The Great Afghan Square Sew-Up Part 3

Putting this afghan  together was so easy I can't imagine why I procrastinated so long. By Saturday evening I had the first 18 squares joined, and the rest went together over Sunday and Monday. Last night I put a simple border on it, and this morning gave it a ride through the washer and dryer. It made into a lovely large blanket that will someday warm somebody who's cold. 

The technique for the joining doesn't show up very well in the black yarn. This may be just as well, since I didn't take any great pains with it. I'm now working a second set of squares with the same technique using a pink yarn and I may be able to get better pictures with that. Of course what makes it go so fast is that you're adding the last row to the square at the same time you're joining it to the neighboring square. For this type of project fast is good. 

I'm now off and running on the next set of granny squares. When they are joined I will move the remaining bits of crochet to the second box and declare the first one emptied. This makes me very happy.

The Great Afghan Square Sew-Up: Part 2

That first lot of squares is now a finished afghan. I didn't do anything fancy with it since the squares alone made a pretty good-sized blanket. I decided I wanted the cream on the edge instead of more green, so once everything was assembled, I just worked a row of dc and a row of sc around the edge. It's now been washed and dried, which did indeed soften it up a great deal, and I like it so much I'm going to use it on my bed this summer.

This afghan was crocheted together using a slip stitch. The advantage is that you can go from one side of the blanket to the other with one piece of yarn and not have to thread needles along the way. The disadvantage is that it leaves a definite ridge on the wrong side. I prefer doing it to sewing with a mattress stitch, but I'm not entirely sold on the way it looks in the end. So I'm continuing to explore and experiment.

With that project done, it was time to face the dungeon. I took my K-hook in hand and opened the cardboard boxes. To my great surprise neither one of them contained afghan squares. Instead they both contained yarn. Just what I was hoping to find! And in the bottom of the second one, there was a huge lot of black yarn, none of it with ball band, all of it looking a bit seedy. Definitely time to use it up and make it go away. The rest of the yarn got stuffed into other storage areas so I can get rid of the cardboard boxes (at least as soon as Bart is through with them) and I'll work at this from the box until what's left will fit in the black yarn drawer.

These two boxes do contain afghan squares. I'm pretty sure the bottom one is the lot that I thought was in the cardboard boxes. It's all sorted and bagged, so for now I'll let it be and focus on the top box. It turns out to also have at least 5 projects in it. Two are blankets that were started and abandoned for various reasons. Then there are 3 separate lots of granny squares. One lot is color coordinated, and was made from the leftovers from several blankets worth of knitted squares (we won't talk about those just now; they're in another box). They need to be joined with something color-coordinated, perhaps brown, so for now they're set aside. Of the remainder, one lot seems to have a row of black incorporated, and the other is done with alternating bands of one row of one color and two rows of the next. They even alternate whether they start with two rows the same or one. There's quite a lot of those, so that's what I'm going to start with.

The next question was how to join them. I know I want to work a row of black around each square, so that gives me an interesting option of joining as I go. The technique is demonstrated here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/90733686@N00/3470265079/in/set-72157617721257414/
The sample that I've tried seems to go quite easily and gives a join that is both flat and soft. So now I'm ready to head to the Big Easy Chair with my stack of squares, a skein of "mystery black," my K hook, a cup of coffee, and my current audiobook, Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. I expect to come up for air sometime next week.

The Great Afghan Square Sew-Up

 The Great Afghan Square Sew-Up has begun. I decided to start with these, since they're closer to a Finished Object than some of the other collections. These have been lurking in the bathroom off the studio. (This is a bathroom only in the sense that it has a commode and a lavatory; otherwise it is so crammed full of junk as to be unusable.) They were mostly already sewn together into "foursies" and a quick count showed that there are 15 of them, so a 3 x 5 arrangement is evidently what I had in mind. I also have a vague memory that I meant to work some rows around the "foursies" then sew those larger squares together.

