Crafty resolutions

2013 is almost over, and I'm not the least bit sorry to see it go. I guess every year has a certain amount of sucky things happen, but it seems like this year had a lot. Hm. Anyway, I've been thinking about new year's resolutions. A friend of mine makes odd resolutions. One year, she resolved to only use chopsticks when she ate Chinese food, stuff like that, rather than the usual "lose x pounds." My one non-crafty resolution is to use my Fitbit for the whole year, barring technical difficulty. My Mom has a Jawbone, and she loves it, but she's had to send it off to be fixed/have battery replaced a couple of times. Sadly, I did not keep my resolution from this year, which was to finish the whole-cloth quilt I started back in...2011? I did finish the quilting in the center, though, so that's something. Now, my crafty resolutions are to put in some time with my drop-spindle, to use at least one of the skeins of pretty yarn I have in my stash, and to work on my quilting skills. Here is my plan for the last one: I'm going to make a sampler quilt. I went shopping this weekend, and bought my fabric. I've spend weeks looking at books and websites, and I picked 12 blocks. I got Quilter's Academy, Vol. 3 for Christmas, and I picked up Volume 4 as well, so I'll be using those. I want to work on triangles and diamonds, and get comfortable with them. I would like to be able to say "I want to make a Cut Glass Dish quilt" and actually do it without losing my sanity. So the plan is to make at least one block a month, and to get all of the blocks completed by the end of the year.

Well, things are looking up since my last post. My husband has a new job! In fact, tonight we went to his office Christmas party, and I got to meet some of his co-workers and see his office. This past week, we had an ice storm. There is still ice on the ground! It rained today, so by now, most of the frozen stuff that's left are dirty sleet balls along the sides of the roads. I spent four days, Friday-Monday at home. I got the Sea Snails quilt finished! Woo hoo! It's washed and dry. I have a few more loose threads to snip, and I think it will be ready to go. My next quilt is going to be for me! I realized that my husband has a quilt, but the only quilt I've made for myself and finished that I still have is one with no batting that I made about 10 or 12 years ago. It's great, it's nice and soft, and the flannel on the back is pretty warm, but it's not as warm as a quilt with batting would be. I've got two Honeycombs of Honeysweet, by Fig Tree. I think I'm going to modify a pattern on Moda bakeshop. Here's a link to the original: http://www.modabakeshop.com/2013/10/sweet-as-honey-quilt.html#more It's a nice quilt, and I like the idea, but it seems like kind of a waste of fabric, I mean, there are a lot of hexagon pieces that get cut off to make those blocks, and what's the point of making a nice hexagon rosette if you can't see the flower pattern? So my idea is to make a full 7-hex rosette, and then cut hexagons out of some tea-dyed muslin specifically to cut them in half to fill out the block shape. So that's the idea, we'll see how it goes. I made some progress on my whole-cloth quilt. The center is now completely quilted! Now, I have to do the border. First, though, I have to even it up. I think when I made the quilt sandwich, the layers weren't quite even, OR, when I made the backing, I turned the center panel the wrong way when I made the back, or but it a little short. Either way, the border needs to be evened out, and possibly trimmed all the way around. The original border pattern I was going to use has squares set on point. Half had a grid pattern in the middle, half had a flower, and in the spaces in between blocks, there were three leaf shapes. I think I'm going to use a design from another quilt from the same book, Quilts of Provence. I think I want to use a curved vine with leaves, and large daisies in the corners and in the middle of the border. I'll fill with slanting lines, like I've seen in a lot of feather patterns.

