My son-in-law was here from NC for his mother's 90th birthday and he stopped by for a nice visit. I finished the purple dishcloth and started a red one for my kitchen. I rarely use the solid color yarn so this one is different for me.
I was looking through "Kaffe Fassett's Quilts from Italy" and I find the quilt that was my favorite when the book came out is still my favorite. I know how hard it is to keep a quilt from bowing out at the center of the sides when adding border after border. I think I do want to make one like this anyway. I have about 3/4 of the fabrics used in this quilt but I might not make an exact copy.
I'm at day 25 after pacemaker surgery. For the first 30 days I was instructed to not raise my left arm above shoulder level. This is time for the leads that were inserted into the heart to be held securely in place by scar tissue that grows around the ends. Since I frequently switch hands (without thinking) when placing blocks on my design walls I didn't dare take a chance of accidentally raising that arm too high. I will be happy to get back to the design wall in another week.
I just have center seams left to sew on the last 16 blocks of the Australian fabric Hunter Star quilt. Then I can start playing around with the pairs that will make the full star blocks. There will be 2 blocks alike of each combination.
Last night I knitted while I watched 2 episodes of "Anne with an e" on Netflix. It is based on Anne of Green Gables which I just read for the first time about 3 years ago. They have the perfect girl playing the part of Anne.
I give the multi-skein dishcloths to my youngest granddaughter. I knitted about a third of the multi-skein one and half of the new one on the needles.
I have knitted 3 more dishcloths and have a 4th one started.
I decided not to web all 19 rows together on this baby quilt. This is the top 10 rows sewn together. Now I need to sew the other 9 rows and then sew the 2 sections together. I need to cut 6 more little tumblers too to finish it.
After I finished the clean-up in the basement I pressed all of the quarter blocks for my Australian Hunter Star. There are 20 sets here and I have 6 sets ready to cut and sew. That means I need to find 4 more pairs to make 30 blocks. That would come out to 66" x 72" which means it will be 4 1/2 stars across and 5 stars down. I will have to see how that looks before I decide if that is the final size.
I have knit 15 dishcloths since the beginning of May. I gave 3 to a granddaughter a week ago. She got the ones that were parts of 2 different color skeins of yarn. One is my kitchen already used, also a multi-color.
The tablerunner was laying there waiting to be quilted but I opted to knit last night instead. I am using up some partial skeins of yarn in my dishcloths.
It was warm yesterday so I went to the backyard and broke off the flower stalks of coneflowers and hostas. Now all that is left is to rake the leaves. I probably will wait another week before I do that.
One Amaryllis bulb out of 8 from years past sent up a bud stalk. It has this bloom and one bud that should be open in a couple days. The bud pod looked small so I didn't think it would have the typical 4 blooms.
I worked really hard yesterday finishing the cleaning of the garage and hauling sale items out there. I also took stacks of magazines to a local paper collection bin. I am SO happy to have that done. When I needed to collect my thoughts I sat down and knitted a few rows. I love the coral color in this yarn, not quite orange, not quite red.
I finally finished knitting this scarf while watching the last episodes of "the Mentalist" last night. My daughter sent me the corn and cotton blend yarn for Christmas. I still need to block it and right now it is about 66" long. I haven't blocked any knitting for years so I don't remember if it will lose length when the width gets pulled into shape.
My 2 friends came over to sew yesterday and while not talking and laughing (lots of laughing) I pieced the backing for my blue batik 16 patch quilt and got it loaded on the longarm. Maybe I'll actually have a finish this month.
A couple nights ago I quilted this table runner with 12wt. variegated thread. It isn't quite as wonky in shape as it looks here. The photographer (me) was not holding the camera straight over it. I have to choose binding now and I'm thinking probably red or orange and dotted since all of the fabrics have dots.
They say what you do on January 1st you will do all year. Please tell me that I won't be cleaning my basement every day! I have been wanting to tackle the fruit cellar for a long time. This is looking to the left. The shelves go all along that wall to the right. It is 14 feet wide, the same as the bedroom above it.
There are lots of things in there that I don't need such as these trims from the 1960s.
I have gotten rid of a lot of my patterns but kept a select few. This costume pattern was for my grandsons and they will be 25 in February and March.
On the upper shelf on the right I have my packaged batting. If you look up in the rafters, that is the 4 long boards of an antique quilting frame. It was removed from my in-laws' house when we emptied it in 1981. I was the only quilter in the family so it came to my house. I had hand quilted one quilt before this time period.
If you click on this photo of fabric you will see that it says Indian Head on it. Indian Head cotton was a very nice quality cloth from the 1950-60s. I'm not sure when it was discontinued. I had a dress out of this print but still have 1 1/4+ yards of it. It has been washed and is 34" wide. Almost all fabric was 35 - 36" wide at that time. Washing reduced this to 34". I will vacuum the fruit cellar today and put my rolls of batting back in there after I cut some pieces to prepare for quilting a couple quilts.
My daughter sent me some yarn for Christmas. This one is 60% Corn Viscose and 40% cotton. It is very soft so I thought I would knit a scarf for myself.
I had one complete finish for November. This is a variation of a quilt in a Kathy Doughty book. One of her students made it with this setting and she posted it on her blog. I figured out the dimensions and made my version of it. I think it finished at 67" x 74" but I didn't want to make another trip to the basement at midnight to measure it again.
I finished 2 quilt tops. I had another TAW top almost done but it needs the border sewn on. This one pictured is big enough without a border.
Three dishcloths are added to the pile. The one on the right has 4 different yarns. Two of them are tweedy, one with red and blue and the other with red and beige. With these added I'm at 46 for the year so I will meet my goal of 48, 4 a month average, with the two I have already started.
Yesterday was a day of rest. There was a congregational meeting after church so I got home about an hour later than usual. I did finish the stitching on the last 6 Christmas stockings I showed a couple days ago and while I watched TV last night I finished a dishcloth made with ends of 2 balls of yarn. Today is sewing circle and tomorrow is my TAW class so I needed the re-charge that rest gives.
