Lookie!!!

I finally got to see my gorgeous niece in the camisole I knitted for her.



Wasn't that worth the wait? :o)

Finished Socks!

I finally finished Alex's socks. He tried them on and wouldn't take them off! So forgive the bit of white leg. He loves how they fit and feel.




And who was it told me Blackie wasn't a lap cat?

What's new?

Hi folks! Well, let's see... what have I been up to? Getting the new kitties to be happy and comfortable in their new home. Blackie is very affectionate and wants to get along with everyone although there has been just a bit of jealousy from Merlin and Percy. But he stands up for himself and things are going well. Rufus has run into Blackie in the dark kitchen in the middle of the night a few times and scared himself into an orange puffball, but he is getting better. Here's a pic of Blackie (on the right) settled in with Alex and Trilby and Sammy.



Mittens is also very affectionate but very shy. She has a comfy place on top of a storage box under the bed and comes out whenever I go to the bathroom, or go to the side of the bed and call her. Sometimes she will also hop up on the bed if there isn't any other kitty there. If there IS another kitty on the bed she will become a gray streak! She delights in playing with the little fur mousies we have an abundance of. I've found them in the bathroom and on the rug next to the bed so I know she plays when I'm not there. And we always keep food and water in the bathroom so she's not loosing any weight. But I haven't caught her on camera yet. Soon I hope!

I have permission from the publisher to show what I will have in her next Friendly Socks book, Volume 3 I think. The patterns will represent the States in the order they joined the Union. The first State is Delaware and that's me! Delaware's State plant is Holly.




Just a peek now! :o)

Just got 3 knitting books I've wanted for a long time. I especially waited for Wrapped In Comfort by Alison Jeppson Hyde (I knew her when :o) for what seems like a year but VERY much worth the wait! The other 2 are wonderful books too. Nicky Epstein's 3rd book, Knitting Beyond the Edge, cuffs, collars, necklines, corners, edges and closures has given me SO many ideas! Especially the closures, some I've wanted to learn for a long time. And Knit 2 Together by Tracy Ullman & Mel Clark. I must say that seeing some of the things from the book in the Knit Picks catalogues really made me want the book. I am going to make the Doctor's Bag and some slippers and a few other things... someday. I have a long list!



On the same day a birthday package came from my cyber-twin (and publisher). Two beautiful skeins of Lorna's Laces in my favorite baby pink that they call "Whisper" and a pattern for some lovely socks.



And a week or so ago I got the cotton yarn for my niece's lace dress, the one on the cover of IK. Mary loves yellow and this is such a nice shade for her. It's Knit Picks Shine Sport.



So, I'm almost finished with Alex's second sock. I will never do socks one at a time again! Even if the cable is too short!

Time to go to bed! Nighty night all!

Short update

This last week has been a long one. Roseann and 2 of her girls arrived with the 2 kitties on the evening of my birthday. I fed them KFC and we chatted about the kitties, who were in no hurry to come out of their little caves. By the time they left Mittens had a safe spot behind the washer and Blackie preferred the space under the old recliner. Her's a pic of Roseann & the girls.



Blackie now comes to visit me in my room and the bedroom. Tonight he even came to see me in the living room, with Alex and a few of the other kitties present! Blackie is making good progress. Mittens... well she tries to remain invisible still. She loves the attention she gets when we dig her out but as soon as the preliminary euphoria passes she spooks & runs. My safe places are never good enough for her. All the kitties are still pretty spooky so we just keep trying.

To keep my sanity I knitted the first of a pair of IOU (from Christmas) socks for Alex. I prefer 2 at a time but don't have a cable long enough in this needle size. Will start the second one right away! These are in Wildfoote hand painted in the Bluegrass colorway. The pattern is Ann Budd's Diagonal Rib socks.

Mother's Day & Birthday

Happy Mom's Day to all the wonderful Moms, Grandmoms etc. who read my little blog! Hope you all had a wonderful day!

Tomorrow is my birthday so today has been rolled together with tomorrow. I don't mind so much but I can see why Christmas babies feel sort of cheated. Anyway... at 7:30am, the middle of the night for this old night owl, the doorbell rang and there was our old family friend, Sam, with 3 grocery bags full of goodies for me. A gallon jar of pickles, a half pound Hershey bar with almonds, some movies and more, and a darling little bunny.