Well, things haven't exactly worked out like I had thought. For one thing, the Sea Snail quilt still isn't finished. The PTO fundraiser for my school that was supposed to be over before Halloween STILL isn't over. My husband lost his job for b.s. reasons. He's got some good prospects, and so far, we're doing okay. So, yeah, it's been interesting. In that "oh, God, oh, God, we're all going to die" kind of way. I have discovered one really cool thing. I went through a Little House phase, from the time my Mom gave me the books when I was 8 until almost junior high. My family didn't really get it, and I didn't know anyone else who did, either. However, I've recently discovered 2 memoirs written by women of my generation who made pilgrimages to the places where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived as part of a voyage of self-discovery. Kind of like Eat, Pray, Love for people who find a couple of weeks traveling around the Midwest easier to manage than Italy, India, and Indonesia for months on end. "The Wilder Life" is quite good, I thought, I haven't finished "My Life as Laura" yet. I've been so happy to find out that there were other people who felt the same way I did! I loved the Little House books, and I always knew that everyone around me thought it was weird. Even though I moved on to other things, those books left a mark on me. For instance, I wouldn't have learned how to quilt if not for those books. So, that's something that's made me happy recently.

This week, I wore the first pair of socks I knit myself. It wasn't the first time I'd worn them, but it was the first time I'd worn them that wasn't the dead of winter. I was really surprised at how comfortable they were, and how good they made me feel. I don't know why. They're not perfect by any means. I know there's a super-stretchy cast-off for socks, but I didn't do it, so the cuffs are kind of tight at the top. They're made of a wool-nylon blend I bought at the old yarn shop in Hillcrest. I had intended them to be for Neale, but they didn't fit him because of the tight cast-off. The socks are blue and gray striped, the yarn is self-striping. I'm working on my second pair of socks now. I finished the heel, and now I'm working my way up to the cuff. I was very proud, I I did a short-row heel with just a couple of peeks at an online tutorial. There are some gaps where the I picked up stitches along the heel that I'll go back and sew up later. I'm working on garb for Diamond Wars. I'm about half finished with a pair of pants for Neale, it just needs finishing on the seams and hems and a drawstring. I FINALLY found the other pair of linen drawers I made last year, so now I have two! Yea! I want to fix the hem on my red cotehardie and I have a lavender linen-cotton one that needs the sleeves re-attached to. I really want to make a wool over-coat. Nothing too fancy, just a simple open-front over-thingie. I kind of think if I use the tabard pattern from my Period Patterns Italian Ren pattern and attach sleeves, that might work. If I get my act together, I might be able to do it Sunday. Like all weekends, though, there will be too much stuff, and not enough time. :( I'm teaching two classes at Diamond Wars, so I need to work on handouts. One is on quilting, the other is basic embroidery. I'm not going to do stitch diagrams for the embroidery class, I think I'm going to go with a simple list of tips and resources. I'm going for "look at this cool, easy thing you can do to make your garb and accessories look nice," rather than "here's how to do perfectly accurate embroidery for Kingdom A&S." I also want to bring hoops and fabric for people and let them choose thread to practice stitches. So, yeah, I've got a lot to do before we leave on Thursday!

It is a crime against God to deny yourself love

I'm watching Jane Eyre on Ovation for the hundredth-ish time. It's the miniseries version with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens. That's probably my second-favorite version. Can't beat Michael Fassbender as Rochester. I could so do with knitting and sewing as classes at school. But, I digress. I haven't read a lot of classical literature for a while. I think I've gotten out of practice. I first read Jane Eyre when I was about 8 or 9, and I was too young. I didn't like it, I just slogged through to the end to find out what the secret was. When I re-read it as a teenager, I fell in love with Jane. She was "poor, plain, obscure, and little," but she didn't let herself be trampled on by anyone. I identified with her rage at being treated unjustly as a child and being powerless to stop it. Honestly, Jane Eyre is still a role model for me. I cut the last post short because my sister called, and there were things...and stuff. It's amazing how family can instantly turn reasonable, responsible, 30-something women into bratty, arguing teenagers. It was one of those arguments that wasn't really about the issue that started it, and went off into all the wrong that had ever been done, ever. It was ugly. My husband had to calmly take the phone from me and end the conversation. After that, I just couldn't concentrate much on writing about crafty stuff. So, it's Friday. (Woot!) Sadly, I have a workshop to go to in the morning for work. It won't be too bad. After, I'm going to see Wicked with my mom and sister (the plans, and a mistake on my part were responsible for the argument. The initial screw-up was mine, I admit.). Later, we're probably going to have our goddaughter over, unless she stays with her Grandma. Still not quite sure. Busy weekend, when all I want to do is be a slug on the couch until the sinus stuff we've had goes away. The weather is supposed to change soon, and I hope that clears it up. I've been browsing laundrybasketquilts.com. I really like the wedding ring pattern. There are several traditional patterns I really like, like double wedding ring and Dresden plate. My Great-Aunt Caroline was a quilter, and my grandfather has a double wedding ring quilt of hers hanging on the wall in his den. The work is beautiful. The color palette is not my favorite. It's all brown and mustard gold with a little red. That '70's "Harvest Gold" sort of dark yellow is probably my least favorite color ever. The sink and stove at my parents' house used to be that color when they bought the house. It was hideous, especially since the sink was really scuffed on the bottom and the color had worn in places. Both of them are long gone, thank goodness. Anyway, when I see pictures of Edyta Sitar's quilts, I really like them, but when I look at pictures of her fabric collections, they're kind of...meh. I love the pop of the bright batiks against the neutral backgrounds, but her prints are very antique-looking. I just don't care for the sort of muddy-colored Civil War-repro/primitive fabric, except in very small doses. The plan for the weekend, sewing-wise, if I can get some time, is to cut sashing strips for the Ocean Snail quilt, and maybe lay the blocks out. If our goddaughter comes, I doubt I'll get that far. I have a recipe for bread that I want to make with my class this week, and I need to test it first to make sure it will work before I try it at school.