So that's what I've been working on. There's a good bit of yarn in the same bag that was holding the squares. I'm not sure what size hook I was using, but I seem to remember that it was my old worn size E, so that's what I've been using. It's a bit tight, but it will probably soften up with washing. I'm just adding a row of the cream and a row of the green, then assembling the row of 3 of these units as they are completed. I'm also working in the yarn tails as I go, so that there will be less of them to worry about at the end. At that stage I was cutting them pretty short, so they're a bit fiddly to bury, but I'm getting there. 

Meanwhile I can start thinking about which set to tackle next. There are multiple possibilities.

Scrap Blanket #2 Is Finished

 Start with this (which was actually a bunch of skeins with no ball bands lurking in the black yarn drawer, and, yes, I have a drawer just for black yarn, and another for white yarn, which has nothing to do with segregation, just making good use of space):

 Add this: 60 balls of miscellaneous left-over yarn balls (which I do store in kitty litter pails because of a certain black cat who likes to make fiber art of his own design)

Crochet like a mad woman for some indeterminate number of days, snip off all the yarn tails, give the finished object a spin in the washer and dryer, and you end up with this:

 This one is rather large. It will adequately cover the average professional football player. It's actually larger than I meant it to be, but I wanted to use all the yarn that was in the pail. I quit with 4 small balls left when I realized I either had to stop or tie on another skein of black (I think I used 5 all together, but I'm not sure how many of them had been partially used). I didn't do anything fancy on the edge of this one either, for the same reason; just did a row of single crochet around to give a more finished edge.

The good news is this. I started out a month ago with this:

And now I'm down to this: Which is still a lot of yarn sitting in kitty litter pails, but it's not as much. And that was the whole idea. Now I'm on to the next stage, which is dealing with what's in that ugly cardboard box. What's in there are granny squares that I bought on Ebay a few years ago, thinking a good project for me would be to rescue other people's unfinished projects. What I forgot in the excitement of buying the lot for $4.95 plus shipping was that I hate sewing crocheted and knitted squares together. One of my resolutions for this year is to turn all my collections of squares into finished blankets. It's nearly May; I should probably start on that. 

And because every fiber artist deserves a moment of glory, here is Bart's latest creation. Note the interplay of tension and relaxation and the way every chair and table leg is included in the finished design at least once. He worked hard on this one, I can tell. I can't tell if the small disconnected piece in the lower left is part of the larger work or some sort of independent creation; maybe he just bit off a piece to see what it tasted like. He rarely comments on his work; if I'm not smart enough to understand, he doesn't have the time or the patience to waste on me. 

More Scraps, More Blankets

Since I still have 5 kitty litter pails full of leftover yarn balls (and that's just counting the acrylic worsted), I'm making another scrappy spiral blanket. This time I decided to get tricky and start with a rectangle. If you Google "rectangular granny square" you will find a number of ways to start a granny rectangle. The one I chose was this: http://iamtotallyobsessedwithyarn.blogspot.com/2006/01/granny-square-pattern-with-pictures.html
The center doesn't have as obvious a line down the middle, and there were lots of pictures to help me adapt to the spiral start.


This is what I have so far. Except for the shape it will look pretty much the same as the first one. The only other change is in the way I'm counting how many balls of yarn are used. This lot in general is a little bigger than the last lot, and I didn't want multiple rows of the same color, especially in the beginning when the rows are relatively short. So I decided it was okay to cut the yarn and return the ball to the pail, to use up the rest of it later. This means counting snipped yarn tails won't work as a way to count the number of balls used. So I decided to just count how many balls were in the pail; I started with 60. I can add or subtract from here as needed.
Plans for #3 are in the works. Stay tuned.

Ending Off the Scrap Blanket

Eventually you run out of yarn or patience or just decide the blanket is as big as it needs to be. I decided to stop when I had used the last ball in the bowl I started with. When you decide it's time to stop, then you have to figure out how to stop. Since I was using the black to give the blanket some unity, I had decided I would finish the blanket with a round (actually two) of black. So I picked an edge to stop on, worked the first round of color to that edge and ended with a 3dc cluster. Then I worked the second round of color to that same edge and worked 2 dc in the top of the last dc in the round below.

