Knitrageous

So I realized that Oct. 1 came and went without any fanfare or salsa.  We are definitely delinquent in posting in a timely fashion.

Anyhow, I have been terrible about keeping track of time that I work on things anymore.  However, I did spend a lot of time this summer working on a baby blanket.  I was sneaking time on it while Smallest was in dance class, and then I got a lot of time when we went to Colorado for vacation and our mom had an accident and spent a week in the hospital.

I didn't keep track of time spent there either, but I suspect it was a fair number of hours as she would sleep and I would sit and knit so as not to bother her.  For a week.

I don't think I'll claim any salsa for it, but I do think I probably had at least 10 hours :)

Now all my projects consist of working on my new house (an old house, but new to me).  I have been painting and assembling Ikea furniture and painting for a while.  The chaos is slowly coming under control, but there's still a fair bit to do.

Here's a picture of my new kitchen.  We gutted the old one, as I think the cabinets were original to the 1940s house.  I like the result, and I like my contractor too!

That's what I know.  

Undetermined hours, maybe when I stop painting I can knit again!

Margie

Triumph!

The quilt, I has built it. My guess on March 31 was surprisingly accurate - it took 4.5 hours to sew up the last four seams (including fixing two squares that didn't have enough hem). Now, the big decision: to turn it into a comforter cover (easier to care for) or true quilt (more aesthetically appealing). I'm leaning toward the latter, but also have these buttons and white fabric I bought a couple of months ago when I was leaning the other way... hmm.

Anyway, here is the 12x12 block. Very exciting!

4.5 hours
Catherine

Pig Complete

I finished the pig, now named Sir Oinks-A-Lot, except for his tail and stitching on embroidery eyes and nostrils.  Smallest has been loath to release him, so it will have to wait a bit.  I'll get a picture of it then too.

Last weekend Smallest and I went to the Emerald Ball ballroom competition in LA and had a great time.  I needed a project to take on the plane since the pig was done, so I poked around in Ravelry and checked out what yarn I had handy and came up with a plan for a baby blanket.  Not only do I have all the yarn I need, when I knit my swatch, I got gauge!  That never happens to me.  I used the suggested needle size and it worked.  Amazing.

The blanket is for a friend's new grand baby.  She's very excited about the baby, and it's a nice way to do some knitting, use up some yarn and make a baby happy.

I took it all along with me (plus a back-up crochet project in case knitting wasn't an option) and finished four or fine inches of it.  Smallest and I played a computer game much of the time, so not as much knitting as I expected.  I did get about 1.5 hours in on the way there, and some more time here and there through the weekend, plus the flight back.

I've also promised Middle that I would make her a crochet top for summer.  Not sure how that happened, but I did.  Unfortunately, none of the stores in town have the weight of cotton that I needed, unless I wanted to buy 30 little skeins from the sewing store, so I "had" to go to www.yarn.com and order a big cone of cotton yarn.  I'll have lots left over.  I am sure I will not be allowed to make a matching top for myself.  So, once the yarn arrives, I'll pause on the blanket and get the top done.

Not much else that I know.  Our brother came and stayed with The Boy and Middle while we were off in Dancy-land.  They had a fun weekend.

So, a tally of hours - it took me an hour to finish up the pig parts and sew it together, then 1.5 on the plane to LA, and probably another 2 total on the trip, including the flight home.  I did get in another 30 minutes while waiting at Middle's dr. appt. Monday afternoon, so 4 hours to add.

8.5 hours total

Margie

Hoarding...I did it.

Well, I have to confess that I have been working away on the pig without posting my time.  I've completed the head and have also finished the ears, the nose and two little legs.

I think this covers several dance classes and some appointments, so I'll say another 2 hours.  I know I wasn't working on things all the time at class.

We do have another appointment and a dance class this evening, so I can rack up some more hours.  Bwa-ha-ha!