Wip...Thursday?

It's been a pretty busy week. Last night, I went to a meeting with a group of parents to make plans for my school's fall carnival. The meeting went well, and I think it's going to come together pretty well. As president of the PTO, I'm an ex-officio member of all committees. Fortunately, because the co-vp's and I are dividing the responsibility for being "Officer in charge" for events, I didn't have to run the meeting. Yea! Not a lot of progress. I realized I was short a block on the quilt, and I finished that. The next step will be cutting sashing strips and laying the top out to sew the blocks together. I'm still knitting on the sock.

New Beginning

I know this blog has had more new beginnings than the run of Doctor Who, but I'm going to give it one more go. Basically, I listen to podcasts while I walk, and would love to join the podcast community, but am not sure how feasible it is to make the leap. So, the blog will become my new podcast substitute, and we'll see how it goes this time. Pam from Hip to be a Square records on Fridays, so maybe I should commit to Thursdays with occasional Monday bonuses? We'll see how it goes. Let's see, the niece of a handful of posts ago is now 2 1/2. She's still beautiful, and also wicked smart, strong-willed (family trait) and hilarious. I'm now an apprentice in the SCA. Ok, everybody knows what a knight is. In the SCA, a knight is a peer, it's the highest rank someone can reach without having been king or queen. Knights, as one would expect, receive their peerages for being really good at fighting, and also chivalrous behavior and good character. There are two other orders that are the equivalent of knighthood, the laurel for arts, and the pelican for service. Knights take squires, people they believe have potential that they personally mentor and sponsor. Laurels take apprentices and Pelicans take proteges. So, basically, I'm a squire to a knight who was knighted for arts and crafts. What I am working on now: 1. I'm working on a commissioned quilt for a friend in Memphis. I'm using the Parasols pattern by Fig Tree and Co. It's a nice pattern, the blocks are cool-looking, but they're kind of tricky, and they use that sew and flip method of making half-square triangles, so all the blocks have all these flaps of fabric hanging off the back, and it's really tricky to line the squares up to make those half-square triangles. So this one has been slow-going. I wanted to have it finished by now, instead, I just have the blocks almost done. I'm going to deviate from the pattern some and add sashing between the blocks. I'm afraid with my less-than-perfectly-square blocks, if I just sew the blocks together, the quilt itself won't be square. 2. I've picked up a couple of projects I started and put down. One is a sock I started knitting, the other is an embroidered Elizabethan coif. Think Pilgrim girl cap, but embroidered all over. The pattern is really cool, it's curling vines with different flowers and stuff in the middle of the curls. Cause the Elizabethans had strawberry/pea/rose/carnation vines, didn't you know that? It makes total sense. 3. I'm fixing a dress I almost finished a while ago. It needs to be adjusted a little in the shoulders, and the sleeves need to be taken off and re-done. I used too big a seam allowance on the French seams, so the sleeves were too tight, and I had trouble moving my arms. Now that I have a Juki sewing machine with an overlock stitch, I've been overlocking the seams, instead of doing French seams. That doesn't take up as much room, and it should fix the problem. Ok, so, Thursday, another update.

