

and I knew I could knit but not finish the things on the design wall!

 And here is the little bit of Noah's Ark fabric cut into hexies for this lap quilt!

 I even stitched  into the header block in case anyone missed the point! 

And next I pulled a bunch of gold fabric for another hexagram quilt=

this time with no star points-just all bee hive looking is the goal!

I can cut the fabric all up if the power goes out, too, with the Accuquilt.

Finishes

 Succulent heart embroidery is now in pillow form!

The design is from Emblibary called For the Love of Succulents.

I rearranged all of the colors from the original to suit my fancy.

 The partially worked scrap quilt  from my Mom (but not made by her) is made into a top now.

If the storm doesn't knock out power, I will be loading it up on the frame today.

It does have a few wonky spots that will need easing in so I can quilt it without wrinkles

which will make a challenge but I am hoping for the best!

I put the neck rib on the sweater in the same k3, p1 rib as the cuffs and body hem.

I hope it is long enough.  

Granddaughter # 3 is long as well as tall!

If it isn't, I will add rib in the lighter grey like the neck rib.

I might just do that anyway now that I write this-long is always better than short!

Hurricane Dorian Update

Outside, we are continuing to prepare the house and yard for Dorian--

everything that could be  a missile is moved into the garage, 

hanging pots and all of the porch plants are moved up close to the house.

All lawn furniture and lanai chairs are hauled away 

and the plants there are moved up close to the house.

I will have to remember to remove the wind chimes from outside of my bedroom 

which I  didn't removed until 3 am during Irma and it wasn't pretty!  

Every day I see something else that I hadn't noticed which needs removing or securing.

I am trying not to think about putting it all back next week yet, either!

Inside, the laundry is caught up and the pantry is stocked-

even the cats' food is aplenty!

There is easy access to burgers,

taco fixings and hotdogs.

The grill has a back-up propane tank in case we can use that in between bands of rain.

Looking Up

  This sweatshirt sweater went  together the way it is supposed to !

Amazing how much more pleasurable a project is when it is the right size! 

 Bill and I celebrated his stitch removal with a dinner date yesterday--

and enjoyed the blue skies and fluffy clouds before Dorian hits. 

No longer scary looking-the big blue wires are a thing of the past--look----------->

Just tender newly healed skin--no gaping holes or peeking into the parts of the elbow

 that are better left to the imagination!

Just in time because we have a bunch of hurricane preparations to finalize!

You Just Never Know

 Yesterday, after morning perk-up on the house, 

I didn't feel like doing any work on that quilt 

so I organized my threads (ha!) for a new pillow cover!

It is almost the end of August and I haven't made the pillow-for-the month yet!

Almost everything went wrong from the start! 

 For example, my computer decided that it didn't like my thumb drive; 

 I had 'errors on the driver' that needed repairing-so I 'fixed' them.

Then I could read all of the patterns on the thumb drive when I plugged it into my sewing machine except for the one I needed!

The design I spent an hour changing the colors around to match what thread I had on hand.

I finally figured out how to back door fool it into taking the design and began stitching.

 In between arguments with the program, I decided to knit up a new sweater for granddaughter #3

who needs a new sweatshirt style sweater because she outgrew the one I made her at Christmas.

This is a worsted weight yarn by Yarn Bee. 

 (I love their baby yarn and discovered this cake in the right colors!)

I measured it with the gauge ruler and by counting and happily came out exactly the same both ways.

A good beginning.

I happily knit the back and when I took it off the machine, 

I had that funny feeling that it was too short.

I switched to the knitting the sleeve since I had enough yardage to knit a front/sleeve from one cake and back/sleeve from the other-this way they would all be a close match.

Sure enough, that sleeve looked short, too.

When I scoured the pattern I found that I had changed the gauge info on the pattern for the new yarn but hadn't increased the SIZE of the sweater.

It's all ripped out to try again today.

Some days.... 

When coming out of church last night, there was a beautiful flash in this cloud!

I tried for several minutes while sitting in the car to capture the pretty flash but I missed every time.

I'm looking forward to a new day--Bill starts it out by getting rid of his elbow stitches!

The home aide nurse will take them out so we don't have to go to the doctor's office;  

that's a good thing.

He spent yesterday working on our generator in case this hurricane really is as bad as the Weather Station says--if the run on the grocery stores is any indication, it is the end of the world.

Just so you understand!

Work in Progress

How nice to have a piecing marathon yesterday!

Only three more blocks to go and then I can sew these together and add borders!

I hope to get that stage finished today!

This Tuesday

  The Christmas in July QAL have been quilted and bound!

The quilting machine works better than before I hit that pin and messed with the timing!

We also extracted a  piece of a pin from the hook assembly 

(the housing for the bobbin to go into) 

which was preventing us from getting things to turn correctly!

Such a little piece of pin but it stopped the machine cold!

There is a lesson there!

I will look forward to getting this quilt out for use this Christmas!

(which is a very funny thought as we are still in the 90's here!)

(I will rejoin Teeny Needle Tuesday next week

 when I have some more stitching done!)

Garter and Cables FO

 Yes, I finished knitting the sleeves to Mom's sweater and seamed them in place!

 The back of the sweater is full of cables and the garter rib pattern, too.

She did a stunning job of knitting the main body portion of the sweater

 and even seamed it and attached the collar.

There are no buttons on the front because she always wears the sweater open-her preference-

and while the collar looks good on the manikin in the upright position,

she will not wear it this way either. 

 When you grow up, you get to chose your style and stick to it!

It didn't take long to see a problem developing;  the sleeves seemed to be growing!

Sure enough, they are 1" longer then when I knit them.....this yarn, Mellowspun DK, grows!!!

This was the problem in the first place; 

the pattern calls for knitting the sleeve 18 1/2" before binding off for the underarm! 

 I don't know about you but that is a very long sleeve for my petite Mom

hence my reason for rescuing the sweater, and making the adjustment for her!

I think I have a plan of action-I am going to hem the bottom of the sleeve by 1" 

after a few days of resting on the manikin 

to be sure it won't be growing any longer than this!