Starting Over

 

I took this perfectly nice quilt top.....

...and almost ruined it by machine quilting it. 

I thought I would get fancy with it but I made a mess out of it. Fancy is beyond my skill level.

I had spent more time picking out what I had done than quilting it but at a certain point I declared it done and threw it in the wash and then packed it away.

I thought I had made peace with what was left of that wonkiness but it seems I wasn't. When I took it out to use it yesterday I couldn't stand looking at it so I spent the day picking out all that wonkiness once again. What comes next, I'm not sure. I'll have to think of something.

Rest in Pieces

I had a Maggie Smith movie marathon the night we heard of her passing and noticed in several scenes in the film From Time to Time she was English paper piecing a quilt. 

Ages ago, I made a tiny mini display quilt from a kit that used that same pattern which is called Patchwork of the Crosses.

I liked it so much that I made another one for Christmas and......

...I also started a full sized quilt with some scraps...but here it lies untouched for years. I'm going to sit it next to Dear Jane and see what happens. It couldn't hurt.

 

Pigtails

 

I drive The Mister crazy with the way I make up names for things I don't know the actual names of. I call that thing that is on my yarn a pigtail. Spinners will recognize these as the bane of our existence so I was a bit surprised to find one in my Regia yarn.

They come about when one of your plies is longer than the other and twists onto itself usually from too much energy in the single. When you are spinning you have to go back and undo what you did and even it out. Apparently the folks at Regia don't. 

Since that pigtail was way after the fact, I have no choice but just knit on and figure out how to weave that little end in later. I'm starting to wonder what other surprises this yarn has in store for me. 

Friday Finishes

 

The ginormous sock yarn scarf is dry and has had a haircut. 

All the ends from the color changes had to be cut off and the fringe evened up.

Ta da.....it doesn't looks so big when you have it on it. The Mister says it's a wrap and not a scarf and I think he's right. 

The whole time I was working on it I never noticed the pattern that was emerging. I first saw it when I got it wet. It's very pretty-and a big surprise. I thought I was doing a rather plain weave but it doesn't look like it.  It looks a bit fancy.

The temperatures have cooled down here a bit to the 70's and low 80's but the humidity is still way up there making it unbearably muggy so my big experiment is tucked away until it's needed. November would be nice but I'm betting December. It's feeling like another one of those years where winter might just skip us again. 

Coastal Flooding

 

The Chesapeake Bay hasn't been playing nice this week. We've been under one alert after another warning about high water and flooding. A county on the eastern shore even had to close schools.

The Weather Channel said it's because of some wind event happening out in the ocean pushing the water into places it shouldn't be. That's the parking lot of the marina, not Fisherman's Creek. 

Watching people try to put their boats in has been fun. Those orange poles are where the boat ramp is. You have to wade through the parking lot to get to it. 

I got soaked on the boardwalk. The water was being pushed up through the decking like little fountains. It's supposed to calm down today and all that extra water should go back to where it belongs.

I know it's been a mess but I'm kind of sorry to see it go. There's something about the bay that is exciting when it's being wild and dangerous. It lets you know who's really in charge. 

Wednesday WIPs: Pucker Up

The last of the Gray Blobs has had a very bad week. I was cruising to the finish line when I thought I'd better try it on Dumpy Debbie, my dress form. Oh, dear. I see a problem. 

Here's a closeup of the ugly pucker. One side looks perfect and the other side does not. It seems I didn't pick up the right amount of stitches. I had to rip the front band all the way to the marker. 

Making things worse, stupid me had the big idea to weave in all the ends around the button holes so they couldn't be unraveled. They had to be cut. As bad as all this was, I now have to play yarn chicken with the amount of yarn that I have left. So far, I have had to rip it back twice to get that V neck section to lay right. My first attempt led to waffling of the band. Ugh.

Of course I am kicking myself for not checking on it sooner but this is how Dumpy Debbie usually looks. She's a very convenient receptacle for all of my grime guards and other things. No more. I'm trying the Gray Blob on after every few inches to make sure I don't have any more surprises.  

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

This was a slow week for stitching first because of the jabs and then because I had an emergency to take care of that was sitting on my stitching table. I'll go into details tomorrow. Right now it's still touch and go.

Peter Rabbit got another grid square finished. That's his nose and mouth even though it doesn't look like it yet. 

Matter's Choice has another bird and a bug. 

Dear Jane got sorted but not covered or put together. Oh, well. It was a crazy week. Hopefully this one will be calmer. 

So Big

 

So how big was that scarf that I made? This big. 

I had to think about how I was going to wet finish it. A soak in the tub was the only solution seeing it's sock yarn and not cotton. 

I had to roll it up in several towels to squish the water out and then hang it over two drying racks. I wondered why I kept running out of weft yarn. Now I know. 

To Market, To Market...

 

I made pizza Friday night and saved half of it for dinner yesterday but it didn't seem like much so yesterday morning we were off to the farmer's market to get the rest of dinner. 

The market days are winding down. There wasn't much produce but there were a lot of mums and....

 ...pumpkins. Everyone had pumpkins in all shapes, colors and sizes. 

People were loading up their cars with them.

The gourd bins were seeing a lot of action too. I have no idea what you do with these but apparently lots of people do. 

I brought home corn, yellow squash and a beautiful butternut to go with my pizza. It wasn't a riot of color on the table but it was all good. 

Craft wise, the sock yarn scarf got cut off the loom. I had to wind it back up so I could hemstitch the end I started from and that was no fun. I'm still traumatized from the whole experience so I won't show it off today. What I can tell you is that it's LONG. Very, very long. 

I'm pretty sure it's Dr. Who long and that's really long. 

Like Magic

 

48 hours after those nasty jabs and I was back working with The Mister downstairs. All those horrible flu like side effects just disappear as do those sore arms. It's so weird how that works. I have to confess that The Mister was working and I was playing in the room next door. We're still putting down the closet flooring and it's a one person job since it's so narrow a space. I did the prep work and he puts down the floor. From time to time I have to fetch things but other than that I had a good time with Spiral Chicken.

At the moment she's sitting on my soap table. I also took some time to take inventory and order what I needed to make soap again. I even splurged and bought myself a new scale, a new thermometer and a splat mat to protect the new flooring. I should be back in business as soon as everything gets here.

Earlier in the week, my desk shelf arrived so I could finally sort out my art materials and clear up some work space. 

I also spent a few minutes trying out more arrangements for this year's card. I think I like this one but The Mister has veto power since it's really his project so we'll have to see how that goes. 

Speaking of The Mister, while I was laid up with my back and then the jab miseries, he finished his latest paint by number....

....and that wooden octopus puzzle. You should have heard the language he was using when he was working on it. Imagine my surprise when he said he wanted me to buy him another one like it. Apparently he enjoys a good challenge. 

Friday Finishes

 

Well, it's almost a finish. It would be done if I could use my arms but I can't right now thanks to those darn shots but I can see the end of that 10 foot warp on the back of the loom so it's close enough to be called a finish. 

On the front side I am using the hem stitch to finish the scarf off with some fringe. I completely forgot to do it at the beginning so now I'm going to have to figure out a way to wind it all back up so I can do it before I cut it off. 

I needed to get that other warp ready so I wound a good bit more of it before I realized I had mixed up the colors. I was carrying on about it and thinking I had to unwind it all when I realized it doesn't really matter. No one will know which order the colors are supposed to be in but me. So what if orange is where maroon should be? No matter at all.