FNSI and a Bit More

Last night was the third Friday of November, meaning Friday Night Sew-In with the virtual ladies. Unfortunately I was too tired to stitch since I'd been up since WAY before dawn. My hip (did I mention I think I have bursitis?) was really ailing me, enough that I couldn't lay still. So I got up. It may have been since I'd sat in the car all day Wednesday to go to A to Z Quilt Store to get my All-Illinois Shop Hop prize, the AccuQuilt Go! Baby cutter. Or it could've been that walking all over the Scott AFB BX and then the commissary the very next day was just too much hard-floor walking. Might also have been a combo, right?

So earlier in the day I finished the "innards" of the next Illusions Sampler BOM. This is October's block. Did I ever mention how much I dislike sewing square-in-a-square blocks? Haha!

Later that evening it was all I could do to knit a bit on a sock I'd started earlier in the week for FNSI. I'll look up the particulars of the pattern another time. Last night I started the gusset after turning the heel the night before. I'm using a pretty gray yarn that I got from Invictus Yarns. I'd won a $30 gift certificate through a Ravelry knit group called Verybusymonkey Knitters. I love Stephanie's patterns and she's behind Very Busy Monkey. Anyway, here's my progress.

Right now I'd also like to give a shout-out to Aaron for the fabulous job he did cleaning and tuning up both of my Berninas. He used to work out of Batiks Plus in St. Louis but the shop is closing or may already have closed. He's currently working on landing in another shop. In the meantime, he picked up my machines on Tuesday, cleaned and adjusted them, and then returned them to my door on Thursday! A 2-day turn around! Amazing!!! If you're in the area and need your Bernina to get a spa-treatment, contact him through his email, aaronsmachinerepail@gmail.com . Correction: aaronsmachinerepair@gmail.com .Your machine will thank you!

So that's my latest! Have a great weekend!

Linking up with Wendy @ Sugarlane Designs for Friday Night Sew-In and also with Angela @ So Scrappy for Rainbow Scrap Quilters.

Knitting Has Been Taking Up My Time!

Here we are again signing up for FNSI and it occurred to me that I hadn't posted lately. This is actually a good way for me to line up what I plan to work on this week and especially for Friday Night Sew-In. If you'd like to join us, sign-ups are HERE! It's so fun to see what everyone is working on and we come from all over the globe!

I plan on working on my Clam Shells, pattern by Irene Blanck. It's time to make a little more progress on it. In the meantime, I did manage to put a few stitches on my Mosaics (pattern by Irene also).

After returning from our lengthy vacation last month, I was really wanting to play with my sewing machine. I made some good progress on my Scrap Dance Two-Steps quilt top. I've got the entire top webbed and half of that is sewn together. Check it out over there on the right! There is a little piecing for the border and, of course, the borders will have to go on. Then I can declare it a finish!

Speaking of finishes, I did finish my Baby Pennant Blanket. What a fun knit and so easy! After I was more than halfway through, I was kicking myself for not trying to knit it continental style. I have yet to master that technique, which is supposed to be easier on the hands. This would be the perfect project to attempt continental knitting because it's all knit, no purl or anything fancy. Only short row knitting. 

Also finished was this little knitted pumpkin hat. Daughter Sarah has a couple of friends that had babies recently. What first born doesn't need a special hat for October? One done, one in the works. Doesn't it look adorable on Henny Penny?

When my brother returned from Colorado earlier this summer, he brought a gift from my sister. This planter is special because it has a tube that sticks out of it for watering from the roots up. It also has a "false bed" for the soil to sit on. Anyway when my sister asked me if I wanted it I said, "Sure!" Here are pictures of my Fall lettuce taken September 1 and September 11. What a difference! We've already harvested some but I expect it will really take off now that the cooler weather has arrived and I've thinned them out some.

