Bloggedy blog!

I miss you, sewing blog! It is great fun to hear what you've been up to, Margie. The dresses do indeed look fabulous. Post photos of your quilt when you get a chance!

The only thing I didn't record in the last 9 months is that back in January I took a trip to the LYS, using your lingo, and found some very happy yellow, green, and pink yarn. I started crocheting it into granny squares (for an hour or so), with the idea that it could become a baby blanket or a scarf. The baby blanket idea lost momentum because the person I had in mind turned out to be... not deserving, shall we say. And then the idea lost momentum in general because the yarn is VERY small, and so crocheting for ever left me with a square of about 2 inches. However, it's a very good traveling project, and I have some plane flights in my near future, so I should pick it up again. I also need to return to my quilt; fortunately, football season is upon us!

The other thing I can report is that the quilt of squares (based on the pattern-a-day book) totally stalled out when Evil Twin and I discovered that we really don't know any fancy knitting stitches and the internet was not helpful in teaching us. Perhaps another trip to the LYS is in our future at some point?

Catherine

Woven bracelets

Another draft that was never posted...
I think Christmas of 2011.

Well...

During Christmas break, I didn't do any knitting, but I "helped" the girls with some woven bracelets they had gotten a while back. Not sure just how long I spent on it, but it was at least three hours. Nice, mindless work. And the girls love the results.

I'll have to get pictures shortly.

3 hours for me! (are we doing this again?)

Margie

What, Again?

This is from sometime in early June of 2010.  It's been sitting in the drafts, not sure what date it will be published under!


So I squandered my opportunity to put in some serious stitching time Friday. Smallest was having a playdate with a friend after school, so I didn't have to go pick her up. Instead, I dorked around on the computer and did other random non-productive things. Oh well.

The book club I'm part of met last night. Our book was, "Always Looking Up", the latest Michael J. Fox book that spans the 10 years since "Lucky Man." I had great fun explaining the section on politics, which talks about embryonic stem (ES) cells and George Bush's policy on research with ES cells. We're all going out to dinner on Tuesday, which happens to be my 40th birthday.

After all the events of the day, those mentioned above and those left out, I did manage to get in an hour of stitching before a late bedtime. I'm working on Santa's sleeve, which has a swirly pattern like the one I messed up on the body and had to redo. Of course, it's much smaller, but it was still annoying to complete a part of it and realize I had messed it up. Sigh. More unsewing ensued. The resewing was successful.

Off to pick up Darling at the airport soon. This is the first of his last two trips to Calgary.

Margie

Summer dresses

 

So...here we have Smallest, who is now 8, and Middle, now 11, modeling the lovely dresses I finally finished.  It had been a while since I cut the fabric.  They've worn them to church several times and have received many compliments on how lovely they both look, so that's nice.
 Of course, I think they look lovely all the time, but that's just me.  I will say that the dresses fit nicely, which helps the girls to look extra lovely.

Middle started middle school this fall, Smallest is in 3rd grade (that's Grade 3 in Canadian) and The Boy has entered the world of high school.  It has been quite the adventure for all of us.  The big kids both ride the school bus to school.  Middle gets picked up at 7, so we drive her to the bus stop.  The Boy gets picked up at Smallest's school at about 7:40, which is the same time that Smallest needs to be there too.  Currently I am torturing The Boy and we're all walking to school together (with the dog), we  (I) say goodbye to Smallest where she heads inside, then I walk around to the bus stop with The Boy and pretend I don't know him as he gathers with his friends.  Usually he walks about 5-10 steps behind me, which I find amusing.

I have several new unfinished projects to work on.  Perhaps this weekend will be better than last at accomplishing something projecty.  I have two flannel blankets that I'm working on for a friend's baby, and there's the quilt to finish up.  I'm not entirely happy with the quilt.  I think it will unravel at some of the seams, and that's not cool.  I bought flannel for the quilt batting, and it is not 44" across.  When did they start making fabric that's 42 and 43 inches wide?  That is not right.  Anyhow, I have to sort that out and then finish it and decide its fate.

I am itching to knit something.  I have many knitting projects waiting to work on.  I still need to finish assembly of the white baby sweater, and I've been working on a little blanket for Smallest's dolls.  I don't know why that thing is taking so long.  I think I don't like the aluminum needles with the linen-y yarn.  It's all too slippery.  I'm close to finishing though, probably just another inch or two.  Then I can start on all those other things!  There are scarfs, animals and another scarf to work on.  And I've been looking around at Ravelry and saw some cute things.  Dangerous place, Ravelry.

It looks like Catherine is MIA on the blog, so I will claim perpetual victory until she returns.

I've put in several hours on the various projects, but as I haven't really kept track lately, I'm not going to estimate.  I don't think I have any competition anyhow.  My finished projects will be my only reward...sniff, sniff.

Margie

I love Southwest Airlines

This past weekend, I flew Friday afternoon on Southwest airlines to Colorado to liberate my parents from Smallest.  They all had a lovely visit, but Smallest wants to do everything there is to do, and she talks almost constantly.  She is a good match for their cattle dog puppy, Lucy.  Lucy is very sweet and the darling of the neighborhood and loved playing with Smallest.

