I'm Still Here!

     Wow, the time has really just whizzed past me!  In my last post I remarked how I couldn't believe the year was 6 weeks old, and now it's more than half over.  Where does it go, I wonder.

     I wish I could say I'd been busy finishing up UFOs all this time, but while I have finished some things, most of what's kept me from blogging has been the much more mundane, real life junk.

     When I was working on the two little bags in my last post, I also finished a cream silk clutch bag, which I'd started at a class one year (I don't recall which year!) at the Original Sewing and Quilt Expo.  I finished it around the same time, except that I wanted to do something on the front, to cover where I'd sewn on the square of Velcro I used as a closure.  It took me a while to find what I wanted to use, but now at long last, here's what I ended up with:



In January and February, I participated in a Knit Along (KAL) in one of the groups I belong to on Ravelry, and made this pair of socks:



Today is going to be a day full of paperwork for me, so I suppose I'd better get started on it.  But I hope to get this blog all updated soon ;-)

Thanks for stopping by to play!  Come back again any time.

2012 Is Winding Down...

Well, I never seem to have gotten the big block of quilting time I was expecting and hoping for.  I have gotten some knitting done, and I may yet get a bit of quilting done before the end of the year.  It all depends on how much life decides to cooperate, or not.

Here are the socks I've finished recently and haven't yet shared here:













I have the next few days pretty much free, so I'm planning to spend it getting "lost" in some sewing.  And maybe some knitting as well. 

I hope that 2012 winds down in a good way for you, and that 2013 will bring you health, happiness, and lots of good things -- and the grace to appreciate them all.

Thanks for stopping by to play.  Come back again soon.

Socks for Carrie

The only other pair of gift socks I've made so far this year was actually started back in the summer of 2010.  This was a kit (pattern + yarn + commemorative stitch marker) which was sold as a fundraiser for the Susan G. Komen foundation by Knitters Brewing Company.  I didn't want to make pink ribbon socks, but Wendy from KBC posted a list of awareness ribbon colors.  I saw that purple was the awareness ribbon color for Cystic Fibrosis, and that was it.  My friend Carrie and her husband lost a daughter to CF some years back.  It wasn't so much that I thought she needed more awareness of CF, but it was a way to honor the life and memory of her daughter.  I set these aside several times, as they're a bit complicated, and I needed to focus when I was working on them, not be watching TV or anything else at the same time.  I finished them in June, but didn't give them to Carrie until late July -- ironically just a day or two after her birthday, which I wasn't aware of until I gave them to her ;-)  Gotta love those happy accidents!  Anyhow, here they are, though the color's off a bit.  They're a lovely medium purple shade in real life:

It's not obvious from this photo, but up the center front and center back are the ribbon motifs.  Here's a picture where I turned them a bit to the front, trying to capture that:

Carrie liked them, and apparently her grandmother used to knit for her, so I struck a nice chord on several levels.  Win!

Thanks for coming by to play.  Come back again soon.

Fun Mail Yesterday!

Yesterday my friendly postal carrier brought me two fun packages! First was one from Knit Picks, which included a few more circular needles, a couple books, and this yarn:


It's Stroll Tonal in the Pearlescent colorway. I'm planning to make a pair of Awareness Ribbon Socks, which was a pattern that was done as a knit-along (KAL) at Knitters Brewing Company (KBC) last year. I'm still working on my socks from the KAL, but those are for a friend. But "pearl" is the awareness ribbon color for lung cancer, and I'm a 8+ year lung cancer survivor, so I want to make socks to celebrate that. I just love this colorway, and it's fairly new. Before, the closest thing I could find to "pearl" was a pale gray, and that just didn't do it for me. Here's where you can see an image of what the pattern looks like, done in the Breast Cancer pink color.

Then, I also got a package from KBC in yesterday's mail. I got my kit for the latest KAL, a pattern called Bridge of Roses. Here's where you can see an image of that finished sock.

And here's my kit:

Instead of a gray sock with pink roses, I'll have a blue sock with yellow roses. I don't know when I'll get to this one, but I couldn't resist getting the kit for it. It's KBC's fundraiser this year for the Susan G. Komen foundation, so it's pretty yarn, a beautiful pattern, and all in a good cause.

Then, because I have a hard time not buying yarn, these two also jumped into my cart when I was at the KBC website. Wendy tends to name her yarn colorways after cocktails, so the top one is Appletini, and the bottom one is Rusty Nail. I adore them both, though I don't have any particular plans for them at the moment. But I know they'll become wonderful socks at some point.


I still haven't done any sewing since I've been back from retreat. I hope to do a bit today, but the day's shaping up to be busy, so I don't know. I really hope to have some more finishes to show off soon, though. Thanks for stopping by to play. Come back again soon.

Finished socks

Sunday afternoon, I finished this pair of socks. DH wore them to work on Sunday night. He says they fit great, and he's really happy to have them.


The yarn is Sockaholic from Knitters Brewing Company, and the colorway is called "Dirty Martini." It's a nice colorway, and I like the sort of spiral-y, stripey effect I got.

I've recently cast on about four more pairs of socks, so I have lots of mindless knitting available for waiting room time, and all those other sitting-around times. That's so much more portable than quilting, since I do all my quilting stuff by machine.

Thanks for stopping by to play. Come back again any time.