Alex surprised me with my favorite sugar free chocolate turtles, a beautiful German chocolate cake and a gorgeous cake dome to keep it in. I've always wanted one and last March we gave the same one to his sister for her birthday. He must have seen the wistful look on my face, bless his heart.



Here's my handsome hubby, Alex.



And here is little Penelope (Penny) watching all the goings on from her safe place on top of the refrigerator.



So it has been a good day. Tomorrow our pride of little lions will be joined by 2 grown kitties that need a new home. The family who are forced by a heartless landlord to give them up will be staying for dinner so it should be a nice evening. This lady is a friend from another group (Treadleon) and she has been to my house before. So I am honored to be chosen as the new family for her 2 very loved kitties. I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow. But they can be seen here.

http://mittonia.net/blackiemittens/index.html

Good night friends!

Camisole almost finished

I've been knitting this camisole for my very shapely 18 yr young niece. I used KnitPicks Shine Sport in the color Coral (her favorite). It's "almost" finished because I'm not sure the straps are right. I'm hoping she will come soon to try it on and we can get it fitted properly. Anyway, here's a preliminary picture of it.



I haven't finished off the ends on the straps so it will be easy to undo and adjust. I don't think I'm going to add beads, unless she really wants me to. I would need to go find some pearl drops.

That's all for now. Must... cast... on....

It is finished!!!

Ready for the big finish? I am SO glad to have this all finished and in the mail. I got to open my own package today. It is incredible! Here are lots of pictures.



It's way too big to hold up, even if I had someone here at the time. That's our king sized bed it is spread out on. Six of us added borders to Judy's center of purple bowties. Mine is the last border of roses.







Gonna be a gorgeous quilt! I could hardly bear to pack it up and mail it. Well no, that's not true. I was glad to have it done, so I could see mine!



Isn't it gorgeous! I was just speechless when I first spread it out to look at it. There are wild geese flying in the sky, wonderful bears all over the place, really neat pinecones, happy fish swimming up a waterfall, goofy seagull hieroglyphics that seem to spell out my name, even a beautiful mariner's compass as a north star. Everything is just exquisitely done!



Mariner's compass/North star.



Happy fish swimming up stream.



Wild Geese in the night sky.



Very cool pinecones.



Fishing bear.



Silly seagulls.

So what do you think? It's been quite a day for me. Judy is now counting the hours until her package gets there. I can't wait to hear how she likes it! I'm tired and need to knit! G'night friends!

Roses are growing!

Just a quick little post for progress watchers. Two pictures, the second one is for scale. See how big it is!

Bloomin' Crazy!

All quilters are crazy, you know that don't you? I mean, they buy big chunks of perfectly good fabric, cut it up into little pieces and sew the pieces together again. Crazy!

Well, sometimes a quilter has got to do whatever works. See, I had this perfect fabric for the rose leaves. And I cut every little bit of it. This fabric has been in my stash for at least 20 years and I owed it to myself not to waste any of it.

I'm down to piecing the last little unit I need to finish the rose blocks. Had some problems on one of the bud blocks before and had to do some cannibalizing, but I thought I was being careful not to cannibalize any of the pieces for the big roses. Well, looks like I made a big booboo with this last piece for the last leaf. It's not the right size or shape. I don't have anymore of this fabric and I can't afford to buy more even if I could find a match. What to do??

It's supposed to be a 1-5/16 inch square. What I have is a bunch of 1 x 1-1/8 inch rectangles. But there are more than 24 pieces so I decided to sew the pieces together and see what I could get out of it. What I got was 24 pieces that were 1-5/16 inch on one side and 1-1/8 inch on the other, 3/16 short on one side. This square is for a sew and flip corner. Since some of it will be cut off after it is sewn I can afford to fudge the seam a little and make it work. So, one little piece has a seam. There are already a bazillion seams in these blocks so one more won't hurt. Here's a pic of the back.



And here's a pic of the front.



And here is a pic of the TWO blocks that are finished so far. Only 22 to go!