Big excitement at the house this weekend.  Darling's stuff will be moving to join him to Calgary.  I may have to find a new name for Darling.  It will be good to have that done.  As part of the process, Middle and Smallest's current beds will be moving as well.  Smallest told me she'd like to send her current comforter up to Calgary and use a quilt that I made many years ago as her cover instead.  I told her that since that quilt is a little sad now, I would make her a new one (but she can use it in the meantime).  So I'll have to add that to the project list.  Maybe I can work on Catherine's quilt too...

There are many projects waiting, still! (always!)

2 hours for me, 4.5 hours total.

Margie

Little Pigs

Or as Middle is saying, "Little living pieces of bacon!"

I completed the pig body and have moved on to the head.  I also knit a scarf like Smallest's for her ballroom coach's wife (who is the one who handles all the paperwork and keeps track of everything).  She likes it a bunch, so that's nice!

When I finish the pig, I'll post a picture.

I did a little cross stitch when I didn't have a sewing needle to finish the pig, so there have been lots of little things here and there.  I'm guessing it's about three dance classes, plus the scarf which I did at home and during choir.

So, the first hours on the board for Quarter II of 2013...

2.5 hours

Margie

All Hail the Conquering Hero

Yep, Catherine wins again.

My pig butt is getting bigger though, but still not enough hours to come close.

Fortunately, the class I've been teaching this semester will be over SOON, and then perhaps I will have a little more time.  Probably not, who am I kidding?
Someone who likes to quilt log cabin squares actually owes me some grades for my class.  I think she's been sewing annoying seams instead of working on my class though...

I did make a scarf like Smallest's for her dance coach's wife.  That was fun, and quick.  Middle has decided that she wants to knit a blanket, so that will start soon. She says she doesn't want to end up like me with a box of unfinished projects.  So then I reminded her of her unfinished scarf, and the cross stitch she started, and the purse she started for Catherine's Christmas present, and... she got the picture.  Perhaps it's hereditary?

Margie

The quilt, it has thwarted me.

Well, I had high hopes of having a megasquare by today, but I didn't make it. Somehow everything takes longer than you think.

I did work for 1:40 yesterday (sorry to hoard, but I did text sister to warn her), and 3:45 today. Doesn't that seem like a long time to do just 5 lousy seams? But, in fact, I spent a lot of time marking the lines where the seam should go, and then 5 (so far) squares didn't have enough hem allowance, so I had to detach them to some extent from the 12x2 blocks to lengthen them. Then it took FOREVER to pin up one of the seams. Fortunately, it was worth it, because the seam is beautiful and I do have one 12x4 block to show for my efforts. Evil twin was very impressed. And I've got another two of the 12x2 blocks totally ready to go (marked up, etc), so I just need to finish marking up the last blocks (one is ~half done) and then sew the seams. Maybe another 5 hours??

So close!!

All told, I'm at 45:10 this time.
Catherine

Fie you, seam!

Still on the quilt... Today I decided to face down the evil seam that had so discouraged me some weeks ago, along with 8 of its friends. That one darn seam still isn't perfectly perfect, but it was close enough and it was the worst one of the day, so I'm counting it a success. I also did some fixes to two squares that weren't long enough (there's one more that will be close, but it might be ok; will ponder). So I have 5 strips of 2x12 squares, one piece that's 2x4, and 4 that are 2x2. Only 9 more seams until I have a megasquare!!

2:20 today, 39:45 total.
Catherine

Pig Butts

Just another quick post.  While Smallest was either dancing or at an appointment, I can't remember which, I was able to get another 45 minutes working.  This time it was on a knit pig from a cute book called Spud and Chloe at the Farm which I bought some time ago.
 
Smallest picked out the yard a while back also, but finally it's time to get to work.  It requires double pointed needles, which I haven't used a lot, and I submitted to the Evil that is Etsy and bought a whole bunch of DPNs, because I never seem to have the size I should.

