The Games

Is anyone watching the Winter Games?  I am watching them, as well as the snow falling outside.  This is the third day - we have over 6" - which is huge for us.  Our last significant snowfall was over 5 years ago.

For many knitters, crocheters and spinners, this time also means the Ravellenic games are in full swing.  They used to be called the "Ravelympics", but Ravelry was called to the carpet by the International Olympic Committee two years ago for copyright infringement (can you believe that?!).  So many Ravelry members protested so vocally that it made the national nightly news and an article in the New York Times.  It was decided to change the name but the games go on.

Participating Ravelry members compete in various events in an attempt to finish projects and win medals.  Some take on serious challenges, like knitting a complete Fair Isle cardigan sweater in the 14 days.  Cast on starts at the beginning of the opening ceremonies and the object must be finished by midnight the day of the closing ceremonies.  Thousands of knitters, crocheters and spinners participate, and much fun is had by all.

I didn't take on a big challenge.  Instead I've taken on a bunch of small challenges.  Here is what I've done so far in the 24+ hours since opening ceremonies at 8:00 am Pacific Coast Time.

Finished spinning and plying 496 yards of DK 3-ply yarn.  90% wool (Polworth and BFL) and 10% silk.  The silk makes the yarn glow.  I think this is some of the most beautiful I've ever spun.  I have no idea what I'll make with it.  Medal #1 in WIP Dancing.

I finished the scarf you saw in my last post.  Now you can see where the color for the mitts came from.  I think it is fascinating how the colors change as the eye progresses across the scarf.  One of the very fun things about knitting with handspun.  Medal #2 in WIP Dancing.

I've also received two medals in the "Aerial Unwind" event.  I "frogged" socks that I started in a yarn that wouldn't wear well enough for socks in the pattern chosen.  I also "frogged a sweater that's been on the needles for over 3 years.  I'd lost interest in it and decided it wouldn't be very flattering to me unless I drop the 25+ pounds I've picked up since I started it.

Currently I'm working on my third medal in WIP Dancing - a pair of mitts I'm making for still another Starbucks barista.  I started them last week, so this is the only event they qualify for (works in progress).  Once I finish them I'm moving along two two entries in "Hat Halfpipe" - the last two gifts for my Starbucks friends.  Then on to two more unfinished projects - the second sock of a pair and some fingerless mitts for my daughter.

I love being so productive while I'm watching the "real" games!

Handspun yarn can be so mysterious!

Now that I'm knitting with my own handspun yarn, I've discovered how much fun it is.  I don't know why I waited to long to do this! Sometimes, as is the case with my current projects, it can be such a mystery!

Here is the fiber I spun - 8 oz. of Blue Faced Leicester, a long staple breed with considerable shine in the fiber.  It was hand painted by one of my favorite dyers - Crown Mountain Farms - who unfortunately has closed down due to a move back to Germany.  This colorway is called "Finding Rainbows".

I didn't try to do anything fancy with the colors.  I just split the long strip in thirds lengthwise and spun it onto three bobbins.  Then I plied the singles into a 3-ply

You can see in this picture that the skein had two different coloring throughout the yarn.  One is primarily a forest green and dark purple.  The other is yellow greens and a redder purple.  

I knit these fingerless mitts from yarn pulled from the center of the yarn cake.  They are the forest green/dark purple coloring for the most part.  The yellow green started creeping into the mix half way up the right glove.

I'm knitting this scarf from the outside end of the yarn cake.  Looks like an entirely different yarn, doesn't it!  As the scarf progresses the colors will move from one blend to the other.  I can hardly wait to see how it will look when it is done!

A little more knitting and some spinning

Cowl in Seahawks colors.  Go Hawks!

12 oz of fiber becomes two skeins of 3-ply for socks and one skein of 2-ply laceweight for a scarf or small shawl.  These are currently being "finished" - meaning they have been washed and are now drying to "fluff" the yarn and set the twist.

More January Knitting

January knitting

Thank you for all the nice comments you readers sent.  I will strive to write a post here and there so if you are interested then don't take my blog off your blog reader.

Here's the knitting I've done in January.  Still going strong.  I'm filling a big basket of gifts - fingerless mitts and cowls - to take to my local Starbucks baristas who take such excellent care of all my coffee needs.  Quite a few of these are knit from my handspun yarn.

