WIP Wednesday: Brought to you by the W.C.T.U.

Here's a little finished project - Quarta's first latch hook kit.  I made it into a pillow this week.  It had been cluttering up my sewing area so it was good to get it done.  It's by no means beautifully finished, but it's finished.  Yay!

Farmer's Wife Quilt block #98 - Waterwheel. 

Block #99 - W.C.T.U.  This one makes me tear up a little.  My late grandmother and her family were active in the W.C.T.U. in rural Ohio, and I have only fond associations with her despite the fact that I know some who like to poke fun at the temperance movement.  I did some research and the Women's Christian Temperance Union was associated with a white ribbon opposing violence against women, and quilts associated with them were frequently blue and white.  The white ribbon was a traditional bow, not the more modern "awareness" loop, and this block composed this way looks a little like the bow on the W.C.T.U. logo.  I think the white and solid blue are both scraps from my grandma, and the flower print looks like something she would have loved.

Block #100 (woo hoo!) - Weathervane.  I needed more golds and purples and I like the way these look together, with the gray looking like the iron of the weathervane.  I noticed I constructed this block a little differently than the book, but I'm also referring to Maggie Malone's 1001 Patchwork Designs book.  It just seemed sensible to do it this way.  I used fast-45's for the corners around the house-shaped patches, so there was no template cutting.

Startitis has struck.  I need to start on my UFO for March (a bag which actually hasn't been started yet), and I just finished my 3rd shawl for 2012 so of course I needed to figure out what to start next in knitting.  I tentatively chose Maluka and some yellow sock yarn from my stash.  And I decided to dye some ugly tan cashmere laceweight I had in my stash of reclaimed sweater yarn, with the idea that it could be used for one of the 2 "large" (= 500 meters or more shawls) required for the 12-in-12 challenge .

I kettle-dyed it with almost an entire jar of Wilton's black, burgundy, about half a jar of red red and a dab of rose.  I was going for that almost impossible to capture black-cherry red that so many of my friends are knitting now.

This is well over 1000 yards of 100% cashmere laceweight.  It was cold this morning and a few crunchy ice crystals had formed on the bottom of the hanks, but it's warmed up now.   The smaller skein on the right is the one with lots of knots that I threw in at the end to sop up extra dye, and I almost like it more than the main ones.  I may lose some yardage because of slight felting, but it's really easy to spit-splice ends of this yarn together.  And I have a hard time imagining ever knitting more than 1000 yards of a shawl.

This photo is not accurate for the darkness, but it shows a little of the variation of color.  I'm going to have fun picking out a large shawl to attempt with my very own custom-dyed luxury yarn that I got at the thrift store for under $2.  And you should have seen my students' faces when I explained my hands were red because "I was dyeing yesterday."

I did some spinning yesterday evening and made some progress on the Wensleydale laceweight I dyed last summer.  The trouble with spinning laceweight is that it takes forever to fill a bobbin.  I spun about an hour altogether and maybe did a quarter bobbin. 
I should really create a list of WIPs - that way I can be more accountable week to week.

• Aunt Maggie's Quilt - binding 25% done
• Farmer's Wife Quilt - made 3 blocks this week, 11 to go
• March UFO knitting bag - not started but I'm thinking about it
• knitting Oslo Walk shawl (3 of 12) - finished, awaiting blocking
• knitting argyle-fest - no progress
• knitting cotton bath rug - about 1/3 done with center
• knitting On Your Toes sweater - downgraded to UFO, no progress for months, oops
• knitting Maluka - just cast on, no pics yet
• spinning blue Wensleydale - about 25% done

goals for next WIP Wednesday:

• finish Aunt Maggie's binding
• start boxer shorts
• cut out pattern for March bag

I have to give myself homework, and it helps to have a list.  I am my mother's daughter.

Check out the other WIPs at Freshly Pieced.