quilt

I've finally finished redoing a quilt for my DS2. The back to the quilt was falling apart, and the edging already had completely fallen apart. My MIL made it about 20 years ago. It was obviously made to be used -- and was made out of left-over scraps from other quilts. It's the only one of her quilts that was tied instead of quilted.

I almost forgot to mention.... Although my MIL made quite a few quilts, she had always put the quilts-in-progress away before we visited. So, I'd never seen a quilt being made before.

First, I thought that all it needed was a new back. But, cutting off all the ties and taking off the back, I discovered that it had only an old sheet for batting. So, I decided to take that off and get new batting.

I also discovered that making a quilt is more expensive than I thought it would be. I bought some Mountain Mist Ultra-Fine batting on sale and some Debbie Mumm fabric on sale (both at Jo-Ann). It came to about $40. (I was going to use an old sheet for the backing but couldn't find the one I was thinking of using. I decided that if I'm going to go to the trouble of putting all of this together, I might as well use quality fabrics.) The ties are Vanna's Choice toffee yarn. I left the top as is. I used some of the fabric (cut on a diagonal) as edging. The internet was invaluable for help in how to finish a quilt.

I thought the ties would be the easiest part. But, it took quite a bit of thought on my part to figure out how to go about it -- even though I did watch some videos on-line. I finally settled on using an old 3" long needle (that probably belonged to my grandmother), a 13" embroidery hoop (that belonged to my MIL), and a newly purchased threader to work the ties.

It's fall. The Winesap apple tree we planted in the spring bore a single apple -- which was delicious. (We hadn't expected any on a newly planted tree.) We didn't get any blueberries (probably because of how dry the summer was). And the Filbert trees didn't make it. They never leafed out at all. It's the first failure I've ever had from trees from Arbor Day. Finally, Halloween is going to be celebrated on the correct day here. (Last year, Trick or Treating was held a couple day early. -- In Columbus, Ohio, Trick or Treating was never held on Halloween for as long as we lived there.)

My big project now is a Wash (Firefly) pullover for my DS2. I'm redoing it as a raglan so that I won't have to seam -- and so there will be a shorter pattern repeat for the main pattern. I hope it doesn't start to snow the day after I give it to him. It snowed the day after I gave him a sweater last year -- a month earlier than normal.

k1b

I'm finally getting Fjordland finished to my liking. Here is a picture of the sock redone with a slightly different color scheme than before (KnitPicks grass, pine, and buckskin and two size 1 circs). I was planning on changing the heel from a short-row heel to a reverse heel-flap heel (because I have a high arch) -- but then decided to take the easy way out and work a Fleegle heel. (I made gusset increases in the background color.)

Then for the cuff, I decided to try out a sock cuff from the "Knit One Below" book that I'd recently purchased. Even though I worked the cuff over the same number of stitches as the garter stitch rounds preceding it, the cuff is looser and stretchier than any of the rest of the sock -- even than the garter stitch rounds just before the cuff. It was fun -- and I'm looking forward to making a whole sweater using the technique.

I ordered yarn from KnitPicks in case I needed some to finish the sock. I didn't. So, it looks as if I'm doing stash busting in reverse. I just about used up my leftover grass and pine sock yarn on the sock -- but got a couple of full skeins to replace them plus some of the new heather colors (which I really like the looks of).