If you are interested in more details you can check the individual project pages in Ravelry for pattern names, yarns, etc.  I will create the pages in the next couple days.  My user name is hardenbrookgirl.

Distractions II

I see my last post was about distractions, and was written two months ago.  So it seems appropriate to address distractions in this post also.

Since the knitting retreat at the beginning of November I've done next to no quilting.  I've been knitting and spinning instead.  And reading.  And enjoying the holidays.  And spending very little time on the computer.

I thank those of you who sent an email to check up on me.  All is fine.  However, knitting and spinning do not generate any desire to write.  I don't know what the difference is, but they just don't inspire me in a verbal way.  So I have stopped writing.

Keeping a blog isn't what it used to be.  When I first started blogging there was so much give and take between the quilting bloggers.  I made so many friends all over the world who became very dear to me - and still are.  These days, however, there are so many people writing blogs, and with people busier than ever it seems that very little commenting goes on.  The comments and discussions were what kept me blogging, and I miss them so much.  These days it just isn't the same.

I thank you who have read my blog over the years.  I'm going to leave it in place as I know people still visit the tutorials regularly, but I'm not going to keep posting.  I wish all of you the best in both your quilty and your personal lives.

The same old story

Distractions . . . They always seem to lead me down a different path than the one I intended to travel.

I had a great time at the knitting retreat this past weekend.  We even had sunshine on Friday and mid-afternoon on Saturday.  Pouring down rain the rest of the time - loud enough to wake everyone that was sleeping upstairs.  That's one perk of being on the planning committee - I got there early enough Friday to claim a lower Swedish bed downstairs. (See the picture on the left half way down the page.)

By the time the retreat committee (me and three others) organized the Friday night potluck, had dinner and recruited people to clean up it was only a couple hours until bedtime.  So I decided to knit awhile on the sock I brought rather than quilt.  Yes - you guessed it.  I enjoyed the knitting so much that I kept at it on Saturday, resulting in a finished sock and a partially done mate.

(This picture makes my foot look HUGE!)

Yep - I didn't touch my quilting all weekend.  And thus I must change my completions for October.  It is definitely too far into November to call anything I do now an October finish - especially when I haven't finished anything yet! 

I did work on applique yesterday, and Donder and Blitzen is finished except for part of one star that  I'll finish today.  My son-in-law has laid claim to this quilt, so I think I'd better finish it so they can use it for decoration this Christmas time.

The first three blocks for the Farmer's Wife quilt have been chosen by our project leader, so I want to start - and finish - those.

I ordered a few more project boxes from Joann's - some are extra large - because I've run out of boxes for all the quilts I'm working on plus my BOM's which need to have all the "parts" kept together.  I'm eagerly awaiting their arrival so I can have an organized sewing room once again.

I also want to finish the mate of the above sock.  I knitted Tuesday, going back to the knitting group that I've not visited in almost two years.  It was really nice seeing people again - many of whom I'd just seen at the knitting retreat.

Lastly, I got up at the crack of dawn yesterday - 6:15 - and went back to Weight Watchers.  All I've done on my own is let the pounds gradually creep back on.  I really want to fit into the clothes I own, and want to return to looking like my profile picture.  So I'm making this public declaration of intentions and will report in every Wednesday after weigh-in.  Being accountable to my readers helped me a lot last time, and hopefully will again.

And now you know the rest of the story . . .  .

October goals

At the beginning of the month I talked about the stretch goals I'd written.  One or two of you thought they might be a little too challenging.  You were right!  I finished five of the 10, though technically two are just "almost finished".  They'll be done by the end of retreat so I'm going to count them.  My goals, my rules LOL!

I will carry the rest into November.  Early next week I'll decide whether or not to add more.  Right now I'm thinking "No."

What's that you say? Knitting? What's that?

Back in February when I got back into blogging action I said I would need to find a way to spread my time over three hobbies.  Here is the post I wrote.

Obviously this has been a dismal failure.  The lure of quilting sucked me in no quickly that I wanted nothing to do with other hobbies.  People who have been following me for some time probably forgot completely that I was going to try to hand spin and knit in addition to quilting.

Last week I attended the Vancouver Handspinners meeting, and my fingers actually remembered what to do!  I spun all afternoon before the meeting so I wouldn't look like an idiot in front of the others.  That is the first time I've touched a spinning project since mid-April!