And lastly here are my 2 roommates, at peace with one another, asleep in their cozy beds and within my reach if they need a little loving. I love a peaceful night!

Coming up roses!

Hope everyone had a nice Easter and/or Passover. Ours was quiet. We did brunch with a few family. Enjoyed the day. But I couldn't stay away from the roses!



This is where I am as of tonight. You're looking at 24 half roses, 12 are mirror image. So far (knock on wood) I've had very little trouble with the mirror image thing. Here's a close-up.



Still to do is the other half of the rose and leaves and stems underneath.

Going to bed early tonight (for me). Step brother Greg is coming over tomorrow to brush up on his sewing skills and learn to piece a quilt. I have just the machine for him and hope he will end up taking it home. He is even willing to learn to knit! He wants to make an afghan. I told him how my Dad used to knit socks, argyle no less. He misses my Dad nearly as much as I do. Gone 4 years last month. Greg's visits are always so relaxing and comfortable. We can chat about anything! He says I'm a lot like my Dad. He's so nice.

Anyway, lots to do tomorrow so I have to (ugh) get up early. Anyone want to come over and help me move sewing machines around? :o)

Getting It Together

Now you can see how the upper buds are coming together with the lower buds. Just a few more to put together and I can start on the large roses that go in between. The odd thing is that the left facing lower buds are behaving very differently from the right facing buds. No, really! See on the right facing buds how the stems line up? So far I'm having no luck to speak of getting the left facing bud stems to line up. The right facing buds just fit right together with very little fuss. Not so the left facing buds. They just seem to have a mind of their own. At this point, I don't care! Some of the buds will just have to have an attitude!

And now I am going to take a couple days off to do my taxes. Ta ta for now! :o)

Tired, but blooming

I can't believe March is nearly gone. Except for a break or 2 I have been working, eating and sleeping with my sewing machine and thousands of little pieces of fabric. I never in a million years thought that this one border on this last round robin quilt (the biggest of them all) would be such a HUGE undertaking. I've learned certain things about myself that were a bit of a shock.

1 - I can't design in a hurry anymore. This border has 2 different rosebuds. The second one was designed so badly it just couldn't be pieced. So I redesigned it but then I couldn't use most of the pieces I had already cut, and I had used most all of the fabrics that were appropriate. Ok so I am canabalizing other pieces to make do. But none of the fabrics match in the second bud. Hopefully, using the person-on-a-galloping-horse criteria, it will be alright.

2 - Mirror images really throw me for a loop! The buds pointing to the left all came out just fine the first time. The ones pointing to the right, on the other hand, always seem o get put together upside down and backwards, no matter how careful I try. And being careful and still having to undo and resew takes too much extra time! (Yes, I am whining!)

3 - I don't know if I'll ever design anything with teensy pieces again. That's sad because I was a miniature quilt specialist once upon a time. The second bud has 30 pieces, The smallest, with 1/4 inch seam allowance, is 11/16" square. I used to have eyes!!!

So, here is what is done and what still needs to be done.



Four corner squares.



48 upper buds. 24 pointing left and 24 pointing right.



24 lower buds, waiting for canabalizd pieces to make their 3rd leaf and stem, with mis-matched pinks (gallop, gallop) pointing right.



Pieces for 24 buds facing right, waiting to have some corners undone and resewed to the opposite corner, and waiting for canabalized pieces too.



And lastly the roses that go between the sets of buds. The pieces are cut and waiting. And (I think) I only have to make 24 of them! Fingers crossed and knocking on wood, they should go together just fine.

Bless Judy for her unbelievable patience!!!

Oh, and I had a really nice visit from Treadleonion Di from Tennessee. Alex made us a wonderful breakfast and we wandered around the house looking at machines and petting kitties. She had to leave WAY too soon!



She sent me the cutest cloth postcard. It has a kitty making a quilt on a treadle and there are all kinds of miniature quilts in the background and a spool button and a teensy gold scissors attached. And on the other side is a sweet message from her and the addresses and postage. Really neat! Pics later. I'm too tired to get up and take pics. Gonna pick out the stitches on these darned corners that need to be moved for a little while. Then snuggle into my wonderful bed. Nighty night!