I have to admit, I feel a little inadequate compared to my favorite crafty podcasts. It sounds like those ladies are always finishing something, while I seem stuck in crafty backlog. Of course my favorite quilty podcast ladies have higher-end sewing machines, have been sewing much longer, and do more by machine than I do. Still, how do they get everything done? Most of them have kids and full time jobs, and still finish enough projects to make me envious.

*I'm still working on the wildflower shawl.
*I have about 2 inches left on the sweater I'm knitting for my niece, then I have the sleeves to pick up and knit.
*I'm quilting the Firefly wallhanging.
*I'm cutting strips for the hidden star log cabin quilt.

Today, my goal is to finish cutting log cabin strips and start working on the background for the TARDIS hanging. I want it to be a giant hexagon made out of triangles of two different fabrics. I have a ruler for the right kind of triangle, but I'm going to enlarge it. Those two have to be in Memphis by March 20. I'm a little nervous about making the deadline, since I haven't started on one of them yet. Well, I should get off the computer and get going.

Monthly update! As opposed to forgetting to blog for, like, 3 months. I'm calling it progress.

I'm still working on....I think most of the things I talked about before. I'm quilting the first Firefly wallhanging. This one is Wash's quilt. I'm really happy with how it's coming together, I just wish it was coming along faster. This weekend, I'm going to start working on the Doctor Who quilt. This should be interesting. I also want to start on a log cabin quilt from the Jelly Roll Quilts book. I bought fabric in November, finally figured out what to do with it about a month ago, and still haven't started. *sigh* C'est la vie.

Here we go again.

The idea for this blog was to sort of be an idea notebook for me, and I need to get back to using it. Yes, yes, I've said this before.

Okay, most of what I've been doing lately is knitting. Here are the knitting projects I have on deck:

1. A wildflower lace shawl, which is a very simple pattern, but this time, I'm going to try a knitted-on lace border. I'm using Madeleine Tosh merino light in Geranium.
2. Sweet Fern fingerless mitts in a nice worsted weight green wool.
3. A baby sweater for my niece, in hot pink cotton.

I've actually got several other lace shawls on tap, or at least I have multiple skeins of lace weight or sock weight yarn in my stash, and shawls are so lovely.

Here are the quilting projects I have lined up (in my head):

1. (WIP) a whole-cloth Provencal-style quilt, which got put aside to work on Christmas presents.
2. A winter lap quilt in reds and greens. I bought a bunch of fat quarters for this, and have added to it since. I think I'm going to use a log cabin/hidden star pattern from the Jelly Roll Quilts book.
3. A Japanese-inspired quilt using Kate Spain's Good Fortune line. I bought a layer cake with some of my Christmas money. I'm going to buy a yard of a print to use as a border and some solid navy blue fabric to use as background fabric, and I should be good to go.
4. I have a pattern from Fig Tree Quilts, from the newsletter, Fresh Figs. It's a translation of a vintage quilt, with red tulips set in a lattice. I wanted to make this for myself in red, aqua, and apple green. I might still, but the sheer volume of quilts I want to make and keep, just for this year, is disturbing me a little. I'm thinking of making this with pink tulips for my sister for her birthday.
5. I have a Ruby jelly roll that's burning a hole in my stash, and would pacify my need for something in the red, aqua, and apple green color palette. There is a quilt in a magazine I wanted to make that was alternating snowball and 9-patch blocks with a wide border that had swags of thick green rickrack and yo-yo flowers. I had been collecting fabric for this, but I have a similar pattern in the Jelly Roll Quilts book, and I think I could easily add the elements that I like from the other quilt to this one.
6. I want to make a classic Dresden plate quilt in 1930's reproduction fabrics.

