Ohhh Emmm Geeee....

The UFO list has added a few more items today. I made a strategic error in judgment, apparently. Let me explain.

Last time I did laundry, I got to poking around at some of the tubs that are living in the garage. There are racks out there, and I store things on them like Christmas decorations, Halloween stuff--you know, all the seasonal and storage sorta things that I want to keep but don't necessarily have room for in the house. This is also complicated by the fact that there are still boxes out there that were packed when we did the big house reno a few years ago. (Okay, it was in 2008. That's a few.) Some of  the tubs are clear, which has been my choice for a while, but some are opaque.  There were two on the rack across from the washer and dryer, one green and one purple.

I thought maybe the green one was my project box from one of my Asilomar classes, but it turned out to hold glass. Whew. Not  that glass isn't a problem of a sort,  but at least it isn't quilts.

Which is what turned out to be in the purple tub. Oh. Em Gee. Guess I have a few things to add to the UFO list.

Ruthie's Jacket, front

Ruthie's Jacket--Back

The reason for the pictures of Ruthie's jacket--Ruth was my mother-in-law, and I made the jacket for her--is to explain this first project. You can see it's mostly laid out ready to be quilted.

Remember back when quilted jackets were all the rage? Gail Abeloe has a wonderful pattern that was all the rage. Well, I couldn't (of course) just make squares-on-point for my jackets. Of course not.

I think I made four or five of them. Ruthie's was the plainest--she loved navy blue and red and chickens and roosters. Meg's had teeny tiny blocks, the largest I think was only an inch or so across.  Anyway, t his is the pieces for another jacket which never quite got finished. So what should I do with it? I'm tempted to quilt it, cut it down to quilt or wall hanging size, or maybe turn it into a purse or tote bag.  There's too much work in it to abandon it, but I'm certainly not going to make a jacket out of it.

At least not to that pattern.

Moving on:

Quilt. All quilted, just needs binding. I can do this.

I think this one was going to be a class sample. The colors are much more vivid in person--but it will make a nice lap quilt.

A quilt historian could probably date it from the fabrics. The peacock feather is a version of the Liberty print that was ubiquitous in its day--but it's a cotton.

At least, it just needs binding, as does this little Christmas tree wall hanging.

Can't remember now if there was going to be embellishments on this, or if it was just going to feature that really cute fabric.

Closeup of the fabric didn't come out too well--not sure why the color washed out so much, because this wasn't flash and it was just bright daylight.

Oh well, the colors in the f ull tree picture are much closer to the real thing. Now to find some binding that will work on  it.


This pinwheel quilt is just a top--no backing fabric with it. I love the deep plums and navy, and the print. Adding it to my to-be-quilted pile.

Houses anyone?? For some reason,there are two of  these little house quilts. I had to take a picture of them folded side by side so you can see there really are two of  them!

Again, just tops.

I am pretty sure these were class samples, back in the old Bearly Stitchin' days, when there were two shops and therefore two samples were de rigueur  I'm undecided about finishing these as is--they're a bit of an awkward size. I'm thinking of taking one of them apart, and adding a third row to the other top then finishing the rest of the blocks as two wall hangings.

Or I could just finish them up the way they are--they'd work on the back of a sofa or chair. Maybe largish wall hangings?

I dunno. For now they are going in the to-be-quilted pile.

Which is threatening to burst out of its tub. (A clear tub. I've learned my lesson about putting things in opaque containers!)


Cats!

Had to take a couple of closeups of this one--there's a lot of detail on it!

Mostly the cats are pieced, but the fun little details are fused on. I kind of think this means I need to break out my satin stitch foot and some shiny threads--I don't think that quilting alone will anchor things down well enough.

I certainly have a nice collection of Sulky and other threads I could use--and it isn't THAT big a quilt.
Yes it is...

...but it's awfully cute!!

Next! I just KNEW I had used that black fabric with the silver stars in at least one quilt!

