Unraveled Wednesday / Knit & Read

Unraveled Wednesday: 50 & counting

Vicki2 Comments

Jeez, I just realized that Madeleine arrives in the States TODAY!! As per usual, she spends a couple of days with her friends in Milwaukee to recover & decompress. I’m meeting her & friend Katy at Ann’s in Madison on Friday morning for a day at The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show & some visiting. I’ll be staying over at Ann’s on Friday & Saturday nights. Katy has to return home for a wedding on Saturday, and Maddy is staying a couple of nights with another friend in Madison. Maddy & I will drive home together on Sunday. It so happens that the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival is also this weekend, so I’ll be driving over to Jefferson to check that out for the first time in a while on Saturday — alone or with company. TBD. There are a few moving parts!

Meanwhile, I’m joining Kat & the Unravelers for Unraveled Wednesday!

I just keep hookin’.

I laid out all the finished squares atop a cardigan that was at hand… 50 of them. I need to make more, but probably not all that many more.

I’m still so in love with all those colors & combos, how they play with & against each other.

READING:

I have finished Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart and passed it on to Kate, who is enjoying it a lot, too! I’ve picked Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid from the TBR pile, and I’m still listening to Brandi Carlile’s memoir, Broken Horses. She also sings a relevant song or two at the end of every chapter.

Weekending

Weekending

Vicki5 Comments

It was a short weekend, and a fairly relaxing one. I had laundry to do at Ann’s & had to prep our apartment for guests arriving today, but paced it out nicely — it doesn’t always work that way!

While I was waiting for the dryer to finish at Ann’s, I did some research into making Half-Rectangle Triangles (HRTs) and Flying Geese using HRTs… something I should have done earlier! Most of what I’ve done/cut is correct, but the sewing up & trimming isn’t as straightforward as when using the much more common Half-Square Triangle (HST) ratio. I’ll have to pay attention. Meanwhile, the Tuesday Quilters meet tomorrow & I’m looking forward to that. I haven’t done a thing in regard to that project, other than choose fabrics, but this will get me on track & focused.

I took a walk around The Butterfly Pond with Kate & Kai on Saturday morning, a slightly different/longer route. I love that there are a few different ways to navigate that trail.

Things are starting to change out there.

I get a very good view of our backyard/garden from the bedroom windows every morning, but it’s been almost two months since I was actually down there, mainly because it was so painful to descend stairs. Yesterday, I walked down with ease — still using the handrail, of course, but not with an iron grip.

The main attraction was our one-and-only head of broccoli! There are three or four plants, total, and suffered from an early season CHOMP by deer (probably), after which they were corralled & protected with chicken wire, but they’re probably a bit crowded. It’s a learning experience & definitely not discouraging. We also have leeks & celery growing down there & they’re both doing great! Kate made a pot of cream of celery soup last week & it was so good… celery from the garden is nothing like store-bought.

I’ve been rewatching THE BEAR on TV — I’d already watching seasons 1-3 (maybe 4?), but no one else had, and I’m not sad about seeing it again. Season 5 was released earlier this summer & is the last of the series.

I’ve been crocheting during TV time. I used up all the random stray balls of Felted Tweed last night, so I don’t have to think about them anymore… and now there are a bunch of partial granny squares to finish. I’m going to have to start a new stack because the current one is going to topple over pretty soon.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Crochet! · Quilting · Unraveled Wednesday / Knit & Read

Unraveled Wednesday

Vicki8 Comments

I’m joining Kat & the Unravelers for Unraveled Wednesday!

I had my 6-week check-in with my doctor on Monday and new x-rays of my titanium & ceramic hip! I had a few concerns — last week was rough in a few different ways & for a few different reasons (some self-inflicted… over-exertion anyone?) — but everything is normal/resolving. I’m still recovering & getting used to this huge physical change! And everything is so much better overall. I stand straight & walk with so much more ease. My “graduation” appointment is in another six weeks! I also had PT on Monday, and we’ve added just a few more sessions into September, and then I’ll be finished with that. Monday was an “assessment day,” and really great to see how much improvement has been made since the last.

So… the Unraveled part of the program. I haven’t knit a stitch in six weeks, but there’s a Farfalle Cardigan calling to me! Since I knit in the Shetland/Supported Needle style, most often using the crook of my hip to hold the right-hand needle (as opposed to a knitting sheath or knitting belt — though I have & have used both), the main hold up is physical as I can’t yet cross my legs! A few more weeks…

CROCHET:

So crocheting continues.

Thirty-nine! At least 40 since the photo was taken. They measure about 4.25″ square right now (unblocked) & it will soon be time to really do some calculations. I’m still working through some small leftovers but have pulled out reinforcements.

