Retreat Progress, Day 4

Yesterday (Thursday) was a productive day for me, even though it started out a little slow. Early on, I was pretty easily distracted, and had trouble staying on task with anything for very long. But later on, by the middle of the evening, I got back into the groove. I finished adding borders to my The Body in the Kelp Sampler. It's hanging sideways on a not-straight design wall here, so the picture looks a bit odd. But you can get the idea, at least.


Then I got the borders added to this quilt, which is blocks from a panel, which I cut apart, and added sashing and cornerstones to. I'm a sucker for anything with kitties on it, and anything with sewing notions on it, so this panel and the companion stripe I used for the border were just destined to come home with me.
I got the Yellow Brick Road blocks assembled, though I still have to add borders. The printed blocks here are from a panel by Teresa Kogut from some years back. Some of the fabrics are from the same line, others are from my stash. The outer border will be a stripe from this same fabric line.
I got borders added to this lap quilt. This will probably be donated to charity.
And I got borders on this lap quilt, as well. This one will also probably be donated. Today, there's more piecing in the works! More pictures to follow.

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Retreat Progress, Days 2 & 3

On Tuesday, I woke up with a headache that just never really went away. As a result, I was kinda sluggish all day, and not as productive as I'd have hoped. I got the blocks made for a Yellow Brick Road, and will probably sew that top together today. I'll post a picture when that top is finished. I also started adding borders to some other tops, but haven't finished up that process. Then, I also started framing some stitchery blocks I did quite some time ago.

On Wednesday, I finished the quilt top made with those stitchery blocks. All the blocks have little sayings about chocolate, like "Equal Parts of Light and Dark Chocolate Make a Balanced Diet," and "WARNING: Chocoholic in Residence," just to give a couple of examples. Here's how the top turned out:



It's about 65" square. I'm really liking how this turned out.

Today, I'm making strip sets for another top, and going back to those borders on those other tops. I'd also like to get that YBR assembled. More pictures and a progress update later tonight or tomorrow.

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Retreat Progress from Day 1

I'm on a week-long quilting retreat. I arrived Sunday evening, but really just got unloaded, set up, and caught up with everyone else. Oh, and I got myself organized, so I knew where everything was.

Yesterday, I was pretty happy with what I got done. First, I took out two half-square triangles that were turned 180 degrees the wrong way, which I hadn't noticed until I had the blocks set together with sashing. I hope to get borders on that top yet this week, so I'll show a picture of it then. Then, I got the outer border on this top:

I rarely name my quilts, but this one just had to be called "If You're Not the Lead Dog, the View Never Changes." If you click on the picture to make it larger, you'll probably see why. Yes, I know they're wolves -- but wolves and dogs are all in the canine family, and the expression uses "dog," so that's what I'm going with. This is a largish quilt, at around 74" across. I think it's a bit longer than it is wide, but I didn't measure it so I don't know for sure.

Next, I did a block for a challenge coming up. I still have to quilt and bind it by the first week in November, but the top is finished. I'm calling this one "Big Bang Theory." I have backing and batting with me, but I don't think I'll quilt it this week, because I'm not sure the machine I have with me will handle the thick thread I want to use. But the week is young, so we'll see.


Finally, I took a pile of strips I had, and put together this lap-size-ish top:
I want to put a border on it, so that will have to wait until I get home and check my stash. But I like this, it's bright and happy.

Today I'm adding borders to some tops, and making blocks for a Yellow Brick Road quilt. More from me tomorrow....

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What Else Have I Been Doing?

I haven't done any sewing to speak of in several months now. I really miss it, and am planning to do some quilting this weekend.

But what have I been doing instead of sewing these last few months? Well, some of the time I was just spending some time with Miss Puss, while she was ill. And, as you might guess by all the pictures of completed socks that have been in recent posts, I've been knitting. Last weekend I went back to the house in Ohio, and I organized my yarn stash there.

This is what it looked like before -- those totes, in real life, are opaque white and I can't see through them. Apparently the camera can, though.


This is what that mess on the floor in front of the closet looked like:


Here's the closet, after:

And here's the yarn stash, after:


Actually, what you see in that picture is only my sock yarn, except for the lowest most cube on the left, which is shawl yarn. The rest of my yarn stash is in another part of this storage unit, but there's not much of it, and there wasn't room in the picture for it.

I'm delighted to have it all out and organized, so I can see what I have and it makes it so easy to choose something when I want to start a new project!

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More Finished Socks

I recently changed from the 26 Pair Plunge to the 52 Pair Plunge -- so now, instead of 26 pairs of socks between 1 July 2011 and 30 June 2012, I'm trying to complete 52 pairs in that same time span. I've recently completed numbers 11-14:








I'm slightly ahead in my pace, but still need to finish almost a pair a week, on average. I still have a lot of partially-completed pairs, as well as more new things I'd like to start. I don't know if I'll actually finish 52 pairs of socks by the end of June, but I'll give it a good try. Even if I don't make it, I'll have lots of great new socks ;-)

My DH is getting some new socks out of this endeavor, as well. So he's happy about it too.

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