stashing and starting

Yesterday in the craft room was all about stashing and starting. First, here's a round up of all the fabric I acquired on the "tour" of local quilt shops with my parents. The top row are from Golden State Quilting up in Campbell. OMG. The Charley Harper horsey print! The mushroom and fabulous hippy horse from Ruby Star Society (Sarah Watts and Melody Miller... two of my faves)! They have also always had Tula Pink fabrics when I've gone in, which I resisted this time but mom did get some very cute bunnies and owls. It's so nice to have a shop nearby that you know will have the latest from your favorite designers. 

The bottom row big three are from Back Porch Fabrics on our trip down to Pacific Grove. I got the Anna Maria Parry zinnias and the somehow irresistible mustard/hot pink blender and mom snuck in that beautiful Charley Harper butterfly fabric for me. I thought she was getting it for herself! Monarchs are "a thing" down there, so it's a fun thing to remember the trip with. 

Last are a few fat quarters from my true LQS in Morgan Hill, Quilts and Things. Somehow this visit my eye was drawn to all the pinks and oranges, which is quite unusual for me! The checkerboard print in the middle is not coming through quite as eyewateringly neon in the photo as it truly is in person. I am 99.9% sure that's a Tula Pink blender. I'm not sure what any of these will be used for, but in laying these out I can see an interesting project potential taking shape in that bottom row.... 

Mom and I also spent a loooong time winding yarn. The two balls on the right were wound for me at the shop where we got them (Fillory) and will turn into a sweater for my dad - along with 10 of their closest friends when they arrive on order. Realizing I was going to start that sweater project made me want to line up a couple of others that have been on my mind since the yarn crawl in spring. The blue and coral on the left are going to be another Hold Sway Sweater, and the brown is going to be some sort of boxy summery top. Not shown are the yarn hanks for my next Shift cowl I have planned, also with yarn from the crawl supplemented by that aqua peeking in the background (from a trip with mom to A Pop of Color in town). They won't get made if the yarn's not wound! So we wound. And wound. And wound. 14 cakes! I did not snap a picture of them, but it was a lot. They are all now nestled in project bags waiting patiently for me to get started. I think my plan is to get them all cast on and started a bit so that I can work on whatever I'm in the mood for without the barrier of "ugh casting on" to deal with. 

Also part of the day was spent with mom choosing a gnome. I showed her my book of Gnomes of Grimblewood that I got at the workshop in February and suggested she pick one for me to make. I already sent her some cute earrings, but I have been thinking of starting another gnome so it would be fun to send it along to her house. ( I haven't made one since April! So much for doing one a month ;) ) We did some stash diving and came up with a rainbow of colors to use on one of the tall stripey guys. I've already cast on and knit a few rows, so more to come. 

It feels good to be organized in the craft room again, to have infused a few new things, and to have some plans! It was also really fun to take a tour around my favorite shops with my parents. I am lucky in how many great places there are pretty close by. May they continue to thrive.

Pacific Grove favorites

Well true to form a trip to Pacific Grove with my folks turned into a tour of some old favorites! We headed down for a day trip to "see the ocean", which included a lovely lunch at a coast-side local park, and pretty much my favorite other thing to do there which is to check out the local yarn and fabric shops. 

Back Porch Fabric recently changed ownership and I am glad to see that the new owners have continued stocking prints that I really enjoy. In fact, it might even be more up my alley than the previous owner which is kind of surprising given how much I liked her choices. Designers I recognized were Charley Harper, Kaffe Fassett, Sarah Watts, and Anna Maria Parry. There are still plenty of batiks, ocean themed prints, and pretty blenders that pop. This gorgeous zinnia print had to come home. There was also a chicken quilt on the wall that was so fun I'm tempted to try it even though I'm not a big chicken person. I'm pretty sure it was Kaffe Fassett prints - so fun to see a traditional topic worked up in bright and busy prints!