Anyhow, I have started and did a few rows, then left it for a couple of days before working on it more. Unfortunately, I didn't think about which orientation was knit and which was purl when I picked it back up, and the farther I worked, the more this became apparent.  The start is at the pig's end, and then you make the body from there working towards the front.  So our poor little piggy has rather a rough bottom, followed by his smooth body.  I am sure Smallest will never notice.  The next one will be better.

More dancing this afternoon in preparation for the Texas Ballroom Challenge this weekend.  Smallest is very excited.  After this weekend, she'll start preparing for the Emerald Ball, held in LA in May.  Sounds like Dancing With The Stars pros turn out for that one, which would be a thrill for her (and me too!)

There are plans underway to crochet Middle a cute summer top.  That should be fun, and hopefully quick.  Crochet always seems so much faster than knitting.

.75 hours for me, 12.50 total.

Margie

A visit!

We had a super fun sister visit this weekend, with lots of salsa, games, tex-mex and more salsa.  It was lots of fun, and I even managed to squeeze in a little crocheting work while Catherine was here.  I finished some fingerless, fuzzy purple yarn gloves for middle.  Yay!

.75 hours for me, 11.75 total.

Margie

Sewing without sewing

Just a little update today - I ironed all of the squares I made last week, and then marked them up at 7 inches so I can assemble them next time. In doing that, I discovered one square that was too short (only 7 inches itself), so I took apart a couple of seams so I can lengthen it. There were ~2 more that don't have a lot of room (the seam allowance will be 1/8" or 1/16"); depending on how easy it is to fix those, I might do that as well. Or I can sew a second seam to stabilize them, though that mean it won't lie flat nicely. Hmm...

Anyway, no actual new stitches this time, but I was wary to dive in as my seam ripper is still elsewhere. Still, 1:15, so I'm up to 37:25 total.

Catherine

Four is the loveliest number...

Thanks in part to evil twin's encouragement, I got reinvigorated to work on the quilt yesterday. The extra challenge for the day is that my seam ripper was at another location, so any stitching that went awry would have to be fixed with scissors, pins, teeth, etc. I still haven't worked up my courage to go back to the seam that was defying me (connecting some of the blocks of 4 together), so I turned to the final pairs of blocks that needed to be sewed up into blocks of 4. Happily, during 12 seams, I only needed to redo one seam in full and two in part. I did also pull apart one seam within a block when I realized that the width of the block was way too short (almost 1/2 inch short, which is my seam allowance!), and would cause problems later. I need to iron those, but otherwise I'm ready to turn back to assembling them into larger pieces. Actually, there are only 18 seams left before I have a complete 12 x 12 grid. Very exciting! My new goal is to finish before my birthday (only 5 weeks away), so I'll have to keep moving.

The only other thing worth reporting is that I didn't have to change my bobbin thread the whole time, and as I was doing the last seam I thought, surely I will have to run out of luck and the thread will end at any moment. But, it held! However, I then noticed the thread on the spool is down to about 10 wraps around the spool, so I was certainly cutting it close. Phew!

Altogether a very satisfying day. 2.5 hours; 36:10 total.

Catherine

Finito!

Success!  I worked on the fluffy scarf some at Smallest's dance lessons a little bit ago, and then perhaps some more unrecorded time, but then I got in a good 30 minutes while waiting for my doctor's appointment (which I ended up rescheduling, because I was there on time at 3, and at 3:35, when they called me back, I reminded them that I had to leave near 3:45, and I didn't think there was time for my appointment, and I was right).  I worked on it more tonight while Smallest, and then Middle too, watched Mulan 2 (not bad for a sequel).  So now I am done.  Yay!

Here is Bear, the dog, modeling the scarf.  Doesn't he look handsome?

I like the new length much better.  I can wrap it around my neck and still have plenty dangling down to tuck into a jacket, or just look spiffy.  I think the six stitches instead of eight was the right call.

