have a heart

I finally cast off this shawl! Last night, in an anticlimactic "ooh I'll just sit for a minute and see how much I can get done" moment the last stitch finally dropped off my needle. The pattern, Hearts on a String, somewhat escaped me in symbolism until I stretched out the lace to check out the final product. For some reason the heart stands out much more to me here than it does if the lace is slack - then it all just looks like leaves to me. 

It still has to be blocked, but I can say that I will likely really love it when it's done. The yarn is drapey and light, and as a bonus it is not wool, so I'm 100% not sensitive to it. (Don't ask me how my neck is doing after rocking my all-wool Color Affection shawl yesterday...) In the end I find that I'm not a great fan of lace knitting because it requires so much concentration, at least for me at this stage. It's hard to carry on a conversation or watch Wayward Pines. Baseball has been ok. Maybe I need more practice. Or maybe it's ok to not like lace knitting. The jury is out. Suffice to say that I just cast on a garter stitch project to take on vacation with me. 

Don't it look impressive though?! More to come after the block.

gettin' my granny on

It was more than a couple years ago when I first saw a scrappy granny square quilt while reading Blue Elephant Stitches. It certainly caught my eye and appealed to something rooted deep inside that loved the bright colors (of course) but very much the more traditional layout and block origin. Being equally drawn to the yarny arts, I have indeed made many a granny square in my time!! It seemed like a special tribute.

I filed it away in memory (aka Pinterest) always intending on figuring out how to make one using a jelly roll. As luck would have it, Jolene kindly read my mind and posted a tutorial on Moda Bake Shop describing exactly that! I had a jelly roll of Millie's Closet hanging around so I mentally lined that fabric up to be my granny square quilt material and promptly put it away for... a while. Of course I did!

Well now I've finally begun my granny square adventure! Aside from the fact that I've got a few quilts that need finishing (understatement), I had a hankering to start something new. Since the not so fun part of cutting most of the width-of-fabric strips was taken care of for me this quilt seemed like a great candidate for a quick fix.

Sure enough, I set to cutting bits and pieces and in a short while had stacks of strips adorning every surface. It took me some time to decide on which ones to match up to make each block, and in the end I really just sort of assigned randomly, but it was satisfying at the end of the day to end up with neat bundles all ready to go. These will make a quilt top, people! So excited. Cutting is my least favorite part.

That was maybe a couple weeks ago and now I've got the first stage of sewing strip sets together finished and most of those trimmed down to be sewn into the final block. I think these prints and colors are going to play really nicely with this pattern. I can't wait to see how it all turns out! I've got friends having littles soon, so this may end up as a special surprise for a mom-to-be when it's finished.