The retreat I'm attending tomorrow through Sunday is the Fort Vancouver Knitting Guild retreat.  I'm on the retreat committee so I figured I'd better spend at least part of the weekend knitting.  Today I got out my bin of partially finished projects - 11 of them!  I chose two different pairs of socks to work on.  I hope to come home with at least one completed sock.  I picked the two I thought took the least amount of thought - knitting and visiting is a recipe for disaster when knitting a complex pattern.  Here are the two I'm taking:

"Tidelines" by Anne Hanson

"Coquettish Clown" by Melissa Morgan-Oakes

Now that wool sock weather is back I feel the need to have some new socks.  It's a good thing that 10 of my 11 unfinished knitting projects are socks!

I did accomplish something today

It wasn't what I'd hoped - I didn't get any quilts basted - but I cut batting for every small quilt I've finished.  Here you see eight quilts rolled with their battings.  This eliminated the stack of batting pieces that have been filling corners in the sewing room, making it hard to organize them - hooray!
Next week I'll work on cutting backs and basting all of these.  Hopefully the last two will get the applique and embroidery finished this weekend so I can do the same with them.

It will be nice having all these ready to go.  In the meantime I've been quilting away on "Peace on Earth", which is closer and closer to being finished.

Give Away #3

This is a drawing for the "Dash of Spring" quilt pattern that you see in this post.  If you want a chance to win please leave me a comment telling me how you celebrate Halloween (if you do).  If you are "no reply" then please include your email address.  I must be able to contact the winner by email.

Good luck everyone!  I will draw names the second weekend in November.

Give Away #2

This is a drawing for the "Donder and Blitzen" quilt pattern that you see in this post.  If you want a chance to win please leave me a comment telling me your favorite season and why.  If you are "no reply" then please include your email address.  I must be able to contact the winner by email.

Good luck everyone!  I will draw names the second weekend in November.

Giveaway #1

This is a drawing for the "Scarecrow and Sunflowers" quilt pattern that you see in this post.  If you want a chance to win please leave me a comment telling me your favorite quilt designer.  If you are "no reply" then please include your email address.  I must be able to contact the winner by email.

Good luck everyone!  I will draw names the second weekend in November.

Another "almost finished" top

And a top that is actually put together correctly LOL!

All that's left to do is applique the bird by the Christmas tree, the five stars on the top border, and six tiny ultra suede bird legs.  This one will also go with me to the retreat this weekend.

I finished 12 Cracker Box blocks for still another 30's group swap.  They went into the mail today.  I feel very good about that - the deadline isn't until December 2nd!  That's it for swap blocks until the new year.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture before I mailed them.

I've even straightened up the mess in the sewing room.  Tomorrow I'm going to baste a bunch of quilt tops.  At least that's the plan!

Coming up - some new giveaways!

Oops! This time I'm going to live with it just the way it is.

This entire quilt top is together now.  I finished the machine sewing this afternoon.  All that is left is to applique the large sunflower to the right of the scarecrow and embroider all the finishing  touches.

When I took the picture for the blog I realized my mistake.  Take a close look at the quilt top.

Now look at the picture on the front of the pattern.

I would prefer the red-orange star points, but I'm NOT going to rip it apart to change things.  Too many seams sewn with too small stitches.  It isn't awful the way I did it, but I think the colors would balance better if I had done it the way it was designed.  I'll always look at the quilt and think about how it is supposed to be, but I'm going to live with it the way it it.

Two days left in the month and I have many goals I didn't accomplish.  Of course, I didn't plan to be sick.  I also didn't plan to become addicted to the "Candy Crush" game on Facebook.  Anybody else play that?  I started playing about when I got sick, and have spent way too much time doing that.  I'm blaming my lack of posts on the game addiction.  I have it under control now, I think - I hope - time will tell.

I'm not going to do the hand stitching on this right now.  I'm heading out Friday afternoon for a knitting retreat that lasts until Sunday afternoon, and I'm going to take quilting handwork as well as knitting - including this project.  It won't be done by this fall, but certainly by 2014.

Done!

I finished the fourth set of 12" sampler blocks tonight - hooray!  I will mail them in the next couple days to the swap hostess, and then I can cross this off my list.  I'm not going to complete the goal list for this month but am happy with what I have accomplished so far.  Darn virus bug got in my way!

"X Quartet"

Swap Blocks Set 3

I'm happy to report that I'm moving right along - one more set to make.