So that's my wish-list. What am I going to do first? Well...

Neale had an idea about a year ago to make science fiction art quilts, and display/sell them at the art show at MidSouth Con. I've kind of slacked on this. It was one of those things that I thought I'd do when I got a more lucrative job, to buy the materials, but stuff happened. So I'm going to try to start small. We'll see how it goes.

No good resolution goes unbroken

Wow, I guess it's been a while since I updated. I got really busy with the end of school, and finding out that I need to look for another job (again!). I've been really stressed about that whole business, because my options at this point are: 1)get a job by July 8 and go through the Non-Traditional Licensure Program through the Department of Education (my preferred option), 2)If option 1 doesn't pan out, if I get a teaching job later, I can enroll in a Master of Arts in Teaching program which would be really expensive and involve a much more drastic reduction in leisure/craft time than option 1, 3)find a different kind of job.

So there you go. If anybody has a lead in the Little Rock metro area, I'm open to suggestions.

Lately, I've been knitting and crocheting toys. I've done a knitted bunny and started a second one, I've crocheted two octopi, and knitted two "plumps" from a pattern I found on Ravelry. Right now, I've been working on a TARDIS quilt. I've got the doors done, but one of them is kind of wonky, so today, I'm going to try to fix it.

Neale had an idea for me to make some science-fiction themed quilts and display them at the MidSouth Con art show. Of course, right now, I really shouldn't buy the materials for a new quilt, but I have some really interesting ideas.

So, there you go, that's pretty much what's happening. Oh, I got the first produce from my garden yesterday. It got really hot really fast, and my peas are about done, but I did get a handful of pods from my peas. There's one small green tomato on one tomato plant, and blossoms on the other one. There are blossoms on the zucchini, and a couple of little proto-peppers on the bell pepper. Unfortunately, something bit into the green tomato, so today, I put some bags of cat litter in the garden, to keep small furry thieves away. I suspect this may have been the work of a squirrel. I know that, oddly enough, squirrels love tomatoes. A squirrel stole a tomato off one of my grandfather's plants once and took it up into a pine tree to eat, and I remember watching from the kitchen window as he stood at the base of the pine tree yelling at the squirrel, and the squirrel chattered back, eating the tomato.

Next year, I want to do really work on landscaping the yard. The planting beds around our house need some work. The reason we haven't done more before now is a combination of time, money, and reluctance to get out in the heat. There's a house in my neighborhood with a bed I covet. Right now, it is crammed full of daylilies, irises, and other cottage-garden-type flowers, planted so densely there is no room for weeds. That's what I would love to have in front of our house, in the space where we took out a coupe of azaleas that died. I'd like to re-vamp the rosebed, and either fill the space with other plants, or mulch heavily to discourage weeds. I'd like to take the azaleas out in the bed in the back and put in a proper shade garden, with hostas and hydrangeas, which would be a better fit for the corner with the clump of dogwood trees. I also want to clean out the bed along the back of the house. There's a massive azalea that needs to be pruned, and I'd like to put a rosemary bush there. I also want to get rid of the vine that keeps coming up. I think it's some kind of passionflower, but the blossoms are tiny and pale green. I originally wanted to take the creeping vinca completely out, but now I think it just needs to be managed better. It looked beautiful when we bought the house, it was this mound of green leaves, but if you pull the top layer back a little, it's a mat of naked stems, like felt made of plants, with these dead leaves caught in the mesh. That just can't be healthy. One of the big things I want to do, though, is get all of the beds to a point where I don't have the massive week incursion. The rose bed probably looks the best, except for the weeds in the back corner. The wildflower seeds I planted two years ago were great at the time, but now, I think I want to do something different, so next year, except for the California poppies, I'm going to try to actively discourage them. Here's hoping I have a good-enough job that, come November-ish, I can afford the massive quantities of mulch and bulbs I need to make this vision happen.

The top of the quilt is done! I'll post pictures eventually, but my camera has pretty much bitten the dust, and Neale can't find the charger for his. This week is spring break. So far, I've been working in the yard. This is the time of year I want to be outside. Projects for the week: I want to put The Niece's quilt together and start the machine quilting. I'm going to put in a garden, and work on killing the vinca.