Anyhow, this is one of my few soccer-less weekends until the middle of May, so I'm trying to think of things that I need to get finished up.
I took the other baby log cabin quilt to be silent auctioned at church for Shrove Tuesday, but the only person bidding put in a bid $25, and I found that unacceptable so I bid on it myself.  I hope I won, I didn't go back to check.  I didn't have a chance to finish it before taking it in, so I need to get that back.

Middle and I need to finish a very cute bag that she started as a Christmas present for her terrific Aunt Catherine, so maybe that will be the plan for tomorrow, somewhere in the mix of art class, guitar class, girl scouts, 2 ballroom classes and a birthday party.  Oh, and delivering Girl Scout cookies too.  Good thing there's no soccer tomorrow!

I'm knitting a pig for Smallest, but now I can't find my book with the directions.  I hope it didn't get lost somewhere.  That would be no fun.

I'm off to bed.  I can sleep in tomorrow, what a treat!

1.5 hours for me, 11 hours total.
Margie

Knitting, Unknitting and Reknitting

Well then.
I think it would be gross to fill those bunny nuggets with salsa.  They would get all soggy.  Eew.

I finished the latest ruffly scarf, the one with the German directions.  I tried it on and it seems short.  I can't loop it around my neck and still have enough to hang down enough to look lovely.  There was no specification in the directions for how many stitches to make for the scarf, so I used eight, since that was what I had used for the girls' scarves.  Now I think eight was too many.  So I un-knit it.  Boo.

Using my wicked math skillz, I decided that if the scarf were 4 feet long (just an estimate, I didn't measure) with eight stitches, and I decreased to six stitches, then the length would increase by a quarter.  Whether it's really true or not, just go with me here.  It makes sense to me.  If it were eight and I went to four, wouldn't the scarf be twice as long?  That's my logic anyhow.

So I've started again with six stitches.  I'll take it with me when I go to my soccer coach class this week and see how much I can get done during our down time.  I may be too sore at the end of the day to do anything but take a hot bath and go to bed.  We have to play soccer all afternoon.  I'm not in shape for that.

I also started on a pig, but it's on double pointed needles, and was a little trickier to start than I expected.  We'll see how that one goes.  Pig is on hold until scarf is done.  Oh, and I promised to finish the second little log cabin quilt for a silent auction on the 12th, so I have to get that done soon!

1.75 hours for me Saturday and yesterday, 9.5 total.

Margie

5... 5 fabulous seams!

I had in mind that I would do 10 seams today, which would finish the third and fourth blocks of 12x2, and then sew up three of the big blocks to make half of the quilt. However, I had a really frustrating time with the 6th seam - sewing it three times and removing the stitches three times as the fabric moves a bit after pinning each time - and so decided to take a nap. I did finish the third 12x2 block, but the rest will have to wait. Grump.

2:40 today, 33:40 total
Catherine

Meeting adjourned!

And now I am back at home, to tackle the increasingly annoying quilt. Today I sewed up the two 8's and two 4's to make a single 12x2 block, then sewed up 6 squares of four to make another 12x2 block. I had grand plans to finish two more of those, and perhaps even sew three of the big blocks together (to make half of the quilt!), but I got stuck on a seam that refuses to obey the laws of physics. Here is a picture.

For reals - I measured the 7 inches from the middle seam on both pieces of fabric, and then stuck them together and sewed it just like I wanted, and then measured again (just for fun, you know) and suddenly the distances were 6 and 7/8". ?? So I took it out and remeasured and remarked everything and resewed it, sewing (again) just like I wanted, and then measured and suddenly everything is 7 and 1/16".

????

Clearly a sign to call it quits for the day.


4:45 today, so 31 hours total.

Catherine

P.S. Yes, the bright and colorful pants! Clown pants, almost. I loved them too, but they wore out.

I Love Scientific Meetings

Especially when Catherine is the one attending them!

Mwa-ha-ha!

I took advantage of time at the eye doctor, dance class and my doctor appointment yesterday and today to rack up a whole...90 minutes of knitting!  Wild and crazy, I know.

