Crafts

The Mystery Quilting Project – now known as “Starry Starry Night” – is officially done, and revealed!

After I put this all together, I had a few moments of panic, thinking it was almost dizzying…but I think it turned out ok, and is almost what I had originally envisioned. The Don McLean song, Vincent (Starry Starry Night), kept going through my head while I worked on the quilt, hence the name.

This is only the second quilt I’ve ever actually finished. I have plenty of quilt tops in various stages of piecing, but this is only the second I’ve quilted, bound off, and given away! I should really try to finish the Wildberry Vines quilt, or the Christmas quilt, or the two Jo-Ann’s quilt-block-of-the-month quilts from several years ago, or the hope chest cover quilt that I started a couple of years ago…one of these days. (Does anyone else see a pattern here? I think I need deadlines to actually complete things!)

Now, just as soon as we’re done with the basement remodeling – which is something that does indeed have a deadline – I can get back to my regularly scheduled knitting!

I finished the front of Janda at Sit & Knit last night…but since it’s just light gray stockinette stitch and looks remarkably like the back, I won’t torture you with pictures. The first sleeve is cast on, and I love how the blue is working up!

I’ve decided that since I really want to finish this project – and wear it soon! – I’m just going to ignore all of the Christmas knitting calling from my stash. There’s plenty of knitting time left until Christmas, right? Plus, a few of the hypothetical recipients have winter birthdays after Christmas, so if worse came to worse, it could always become birthday knitting…

Here are the things I should have been doing lately:

• painting the basement family room
• working on MQP
• practicing piano for a last-minute accompanist job
• working on a wedding gift
• working on Christmas gifts

Instead, I’ve been working on the front of Janda…and I paid for my sneaky knitting by having to rip out 20 (!) rows of the raglan shaping today.

Tonight, I promise to make huge amounts of quilting progress in between priming and painting the wall of the basement room that we’re going to install built-in cabinets on. The rest of the walls will just have to wait until I can move enough boxes to get to them. How on earth do they manage to do an entire room in two days on Trading Spaces? It takes me two days to strip wallpaper and patch a single wall to my satisfaction…although maybe I’m being a bit of a perfectionist – after all, aside from the top, oh, 10 inches or so, the wall is going to be covered with cabinets and bookcases…

Thank goodness I took the time to swatch the pink mohair for Grecian Rose before I went back to the store and bought the rest. It’s gorgeous. Pink, fluffy, soft to knit…until I touched it to my arm, where it turned into a square of thorns. It feels like there are bits of straw poking out of it into my arm. Sniff. I even tried washing it and letting it dry to see if maybe a washing would remove the itchiness. No such luck. Ah, well. I’m sure if I look around I’ll be able to find some other lovely pink fuzzy yarn that won’t drive me insane with scratchiness.

I think maybe this is a sign that I should be working on the projects I currently have going rather than starting something new…but that doesn’t mean I can’t be on the lookout for pink, fuzzy, non-scratchy yarn!

(It must have been one of those commandments on the third tablet that broke!)

Why am I coveting? My mom knits, too, and we fuel each other’s obsession…I’ve even gotten her hooked on knitting socks. Now she’s starting a new project: she’s going to knit a dress out of fabulous ribbon yarn. (Covet, covet.) The ribbon works up so beautifully!

Of course, it’s not like I’m not starting new projects myself! I’ve found a lovely yarn to use for the Grecian Plait sweater from Knitty. I think I’ll call it “Grecian Rose”.

After a late-night trip to Starbuck’s the night before last – I swear I got decaf! – I was buzzed until one a.m., so…

Suki is complete! I added buttons to the straps when I sewed them on, to make it both more secure and prettier. Don’t ask me why I had several white star buttons sitting in my sewing supplies – no, really, don’t ask me, because I honestly have no recollection of why I bought them! I’m not as happy with how this one felted – the white yarn didn’t felt up as uniformly as the blue and the purple, even though they are the same type of yarn. Maybe they bleach the white, and that alters the fiber somehow? I do like the over-all look, though.

…and, my first aran afghan square is done and ready to be blocked! It ended up a smidge bigger than expected, but as long as they’re all approximately the same size, it shouldn’t matter. Now I have to decide which of the other great squares in the book to try next!

Has anyone else out there noticed the complete lack of crafting programs for the Mac? Things like knitwear designers or quilt designers…what exists is either very pricey, or ancient – c’mon, system 7?!? Windows users, on the other hand, have their choice of many $20 shareware apps. I’d break down and fire up Virtual PC if there was a decent interface among them. But, like most windows apps, they’re clunky and counter-intuitive – I don’t have an opinion on this or anything… ;)

I can see I’m going to have to take matters into my own hands and write something. If I can ever put down the crafts I’m working on long enough to pick up the computer.

Somewhere in the middle of a very busy weekend, I managed to do the following:

1. start another sock
2. buy another sock book
3. buy more yarn for a pair of socks in the sock book
4. find this pattern book to help reduce my large stash of off-white wool
5. order this pattern and accompanying yarn

…and, I got a new Sony Clié, so I’ve been spending time playing with that. Did I mention we also toured the Keuka wine trail – ok, only four wineries, not the whole trail.

(Is it any wonder I need weekends to recover from my weekends?)

I had a knitting crisis last night. I finished the straps for Suki…and then I had nothing on needles. (Well, I’m not counting the extremely heavy throw or the blanket poncho, both of which are too hot to work during the summer.) I mean, don’t get me wrong – I have several unfinished projects going on right now, but I’ve been good about finishing a piece of a project before picking up something else to work on. Hence, no knitting sitting patiently on needles, waiting for me to notice it and take pity.

After much waffling, I decided to go back to the Christmas sweaters…but it was a tough decision!

I can’t wait to felt the tote. And I suppose the knitting isn’t really done, since I’m going to make pockets out of the little bits of leftover yarn. And I do mean little bits! I had just enough blue to make one strap, so I made the second out of the purple. I think I can get one smallish pocket out of what’s left of the purple, and a larger one out of white.