I then worked the black around the corner, making the combination of 3dc cluster, ch2, 3dc cluster in the top of the last dc in the round below (purple). The next 3dc cluster was worked in the side of the next round (blue/grey) and from then around as normal. You are very aware at this point that this corner is not like all the others, but once you step away from it for a while, you'll forget all about it.

I had originally planned to end the blanket there, but then this morning I was watching Knitting Daily on PBS, and saw an idea for an edging that I thought would work perfectly for this blanket, especially if worked in a multi-color yarn. I did break out a brand new skein for this, but it could be done in scraps as well if you wanted. I didn't want to have to fuss with burying yarn tails at this point, so having enough yarn to go all the way around the blanket was important.

I started with making a ch1 and a sc, then a ch 3 in the black in the ch2 space of the corner. I dropped the black yarn. Then in the next stitch I tied on the color, worked a sc in the top of that same stitch, then a sc in the next stitch and a ch 3. Then I dropped the color yarn and picked up the black again. The ch 3 in the color and that yarn are held in front of the working row, as you can see in the photo. With the black work a sc in each of the next 2 sts (doesn't matter if it's the top of a dc or a ch1 space), ch 3 and drop the black. Pick up the color, hold the black ch 3 and the yarn in front, and work a sc in each of the next 2 sts, then a ch3. Repeat and repeat and repeat. You will notice that the yarns end up all twisted around each other and you will have to stop and untwist them; yes, it's annoying, but the result is worth the extra effort, I think. 

When you make a project with scrap yarn, there is no way around the fact that you are going to have to deal with yarn tails. Lots of yarn tails.

It's what happens when you are working with at most a few yards of yarn at a time. Having an efficient way of dealing with these yarn tails is half the battle to accomplishing a successful scrap project.

Dealing with all those tails is why this is a crochet project in the first place, and not a knit project. Burying tails is a lot easier with crochet and both sides of the finished project can look neat and tidy. At the same time you don't want to have to deal with all those yarn tails at the end of the project, because weaving them in can be tedious. I tend to work on them in bunches. Here's how I do it.

First of all, I am not a purist about not tying knots in my yarn. Some folks act like you have violated the Eleventh Commandment if you tie your yarns together. I might do it differently if this were heirloom lace, but for a utility blanket, I'm not worried about knots. They let me attach a new piece of yarn quickly and keep on crocheting. The one thing I did decide with this blanket was that I wanted the knots to come at the edge of a space, not in the middle of a 3 dc cluster. This means I have some tails that are a bit long, but I go as far as I can, then tie on a new ball and go for it. When I tie on a new ball I try to leave myself a tail of between 4-6 inches in the new yarn. It makes life easier down the road. You're going to want more yarn than you think you do. You can make do with less, but it just makes the last step harder.

When I get back around to where I made the join on the next round I then start working those tails into the fabric so they won't come out and dangle with washing and use. I've learned over time that just trying to slide them under the 3 dc clusters isn't enough; they do work loose. So I start by working the tails through the tops of the stitches, matching colors.





Then I can go ahead and crochet over those tails, reinforcing the idea that they are supposed to stay neat and tidy.










The final step is to thread that yarn into a needle and work it under a 3 dc cluster in the opposite direction from the back side. I skip one strand of yarn when I do this, so it won't just pull through and undo what I am trying to accomplish. If you look for it, it shows, but not enough to be really noticeable. I've learned that this doubling back makes the yarn tail a lot less likely to work itself loose and cause a problem later on. I often do this last step in batches rather than sewing in each one as I go along.




 So this is what the blanket looks like at the end of Day 4. I've used up between 5 and 6 oz of the black yarn and probably about 30 balls of scraps. I have no rules about how I change colors other than to try not to put two balls that are really close in color together, but even that's flexible.

I still have to show you how to end it off. When I get there, I'll write a post.

When you knit a lot, you end up with a lot of leftover yarn. They are too good to throw away, but you have to pay attention in order to completely use them up. If you don't use them up, they begin to take over your life. First you have a plastic bin full of them.

