After complaining about how cold it’s been, we got one amazingly warm day on Sunday. I think it got up to about 16C/60F.
Relic was absolutely THRILLED!
All it takes is a little sun and warmth and he’s just gotta roll! It doesn’t matter that the catio lawn is an absolute mudhole right now.
While he was rolling and soaking up some rays, I cleaned my truck out, and then took a poke around the garden. I’m happy to say, there is signs of life in the bulb box.
They are very small signs (less than half and inch) but I’ll take them!
What’s really exciting…
Remember the pussywillows I bought last year? Well as you can see, the pink and black ones have catkins. (the white one is in a shadier spot, so nothing on her yet). The plants are still quite small, so no big show, but one day… they are going to be amazing!
It’s been a while since you’ve seen my Leader/Ender quilt. In fact, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. I’ve been busy making the blocks, but I haven’t laid them out in a while.
So I decided to do just that.
There’s only 80 on the bed, but I actually have 97 in total. I was aiming for 100, so I’ve only got three more to make. Then I’ve got to start sewing them all together.
Happily, Hemlock Ring only took two days to dry, and I was able to unpin her and get some beauty shots.
Here on the corner of the couch, you can get a much better idea of her size. She’s almost 60 inches across, which is perfect for draping across my lap in my office chair. It’s long enough to keep me warm, but not so long that I have to worry about it getting caught in the wheels of my office chair. As I mentioned the other day, it’s still quite cold here, and the office is one of the coldest rooms in the house, so I’ve already gotten some good use out of her.
It’s a surprisingly simple pattern. That centre flower isn’t hard if you take it round by round. And the the rest is just feather and fan, with the lace part worked only once every five rounds. You do need to pay attention to your stitches on that round (or you end up with the mess I had at first), but using markers on each pattern repeat, and counting stitches as soon as you’ve completed the repeat keeps problems from happening and then growing exponentially.
The cast off was a killer – again not hard once you got the rhythm of it.. but time consuming. It took me a couple nights to get it all cast off, but in the end, I have this lovely loopy, lacey edge.
The yarn I used was Alpaca with a Twist Highlander. It’s an Alpaca/Wool/Microfiber blend. It’s listed as an Aran weight, but it’s pretty darn close to a bulky. The pattern actually calls for a bulky yarn, so it was a decent substitute. And of course, the Alpaca makes it extra warm and fluffy. I ended up using just over 8 balls of it (approx. 1192 yards). I have almost one full ball left and I’m thinking it will make a nice hat.
The colour is Braeberry, and you can see it’s a nice dark, dusty blue. Blue is not a colour I would normally pick. This actually came from Mom’s stash. She gave it to me ages ago. And when I decided I was finally going to knit Hemlock (it’s been in my queue since the pattern first came out!), it was really the only thing heavy enough in the right quantity I had for it.
And since I was focused more on the warmth, I wasn’t really going to be picky about colour. But in the end, it really was perfect for it. The shade just helps to show off the stitches so nicely.
It’s definitely a knit that’s going to get a lot of use.
…and the floral wreath is complete! All that’s left are the words in the centre, and I’ll finish them up this week! This one will be in the bag in plenty of time for Jenn’s birthday.
Some of my quilting readers may be familiar with Pat Sloan. She’s a bit of quilting celebrity. Mom and I spend a fair amount of time in her facebook group.
She runs a lot of quilt-alongs, and when this one came up, I thought it would be fun and quick. It’s a free pattern from the Fat Quarter Shop, called Flapjacks.
It uses fat eighths, and I just happened to have a bundle that would be perfect for it.
Last week, Burton and got them all cut up. And this weekend, we finally took the time to put them all together.
With chain piecing, they go together pretty quick. And because I was making the crib size, it wasn’t long before I had them all done.
Burton helped my find the perfect layout, trying to distribute the colours as evenly as possible.
Then a little seaming, and a plain border later…
Burton was pretty darn happy about the final result! I’ve got to admit, it’s pretty darn cute.
But then, I love a good farmyard!
I have some fun cow fabric for the back, but I forgot to take a picture, so you’ll just have to wait for the finished quilt to see it!
I haven’t decided what to cast on after finishing Hemlock Ring, so when I have had a few minutes to knit, I’ve just been adding rows to the socks I’m making for Dave’s Mom for Christmas.
I’m around the heel and passed the gusset now and you can really see the wild colours of this yarn. As a reminder it’s Kroy Socks in Dad’s Jacquard. I don’t have to worry that Kroy balls are light on yardarge here because Dave’s Mom has small feet – they are even smaller than mine!
