Completed Projects!!

I just checked on Ravelry, and I cast on the Every Way Wrap on December 31. Last evening, August 2, I put in the final stitch. Here it is:

I took lots of pictures where I was wearing it, but the flash overwhelmed them. I am very pleased with this project. It seemed as though it would take forever, but I stuck to it. I still have to put buttons on, but pish-tosh!

I had some very good workshops during the recent weekend. If you would like to see pictures of actual sewing projects I accomplished, please see Kat's blog (my postcards are the bottom photo) and Deb's blog. It was a long weekend, and I was doing a lot of stuff besides being in classes.

I'll have pictures from the screenprinting class later in the week.

Cone Nebula Quilt - Section 11

This is a very quick post - I was going to post yesterday, but there is something about a very hot day and a gossipy silly novel that just militates against work. The closest I came was putting together the second column of the Cone Nebula and sewing together the first and second columns. First, though, here is Section 11 (the bottom section of Column 2):

Please note that there are three pieces of plain pale purple on the right side of this piece. Those are rescued pieces from the end-of-sale culling that we did after the guild's fabric sale last week. They just happened to be the right size and shade. How cool is that?

Here is Column 2. I laid it out on the grass (the air was pretty still) and climbed up on a ladder to get this shot and the next one.

Here are the first two sections next to each other (after taking this picture, I took them inside and sewed them together). The oval and arrow point to an area that needs a little work - I'll be swapping out three pieces of yellow and putting in some dark fabric in the lower part of that area.

I have been working away on the Every Way Wrap as well. Here is a current picture:

and a close-up shot:

Finally, here is the best way to handle hot weather:

At one point yesterday, I looked up, and Hubby was reading in his chair, three of the cats were sprawled in the front hall, one was out on the stoop, and the fifth was up on the dining room table. None of us looked energetic. It was a good afternoon.

Work in Progress Wednesday - #30

I am so sorry I missed three weeks of Tami's WIPW! I'll be playing catch up for a while, I see. Everyone has been SO productive. To see what I mean, follow the link above and watch all sorts of interesting projects in process.

I've been working on the Cone Nebula quilt. Here is a numbered map to show you where we are:

I don't do conventional, so the numbers are all over the place. I was afraid of having too much of one thing in one area, and not having it evenly spread through the rest. Anyway, here is Section 5:

and Section 6:

(Yes, I know that I need to get up on a chair and point the camera down - Section 5 - instead of backing up and hoping - Section 6.)

I've also been working on the Every Way Wrap. It's 15 rows bigger now than this picture, but you all have imaginations:

Last week, I got discouraged at how slowly this is coming along that I put myself on a schedule - at least one 16-row repeat every week by Friday. It's Wednesday morning, and I am seriously considering aiming for a second repeat by Friday... I had a really complicated cable row last evening just before I went to bed. This is a row where each cable is a mirror image of the ones on either side of it (hold the first two stitches back instead of front). I was falling asleep, Hubby had a PBS thing on about the battle of Stalingrad, and I simply screwed up. I dropped stitches, lost count, had to rip back the row, had to go to the back side to find my errant stitches. I got it all cleared up, and by then I was wide awake and knew a whole lot about the Eastern Front of the Second World War.

The transition at work is in process. The official date for the changeover is April 4, but a gal in the building retired last week, and some of her duties have come to me. My new supervisor-to-be has me writing procedures for various tasks (this happens to be something I enjoy doing and have done on nearly every job since starting as a very low-ranked clerk nearly 30 years ago). My current supervisor is telling all of us to do whatever we can to make the transition go smoothly, and she's going around to each of us with virtual hugs and pats on the back. I have been SO fortunate to have worked for her for the last 15 years!

Have a good week everyone and check out the other projects at Tami's blog!

Cone Nebula Quilt - Section 5 - sewn down

Last week, I was looking at the black river by the bright halo on Section 5 of the Cone Nebula quilt, and I didn't like what I saw:

So, last Sunday, I swapped in the blue/purple fabric that I thought might work better:

I think this eases the transition between the blue star and its halo, as well as the river on the other side of the star.

