Ah, sunflower!

The choir I sang in for ~10 years or so while I lived in Boston has a wonderful choir director who varied the music a lot from concert to concert. One concert we sang a piece that had several movements, and one of them focused on sunflowers. It was such a beautiful simple tune, with lovely harmonies and echoes of the main line. One of the best parts was the main line, “Ah, sunflower,” which was perfectly composed to sound like a contented sigh. I already liked sunflowers, but that made me like them even more, thinking about lazy summer days.

I have finished my border, and am now making progress on my first cell occupant, which is - no surprise - a sunflower! The leaves are cute, anyway.

- Catherine 

Going along with green

 More cross-stitching! I discovered that working in the car is not as bumpy as expected, so took advantage of a long drive up to Wyoming and a few other quiet moments in the last few days to make some more progress - we drive home tomorrow, so I'm hoping to finish the border. 

The challenge with the middle images is that the different color markers are hard to see - I tried enlarging the pattern on the library scanner, but the resolution wasn't very good, so now I just have blurry larger shapes. I am waffling between using markers on the printouts to make it clearer where the stitches are or trying again on the scanner. I'm sure you are on the edge of your seat wondering what will happen.

As an aside, it is fun to get back into crafts - nice to have something to do with my hands and nice to create things, but it's also nice that - because I'm doing something with my hands and sort of my brain - I'm forced to have a little oasis of calm in the day. Yay for sewing!

- Catherine

Going green

I had a long long flight on Thursday with plenty of time for cross-stitching, see? I would have gotten more done but I did, as expected, run out of green and the pattern I’m working from is so tiny that it’s hard to follow. Still, I got a bit started on the first flower!

Yesterday I got more green thread and while I was at the store found this adorable remnant fabric (it’s about three times as many birds wide). I have no idea what I’ll do with it, but it was so cute I couldn’t resist. 

Today I am determined to fix the quilt corners so I can start quilting the fish together. More to come!

- Catherine

Green machine

I have had two flights this week, which are normally good times to work on my cross-stitch projects, but I mostly had to work on the first flight and I mostly tried to sleep on the second, so not as much progress as I would have liked. However, the frame is coming together, see?

It's nice to have a part that is so mindless (now that the counting is done for a bit) - it makes it easy to pick up for a few minutes here and there, and more compact since I don't need to have the instructions in front of me. The only danger is that I'm using up so much of this green color that I may need to buy more thread before I can finish. We shall see!

- Catherine

A Mom Post

 I had to share this because I am extremely proud of my offspring.  A year ago, at Xmas, Middle expressed interest in learning how to knit socks.  I was so excited!  I got them some sock needles for Xmas, and gifted them my Dark Side of the Moon yarn and advised as they chose a pattern (A Nice Ribbed Sock) and cast on.  Later in the year, we FaceTimed as they turned the heel and then this Xmas, they finished the sock!  Since then, they have cranked on their knitting and I can now share with you a picture of the finished pair!  I am so proud of Middle!  There is a gauge issue (sock #1 is on the left), but Middle asked about dropping down a needle size, so a plan is underway.

Other than that, I finished my Aurelia Cowl.  I love the yarn!  It is so soft.  I also finished the first pair of old Xmas socks.  I've been cleared to go back to work after my surgery.  Ginny the cat will miss me.  She has taken to sitting between me and my keyboard at home so she can rest her head on my arm.  She is currently here, and is purring a happy purr.

I've picked the Lantana sweater back up, and have noticed that Something is Wrong.  I'm not sure what to do about it, I think I will just forge ahead and pretend like nothing is amiss.  We'll see what happens when I finish the next step.  I also need to locate one last ball of yarn.  I'm pretty sure I have one.  It will be bad if I do not.

Other than that, I've got plans for Jeff socks, Middle socks, Smallest socks, and a Mussleburg hat.  I may need to start taking the bus to work again!

Catherine, I love the new project, and the London adventure!  It is super fun to find things like that.  I hope the napkin fabric turned up!  I will send the quilt book ASAP!  That pattern is pretty, and also a pain.  Both cutting and sewing will be tricksy.  

Herb garden fini!

First: some celebration! The herb garden cross-stitch is framed, delivered, and enjoyed by the recipients. Here's a photo back from them, since I forgot to take one before mailing it. Isn't the frame so cute?! I will be interested to see if/when they spot the one big mistake I made (or should I say, if/when they tell me that they spotted it).

Second, since I have a fair amount of travel going on at the moment, I have started a new big project to occupy the long flights. Here is the pattern and my efforts thus far. I actually really started with a different piece of fabric, but unfortunately discovered on the first leg of a long flight to the UK that it was too small (despite the instructions seeming pretty clear that it should fit, sigh). Fortunately, I had a few hours free when I arrived in London, and took on an expedition to find more. This introduced me to the idea of haberdasheries - amazing to see fully-formed fabric stores inside of department stores! And amazing to see cross-stitch fabric in big bolts of cloth! And the second haberdashery I had visited was in a beautiful old building that was worthy of photos on its own. The third (and final, phew) haberdashery was extremely busy with people buying large amounts of fabulous fabrics, which made more sense once I realized I had stumbled on London Fashion Week.

In terms of cross-stitch, I still need to finish the final entry in my brother's birthday present, sadly the only thing that was on my moldy old (but now updated) project list that I a) hadn't finished and b) still know what it means after years away. Soon...

- Catherine

Napkins abroad

Margie, those doilies are so cute! Maybe you could turn them into a circular bag that would hold hoops and thread and scissors and stuff to use for other projects? Or, a travel bag for cords that would be happy to go around a circular case rather than square? Will keep thinking. :D

My post was confusing - the "width" I was talking about was the way that I aligned the long edge of one purple fabric with the quilt; I should have put the quilt in the middle of the edge strip, but I started them flush, and then cut off the extra when I got to the other side. So I couldn't just take the seam out and fix it. I also like the actual width of the border, fortunately. :D

Now, some sad news: I have put the unfinished napkin fabric... somewhere. I had it on top of the sewing machine and clearly went through a cleaning frenzy of some kind, and they are momentarily in another dimension. I have looked in every closet we have. I went through my big fabric bins. I have the feeling they are somewhere so obvious, and I am just overlooking them. It is maddening. 

Now for other quilt news! A few months ago, I asked in my husband's family group chat if anyone wanted a quilt because I have far too much fabric, and (fortunately) only one person (Oldest brother) said yes. I have been looking at quilt patterns in my own books and in some of Margie's, and ended up with ~10 patterns that I thought would be fun to work on for them. I sent the photos to Oldest + his wife; she landed on two as her favorites, and Oldest (unknowingly, I'm sure) picked the more complicated to make of the two. But, I agree that it is a beautiful pattern (grandmother's flower garden), and I'm excited to try something that increases my skills a bit more. Here's a photo (taken from diaryofaquilter.com).

Should be an interesting year of quilts!

Catherine

PS, the title is a shout-out to a terrific Terry Prachett book, Witches Abroad. I hope my napkins are having as many adventures as the witches did.