Spring is here

spring comes early in these parts of the world.  The crocuses, daffodils and day lilies are all sticking their heads up.  Driving to Santa Fe yesterday to take my quilts to my long arm quilter up there, the hills were starting to green up, well as green as it ever gets here.  The predominant colors here are dirt with blue skys. Lots of colors of dirt, red, brown, yellow, white, even green and pink dirt.   And rocks lots and lots of rocks easily accessibly.  Good thing when you are a geologist.  but I digress.  I finally got my batting for my large fish quilt and then I got a backing it isn't exactally what I wanted cause they didn't have enough of that.  So I got a beige batik with the thought if I over dye it with a black I could get a really lovely charcoal grey batik.  well it was good intentions.  The Procion MX black dye is a blue based black dye so instead of going grey when diluted it goes umm navy blue. Not really what I was intending.  but in the end the very large whole cloth piece I got for the back of the quilt works with the quilt in it is navy blue-ness.  the batik print still shows through,  so it works.  after quilting and washing it will crinkle up and give it a nice mottled texture for the back of the quilt.  So with a backing and a batting ready, my quilt was ready to go to the long arm quilter. And yesterday that is just what we did.

After dropping the quilt off at the long arm quilter we went to santa fe quilting, and finally 6th store is the charm found water soluble thread to do the trapunto basting for the animals on bebegirls story book farms quilt.  So at the store I went in for a $3.50 item and came out spending $65. as one of my friends pointed out the $40 worth of stuff i bought for the bebegirls doesn't count.  The item I purchased for me were the absolutely incredible quilt blocks from Olde America Antiques.  They are vintage fish prints printed on quilting fabric and they are beautiful.  and I have a wall hanging planned with them.  I then went to the web site and found so many other beautiful prints they have.   so many pretty prints to make my heart sing. 

After the quilt store we got some lunch and took the bebe to the play ground.  we didn't stay long cause a storm was starting to roll in. hence the grey light in the following picture.

and I will leave you with the end result of some of the fabric I got in santa fe yesterday.  Horsey pillow cases for the bebekins.

Doll Quilts, blogiversary and finished objects

This is my blogiverdary post.  I started just about a year ago.  I did 41 posts last year.  this year will try for at least that many

Last week I went to Seattle.  I left the cold state of New Mexico to the slightly warmer state of Washington.  I had two reasons for my journey.  First my best friend lives up there.  I hadn't been to visit her in over three years.  I was pregnant with bebekins last time I was up there.   The husband and the MIL took care of the bebe while I was up there.  The second reason which is what time the trip when it was was Cake was having a concert in Seattle.  I love cake, they are the most awesomest band ever, especially in concert.  the first time I saw them live was on the pier in Seattle the summer I worked at a national monument in Oregon. while I was in Seattle i drug my best friend who is a some times quilter to some quilt stores.  We went to The Needle and I near her place in Everett and then we went to Undercover Quilts in the Pike Place Market in Seattle.  I got some stuff up there.  mostly some random Seattle novelty prints and  and other prints that I haven't seen at home.  I picked up to horse novelty prints for the bebekins.  she is going through a horse obsession.  everything has to be horseys and it is even better if they are zebras.    I was planning on making her some tote bags or something of the like to carry her horseys in.  she helps me unpack and the fat quarters are immediately re appropriated to be blankets for the the horseys.  I took the fat quarters and paired them up with some fat quarters in my stash free motioned quilted them took some extra binding fabric and the bebekins has two doll quilts for her horseys. 

at one of the quilt stores in Seattle i picked up two pillow case kits.  I loved the prints and who can't use more pillow cases.  This weekend I spend an hour and put them together and then the bebekins re-appropriated them for her bed.  That is fine I can use them next time they are washed.  I love both the prints on both of these.  

Back in October Bebekins, Grandma and I went to the Taos Wool Festival  I came back with two lovely skeins of yarn one I made into a jumper dress for the bebekins, the other is a skein of handspun cashmere lace yarn from a farm in Colorado.  I found the right beads to go with it in November and then in January I found the pattern it wanted to be.  the pattern is Ophidian by Sivia Harding.  I spent a month working on it on and off and here it is.  absolutely beautiful. and feather light, and soft as a cloud.  Before it was blocked the bebekins thought it was hers and you can see it on her in one of the horsey pictures. 

Snow the evil white substance that falls from the sky.

We are on day 4 of closed schools for all of 4 inches of snow where I live. down in the valley there was like only an inch of snow.  tuesday was kinda understandable. the roads were icy and no one in NM knows how to drive in the snow.  But I still had to work cause my boss doesn't believe in snow days.  if he can walk into work then we are expected to be there too. Wednesdays closures were a joke. the roads were bone dry but it was exceedingly cold for here.  The high was 7 degrees the low was like -10 which were record cold temps that day. I know this isn't cold for a lot of the country but damn it it is cold for here.  Thursday the school district couldn't get the buses started. so no school. The cold temps have caused a natural gas shortage in the state so yesterday afternoon the Governor declared a state of emergency and closed non essential state government and the university was closed  and then the city government. today schools, state/city gov, and university are all closed cause of the natural gas shortage. and I still have to be at work cause my boss doesn’t believe in days off.  So instead of getting snow days to stay home and play with bebe and do some quilty/crafty stuff, I went to work and grumbled about it.  I have to mention while this whole weather BS was going on we had the roof mid re-roof at home, so we had no heat.  we had space heaters which did the job to keep us from freezing.  This morning it was warm enough and decent enough weather for the roofers to be back working on the roof.  Never in my life been so glad to smell roofing tar.  but means we might be able to use our heater again this weekend.