I wasn't going to plant anything this year, but then I read an article in Garden Gate about growing veggies in a bed that's 4' square, and it was quite a bit of food, so I'm going to do it. I found 50+ bricks in the backyard, half buried in the flower bed by the back fence. I've got a 42x46" area staked out in the middle of the yard. The plan is to dig up the grass and loosen the soil, then build up a bed with the bricks. All I'll need at Home Depot is a big bag of garden soil, maybe some compost, and plants. Right now, I've got pea, lettuce, and radish seeds, so I'll start with those, and then in a month or so, I'll put in a couple of tomato plants, a bell pepper, and maybe a zuccini. I think a lot of my previous garden issue has been that I started too big, I tried to do too much, so I'm going to scale it way back this year. That, and the bed I was using didn't have enough light. I don't know when the previous owners last planted a garden, but now, there isn't enough sunlight getting to that bed, so I planted mint there, and I'm hoping it takes the bed over.

I've gotten most of the vinca out of the bed in front, and I started on the bed in back yesterday. The best way seems to be to cut it down to the ground, without leaving any clippings lying around, because they'll root, and then spray it with either Round Up or white vinegar, tack ground cloth over it, and leave it for a few weeks. I'm going to try the vinegar first in the front, because #1, I don't like chemicals, and #2, it will make the soil unsuitable for planting anything else for months. I'm going to try the vinegar for a few weeks, and if it doesn't work, I'll get some Round Up.

I have a niece! She's beautiful. Soon, very soon, she will have a quilt. I am almost finished with the top, I have one more row to add, then I have to put it all together. I'm machine-piecing the border and the back, and I'm machine quilting the center. I think I want to do just a little hand quilting on the borders. Basically, a bee in each corner and a couple of looping lines through the edge. I bet I can finish by the end of Spring Break.

I'm working on an amigurumi octopus. I want to knit bunnies for Easter.

For Lent, I am giving up beer, coffee, and baking desserts. Now, this is the spirit of the last one: I am going to cut back on sweets by promising that until Easter, I won't make a big batch of cookies, or a cake or pie to have lying around the house to snack on. Not that I do this all that often, but in the spirit of Lenten sacrifice, I'm going to refrain. If I remember correctly, feast days are exempt, and Sundays are considered feast days, also biscuits aren't dessert, so we can still have our standard weekend breakfast of biscuits and eggs. I did make some shortbread for my sister last night, because she's apparently been having a rough time of it with the baby, and, although I did lick the spoon, I'm not eating any of the finished product. I think God will understand.

I am pretty much at the halfway point piecing the top of Abby's quilt. I promise, I'll post pictures, but I want to wait until it's done, or at least, until the top is done. Friday, I went to the Stitchin' Post. That was so awesome! Really nice material. I got two pieces, 1 1/2 yards each, to make a vanne, a Provencal-style whole cloth quilt. I need to find a solid color for the border, but I have the center panels, for when I'm ready to start. I also scoped out the Dr. Seuss fabric for the next baby quilt I'm going to make. This is for Neale's friend Dave and his wife Claire and their baby. Normally, I don't make quilts for people who aren't related to me, but Dave and Neale go WAY back, and he asked. I think I'm going to make it a little narrower than crib size, so I can use one piece of the Dr. Seuss fabric for the backing. That will still make it 40 inches by 60.

I don't know why I'm on such a quilting kick lately, but I keep seeing things I want to make. I'll probably start a knitting project, too, just to have something more portable to do. Probably either a bunny or a ball.

I think I've found a long-term career goal, too. I think I want to start my own school. Really, what I want to do is come up with the philosophy, and then be allowed to teach, but we'll see. I think a hybrid Montessori school is the way to go. There are some great things about Montessori, and really, mainstream education is starting to integrate the big ones: multi-age classrooms, and organizing classrooms into centers, so students have some time to move around the room and work independently. I'd even use some of the Montessori materials, particularly for math and the Time Line of Life, because I think that's just an amazing work. However, there are a lot of things about Montessori that are stuck. The reading curriculum, in particular, could use some re-working. Putting such a huge emphasis on phonics doesn't really work with English, anyway, especially since I knew so many children who learned words from environmental print before they mastered enough letters to build words phonetically, and they didn't have the patience to labor over phonics. Not that phonics isn't important, it is, but one thing I learned from the literacy classes I took is that English can't be taught exclusively with phonics or whole-language.

