Quilt Show!

I did something fun on Saturday. I went to the Florida Cabin Fever quilt show. Without chaperones.

I bought something nice for me. It's a queen-sizeish quilt. It was at the guild sale table. I kept going back to look at it, surprised that no one had bought it yet. I thought the color-scheme was fab. And the quilting delightful - interesting, but not distracting. I looked at it unfolded on my bed and realized! It's a lot like the picture I tore out of the Crate and Barrel catalog.



This one is a quilt top from the same table. It is so lovely on the front and the back. Now I'm spending my down cycles thinking about what kind of fabric for the back.

On the knitting side, I'm just working through some stuff. RPM socks for me, fingerless mitts for La, the sweater for DH. Socks for the monkey. Nothing real radical or photogenic. We had the birthday party for the girls this weekend. A beautiful day and a fun party - one of those parties at the playground deals. Pinata. A foam-craft project. Cake. Gifts. Playground. Just right. Some hurt feelings, but not more than could be expected. We're going to work on dealing with it more gracefully. My grandpa is having an adventure - he fell in Burger King recently, then had surgery last week to tie his femur back together. Now he's in rehab. He'll be 90 in May. We'll see how it goes.

Something nice for me!

I got this neat set of Kaffe Fasset squares for Christmas. I picked up a sampler of fats of Kona Cotton from Pink Chalk Fabric. Put the two together....


I think there are 16 colors of Kona, and 30 squares? So, most colors should occur twice. I'm still thinking about whether I want to put a neutral border in between the blocks. But I kind of like them all jammed up next to each other. We'll see what happens.

Do you ever get that feeling that all the ladies around you are expecting?

I think my list is 5. (1 in May, 1 in June, 2 in July, 1 in the fall.) That is a lot of receiving blankets. I think my gift for the May baby, a girl, is done. Big brother gift too (a cape).

Here's the last part of it: a 2 day baby hat.



OK. So the picture is not super-fab. The yarn is Classic Elite Beatrice, which is still in stock at Webs. I wish now that I bought more. This baby hat ate up most of a 50 gram ball. The yarn is three strings plied together. And once you get used to that, it's fine. It's crazy soft. It would be great for knits for people fussy about wool. And it's machine washable. But, for a big-people sweater it would totally eat up a lot of balls of yarn. It seems like it blooms a little when you wash it, too.

Anyway.... this was knit on size 8 needles and mostly followed "The Baby Watchcap" pattern (Ravelry link). It was a good little project - one of those spur of the moment things. I needed something to do while I kept La company during bath. There was a dearth of traditonal pink yarns in the stash for a baby hat. But this was both "girly" and soft. And it turned out to be a two-day knit. What could be better? I love it when a plan comes together.

You know what's bad?

When you can't keep track of your sock yarn.



I was looking online today at Little Knits. I was starting to add some sock yarn to the cart. Then, something started to look familiar. I came pretty close to buying another skein of the pink/blue/brown. (Fly Designs' Monarch) It looked eerily familiar. You know why? I had some at home already. Glad I caught myself. I'll add this to my stash on Ravelry.

Getting Back to Real Life

Over the break, I was on a total finishing streak. Amazing.

I finished this scarf for the monkey. It's the ubiquitous Noro striped scarf. (Jared Flood's idea). I could have made it longer. But I think it'll work. It doesn't quite have the drama from the length that his old scarf has, but it has some color.



I did a lot of sewing over the break. People were taking good naps. Or going to bed at a decent hour. I finished a nightgown for me. Flannel recieving blankets for one of my *three* pregnant peeps (Is it just me or do pregnant ladies seem to come in threes? Or is it just that pregnancy is long enough that it seems that way?) I started taking apart El's quilt to insert the new stripes. And I made some capes. 4 capes. One for La (of course.) Two for our January 5 birthday friends, and one for a big-brother-to-be. La's cape has seen more use than the doll quilts, frankly.