Then the bin starts to overflow and you start looking for alternative containers:

At some point you realize that just putting stripes in the occasional hat or pair of mittens isn't going to make these little darlings go away fast enough, and you start looking for projects that will use them up. Granny squares are a logical choice, but at some point granny squares have to be sewn together to becomes something useful. If you don't like sewing them together, you end up with another plastic bin full of granny squares. Another solution needed to be found. 

The problem with most patterns that are designed for using up scraps is that a certain amount of territory needs to be covered in a given yarn. In a granny square, it might be just a small amount for the center square, but the last row requires a good bit more yarn. These patterns are good for making big balls of yarn smaller, but they don't make balls of yarn go away completely.

When I found the pattern for the spiral afghan, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=m17BJOIef2k), I realized I might just have hit upon a solution to the problem. I could just crochet until I came to the end of a ball of yarn, tie on a new one and keep on going. So here's my spiral scrap afghan.

You end up with three working yarns as your spiral your way around this afghan. I decided to use a single yarn for one of the strands, and since I had a good bit of black in my stash, I chose that. I then went through my bins and pulled out a bunch of small balls. So here's what I'm working with for this afghan:

You start the way you do for a normal granny square. I started with 4 ch then a sl st to form a loop, ch3, 2 dc [ch2, 3 dc] 3x, ch2, sl st in top of ch 3 to complete round 1. Yarn was cut leaving a nice tail for later weaving in. Round 2 (black) starts the way the 2nd round of a granny square starts, but when you get to the last corner, after the 3 dc, you don't complete the corner. Just drop that yarn and pick up another ball.

Round 3 (blue) begins in the top of the ch3 with which you started Round 2. Attach the yarn and work ch 4, then 3 dc in next ch 1 space, and continue on around as for a normal granny square. When you get to the last space you can work in Round 2 (black) stop and drop that yarn.

Round 4 (peach) begins in the space created at the beginning of Round 3. Attach yarn, ch 3 (counts as a dc), 2 dc in the same space and continue on around until you can work no further into the spaces of Round 3. Drop that yarn. Your piece now looks like this:

Now the fun begins. Pick up the yarn you left parked at the end of Round 2. Pretend that the cluster of dc's right in front of your hook is pointed up and down instead of sideways. Ch 1 to make a space over this cluster, then make 3 dc in the space created by the chains at the beginning of Round 3 (blue). Then in the 

top ch of Round 4 (peach) make 3 dc, ch 2, 3 dc (a normal corner). Continue on around working in the top of Round 4 until you can work no further. Drop this yarn and pick up the yarn you dropped from Round 3 (blue). Notice that now you have stitches oriented the way you are used to seeing them in a granny square. From here on you just keep spiraling around, dropping the working yarn and picking up the yarn 2 round below and continuing on. When you come to the end of a ball of yarn you just tie on a new one and keep working. Every bit of every ball gets used up. 

I use small locking stitch markers in the last loop of the yarn I'm not using at the moment to keep it from accidentally unraveling; safety pins would work, too. I've worked on mine on and off throughout the day. This is the way it looks now:

Notice that the slight wonkiness that you have when you start the spiral is hardly even noticeable. 

Go gather up a basket or tub of yarn balls and a crochet hook and start spiraling. 

Random Update

I am so bad at keeping this blog current. I don't know why I even bother with the thing, except that it's a convenient way to show pictures of my finished objects, on the rare occasions when I have one, to my friends.

I was just looking at the goals I had posted for the year. I have crocheted a couple of baby blankets and I've made some hats for AR Children's Hospital, but I can't say I've done a tremendous amount of knitting. On the quilting side of my world I did finish a small quilt that is now serving as a table topper, and I've got another top basted and ready for quilting.

The big project at the moment is the quilt I decided to make during Lent instead of wasting my time with computer games. It's called Garden Delight and was a series quilt in Quilter's Newsletter last year. I had the advantage of seeing the finished quilt before I even started thinking about fabrics, so I could make my color choices with a bit of intelligence.There are six installments of directions, and there are six weeks in Lent, so I'm trying to finish one installment per week, but this first week is proving a bit of a bear. There are 52 blocks to make, each with 11 pieces, so it's slow going. I'm about 1/3 of the way through and the only good news is that I've figured out most of the ways I can do it wrong. I've also looked ahead to next week and it's a good deal easier, so maybe I can catch up then.