I'm getting close to finishing the last ruffly scarf.  Luckily for me, I ordered a set of double pointed needles that I can use to make Bunny Nuggets.  That's right, bunny nuggets.  Here's a picture:

I tell you what, they're pretty cute.  I may put catnip in some and give them to the kitties.

I also have some farm animals to make for Smallest, and a beaded scarf for Middle.  We bought yarn and beads, but I couldn't get the beads to go onto the yarn, which makes it rather hard to make a beaded scarf.  So I will have to go back to the Yarn Store.  Gee, what a shame!

Anyhow, that's all I have for now.

1.5 hours for me, 9.25 hours total (that 7.45 should have been 7.75, as in 7 and 3/4).

Margie

Yowza!

Look at you go!  You need to go out of town.

I'm trying to think what patchwork pants you mean.  Perhaps those horrid green and black ones?  What a mistake those were.  Oh, maybe the very bright and colorful pants that I loved so much.  Darling didn't like them much, but that made them even more fun to wear.

I got to knit for 45 minutes while Smallest was at her ballroom lesson on Saturday.  Woo-hoo!

I think I'm in trouble here.

Soccer starts again tomorrow night, which will also cut into my free time.  Sigh.

Anyhow, I am tired and need to go to bed.

45 minutes for me.  7:45 total.

I did start teaching Smallest how to knit on Friday.  That should prove entertaining!

Margie

Germs, begone!!!

I send them out of you. Get better soon!

I had a most frustrating sewing day. I was hoping to finish sewing the pairs and the fours, but the seams for the fours were being ornery - I ended up sewing some of them more than 3 times before I could figure out how to get a seam that was perpendicular to the other axis and didn't make a giant mess. I think I finally have a good system figured out (the last two seams succeeded on the first try), but I'm calling it quits for the night. I did finish the last column of pairs, and did 2.5 columns of fours, so more than halfway done with the fours. Blergh indeed.

My machine also started squeaking again - this time we (i.e., me and evil twin) figured out how to get access to the moving parts and so used grease instead of spray to fix it. A bad side effect was that a nut fell into the machine and it was much work to retrieve it and put it back in place.

All of that took 4:30.

I also have a bit of hoarding to report - on Monday I took a look at my existing quilt (made from T-shirts of high school performances and such), figured out where the holes/worn pieces are and went through my fabric stash to find some replacements. Fortunately almost all of the problems are at the edge, so I hope I won't have to disassemble the whole thing. The funny thing for you, seester, is that some of the fabric I might use is from an old pair of patchwork pants you had and gave to me. The pants went out of style but I loved the fabric and kept it just in case!

That took about 30 minutes.

So, 26:15 total.

Catherine

Blergh

I have some illness creeping up on me.

Oh well.

I have been working on the next fluffy scarf.  It was the least intuitive yarn of the three, and the instructions on the band were all in German.  Not helpful when you took French in school.
I found the directions on the website of the yarn maker, so I'm on my way.

Not very fast though.

Maybe this weekend.  It's a holiday on Monday, which means I don't have to spend Sunday preparing for a class I'm teaching this semester.  Cutting severely into my fun time.

I spent too much time today on the Ikea kitchen planning website.  Evil!  We are buying a house, and I think it's better to redo the kitchen before we move in than after.
Just earlier this evening, I went to the Container Store website and was playing with their Elfa closet system planner too.  The closet in my bedroom is a converted other room (from an earlier renovation) and it's a little sad.  Would be nice to have something spiffy and pretty.

Anyhow, that's about it for me.  I'm not being very accurate with my time keeping.  Oh well again!

45 minutes recently, 7 hours total.