I don't think I've skipped popping into Monarch Knitting on a trip down here since the first time I found them. I enjoy the space and the way they've arranged it, the yarns they choose to stock, and they always have some beautiful samples to check out. Case in point, the adorable whale and pufferfish stuffies they had knit up out drew me over to the table where I found this little guy who came home with me. I went in thinking (knowing) I did not need to add to my yarn stash, but does a kit to make a toy turtle really count? I at least have a plan for the yarn. :) 

kits are fun too sometimes

Cleaning up my craft room and "ravelry stashing" my yarn earlier this month got me going on a new project. This is a kit I got from Monarch Knitting, a favorite LYS down in Pacific Grove. I've had it for a while and wound up the hanks this summer so it was sitting in it's box ready to go. I've been missing the simplicity of knitting in the evenings. Embroidery and cross stitch are nice but I find it easier to multitask while knitting!

The pattern is simple enough, though looks more complicated than it actually is - I love things like that - and the fact that it is knitted in the round with a repeat that is easy to memorize has made this really fun and really quick. I am enjoying it quite a lot and have been thinking this is a pattern I would make again. I don't ordinarily find myself drawn to kits, not for any particular reason other than that I like to pick my own colors. I am appreciating though that these are colors I would not have thought of for myself but they drew my eye in combination through their clear box enclosure at the shop. That light pink especially is so pretty and unusual for my palette. I don't usually do well in light/pastel warm tones but I think the combination with the stronger pink and dark olive will make it wearable for me. 

I had intended for this to be an occasional project that would take a while, but it has grown rather quickly! It's been less than two weeks and I am already at the final color shift and approaching the grafting step. 

foxy progress

This weekend I picked up my foxy embroidery again. I was sitting on the front porch with some friends and felt I wanted a relaxing thing to do with my hands. I actually have not worked on this in quite a while, but it has been on a side table in my bedroom waiting patiently. I think I haven't wanted to approach working on filling in that fox. Ugh. But I didn't have a knitting project started, and the hand quilting project was just way too big to bring down so I grabbed this project bag and ended up enjoying the return. 

I continued this evening while watching some Missouri Star YouTube. They had Anna Maria Parry on, my favorite fabric designer, so a must-see for me. I enjoyed the projects I saw and her way of teaching and on-camera personality did not disappoint. I puttered around doing some of the finishing on the flowers - even some French knots! I have now gotten to the point where my only things left are the brown accents on the flowers, which use colors that also accent and appear in the fox, and a cloud of lime green French knots at the top. I'm not sure which I will do first, the fox or the knots, but it's a toss up which one I will grit my teeth through more. 

I think I'll stick with the floral finishing touches for now! 

brambles, finished

Monday's photoshoot also included this lovely finish. I've mentioned the story before, but to recap, I started this piece as a simple (mostly) garter stitch project that I could take to knit night at my local yarn store, figuring I could split my attention between talking and this with little consequence. The yarn is a gray wool I got at the King's Mountain Art Fair at some point and a beautiful variegated cotton that I got from my brother's family for a birthday (along with the cake that turned into my North Sea Ombre wrap. The variegated yarn was over 1000 yards and demanded a great project to showcase the shades. 

I chose a Melanie Berg design from her book Colorwork Shawls that made use of two gradient yarns and just decided the gray was enough as it was. Soooo glad I did! The pattern was perfect for this combination. Well, nearly. I was hoping to use up every last bit of the gradient yarn cake but I have a bit of the darkest purple left. I did consider doing an extra repeat of the lace edge but just couldn't face more lace by the time I was done with the repeats as written. 

I chose not to block it - I don't think it needs it. I'm loving that it's mostly cotton which gives the fabric a great drape and weight and will mean I can likely wear this without itching too much. I do love to knit and wear shawls but so often I end up with red and irritated skin on my neck. It's got quite a wingspan. I have not measured my piece, but the pattern states 7.5 feet along the edge and just about 3 feet deep. I'd say I have that here, and these wonderfully big sizes are a hallmark of all of the Melanie Berg patterns I have made. They take me a long time but end up being such wonderfully architectural pieces that I find it rewarding to finish and I get a kick every time I pull one out to wear. 