This one is all quilted and just needs binding... well, except for one detail... whoops. Yes, that's the back of this quilt: a lobster clambake. With the corner folded down and caught in the quilting. Guess I don't really wonder why this one isn't finished.
But it's an easy fix.

W

Speaking of true UFOs... this one is still very much a WIP. This was from a class at Asilomar with Ellen Anne Eddy, who is a true genius of the needle and has a very distinctive style. She's also gifted at teaching her techniques.

You know it's complicated when this is what I have to show for an entire week of sewing for upwards of 12 hours a day!!  (I was a lot  younger then.) Somewhere there is another box that has the rest of the pieces to be appliqued onto this...there's a lot of dtail work still to be done, mainly anchoring down some of those floaty lace pieces.  It's definitely going into its own clear box for one of those times when I really am feeling the muse.
In other words, not when I'm looking at this huge stack of things-to-finish.


Speaking of which, this little gem is all quilted and ready for binding. Whew!

A little Trip Around the World baby quilt. Cute, and I like the way the colors fade into each other. This was one of the classes I taught the most often, and one of my favorite patterns to work with.

So  that's today's uncoverings--I guess I'd better cut some bindings and get busy sewing them on!

Just to make things more "interesting" it seems that my desktop computer is rebelling against my habit of taking pictures, and it's telling me there's no more room to add more. Rude, huh? So I had to upload these to the laptop, which was fine for getting them onto Blogger and Flickr, but trying to write a blog on the laptop is pretty annoying. (The laptop has a bad habit of wiping out lines of text if I move my fingers just the wrong way, i.e. the way I normally type.)
So today's been a comedy of errors and hairpulling and general wailing and gnashing of teeth. Time to have some dinner and an adult beverage (or two) and work on captioning and annotating my pics on Flickr.

Also updating the sidebar with the "new" "discoveries" from today!

Small Steps Forward

First of all, here's a picture of my original Trillian scarf. The  yarn is Miss Babs Yowza in a colorway called Violets in the Grass. This is the same yarn that I'm using for the Denver Cowl that I posted last week. It's a yummy wooly weight that I think is perfect for the current "cold snap." Yes, I realize that I'm a bit spoiled here in SoCal, because when it gets cold here, well, the rest of the country would probably consider this shorts and T-shirts weather!

Trillian hadn't had  her photo taken yet, so my Ravelry project page for her is kind of naked. No more!

 Finished sewing down the binding on this quilt, even though the quilting on it isn't done  yet. It's just much more pleasant to quilt something with a clean edge--and the borders are all quilted, at least, so it made sense to go ahead and put the binding on.

 Here's the first of the four little sweaters getting its blocking bath.  And  then it's been laid out on the guest bed to dry into shape. I'm still thinking I might go ahead and toss it into the dryer--the yarn is Plymouth Encore, which is machine wash and dryable. I know better than to make sweaters for kids with busy working parents out of yarn that needs to be coddled. Plenty of time for t hat later on, when t hey can learn to do their own hand-wash-and-blocking!

I'm kidding. Well, not really--kids do grow up into people who can take care of their knits, as well as do other things like get jobs and manage t heir lives!

So it's on to the next of the little sweaters. Bet you wouldn't believe t his is for my granddaughter, huh?

So, a little progress is being made, in spite of spending a good part of the day with "Dayquil brain." Or maybe it's just sneezy-wheezy-snot-brain. Whichever it is, I'm hoping it will just go away now.

Projects...

 One of my ongoing projects involves going through my yarn stash and attempting to catalog all of it on Ravelry. The stash and project files on that site are great tools, but in some ways? Well, let's just say that they can generate even more projects!

It's a good thing  there isn't something like Ravelry for quilters. There are some sites that are trying, but for me they don't have the combination of community and useful features. Maybe someday. I keep trying them out!

Meantime, as you can see, I have had company in my efforts. Hi-Hi loves to be nearby when I'm doing something.