I'm also trying to figure out SeamedUp, the quilter's equivalent of Ravelry. I guess I've forgotten how much time I put into Ravelry when I first started with it.

2012 Knitting Goals

I worked these out a little over a week ago, but haven't taken the time to post them until now. Actual knitting takes precedence over projected knitting fantasies. This is what I have planned for the coming year:

1. Finish the "iguana sweater." It's only called that because the color name is "iguana." It's a spring sweater, so having it done by the beginning of March would be good.
2. Finish the Big Crocheted Blanket. I started this one last year as a stash buster, and it is definitely that. It's turning out huge and heavy, and I'm saving it for a snowy day when I will enjoy wrapping it around me as I work.
3. Finish the Mitered Square Blanket. A perfectly good knitted blanket that I got bored it. It was on my UFO list for this year too. Time to get it done.
4. Finish blankets that need sewing up. There are at least 6 sets of afghan squares stashed around the house. I want them gone. That means sewing them up. More good work for cold winter nights.
5. Crochet linen sweater. Last summer I was looking for a light-weight sweater to wear over a tank top that was dressy enough for Sundays. I found a pattern. I found yarn. I just need to make the sweater. Projected completion by May 1.
6. Make 4 pairs of socks for me. I have sock yarn that needs to be used. I need socks. Good summer knitting.
7. Make 1 lace shawl for me. I have lace yarn and patterns and sometimes I like a piece of knitting that takes more skill and patience. Good for the warm summer months.
8. Crochet 6 baby blankets to be given to charity. I need to use up stash, especially scraps. There's always a need for blankets somewhere.
9. Stash reduction. Charity knitting should take care of this if I don't buy yarn unless I have a specific project for it. By the end of the year I don't want to have any more yarn in bins in the carport.
10. Charity projects to be determined. In recent years it's been baby sweaters and hats. This year may bring a change to that. When I see what the need is, I'll figure out what I can do about it.

Ten goals is plenty. Most of these pass the S.M.A.R.T. test (they are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely). Stash reduction is a bit loose, but I don't have a good way to tighten it up without measuring yardage or something else that is going to take up way more time than it's worth. I would have been fine this year except for taking on a huge batch of yarn that had been donated to Assisted Living that nobody wanted to fool with.

Back to Christmas knitting. Less than 3 weeks to go.

2012 Quilting Goals

The first Sunday of Advent has come and gone, which means the start of a new year in the Christian calendar. Since most of what I plan to knit or quilt this year is already finished or in the works for Christmas gift-giving, it's time to think about next year.

Next year looks like it's going to be a transition year for me, at least for the first half, so I'm being cautious about setting lofty goals. My main objective is to downsize the stash and the pile of UFO's. I realized as I looked over last year's goals that they were pretty vague, so I'm trying to be more specific this year, as well as realistic.

The two main goals are 1) to finish Devan and Theresa's double wedding ring quilt and 2) to make six baby quilts from scraps. The DWR is a major project, and may not actually get finished, but it should at least be in the quilting phase by the end of the year. I will probably visit Amy again this summer, and will first work at getting the top finished and the quilt basted in time to take it with me so we can work on it together. This seems to have become an annual event, and I'm looking forward to it. The baby quilts will be stashbusters and will also replenish my cache of quilts available for donation following a disaster.

The rest of the goals are steps toward moving projects from UFO boxes to finished quilts. They are 3) quilt and bind two already basted tops; 4) baste two already completed tops so they are ready for quilting; and 5) turn four unfinished tops into finished tops. I haven't chosen specific projects yet; I may do that at some point. My thought in breaking it down this way was to move things along without getting hooked into anything too big and time-consuming.

If I get this much done, I'll be happy. Next it's time to make knitting resolutions.

