I have a confession to make! I love Valentine’s Day. I always have. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because February is just so bleak otherwise, it’s nice to have a cheerful little day in the middle of it to lift the spirits.

That said, Dave and I don’t go crazy. Some years, it’s just a card, because that’s all we can manage. This year Valentine’s came a little early. I ordered him some new jeans, which he was in desperate need of. So when they arrived, I didn’t hang onto them, just handed them over.

Dave ordered me some of my favourite candles and when they arrived, he just couldn’t wait for me to open them.

And of course, I couldn’t wait to burn them and get my prizes!

 

That week I also got a lovely little gift from Araignee.

A Valentine’s package of her beautiful soaps, lotion bar and a lip balm! And of course one of her amazing handmade cards!

Even though Valentine’s came early this year, we’re still celebrating – I’ve been saving a restaurant gift card since Christmas!

Hope there’s something sweet in your day.

It’s been a week of quilty things, but as promised, I’ve come up with a new Leader and Ender project. Actually I’ve had this one in mind for a while – Mom is making one, and when I saw her first few squares, I was absolutely smitten.

The end result will look something like this

(Picture grabbed from Pinterest)

For weeks I’ve been cutting my scraps into 2.5 inch squares and organizing them by colour.

My layout will probably be more like my Cabins on Rainbow Creek, keeping all the colours together, but I’ll decided that when I have more blocks made. I want it to be a good sized quilt, so it’s going to take a while – with 2.5 inch squares, the blocks are only about 6 inches  or so finished.

Here’s a look where all my quilt projects are at:

• Marseilles Stars: Stars are all pieced – I need to cut some plain white fabric and piece the  top together. Then hunt up a border
• Purrfect Petals: I’m putting all the flowers together and loving it. This one will probably be finished soon.
• Cat Fancy: Taking this one one step at a time… so far so good.
• Go, Daddio: Sewing all those crazy pinwheels into a crazy mess – this top will be wrapped up quickly
• Leader & Ender Rainbow Nine Patches: So far, one patch done, eleventy billion more to make!

 

This weekend saw me finish my beautiful disappearing hourglass quilt!

I have always loved the combination of red and white (or in the case, cream) and in this quilt it is phenomenal. The addition of the beiges and a warm, reddish coral just take it up a notch. While I do love a good scrappy quilt, there’s definitely something to be said for coordinating pre-cuts (this one was made from a Moda layer cake).

A border of plain cream, then a simple circle print I had in my stash finished it off nicely. And as you can see – I’m still looping on the long-arm quilter. Because this quilt was much larger than my last few, I went looser and loopier with the stitching. I also used a warm light brown thread, which makes the stitching stand out nicely.

The backing was another clearance bin find, though I did splurge a little on the binding… I wanted something that was the exact perfect shade of red. I found it, but I had to pay full price.

Now the quilt is complete and beautifying my bed (along with my  gorgeous floof monster.) This really is the best part of quilting!

I mentioned a few posts back that the crazy pinwheels wouldn’t be Leaders and Enders for much longer… and here’s the proof!

All the individual pinwheels were assembled so it was time to lay them all out and contemplate the craziness I had assembled. AS you can see – I had some help.

After extracting the cats, I paired them all up and sewed them into two patches. then those two patches got paired into four patches. I didn’t worry too much about placement – I just made sure no two like fabrics were touching. Anything more than that and I would have gone insane.

The four patches now need to be sewn into a top, but that was enough for one day. And since this is no longer a L&E project, it needs a proper name. I’m calling it Go, Daddio, since it was inspired by Daddio’s Thangles quilt, and it’s a swinging swirling mass that makes me think of one of my favourite Swing songs – Go Daddy-O.

Now excuse me – I’ve got to go figure out something to make for L&Es now!

Taa-daa….

I give you the first completed Sunday Swing sock! It went very fast and was fun to knit. And I’d already got the second sock underway so hopefully I can avoid the dreaded SSS.

As you can see, I didn’t carry the lace down the foot as the pattern calls for. That’s because I found the leg was twisting a bit and I was worried it would cause the foot to twist when wearing. Plus the recipient lives where they get a lot of cold and snow… socks with too many holes just aren’t practical.

The pattern also calls for only three repeats on the leg. Were these socks  for me, I probably would have stuck to that (I prefer a shorter sock). Since they are not, I added one extra repeat. I think several other KALers have done the same.

It never ceases to amaze me how different a yarn can look knit up. In the skein, the grey was much more dominant.

But knit up, that Turquoise just takes over with the Yellow coming a close second. Just part of the magic of knitting, I guess!

While I worked on Cat Fancy on last Saturday, on Sunday I wanted a bit of a change.

So, I got to cutting the plain white strips I needed to for my Purrfect Petals quilt. I always try to chain piece whenever possible, so that meant attaching the petals in sets of two first, then working on the strips that hold the centre block.

After an afternoon of sewing, I had all my petals paired up and all their centre strips ready to go. By that time, the clock had struck 4 p.m., but I just couldn’t resist tempting pumpkin brain to get a few finished flowers together.

I’ve got 18 more flowers to make, but with everything ready to go, they won’t take long.  I guess I better start thinking about border fabric for this one!

It’s hard to have the February blahs when you’ve got such a cozy place for a nap!

All that snow I showed you on Monday is gone. We had a brief warm up and it melted in no time. I’d be excited, but it’s still February… Mother Nature is not fooling me.

Yesterday the freezing rain moved in.

Everything is covered in ice. Schools are closed, and roads are chaos. Luckily, I work from home, so my commute down the stairs in the morning wasn’t affect by anything more than the usual Burton laying on the step, and Relic dancing around my feet begging to go outside.

At lunch I took a break to join Relic  outside. He was not thrilled about the weather, but after that warm up, he’s determined Spring will come if he keeps going outside to check.

The driveway was a sheet of pure ice, and the lawn little icy daggers.

The birds have been out and about too – despite the icicles on their feeder, the top has kept the ice out of the seed.

As inconvenient (and dangerous) as it can be for some – I do love a good ice storm. There’s beauty in everything Mother Nature throws at us.

 

 

Since I got the slip-stitch socks complete, my sock needles have been empty. It’s perfect timing to join up with Vera and Dee in a little KAL.

The pattern is Sunday Swing. It’s a simple pattern that’s easy to memorize. It’s also one of those patterns that make you want to finish a whole repeat before putting it down, so it’s moving along nicely.

It’s a great pattern to work with a crazy handpaint like this. I’m using Barn Cat in Bird on a Wire. It’s one of the last skeins I dyed up last year.

This pair will be for my Sister-in-Law (her birthday is next month), but I’m thinking I should use the second skein I have of it for a pair of socks for Dave. He doesn’t mind wild socks, and these colours work just as well for a man as a woman. But for now, I’ve got to finish this pair.

I’m almost to the heel already, so I don’t expect this pair to be on the needles for too long.

Since Mom was so kind as to cut all my pieces for Cat Fancy, it seemed only right that I get to work on the piecing of it.

I didn’t get too far – just the first two steps. the HSTs were pretty simple. The geese weren’t hard, but it was my first time making real geese (not just sticking two HSTs together) so I wanted to make sure I got them right. I quite enjoyed it, so I’m sure there will be a Flying Geese quilt in my future.

But not until this one is finished. And that will be a while yet. While it’s not overly hard, it’s not quite a beginner kit, and there are a lot of moving pieces. Better I take it one step at a time!