 Even though he will suddenly abandon me for the delights of his stinky disgusting catnip mouse, or his poor tattered teddy bear.  He's a good little buddy. I've read that Maine coons are great that way--they'll be your pal, your buddy, your nearby companion, but not your "baby."

Speaking of which, several times lately when I've been sitting in my TV chair--which is also my knitting chair, my quilting chair, whatever--I'll feel a thump and have a furry face thrust under my hand for some skritching--and it will be Shyla. She got quite comfy today while I tried to eat soup around her.

This needlepoint canvas  has been a project for quite a long while--I kitted it myself using #5 perle cotton, and it really needs to be done with #8. I took it to the shop with me, but couldn't find the range of colors I needed. I did test an area with 4 strands of floss--tried 3, but it didn't cover. I do like the #8 perle best so I think tomorrow I'll make a trek to A Stitch In Time and see what they have.

I know this isn't a  food blog, but hey, quilters and knitters and others like to eat, right? A new bakery has opened in West Covina, not too far from Middle Daughter and my sis-and-brother-in-law. Friday, I went to lunch with MD (she'd just had another iteration of her 29th birthday) and then we hit the bakery. The coffee creme brulee was dee-lish-ious!  I think, though, that next time I'll try to eat it on site. There are caramelly drips all over. Including in my gearshift where I had set the box down when I was getting in the car...

Today turned out to be a good soup day, so I made up a batch of potato-corn chowder. I was all set to make clam chowder again, but I had neither enough clams nor the clam  juice. I did  have the chowder "kit" from my Christmas stocking, though, so I figured it would be a good thing to use it up.

Had to add my own bacon, onion, garlic, cream, and chicken broth, but it came out pretty tasty. Plus, in addition to tonight's dinner, I have 4 more servings in the fridge.

 I love these little storage bowls! They hold just enough for a generous serving, they have nice tight lids, and they stack.

Last picture here is some rum-raisin toast. The bread is also from the new bakery, it's soft and fresh. I might be happier with more raisins, but this will do.

In fact, I feel a snack attack coming on. Maybe I need to go toast some bread...

Denver Cowl

Denver Cowl, a photo by marie watterlond on Flickr.

Because I didn't list enough UFOs on the sidebar over there, I just HAD to cast on something new! Well, I had t he yarn, and while the enthusiasm for the pattern was strong, I figured, why not? A girl needs lots of "group knitting" projects, n'est-ce-pas?

Call It Progress...

 His Royal Catness is supervising operations from the stairs. He hates being given t he bum's rush when I'm quilting and usually after being moved three or four times (hey, it's hard enough to maneuver a big quilt around, without adding 12 or so lbs. of cat to it!) he'll retreat to the steps and watch me from there.

You see, it's close enough so that I can reach through the bars and give him a couple of ear-skritches for being such a good kitty.

I can't get caught up on my knitting without winding some yarn. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

there just might be a couple of new projects in there, though... those two skeins of Miss Babs Yowza could become Denver Cowls.

Well, a girl needs a "group project" or two, doesn't she? At least this one does. Something that, once established, is easy to work on while chatting or waiting around for whatever.

 This will get the Tumbler quilt closer to completion, too. The last packet of precut tumblers has arrived, and joined its siblings in the project box. This is a lot of fun to piece--all the pieces being cut for me really made it easy!

Besides, there is something so satisfying about sitting and sewing row after row of strips and then putting them together.

We'll see how soon I get to it. In the meantime, you can see that t he yukata cloth quilt is on the machine...

Quilting Today

 ...yes, I know that's the name of a magazine. One I rather like!

But today, I was the one quilting. Got the Brother threaded up--my glasses are awful for threading a machine with invisible thread, that stuff just disappears... but I managed to get it done. This quilt needed some more vertical lines quilted, so I thought doing that would be a good way to get used to the machine. This is a new machine, a semi-industrial type that sews straight stitch only, and can go very very fast. Unlike my mother's industrial machine, on which I learned to sew, it does have a reverse so I can back  up if I need to. Not that I need to very often, but it's nice to have it. Very handy when sewing on binding.