I also debated with myself about which side of the fabric I should use for the halo. Here are a couple of pictures that I took during the decision process:

After looking at this "live" and through the camera, I decided to keep it as I had originally, with the reverse side of the fabric showing. The fabric has a little too much green in it on the front side, and I thought that distracted from the bright blue.

Next, here is a close-up picture of the corner area. The fabric had a cross-hatch pattern woven into it, and I dyed it a bright green before over-dyeing it black. I love how the weave shows through, along with the different layers of color.

Finally, I have been knitting along on the Every Way Wrap, but not very fast. Here is its current state:

There is a 16-row repeat, and I have done 4 of those repeats (of at least 16). This week, I decided that I would set a goal of one repeat per week until this is done, and I won't be allowed to work on dish cloths until I've done my 16 rows for the week. I also want to make another pair of socks.....

Work in Progress Wednesday - #27

Good morning! This is part of a ring that can be found at Tami's blog. Please go check out all of the other great projects there. I didn't post last Wednesday because I was shoveling snow. Southeastern Michigan got far less snow than most of the rest of the country, so I will not complain about the amount we got other than to say that if I had blogged rather than shoveled, we would have stayed home from work or else gotten there very late.

If you read my post on Saturday, you know that I brought some snow into my house and played with dyes.

I think I had too much water versus dye in this project, and on Sunday I ended up squeezing out the two pale pieces, soaking them in soda ash water, and immersing them in the runoff dye. The two pieces with red on them just got more golden yellow. I did love the wonderful colors I got on the darker yellow piece in this picture. Here they are all washed and dried:

The darker yellow piece on the far left is the piece on the lower right in the upper picture. I also had some jar dyes going, looking for some dark fabrics.

Notice the deep purple moiré fabric in the lower left corner. ....

There must be some non-plant-based fiber in that fabric; see the wonderful gray-brown color I got at the end. The three pieces on the far right of the "done" picture are overdyes of the red and blue fabric I did last summer in the infamous flour-paste resist project.

The Cone Nebula quilt is coming right along in its own way. Here is the fourth section:

The arrow indicates a place where I think I should go in and put a deep purple piece. Sigh....
Here are the four sections together (only eight to go!):

Finally, I am still knitting along on the Every Way Wrap. I am so fascinated watching the cables develop.

For your reading pleasure, I would like to direct your attention to this blogpost by a friend of mine. She is a sociology professor at St. Scholastica College in Duluth, Minnesota (I don't even want to think about how much snow they've gotten!), and this post is about how people get on spam e-mail lists.

Have a great week, everyone!

Work in Progress Wednesday - #25

Here it is, another Wednesday already! To satisfy your longings for crafty goodness, please check out the other posts connected to Tami's WIPW.

I'm a little loopy this morning because I had to stay up to listen to the President's speech last night. I am avoiding the radio this morning because I get very tired of all of the analysis and the rehash. At the beginning of the speech, I wound a yarn cake from the next skein of the teal Malabrigo for the Every Way Wrap because I am within a couple of inches of finishing the first skein! Yay!

I have learned to not try knitting something complicated when I'm feeling sleepy, so I sat and really listened to the rest of the speech; breaking into song - "Once in love with Barry!" - only when he was talking about health care reform and otherwise confining myself to the occasional burst of applause. My husband, the moderate Republican, was not amused at my antics. Too bad!

We had a pretty cold weekend here, so I spent a lot of time in the sewing room. I got the third section of the Cone Nebula quilt done:

This thing is already HUGE, and I still have nine sections to go. I had to lay out the first three sections on the bedroom floor, and then sort of shoot the picture around the corner:

I am very pleased with how this is coming along; it's as though I'm seeing a picture in my mind coming to life. While I was setting up and taking this picture, I had an observer:

Baby Boy wasn't quite sure what I was doing, but it didn't seem to be threatening him, so he just watched. On the other hand, I did develop technical difficulties with the sewing machine in the course of Sunday afternoon. For some reason, the fabric just wasn't feeding through very well. Can anyone figure out what the problem was?

When I tried addressing the problem, I got some back talk:

My little cat mommy's heart is swelling with love as I look at this picture!