Working on the sock is a nice bit of colourful cheer as I await spring. I know some of you are already seeing the first signs, but it’s Been pretty darn cold here (below freezing most days), with snow off and on. It’s supposed to be balmy and spring-like today, but then they are calling for snow and freezing rain tomorrow!
I checked on my bulb box the other day, and there were no signs of life (the soil is still frozen solid), though Facebook told me at this time last year I had daffodils and crocuses sprouting already.
Soon enough though… time marches on and spring will arrive!
I don’t have to tell you guys how much I love my house plants. I might have a bit of an addiction, but I still have plenty of room in the house, so we’re in no danger of getting lost in my little indoor jungle.
But because of this addiction, I do have a tendency to come home with “mystery plants”
Case in point.
It was sitting all alone at the grocery store looking sad (Despite what it’s little label said).
It was dried out, and as you can see, had a couple bad leaves. I had no idea what kind of plant it was (the label said Musa, but that meant nothing to me), but that’s never stopped me from bringing home a plant before!
When I got home, I looked it up.
Guys…
Musa…
…is a FREAKING BANANA PLANT!!!!
Now… it’s a dwarf banana, but they can still get to six feet tall. I kind of feel like a person who finds a stray puppy, and it turns out to be a Great Dane.
I told Dave what it was and how big it would get and he just shrugged, so I decided my little banana was ok to stay. I removed the bad leaves (and it smelled just like a freshly peeled banana) and gave her a bigger pot.
She now looks so happy amongst my other floor plants in front of the window. I can’t wait to see how fast and big she grows!
For extra credit: Here’s a pic of the Jasmine in full bloom
For those wondering, you can smell it as soon as you walk in the livingroom, and while the scent is strong, it’s not overpowering, which is nice. And judging by the number of buds on it, it should flower at least until April!
Every free evening I’ve had lately has been devoted to knitting Hemlock Ring
And thanks to a little help from my friends, I finally got it off the needles. And let me tell you… that cast-off row was a killer. For every four stitches worked, you’re adding six more and then casting them off. It was VERY tedious, but worth it because it creates a really pretty looped edge.
This one was so big and bulky that I had to soak it in the bath tub to get it ready for blocking. And in the end, the only place I had room enough to stretch is all out, and keep it safe from prying paws, was my sewing studio.
It means I can’t sew for a few days until it dries… but I’ve got plenty other crafty things to do until then. That room is very warm and dry with the door closed, so it shouldn’t take too long.
Look for an FO post next week, while I decide what I’m going to knit next…
Waiting for the bolt of white fabric really put me behind on my Round Robin quilt. I still had three prompts left to incorporate, so with the bolt now in my hands, I figured the weekend was a good time to tackle them.
The first prompt I had to deal with was Signature Blocks. I had never heard of a Signature Block so I had to google it. Basically, it’s any type of block with enough white space in it that a person could write something. There are a few common types, and people often used them to make quilts for newly weds – they make up all the blocks and have guests at the wedding put a little well-wish message in them, then sew them together to make a quilt.
I’m glad I had some time to let this one marinate, because it gave me a chance to see what Chrisknits did with hers. I decided I would do the same with some minor changes
Since no one would be signing mine, I put the patterned fabric in the middle. I also made my outside triangles a touch smaller than Chris did.
Then I got them sewn together and onto the top.
Her inspiration was definitely the right way to go with this quilt! Though it did take a little extra effort to make sure all those cat heads were going in the same direction
But… I still had two prompts to go. Because the quilt was already a good size, I decided to combine them.
The next two prompts were Rail Fence and Shoo Fly blocks. Shoo Fly was no problem – they would definitely work as corner blocks
Rail Fence was a little bit trickier. In the end, I couldn’t figure out a way to make them work that I liked, so I cheated a little. Rail Fence is basically just rectangles, sewn together into a square, then sewn together in different directions. So I cut some rectangles and sewed them together…
…and left it at that. Technically it’s piano keys, but it still looks kind of fence-like. Then there was nothing left to do but sew all those together.
You can see, I ended up making more Shoo Fly blocks than just the corners…
and I worked the black border into the blocks to echo the star border I did previously. All in all, I’m pretty please with. Naturally Burton is too!
I plan to get to Mom’s some time in the next couple of weeks, so this one is on the to-quilt list.
I can’t wait to put it all together with this fun cat backing (not flannel, but darn cute!) and some paw-print binding!
Wandering Cat Studio 