QUILTING:

In another testament to overall recovery & improvement, I spent quite a bit of time over my long weekend doing some cleaning/cleaning out/organizing — including in The Little Working Museum (aka, my workroom/office/studio), and that was with the goal of getting back to work on my quilt.

Those voids are where I fussy-cut the pansies from this “Big Blooms” fabric for some of the sampler squares. I cut up the rest yesterday to make the “goose” rectangles (along with some other prints) and then started to cut the “sky” squares. They’ll get sewn together & trimmed to make a large border of “flying geese.”

It’s going to be a crazy one — and I hope it works! These are the “sky” fabrics — there’s a lot of cutting to do.

I’m happy to be back at it. And I hope my quilt mathing is correct.

READING:

Continuing to read the Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, and enjoying it quite a lot! I’ve also started listening to Brandi Carlile’s memoir, Broken Horses, which I’ve had on my radar for quite a while… and now her concert is on the horizon!

Crochet! · Unraveled Wednesday / Knit & Read

Unraveled Wednesday: Granny-ing

Vicki13 Comments

I’m joining Kat & the Unravelers for Unraveled Wednesday!

But first… this little nugget popped up in the family chat last night:

You can’t make this stuff up!!

CROCHET:

I’ve continued using up my Felted Tweed leftovers to make granny squares. Turns out, I’m not doing double crochets, as I thought, and they’re not half double crochets, either — they’re something in between. I relied on memory and, given that my crochet prowess is quite limited, I should have gone for a refresher. By the time I realized that there was an error, I was quite a few squares in. They’re fine, they look like granny squares, they’re not going to fall apart, they’re maybe a little smaller than they “should” be…

It’s now an “exclusive” design… and that’s how it’s gonna be!

There’s a growing stack of squares on my side table. I knocked out at least one more since I took that photo yesterday, so I’m up to 33.

I’m still not quite sure what they’re going to be, though a garment is what I’ve had in mind all along — a vest or a cardigan. JETHRO — or a riff thereof — is a strong contender, especially since we’ve been watching a lot of NCIS: Origins (IYKYK).

READING:

I’ve had Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart on my nightstand for a while and picked it up last night. I actually slept all night in my own bed last night for the first time in over a month (not sure if that’s permanent yet), so it was right at hand. On the couch, I’ve been making my way through the few copies of Quiltfolk that I have, the articles are informative but concise and there are lots of photos. The nighttime “reading” light at the couch isn’t that great, so it was a better choice than the dense text of a book.

Weekending

Weekending w/The Girls

Vicki5 Comments

I ran across an event on Facebook last week called “Textile Arts Day” at Heritage Hill, a State Historical Park in Green Bay, and thought it would be a fun thing to do with the girls. The boys would have been welcome, too, but Junah had just returned from a week at camp (I saw him later that day and, wow, he still looked completely wiped out from a busy week) and I don’t think Davy would have had much patience. Plus, it’s been a long time since I had a girl date!

There were exhibits & demonstrations of weaving on a few types of looms, spinning, and embroidery, plus examples of knitting, crocheting, and sewing. Both girls had an opportunity to sit down at that adorable little loom and, between them, added a good few inches to the project.

We walked the whole park & stopped at every building on the property — church, blacksmith, print shop, lawyer’s office, hospital, kitchen, garden, barracks & residences, jail…

…and the Belgian house (and barn, at left, which had been relocated from the southern end of Door County & was charred on one end from the Peshtigo Fire). There were some adorable outbuildings, too.

I could have spent a little more time poking around in that house!

It’s a popular place for school field trips (Ginny’s already been), but it had been decades since I visited Heritage Hill!

The girls were each able to choose some fabric squares to eventually make into a quilt square. First, Nona will have to press & square up those blocks! Yikes, there wasn’t much care taken in cutting.

We went out for lunch after that, then to a thrift store, and the cookie shop for dessert… but that wasn’t enough!

I’d also read about the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass “Festival of Glass” which had been relocated to Appleton from Neenah because of the recent tornado & the ongoing recovery effort.

It was fun to see so many different types of art glass from all over (including an artist from Scotland), and the girls each chose beads to make a necklace. Too bad it couldn’t have been outdoors, as originally planned, because it was such a gorgeous day, but it was nice. We also sat down at the kid activity area & made some pinwheels.

It was nice to sit down! Wow, that was a day for me — almost 7,000 steps! I had some ice packs in a cooler in the car, and used those while we drove from place-to-place.

Needless to say, I took it pretty easy yesterday. It rained much of the day, but I went to the store with Kate so I could walk around a bit, because I knew I’d get a “restless leg” feeling as I tried to fall asleep last night if I didn’t.