The previous weekend, I flew on United airlines to Seattle to pick up The Boy.

I had a frustrating and disappointing experience with United and rather than go through the saga again, I will just say that I hope not to fly on United in the future.

When I went to Colorado last weekend, I decided not to take my book (Clash of Kings) because I knew I would read it the whole time and there was a project to work on.  So I took the bag I'm making and that's all I did.  I worked on it a couple of hours on the way there, and less on the way back as there were games to be played with Smallest.  I'll give it 2 hours total as a safe guess.

Darling and The Boy returned on Sunday from their soccer tournament with our previous team.  Not a lot of success on the field, but it was fun visiting with friends.

Good to have all the kids back in one place.

Oh, I also finished the quilt blocks.  They only lacked one piece to complete the outer square, so I did that Saturday or Sunday night.  That was about another 30 minutes.  Now I need to assemble the blocks.  They are not as square as I remember the previous blocks.  Oh well.  It will all work out.

2.5 hours, 13 hours total.

Margie

I am Bradley Wiggins

Today was the last day for the Tour de France to ride in the Alps.  If you're trying to win the TdF, the best place to attack and gain time on your opponents is in the mountains because sometimes riders have bad days, or they don't have the legs, or something happens and so you finish before they do.  This year, Bradley Wiggins has been telling everyone that he wants to win the TdF this year.  While he didn't attack his opponents in the mountains, they've attacked him and he's responded every time and caught them.  Now that only flat stages are left, it's looking about 99% sure that Wiggins is going to win.

So...I'm taking advantage of Catherine's inattention and travel to build up a lead so that when she gets around to checking, I'll be so far ahead, there will be no way for her to win.
I don't really want to be that far ahead, because then it's not as fun to play, but it's fun to build a lead, and I'm not sure that Catherine's really going to play this quarter.

Anyhow, I worked on the crochet bag for 30 minutes last night and I worked on Log Cabin #2 for an hour tonight.  It was only going to be 30 minutes on the quilt, but I had blocks in different stages and I wanted them all to have three sides of the last round tonight, so that took a little longer than I anticipated.

Tomorrow I'm going back to CO to pick up Smallest.  Originally, I was going to leave Middle here with friends, but no one has responded to my request for assistance, so I'm taking Middle with me.  Smallest doesn't know it, so I think it will be a pretty great surprise!  This time I'm not going to take a book on the plane with me.  That way I'll be forced to work on the crochet bag the whole time.  I'll have to remember to take the instructions as well...

I'm also starting to think about what to take with me when we go to Germany and Belgium in August.  We'll be flying over, then riding around on buses with our soccer group and flying home, so that's lots of time I could spend doing something...but what?  I will have to think and plan.  Not sure how easy it will be to locate shops for supplies over there, although I'll definitely be on the lookout!

1.5 hours tonight, 10.5 hours total.

Margie

Now With Pictures!

Still no Catherine... She did have to go to some conferences recently, so maybe she's been busy.  Or maybe she's submitting to my awesomeness early.

Anyhow, I put in an hour of work on the log cabin quilt tonight.  When I started, it looked like this:

I've been adding the next round of border on and there's one piece on each square, two on some and three on others.  I don't have a picture of the current status, but perhaps with another hour or so all the blocks will be finished.  Then it's piece the top and make the sandwich!

Middle is an only child this week.  The Boy and Darling are in Minneapolis at a soccer tournament (the USA Cup) and Smallest is off with my parents for a week.  I think they will have fun.  It's a real treat for Middle to be the only child.  We're working on making things for the Liv dolls.  Last year it was clothes and this year it seems to be accessories.  At any rate, it's fun and Middle is super creative.  She's getting ideas from YouTube (not the crazy Pullip lady, but some Froggie craft lady instead) and is improving upon them as she goes.  I think she will make some clothes as well, but it's not top of the list.  We're going to make a tent for the dolls and some sleeping bags too.  We are cool.

I spent a lot of time on airplanes this weekend.  I took a book along, Game of Thrones (awesome!) and another project-in-waiting, a crocheted bag.  I had made one for Middle earlier and had another pattern for some other yarn we got, but I didn't like the pattern so much anymore.  Well, problem solved.  When I was looking for a new pattern, I discovered Ravelry which is like Facebook for yarn freaks.  You can list your projects, yarn in your stash, all sorts of things.  They also have a HUGE listing of patterns.  It's cool and highly addictive.

Anyhow, I only worked on the bag for about two hours on the plane (out of 13 hours of flying between Friday am and Sunday pm) because I liked my book so much, but here's what I've done so far:

It has a rectangular base, now I'm working up from the bottom.  In about 17 rows, there are some decreases to make it less tubular and more shapely.  There's a strap and if desired, a decorative flower.  Something good to keep around for waiting rooms and such.

I think that's about it for now.
I forgot to list my hours last time.  I worked on the blocks an hour on the Leetle Squares post without recording that, and I worked another hour tonight.

4 hours unreported, 9 hours total.

Margie