Seattle Skyline

Today, I had the opportunity to ride the ferry over to Bremerton.

It was a really good day to be doing this. It was very sunny — the only clouds were way off over towards the Olympic Mountains — and I think I can safely say it was one of, if not the, warmest day this year so far.

I hadn't planned to take a ferry ride, but it came up at work this morning that such an excursion was indicated. Some material that should have gone over to the Bremerton store earlier this week hadn't gone, and another person in the office needed something picked up from over there.

Anyway, I'd done everything else I needed to do, and so off I went.

On the way over, I took several photos of the Seattle skyline as we left the dock, with the idea of running them through the Photomerge feature in Photoshop.

It was rather windy on deck, and the ship was rocking back and forth a bit. I tried to get the amount of overlap necessary to successfully run the Photomerge, but apparently was not completely successful.

The two panoramas that I did get aren't bad though.

Next time take a ferry ride, I'll try to get it right.

Making Progress

It's funny sometimes how, after you've been working on something for a really really really long time, all of a sudden, it's done!

That's kind of how I feel about the Maple Leaf quilt. Just one month ago, it looked like this. It had taken me a year to get to that point.

Once I had all the blocks arranged, I started sewing them into pairs, then sewing pairs to pairs, small set to small set to bigger set. Saturday afternoon, there were four or five large sections done. What remained weren't simple rectangular sections. Because of the way I had rearranged the individual maple leaf blocks, I ended up having to sew several partial seams.

That's what I did yesterday.

  

The finished top measures about 70" x 90". I didn't make it with a particular finished size in mind, but those dimensions should work well enough for a twin size bed.

I'm thinking that I may get this top machine quilted. I've never sent one of my quilts out for machine quilting, but I think this is a good candidate. There are so many seams and so few wide open spaces, that I don't think I would enjoy hand quilting it.

I'm not sure what my next quilting project will be, but I have some ideas kicking around in my head.

I'm also making good progress on my sweater. Yesterday, I finished the front.

Once I started shaping the neck, and I was working on fewer stitches, it went pretty quick, especially after I had done all the decreases on both the neck and armhole and was just knitting on 12 stitches.

One Back Down, a Front and Two Sleeves to Go

 A few days ago, I finished knitting the back for this sweater from The Yarn Girls' Guide to Knits for All Seasons, all except the bind off.

When my mother attempted to teach me to knit when I was about ten, she showed me one way to cast on and one way to bind off.

A few years ago, I was one of two illustrators for this book. I did all the illustrations for the cast on section; the other staff illustrator at the time did the bind off section. Before then, I would never have guessed there were so many ways to cast on and bind off. Admittedly, a fair number are largely similar except for maybe a step or two. But still. . . .

Now, my preferred method for casting on is the German Twisted Cast On.

For this sweater, I wanted to find a bind off that was more elastic than the Standard Bind Off my mother had taught me. A quick look at the index led me to the Decrease Bind Off.

I am very pleased with the result.