On and Amost off the Needles...

 I'm almost finished this pair of socks. All I need to do is graft the toes and sew in the end at the cuff. And since these socks are more or less done, I cast on for my Pinery Sweater for try number 2. I have the right sized needles this time, and I also changed the neck by adding some ribbing. Hopefully this sweater will be ready to wear by the time the semi-warmer weather comes. It knits up faster with the larger sized needles.

The neck still isn't sitting right, since it's still distorted by the cables, but I figure I can finish the edge of the neck with some crochet stitches to even it out. I'm linking up to Judy's On the Needles.

Sneak Peak

I'm about halfway done my Thanksgiving Leaves quilt. Now that I am doing what it wanted, it's going much better. Another day like today should finish it. 

Customer quilts

Here's another installment of my still very far behind, documentation of the quilts I've been doing for my customers. It's a good thing that I get the quilting done on them a lot faster than I get the writing about them done.

These quilts all belong to Amalia. She is a very prolific piecer. The variety in the fabrics she's used from quilt to quilt is quite fun. I am really drawn to the colours in this first one. Something about just using variations of one colour, and in solids, is very graphic and appealing. I've never made anything even remotely like this, But because of doing work for others, I get to play with it, without having to make it. It is quilted using the Square Spiral pantograph by Keryn Emmerson. The strong diagonal of the quilting fits quite well with the strong horizontals and verticals of the piecing.

 This next one is made of a bunch of lovely florals, pieced in large sections, which gives the fabrics a wonderful opportunity to shine. The addition of the pieced hearts is so much fun. It was lovely to look at the floral fabrics as the snow kept piling up outside.

 I quilted it with a free hand floral. The hearts are outlined, and then echoed inside the hearts.

 Here's her spinning four patch. She made a wonderful fabric choice here. I really like the blues and greens against the black.

I quilted a spiral feather inside inside each of the blocks, with the feathers extending out into the sashes. The spiraling of the feathers increases the motion that already exists in the blocks. These were so much fun to do.

Design Wall Monday, March 3, 2014

 Here is Cactus Rose once more. She keeps showing up every now and then, and then disappears and retreats back into her box again. I'm hoping this time, to get it finished. I have designated this as March's assignment for the Lovely Year of Finishes Challenge. I'm going to say that I will get 2 more borders on this month. I'd like to think I'll get all three of the curved borders finished this month, but I don't want to put that much pressure on myself. There's too much other stuff going on these days.

This is a closer look at the piecing. The whole thing has been paper pieced and then appliqued. I've lost count of the number of times while working on this that I've decided that the men in the white coats really need to come and take me away. One of the reasons I've been putting off finishing this was lack of someplace to put it. However, I measured the walls on my studio a couple of days ago, and discovered that it will fit on a wall in there, which gives me added incentive to get it finished.
I'm linking up to Design Wall Monday and the goal setting party for A Lovely Year of Finishes

On the Needles...

I finally got around to getting the toes of these socks grafted together. And I took a picture of them on my feet. My son, who is here visiting with us just saw me post this picture of my feet in their new socks, and he thinks it is very weird. When I told him that there are other people who also take pictures of their feet in new socks, he thought that was even weirder. He isn't a knitter, so he can't possibly understand. But, even if it is weird, they are warm and comfy, and just  a bit slouchy around the ankles. But their first trip through the washer and dryer should fix that. And yes, I do machine wash and dry my hand knit socks. There is no hand washing by this girl. Sometimes, if I remember, I separate them out of the load of wash, and block them into shape and let them dry on their own, but mostly not.
I'm still working on this other pair of socks. For some reason, they seem to be taking forever. I'm on the last stretch, though, almost done the instep decreases. Once these are done, I'll cast on my sweater again, and see if I can't get it done before spring. They way this winter is going, there will be loads of time to get it done. I'm linking up to Judy's On the Needles

Finish it Friday

My UFO goal for this month was to get this leaders/enders project that has been on the waiting list to be finished for quite some time. When I drew up my UFO list at the beginning of the year, I decided that this one had aged enough, and was ready to be finished. It went from a bag of 4 patches and 16 patches to a finished flimsy. Now, it will move to the waiting to be quilted pile.  I'm linking up to Finish it Friday and also to the Lovely Year of Finishes. The rest of today is going to be devoted to getting more quilting done on my Thanksgiving Leaves project. I'm hoping to have it done by the middle of next week.

Cabin Fever

 Snoodles, over at Lily Pad Quilting, is hosting a linky party for us to describe our treatment plans for Cabin Fever. The best way I have found for treatment, beside liberal doses of fabrics, preferably in bright springtime colours, is to plan and dream about this coming summer's camping trips. I browse through photos taken in past years, Like these following. These two were taken at Bon Echo Provincial Park. The one on the right is a picture of Mazinaw Rock, taken from the opposite side of Mazinaw Lake, And the one below is taken up close from in a canoe. I think this is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and one of my favourite places to go. Maybe we can spend some time here this summer.

Then again there's Grundy Lake Provincial Park.
This is one of the campsites there, right on the lake. I can easily imagine many hours spent sitting on this campsite, enjoying the quiet, and the sounds of the birds singing, and the wind in the trees. All it would need would be some needle work, or some knitting to go with it, or maybe a good book. Wouldn't it be fabulous to have a campfire going, in that pit right by the lake and listen to the loons calling and watch the stars as they come out to greet the night? There isn't a large city anywhere near this park, so the star gazing here is fabulous.

  Pinery Provincial Park is always a great place to go because it's only an hour from home. It has gorgeous beaches and dunes and tons of hiking trails, with lots of fun things to see. Best yet, the hiking trails are all through fairly dense forest, so the are cool places to go on hot summer days. Although, right now, in the middle of winter, I can't say that I am anxious for a cool place to be.

 Canisbay Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park   is beautiful. Lots of the campgrounds in Algonquin are right off the highway, and there is a lot of road noise. But this one is several miles in from the road. It's a true get away from it all park, since there are no satellite signals available here. No internet, and no cell phone. But lots of peaceful lakes to get into for swims, or canoe trips. No motor boats allowed. There are even more hiking trails here than in the Pinery, although some of them are very long, and very challenging and a bit too much for this old lady's bones.

And then there's Awenda Provincial Park. We spent a lot of time there last summer. It's about an hour away from where our grandson Avery lives. It gives us lots of time to go and visit him, or they come out to the campsite and visit us.
Looking at all these pictures always leaves me feeling that there is hope for the spring and summer to get here, eventually.

But, lots of times I want to see what else is out there. I'm starting to sound like an official tourist site for the parks system here, but really, I'm not. But the web site for our Provincial parks has a really neat feature for some of the parks. If I want to check out someplace we haven't been yet, I can go to the site for that particular park, and find maps of the campgrounds. And even better, most of them have pictures of the campsites. Oh the hours I can spend going from campground to campground, imagining setting up on different sites, and it's still the dead of winter, but in my imagination, I'm on one of those campsites and, in my imagination at least, it's summer.
I'm going to go on over to Lily Pad Quilting and see what other treatment plans are available for this Cabin Fever illness.