Contrary Wife

If you like 30's fabrics you should check out our group on Yahoo Groups.  We're planning our activities for 2014 now.  I'm very excited about one thing we are doing - we are making the quilt "Farmer's Wife" out of 30's fabrics.  Seems quite appropriate to me, considering these fabrics are reproductions of those used for feed sacks.  We will make two blocks a week - one an easy one and one a more difficult block.  I'm eager to get started.

(Yes, I know.  That will make still another ongoing project for me.  Oh well - I guess I'll just accept what I am LOL!)

Another set of blocks

This is my second set of blocks for the 12" sampler block swap in my 30's group.  This block is "Hovering Hawks".  I would pop the blocks in the mail for the swap and cross this goal off my October list - however! - as usual, I'm a glutton for punishment.  I decided to make two more block sets for the swap.  Today I hope to finish the "Contrary Wife" blocks, and then on to "X Quartet".

A couple of these blocks are quite wild!  Not what one usually thinks of when "30's fabrics" come to mind.

Six done - six to go

Today I actually got dressed and left the house (dinner out).  I had more energy than I've had for almost two weeks though I had to take frequent rest breaks throughout the day.  This allowed me to get back to cutting and machine sewing.

I need to finish 12 blocks in 30's fabrics - six each using two block patterns from the 30's - and get them mailed by the end of the month for a block swap on the 30's yahoo group.  Today seemed like a good day to start.  My two blocks were in an old book and used templates.  Easy peasy - just measure the templates for rotary cutting directions.  Whoops!  Both blocks contained quite a few measurements that included 16th's of an inch.  Ick!  I'd already started the first block in which 3 of the five shapes measured X x/16".  I forged ahead and finished one and it turned out OK.  It actually wasn't that hard to cut half way between two of the eighth-inch markings.  The block is called "Tea Party", and is in this book, published in 1988.  I'm very pleased with how these turned out!

These fabrics are bright!

Oh my goodness - as I was typing the caption I see the lower center block has an "oops"!  Bet that was the last one I finished.  I knew I was too tired to forge on - why don't I ever listen to my body?

Here is what is left.  I'll deal with this mess tomorrow.  (And I'll fix that block.  If I'd not looked at the picture I never would have noticed that!)

How many of you are like me?

I would really like to know!  I think it is a disease - I know I've had it since early on in my quilt life.  How many of the rest of you are infected?  (You can skip to the bottom of the post now for the questions if you don't want to read the rest.)

A few days ago I was adding still another "ongoing project" to the list on my left sidebar.  Currently it looks like this:

 1.  Girl Gang Feathered Star Quilt(2003)
 2.  Mid-century Album (2007) 
 3.  Civil War Diary Quilt (2008)
 4.  Civil War Applique (2008)
 5.  Civil War Love Letters (2008)
 6.  Afternoon Delight (2013)
 7.  30's Basket blocks (2013)
 8.  Sweet Memories (2013)
 9.  Baltimore Autumn (2013)
10. Turn of the Century Revisited (2013)

These are large, time consuming projects that are slowly becoming complete quilt tops.  I don't call them UFO's because they are all being worked on as their turn comes up.  They are not projects I've abandoned.

Notice the dates - these are the dates the projects got started.  Between  2003 and 2008 I really focused on shrinking the list - I had over 80 when I started.  I'm pleased with how I've whittled that list down by either finishing the quilt tops or abandoning (and giving away) the project.
Looking at the list now it appears that it is once again growing.  I don't think I've taken a single project off the list this year, and I've added 5!  There is only one project listed that is anywhere close to being a finished top, and it is one I've not touched since I started quilting again in February.

There are so many quilts I want to make, and every so often one refuses to be put away and demands that I start working on it.  And thus it gets added to the list.

Now for the questions:

How many of you have several complex (defined in this case as taking a considerable length of time to finish) projects going on at the same time?

How many of you stick to one or at the most two complex (same definition) projects at once, and refuse to allow yourself to start another until you finish one?

(The above question presumes you slip several (or many) quick-to-finish projects in between sessions of working on long-term project(s).)

How many of you stick to only one project at a time, whether it be simple (quickly finished) or complex (same definition as above) before you allow yourself to start another.

When it comes to your quilting, how successful are you at disciplining yourself?  (I've decided I'm a total failure!)

(These questions refer to finishing the quilt top only.  Having a giant list of finished tops needed to be quilted is an entirely different issue!)