Margie

Pairs of squares are nearly theres

Well, finishing a quilt is harder than I thought. First my ambition, as mentioned yesterday, was to get all the squares hooked up (actually, my real ambition, which I didn't bother to put into writing, was to finish the WHOLE thing - sewing up the borders and putting on the buttons, etc. Glad I didn't put those naive plans on paper, except that I am now... oh well). Anyway, after a couple of reality checks, I thought I would just get all of the squares sewed up into sets of 4 (i.e., a bigger square). Then I thought I would just get them all paired up. And finally, where we landed, is that I would like to keep my sanity, so I'm done for the night. I have sewed up 9 columns of squares into pairs, 1 column is still as single squares, and the last two columns have been sewed into 4's with two of the 4's sewed into 8's. The plan is that I will sew the remaining two 4's into a third 8, and then sew up the 8's, so I have a double column (of 2x12 squares). Lather, rinse, repeat with the other 10 columns. Perhaps I can hope to have the complete matrix in place by the end of Saturday?

5:10 today, 21:15 total.
Catherine

On yer marks...

Dear Log Cabin Pattern,

That would just be cheating.

Love,
Catherine


Today I laid out all the squares to decide what the quilt will look like, and stitched the first 6 seams between squares. My plan is to group them all into pairs (and then maybe squares of 4 squares?), just aligning things as best as possible, and then be more precise about having them be 7 inches apart when I sew the next set of seams together. I'm also hoping that, by the end of the day tomorrow, I'll have one big piece of fabric containing all of the squares. We'll see!

1:20 today; 16:05 total.

Dear Catherine Quilter

Maybe you should have made your squares bigger.  Did you ever think of that?
I'll be waiting for you, you know you really love me.

Love
Log Cabin

Dear Log Cabin Pattern,

I'm sorry to have to tell you some bad news. We've been together for a long time now, 144 squares worth to be exact, and I have to say that I just don't want to see you anymore. It's not anything you've done, it's just that your pattern is extremely repetitive and I might poke my eyes out if I have to do any more in the foreseeable future. We can still be friends; after all, I'm planning to sew up those of you that I already have into one big square. However, I hope you will understand that we just need some time apart.

Sincerely,
Catherine

(5:10 hours, 14:45 total)

The most boring post in the world.

I sewed some more squares. I know this comes as a big surprise.

I am up to 131 finished squares (the last two aren't ironed and pretty yet, though), and am halfway done with squares 132 and 133 (doing them simultaneously, you know). Squares 134-137 are cut into pieces, and then I only have 7 more! It's a mir-kle.

I do have a fun picture to share, to make this post less boring, though it's not of something I did. Last year I gave evil twin some yarn so he could knit himself a hat, and he did, but it wasn't very warm and he didn't like it much. So this week he took it apart and knit it again, and loves the result. See?

4.5 hours today; 9 hours, 35 minutes total.

Catherine

P.S. The fluffy scarves are totally fantastic!

Not So Fast!

So...you think you can just sew your leetle squares and take the salsa from me, do you?

Well!  I have for you TWO fluffy scarves!

I bought the yard in Brugge during our summer trip with the soccer team.  The woman in the shop was somewhat rude and was very upset when I started touching the yarn, so I bought three balls.  One was the blue and green, one was the green with pom-poms and there's another light green-blue color that I haven't started yet.

The yarn is actually a wide fishnet-like band and you only knit the top part of the band, leaving the rest to hang out and be fluffy.  I had started the blue and green one for Middle, but then set it aside for a while.  I worked on it for 45 minutes last week while Smallest was at an appointment, and then finished it up on Friday night, in maybe 30 minutes?

The green pom-pom scarf I started at the beginning of the A&M/OU football game Friday night and should have been almost finished when the game was over if I hadn't lost a stitch somewhere along the way and had to go back.  Then, my needle kept slipping out and this yarn makes locating and picking up stitches really difficult, so I would have to go back a couple of rows.  Irritating.  So I worked an extra 30 minutes after the game just to get back to where I thought I should be.  I finished it this afternoon, probably about 30 minutes more.

I'll be working on Catherine's Christmas present from Middle shortly while The Boy plays computer games online with our brother.  Our brother is a Bad Influence on The Boy and got him hooked on this game called Team Fortress 2.  Sigh.

