Work in Progress Wednesday - #24

It's been a couple of weeks since I participated in the WIPW, so I'm hoping I'm still welcome to play along. Please be sure to check out the other great posts that can be found at Tami's blog.

Last Wednesday, we had four inches of snow. There are serious perks to living in my corner of southeastern Michigan, and one of them is the mild winters so that four inches of snow seems like a big deal. Anyway, I am the snow shoveler in the family, so I was not the blogger last week.

On Saturday, we had quilt guild, but I was staggering under the weight of a bout of depression so intense it was scary. It had been building up for several days and let loose with full fury during the night. I have spent 35 years with this disease and its flare-ups, and I know that the worst thing I can do when I'm under attack is to go along with it. So, I shoved myself out of bed and out of the house and off to a meeting where I had to be social and friendly and cheerful and not drag anyone else down. After the formal meeting, about 60 people gathered in a classroom and, in small groups, made quilt tops for the guild's charity. Here is the top my group produced:

The picture is a little blurry, but you can get the general idea. I spent most of the afternoon hiding behind a sewing machine mindlessly sewing strips together. It was a good therapy. I was with friends, and for most of the afternoon the conversation consisted of "Press seams open or to the sides?" "Do we want more yellow here or more blue?" Anyway, we were pleased with our final product.

Of course, I got home and was weepy much of the evening. I finished reading The Great Stink. This is a novel about a soldier home from the Crimean War. He is battling PTSD (not a term known in the 1850s) and is an engineer on the London sewer project. Let's just say that this book may have been a contributing factor to my depression. It's well written, pretty gross in places (you can almost see and smell the contents of the sewers - 'nuf said!), and the characters are interesting. If you want a view of Victorian London that doesn't involve high society, this is a good book for that.

Here are some actual works in progress:

This is the Every Way Wrap in full and closeup. It's not very far along, but I'm in the cabling area, and I LOVE doing cables. I use the technique that doesn't use a separate needle. (Basically, if you have a four-stitch cable, you slip all four stitches off the left needle onto the right needle; then, if you have to hold the first two stitches in front, you put the left needle across the front, pick up the first two slipped stitches; then, you slide all four stitches off the right needle, pick up the two "live" stitches with the right needle, and slip them back on to the left needle. At that point, you have crossed the stitches and can then knit them in the correct order.) It's awkward as anything the first few times you do it, but then you realize that you will never again drop a cable needle or have to go scrambling for it in the bag.

December in the sewing room was present-making time, and the room had to be cleaned after the holidays:

So, I spent the first non-holiday Sunday of the year cleaning, and then this past Sunday, I was able to work on the Cone Nebula quilt. It seems that no matter how much fabric I cut, I always have to spend a considerable amount of time cutting more fabric because I don't have the right ones cut. So, this was as far as I got this weekend (yes, the table wasn't big enough, and I had to bring the ironing board over):

I love how, in the lower picture, there is that splash of bright blue off to the left. When I bought that fabric, I bought it as a dark; however, when held up against really dark fabrics, it's bright. Color value is all relative!

I have two three cute cat pictures, and then I'll sign off. First up, the Big Guy just looked SO cute here:

Then, the Princess has her favorite fellow treating her right:

Finally, the Brat Cat is on her favorite perch - mainly because it's mobile!

(I love how she's looking at the phone to see what's so interesting!)

Have a good week, everyone!