Thimbleanna – Page 48 – My little online diary.

The Harlot

25 Comments / December 2, 2013 December 2, 2013 / Knitting

Ha. Did that post title get your attention?

Not just any Harlot. The Yarn Harlot, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. She was in town this weekend and the ~~quilty~~ knitty peeps and I went to hear her speak.

Her visit was arranged by our fabulous local sock yarn shop, Simply Socks Yarn Shop and it was only announced two weeks ago. There was a nice sized little crowd (considering the short notice and the holiday weekend), with lots of visitors from out-of-town. Here’s a picture of roughly half the crowd,

and here’s a picture of the other half. We were all invited to bring our knitting along. There was even one cute little girl sitting in between her mother and grandmother knitting away.

Stephanie was very funny and we laughed all the way through her talk. I think the biggest laugh came when she told us how she gets stage fright when she speaks to a group and that her biggest fear is fainting. She said she knew that we would take care of her and call EMS, but she did worry that while she was passed out everyone would put their socks on her and take a picture. And there was lots more funny stuff! She got serious for a bit when she talked about knitting and how we often denigrate our skills. There was so much truth in what she said. How often, upon receiving a knitting compliment, do you say “Oh thanks, it was nothing” or “Oh thanks, but look at this, where I screwed it up”, etc. There was encouragement to acknowledge our skills, graciously accept the compliment and just say “Thank You”.

After the serious bit, there were lots more laughs. Here’s another shot of Stephanie, this time with the knitting crowd.

Here’s what I was working on. A hot-tub for Barbie. Just kidding — it’s a pair of wrist-warmers and I’ll show them to you when they’re finished.

Anyway, it was a fun evening and, as always, it was great to have time with the peeps (one of whom, naughty little peep, escaped the whole evening without even a mention of her upcoming Tuesday Birthday!)

Okey Doke. Must get going — I’m sure I don’t have to tell you — It’s December. Eeeep! Lots to do. Good Luck!

XOXO,
Anna

Happy Happy

32 Comments / November 27, 2013 November 27, 2013 / Around the House, Holidays

Zip Zippity. Just like the rest of the year, November has whizzed by and here we are at the end of the month. And it’s Thanksgiving for all of us in the U.S. Yay! I’ve been off work this week and I’m having a wonderful time just working around the house. I’ve been cleaning like a mad man — the price you pay when you ignore the cleaning all year long. Not much sewing done this week, although I did manage to cut into the pile of fabric I showed you a week or two ago. Five hundred and some-odd tumbler pieces. I’m thinking this will be a fun, easy quilt. It might be put aside for a bit though — you know, Christmas sewing and all.

Today was Pie Day (not to be confused with Pi Day which involves equally delicious baking.) I made the usual Apple, Pumpkin and Pecan pies for our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow and therefore, I must document them here. ;-D Lisa had a fun post a few weeks ago about apple pie and she used the same leaf-shaped pie crust cutters that I have to decorate her pie. I’d only used those leaves around the edges of the pies, so I thought I’d try it her way and I think it looks so cute!

Being at home, doing all this domestic stuff makes me SOOOOO happy. TheManoftheHouse asked me yesterday if I was enjoying my week off. I wanted to say “Are you kidding?????” HAPPY. Happy. Happy. Happy. And here’s the cream on top of the week — we got a new bookcase.

A new bookcase is always HAPPY-inducing, but this one makes me deliriously HAPPY. Seeeeeee????

Do you know what this means??? I won’t have to climb that rickety old ladder to get into the attic anymore. That makes me SCREAMING HAPPY!!!!!!!

;-D

Ok. I’ve settled down now.

If you’re celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow, I hope you have a safe, healthy, HAPPY Thanksgiving!!!

XOXO,
Anna

What We Have Here …

33 Comments / November 20, 2013 November 20, 2013 / Quilting

… is a failure to communicate. Yipes.

Last weekend, I picked up the red and aqua quilt from our hand-quilter. I finished this quilt top two years ago and took it her this past spring. I was so excited because she had finished this good-sized quilt in record time. But. Can you see how she quilted it? (Sorry for the craptastic pictures — it’s dark by the time I get home from work everyday, so the lighting is just awful.)

There’s not much quilting at all on this quilt. She basically quilted where I’ve shown arrows below and then did a pretty feather wreath in the center of each aqua block.

When I told her how to quilt it, I said I wanted a feather wreath in the center of each block and for her to cross-hatch in the little squares, quilting every other row. “Every other row” appears to be the problem. If I number the rows like I did in the picture above, she quilted just as I requested. But. I was thinking to number the rows like I have in the picture below. Shoot!

I love our little quilter. We’ve been taking quilts to her for almost 25 years and she always does a beautiful job. I just didn’t have the heart to tell her that it didn’t have nearly enough quilting (it’s not like I paid for more quilting — you pay for how much quilting is done, which means this one was very inexpensive.) Truth be told, I think the red and aqua was probably burning a hole in her retinas, so she quilted as fast as she could just to get rid of the ugly thing. As soon as I got home, I popped the quilt in a hoop and tested a row or two.