I did finish a shawl this week.  I made the wren shawl with some of my hand dyed yarn.  it is an alpaca/merino blend sock yarn.  I think it came out quite nicely.  This morning bebegirls found the shawl blocking on the floor and decided to wear it. so I let her wear it while she was playing in the snow before going over to grandmas.  

Startitis and UFOs

So last week I went through a bout of startitis.  I had a whole bunch of projects that I wanted to do but wasn't starting cause I wanted to finish ufos and wips first.  and it kinda stalled me out.  I was doing stuff but it wasn't accopmplishing finishing the ufos and larger wips.  I was doing stuff I could finish in a day or two. but overall felt stalled out.  so last week I was like lets do this  I want to make x, y, z, p, q, l, and m.  so I started 5 different projects,two knitting projects, two quilty projects and a set of matching tote bags.  and made progress on all of them and on the ufos and wips sitting out there.   The energy for starting the new projects has bled over to the older projects

Tired quilting

Last night I was working Storybook Farms by McKenna Ryan.  I am working on the horse block.  I get everything traced on to the fusible web.  I get my fusible web all cut out and laid out on my fabric.  I am fusing the pieces to the fabric and not once not twice but three times I fuse to the right side of the fabric.  the dangers of being tired and quilting.

New Years Goals

my new years goals ( I like goals better than resolutions) part of this is to write it down and tell other people to help keep me honest.  and I know it is like January 13th and I have been thinking pondering and actually working on some of these already.

1) finish my UFOs that I care about from last year.  this includes the binding on the fairy quilts and fish quilt. and getting the two matching fish quilts and Bebekins brown bear quilt off to the long arm quilter and bound.  then finish piecing the fish quilt for my aunt and uncle, and my fairy quilt ...  there are a lot more UFOs to finish but that is a good start.  I also want to finish the two sweaters I am working on.  I have three other sweaters/cardigans/shells inline for when I am done. but one of the big things I have done is gone through my UFOs and decided which I wanted to finish vs which ones I feel guilty that I should finish cause I started them but then don't really care for them or something.

2) I want to depleate my fabric stash and yarn stash.  I am allowed to buy specific items for a project but not just random buying cause I like something. and new acquisitions will only be purchased if I have a project in mind for it.

3) get better at selling stuff on etsy.  I need to photograph and post stuff and get it up.

Free Pattern Friday - Felted Bell Cloche

This is a first attempt to write up a knitting pattern.

200 yards worsted weight feltable wool

this hat is done in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes

size 8 16 in circular needle and a longer one for magic loop or a set of DPNs.

ribbon of coordinating color

optional st markers.  I use them a lot cause it is easier than making a mistake and having to rip back and redo part of it 

CO 160 stitches

join and work in the round.  place marker at join

round 1 k entire round

round 2 p entire round

round 3 k entire round place stitch marker every 16 st

round 4 *k2tog k14*repeat rest of round

round 5-7 k entire round

round 8 *k7 k2tog k6* repeat rest of round

round 9-11 k entire round

round 12 *k2tog k12* repeat rest of round

round 13-15 k entire round

round 16 *k6 k2tog k5* repeat rest of round (120 st)

round 17 k entire round remove st markers

round 18 k entire round

round 19 k entire round  place markers every 20 st

round 20 *k2tog, double yarn over, ssk, k2tog double yarn over ssk k12 * repeat from beginning

round 21 *k2 p1 k3 p1 k13* repeat rest of round

round 22-47 k entire round, round 22 drop st markers,

round 48 k entire round, place st marker every 15 st.  alternate red and blue markers (or what ever color you have)

round 49 (red round decrease one after each red marker) *k15 k2tog k13* repeat rest of round

round 50 (blue round decrease one after each blue marker) *k2tog k13 k14* repeat rest of round

round 51 k entire round

repeat rounds 49-51 until there are 11 st between st markers.

repeat rounds 49 and 50 until there are 7 st between st markers

next round *k2tog k5 * repeat rest of round

continue to decrease until 8 st remain.  break yarn and bind of.

The hat will look funky but after felting it will be awesome.

I machine felted mine in the wash machine.  I felted it for a full cycle to get a nicely dense felt.  check it every 5 minutes during the cycle to see if it fits and if it is felted to your desire.  mine came out of the wash machine pretty much shaped exactly as I wanted it too.  I blocked it by wearing it for the day.  The hat felt dry at that point and was shaped to my head.  The holes knit in, in round 20 will mostly disappear but you can still feel them.  and then you can run a pencil through them to open them up to run the ribbon through.  If you don't wish to add a ribbon the replace rows 20 and 21 k entire round.

I have gotten so many complements on this hat.  It came out fantastic.