Halves no more

I love your list! So much fun stuff going on. 

We did find a notice that we missed a UPS delivery - perhaps that is it? 

I don't have much to report - I finished the final two half flowers, and now I officially have 60 flowers to go. I also spent some time deconstructing my high school T-shirt quilt; it is tedious and difficult to see any progress being made (as I'm mostly pulling apart the front and back), but I'll try to get a photo sometime. 

Evil twin will be out of town next weekend so I am currently contemplating what project I might dive into with all that time on my hands. Or I might sit and read books all weekend. Who can say? :P

Full flowers: 4/64 done

Half flowers: 8/8 done 

- Catherine

A List

Look at you! So productive!  I love those pants.

I took some handknit socks on the plane with us last Friday night to mend the holes in them so they could be worn (if needed) on our trip to NYC to visit Sarah y Javi.  It was satisfying to fix them, and I was glad to have mine for sleeping.  We mostly walked and ate.  Over the three days we were there, I racked up 50,164 steps.  Ta-da!  And I ate several chocolate chip cookies, had an amazing hot chocolate, and some very tasty dumplings!  Yum.

This is the hot chocolate.  It has a ring of toasted marshmallow around the

rim of the cup and is topped with a scoop of whipped cream.  It was good!

Here are my Happy Lucy pictures.  She was indeed a Very Sweet Girl.  I suspect Dad misses her a lot.

I thought it would be fun to list all the projects that I've got planned and in various states of progress currently.  Inactive projects are kept in large baggies because of a moth problem I had several years ago.  It was traumatic.

Here's the yarn for the Anne of Green Gables socks

Here's the Yarn Club shawl.  It came with me on the NYC trip, so airplane knitting fun.  Ginny WANTS the yarn.

Here's the yarn for the True Colors shawl.  Melanie Berg is a designer that I like a bunch, so I'm excited to get to this one!

Here's the beginning of your sweater.  I'm almost done with the ribbing on the bottom.  I work on this before Spanish class, during online seminars, on the weekends, or when I have time before a church meeting.

Here's the new scarf for Jeff.  It is my mindless TV knitting.

Oh!  Here's yarn for a sweater for Smallest as well.  It was not requested, but she mentioned she would like one.  She outgrew her other one.  I also need to make the second Darjeeling top in the green yarn.

Ginny's allergies seem to have died down.  We're also feeding her allergen-free food now, so I'm hoping that it does the trick and we can avoid the dreaded shot.  It's been a month since she went in for her limping, which was diagnosed as arthritis, and she's moving around fine so hopefully that will continue to not be an issue.  Fingers crossed!

Supervisor cat

Examining the bag for yarn

I think that's it?  I have jury duty next week.  Knitting/crochet is not allowed.  Maybe I can take one of my languishing cross stitch projects and hope I'm not asked to serve.  I did serve on a jury once.  It wasn't bad, but I confess I'm not excited to do it again.

Margie

P.S. Did you get a small package from me?

You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here (in my pile of mending)

Mending time! I've been trying to do some organizing in my life, and was reminded that I have this stack of mending that needs doing. I think I got nervous about one particular mending job (on a stretchy part of a hoodie), and let the other things pile up on top of it. There were also some more substantial reworking of clothes I wanted to do that I figured I needed a tailor for. But! While Margie was here last year, we tried out a local tailor and she was great! And I needed to take my portable sewing machine down to my parents house on Tuesday to fix my dad's pants, and thought I might as well get started on some of my own things as well. So far I have fixed a seam on one of my favorite reusable grocery bags, the waistline of one of my favorite skirts (where the seam had come apart in two places), the strap of a mask (technically disposable, but it was barely used), taken out the darts in a dress that will (hopefully) become a skirt, and fixed the zipper part of some fun pants I bought on our trip. For the last one: Basically, someone had put in a zipper on top of the existing fabric, so unzipping the zipper only gave you about 2 extra inches in the width to take the pants off and on. I needed a lot more than that! In fact, I'm pretty confident I never got to actually try these pants on before, because of that silly feature. So finally I got up the nerve to cut right down between the zipper and then just sew around the new edges so they don't fray. And it worked perfectly! I can now get into the pants (see?), and they are super comfy and beautiful. 