My Anthology Socks by Very Busy Monkey are almost done. This was the last picture I took of them after I'd turned the heel. I am currently shaping the toes and then the final blocking. This has been VERY fun. You can find the pattern HERE on Ravelry. There's also a matching shawl that can be knit in two sizes if you do a search on the Ravelry website.

That's it from here. Have a great week and I'll catch you up this weekend on the progress of my projects!

Prize, Eclipse, & Minis

You may recall from my last post that I'd just returned from being out-of-town for 12 days. It was a terrific vacation. My hubby had a 3-day conference in DC which is the vicinity of both our children. The first part of our trip we stayed near my daughter's home in Alexandria VA and she picked up Fred in the mornings because they work in the same place. This left me the car. On one of the days I plugged in my phone and navigated to Great Falls to Jinny Beyer's Studio. It was a much anticipated visit on my end and it did not disappoint. I'll visit again, to be sure.

On Saturday Sarah, Fred, and I had to take a little walk around Old Town Alexandria after a terrific brunch at Chadwicks. The picture to the right is my daughter and me taken after brunch. Chadwicks is a favorite restaurant of mine and we went on my request. Sarah & I started with an appetizer of Fried Green Tomatoes with Bacon Jam & Jalapeno Cream Drizzle. Oh my! Was that ever delicious!

I went knowing what I was going to order -- Eggs Chesapeake. That is an Eggs Benedict with a crab cake substitution for the Canadian bacon. Sarah spied something new, Eggs Nova Scotia. Eggs Benedict with salmon instead of the Canadian bacon? Let's try that too! We swapped out with each other and we both agreed that the Nova Scotia was the very best Benedict we had ever tasted. If you find yourself in the area on a Saturday or Sunday morning, Chadwicks is a must restaurant to visit for brunch. I'm pretty sure that whenever you find yourself there, it will be delicious. Check out their website HERE. You'll find the Brunch Menu and the Lunch/Dinner Menu here.

We also spent a couple of days in Waldorf MD with my son and daughter-in-law. While the two of them and Fred went to a gun range to shoot and play with their toys, I meandered about 20 minutes south to LaPlata to check out a favorite quilt store, Material Girls. I spent almost three hours there because they have so many wonderful samples and because they have so much to offer. Again another fun day and I'd recommend both Material Girls and Jinny Beyer's Studios if you're ever in the DC area and need a fabric fix!

When I got home, it took me a couple of days to get my act together after being gone for so long. When I finally made it through my mail, I found my beautiful prize from Mary-Ann Lammers. These five beautiful stitch markers, handmade by Mary-Ann herself, are almost too pretty to use but use them I will! As a matter of fact you can see the seahorse in use on my Colorful Wedges Baby Blanket. It makes for very easy knitting of short rows because they practically eliminate counting -- just move the markers accordingly.

As an aside, I'm on the very last wedge to this blanket and will post a picture very soon! Yippee! Looks like I'm going to make that August 31st deadline after all!!! Woot! Woot!

As for my Anthology Socks by Very Busy Monkey, here's a picture of my socks through Step 1. Unfortunately I was halfway through Step 2 and discovered I'd drop a stitch. Tossed that project aside until after I finish the Wedge Blanket. The socks don't need to be done until September 30. Thank goodness I've got some time on that!

In the meantime, my daughter has a couple of friends that have had babies very recently. She asked me to knit up a couple of pumpkin beanies for them. I'll have some beautiful orange yarn leftover from the blanket project but I'll have to scrounge around for some appropriate green. Wasabi green is NOT the color of pumpkin stems & leaves!

I did manage to get a little quilt-making  in. These are the last four blocks given in Marvelous Mini Monday by Temecula Quilts. This past Monday was the layout post. While I'm not all that thrilled with the final design, I'm in it enough to figure out how I want to do mine. First of all, let me say that I thought the one week where we were to cut out 180 1-1/8" squares to make five 36-patch blocks was ridiculous (for me anyway)! I figured I'd take my time and use up my charm squares at the end to be sure I'd have a good supply of scrappiness. However, now that I see the finale, I'm going off on my own. Not terribly far off course, just a little bit. I'll keep you posted on that as I progress.

