I don’t know why this one took so long to knit but it’s finally done! This was a kit from BluPrint and while I love cotton yarn, this one was rather splitty and even worse had a ton of knots in it. The blanket just took 1 and a half skeins but I had lots of ends to weave in which was very disappointing. Not weaving ends in is one reason I like big skeins of yarn! This isn’t a large blanket but it’s perfect for throwing over the baby in the stroller or car seat.
This is the 3rd blanket finished since I’ve been home – 2 were already in progress and one was started and finished in the last few weeks – I’ve got to get some quilts and blankets donated while I’m in GA!
We’ve no plan to join the masses packing the beaches but we did take a 10 mile bike ride. It was actually not as hot today which was nice.
After getting home, I finished packing up the sewing stuff going with us to Big Canoe and started a couple loads of laundry so I can pack. The storms rolled in …. I’m the blue dot under all that lightning which makes it a perfect afternoon to sit and crochet … or in Finn’s case to NAP!
I told myself I wasn’t going to start another blanket until I finished the pink knit one but all I have left is to bind off and weave in the ends and that project is downstairs so I started a crochet blanket tonight.
I’ve gotten lots of comment and requests for that pattern for my Chandelier quilt. I did a search for charm square quilts and lots of these came up. As you know, I’m pretty good at drafting my own quilts and that’s what I did but I had lots of questions about the pattern so I went searching …..
I found the quilt pattern on Google books … scroll down to page 20. Charm School
Someone also suggested that there was another free pattern at Jordon Fabrics called Beads.
I’m fortunate that I can look at most quilts and figure out the math myself but both of these of these should give you the information you need to make a similar quilt!
Intelligent Quilteris having a sale and I might have bought some new pantographs to load onto my Pantovision tablet for the next quilting marathon! Bubbles is one I already have the paper pattern but I’m slowly adding digital versions of all my favorites. Of course, I’m not getting rid of the paper versions … you never know when technology is going to fail to perform! I doubt I’ll quilt the “grass” portion of the Blowing Grass panto (backtracking is hard especially when you’re not actually looking at the QUILT when you’re doing it) but it will be nice to have a clamshell. They’re always good for overall texture.
Keith took another half day off today so we had time for a bike ride and a swim. Our little outdoor patio restaurant was empty again so we stopped for a beer and a late lunch. I’m kind of enjoying this part of our COVID routine with Keith taking some afternoons off and us going off biking or hiking during the week when everyone else is working!
Of course being Keith, he never seems to be completely off so after we finished our swim and before it was time for Happy Hour and watching the Tour de France, we both worked a little. My intention was to start cleaning up some in the sewing room and while I did get a start, I was sidetracked early on when I found some tumblers leftover … not enough for a doll quilt and I decided to cut some extras and go ahead and piece the top. Half the time the leftovers just get shoved in a baggie with a note – doll quilt – but I’m actually kind of OK with that. They make good projects for times I don’t feel like a big project but still want to sew something.
I also pulled a mountain of leftover binding from beside my machine where I throw them and when I pulled the leftover binding bin, found there’s no more room. I used to make a lot of pieced bindings for the group HeartStrings quilts but I rarely do anymore. I ended up separating the brights from the “duller” fabrics and will use them in string quilts. And the last project today was pulling all the quilt trimmings from under the longarm where I stuff them and separating the pieces for the scrap drawers or the string bins. With all of this, my sewing room is still a mess. I’ll keep working on it this weekend in between doing things with Keith and maybe it won’t be a complete disaster when we get back from Georgia.
I received many emails and comments with support and encouragement after my post on my remission. Thank you all for taking the time to write. I’m excited about having some of the stress and worry behind me and moving forward!
A lot of you commented on Sue’s snowball quilt that I finished up this week and it got me thinking about the next one I want to make. I have the Accuquilt GO snowball die but I’ve only used it once so far.
I like the “flower” setting and will probably use it again sometime but I’ve been wanting to do a scrappy snowball and 9 patch quilt and I drew it out last night. I will probably add more blocks and make it a nice lap size quilt for donation but this was big enough to give me an idea of how it will look.
Now if I can just find time to make this one and the king size 9 patch and friendship star quilt … I’ve got a list of tops already to work on in GA so I don’t know if I’ll get to either one yet. This one will require me to play in the scraps bins so it would have to be cut and kitted for me to piece in GA and I don’t think that’s going to happen before we leave.
After a round of tests and labs last week, I saw the doctor today. He told me that while we’ll continue to monitor, we can consider me in remission (from Thyroid cancer). That’s great because he’s going to back my suppression therapy down a little and hopefully that will help with some of the bothersome symptoms I’ve been dealing with for the last 2 years.
