WIP Wednesday: Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

My daughters recently heard about a little ritual that was supposed to produce a snow day off of school: you sleep with your pajamas inside out, mismatched socks, and a spoon under your pillow, and the next day there will be no school.  They tried it Sunday night and it didn't work (for the Cedar Tree kids: Tertia had no school because of the MLK holiday).  But I think I may have come up with a better trigger: finish and block a shawl using Madeline Tosh Merino Light:

It was really more of a slush day, but I was glad of it because I woke up with the same headache that never went away yesterday.  I did have to protect the camera from the drips when I took it outside.

That was my 414 yards of yarn for this year!  I finished with about 6 yards left in the skein.  So what do you think -- have I hit on the key to causing a snow day?  It happened this way last year, too!  I would be more than happy to knit with TML lots more from now on if it really works!

I made two more Farmer's Wife blocks this week: this is #83, Spider Web.  You may remember I am using something vintage, thrifted, or repurposed in every block of this quilt; the blue stripe is from an old dress shirt of my son's, and the green is scraps I found at the Goodwill outlet bins.

Block #84, Spool.  The tan has been in my scrap bag a long time, I think since I stuffed a bag with scraps at the store that Quilter's Newsletter Magazine used to run in Colorado... so at least 15 years ago.  The pink is leftover from a patchwork dress I made at least 10 years ago.  I think.

I've started sewing the pieces into rows for the Orca Bay quilt.  It goes a bit slowly and I have to be careful with the stretchy edges of the string blocks.  But it's coming along.  It's too big for my design wall: I should really do something about making my design wall big enough for the typical big quilts I usually  make.

My Crumbs signature quilt is still at school, waiting for one last Kindergartner's signature and a few staff members.  Then I'll see about getting it on the frame and quilting it in time for the auction.

Here's another quilt possibility for the auction: leftover sports-themed fabric donated by my Mother-in-law, very simple 8" blocks.  I have almost enough to make a twin-size quilt.  It would be a nice counterbalance for the bright pink Stars quilt.

Oh, and since some are weighing in about the SOPA bill and how to stop online piracy without hurting free speech rights, here's what I think: I think we should stop piracy by going after the pirates, not after successful businesses.

WIP Wednesday

Since school just started back up again I'm not really much farther along than when I last posted about the Orca Bay mystery.  I may have sewn a few more units, but that's it.  One of my projects this year is Judy L's UFO challenge: she drew number 5 for this month.  #5 on my list was the 1996 Piecemaker's Calendar quilt: I broke it down into 2 months' worth, each of them being to prepare half of the pieces for the applique in the setting rectangles and triangles.  I brought out my Piecemakers' Calendar quilt so I could assess the amount of work I'll need to do this month.  I am making a twin-sized quilt with fewer blocks: so I will need a total of 6 rectangles and 4 triangles.  The rectangles will need 3 stems, 5 leaves, 3 flower centers, and 12 petals each.  The triangles will need 1 stem, 2 leaves, 1 center and 4 petals each.  So I will need a total of 22 stems, 38 leaves, 22 centers, and 88 petals.  I have some leaves prepared, plus what you can see on my sample block.  I will declare victory if I can make all the stems, and half of the remaining pieces, and lay them out on the backing.  I'm not going to require myself to applique them down, but if I do, it's all to the good!  I use the freezer paper/ spray starch method to prepare applique pieces, and all the bias strips from stems are already cut.  I think it's doable in one month.  But of course I've also got Orca Bay and the Crumbs quilt to finish.

Yesterday I signed the completed Happy Quilting STARS quilt over to Cedar Tree for the auction.  They require you to place a value on it because they are not allowed to do that themselves... so I guessed $300.00.  If any of you have sold quilts at charity auction before, let me know if you think that's a good estimate.  It's really hard to say; it's a balancing act between the work and materials that go into a quilt and what the market will bear. 

In knitting, after my yarn barf episode, I cast on another shawl.  This is Melinda VerMeer's lovely and intriguing Nautilina, and it's autographed because the designer is in my knit group (Hazel Dell Starbucks, every Monday evening!)  Really, how cool is that? The yarn is my handspun, from a batt by Butterfly Girl Designs called "Seashells."  It's got lots of sparkly stuff in it, angelina and firestar, in a base of merino and bamboo.  I'm well into the second section so far.  So fun to knit.  The yarn was just recently washed in Kookaburra wool wash, and I love how it smells!

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Knitting Goals for the New Year

Knitting and quilting are both something of an obsession with me.  I do approach the two crafts in different ways: I think I am basically a process quilter who loves the end product; while I am a product knitter who loves the process of getting there. I tend to go on jags in both knitting and quilting; but because knitting takes so much longer, it's a bigger deal if I commit to trying to carry out some insane challenge in one year... like the year 2009, when I made 12 sweaters (well, 11 sweaters and one dress)in 12 months.  There was a Ravelry group to enable me, and I was too stubborn to quit.  Besides, I really needed a bunch of new sweaters.  I still wear the April, June, October, and December sweaters a lot.  But there is no denying that the National Knit a Sweater a Month Dodecathon (NaKniSweMoDo09) was pretty all-consuming while it was going on, and I haven't managed to meet a challenge like that since, either in knitting or quilting.  I've pretty much decided to knit (and spin) what makes me happy and try to maintain a balance of making garments that I or family members need/want with the relaxing process knitting that I also enjoy.

Last week I posted about my quilting UFOs and WIPs and goals for 2012. I'm pretty sure that if I manage to finish all 12 of those sewing UFOs I'll be doing really well.  But there is a small chance that I will jump into one or more knitting challenges as well.  I've been queuing lace shawl patterns like a madwoman for over a year.  And there is a 12 shawls in 2012 group, as well as the 12 sweaters in 2012 group.  I will probably try to finish at least 3 shawls.  I've done fairly well, all things considered, at meeting my goals for 2011 as listed last New Years' Eve.  I did make the things I wanted to make (socks, sweaters, shawls) and I'm happy with them.  And in the process, I've had a lot of fun blogging about them.

Knitting goals for 2012, spelled out:

• argyle socks.  I am becoming seriously obsessed with making argyle socks right now.
• 3 or more shawls.  Should I go for the big 12 in 12 challenge?
• finish the On Your Toes sweater, and make at least one more. Preferably the twin of the orange Rhinebeck by Proxy pictured in the collage, for my sister Beth. 
• (fill in the blank with whatever strikes my fancy at the time)

Finished Pimpelliese

Okay, this shawl has a strange name.  But it was fun to knit.  Plenty of garter stitch and a fairly easy lace edging on every row.  As a bonus, the side-to-side construction meant I could use pretty much every bit of my handspun and hand-dyed Polwarth yarn.

The trick is to divide your yarn into two equal balls (I don't have a scale, so I roughly measured the yardage as I wound it onto my swift). Then when you reach the end of one ball, you stop doing increases and start doing decreases.  I used about 420 yards altogether.

It's a happy shawl and I should really wash and block it.  The yarn was lovely to work with from the spinning through the knitting.