Baby Blanket

In between answering the doorbell and handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters, I finished this baby blanket. The picture is not the best, but it is a soft yellow with a basket-weave pattern. The little bunny is baby safe and extremely silky-soft.

Here is a close-up of the Bunny and the blanket.

The shower is tomorrow and these gifts are for my grand-niece who's baby is expected in December. Yes, that will make me a great-great-aunt. (Big smile!)

Lazy Girl - That's me.......

This lazy blogger finally got busy today and made some Lazy Girl pouches to give as a small birthday gift. I love these easy to make pouches even though I can't seem to figure out how to get the zippers going the same direction. The light one pulls from the right and the black one pulls from the left. Which way is correct?

Knitting mitered squares

For the past three days I have been attempting to teach myself how to knit mitered squares per instructions from Melody Johnson of Fibermania. She knits the most wonderful neck warmers and hats using these mitered squares. The square itself is fairly easy to knit, although I need to write out row by row instructions on Excel so that I can keep track of where I am in the process. The difficulty for me was in adding the next square - picking up stitches along the left edge and adding 12 more stitches. For the experienced knitter, this is easy I suppose. But for the inexperienced knitter, the task is daunting as all the instruction books I have do not address this particular task. I searched books, I searched Google, I looked at endless YouTube videos, and I spent way too much time trying to get it. Finally, I was successful. However, the tweed-like yarn makes it almost impossible to see what I did - and there is one mistake buried in the middle.

(If you click on my pictures you can see a larger image)

Below is a close-up of the first completed mitered square, although the miter along the middle doesn't show up too well with this yarn.

The second square added to the first (below) looks like a mess because of the tweed yarn, but I guarantee it is correct. And the joining of the two squares doesn't look too bad for a beginner.

I'm through though. I have other more pressing things to do, and I just have to stop fiddling with these mitered squares. I'm putting the knitting away for know and will attend to the laundry and some quilty things.

Six Hem Sampler

Finished !

Six Hem Sampler

Indigo Rose

28 count Cashel light sand

Silk Threads - Soie d'Alger and Caron Waterlilies

Mill Hill Beads

(Thanks Brenda for your encouragement and help. Thanks MB for your good comments.)

Gratitude -

1. Soup cooking away on the stove, filling my house with mouth-watering smells.

2. Friend Liz who got me excited today to try two new things.

3. Trader Joe's

4. Honey Crisp apples

Tuesday evening I took the final class on how to do the cut work for this Six Hem Sampler by Indigo Rose. Now I am working on adding the beads and hope to complete it tomorrow. The original design is done with teal blues and rose pinks. Fortunately for me, the shop was out of those colors and I was forced to choose another color-way. I love Fall colors, so I chose greens and rusts, and the Waterlilies silk used for the letters is called Rainforest. I'm pleased with the end result and will spend the additional money to have it framed.

Between the counted cross-stitch and knitting a baby blanket for my great-niece who is expecting her first baby, quilting has been put to the side. On September 14th I blogged about a batik crazy nine-patch that I was working on and below is a picture of the tree fabric I had in my stash for ages that will be part of this quilt also. I love this tree fabric and have been waiting to find just the right place in which it could be showcased. I hope to get this top done over the weekend.

It is a good thing to have so many projects from which to choose. It would be even better to blog about things I have finished!

Blogging

This quilt hangs in my living room and I have shown it on my blog before, but I know that a blog post without a picture can easily be ignored. So I added this picture to get your attention. Did it work?

My blogging posts are too infrequent and I know I have lost a lot of readers, but there are some faithful friends and relatives that I know check out my blog. So for those faithful lookers, please keep looking. I promise to be more forthcoming in my blogging after this week. You see, I have been busy thoroughly cleaning my house and this week I have company all week.

After that I am definitely going to get cracking on some serious quilting, stitching, and knitting. There should be plenty of pictures and progress coming up soon.

The Star quilt pictured above was made many years ago with absolutely no plan in mind for fabric colors or placement. The fact that it came out nicely was a complete surprise to me and it continues to be a surprise as the years go by. I seem to like it more and more. That's the way I wish every quilt would end up.

Come back in a week and see what I am doing..........