What I have in mind is a school where students would be in multi-age classrooms, set up in centers, with one teacher per grade level, and possibly and aid. Teachers would give lessons to groups of students, and in between times, students would have assignments to complete at centers. A lot of the morning would be reading/writing workshop, and students would do math, science, language arts, and social studies every day, but there would be more independent work, and more opportunities for students to learn to manage their time. It would follow the American Pediatric Association's guidelines for activity by having half an hour of P.E. every day and two 15-minute recesses. I have no idea how, or if I could make this happen, but I feel like I have a direction now.

My snowday accomplishments so far have been: I finished reading "21 Balloons" and I finished the sweater! It would have been really nice to have had the completed sweater to wear this week, since it's a bamboo/wool blend, but maybe I'll get to wear it once or twice before next year. Regardless, I plan to wear the hell out of that sweater next winter!

I'm making progress on the baby quilt, but once I figured out I had about 4 inches to go to finish the sleeve on my sweater, I concentrated on that, and now I'm done!

Of course, I'm going to try to finish the quilt pretty quickly, but I need a new knitting project. I've still got fingerless gloves to work on. I've been wanting to try toys, though. I got the supplies to knit little cotton bunnies, I may start a bunny.

AHHHHH! Overload!!!

I'm working on Abby's quilt. I just got a really cute idea. I'm going to machine quilt the centers, but I'm thinking now, I may hand-quilt the border. I was going to applique bees onto the corner blocks, because the middle is all hexagons, I've kind of got the whole beehive/honeycomb thing going. Now, though, I think I'm going to quilt bees into the corner blocks and do a couple of loopy lines through the border, like the path of a flying bee, and spell out "Abby" in cursive in the middle. I think that would be cool.

Went to Barnes & Noble this afternoon, and a copy of "Sew Beautiful" decided it needed to come home with me. I was helpless to resist the children in white clothes with pin tucks and embroidery and lace insertion. Then, when I got it home and started looking at it, there's a whole little set for a baby done in boutis, which is the Marseilles-style corded quilting that I am currently in love with. The baby bonnet pattern is free, and there's information to order the patterns for the jacket, booties, mittens, petasson (lap cover) and baby bottle cover. There are also kits. Can I just say, I want.

I think I want to try a wholecloth linen quilt for Kingdom A&S. I may not make it, but I think I want to do a four-panel Tristan quilt-style hanging. I just need to find a story and figure out how to tell it in four panels. I'm kind of thinking a unicorn story. Unicorn with a maiden, then the unicorn being hunted, then captured in a fence, then the unicorn free again. I can use the climbing rose pattern from the Tristan quilt around the edges, and separate the panels with fleurs-de-lis and seashells. Maybe. First, though, I have baby projects and a sweater to finish.

Candlelight Camp is over. The event itself went really smoothly, and sort of assuaged my SCA burnout a little. It was really nice to see people pull together to make the event happen. That tendency has been sadly lacking.

So now, I have about half a dozen projects that I want to do, like now. I have some beautiful royal blue wool that was going to be an overdress, but I didn't get to make it, but it would have been way too warm to wear anyway. I now have at least 3 new outfits I want to make. Plus, I want to make a quilt for myself. I want to make a wholecloth one, I'm thinking for Kingdom A&S. This will require more research. I still really want to make a quilted bodice and skirt, which will also require more research, and probably more hours of work than is sane.

I'm kind of thinking I want to make myself a quilt based on Japanese designs. There are a couple of patterns of hexagons and triangles in Japanese Quilt Blocks that I like. One is called "bamboo basket" and the other is a turtle variation. I'm thinking of doing one of those on a large scale, and incorporate sashiko-style designs in the corners and along the border. I may end up working on two simultaneously. Should be interesting. Provided I can keep tendinitis at bay.