This is the machine I used to sew the binding on this quilt and its counterpart. It already had the walking foot on, and I really do want to become proficient with it. I've learned that for me, the learning curve on something new--a new technique, a new machine, whatever--just can't be rushed, and once I accepted that, I've been a lot less frustrated with myself. (Not that I don't occasionally slip back!)

The plan for this quilt is to do straight almost-ditch stitching on all t he vertical lines, including the bamboo stems in two of the yukata prints. Then I'll free-motion the center panel, and  probably add some free motion work to the bamboo panels too. The batting is Warm n' Natural, so it doesn't need to be quilted too closely, so I'm not going to try to do the horizontal lines on the block strips. 

So the quilting session went along quite nicely, interspersed with jaunts out to the garage to wrangle the laundry. Then things started to go a little wonky--first, I ran out of bobbin. No problem, had another one ready to go. Then the top thread broke, and for the life of me I couldn't get the needle rethreaded.

Took that as a "sign" that maybe it was time to quit for the night, so I've shut down and put it to bed for the night. Hopefully tomorrow morning my eyes won't be too tired (and my fingers too large and klutzy) and I can once again get the needle threaded and get back to work! 

The Best-Laid Plans...

... can  have a way of going pear-shaped and toppling over in no time flat!

Today's plan including changing the bed sheets, doing some laundry, and hanging out at the sewing machine, working on some of those quilts that I've been talking about working on.

Because talking about them doesn't accomplish much, other than making me feel bad about not, actually, working on them.

Started off the day okay. Got the bed stripped, much to Hi Hi's displeasure.

He had been comfortably curled up in a nest of quilts, and resisted quite strenuously as I attempted to wrest t hem away from him.

It was a battle to get the sheets off, too, but I am still bigger and stronger than he is... and I know how to lure him off the bed by waving  the brush at him. He loves to be brushed!

So here he is, getting himself all ready for a nice long nap in the sun. I do like the way the sun throws shadows through the lace curtain to make patterns on  the bed. I was also trying to get the sheen of his fur in the sun. He still has a nice thick luxurious coat, but it's not nearly as when he was younger. Still, he's looking good for an old cat!

And this is how the rest of the day went... tried to heat up some chowder for lunch, used the microwave instead of dirtying a pan. Great idea...except. The bowl slipped out of my mitt-covered hand, dropped onto the tray, chipped off a chunk of the tray and splashed EVERYWHERE. At least the bowl survived--Fiestaware is pretty tough, and it did land on the plastic tray rather than the stove or the granite.

Now I've finished cleaning up the mess, heated up the last serving of chowder in a pan on the stove, and t he laundry is chugging merrily away out in the garage. No quilting has been attempted, though--it's been "one of those" days. When I was trying to upload my pictures, I got a message from the computer that it didn't have enough free space to upload them! Three pictures and there was no room? So it was  housecleaning-the-disk-drive time, and now it's almost dinnertime.  Going to (gulp) reheat the leftovers from last night's chicken and dumplings, and hope that they, too, don't wind up all over the outside of the stove instead of inside me.

Let the UFO Wrangling Begin!

 After listing all my UFOs (well, as many as I could lay my hands on fairly comfortably in the last couple of days) I decided that perhaps I should actually,  you know, maybe start doing something to them?

Does taking their picture and blogging about them count? I hope so--at least, it's provided a wee bit of motivation!

These two quilts are listed on the UFO list on the sidebar as "red white and blue" quilts, but they have some history to them.  If   you've been following this blog for a while, you may remember my "quilting doctors" from several years ago. Both retired--he was a pediatrician, she a pediatric nephrologist--they'd taken up quilting as an activity they could both enjoy and do as a team. It sort of worked out that she sewed, he cut and pressed and pinned. I "consulted." 