Apparently Polly, my kitty, missed me while I was away on vacation. Every morning after Fred leaves for work, she now waits patiently for me to get my coffee poured, my phone handy, and something to keep my hands busy. Then she crawls into my lap for a leisurely bath and nap. The blanket has gotten too big for both it and Polly to be in my lap so I've been working on a cross-stitch project. I'm getting to where I smell the finish line on this one and I'm loving it! This is called "It's Spring Fever" by Blackbird Designs. Guess you can tell how long ago I started this by the title! Haha! It's the first project in a series and, while I hadn't planned on doing any others, I am considering the third one which was recently released. It's got a kitty on it!

And speaking of kitties, here's a picture of Polly yesterday. I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked up and saw her there! Yes, that's right! She's on top of the cabinet over the refrigerator. Bad kitty!

And one last picture to leave you with. I took this one of my mother viewing the eclipse here in Illinois on August 21, 2017. Isn't she adorable?

Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

Hello, August!

There are no complaints here from me so far with August. Typically one of our hottest months, this year has brought cool temps. I actually turned off the A/C for a day because the high was only 77 degrees! But enough about the weather. It is August which means all sorts of things have kicked off.

First up is the APQ 2017 UFO Challenge. The selected number was 5, which is my flag quilt. I made this quilt through guild with a teacher they had brought in from Tennessee or West Virginia maybe? Can't quite remember since it was back in 2014. Anyway, her name is Sandi Blackwell and her technique was called Square-agonals. It was quite cool the way we sewed up rail fence squares, then cut this way, relaid out the top, and cut and sewed again to made a beautiful rectangular quilt. Here's a picture of my finished quilt top.

Some of my fellow guild members were unsatisfied with the end result because you will notice that the outside edges get cut off. Doesn't bother me but then again, I'm pretty easy to please!

August 1st also brought the start-up of a couple of knit-a-longs for me. I joined them through two different Ravelry groups. The first group is Loopy Groupies from The Loopy Ewe, a yarn shop that started here in St. Louis but several years ago moved to Ft. Collins CO. The KAL is Summer Camp and I've been assigned to the Loopasaurus Camp. The requirements are strict: Must have bought your yarn from The Loopy Ewe no earlier than July 12th; pattern needs to be dated 2015 or later AND use 800+ yards; and you start the project no sooner than August 1 and it must be completed, photographed, and uploaded to the site by August 31. I chose Colorful Wedges Baby Blanket. I figure my Grandma Hope Chest can't get too full! Hahaha! Anyway, I cast on on Aug 1 and here's my progress so far.

Wedges 1 & 2 complete and the third one is coming right along. The bottom wedge is actually a bit redder than the picture portrays. The yarn balls above in green, orange, & purple are the three wedges after the blue. There is always the gray in between. This is such a fun project and I'm loving it!

The 2nd knit-a-long is a Mystery KAL through Very Busy Monkey, a designer that I found on Ravelry. We are all knitting her Anthology pattern. She has a shawl and a sock one and I could choose one or the other or both. I opted on the socks since it was unusual that I didn't have a pair of socks on my needles at the time. I ALWAYS have a pair of socks going! Anyway, not a lot of progress so far.

You can just make out the pattern beginning to develop after the ribbed cuff. See it? only four rows in of the pattern. Need to get going on this!

The clues to this MKAL come out on Tuesdays in August (1st, 8th, 15th, and 22nd). We have until September to complete our chosen project and get it photographed and uploaded to her site. I believe prizes may be involved! Speaking of prizes, I was hoping my beautiful stitch markers would arrive in the mail today. Really wanted to replace that generic green one with a fun one! Oh well, next week I suppose ...

Speaking of next week, have a terrific weekend! I'm going to cozy up with stitching or knitting. Not sure yet which one, but you can be sure I'll be working on something! So until next time ....