The holidays are over. I didn't quite finish the fingerless gloves I was working on. I am almost finished with the sweater, I just have one more sleeve. I started cutting out pieces for my niece's baby quilt. Then, I hurt my right arm. It appears to be tendinitis, so I've been resting my arm. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to things soon.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about a feast. No, I don't want to cook one. I just haven't seen any feasts that have impressed me lately, and I was thinking about what I'd do. I'm thinking an early spring feast, French/Italian.

first course (because "remove" isn't period)
Green Poree - a light soup of chard, herbs, and broth
meatballs
bread with butter

second course
roast chicken
turnips with cheese
apple custard tart

third course
lamb casserole - chunks of lamb slow-cooked in broth
cheese gnocchi
asparagus with saffron

fourth course
torta bianca - cheesecake
wafers
confits - candied fennel seeds

Wow, I didn't realize it had been THAT long since I posted, but I've been busy. Work and school have kind of kept me busy. It's done, though, finally! I took the final for the second literacy class tonight, and I'm done! For now...

In order to get a state teaching certificate, I have two choices: non-traditional licensure, or a Master of Arts in teaching. If I go NTLP, I probably have to find a new job, because my school doesn't meet their accreditation standards. I found out today from a co-worker who's in the MAT program at UALR that if I go that route, what I thought would be an advantage is actually very much a drawback. It would cost significantly more money, significantly more interference with my life, since probably 3-4 nights a week, I'd get home at 9 or 10, not to mention homework. The major advantage (I thought) would be that I'd get to stay where I am, but I wouldn't, and in the semester I'd be interning, I wouldn't be paid. With NTLP, it's two 3-week summer sessions and 7 Saturday workshops, one a month from September to April. I know there's homework, but at least I'd have the evenings to do it. Plus, I'd be working full-time at a starting teacher's salary, and qualify for benefits. So now, I think I'm going to hold off on more school. Maybe in a few years, I'll decide I want to go to school and add a certification, be a counselor, or a reading specialist, or something.

So, crafty stuff, I'm almost finished with the February Lady Sweater. The body is finished, I'm working on the first sleeve. That took about 3 tries. and I'm still not sure I got it right. The biggest problem was that I was doing what you normally do knitting stockinette stitch in the round, I knitted the even rows. Well, that was twisting the yarn-overs in such a way that instead of making a hole, the yarn pulled across the hole filled the space, and you couldn't see them. So now I know, when knitting lace in stockinette stitch in the round, knit all the stitches on the even rows, but PURL the yarn-overs.

I've also started another quilt. It's for my grandfather for Christmas. It's very simple. There's this silly old song he used to sing all the time when I was little. The center of the quilt is a plain navy square, and I'm quilting the words on it in white thread. The border is big squares of several different fabrics. It's basically navy, tan, green, and a dark red. Lots of earth tones and, oddly, a couple of butterfly prints, but very naturalistic, not cutesy. I found this great fabric, it's a maroon with a pattern of white dots that looks like Japanese sashiko. I'm trying really hard to finish the center by hand, but, depending on how long it takes to do the middle, I'm quite likely to finish it on the machine. After the middle is done, the rest is going to be very simple quilting on the border, either quilting in the ditch, or an off-set grid, so I'm basically sewing through the middle of each square, but in the ditch would probably be better. Then, I just finish trimming the batting, roll the edge of the backing over the front, and sew it down. That, my knitting, and a new outfit for Candlelight Camp are the big projects I've got lined up. I have some wool flannel, and I want to make a slightly looser cotehardie to wear over a dark red kirtle. I cut out a dark green kirtle a few months ago, and I should probably finish sewing that one first. So, there you go.

Wow, I didn't realize it had been over a month since I posted anything.

The quilt is done! I delivered it Tuesday. I held it up for Hunter to see, and she hugged it. It was the cutest thing ever!

I'm working on knitting the February Lady Sweater. That's pretty much it. The coif pattern order was delayed by Pennsic, but I should be getting it soon.