Yet another year has passed with more projects accomplished. It's been a quilting year. I finished a flannel quilt with a woodsy theme for my son. I am working on a king size quilt for my son's French Horn teacher in exchange for lessons. Pictures of both and all other projects will have to wait until I get a new digital photo card reader. My printer that had this feature borked and the new one is very basic.
The king sized quilt is made with Hoffman's Bali Pops in mulberry. The Bali Pops are 2.5 inch strips of preselected batik fabrics which you mix and match into a quilt. Very much fun. Would be difficult to get so much variety otherwise. The top is now done and just needs it's two borders. One will be piano keys using all the colors in the quilt and the other will be a solid border using batik prints that are included in, or complement the quilt.
What to use for baking? There is some very lovely thick flannel backing fabric at the store that would show the quilting very nicely, but not really match the batik theme. There is another fabric at The Quilter's Coop that matches the very brightest block in the quilt that would be fun, if Jan, the future quilt owner can enjoy the eyepopingness of it. I think it would look great to find the brightest color that is hinted at on the front, all over on the back.
On the knitting front I've been on an extended sock binge all winter. At some point after it got cold I decided that I could not wear store made socks any longer. What started with one sock quickly became two when I needed to wash the first pair. Then I had to knit up the wonderful variegated yarn I'd had in my stash for several years. Of course I also needed thick socks for the -20F weather we get all winter, which leads to another pair to allow for washing. Now I'm knitting a pair of cotton/elastic socks using Cascade's Sensations yarn. I'm hoping for a sock that will not fall down or stretch out terribly to wear while working out.
The Bamboo Jacket and Dale sweater still loom in the unfinished bags. I decided that I need to frog the Bamboo Jacket back to the place on it's back where the knitting somehow changed very noticeably. I also messed up the decreases for the bottom of the armholes by using the wrong size guidelines. The Dale will be finished after this sock binge before the winter is over again.
I got myself involved with 2 shawls this year; a Woodland Shawl using a two sided lace leaf pattern with dark green Jitterbug yarn, and a half pie knitted shawl using some very beautiful Lorna's Laces lace weight yarn that I coveted for a long time and finally got for my birthday from my daughter. Both are on hold. The Woodland Shawl requires complete concentration while undisturbed, hopefully with Classical music in the background. The half pie shawl should be simple, but I was having trouble with a few dropped stitches that required frogging back. Suddenly the desire to quilt hit me and then I started socks to have something to do while going from place to place.
People ask me what I do--I'm a fiber artist, a knitter, a quilter, a Mom. It's my life.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
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