Pattern: Grellow is a State of Mind, by Melanie Berg (my Ravelry page) 

Needle: US 3

Yarn: Scheepjes Whirl in 'brambleberry' and Serendipidye King's Mountain Sock in 'smoke' 

shift cowl, finished

I got some great photos of my mom's Shift cowl today. The bright colors were a pleasure to work with through the winter and spring and are now popping in the summer garden. Mom has always had a knack for choosing great colors. We bought these on her trip out here in November. I took her to the local yarn store, which was I think my first time meeting the new owner Kristi who is delightful. In fact much of this was stitched at the Wednesday evening knit group at the shop that I took a leap and started going to this winter - a fun and encouraging group of ladies! I digress. Mom and I saw a sample worked up at the shop and the construction plus the combination of variegated yarns caught both of our eyes.

Mom chose just one variegated yarn, which actually had its own surprise way of working up here. It started out with a lot of fuchsia and turquoise and morphed into that bright blue you see down at the end. So interesting! The other two colors she picked were solids, a bright lime green and a soft toned light purple. They ended up looking quite eye catching together, even if the light purple gets a little lost in the photos. It shows up in person, promise. 

The construction on this piece was pretty creative. It's worked diagonally from a tiny start to a long finish and then seamed up the back to make kind of a bandana shape. You pop it over your head and voila, instant wrapped scarf look without the pesky ends and without worrying about it coming undone as you move about your day. Honestly the seam wasn't that stellar on mine, there was a bit of fudging, but it turned out looking fine. 

We picked out all cotton yarns and I have to say I really like the weight that gives the piece. It will also mean it won't be itchy, and perhaps may even be wearable in the warmer months in Chicago. I could definitely see this peeking out of a winter coat as a fun accessory. 

Pattern: The Shift, by Andrea Mowry (my Ravelry page) 

Yarn: Berroco Modern Cotton DK in 'bristol' (lavender) and '1659' (lime green) and Urth Uneek Cotton in 1074 (purple and blue variegated) 

Needle: US 5 (3.75 mm)

a hand quilting adventure

Yesterday felt like the day to start hand quilting this quilt. Watching a recent video from Pin, Cut, Sew on YouTube got me over the activation barrier and back to thinking "how hard can it be to freehand Baptist fans, anyway?" She does make it look so easy. This may take a while, but I think it will be fun and that I will like the end result a lot more than I would have liked any kind of machine quilting, especially any that I would have been able to attempt on my machine given how large this thing is. 

Pretty tickled that I found a hand quilting thread color that so closely coordinates with the colors. I hesitated a bit thinking the bright blue would be distracting across all the purple sections, but that fear was misplaced. The thread is thin enough that it really doesn't 'pop' the same way pearl cotton would. I'm not doing tiny tiny stitches, but they are close enough together that the pleasant pucker of hand quilting shows up. I am also taking advantage of the structure of the blocks to help me gauge my arcs in a semi-regular manner. Each arc is the width of that HST in the bottom right corner of the churn dash block. Those blocks have geometry where it's easy to see the next arc, and for the other blocks I have fashioned a marking tool using a compass and a knitting needle. The knitting needle marks the fabric with grooves, more like a Hera marker would, and it fits nicely in the pencil holder fixture on the compass. For the wider arcs it's a bit of an imperfect science because the compass is actually too small to open wide enough from the "origin" corner, but I have figured out a work around and the tool does the job much nicer than my eyeballing would. 

So far I am happy with this decision and confident it will look good. Will see in a few weeks if I still feel the same way! It would be nice to have this done by the end of the year, but I won't hold myself to it. I am very pleased to have this stage started, though.