Yarn-Along: Zero to Fifteen; and WIP Wednesday

Welcome to all my new followers!  Since the Liebster Award came along, I have noticed the number of followers has more than doubled (from 4 to 11, that would be almost tripled!) and I really appreciate each one of you.  Thank you for your patience with my ramblings and woolgatherings!

The big quilting news since last week, of course, is finishing the Easy Street top.  I am hoping to piece a backing and get that on the frame soon. 

Once again I am venturing into crumb-land.  This will be the signature quilt for the 2013 Cedar Tree auction, and I was so happy with how last year's turned out that I'm using basically the same formula.  You can find basic instructions for the crumbs technique at Jo's Country Junction, but it's pretty much just free-form patchwork with very little advance planning and no strict rules about fabric matching.  I'm trying to make as many tree blocks as possible -- some are double height, but most blocks will be 6" finished, with plenty of dark green to tie the whole thing together.  But in addition I have lots of leftover scraps, orphan blocks and dead-end blocks that will find their home in the top.  And if one of the tree trunks has a bit of a lean, and some of the fabric is from old sheets or curtains, or there is the bottom half of an orange T-Rex wandering through the forest, that suits my aesthetic just fine.  Most of these blocks were made in the last few days... I have acres of scraps to sort through and about 90 more blocks to make before I quit.  It will be messy in my sewing area for awhile yet.

For the Yarn-Along, I give you Zero to Fifteen.  Last year was the year of shawls; this year I'm working on knitting up some socks.  I'm chugging along on Steve's Zauberball socks on size 0's.  I am increasing for the gussets -- I decided to use Wendy Knit's basic instructions for toe-up gusset socks, which I've used in the past with good results.  But for a break from the teeny tiny stitches (and also to clean the sewing room just a bit) I dragged out this bathmat rug that's been hibernating for awhile, on size 15 needles.  I'm stranding 6-7 strands of reclaimed cotton yarn from thrift store sweaters.  The socks are about 9 stitches per inch; the rug is about 2 stitches per inch.  I get a bit of vertigo switching back and forth.  And the book is my recent purchase, Scraps and Shirttails II.  Lots of dream quilts in there!