I’ll quilt the missing rows and then fill in the cross hatching, like I’ve shown in the picture below. I also told her to quilt 1/4″ inside the aqua block, but I think she forgot, so I’ll add that too. And maybe another circle around the feather wreath which seems just a bit small to me.

It’s going to take me a very long time. There are 64 aqua squares in this quilt. Hopefully, I’ll manage to get it done ~~before I’m dead~~ in the next two or three years. At least I don’t have to baste it!!! ;-D

XOXO,
Anna

The Ten-Year Sweater

48 Comments / November 15, 2013 November 15, 2013 / Knitting

Brace Yourselves.

The Ten-Year Sweater is DONE.
DONE … DONE … DONE!!! YIPEE!!!

You may have guessed, it’s not really called the Ten-Year Sweater. It’s the Celtic Cardigan by Oat Couture. I don’t have a clue why it took me so long to get it finished. I started and stopped knitting it at least 3 times over the last 10 years or so. Pitiful.

It’s so nice not to have this UFO hanging over my head anymore. The yarn is Cascade 220 and for some reason it looks really purple in these pictures. When I bought the yarn, I thought I was buying navy blue. It’s definitely redder than navy blue, but it’s not as purple as these pictures make it look.

When I was almost to the point of binding off the back, near the neck, I found a humility stitch (you know, like the humility blocks on Amish quilts). It’s a purl stitch right in the middle of a column of knit stitches. And it’s smack dab in the middle of my back. Grrrr. If only I’d discovered it before I started that complicated yoke, rather than when I was almost finished with it.

Normally, I would have just dropped stitches all the way down the column and fixed the stitch, but the yoke is all woven and there was no way I could even figure out which column needed to be dropped. And there was REALLY no way I was going to rip that whole yoke out. Luckily, with a dark yarn, the mistake is well hidden. Here, I’ll point it out for you.

It’s pretty obvious there, but not so much in the middle of my back. If I run into you with my sweater on, just pretend that you don’t see it. ‘Cause we’re friends, right?

Oh, and hey, did you notice my cute little sheepie button on the front? I had to throw that in with the other buttons.

Anyway, I’m feeling reeeeallly lucky. My Lopapeysa sweater was a good fit, and now, this cardigan is just right too. It’s loose and roomy, just like I like my cardigans. I wore it all day today and it’s really comfortable. I should probably start another sweater while I’m on a fitting streak. But first, there’s that little holiday looming.

Are you making any fun gifts???

XOXO,
Anna

Steampunk

52 Comments / November 10, 2013 November 10, 2013 / Quilting

Well, Well. My little blog says it’s been ten days since I’ve posted! That hardly seems possible, but I guess I’ve just been really busy. I’ve been finishing up a few things around here and the Steampunk Quilt is FINALLY finished. YAY!!!

It’s been so hard to get decent pictures of this quilt. It was beautiful outside yesterday, but it was really windy and sunny. Bright sunlight and wind don’t make for the best pictures. So, for a full-quilt shot, I resorted to taping the quilt to our bookcase (thus the shiny spots at the top of the quilt). I cropped the quilt so that the bookcase wouldn’t be distracting and the bits of binding peeking in make the quilt look crooked. It’s not though — it’s beautifully square (70″ x 70″), but tape-hanging tends to distort things a bit.

In case you’ve been living under a quilting rock (ha!), this quilt is from a pattern by the fabulous Jen Kingwell. I machine quilted all the sashing strips in the ditch and then I big-stitch quilted circles in each block. I would have finished the quilting about two weeks ago, but about half-way through, I decided that each block needed more quilting, so I went back and quilted the outside edge of each “propeller” and then around the center circle of each block. As luck would have it, I just happened to have the same color of Aurifil thread in two different weights in my stash. I used color #2000 in 50 weight for the machine quilting and the same color in 12 weight for the hand quilting. They both worked perfectly.

The quilt is backed with a fun big polka dot and the binding is a black and whited zigzag print.

Here are a few of my favorite blocks. I think that little half-bee block is my very favorite. I love it combined with the yellow Sweetwater print of flowers that remind me of bee wings. And, I might be a little partial to the block with the “A” in the middle. (Looking at this picture, it appears that I’m also partial to those red polkadots LOL.)

The fall colors have been so pretty this past week and I was disappointed that more of my outside pictures didn’t turn out.

Besides, I had a little trouble with a lion in the park. He tried to eat the Steampunk, but then, just like Scruff when he eats a ribbon, he threw it back up.

As you can probably tell, Steampunk has been washed and he’s all krinkly and cozy now. When Brigitte and I picked the colors for this quilt at spring quilt market, I didn’t realize it, but the colors will go perfectly in our family room.

I love it when that happens!

I hope you’re enjoying your weekend. I’m off to try and wrangle a few leaves. Leaf-raking is the job that won’t die this year — some years they all come down together, but this year, they’re dragging it out. I’ve contemplated ignoring them altogether in the hopes that the wind will blow them down the street, but that’s probably not a good-neighbor idea. ;-D

XOXO,
Anna