May Day! May Day! May Day!

Definitely a distress signal for me. April completely disappeared off my calendar this year. I guess between wrecking my car and the scramble for a replacement in March followed by Easter and then taking my mother to her 65th high school reunion in New Jersey in April, it just did me in. Whatever! Let's move on ... As I recall I promised to share my latest knitting projects.

The first shawl is Boneyard Shawl with Mara Shawl's ruffled edge. I used the yarn I got with Warm Woolies club through The Loopy Ewe. It's a nice weight and size and should keep me warm in cooler weather ... or in the house while the heat is off. The middle picture is of my Reyna Shawl, also using yarn from Warm Woolies Club. It's a lighter weight yarn and the pattern is lacy. I've used it several times already wrapped around my neck. It's beautiful and I wish you could see the sparkles in the yarn! My socks are a fun pair knit with Inversibles yarn. The yarn was dyed in opposite colors so where you see light silver on the one skein, there is dark silver on the other. The yarn is dyed by Fibernymph and you can get all kinds of double-color combinations from The Loopy Ewe. Think team colors or school colors! The pattern is Cadence and it's a freebie from Very Busy Monkey. (All of these patterns can be found on www.ravelry.com .

As for quilting, I have some sharing on that today too! But first the disappointing news. The APQ 2017 UFO Challenge selected #11, which was my Winter Snowmen. This project has been sitting for years and needs to be quilted. It is exactly the same, never touched this year. For May we are to work on #2 which is my Alex's Stars Round-a-Bout. Can't remember the official title to this quilt top but that's what I called it to refresh my memory. So far I've gotten it out to measure so I can purchase my batting. It's already MOSTLY marked for quilting so I need to finish that up then I'll be good to go!


Remember this project? I not only finished the big-stitch quilting but got my sleeve AND label on. I pretty much copied my friend Katie's and my sister's ideas for personalizing and made it my own! I am thrilled to cross this one off my list!


Here are also a couple pictures of the back so you can see my label and some of the quilting.

My guild has a quilt show every other year and this is the year of the show! It's really motivated me to having my labels done and sewn on. I may put this one in the show.

Here is a "teaser" picture of my Winter Wonderland quilt. I finished it quite some time ago but never made the label. It has been entered into the quilt show so it was time for a label. You can see I did a fancy-schmancy label here too!

I machine quilted it on my Bernina and I love it.

I also entered my Dresden Stars. I don't have a picture yet of it finished and I also don't have a label for it yet. That'll be done this weekend.

This is a photo of my Witch's Boot which is also entered in the quilt show. I changed the border up instead of the called-for one. I like my version much better. Not sure if it has a label on it. Better dig it out & check!

In other news, we've had an awful amount of rain here in the St. Louis area.  So much so that I thought I'd share a picture of our dock on the pond. Ridiculous amount, wouldn't you agree? I thought our paddle boat was going to float away!

Thankfully the water is going down. Which is a good thing because the International Quilt Market - Spring is going to be held here in St. Louis in a couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to helping out with it ... signed myself up yesterday! I hope to see some of the ladies whom I follow their blogs!!

A last couple of pictures: Gracie was thrilled that the rain was gone this morning and the sun was shining brightly. She was doubly thrilled when she pulled a treasure out of the pond -- a potting bucket! What a happy pup runing with her new prized possession!

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Mom should be here any minute now to go to lunch with me. We're headed to Catrina's in Edwardsville, a favorite Mexican restaurant of ours! Have a great weekend! Ole!