After Hurricane Katrina, moved by the plight of the displaced dialysis patients, they began making quilts to send down to their colleagues in the affected areas.  A group of us would get together and team-sew, producing a lot of quilts out of our "ugly fabrics"--lots of scrappy Log Cabins and 9-patches and Yellow Brick Roads. 

These were a couple of the last quilts they worked on together. When they knew she was dying, they passed their fabric and projects along to me. Both of these quilts were already pinned and ready to be quilted, so of course they moved to the top of the list. I took them with me to Asilomar last year for the machine quilting class I took with Sue Rasmussen, and got quite a bit of quilting done on both of them. 

The top one was a surprise--I hadn't opened it up, had just seen the back and could tell it was pinned and ready so when I did finally unfold it and saw t he wonderful Yukata cloth bands, I was delighted. I think those bands will lend themselves to some nice free-motion work. Well, we'll see how nice my free-motion quilting can get--it's been a while since I did much, although during that week I found that yes indeed I still remember how to do it!

So that's project #1--you probably can't tell, but I have sewn the binding onto it already, since the edges are all quilted. It mainly just needs the free-motion work on the Yukata, and of course sewing the binding down.

Here's #2--also in red/white/blue though quite a different feeling to it!

 If you look at the picture in a larger version,  you'll see that the binding is about 1/3 sew down and there are binding clips holding it in place. I love these little plastic clippies--no more punctured fingers from pins, no more pins falling out all over the place for the cats to chase and bat and hopefully not eat!

I took a close-up so you can see the cute print and the stripey blocks.  I guess it's a variation on a Rail Fence, and the striped border fabric is mitered. I started by quilting this in the ditch along the block lines (which is what I was doing with the other quilt as well), getting it anchored down. I'll probably do something with the print, maybe echo-quilt the little wagons and bikes and cars and things.

  

So, thanks to Anna at Woolie Mammoth for the inspiration/encouragement to get busy on these quilts!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go sew some binding tonight. I haven't forgotten about the little sweaters; the lime green one--Abby's--is only about 4 loooonnnggg rows from being done with the knitting. Then some hand finishing, buttons, and on to the next one. It's just that it's kind of a chilly night and the thought of sitting under a quilt to keep me toasty while I sew is very appealing!

A New Year, A New Accounting

 My lists of WIPs has been updated over there --> on the sidebar, and just for fun I listed as many of my FOs for the year as I could recall. I'm sure there are more, as I seem to recall binding off several things and of course the quilts had a little help from the nice folks at Cloth and Quilts, who longarmed 8 quilts for me. I could get spoiled with this whole quilt-by-check business. Well, except for the "writing the checks" part.

All this accounting is part of my accountability project. I have a LOT of yarn and a LOT of fabric, as well as a LOT of other craft materials and projects around the place. So it really makes a great deal of sense to work on what I have, instead of acquiring new projects and letting the old ones slide.

What a concept, huh?

When I listed the quilts, I made a note of what stage they're in. Hopefully I will be able to remember how to make the necessary changes when I finish something.

And I will finish something. Honest.

For today, I have one project (the Cedar Leaf Shawlette) that I'm going to cast on--it's kind of a tradition with one of my Ravelry/FaceBook groups, a way of affirming that yes, indeed, I dan start and finish something this year. I'm also hoping to finish up another project--Abby's green sweater is only about 5 rows from completion. Which will include weaving in a lot of ends, closing up  the armholes, and sewing on buttons. (Uh oh. Where will I find buttons? Oh yeah...)

So here's a toast to this year's wishes--health, happiness, love and joy and all the good things of life!

PS--Don't know if I've posted much about Shyla before. She came to live with me about a year and a half ago, and she's been a "hidey" kitty for most of that time. She's begun coming out for pets and this week she actually came out and climbed on my lap while I was knitting! Now, if she'd just learn to tolerate HiHi a little more (he has a scabby ear from their latest set-to) we'd have a nice little happy "family." Poor HiHi misses his buddy Simon a lot (well, I do too) and he really wants a cat buddy. 

Maybe that should be Shyla's new year resolution?