Round Robin

The two Round Robin quilts that my friend Lindsay and I are making progress slowly. We gave ourselves a year and it looks like we will use every minute of that year. I think it has been two months now since Lindsay gave me this beautifully appliqued round. I just hated to spoil it by adding mundane borders. At our Bee group, Gail suggested that I add strip borders with many different fabrics of the same color - one purple border and one green border. I really liked the idea. One of the rules for this Round Robin exchange was that we must use fabrics from our stash.

I gathered purples easily and made the first border. Then I went through my greens and discovered that the selection was poor and the greens were not right. Too many sages and limes and greens that did not read solid enough for my taste. I agonized and fretted and finally decided the best thing to do was eat lunch. After lunch I went through my stash one last time and uncovered a kit from years ago that I had never started and from which I had previously stolen fabric. In that kit was a stack of green strips. After doing a happy dance, I got to work and made the final border using those wonderful green strips.

Now this quilt goes back to Lindsay for quilting and binding, and I will receive back the other round robin quilt to do the same.

These quilts are being donated to our church for a fund raiser.

Good Day

It is a good day when you can sit in your favorite chair, listen to a good book on your iPod, and stitch a Little House Needleworks one-color piece.

Posted on a Good Day by.........

Is it an age thing?

See the red arrow pointing down to the box of tissue? See the arrow pointing up to the paper taped to the side of the cabinet? This morning as I reached for a tissue, I looked up and there it was! The invitation.

Yesterday there was a shower for my grand niece for which I knitted a baby blanket (see previous post). (Side note - someone asked me how long it took to knit the blanket and I looked it up. I started it on July 19th and finished it on October 31st. Did I knit on it every day? No. ) OK, back to my story. Last week when I looked on my messy desk for the invitation, I could not find it. I cleaned off my desk, I looked in my highly organized Pending file. I looked in my highly organized Pending notebook. I looked in my highly organized Save This box. I simply could not find that invitation. Then I started thinking that maybe I never got an invitation. I was helping with the shower (centerpieces) and there had been many emails, so maybe no one ever sent me an invitation.

At the shower (which was great!), I almost said something to the hostess, in a kidding fashion of course, about not receiving an invitation. Fortunately I kept my mouth shut.

Imagine my surprise this morning when there it was - highly organized and taped to my office cabinet wall. Now I remember doing that and thinking I was so clever - using my cabinet wall like a bulletin board.

That means that now when I am looking for something I need to look in the Pending file, the Pending Notebook, the Save Box, AND the bulletin-board wall. Am I too organized, or is it my age?

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