Crabby Witches

Quite a few years ago, I bought this really fun fabric that we called Crabby Witches at the place I used to work at. I have heard that it was reissued because it was so popular, but I never saw it again. A Google search turned up this similar iteration.

Last year, I finally decided to make a quilt with it. I started with a design from this book written by a friend and former co-worker.

I didn't have quite enough fabric to fussy-cut enough squares for the quilt described in the book, so I went off on my own tangent. Along the way, I added the narrow sashing with the small sashing squares.

I finished sewing the top just about a year ago. It would have been done sooner, but I have this weird preference for hand quilting my projects. And, I also have a bad habit of having multiple projects going at any one time, so I'll work on this one for awhile, and then that one, and then maybe the other one over there. . . . Which means that more time elapses by the calendar before any of them are done, rather than if  I had simply worked on one until it was done.

 But where's the fun in that?

Anyway, I quilted the last bit about a week ago, sewed the binding on over the weekend, and handstitched it to the back over the last two or three evenings of TV-watching.

Scary Pumpkins!

On Sunday, Tim and I finally got around to carving our Halloween pumpkins. This year, the two pumpkin-ettes that our garden produced join them.

In the interest of full disclosure, this photo was run through Photoshop to make it more Halloween-y.

The original was taken at night, but on Portrait setting, so the flash went off. I adjusted the Brightness/Contrast, which darkened everything to an appropriately spooky shade. However, then the ghosts in the window disappeared. So I created a selection layer to make them just a little more visible.

My classes are paying off!

Silk Sox Revisited, and other knitting

In 2011, I wrote about knitting a silk sock, here and here and here.

It went badly enough, that I put that particular yarn aside, and knit some other things.

I knit a hat for my husband, with the alpaca yarn he gave me last Christmas.

I used this pattern, which is a top-down style. Another cap I had made him was bottom-up, and never quite covered his ears.

Then I made a pair of socks for myself using Mighytsock yarn. The colorway I used is called Wildflowers, which I don't see on the web page. Last night, I kitchenered the second toe, and wore them today.

Have I mentioned that I have a weakness for variegated yarns?

So, after nearly a year, I'm ready to take another run at the silk socks. I made a couple of changes, with the intent that they will fit better. I cast on more stitches (110 instead of 96) and cast on with the German Twisted Cast On, which is supposed to be more elastic than a regular long-tail cast on.

Rainbow

Just happened to go outside around 6:30 this morning. Saw this to the west.

Every time I see a rainbow, it always seems magical.

Weekend Wandering

Last weekend, Tim and I drove down to Lincoln City to rendezvous with his family for their mom's 85th birthday. On the way down, we turned right at Olympia and meandered through southwest Washington on a more scenic route than I-5.

One of the towns we passed through was South Bend, where we found this gem of a courthouse.

It had some absolutely gorgeous stained glass, such as this round fixture above the rotunda right when you entered.

 

South Bend is the county seat of Pacific County, and a lot of the stained glass windows featured this motif with the initials "PC." 

There was also this elaborate tile design on the rotunda floor.

We might have missed seeing all this if I hadn't happened to glance left to see the courthouse up the hill a few blocks, resplendent in all its early 20th-century architectural grandeur.

Shelly's Quilt

Ten months in the making.

From this to this to . . .

. . . this.

Technically, it does not qualify as a Ten-Year Quilt, because Shelly and I were "laid off" in a round of downsizing and budget-cutting last November.

But I had already started cutting the fabric for the blocks. I returned the reimbursement check for the fabric to the company, after being informed that it was company property, and went ahead with the project. The usual suspects, plus two, helped with sewing the blocks together, machine-quilting it, and sewing on the binding.

Shelly and I met for lunch today. I had picked up the quilt on Monday, but had not let on to Shelly that it was ready.

When I got it out of my car, she said that she had been afraid to ask about it.

It fits her bed perfectly . . .

. . . and she is thrilled.

Satisfaction guaranteed.

Finally Finished!

Some time ago, my husband asked me if I could knit him a pair of fingerless mitts like the ones I had made for myself. He often takes the bus to work, and listens to podcasts on his iPhone, which is great until he needs to do something with the touchscreen. If it's cold and he's wearing gloves, he has to take them off. So fingerless mitts would eliminate that problem.

I'm not sure when exactly I started working on the mitts, but it's been several months. First, I had to adjust the pattern because his hands are bigger.

As of last March, I had gotten very far along; all that was left to do was the thumbs.

And there they sat. And sat. And sat.

Finally, sometime over the summer, I knit the thumbs. Then they sat some more, waiting for the ends to be woven in.

Now that fall is almost upon us, I decided it was high time to Wrap Up This Project. Which I did.