Thursday, July 19, 2007

Color!

I think that lately I have had a yearning for some color in my life. Just look at what I worked on Friday night:


This kind of comes under the heading of "bright enough for you?"
It's a rag quilt, so called because the seam allowances are on the outside and they're snipped every half inch so that they will ravel and fray and be extra-cozy. There is a layer of batting between the squares of flannel, except in the four-patches, so it is nice and warm and satisfyingly heavy when you curl up in it. I do think this one is destined for a grandchild--the colors are just fab.

This is a kit from Malibu Quiltworks, which specializes in flannels of all sorts. They have dozens of pre-cut squares--you can even buy the batting pre-cut, which I think is the bee's knees since there is something rather soul-sucking about cutting yards and yards and yards of batting into squares.
And yes, I will take pictures of the other side of it once it's snipped and washed--the sewing and laying out of this type of quilt is definitely the easy part!
There's been some other colors coming into my life, too. ET was apparently busy a couple of weeks ago, because first there was a package from See Jayne Knit and then there was one from Little Knits. (By the way, NAYY, just a happy customer. Or at least ET is!)
First, this wonderful alpaca from SJK. Color is Cafe au Lait and it's soooo soft and silky it's almost smooth enough to drink up.
Next up is her Clematis, a huge honkin' 175-g of delicious superwash BFL (Blue Face Leicester) yarn that must have come from an extremely pampered sheep. How else to get the yarn so yummy soft? The colors are wonderful, too, although I have to say they make me think of watermelon rather than clematis. That may be because the clematis on my back fence are lavender.

This may well become a Clapotis. I was not tempted by the pattern till I was in Paris and saw a billboard using the word. It stuck in my head, and now I need to knit one.
Baaaa!
So, more BFL, this time from Fleece Artist. One skein in Blackberry and one in Autumn. Also a hank of Sea Wool in Autumn.

It came with a sock pattern, but will probably become a nice cozy scarf. Perhaps Branching Out or the Dayflower would look nice in this colorway--I'll have to see what happens when I start knitting it up.
The BFL is (I think) destined for some multi-directional knitting. I've been wanting to experiment with that, and I think these colorways will look good. As much as I love handpainted and variegated yarns, and as much as I love knitting lace, I don't always like the way the two work together. But after doing Lady Eleanor with the Rowan Tapestry (yes, #2 is almost done--she's only got 3 more tiers till she's completely knit, so she's warm and heavy to work on in this weather!) I am totally enamored of finding the right patterns to show off the brilliant colorways!
Don't know why I'm feeling like making nice cozy stuff in the heat and humidity we've been having. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, hoping that this year we'll actually have winter. I love winter!!
Ah well. Time to go wind some more yarn--I am trying to get all my new yarns posted into Ravelry as they come in, wind them into balls, and put them in my Ravelry queue with the pattern I'm looking at. If you're on Ravelry, do check out my progress and, as Mr. Rogers would say, be my friend! With all the yarn I have, I really do need to work on getting it listed and organized and maybe even (horrors!) weeded out.
Working on the same thing with my fabric stash. Sigh. One of these days I may get brave enough to share photos of that with you. Don't worry, I will post a warning at the top of the post!
Counting down till my copy of HP7 gets here! The really ironic thing is that I, who normally have NOTHING TO DO on Saturdays (and thus would be able to spend the entire day on the sofa with THE book) have three events on Saturday the 21st. Sigh. Oh well, I'm sure I can survive till late evening--at least, I hope I can! (And no, I will not be in line at midnight in costume. There are limits to my love for Harry, and costumes cross wayyyy over that line!)
And what are YOUR plans for Saturday??