Anyhow, here is a picture of the fluffy scarves, and one of Smallest wearing hers as a hat today in the car.

6.25 hours total

Margie

I win?

Here are two squares I sewed up tonight. You can see the new green fabric I like in the center of the left square, and the two different fabrics on the outside of the right square are new as well. I need to work on my posture while sewing - after only 45 minutes, my back is tired again. Then again, the massage was not as fabulous as hoped, so maybe I'm still wound up from the weekend of sewing.

The title of this post is inspired by the embarrassing/encouraging discovery that, after the time added tonight, my efforts thus far have already beaten my efforts in 7 of our previous 12 contests. And, in four of the remaining 5 contests, I won the coveted salsa. Can I do it again??

5 hours, 5 minutes.
Catherine

Phew!

My back is tired from so much sewing! I made 8.5 squares today, and cut another 8, and had to tear apart some other fabric strips. I'm up to 121 squares total; only 23 to go!!

The big adventure for the day was that my machine randomly started squeaking VERY loudly (after the needle smushed a pin, but otherwise just between one seam and the next). Fortunately Evil Twin had some silicone spray and served as my sewing machine repairman. He's so handy! My sewing machine is from a prehistoric era, but it works (for now) so I am happy.

I am also happy because Evil Twin bought me a massage for Christmas. It's tomorrow. Then my back will feel better too.

All told, 4 hours, 20 minutes.

Catherine

P-L-N

This post is a bit delayed, and would count as hoarding except that I've been texting Margie with my hour count over the past few days (the computer has not been accessible). So, here's a recap: I have been frantically working on my quilt over the past few days, since it was my new year's resolution. I picked it up for 2 hours on Nov 25th (sorry, should have posted that one), sewing together some squares that I had pieced out in some previous lifetime. This Saturday (29th) I finished sewing up those squares and cut out some more (getting to 102 total, I think; 6.5 hours), and realized I didn't have enough fabric to get to the end. I also returned to the question of how many squares I needed - originally I was going to make 144, for a 12x12 quilt, then decided that was too overwhelming, so narrowed my ambitions to 11x11 (see picture - getting close!). However, my new idea, given how raggedy my old T-shirt quilt is and how much of a pain it's going to be to fix, is that I could make this into a comforter cover that could be removed and cleaned/repaired as needed. And, it turns out that comforters come in very specific sizes. The one I want is 88"x88", so I really need the 12x12 quilt (should measure 84" square). So then I really didn't have enough fabric!

On Sunday (30th), I went to the LFS - a great place in Chinatown, should anyone ever need fabric in Boston - and found some of my same fabrics again as well as some new ones. I made a mistake (I realized later) in not getting something plain that could go with anything, but they do generally go nicely together and there's a lovely green one that is my current favorite. I also (now with the comforter plan in mind) got a bunch of white fabric that I will use as a backing to the log cabin pieces and as a small border around the squares, and some cute buttons that I will use to close it up. After a trip through the washer and dryer, I was back in action. I spent a lot of time ironing, ripping fabric into 2 inch strips, and piecing out new squares, and sewed up 2 or 3. I didn't count the time at the LFS, per our rules, nor the washer + dryer time (because that would be silly), but the rest took 4 hours.

Yesterday (31st), I started bright and early sewing up the other squares I'd pieced out, and replacing them with new squares. I got up to 112.5 squares and have another 8 ready to go, but then it was time for New Year's Eve silliness. So, 4 hours, 20 minutes.

Today I'm hoping to get to 121 at least (meeting my one-time goal of squares), but I have a nice routine going and so could do more. Even though I didn't finish in 2012, I do see the light at the end of the tunnel, and so hope I can stay on track!

All told, 16 hours, 50 minutes. I can has salsa?

Catherine

P.S. The title of this post is inspired by a Terry Prachett book, so you'll understand it soon enough. :D