More mending & a visit to the tailor to come!

I also had a couple of webinars this week where I got to sew hexagons, and finished one more half-flower. Three seams to go until these halves are done!

Full flowers: 4/64 done

Half flowers: 6/8 done 

- Catherine

A good girl gone

 In good news, I'm done with 5 of the halves. Here's the new one, plus the three still in progress.

In sad news, my parent's adorable dog Lucy passed away yesterday. Here is a picture of her feeling satisfied after a long wiggle upside down, though it doesn't capture the cuteness enough. She had a tough last year - at least three different kinds of cancer, and diabetes, and epilepsy! oof. - but she was always so happy and loved coming to greet you at the door and get treats. RIP, sweet puppy.

Full flowers: 4/64 done

Half flowers: 5/8 done and the last 3 started.

- Catherine

Quiltrageous!

Have we used that title before?  Your flowers are so nice!  It is interesting to think about the different assembly methods.  Very scientific :) What are your next projects?

I need to get a picture of the finished cardigan!  I've worn it a couple of times and I like it a lot.  There's a wonky thing going on at the bottom front on the right, but I'm okay with that.

I've finished the socks and need to put them in the mail to the lucky owner!  We have nice padded envelopes at my work, so I'll snag one of those today and mail off the socks tomorrow!  I'll post a picture after they are received.  I like the look of the pattern, but I'm not sure I'll make them again.  I don't think they're nicely stretchy around the leg.  We'll see what the review is once they arrive.

Since I didn't have anything lined up to work on next, I now have many projects lined up.  There's two pair of socks with some Anne of Green Gables-themed yarn for Middle and Smallest that will coordinate with each other, two shawls - one for a yarn club that Jeff signed me up for from a dyer that I really, really like, the second is one from a designer I really, really like and I finally have the yarn assembled to make.  There's FINALLY casting on for the Pokemon sweater for Catherine!  I thought I would be knitting it on larger needles, but I get gauge with size 2, so it's going to be interesting...  There's more socks - some for Jeff probably, and some for Middle with Taylor Swift-themed yarn (Middle is a Swifty), I do want to make Sarah a hat, there's also a second Darjeeling top for Smallest, oh, and Jeff wants another scarf.  I also have plans and yarn for a sweater for me, but I think that's on the back burner for now.

There's a lot!  Here's a bad picture of the scarf yarn.  And the Yarn Club shawl.

While your airplane time is winding down, mine is ramping up!  I have a quick trip this weekend to Philadelphia to host a dinner at the Biophysical Society meeting, then next weekend we go to New York to visit Sarah and her husband.  The first week of March, I go to Minneapolis for the American Physical Society meeting and a dinner there.  I also get to see Jeff's cousin and his wife, who is also a knitter!  At the end of March, I go with Smallest to Boise, Idaho for a ballet company audition (her, not me).  That will be exciting!  She has other auditions in March also.  It's quiet for a bit after that, and then in June I go to our program's annual meeting, this year in Italy, and then Jeff and I will take a week to goof around after that.  Very exciting!  After that, I think we're done until Jeff's family gathering over Labor Day.

I've started taking Spanish.  It's been pretty fun, and it's easier than French.  It helps that there are no tests but we do have to worry about spelling and accents and stuff.  The teacher is fantastic.  I need to make flashcards for vocabulary.  I'm hoping to practice with Sarah and Javi when we're up visiting.  

 I think that's it.  Ginny the Cat's allergies are bothering her again.  There's a shot she can get to help her, but the vet we talked to when she got the second shot was very discouraging, telling me that it would give her diabetes.  She also may have arthritis, and the vet wants her to get a $150 shot every month?  Time to look at pet insurance for real, I think.  Bleah.  She's only 7, how can she have these problems?

Half of the halfs

While I thought I might not be talking about the quilt today (see last post), here I am. I’ve decided to focus on the half flowers when I have time for this quilt, mostly because the countdown is confusing at the moment - do I have 66 or 63 or something in between left? 

This week I finished the pink and yellow halves, and started the blue. Poor green still has not been ironed. And that’s the full report! 

Full flowers: 4/64 done

Half flowers: 4/8 done (plus 2 started)

- Catherine