I am about halfway through Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns. This is a work of history written with a journalist's eye for detail. The book tells the story of the Great Migration of African-Americans from the South to the North and West of the U.S. over the middle part of the twentieth century. She follows three people from their childhoods through their lives in the South, their decision to migrate, their migration, and their lives afterward. Along the way, she gives us historical data, sociological studies, and other broader information. I am seeing American history in a new way, and I'm seeing a lot of things in my life and my family's life in a new way - putting into a new context things that were said by my Detroit-area relatives (some of whom were part of the "white flight" from the city in the 1960s).

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!

Happy New Year - Work in Progress

Back last February I posted on my friend's blog some goals for 2010.  I thought it would be fun to revisit those and see how close I came.

1. read at least two serious books a month - I call this accomplished. I read a lot of really good books this year and not just silly books.
2. finish the sweater for me and make a sweater for my sister - I finished my sweater, but my sister and I have not yet reached closure on what I'm going to make for her. She wants a knitted blanket, and I'd rather make her a quilt if I'm going to go large and flat.
3. finish my scrap clearing project and get at least three quilts out of it - I got one large quilt, one wallhanging, and a pillow... hmmm
4. Make the two or three charity quilts that are sitting in the sewing room glaring balefully at me - done
5. Be a gracious volunteer chair for the guild's show and then not volunteer for the next time - I so enjoyed being the volunteer chair for the show this year that I've already volunteered for next time.
6. Finish the quilted wall hanging in time for the show - done
7. Think really hard about making one or two quilts for the raffle at the hospital - The large scrap quilt will be for the next fundraiser at the hospital - done
8. Get good at spinning with the spindle - err, nope, not even close, but I am getting better at it. Last week, I realized that I'm still spinning very thick yarn, but it is getting more even.
9. Lose 15 pounds - ha! I haven't even gone near the scale since the summer.
10. Stop being so goal oriented - Yeah, right!

Before I get to the goals for 2011, some pictures of kitty cats! First off, the Brat Cat LOVES the new footstool (and matching seat cushion):

Since Hubby hasn't yet gotten around to using this as a footstool, I have moved it over next to his chair, and the cats have figured out that when they are on the stool, they are at the perfect height for Daddy-style cuddling. At least three of them have taken advantage of that; of course the Brat thinks its hers, and she's made her displeasure known...

After finishing the baby jacket, I swatched for and cast on the Every Way Wrap from Interweave Knits Fall of 2009. I started it last year around this time, but the yarn I was using was really wrong for the project - the stitches simply got lost in all of the color changes and the fuzziness of the yarn. So, I'm using a crisper yarn with simpler color changes (Malabrigo Rios in Teal, in case you are wondering), and I'm making it on Size 7 (4.5 mm) needles, which means my gauge is way off (21 stitches per 4 inches, instead of the 16 noted in the pattern). Because of the nature of the pattern, though, I feel comfortable just going up to the maximum number of cast-on stitches and winging it from there.

The next picture was taken just this morning when I was feeding the cats. The Princess Kitty gets a bit imperious when I'm not moving fast enough, but in this picture, she's just annoyed that I keep flashing the bright light in her face instead of putting her dish down.

And now, here are my goals for 2011:

1. Continue reading serious books - there is so much to learn!
2. Read up on and attend some meetings regarding the drain commission and its work.* 
3. Get good at spinning with the spindle, smoothing out the yarn and making it thinner.
4. Be a gracious volunteer coordinator for the guild's weekend of workshops at the end of July.
5. Do not volunteer to make soul-sucking quilts - if they hurt to make, maybe they shouldn't be made.
6. Finish the Cone Nebula quilt.
7. Play with screen printing and other techniques.
8. Finish the Every Way Wrap and make other fun-to-knit projects
9. Post here at least twice a week - Wednesdays and Saturdays

Of course, there are assumptions here that I'll continue to be a very good employee, continue to try to be a good wife, figure out the whole church thing (do I just keep drifting along because I cannot imagine not being part of that community?), and feed the cats twice a day while cleaning their boxes once a day. These are all things that don't need to be listed, right?

Do you have goals for the coming year? What are they? How do you know when you've accomplished them?

*We went to a funeral home last evening for the husband of a friend of ours. I had never met the man, but he was a landscape architect who was responsible for a lot of the public landscape in our area. After looking at his projects and talking to one of his colleagues for quite a while, I really want to learn more.