I'm calling this little trio of baby quilts "Me, Myself and Irene." Hurricane Irene was making its merry way up the Eastern Seaboard this weekend while I was working at getting these quilted and bound, so in my mind they will always be Hurricane Quilts. The good news is that, while there was damage, this was not a major disaster, so I haven't seen a nation-wide call to action as there was after the spring tornados. I'll just hold these in waiting until they are needed and delight in the fact that I have something ready to offer.

I did have to make one alteration in the basic Super Nine Patch "recipe" because I failed to take note of where the fold was when I made my cuts and ended up with --- let's just say they weren't the sizes called for in the pattern. I still ended up with quilts that are easily big enough to cover a car seat or a newborn, and that's good enough. For the quilting I just did a diagonal grid in a red rayon thread and it looked quite good. I had tried some fancier options and just wasn't happy with the result; sometimes simpler is better.

Today was busy with work, and tomorrow looks to be as well. I'm going to knit a couple of rows and call it quits. Maybe I can squeeze in some time with yo-yo's tomorrow.

It's been lovely to spend time in the studio today without being under a deadline to get a particular project finished. I've been working at clearing off the card table, which was set up to temporarily hold the pieces of the DWR and then became the catchall for everything that needed to be swept off the machine table. On top of the pile was a Super 9 Patch crib quilt that I had started working on back in July and had botched and needed the able application of a seam ripper. I finished that one this morning, stitching down the last of the binding while the PBS sewing programs were on. Then I got the second quilt in the set of 3 layered and started its quilting. I'm not doing anything fancy with these, just a simple diagonal grid. This is the second one, and it's 3/4 quilted, so tomorrow I should get the binding sewn on and get the hand stitching at least started.

Then I started working on the lessons for the Quilt University class I signed up for hoping that it would exercise my hands and brain in different ways. The class is called Bodacious Blossoms and it's taught by Leslie Lacika; the objective is to learn different ways of making dimensional flowers. Along the way we are to create a sampler of different techniques and a mini quilt with flowers in a vase.

These two pictures are my first efforts at making a bell-shaped flower with a gathered neck. The one on the left is made from a more or less square piece of fabric and has the top edge pinked and left open. The one on the right is made from a more rectangular piece and has the top stitched down. I decided they also needed leaves, so played with different ways of accomplishing them as well. Both are fussy-cut from printed fabric, but the one on the left is appliqued with the edges needle-turned, while the one on the right is fused.

My hope is that by the time the class is done I will have a bigger arsenal of tools and techniques to use to finish the Spring wall-hanging. I really do want to get that one off my list before the end of the year; it's been there far too long. In the mean time, I'm just having fun thinking in terms of finishing simple crib quilts and making tiny sampler squares.

It is finally finished. 2 years and 2 months after it's conception, the Double Wedding Ring for James and Crystal's wedding is finished. Mary Jane and I took the last stitches in it the day before I left to come home, gave it a loving bath, then folded it and presented it to the couple at dinner that night. It is now out of my life, except for a box full of leftover fabric that can now go back into stash, some lovely photographs and the memories of its making. Since I get to keep the memories, I think I got the best part of the deal in many ways.

I couldn't have pulled it off without the help of my friends. So many hands went into the production of this quilt. Mary Jane helped with the quilting, the piecing and the fabric selection. I am grateful beyond words for the times she responded to my calls of "Quilt emergency! Road trip!" with "I'll be there in 20 minutes. Do you want me to drive?" She spent a day learning the technique of paper piecing and set up the pieces for me to sew. And she has a few miles of thread in the quilting as well.

Amy has a few miles of quilting thread in it as well. Two years in a row she gave up a week of her summer to let me and the quilt come and camp in her dining room. She fed me body and soul and kept telling me that I really could do it when I felt like I didn't have another stitch in me. And when I suggested at the end of this year's trek to Iowa that next year I should help her work on one of her quilts, she said she was ready to tackle the next DWR. Her quilting stitches are exquisite, and her friendship is more and more precious to me as time goes by.