Frisky Kitties

I've been taking breaks from working on stuff to take down and pack all my knitting machines. Baby steps you know, 15 minutes at a time? Well, they're finally all cleared out and I vacuumed my room today. The kitties have been spooked by all the changes but tonight they were delighted with the new space and feeling frisky.So I started waving around one of their favorite fishing poles and Merlin just started being SO cute! He has the cutest face when he is trying to be fierce!




His eyes get all wide and bright and his ears and whiskers are forward focussed. Adorable!

And then Rufus had to come see what all the frivolity was about and had to get in on the action.



Couldn't catch him in mid leap, darn it! And when he sees the camera he always gets this "What?" look on his face. But he was having fun, honest!

Well, back to work. Seeya later! :o)

It's February???

Wow! I can't believe it's the middle of February already! I spent January racing a knitting deadline. Got that done and discovered I have another one in mid March. But I long ago blew a deadline on the last round robin and the very nice quilter waiting for it has been so understanding and kind. This one has been SO hard!!! And if I try to rush I make the dumbest mistakes. Once this is finished I think never again. I have too many things I need to get done. For the first time in my adult life I have too many knitting UFOs!

I took down all my knitting machines this week. The poor things just aren't being used and take up so much room. And I need to set up my quilting frame and eventually start quilting a top that was given to me last year. The only reason Mom let me have it was that I promised to hand quilt it.

Anyway, I really apologize to what few readers I have for being silent for so long. I can't post pictures of the knitting-for-deadline projects because they will be published in 2 new books by Sirius Knitting (Laura Andersson) and of course she doesn't want to give anything away. As soon as I make some good progress on the round robin I'll try to come up for air and take some pics. I am dying to see how mine turned out but I can't open the package until I send this one to Judy. So you KNOW I am not procrastinating!

See y'all later. :o)

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year Everyone! Here's hoping it is happy and healthy for all of us.

I've decided to take the Knit From Your Stash 2007 pledge. God knows I have enough yarn to keep me going for a few years. And He knows I can't afford to buy anything. Here are the rules. Number 3 is my favorite!

1. The Knit-From-Your-Stash-a-Thon will start January 1, 2007 and run through September 30, 2007 -- a period of nine months.

2. We will not buy any yarn during that period, with the following exceptions:

2.a. Sock yarn does not count. What? You think we are made of stone?

2.b. If someone asks for a specific knitted gift that we really and truly do not have the yarn for, we may buy yarn to knit that gift.

2.c. If we are knitting something and run out of yarn, we may purchase enough to complete the project.

2.d. We each get one "Get Out of Jail Free" card -- we are each allowed to fall off the wagon one time.

3. We are allowed to receive gifts of yarn.

4. Spinning fiber of any sort is exempt.

I am going to try SO hard!

Gonna go toast the New Year now. It's 11:57pm. See you next year!

Christmas goodies!

Here are some pictures of the wonderful gifts I received from my family. This first was next to my stocking and is very appropriate. LOL!



I was sure this next gift was a mistake. My sister is the self appointed "purple person" of the family. But Mom must've noticed that I like it too. Plus this one has MY color in the border. Pink!



My SIL Mary gave me a bag full of knitting notions and the little scissors and nippers. Not bad from someone who professes to know nothing about knitting. The movies are from my nephew Seth. Just the ones I wanted!



The Cat Who book is also from Mary and the Redwall cookbook (which I love!) is from nephew Alec. The basket and muffin mixes are from him too. Last year's basket was full of hot chocolate mixes. He does wonderful basket gifts!





The knitting books are from Santa. :o)



At last a timer I can actually hear when I'm not in the kitchen! I can even bring it into the studio if I want to. Til now the only kitchen timer we had was in the microwave.



In this last one look at the egg and the tea light lamps on either side. The Santa and angel and reindeer are from Christmases past. They all have different quilt designs painted on them and are so beautiful!



There is also a big box of lace bolt ends from my Sis but every time I go to take a picture it is occupied by a cat. But you will see the curtains the lace will become. Most edible gifts are, um, no longer photographable. LOL!

That's it for now. My hands are hurting from 2 days of no knitting. So I am casting on tonight! See everyone next year!