And in the final push to the finish, Rena added her wit and charm to the process. She, too, created a quilters' B&B and let Mary Jane and I take over her dining room table and her world for a few days. She took the unfinished quilt all over town to show it off to everyone she knew, unbelievably pleased to even see it, let alone have a part in its quilting.

And I can't leave out Shelly and Hunter. Shelly came to visit one afternoon while MJ and I were quilting. While she politely but firmly declined our offer of a needle and thimble, she was willing to pull basting threads. Because of her there were a lot less left to pull after the final stitch was taken. And Hunter, at age 2 1/2 was also allowed to pull a few carefully prepared basting threads. When he's an old man he can tell his grandchildren that he helped make his Mom and Dad's wedding quilt.

And finally, there is Randy. Randy took these lovely pictures and offered his own brand of support and encouragement to Mary Jane and I in the final push to the finish.

In the end, I love the quilt. Yes, it has it's flaws, and I take full ownership of them. But somehow the finished quilt glows with its own inner light. I would never exhibit it in a show, but I am prouder of this quilt than of some that have won blue ribbons. Maybe it's because I did it for love and not for my own gratification. Maybe it's because I know that it's recipients love it, and have been anxiously but patiently waiting to welcome it into their home; I still don't quite believe that Crystal painted their bedroom to match months before they had the quilt. Maybe it's because I can't think of anything I would have done differently, other than finding and fixing some of the flaws before I took it to the longarmer for basting. Okay, maybe a few things, but nothing that makes me love the quilt any less.

Yes, there is another DWR in the works, this one for Devan and Theresa's wedding, which was last summer. They may get it for Christmas 2012 or summer of 2013. I'm not going to do a lot with it between now and January. There are some smaller projects I want to finish first, and I need to give the studio a thorough cleaning. And I need to be able to look at it with fresh eyes and appreciate it for the thing of beauty I see it becoming. Right now I have a good set of quilter's callouses going, so I'm going to keep at the hand-quilting; there are a number of projects lined up waiting for me to put my stitches in them. And that's not even mentioning the fabrics and patterns I bought this summer on my travels. And the Quilt University class I signed up for that starts this weekend. And the serger I need to learn how to use. And Christmas is coming. Okay, now I need a nap.

Today I finished a knitting - actually crochet - UFO that has been hanging on my project tree for about 2 years. The pattern is called "Wisteria Shawl," and it was one of the offerings for the Holiday Mystery Gifts Yahoo group a couple of years ago. I had some recycled silk yarn that I knew would be perfect for the project, but it just took time to get through all those stitches.

The yarn was indeed lovely for this shawl. It's very soft and drapey, and the finished shawl is perfect as a summer-time accessory or cover-up for when the air-conditioning is blowing on your back.

I got the last row of stitching on the Yellow Brick Road this afternoon, and so it now officially counts as a finish as well. The colors are pretty tame by my usual standards, and the free-motion quilting is pretty much gosh-awful. But it has a soft flannel backing, and I hope it will bring someone comfort in spite of its shortcomings.

One thing I did that was new and different with this quilt was I tried a fusible batting. In the end I would say the review is mixed. The quilt feels stiff to me, in spite of its flannel backing. On the other hand, in spite of the fact that this quilt has languished unfinished for several years, the bonding held up pretty well; I did not need to rebaste the borders.


Once that was done, then I was casting about for the next project. I ironed the flannel I had planned for the back of the Disappearing 4-Patch, but when I measured, it wasn't quite large enough. I looked at John Flynn's method of making a backing with a diagonal seam, but that didn't seem to do the trick either. So I'll hunt for a different fabric the next time I'm in Monroe.

Then I got out the Super 9-Patch baby quilts and their prospective flannel backs, and that was the same deal - not quite large enough. So those ended up going back to the table as well. In the end I pulled out a quilt I had basted last summer that was made with blocks from a block swap. It, too, had been intended all along as a charity quilt, so it's time has come. It's all going to be straight-line quilting, mostly in the ditch, so I decided that would be the next project. I seem to be in quilt-it-and-finish-it mode, which is not the worst place to be. In the morning I'll look at thread options and get bobbins wound and all that good stuff.